What Are You Looking At???

A break? Who needs a break!

2010-10-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

So Garrick and I both have said a break from theater, and I guess it was opposite day when we said that. We both jut finished our summer shows, I did Pirate of Penzance, and it was a blast. Garrick did Pump Boys and Dinettes and was sooo good in that.

Then I got suckered into doing Christmas Carol again at Hale Centre Theatre. I'm excited it will be fun. This will be my 5th time doing this show. My only time doing it without Garrick, but I'm excited. We started rehearsals Saturday and it will be a good fun, run.

The crazy thing is... ok, get ready for a longish story... I had a best friend in 5th grade when we lived here for a year between Japan and Germany, her name is Kim Allen. So we were BFF's and then I moved or as she puts it, abandoned her... We ended up losing touch - fast forward to 2 years ago, like 19 years since I've seen or heard from Kim and facebook was invented and we find each other. We see that we have lived parelle lives and both have done theater locally and have like a million friend in common, but have NEVER ran into each other.

So finally 3 weeks ago, so come to see Pirates and finally see each other after 21 years. Crazy and so much fun. ok, fast forward to a week ago and we both end up getting cast in Christmas Carol. So my best friend from 5th grade and I after 21 year will get to hang out again. HOW MUCH FUN! So that will make this run a good time!

This is a pic of Christmas Carol when Garrick was Christmas Present, the best one they ever had!!!

OK, so now on to Garricks break from theatre.... he has ALWAYS wanted to play the Jack Nicholson part in "One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest" but really, not theater will ever do that, its just a little to much for Utah audiences I guess. WAIT, what is this Garrick hears, a theater IS going to do and they can't find an actor good enough to play that part... Well, Garrick went and read for the director and was hired on the spot!

He's in rehearsal for that show and it will run for a couple of weekends in November in a great little theater in Midvale. So needless to say, we are both very busy! But that is what we love and we both have a good time doing it.

Garricks getting some great freelance art jobs that will keep him busy in the time he's not rehearsing. Toby is good, poor guys is to much like me and has a hurt little knee and is limping around and it just SO sad. So were giving him joint supplements to strengthen his little doggie knees and hopefully he will get better.

We go to Vegas this week for our Annual Friends Vegas trip, we are both EXCITED to get away for a bit. I will try to remember to take pictures... Gar surprised me with a trip to Cedar City for our anniversary to see some of the Shakespeare fest shows and we didn't bring the camera. LAME! So, I will try and get some good photos and then be better at posting what is going on in our lives..

THE BACK YARD, she sure is purty!

2010-09-23T14:39:00.001-07:00

So we (by we I mean Garrick) have been working on the yard and he has wanted to finish off the backyard. So Garrick finally found an day where he didn't have to do anything. It's been a LONG time since he has had a Saturday to do whatever he wanted. So we (I actually helped), we went to Home Depot and got all the stuff to finish off the back yard. There is is... all 55 bricks, 250 lbs of dirt and 150 lbs of sand.

This is what it looked like before. Pretty plain and not so great to look at. The pix below are of where he is going to put the flower bed and then lay sod everywhere else.

DRUMROLL PLEASE..... Here it is, in all it's glory. The finish product. Garrick is just amazing. It's so pretty! Isn't it! In the spring we will plant some pretty colorful flowers in between what we already have in there.

Then Garrick finished it off by sodding the the rest. It makes the backyard look so much bigger and SO pretty! I just love sitting back there!

There's our sweet hammock. I love that thing. Came home the other day, couldn't find Garrick, went out back and he was sleeping. It's so nice to sit out and relax in the pretty backyard!

Then we felt we needed little something on the back porch. Se we got this sweet pot and put some great flowers in it. It really finishes off the back real nice!

Toby... what can I say. This boy is SO damn cute. He hangs out while we work on the yard, but the minute we get the hose out, he runs in.

Well, I'll try and keep up on the the blogging, but I make no guarantees. I forget to carry the camera around. We have been doing good, super busy with work, shows, house and such. But we both had great birthdays and a wonderful anniversary!

5 YEARS - HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

2010-08-20T10:55:00.001-07:00

to blog or not to blog... that is my problem, not the question.

