Thank you.

Dear D,

Thank you for texting me in the middle of the day just to see how I'm doing.

Thank you for choosing to go to the store with me instead of watching your basketball game.

Thank you for always supporting me in everything, even if I'm being a little irrational.

Thank you for working so hard at your job so that I can go to school.

Thank you for always getting me extra blankets when I'm 'too cold' to get them myself.

Thank you for giving me the wisest advice.

Thank you for laughing with me every single day.

Thank you for always being the first to apologize.

Thank you for hugs.

Thank you for kisses.

Thank you for loving me exactly the right way.

D, you're the perfect husband. Thanks for being all I ever dreamed of.

I love you.

Love, M

memoooorial day.

Our Memorial Day was wonderful.

We made the most of the day by waking up extra early. We took a drive up the canyon to eat breakfast at Ruth's Diner, which was apparently a very popular idea. It was packed! We waited 45 minutes while they held my I.D. hostage in exchange for their little buzzer thing. (I thought that was so funny! Who would even want to steal one of those?) 

The wait gave us some time to wander around and snap a few pictures, so we weren't complaining. Until it got really cold, and then I was complaining.

Please note the SNOW on the mountain. 

The river was so full up there!

When we finally got inside, I loved all the vintage pictures.

 Some famous mile-high biscuits. 

When I am old, can I please be her?

The food was yummy, as always, but I was sad that it was too cold to sit out on the patio like we always did growing up.

After our breakfast adventure, we met up with my family and saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie in IMAX 3D. It was my first 3D movie experience, and it was awesome. Of course, we ate way too much popcorn in addition to all the other crappy food I've eaten this weekend. Pretty sure I'm paying for it all now.

After the show, D and I wandered around the Gateway (our favorite place) and made a few sale purchases. Then we met up with the Petersons for a little family BBQ. We were very late, but it made for a good story. For some reason, I thought the party was at my Grandparent's house, so we drove all the way out to Sandy and were literally in their driveway when we realized there were no cars there. I re-read the text message and realized that I am an idiot. The party was at my parent's place, which is clear on the other side of the valley in Sugarhouse. We made it there in record time, but I was still quite embarrassed when I had to explain our little "detour."

happy things this weekend.

Want to know what's making us happy this weekend?

Lunch at Zupas with this gorgeous gal.

Dinner with my handsome husband at Biaggi's.

Drooling over Seeing Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in Fast Five (a great show if you like action movies as much as we do).

These new TOMS.

D playing me songs on the guitar while I get ready in the morning.

Discovering a blender we never knew we had while re-organizing the kitchen.

Making shakes and smoothies with said blender every single night.

This photograph.

My first Jimmy John's experience - can someone please tell me how they make their sandwiches so fast?

Getting all excited to make s'mores up the canyon...until we saw the rain.

That last one is on the happy list because we got to go to dinner with these two instead.

And now we're on our way to play a serious game of Rock Band with this handsome pair.

Can you believe this is my little brother Steven? I still can't get over how old he is. He graduates this year, and he's got this gorgeous girlfriend named Heather. And don't even get me started on how he'll be mission-age next year. It all goes by way too fast.

So what's on your happy list this week?

note: I shamelessly stole pictures from Facebook and Google for this post. We're just too lazy to take our camera anywhere.

zoology 101 with M & D

D and I just had an extremely hilarious debate over whether an aardvark and an anteater were the same animal. Honestly, don't ask me how we even get onto these subjects in the first place. But, of course, we had to google it to find out who was right. So in case you needed a little zoology 101 in your life, I will share our newfound knowledge of the animal kingdom.

Let me begin by saying that I totally knew what an anteater looked like:

Aren't they the sketchiest creatures? 

I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley.

 But anyway. I was thoroughly convinced that an aardvark looked like this:

Turns out, that guy is an armadillo!

And an aardvark is a different animal altogether! Check him out:

Who knew, right?! 

So thanks, Google and Daniel, for teaching me something new and making me laugh tonight. I hope you did too!

recent happenings...according to the camera phone.

