Lucky in Love.
I love weddings. 


One of my roommates from college got married this weekend and I was lucky enough to join them for their big day. I love weddings and especially when I know both people when they were dating and fell in love. It was so great to be their for their sealing and also for their beautiful reception. It was also great to have a mom who lives in Virginia and was willing to be my date all weekend!! It made it extra special to spend a couple of days with one of my favorite people. Somehow I didn't take TOO many photos from this weekend (it must've been the jet-lag) but I captured a few. Congratulations to Brooke & Troy!!!

Brooke hand made each of these delicious cake bites.

The reception was in Baltimore so mom and I took the grand tour of Baltimore. The good and the bad. We first headed over to this AMAZING crab house --- seriously so good.

Isn't this the cutest neighborhood ever? I love the cherry blossoms.

Seafood cajun pasta. AMAZING.

On our way to the reception site we decided to take a side road to avoid interstate traffic. It was a colorful experience to say the least and luckily we didn't have any problems...but its always good to think twice before taking a detour in a city you don't know too well....

 We finished our weekend by driving through the Mall on the way to the airport. The Cherry Blossoms were ALMOST in full bloom -- a few of them were especially gorgeous so I took a few photos from the car.

Isn't it amazing how something so tiny can represent such a big concept-- rebirth each spring.

I LOVE these blossoms.

Austin. 
My first trip to Texas. 

I went to Austin this week for work and had a fantastic time. I love the city and the "hill country" of Texas. I didn't take too many photos (Lots of working on this trip!) but here are a few of downtown in case you haven't been... 

I lucked out and had AMAZING weather, so I tried to spend as much time as possible outside! It was also funny to see leaves on trees and some blossoms-- Chicago is far from that stage in terms of spring!!

 

I feel like I've made it in life. 
This weekend I accomplished one of my goals: Re-creating Grandma Pixton's cinnamon rolls. And they were really great. 


It's kind of late, I just got into Austin, Texas for a business trip this week so I won't go into too much detail, but I had to brag. I followed all of Grandma Pixton's 42 rules of thumb that I learned a few weeks ago in Utah, and I actually did it-- I made really great rolls! My husband said "WOW" and even said they tasted like Grandma's. I couldn't ask for a better response. See my progress below: 

The dough MORE than doubled in size!

Adding the filling. Yum.

 

Do you LOVE my gorgeous Ranunculas? I do.

Just after I rolled the dough and cute the rolls.

An hour later after they had time to RISE.

After baked in the oven with the frosting. Sigh. They are so good.

The full pan of rolls.

Delicious.

 Thank you, Grandma Pixton for teaching me how to make your fluffy yummy rolls! I still have a lot to learn, but I feel like this was a great start!

I need Surgery. 
April Fools!

Seriously, that has been my life story for the last few weeks months. Let me back up and start at the beginning. 

October 2010- 
Out of no where I get this intense burning sensation from my lower back, through my leg to my foot. I stretch, take anti-inflammatory meds, massage it, heating pad, nothing works. It stays for 2 weeks straight.
I mention it to my mom, who thinks it might be my periformus muscle. She advises me to take a break from running to let it heal. 

November 2010-
Pain is still there. Not as intense, but whenever I try to run, the pain returns. 
I see my uncle, who is a chiropractor while I am in CA for Thanksgiving. He diagnosis it as a herniated disc. Yikes. But I don't really know what that means... so I don't see a doctor yet, but I decide to stop all cardio exercise. 

January 2011-
Try to start exercising; core muscles and 10-20 minutes on the bike. At first, the bike doesn't bother it, but eventually it does. I try walking up 3 flights of stairs...the pain is back. Finally I go to the doctor (because I had a sinus infection, I also asked about my leg). He refers me to an orthopedic surgeon.

February 2011-
Orthopedic surgeon tells me I have a herniated disc and will need surgery if I want to get rid of the pain as soon as possible to get back to my active lifestyle. Seriously?! Herniated disc? I'm 25 how does this happen? I was totally freaked out.

March 2011- 
MRI- I had to get an MRI! Those things are a LOT smaller in person than in movies. Seriously. I got a little claustrophobic but just closed my eyes and tried to take a nap.

 Othorpedic Surgeon- Oh man let's not get into my doctor's visit, but I'll just tell you that I DO NOT need surgery. Instead of a herniated disc, I have 3 bulging discs; one of which is pressing on my siatic nerve, which is causing the pain down my leg.