2010-07-19T11:15:00.008-07:00

So I don't know if it lack of interest to blog, we don't take our camera with us so we don't have pictures, I'm at a computer all day, so when I get home I don't want to get back on the computer, or that i'm just plain lazy. I'm its D, all the above. We don't take our camera anywhere so most, well, ALL of these pix are pirated from facebook from friends.

It's been crazy busy with summer happening, us have a million of things to do, rehearsals, blah, blah, blah. I will spare you the list of what has been going on and jsut give a few highlights of what we have been up to this summer. It has been busy with something every weekend with our friends. Or event calendar is jam packed and we a having a blast and we are beat!

Our crew of friend got on the fun bus and took a trek to Wendover to try and win big and see Huey Lewis and the News, it was a blast. They were great, didn't play for very though and didn't play all their greatest hits, but nonetheless, it was a great time. Here's the crew walking back from the concert to go win big. And by win big, I mean, not win anything.

The 4th of July was a blast. We headed up to Deer Valley to a friends cabin to stay for the weekend. We enjoyed the pool, amazing weather, fun music and fire works. Here is Garrick playing a little catch while we waited for the festivities to start on the 4th.

Here's the crew. It was only like 50 dregrees on the 4th up on Park CIty, how lame is that. But we had a blast, chatted, had some good laughs. Then some of the crew went to see the new Twlight movie. Not sure why I love the book and the movies but I do. They are fun/horrible. This is the 3rd year we have gone together and it is a blast. Here is Seth trying on a Twlight shirt before the movie. I love my friends. We are both doing good. I'm in full swing of the Pirates of Penzance and it will be a fun show. Gar is starting to rehearse for Pump Boys.

That's the SHORT, short verson on what is going on right now. Toby is good... life is great right now. Busy, lots of activites, but so much fun!

"Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it!"

Gay Pride, more plays and a radio DJ??...

2010-06-09T12:32:00.009-07:00

I'm working back up to blogging once a week, but it is a work in progress. A SLOW work in progress.

We have been up to a couple of things as of late. This past weekend was Salt Lake's Gay Pride week and my hotel, the Hotel Monaco is a huge supporter of the gay community and so we were in the Parade. It was a blast, we are known as Salt Lake Gayest hotel and here is some of our team. It was a blast!

After the parade, I met up with Garrick and our friends and walked around the festival. It was a good time, perfect weather and we even were gay for a day! HAHAHA! This is Garrick and our friend Doug, prom pic.

And this is me and Angie, she works with Gar.

It was a fun day and LOVED being out in the sun all day long. Summer is FINALLY HERE!

Well, we have come out of retirement and Garrick and I are both doing shows this summer. Garrick's is very different, it's called Pump Boys and the Dinettes. Garrick and 2 other guys from his band are in it and they are the band in this show. Garrick is the main guy, Jim who plays the guitar in the band. It play my birthday weekend August 25-30, and will be such a fun show! I can't wait to see him sing a play some great country music!

I will be staring, well, not so much staring in this next show as I will be in the chorus. I will be in Hale's production of the Pirates of Penzance. I'm so excited. It's a great show and I'll be one of the sisters in it. Garrick was actually in this show 12 years ago when Hale had their old theater. So we have now come full circle. This show will run mid August through the end of September!

As if Garrick can't have more on his plate and he truly is the man of a thousand faces, Graphic Designer, in an 80's cover band, does plays and shows by night, well NOW he has is own radio show.
You can hear him via the internet airwave (if that's what you call them) on UtahFM. His show is called Utah Inspired.

He will talk about art, theater, music or whatever inspires you. It is every Friday from 6:00pm -7:30pm. It is such a great show and he has an amazing radio voice. So listen every Friday!

Ok, that's it for now. Catch you later!

Lack-Luster blogging = Stefanie

2010-04-27T08:28:00.007-07:00

Allow me to introduce myself... I don't know if you remember me, we meet a couple of years ago - I started this blog. I haven't posted in, well... it's just been entirely to long. Thank you Garrick for keeping it alive.

So much has happened in the last couple of months. I'll spare you all the boring details and just give you bullet points as to what's been going on.

DEC 09: Got a job offer at The Canyons Resort. So left the Sheraton and started my trek up the canyon. Loved it... (loved being a key word, a little foreshadowing there for you).

