Birthday weekend

My 23rd Birthday was fabulous and I will be the first to admit I was one spoiled girl. Travis surprised me with a weekend away at our favorite hotel in Park City, tickets to Lion King for that evening which was sooo amazing, a beautiful purse, incredible food, shopping and relaxing at the pool. It could not have been more perfect.

  

 I got to take work off for my birthday which always makes me happy and when we came back from Park City, my siblings, Travis and I hit up La Jolla Grove to celebrate because we really needed to eat more food that weekend. FEED ME! It was delicious and Travis would tell you to get the beef tenderloin and I would tell you to get the cheese platter for an appetizer because I think cheese is glorious. I would also tell you to not go there on the weekend if you hate waiting 45 minutes for dinner like I do.

After this delectable meal, we went over to the safe house (also known as our grandparents house) for Janessa's delicious homemade Texas sheet cake and singing with some of our family. It was a perfect birthday full of love, carbs and happiness.

A Sad Story of a Watch

For my birthday, my very wonderful and thoughtful mother in law got me a beautiful Michael Kors watch. I loved it very much. I wore it to work for the first and last time. It was a Monday. The watch was heavy and since I was not used to the weight, I took it off and left it on my desk in my office. I had to go to a meeting, then I went to lunch. I came back from lunch and my watch was gone!
I searched everywhere frantically, hoping I had misplaced it. I called everyone I knew, sent out mass emails to my whole office. Nothing. I waited, I prayed, I hoped, I scoured every inch of my life. Nothing. At this point, I knew my beautiful new watch had been stolen by someone in my office. I thought I had 25 friends at work but now they all seemed suspicious.
I waited for 1,2,3,4,5 days hoping that someone would feel guilty and put it back in my office. Nothing. More emails to coworkers, I scoured EBay, craigslist and KSL thinking some jerk was trying to sell it for quick cash, more searching and then I was no longer sad, at this point I was furious.
I decided to call the police and file a report. I had visions of them coming in and interrogating everyone in the office, finding the culprit and hauling them off to jail. Instead the police officer took my report over the PHONE, told me he doubted they would be able to find it and said he would call me if anything turned up! What?! Is this the same police who pulled me over for turning right while my car blinker was accidentally blinking left and then ARRESTED me because of an unpaid ticket on my record from 5 years earlier which I had FORGOTTEN about because it had been in a MALL parking lot?! (Yes this really happened to me) So that is all they are good for?! Arresting innocent young girls for no apparent reason at 7 o’clock on a Tuesday evening and not actually doing their job with a real crime, albeit a small crime but still? I raged over this for a few days, so happy to see my tax dollars hard at work.
So here we are, 2 weeks later, I am resigned to the fact that my watch was stolen by seemingly good people at work, never to be returned. RIP my Michael Kors beauty. I loved you, even if it was only for three days.

Here is my lesson learned: I no longer have care free trust for strangers or people I think could mean no harm. Gone are my unlocked car, left out purse days. People, although generally good, often time enough, just plain suck.

Johnny Boy's concert

Oh John you are oh sooo talented. We had one fun time at your concert the other night. Your voice is like butter melting into my cinnamon and sugar sweet potato. However, when did you get so vulgar? I took my 15 year old sister to your concert and some of the things you said would have made Kanye blush. I am hoping she was too young and innocent to understand, but here is to hoping you clean up your act for the next concert we go to, because I just dig your tunes.

