GIRLFRIENDS

So today me and some of my cute girlfriends (BreAnne, Jill, and Andrea) got together to have lunch. It was so much fun. We went to this really cute place called Zinn Bistro and the food was delicious and the atmosphere was darling. It was so good to get together with them and talk about past times and upcoming events in our lives. Jill is going to be having her baby in a few weeks so this might be the last time that we were all able to get together before she has her baby girl, and BreAnne has two adorable kids, but finding a babysitter can be a challenge sometimes, so it was great for it to all work out, I mean I was even able to leave work for an hour and a half for it!!! How amazing is that?! But it was so fun to just relax and talk. We have been friends for so long and now that we are all married and some have kids, it can be hard to find time to just get together, so when it happens, I'm always really excited. Andrea and I are just getting to know each other - her and Jill were always really good friends growing up, but I never really got to know her, so it has been fun getting to know her better! But BreAnne, Jill, and I have been friends since grade school and they have both meant so much to me through the years. We have had a lot of really fun experiences together and they have always been such a great support to me! I am so lucky to have friends like them and looking back on junior high and high school, I realized that I wouldn't be where I am today without good friends like them. Oh... and P.S. Its 5:01 on Friday - so I am totally leaving work now (yes, I typed this up while I was at work haha) and I'm planning on having an awesome weekend!!! TGIF!!!

CONGRATS LANDON!!!

My adorable little brother (or should I say my handsome younger brother) Landon graduated from Alta high today. I was not able to go to the actual graduation, but we had a dinner with him tonight and some of our extended family to celebrate.

I am so proud of Landon. He has grown up to be such a fun and talented guy. He is so cute and so caring and so sweet! He has accomplished a lot and has developed some amazing talents.

Landon, I'm so proud of you and I can't wait to see all the great things you are going to do with your life. Congrats buddy! I love you!

Memorial Day Weekend & My Birthday

So this past weekend was so much fun! It actually started Thursday. I picked up Dan from work at about 2:00 and we headed out to Cedar City to visit our cousins. Before we left though we picked up the book Twilight on CD to listen to it on the way down. I have always wanted to read the book and I had started it but I have had a hard time finding time to read it so that was one of my b-day presents. We got to Cedar around 5:45 and went to dinner and then to a movie with Steve and Kammy. We spent the night there and then next day we just chilled with them until about 1:00 or so and then drove the rest of the way to “St. George”. Now I say it that way because we don’t actually go into St. George. We stay at this ranch called the Clear Creek Family Ranch that is about 5 min outside of Zion’s National Park. We go there because they have a log cabin big enough to fit the entire Koch family – which is about 60 people. So we got there Friday afternoon/eveningish and just talked, played games, had marshmallow wars with guns that we made, just a bunch of fun stuff and then went to bed. The next morning, we ate breakfast, packed lunches, and went to Zion’s to hike. We spent the majority of the day there and then went back to the lodge, played more games, watched a movie, played Mario cart on the wii – etc. Sunday we went to church and then took our huge family picture, had a “family home evening” with all of us… and then once again – played games. As you can tell – my family is big on playing games. Monday (my birthday) we just packed everything up and headed home. We went out to eat at wingers for my b-day dinner and then went and saw Indiana Jones. It was great. Then Tuesday Dan took me to lunch at Mimi’s Café, then we went and got a couples massage at Sanctuary Day Spa and then went and got pedicures (yes Dan got one too – but he wouldn’t let them paint his toe nails with anything but clear LOL) and then we went back home and watched school of rock (one of the best movies of all time) and then we went to Leatherbee’s with the Garners because it was Ryan’s birthday (how fun – his b-day is the day after mine) So as you can see I had an awesome b-day – I spent the weekend with my entire Koch family, hiked in Zion’s which is beautiful, saw Indiana Jones, got pampered, and finished a book that I have been dying to read!!! It doesn’t get any better than that. I have to say thanks to my amazing husband though. He made everything so perfect for me. He took Tuesday off to spend the day with me and the whole weekend he would do things to make my birthday better. I have such an amazing family and I couldn’t ask for anything more. And to make everything better – my parents are celebrating my birthday this Friday and Dan’s family is celebrating it with me this Sunday – so pretty much I have a week long birthday – can’t complain about that right?