JAN 10: Tying to get settled into the new job. It's so different working at a resort. THEN, got a call from the Director of Sales at the Hotel Monaco telling me she has a Sales Manager position open and wants me to come work for them. WOW, what a great feeling to be called and wanted, what a HARD decision. Gar and I talked about it and decided that I just had to take the job at the Monaco. I gave my notice at the Canyons, cried as I told them, then worked my last week there and Feb 1st will start at the Hotel Monaco!

FEB 10: Started the new job. LOVE IT! The hotel is amazing the company I work for is amazing and the first Friday I was there, I brought Toby in. I can bring him in whenever I want. LOVE IT!
Got a GREAT part in a fun show called Reefer Madness, I was one of the leads! So during Feb, we rehearsed every night.

MAR 10: The show opened and was a HUGE success, we sold out every night. It was so fun to preform this show. I had 2 great solos and in then end, I got to kill the bad guy and became the hero! I ripped his hear out on stage!

This is me right before I killed him, I beat him with a garden hoe. Good times!!
Me singing one of my solos.
APRIL 10: So far April has been good, Gar and I are loving the nice weather, we both are really getting into working out and go at least 4 times a week. Gar got into to yoga and is LOVING it. It has done so much for his back. I started zumba, and it's a blast. I keep up my running and am thinking of trying out the yoga...

So far 2010 has treated us well. The lusty month of May might bring Gar and I some sorrow as our favorite TV show, LOST will be ending. We are both broken up about it, and on May 23rd, you may see Gar cry.

V-day

2010-02-18T16:14:00.003-07:00

So for Valentines Day I made breakfast in bed for Stef.

Made eggs with Green Peppers, Fresh Tomato, Avacado.... Fresh Fruit.... Coffee, Orange Juice

The final product

I also bought her a massage at Sanctuary Day Spa and she used it that day...she had a great massage. It was a very good Valentine's Day.

Christmas 2009

2010-01-18T15:50:00.004-07:00

Well for Christmas I got a very special present...AURORA!!! I have never had Aurora on Christmas, I got her on Thanksgiving and her mother got her on Christmas. So this is the first time I got her in 18 years!

For Stef I did do the closet but I also bought her Beatles Rock Band, it is so much fun!!!

Toby was very curious....

Me and Aurora!!! Bub saw this picture and said.."I look like I was right about to say something"

Our Christmas Eve present to the family is we take them to a movie and Pizza at the Pie
This year we went and saw Planet 51, a fun family friendly movie.

Me and Ang..we always seem to get a picture together
(it is because she is my favorite sis..what? what ? who said that ?)

The whole crew!!! Well it took me forever to post this so thank s for the patience and a very late Happy New Years and a verrrryyyyy late MERRY CHRISTMAS 2009!

THE CLOSET

2010-01-07T09:09:00.005-07:00

Hello all!! Okay so this will probably be the longest blog entry I have ever done, but it is a lot of info! So I got this hair brained idea that I wanted to do something special for Stef for Christmas, she has so many nice clothes and shoes, and purses, and jewelry and she has all of it jamb packed into a little closet and a wardrobe downstairs, so since we have an extra bedroom upstairs...I decided to turn it into a walk-in closet for her, for Christmas.

First step..clear the room,strip the walls, putty, sand clean up dust
Second Step..remove light fixture, blinds, light and electric panels
Third Step..paint the ceiling, repaint molding and door frames

Step Four..Install new track lighting ( to showcase all the wonderful items)

Step Five..Tape everything (God the taping)

Step Six.. Paint the edges, Paint the walls

I choose a rust brown because it matched the floor and the new shelving, and also I read a study that doctor found this to be a very peaceful color, it reminds us of the time in the womb when the only light you see is the light that passes through your mother's belly...very interesting!

Step Five.. Install all the new shelving and hangers, Install new flat screen tv mount, Run cable, Install T.V

Step Six.. Bring in all the furniture and clothes...that is right I put an overstuffed chair in there so she can chill in her closet and watch TV in the mornings.

AHHH MY FOOT!!!

2010-01-05T13:33:00.003-07:00

Well I went and busted up my foot in December. Not broken but oh so sprained!!! This picture was taken by Stef in the ER at 2 am as you can see my right foot is not normal.

