Las Vegas

One of the goals we set this year was to go on vacation alone. We did it! A couple years ago at a county fair, Andrew spun a wheel and won us a 2 night vacation to Vegas. We FINALLY decided to use it.

We got 2 free nights at the Plaza Hotel and had to go to a 90 minute presentation about time shares. 

We weren't super good at documenting our trip in Vegas with pictures, so bear with me. We got to The Plaza on Thursday, June 23 around 5:30pm. Unfortunately the trip we won did NOT include airfare, so we "got" to make the drive. The drive was long and quickly affected my mood. Poor Andrew. I kept wishing we were only going to St. George. Luckily Andrew suggested 20 questions which kept me occupied for a few hours. The book we got on CD lasted for about 5 minutes even though I helped pick it out. (I have never liked those. They always give me a headache and you have to turn them up extremely loud.) On the way home, I started reading my book out loud which helped pass the time. I Am Malala is an amazing book and I had a hard time putting it down.

Once we got to Vegas, we were starving. We headed to Shake Shack and were pleased with our meal. We then walked quite a ways to Ghiradelli's ice cream. I didn't hide my disappointment well when we walked all that way (in 110 degrees) only to find out that they discontinued my favorite Sundae. (Peanut Butter) On our way back to the car we stopped at the Bellagio to watch the water show.

Shake Shack

Salted Caramel Sundae instead of Peanut Butter :( 

The light show

Friday morning we had to go to the 90 minute presentation. Yipee. After that, we headed to the temple for a session. The air conditioning was blasting which was a relief. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was 115 degrees. We couldn't resist a stop at Jack in the Box. Why don't they have these in UT? Friday night we met Andrew's uncle and cousin at a buffet-- Harrah's. I am pleased to say I didn't make myself sick by eating too much. I'm surprised by my self control in this situation. 

We were feeling tired when we got back to The Plaza and strongly considered not going to the show we had free tickets to. In the end, we decided to go. Mostly because I said, "Did we really come all the way to Vegas to stay in our room and watch T.V.?" The show was in our hotel and called "Lovers or Losers." It didn't start until 10:15pm which is 11:15pm our time.

"Lovers or Losers" is a game show and we were asked to be contestants. At first we were hesitant, but we decided to go forward with it. There were 5 different rounds and 3 couples in each round. In each round there was a different game and I'm so glad we got called up in the fourth round. Our round was basically catch phrase. Andrew was blind folded. We spun a wheel and got the category Holidays. All of the words I described were either specific holidays or words related to holidays. 

We did pretty well. "Santa Claus" caused some grief and Andrew guessed Jesus based on my description. The audience had a good laugh about that one. They all knew we were form UT and thought it was hilarious. Candy was also problematic and Andrew continually guessed Reese's-- my fav. (Good man) We ended up winning our round by the skin of our teeth. We got 60 points and another couple got 55 which is just 1 question less than us. We won a 7 night trip to Mexico! Boy were we glad we didn't stay in our room and watch T.V. Our trip doesn't include airfare. All we know is that we have to fill out some tax paperwork and send it in. We will then get to choose from 19 different resorts. Can't wait!!

Saturday morning we stopped at Panera on our way out of town. We had a gift card and it was delicious. Vegas was fun to visit, however we weren't too sad to leave. Our eyes hurt from all the smoke and our clothes smelled horrendous. We haven't missed being woken up at 2:00am by partying, drunk neighbors either. We did enjoy spending time together though and it looks like we get to do it again, but next time in Mexico! 

Texas

Last weekend we went on our first Denning girls' trip ever. It was definitely memorable and had its ups and downs. We didn't arrive in Austin at our hotel until after 2:00am (3:00am our time) on Friday. We woke up and made the 2 hour drive to Waco. Fixer Upper inspired our trip as well as my brother and sister-n-law being in Austin for 6 weeks.

Waco was much bigger than I expected. I thought it was in the middle of nowhere and would be tiny, but having a college in the city might add to the size. Baylor University was beautiful based on what I saw from the tinted rental car windows. 

Magnolia Market was our number one priority. It was crowded, but could have been much worse. Apparently on Saturdays the line to even get into the store can be 2 hours long. We didn't even have to wait in line to get in the store! There were several food trucks lining the store and a cute little play area that Simon enjoyed outside.

They have hired people to stand and take your picture in front of this sign. Sign me up!

These are the bags you fill while shopping. No, we didn't all buy matching purses.

This is the view of the silos. It was beautiful and there is construction going on to expand.