[one] - Oh, you know. Just snow in May. On the way to the U for summer semester.

[two] - Bee's game. Sometimes D forgets he's in the picture when he's trying to take it.

[three] -  Sometimes I make pretty sparkles on the wall when I wear my sequin shirt.

[four] - A great picture from my student's textbook.

[five] - An actual assignment in one of my college classes.

[six] - Just an average day and an average paper tower at the tutoring center.

etsy favorites.

These are some of the lovely things that are currently living on my Etsy favorites list. Don't you think they're just begging to live in my apartment instead?

up in the clouds necklace

Wearing this would make me happy no matter how rainy it was.

hello. also, i love you print

This print describes our life a little too perfectly.

vintage teapot

This may or may not be the cutest teapot ever.

birds white linen pillow cover

What's that? You want to come live on my sofa? I think that could be arranged.

typewriter print

This would look so great in a wall photo collage.

birch plywood map puzzle

Cute and educational! Right up my alley.

orange poppy summer wreath

I kind of have a thing for wreaths. Just ask D.

 globe pillow

I've been loving maps lately. We may need to invest in a globe.

So there you have it, folks. My Etsy favorites. I could waste an awful lot of time on that website, couldn't you? What are your favorites?

popcorn cravers anonymous.

Alright, people. It's confession time.

My name is Mandy, and I have a popcorn problem.

I realize a lot of people like popcorn. Hey, some people might even love it. But I have stepped beyond the average boundaries of popcorn consumption. And it's getting serious. Last night, D and I were over at my parents house watching Robin Hood (the one with Russel Crowe, which is quite a great flick by the way..) and my mom walked down the stairs with two bowls of fabulous homemade popcorn. It didn't matter that I had just eaten a full Sunday dinner. I still got that wide-eyed, about-to-drool look on my face and ended up eating almost an entire bowl by myself.

If that's not enough for you, let's rewind to the time that D and I saw Tangled at the movie theater. D got us one of those extra-super-giant TUBS of popcorn, and let's just say it was entirely gone before the movie was over. D probably had two handfuls, and I probably took two years off of my life.

Now fast forward to this weekend when we were on our way to dinner at Tucanos. It just so happens that you have to walk past the Megaplex 12 movie theater at The Gateway to get to Tucanos. I regret to admit this, but I may or may not have asked Daniel if we could cancel our reservations in favor of having popcorn for dinner.

So there you have it, folks. This is my true-life story of being a popcorn addict. I can eat it anytime, anywhere. I love all flavors from kettle corn to caramel corn. I can also eat it no matter how full I am. It's like my stomach expands exclusively so it can accommodate massive amounts of popcorn. If anyone knows the cure, I'm all ears.

i love it when...

i love it when i get to wear my yellow rain boots three days in a row...
...even if it means that it has been pouring rain.

i love it when i only have two classes at school...
...even if it means i am going to school in the summer.

i love watching netflix all the time with D...
...even if it means we don't have cable.

i love it when my mom brings us costa vida...
...even if i don't get to eat it until 8:30 at night.

i love it when D's siblings are in town...

...even if they are going back to washington soon.

and my personal favorite...

i love it when D is romantic...

...even when he burns my candles that were exclusively meant for decoration.

Sometimes D takes cool pictures at baseball games.

 

We had so much fun at the Bee's game last weekend with John and Emma. They had an "in" for cheap tickets and free T-Shirts, so naturally, we couldn't pass it up. Everyone was decked out in their pink to support breast cancer research. To honor the great American pastime, we got hot dogs and pretzels and sang "take me out to the ball game" during the seventh inning stretch. And for a minute there, it was so nice outside that it even felt like summer! Afterward, we stopped at Hires to grab some dinner. One of the highlights of the evening was the darling little boy at Hires who leaned over to his dad, pointed at John and Daniel, and said a little too loudly: "Look, Dad! Those boys are wearing pink!!"

p.s. I did not edit a single one of these pictures. D is just that good. And thanks to Emma's sister Kate for taking the picture of Daniel and I!