Well after a week or so it started to bruise and it got UGLY...Green's, and Black's and Blue's and even a little purple thrown in there.

I am back to normal..well 98.9%..back to normal but it was quite the horrible sprain!

Bibbit and the Final Projects

2009-11-16T16:09:00.002-07:00

My brother Quinn moved to Las Vegas a couple of months ago and he had this car that just would not make the drive...Volkswagon's 1989 Cabriolet. She is a good little car but she needs some TLC so I gave Q a few sheckles and he gave me The Bibbet..that is the official name of this little beauty..and like all the other women in my life Stefanie and her go toe-to-toe, they just do not get a long...but I like her.

As for the final projects of the year for the exterior of the house.. I planted a Japanese Maple sapling and a little planter box for it

Finished sodding all the areas of the yard that will get sod (next year the final steps of the yard will happen) and built a planter box around this tree..and installed a little light for trolls and gnomes to find there way around.

Sod all the way up to the back of the house..I like it like that.

So the grass will sleep and a beautiful rebirth will happen in the spring and all the yard will be green! Isn't that just specialll!

Halloween 2009

2009-11-09T13:21:00.005-07:00

Well this years Halloween was a blast!! We did so many parties and gatherings we were quite busy!! We got the pics to prove it!

Here is Stef and myself with our good friend Doug Irey, he has been our friend for over 5 years and he is just incredible..we went out the weekend befoer to a costume party and they were shooting pictures..we call this the "Drink Ad" we all look like we are pitching something.

Stefanie and I went as Maximus and Lucilla from Gladiator..I made my costume by hand (bought the boots and did not forge the sword) but built the belt and tunic...and as you can see from the picture before I even cut my hair into a ceaser cut to fit the part....I think we looked great!

We were invited to a huge party at this house where is was once a Mormon church..bought and refurbished to be a home...it is absolutely huge...they have a dance floor and a huge sound system and we tore up the night it was so much fun.

Here is some of our little gang Seth, Aaron, Amber, Stef, Me, Doug, John and Ally

We also went to a kids costume party at the Barrowes house...it was a big costume / birthday party for several of the kids..and they all looked so good!! Her is Everest (Vampire) and Isabella Watts (Goldfish)

The beautiful Omer girls

Stef with Madelyn and Issa, Crazy Mads was a mermaid and Isabella was her gold fish.

HULK =AWESOME

The real Batmen Begins..isn't he the cutest little boy?

The older kids were to cool and had to hang out and watch Monsters vs. Aliens...but it was a great time..so until next year. Happy Halloween!

Star Wars in Concert

2009-10-21T15:01:00.005-07:00

Well I had a special treat that I treated myself to....STAR WARS!!! Star Wars in Concert came to the Energy Solution Arena and I was able to go and see the music from my favorite saga live with a full symphony and choir.

Here is me with my program and my favorite Star Wars character Darth Vader..Skywalker Ranch released all the actual prop replicas from the movie to travel with the concert..that is actually one of the original Vader suits!!!

My friends the Carter's (Doug, Amber, and Tate) were there also..here is Tate dressed up as Darth Maul.

There were people dressed up and taking pictures..here is Boba Fett.

Here is the stage..a gigantic screen played scenes from the movie while the symphony played the music, it was so moving. At certain points during the production effects would go off..e.i. When Anakin and Obi-Wan were having their final duel on Mustafar FIRE shot out of the front of the stage..no kidding like 10 feet up in the air...cold air blew when Vader's transformation was complete..and when the played the music for the Death Star Trench Run green lasers shot all over the arena!!!

The best part of the production is when Anthony Daniels WHO ACTUALLY PLAYED C-3PO came out and narrated the entire show..absolutely a great treat.

The Props

John William's actual score was on display!

Blasters from Tatoonie

A Stormtrooper Blaster.

B-Wing Pilot Helmet

Biker Scout Helmet

The Characters

Jedi Knight Kitt Fisto

C-3PO

Chewbacca

Queen Amidala and hand maidens

and of course Jedi Master Yoda!
It was a wonderful and beautiful event, it took me back to being a child..hearing the opening notes to the Star Wars Theme as they were belted out..just drove me back to a place in my youth that is so deep and dear to me...it was a beautiful concert and a wonderful memory to add to my Star Wars memories...May the Force be with you, always!!!

