Happy Birthday, Mr President

My dad had a milestone birthday on Feb 11, so we decided to have the President's birthday party on President's Day. It was a perfect match. We made him a little badge that identified him as Mr. President and we all wore badges that said, "Happy Birthday, Mr. President". Here he is in awe of his awesome party. My mom and Michelle put together some very cute and very patriotic decorations. Good job guys!

My favorite part of the night was the Dr Pepper tower. We gave him a very significant "60" Dr Peppers. My mom and Nate made the amazing tower. Here we are modeling next to the tower. (sorry Megan for getting cut out of the picture)

The coolest part about the tower was the logo. Nate got into photo shop and changed it up, which I thought turned out pretty nice. The most fun was when Michael and I cut out the little tiny oval shaped logos while Nate taped them to the bottles. It was worth it though cause they looked great!

And here we have our birthday boy. What a champ! Happy birthday dad (or Brian...I know who you are)!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day this year was a total hit! Nate did a great job of preparing the perfect night. He started out by picking me up at a friends house so it felt like a real date (he also had me leave the house for a couple of hours to prepare) We had a candlelight dinner of ribs and potatoes.
Here we are getting ready to eat. Don't we look hungry?

One of my favorite things about special occasions with Nate...his attention to detail (a quality I don't possess). He made these cute heart shaped ice cubes with red food coloring. He also did it last year, so now it's a tradition.

Here is the 4 layer chocolate cake he made me. He didn't have much room, so he wrote Happy Valentine's Day in short hand with m&m's. YUM! After dinner, we went to the movie Taken (part of my gift to Nate) and it was AMAZING! Go see it. My heart was pounding like 97% of the time.

We wanted to stay at a bed and breakfast that night, but couldn't justify the expense. No problem, Nate brought the theme room to us. He made this cool canopy over our bed. It was very impressive!

Lessons of the week....Cafe Rio is cheaper and making bread takes too long!!!!

Hi everyone. I just wanted to share what I've learned this week (as you can see from the post title)
Lesson #1-Cafe Rio is cheaper
On monday(our day off), Nate and I decided that we were going to be adventurous and try to re-do our favorite Cafe Rio meat.....the yummy pork.We found a recipe online that sounded pretty good. As we were looking at the recipe blog, it came to our attention that we have to have rice to go along with it, and the beans, and the dressing, and fresh tortillas.(probably because she listed those recipes as well) And what the heck...why not make homemade guacamole and salsa to go along with it? So off to Costco(for the uncooked tortillas, yum) and the grocery store we went. We had a HUGE list of stuff we needed. I have to tell you all that the total amount of our items was so big that I can't even post it on the internet!!!(if you really want to know, I'll tell you in person). Warning...making your own Cafe Rio is not something you want to do if you are trying to be frugal. I wish someone would have told ME that. Anyway, we came back home and got started. I do have to admit that we did have a lot of fun making the food. It is much more rewarding than standing in line at the restaurant, even though it takes pretty close to the same amount of time.....3 1/2 hours. When we were done, we had quite the spread and I must admit that it tasted pretty darn good! Our friends, Sadee and Mike joined us and were very impressed with our culinary skills, if I do say so myself!
Lesson #2-Makind bread takes too long!!!
This lesson is a sad one for me, because I can never seem to find the time to make it. In the past year or so, I realized I really wanted to be a great bread maker. My mom showed me how to make rolls in November, something I ever dared do myself. You might ask why. The answer is that I AM AFRAID OF YEAST! I have a fear that I will ruin the bread/rolls since I don't really know how yeast works. I finally decided that I don't care anymore and I just want to try it. The worst possible scenerio is that I have to throw it away. But now I have a new problem....IT TAKES TOO LONG!!! I thought I had time today, but when I looked at my recipe, I realized that the process is over 3 1/2 hours(ironically the amount of time it takes to make a Cafe Rio meal with your husband). Hmmm...I just realized that maybe I do have the time. I just need to enlist him.
OK, maybe this lesson is teaching me another lesson.....sorry that this post was SUPER random. Just a few thoughts for posterity.

Double Daters

Nate and I went out with our friends Tracy and Brent recently. Bowling is one of Nate's favorite things to do and anyone would know that just by looking at his Power Paw(please notcie his right hand). If you're a pro bowler, I'm sure you would know what they are, unlike me. He does this spinny thing when he bowls and I do this thing where the ball goes straight to the gutter. I don't think I broke 78. But it was still really fun!
We also went ice skating with our other friends Ashlee and Nathaniel. The evening started out a little rough with the skates. Notice that my feet have 2 different skates on. I had to try on 3 different pair before I found the perfect fit. Poor Ashlee didn't find a good pair until #4. We even had to test out our skates on the rink and I honestly think that it took us 45 minutes to get the perfect pair. Once we found that pair, the Zambonie promptly hit the ice for a cleaning and took about 15 more minutes. We finally got out there about an hour later! Then I think we actually skated for about 30 minutes. We're so hard core! It was funny.I helped Nate out by pulling him around the rink. He may be able to beat me in bowling, but I'd like to see him try to outdo my triple toe loop!Just resting after alot of skating.

Anneliesa's wedding!!!!

My very good friend, Anneliesa got married on Saturday in Arizona and it was so great! I drove down with Nate and my friends Aileen and Elizabeth. We got there late on Thursday night. Friday morning we had a shower at Mimi's Cafe. (see above picture) After that we went to work running errands until the evening, when we went to the church to set up. The next day, I did Anneliesa's hair and went on some last minute errands with her while Nate, Aileen and Elizabeth went to the church to do the flowers and finish setting up. The wedding ceremony was great, then they had a ring ceremony, a luncheon and the reception. It was alot of work, but the four of us had tons of fun running around. Anneliesa and Scott were so cute together. I have to admit that I was kind of wishing that it was my wedding day again. The happy couple in front of the Mesa Temple.

After the ceremony during pictures.

All of the friends at the wedding. Congrats Anneliesa and Scott!

A few Christmas pics....

Just a few Christmas photos. I didn't really get many, but here are Nate and I in our Christmas pj's on Christmas Eve.

This is one unhappy little wiseman. We had a nativity scene at our family party and my nephew, Jaxton was super cute and a bit unhappy about something...maybe just the fact that he was having his picture taken.

And here is our little Gabby, my youngest niece. She is very funny and quite content just hanging out by the Christmas tree so she could play with the ornaments.

Happy Holidays!

Just wanted to give everyone an update on our fabulous holiday season. Since I am still trying to work out computer kinks, you don't get to see our bright smiling faces. But soon I will put some pictures up. I just need to get around to downloading them on Nate's computer.
Our first Christmas together was really fun! We went to my parents house and everyone was there except for Michelle, Steve and Megan. SAD! They were in Sun Valley for Michelle, who was performing as a caroler for the holiday season. Despite their absence, we had a great time. Nate got me a sewing machine! I am very excited to start using it. Not that I know how to use it. But, before you all know it I will be making couch covers and sewing prom dresses(from the 80's of course).
For New Year's, we are down in Hurricane, making a stop on the way to my very good friend, Anneliesa's wedding. Last night we played games with Nate's family. It was really fun! This afternoon we are leaving for Arizona for the wedding. I am SO excited. I will definately have some pictures of that. Until then HAPPY NEW YEAR!