I'm very into candles and love the warmth they add to houses. I now have my favorite smelling candle of all time from Magnolia Market. I'm kind of afraid to use it because it's that amazing and who knows when I'll be back to Waco to buy another one. I also got some wooden blocks that have the month, day of the week, and number on them. (P.s- taking the candle through security was ridiculous)

After leaving Magnolia, we drove by Clint's shop. He is a carpenter and makes tables to put in the houses on Fixer Upper. He lives next to his store, so it was fun to see his house that Chip and Joanna fixed up on one of the episodes. We ended the adventure by driving to the renovated bed and breakfast that Chip and Joanna have in a nearby city. Wow, it was really far out. 

Such a quaint town. This bed and breakfast is booked through the rest of the year!

Let's talk about the humidity in Texas for a minute. IT'S TOO MUCH FOR ME. Showering multiple times daily would be a reality if I lived there. After shopping for several hours on Saturday, we were all dripping with sweat and grouchy. We ended up finding a local library WITH AIR CONDITIONING.

We each chose books for each other in the library. Can you guess what book Jill choose for me??? (check answer at bottom)

The rest of our weekend included far too many episodes of Fixer Upper, Tiff's Treats, an excessive amount of food, famous Texas BBQ, games, and picture taking.

We headed to the airport Sunday evening. Due to weather, lightning striking a tower at the Houston airport, and who knows what else, we were delayed for 2+ hours. Also, several planes in Texas were redirected to the Austin airport. It was utter chaos. The restaurants in the airport even started to run out of food. 

Due to our delay, we missed our connecting flight. We did not make it home to UT Sunday night like planned. We ended up stuck in Phoenix. We arrived at our hotel around 11:15pm and our new flight was booked for 5:30am the next morning. We set 3 alarms for 3:45am to make it to the airport on time. (This time, I knew to take my candle out of my bag and put it on its own tray through security. It worked!) After all of that, we finally made it home around 8:30am absolutely exhausted!

I'm not in any rush to fly again after this fiasco. We are all just happy we didn't check our bags (after moving gates several times). Our weekend sure was memorable and I've never been more okay with 95 degrees and no humidity. :) 

(And if you guessed Jill chose the book "Mustache" for me, you were correct. Don't get me started on facial hair.)

Coming Along

We have now lived in our house for a month! Part of me feels like we just moved in, but most of me can't remember living in our old basement apartment just four weeks ago. Things have started to come together which is fun to see!

We have been eating on a card table (or the couch to be honest), but we finally got around to buying a table. Apparently I am quite picky when it comes to kitchen tables. Who knew? I have been looking for weeks and nothing has fit my style or budget. I stumbled across this beauty at DownEast Home Basics on Memorial Day weekend. It was half off and still spendy, but we went for it anyway. After having a cheap (ish) table from Target that got beat up quickly, we decided to spend the money now instead of having to replace it soon. 

Another project we have tackled is painting. Basically every centimeter of the house needs a paint job, so we are by no means done, but the bulk of the main living area is finished. We kept the soft gray the previous owners had on the walls, but repainted all of it including the ceiling. When looking at the house, we had no idea that the ceiling WASN'T white. We quickly realized it was beige. No wonder everything seemed so dark. Look at the difference between the family room and kitchen ceiling. A white ceiling makes a huge difference. (Special thanks to my Dad for helping us with this big project.)

From the instant we put in the offer, I realized how much more cleaning I would need to be doing. The cleaning never stops. The previous owners had 5 kids and as we have used different appliances and features throughout the house, the dirtiness has become quite apparent. Check out the picture below. I innocently started to sweep the kitchen and thought I would check behind the oven. I was disgusted and didn't anticipate spending 2 hours cleaning this. (I think a dirty oven is normal in any house though.) 

We realized pretty quickly that the blinds throughout the home are pretty beat up. Some of the blinds were so brittle that when I touched them, they would break. We have thrown away 5 sets of blinds and replaced them with elegant white sheers. (We may eventually put up blinds, but not anytime soon...$$$) We cleaned one set of blinds over the weekend which took over half of a bottle of clorox wipes. I can't get a good picture of the sheers because of all the light coming in from the windows.

We were given a king-sized bed (Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Denning) and we actually have a furnished spare bedroom! We were a little selfish and decided to put the king in the master and it has been dreamy.

The project list continues and I frequently remind myself that we can't fix everything right now, but we have made so much progress and I am in love with our house. Our next big task is hanging pictures and paintings. I'm especially eager to do this because I know pictures will drastically change the feel of our home. 

E.R.