VEGAS 2009

2009-10-20T13:46:00.002-07:00

Well we have a yearly Traditional trip to Las Vegas, a trip we love to do with our friends, it is Disneyland for adults...come on who wouldn't want to go! This year did not disappoint we had a great time, Stef got the whole crew rooms at the Planet Hollywood hotel, and it was so nice.

Well the crew that went this year was Seth, Aaron, Angie, Spencer, me and, Stef..and my Brother Quinn lives there with his girlfriend Jodi so we met up with them while there.

Here we are at Cirque du Soleil - Mystere it was absolutely amazing...mind blowing!

The girls....Very Nice Sexy Time!

Quinn and Jodi, just love these guys to death!!

Me and my brother, we're twins..it's like looking into a mirror!!!!

Stef in front of the Crique show marquee.

On the train ride

We had dinner at Tournament of Kings!!! Welcome to MEDEVIL TIMES!!!

Me and Stef

Us again with our GOOD FRIEND ALCOHOL!!

Stef and Seth insisted on us telling everyone they were twins and their names were Kirk and Cameron, oh and Stef the first day said we had to call her "Sweet D" man Vegas does some crazy stuff to people...but this shot was by far my most favorite shot of the whole trip!!!!
VEGAS BABY SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!!!

Bike Ride for Primary Children's Hospital

2009-09-29T09:22:00.004-07:00

Well my oldest friend Travis invited us to go on a ride for a Toy Drive for Utah Primary Children's Hospital, all these hard core bikers collect toys and bring them to the sick children it is a very incredible event, so we went for a ride!

It started at Murray Park and there were over 200 bikes and bikers there, it was hosted by the U.M.F Motorcycle Club and they were really scary -slash- cool. Santa was there!

Here are our bikes..my Honda Shadow Ace 750cc and Travis's Big Dog Mastiff 1800 cc.

Me and Stef getting ready to take off.

Crusin'!!

Travis and his fiance' Tracie

Rollin' Hard!

Look at all the bikes..they go all the way up the street!!

and around the bend...Just around the river beeeennnndddd!!!

Parking was insane at the hospital..but so cool to see the kids faces looking at all the bikes!!

Even little doggies got in to the spirit...I wonder if Tob's would like a ride!
It was a great experience..we blew through the lights, didn't stop..I mean who is going to stop over 200 motorcycle riders..it was quite fun, I am sure we will do it again soon.

State Fair

2009-09-14T14:33:00.004-07:00

Well it is that time again to go to the fair! Stef and I had some friends meet us at the house and have a couple adult beverages before walking over to the fair grounds (we only live a few blocks from the most magical place on earth)

Seth, Aaron, Jason, Stef, Elledge (not pictured), Angie (taking the picture) and myself went and ate greasy food, looked at the human zoo, drank a lot of beer, saw some crappy art (and one good piece ALLY SWEENEY 3rd place in oils!!!)

Then to top off the night they have a SIDE SHOW (But it is really a FREAK SHOW) I went in last year and it was TO MUCH!! But the gang went through (me and Elledge sat outside and looked at the crazy posters they had to show their freaks!) and came out thinking it was so cool..eww no!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA..Sheep Balls.

Labor Day Weekend

2009-09-09T09:47:00.004-07:00

Well it was a beautiful sunny Labor Day weekend..and we did so much, but yet we chilled out a lot also? Awesome huh....we started it off with a movie....

Extract..Mike Judge's new flick, we love Jason Bateman and so this was fun to go watch...and it was a good film...that stupid Ben Who-fleck was in it, but even he didn't make me want to lose my delicious movie popcorn.

Then I went to work on the garage while Stef did her million shows..I ripped down the million year old wood and re-edged and sanded the the garage...then puttied and painted that bad boy!

Turned out nice, fit the feel of the house..and it looks so good, my garage project is almost done!!

Next was Inglorious Bastards..this w a s really good film, we loved it so much. Oh course it was Brad Pitt so Stef was totally happy..and I get to see the Tarantino standoffs I have loved since Resevoir Dogs....Good film go see it.