Florida

      This past week I had the opportunity to go to Orlando, Florida for a convention for my work. It was filled with grueling work hours and sleep deprivation but it was also lots of fun because Travis was able to come out for the weekend and spend time with me, well okay we got to see each other for about 5 hours at night but still that's better than a phone call across the country. We had never been a part since we had been married and I cried when I said goodbye to him and couldn't sleep for the two nights we were apart. I am obviously just a mildly emotional person. I always blame it on birth control. I feel better about myself that way.
       I was nervous about the weather because I had heard how humid it can get in the summer but I actually liked it for the most part. The humidity reminded me of getting a nice facial or taking a steam shower which strangely I enjoyed. The mid-day storms every afternoon were pretty as well, but I am not sure I would love to live in those every day of my life. The only thing no one prepared me for or had ever mentioned to me was the water that comes out of the facets and showers. I stayed at three separate hotels and all the water smells like a swamp. Like I was brushing my teeth in swamp water and showering in a swamp. Swamp shower for 6 days does not smell that good in your hair, trust me. I don't know if that is common every where in Florida or just coincidentally in all three of my hotels, but that alone was enough for me to be dreaming of going home to Provo to my clean smelling water. Maybe its time Florida invests in the Kangen water filtration system or something because it needs help!
     Travis and I got to sneak away a couple of nights to do some touristy things. One night we went to some delightful outlets where I was so excited to find a Burberry outlet! However Burberry Outlet does not translate into cheap Burberry like I was hoping it did, so we didn't get anything there. JCrew however did fill the void.

     Our last night we decided to go to Universal Studios because we had heard that Harry Potter World had just opened and Travis really wanted to go get the butter beer so we went and had a blast! I am not a huge Harry Potter fan, but I do have to say they did an amazing job recreating the HogMeade town and Hogwarts school. I felt like I was in the movie and it was really fun to browse all of the shops and try all of the treats there. Butter beer tastes like a delicious root beer float on crack and I could have had 5 more glasses of that stuff!

To my utter delight, Emeril's Orlando Restaurant was also at the Universal Studios boardwalk and when I saw it on the way into Harry Potter World I made Travis promise to take me there for dinner if it was still open when we got out. Needless to say, we made it to Emeril's for a late dinner and me oh my it was one tasty meal! I just kept saying "Bam!" through out the whole experience!

A California Fourth of July

For the Fourth of July, we made a last minute decision to fly home to California for the weekend. It was a good choice. We had a blast shopping, eating, partying and enjoying our long weekend with the family. We sung "Happy Birthday" to The United States of America, a tradition we started a few years ago, and blasted Lee Greenwood's "I am Proud to be an American" singing at the top of  our lungs every chance we had.

Two Places I recommend trying if you haven't eaten there yet and are in the area:

The Farm for Brunch at The Grove in LA (holy amazing stuffed french toast)

and

Gulfstream in Newport Beach, just order anything on the menu, it is all to. DIE. for.

Tomorrow we leave for Las Vegas for the Easton family house boat trip at Lake Mead. We are very excited to have a nice, long vacation with the family!

See you later Alligator

Birthday Weekend

Travis turned 24 this weekend, so in honor of his birth we took a trip to park city for the weekend. We stayed here at the Waldorf Astoria and it was so relaxing and beautiful I never wanted to leave! 

Travis' favorite meal is a good steak with mashed potatoes so we couldn't pass up a delightful birthday dinner at Ruth Chris in Park City now could we? We also did a temple session in Salt Lake, hung out by the pool, did a little shopping, hit up CPK, saw a sneak peak of Knight and Day and had a wonderful and relaxing weekend! I cannot wait to go back to the hotel, it was one of my all time favorite hotels! And if you ever get the chance to stay there, get the egg's benedict for breakfast, it was a pure taste of heaven and you will not regret one bite!

The sexiest birthday boy I've ever seen!

Our camera died so we only got a couple of good photos off of the iphone! Oh well!

In other news, we are going to California for the third time this month!! So much fun and we love seeing our families and can't wait to move back soon! 

Italian Cooking

Tonight was the first night of my Italian Cooking Class! I thoroughly enjoyed myself and cannot wait for the next four Tuesday evenings as I will be exchanging pilates for pasta on a quest to learn and enjoy Italian cuisine with all of its bold flavors and textures. 


My new diet: No carb left behind!


Buon Appetito!