On Sunday I woke up with intense stomach pain. At first I just thought it was cramps, but they were the worst cramps I have EVER experienced. In fact, the pain was so severe that I couldn't stand or sit comfortably. It felt like something was stabbing my stomach every few minutes. It also felt like someone had kicked me really hard.

I spent the morning in bed finishing "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," but when that ended my discomfort became even more apparent. I tried taking some pain medicine, but it didn't even touch the amount of pain I was in. I texted my brother who has had his appendix removed to ask what it felt like. His response was, "nagging pain in my stomach. A different feeling of pain than normal." This described how I felt exactly.

Sunday happened to be stake conference which wasn't until 2:00. I decided I would be okay to make it to stake conference, so we left early and got good seats. We didn't plan super well and sat at the end of a long row. Stake conference was dragging on and I was in a lot of pain. Finally at about 3:30 we decided to leave and go to Urgent Care because it was bad. It was not fun to climb over the 7 bodies in our row and I don't think the people sitting on our row were very thrilled with us either. 

I do not love spending money on anything let alone urgent care, so this tells you I was in a lot of pain. We also had a Sunday family dinner coming up that I did not want to miss. I was almost certain with my symptoms that I had appendicitis. After talking to a doctor and nurse at urgent care, they sent me to the E.R.

At this point I was worried that we weren't going to make it to the family dinner. I was also disappointed because Andrew and I had made cookies to bring for dessert. (Mostly Andrew though because I had to sit down in the middle of the baking process and instruct from the couch.)

The doctor in the E.R did not seem to think my appendix was the problem from the get-go. He seemed to think I might be pregnant. I kept thinking great, now we have spent $250 on an ER visit and I'm going to leave with nothing wrong. I was worried and embarrassed. After lots of testing, no I'm not pregnant, they finally found out what was wrong. I was just thrilled that there actually was something to validate this intense pain.

Apparently I had an ovarian cyst rupture. This causes extreme pain. Many women experience 1 or 2 of these ruptures in their entire life, but some people rupture cysts anytime they ovulate. I was happy to have morphine to ease the pain (and apparently did/said some funny things) and was prescribed 2 medications to help ease my displeasure.

I have felt much better since Sunday. The doctor said it would pass after a few days. I did end up missing Sunday dinner, but my parents and sister ended up bringing the leftovers to our house when I got out of the hospital. Andrew also drove 40 minutes round-trip to pick up medicine for me. There are almost NO pharmacies in Utah open on Sunday. I'm glad that it wasn't something more serious and I'm also glad Andrew told me we should go to Urgent Care.

Living the Dream

Today marks our 11th day in our new house! It still feels unreal. Andrew and I keep waiting for the actual homeowners to come back from vacation and thank us for house siting, but it's not going to happen!

Some things I have loved so far:

• Parking in a GARAGE. It's so nice to have a dry car in the mornings. Andrew has been teasing me to no end about me forgetting we have a garage and trying to go out the front door to find the car. Oops.
• Not worrying about being too loud. I have played my keyboard at 10:00 PM at a normal volume without thinking about neighbors. I also don't tell Andrew to turn down the T.V constantly because I don't care if it's loud.
• Having no nap interruptions. I don't have anyone to blame anymore for being woken up when I randomly have the urge to nap at 2 PM on a Saturday.
• Having our own mailbox. Who knew I would love this so much? I have missed getting great coupons and deals. 
• Enjoying the neighborhood trail. We went for a run Saturday and it was so nice. I'll take it over a treadmill any day.
• Having friends over to our new place. We have so much room to entertain! 
• The million dollar view. The mountains are gorgeous. 

Some things that have been stressful:

• Our basement leaking water with the first big rain. (No it didn't flood and it could have been way worse, so we're very grateful.) Let me also note this was the day after we moved in. We spent Saturday putting concrete/soil in our backyard to prevent this from happening again.
• The thermostat NOT working. Saturday was rough because it was 84 degrees outside. Luckily it has cooled down and our new thermostat should arrive Thursday.
• Our toilet running every 5 minutes. After several efforts to fix this problem, we finally turned the toilet off in that bathroom. Hopefully this will be taken care of this weekend.
• The to-do list getting bigger and bigger and more and more money being spent. I keep reminding myself that this list is a gradual thing and all doesn't have to be done immediately. 

It's been an adjustment not to be able to just call the landlord when there is a problem, but I'll get used to it. Even though things haven't been stress free, I'm happy. Besides, we kind of signed ourselves up for more stress and responsibility by buying a house, right? 

I can't wait to make more memories in our new house and to be celebrating our 20th year in the place.