Then on labor day we chillllled man...I got up early and set up my painting supplies out back and did some painting. Stef got me with my mouth agape..nice sweetie.

This was the final product..not a complete painting, but a nice way to get back into the painting mode.... go ahead a and check my art blog for the rest of the creative art that I had my fellow artists do that morning also..http://www.garricksart.blogspot.com/

New School-New Classes

2009-08-19T09:24:00.003-07:00

So many of you know that I have quit theater to go back to school and get another degree in Illustration. Well this degree will be from the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning and Comic Book Art, and my first correspondence class came yesterday!!!

The front / What cool Packaging!!!

The side of the package / the school is located in New Jersey.

The packet with all my assignments in it.

My bristol boards I will draw on and the envelope to send back my homework!

They send you all the tools you would need to complete assignments / Good thing I have a full studio full of Art Supplies.

!!!I AM SO EXCITED!!!!

The Scarlet Pimpernel

2009-08-17T08:34:00.004-07:00

Stefanie is in the wonderful production of The Scarlet Pimpernel at the Hale Centre Theatre, and she is absolutely wonderful. I went to see it last Thursday with Gerry and Denise (Stef's Dad and Step Mother), Rebekah (Stef's sister), Adam (her nephew), Everest (her niece), and Brit, Scott, Blake and Doug (our good friends) and it was just wonderful. The sets were so impressive and the costumes were beautiful, the lead actors were just incredible there voices blew me away. But the highlight is watching my beautiful wife have the time of her life on stage, she is so happy when she is there and she lights up every scene they have the luck to have her in. She smiles and laughs and sing to her hearts content, she is a shinning gem of the show. Our good friend Erica Hansen was at the show that night and she in the critic for the Desert News, her is her review if you would like ot read it http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705323483,00.html.

Go see Stef perform in this wonderful show, you will be glad you do!

24th at Jordanelle

2009-07-27T18:39:00.004-07:00

Well we got together with some friends and went to Jordanelle on Sundayto finish off the 24th weekend.

We met at O.C.Tanner at 10:30 a.m. and carpooled up to the lake.

The players were myself, Stefanie, Seth Larsen, Arron Hales, Mike Hatch, Jason Baker, Zhen Wang, Eric and Juanita Atencio, and Edna and Toby!

Seth, Stef, and Edna checking the water.

Mr. Toby was just dying to get in the water..he LOVED the lake.

So I took him for a swim, he swims so good, he swam from shore all the way out to me and just sat on my lap on the floaty.

Mike Hatch enjoying a delicious liquid adult beverage.

This is how Seth and Stef spent most of the day..in the shade.
It was a good day, spent about 4 hours out there it felt like a thousand hours, I fished (I sucked), we swam, Toby played, and we were smart and put sunscreen on so we didn't even get burnt.
It was a happy 24th, Happy Birthday Utah!

SEE THIS MOVIE!

2009-07-13T18:38:00.002-07:00

That is all I can say about this film..Stef and I have seen it twice, we own the
soundtrack, and as soon as it comes out on video we will own the unrated, unedited, full VEGAS version.

Old and New and MY BACK!!!

2009-06-30T19:16:00.002-07:00

Last Tuesday I took Stef down a bowl of cereal for breakfast and she said "The milk is warm?" so we went upstairs and the fridge took a dump on us. The freezer was working overtime, frost on everything, but no more cold. So we went out and bought a new one, YEA! The lady we talked to says "We can't deliver it until the 30th" WTF?!? So a week with no cold food..we had to throw out all our perishables..ugh.
Here is the old (1998) fridge, it came with the house.

But the new one came today!!!! And it matches the rest of our appliances (the stove is next, but have to wait till it takes a dump). It is so pretty and shinny!!

Also my back went out!! Well I had been jumping around on it for close to 9 weeks with my show Treasure Island..I could feel pain and numbness the whole time, but last week it became unbearable, I had an MRI Monday and the doctor said I had Herniated Disk between the L4 AND L5 Lumbar. So hopefully I can get this resolved soon, I have been taking it really easy and not doing any strenuous actions. I will keep you all updated.
(Check out my image I found it is written in Spanish LOL)

The Side of the House

2009-06-22T19:24:00.004-07:00

Hi Ho Garrick here, Stefanie is spending her summer at the Hale Centre Theatre.
So I have started my summer projects, this is the first one, complete the South side of the house.