So what does this all mean? Well, 
#1: No Surgery
#2: Physical Therapy
#3: Chiropractor- I need one in Chicago
#4: Pain meds while I work through this
#5: I probably need to pay better attention to my posture while I sit all day and work from home. 
#6: I'm totally going to start exercising again and losing the extra lbs I gained from being depressed about not exercising.

3rd time's the charm. Yes, I'm a little crazy. 
For the iPad2. 

Rewind 3.5 months. I'm at our Company Holiday Retreat in Snowbird. I get handed my Christmas gift, which was in the form of an envelope. Imagine my surprise (and excitement) when I open up a note that says, Merry Christmas! You will get an iPad! Wahoo!! We decided as a company to wait until the new iPad2 was announced so my waiting began...

I watched the news feed when they announced the new iPad2. Have I ever cared before? No. I was online on March 11, the first day available to order it, and I got stuck trying to decide what to engrave on the back...I went back to work and two weeks later I forgot to order it.

All of a sudden it was a 5-week wait to order it online. Ugh. I do not have the kind of patience.

A week goes by, and I still haven't ordered it. I don't want to wait 5 weeks. I finally decide I will go wait in line at the Apple Store in Lincoln Park. With all the crazies who actually go wait in line before the store opens.

Monday:
I was not going to go at 3am like the Apple people said people were doing. Instead, I went Monday morning at 7:45. At 8:15, Apple employees came out and informed us they received 0 iPads in their shipment today. Bummer.

Tuesday:
Since Monday only had 12 people in line in front of me, I figured I could show up at 8:15 and still be OK. Nope. I was wrong. There were at least 50-75 people in front of me. Yikes. I was just 3 people away from getting a ticket.

This picture isn't the best, but there are tons of people in line.

Thursday:
I show up at 7:15, with a book in hand. Finally I am prepared. By 8:15, we are inside of the store. Only 20 people in front of me. I got my choice of iPad. It felt so good to have a ticket in my hand. Finally!

I chose a pink cover, white iPad with 3G. Super excited about it. And still can't believe I went 3 different days before the store opened to go and get one. I never thought I would be that girl. Well, today I was and I got what I wanted.

I love it!

Sometimes we get a little Fussy.
Spring please hurry up and get here.

It's March 28th and it's still 30 degrees, feels like 20 outside. I'll try to be positive and name off a few good things about the weather today:

1. It's SUNNY. Like, super sunny. I mean HOT in my office right now with the curtains closed because the SUN is beating down on me and it feels so good. It's makes me think that maybe, just maybe, it's the same 70 degrees outside as it is inside of my office.

2. The cold air wakes you up. I went outside this morning bundled up in my down coat and 180's (ear warmers) and it was a tiny bit refreshing, but only for 2.5 seconds and then the wind hit my back and i was freezing and realized, why is it so cold?

3. Snow Free. So, at least there isn't any snow outside. That's a plus.

4. I have a warm place to live with lots of blankets to keep me toasty. Wow, that should be higher on the list.

Ok, that's it.

SO here are the negatives:

1. It's freezing outside.

2. EVERYONE is cranky because of it. Although I did meet this sweet hispanic woman from the Chicago 3rd ward the other night who brightly said "I love the cold, and I'm from Guatamala!" -- I wish I had her spirit.

3. Wind. The wind totally makes it worse. As if it isn't bad enough that it's 30 degrees outside, it has to feel like 20 degrees with the wind chill.

4. I still need to wear gloves and ear warmers AND my down coat to keep me warm. Who wants to still be bundled up like this on March 28? Not me. Can I pack up my crazy winter wardrobe yet? 

5. There is no sign of re-birth yet. No wonder Easter isn't until April 24th this year-- we need a whole extra Month to see the trees start budding again and flowers to peak out from the ground. It's totally depressing to still see the bare branches on the trees.

6. Remember last year at this time how I was blogging about our new BBQ, the sunny 50 degree St Patricks day we had, and how i was running on the trails every day with Katie Robinson? Yeah, that makes this Chicago cold even worse because I remember what an awesome LONG spring we had last year.

I could probably go on and on but I'll stop there. If anyone has any positive energy they want to send my way or remedies, please do. Let's just say I'm excited to travel to Texas next week to see the Sun accompanied with some warm temperatures. Wish my hubbie could come with me.