Bubbles

Ok so this is a really funny/cute story. Last Wednesday after work I had to run a few errands and so I got home later than normal and Dan had taken a final so he got home earlier than normal. When I got home Dan was standing in the kitchen and I noticed that he had done all the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. Now the way our house is set up, when you walk in the door there is an island in the kitchen that separates the family room from the kitchen so when I ran over to give Dan a hug – I noticed why he had such a mischievous look on his face…. There were bubbles spewing out of the dishwasher all over the floor haha! It reminded me of a movie. He had his pants rolled up and had several towels on the floor and was trying to clean it all up but the bubbles just kept coming out. I asked him what he had put in and he had put in the regular dishwashing detergent that we always use…but he wanted to get the dishes EXTRA clean so he also put in dawn, the other dishwashing soap that you use when you wash dishes by hand. It was so funny! We laughed while we cleaned it up, I have never seen anything like that actually happen, I have only seen stuff like that happen in movies. I love having little things like this happen it makes life fun and keeps you on your toes.

Mike's homecoming pictures

Here are some pictures!!! :)

MIKE IS HOME!!!

Dan's brother Mike is home from his mission!!! He got home today at 10:30 and we were all there waiting for him to come down! He looks so good. He is glowing! He is way tan and skinny haha and just looks so happy. It is amazing what missions can do to people. He has an amazing singing voice now and before he left he couldn't carry a tune haha. And he can play the piano and beat box and moon walk - haha, it's funny what else missionaries learn on the mission that is not mission related. But its so good to have him home. We are all so happy and he is so much fun to have around. Dan is so excited, he already has so much stuff planned for Mike and him to do. I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Promotion

Ok, so this blog is going to have a lot in it because a lot has happened since I updated last. First of all, Dan had an interview for a promotion earlier this week and Friday he found out that he got it!!! We are both so excited! He has wanted to move up and he has had several interviews for it, but it hadn't happened yet and it finally did. We understand now why it didn't - there was just no way that it would have worked out well with how much school Dan is doing and taking on a new job, but now that the semester is almost over, its perfect! He has to put in his two weeks’ notice at the current branch that he is at, so by then the semester will be all the way over so it couldn't have worked out better for him.

Our weekend was great, Friday we wanted to have a fun night and celebrate Dan’s success, and lucky for us, some of his mission buddies called and wanted to get together so we decided to drive out to Salem (past Spanish Fork - so about an hour drive for us) to meet up with them and have fun. Right before we got there - they called to say it was canceled - at first we were really bummed out since we had just driven an hour to see all of them and it wasn't going to happen, but we decided that it was going to be a fun night anyway and we ate dinner in Spanish Fork and started to drive home. We spotted Boondocks and thought it would be way fun to go there. At first we decided to play some arcade games for a while and then we would do some other stuff like batting cages or go carts or laser tag or whatever else we felt like doing while we were there, but... because of my freakish addiction to winning tickets - we ended up spending the entire night playing games and getting lots of tickets - we ended up with just shy of 1,000. It was so much fun - we laughed so hard that night and it was so much fun to just HAVE FUN! Saturday was a very fun day as well - Dan had basketball in the morning and then after that we went to the Clark Planetarium for one of Dan's classes and had so much fun there - then we went to lunch at the Sky Box and watched some of the Yankee vs. Red Sox game and then went to a wedding reception. After that we just went home, relaxed, and watched a movie. Today we have had a great day at church and just spending time with each other. Normally we switch off weeks of whose parent’s house we are going to go over to for dinner on Sundays - but this week we decided to stay home just the two of us. It has been awesome!!!

Dan is amazing and has done so well in school - he was on the Dean’s list last semester and he just received his promotion and I couldn't be more proud of him - he has worked so hard!