So I dug up all the weeds and grass that was on the side and laid a path of stones for Prince Toby to prance along (he is not so keen on walking on the grass, little girly boy)

After that I made a small box to lay under the hose to catch water and to frame the hose, redwood sides and river stones.

My mom and Roger gave us a great frog to put in our yard for a house warming gift and he fits so well in here, see him in the corner.

Here is the side with the sod laid in it turned out so well, if you look at the overhang my mom and Rog also gave us a windchime and it is hanging on the corner, it sounds beautiful.

Here it is complete, it was a lot of work and Stef was a big help, but we love how it looks.

The fam came to town!!

2009-06-10T18:11:00.002-07:00

Well Treasure Island closed (Finally!) on June 6th and the fam made the trek out to see Garrick's last show. If you don' t know Garrick is following his dream and going back to school to get his Illustration degree in Comic Book Art and he has officially retired from theater life.

Aurora, Mom and Roger all flew in to see this show, it was so great. Grandma Joan, Mom, Rog, Quinn, Jodi, Stefanie and Aurora all went and saw the show together, and we had a great BBQ at the house afterwards...a mini family reunion.

Dick joined Grandma at the house and saw the show a couple days later. Q feeding Toby.

Q and G enjoying life.

Apparently something was happening to the right of us?

Garrick, Deb, Quinn
Can't believe she pushed out these two motley crew.

Post by G.

Arrgghhhhh matey!

2009-05-02T18:24:00.003-07:00

Garricks new show is "Treasure Island" at Hale Centre Theatre and he is so excited because he is playing the lead role. It's kinda a big deal to get a lead at Hale, but 13 years preforming there and he has finally got the lead. He is playing the one-legged pirate, Long John Silver. I went to the show last week and it was so good! Garrick does and amazing job. Be sure to catch this show!!

It runs April 27th - June 6th.

13.1 - What a blast!

2009-04-27T17:57:00.003-07:00

Well, I survived the half marathon. And I must say that I enjoyed it. It was tough and kicked my butt! Other than waiting 10 minutes for the disgusting port-a-pottie and that adding at least 10 minutes to my time, I finished in the time that I was aiming for. So all in all, it was a great morning. Here is me and Nat crossing the finish line, she finished before me, but came and ran the last bit and crossed the finish line with me, it was fun. We sprinted the last 30 feet, it was a blast.

This is one that the SLC Marathon people took, this was at like mile 11 or so running down State Street... Running fro 9th South to South Temple was tough... the hardest part of the run it's mile 11 and 12.

Here are the girls that ran, Ang, Nat, my co-worker Anna, my cuz Maria and me. My dad and Denise came and got us all flowers, it was so great to have everyone there supporting us! THANKS Seth and Aaron and Blake for coming to support me too! I loved seeing you as I ran up to the finish line!

Here are the sisters, I'm still trying to get Beck to commit to doing the Moab Half next year. That is the one that me Nat and Ang want to do.
It was such a great experience and so glad I did it. Next year the goal is to do it with out stopping. Just running straight through the 13.1 miles.

MARATHON UPDATE - TIME CHANGE

2009-04-14T08:07:00.002-07:00

An addendum to the finish line time:

For those of you that feel so inclined to greet me at the finish line, I was mistaken by the time. The race starts at 7:00am so will be crossing the line around 9:30am-ish (or later if it really kicks my booty). So be there by 9:15am-ish.

This has been a public service announcement...

4.18.2009 - A day to go down in history!

2009-04-08T19:09:00.004-07:00

Well, I did it. I done gone signed myself up to run/walk/crawl/cry the Salt Lake Half Marathon. A blessed, beautiful 13.1 miles. Not sure how I got suckered into this one - man peer pressure is not a good color on me, I give in way to easily.

Actually, I'm excited to do it and I am doing for me. To see if I can actually finish something that is hard. I have wanted to give up about 15 times a week since the end of January when I dedicated myself to this. But, all in all, I am really proud of myself... Let me preface why I'm so proud- I hate running - I'm generally a very lazy person by nature and at all possible times, I will find a seat and sit down and not do a thing. So what better way to get back at my lazy arse in shape and run a measly 13.1 miles.