Friday Night Date Night. 
Location: Our neighborhood- the West Loop. 


It's March 26th but it's still winter here in Chicago. The good news is that by 6:30 we still have 30 minutes of solid light before it goes dark-- and that's something to celebrate. On Friday night Ryan took me to this awesome restaurant, Avec. As it is only a few blocks away so we decided to walk in the brisk spring night over there.

Note: we are still wearing our down coats outside -- can't wait to celebrate not needing that!!

Avec is a great little restaurant- and when I say little, I mean little! I didn't take photos myself but here are some from online to give you a taste of this place:
 

The restaurant.

Ok, now with people.

My favorite part of the mean- bacon wrapped chorizo dates. yum!

 I hope you all enjoyed a fun date this weekend! It's so refreshing to get out and try new things. One of my favorite things about living in Chicago is that great new experiences are all around us.

Grandma's Rolls: 
Unbelievable and Life-changing.

Is your mouth watering yet?

I've been hearing about Grandma Pixton's rolls for years now. The first time I met Ryan's family I had her cinnamon rolls, but I had yet to have her famous dinner rolls. Finally at Christmas I got to taste them, and as soon as I did, I realized how much I needed to learn about making good dinner rolls. AMAZING.

So when I was in Utah last week and had some extra time, my sister-in-law and I went over to Grandma Pixtons and took copious notes --step by step on how to make Grandma's rolls. We learned a ton (42 separate steps!!) and got to laugh and enjoy the wonderful company. We now have a list of things we want to learn from Grandma: raspberry jam and grape juice high on the list.

Here are a few photos. And yes, I took an entire pan home with me to share with Ryan!! So delicious.

Isn't Grandma the cutest??

 

Before they go into the oven.

Just out of the oven.

The bottom should look like this!! YUM.

JIMMER.
Need I say more? 

He looks 12 feet in the air in this photo!

Since I have been married my interest in sports and especially BYU sports & the Utah Jazz has increased. This 2011 BYU Basketball season has been especially exciting with our favorite bball player, Jimmer Fredette. He's such a rockstar and I have to admit my favorite song of the season is "Teach me how to Jimmer" -- if you haven't seen it, google it-- it's worth it (ESPN has even been showing it). 


There has also been a lot of chatter around BYU for their Honor Code decision with Brandon Davies-- all you have to do is google it and you'll know what I'm talking about if you don't already. All I have to say is I am proud to be an alumni of a University Institution that is known for LIFTING UP college sports and abiding by its morals and principles. BYU and the BYU Basketball team have become a light to the world of college sports and although not all understand the BYU honor code, many respect it and BYU for standing by it. There's more to life than a National Basketball Championship (although we would love to see BYU win it this year!). 


Let's just say I feel like my BYU pride has climaxed as I wore my BYU t-shirt today just to show my BYU/March Madness pride. 

Go COUGS!

The Royal Wedding
{The Royal Utah Wedding.}

We had the opportunity to join Jason and Lauren Osmond on their wedding day in Salt Lake City, Utah. We love being around family and it was such a great opportunity for us to be in Utah and see both sides of Ryan's family. It was a short and very sweet trip and we can't wait to get back to Utah for more fun family time. 

Lauren and Jason got married on a Monday, and I somehow talked Ryan into getting up at 5:30am so we could catch an endowment session before the sealing. It's a new goal of mine to attend the temple in Utah when we got back to visit. I want to see all of them! They are each so unique and beautiful. Glad we could start this tradition with the Salt Lake City Temple.  The spirit was so strong that day in the temple. Both Lauren and Jason looked so happy in the sealing room, we feel so honored to have been invited to attend that special ceremony. 


The rest of the day was a blur, but included seeing Matthew, attending a wedding luncheon, and then the reception that night at the Provo Library. Such a fun day!!
 

Waiting for the happy couple to exit the temple. We had a little photo shoot- thanks Megan!

 

It started to rain...

How cute are Nanny & Popsie? Love them. 

I love the temple. This temple gives me goosebumps to think about the love and dedication it took to build during those 40 years.

My favorite phrase listed on every temple.

How sweet is this?! Ryan and Nanny.

I know I already posted about my brother, but you gotta love this photo.

At the reception.

Us with Nanny & Popsie.

Love this picture of Ryan's Dad & Cousin Kaylee! The band was awesome that night! Lots of dancing.

End of the night in front of the Provo Library.