It has been a trial, I'm not anywhere near where I really wanted to be by this date, but nonetheless, I ran (with a couple of walks in there) 10 miles last Saturday and it didn't kill me and I have managed to drop 15 lbs. I may keep this exercising thing going. And maybe next year, I may do it again with the goal of not stopping at all - a constant running pace the entire time, we will see about that...

This year, as I crawl over the finish line in just a hair under 12 hours, I will be so proud that I finished. If you feel the urge to come and pull my dying body over the finish line and cheer me on, it is Saturday 4.18.09 at the Gateway. I'm hoping to cross the finish line in about 2 and a half hours, so be at the Gateway Mall no later than 10:15am!!

My sisters Nat & Ang, and coworker Anna, and my cuz Maria will all be running! GOOD TIMES and GO OMERS!!

Family Fun Time

2009-03-29T18:26:00.008-07:00

Natalie came into town a little bit ago and Gar, all by himself, with no help from me, put together a family photo shoot with this great photographer, Kami Snarr. She is great, very non-triditional and we all love how they turned out.

This is just the sisters...

I could not love this one more. These kids are adorable!

The fam-damily

I just love these two of me and my lovah, and it is SO very rare that I like a photo of me. This Kami girl is good!
Beck's fam - those are some gook looking kids
Ang's good looking troupe!

Long Lost Friends

2009-03-18T19:54:00.003-07:00

I play around on a website called Facebook. It is a social networking website and I love it. I tend to waste a ton of my time on Facebook. I have gotten in touch with some long lost friends that I thought I would never see or hear from again. Some friends from Germany, elementary school, middle school, and high school....

Well, a hundred years ago, when I moved back from Germany, I made a great friend, Jenn Horn. We became instant BFF's in 9th grade and were inseparable from the moment we met. Well, 11th grade hit and I became a brat and Jenn and I went our separate ways, all my doing and I have felt horrible ever since. I have always felt like I lost a great friend due to my stupidity. Well we recently became facebook friends and chatted here and there about life. She lives in Atlanta and to make a long story short, I was going to Atlanta on a business trip in February and we decided to do dinner. It was such a blast. I was so glad that I got the night to see her and apologize for being a bad friend and asked her to forgive me. It felt so great to mend that bridge and to have her friendship again. Here we are 13 years after we graduated from high school...

Jenn, thanks so much for dinner, it was such a blast! Can't wait to see you again!

A funny thing...

2009-02-12T18:20:00.004-07:00

"A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum"

is the show that Garrick is opening tomorrow.

It is playing at the Egyptian Theater in Park City. He is playing Miles Gloriosus..

It plays from Feb.ruary 13 thru March 21
Performances Thursday through Saturday at 7:30pm; Sunday matinee at 2:00 p.m.
Tickets $16-$30, Cabaret tables available—call box office
435-649-9371

Don't miss this one! Break a leg my sexy greek god!

Pittsburgh, PA

2009-02-04T20:16:00.013-07:00

Last November I went to Pittsburgh for work and was not too excited to go to Pittsburgh. Just thought it would be a bunch of steel mills and all grey... I was pleasantly surprised with this town. I rather enjoyed myself. It is a pretty city. They city of bridges, I did not know that. I also learned that McFeely from Mr. Rogers is huge there, ketchup is from there and they have the biggest sports fan base I have ever seen...

Anyway, the convention was great and I got to see the city. It has lots of rolling hills and one is a large hill, well, really a cliff and they have what the call the "Incline". It's a trolley car that is pulled up the cliff. At the top is a great town that I am in love with. Mount Washington is the little town on top of the incline. Here is us going up the incline.

And me in front of the trolley...

This is the view from my room. It's the Steeler's Stadium. The Heinz Stadium. While I was there there was a football game and a hockey game. The city was CRAZY in all the gear for both teams. We were looking for a lunch place on the Steelers game day and the stores were blaring the Steelers fight song... "Here we go.... Here we go... Pittsburgh going to the Superbowl". It's a super catching tune and still can't get it out of my head and sang it the whole Superbowl game and was glad when the Steetlers won it!!!
This is a view from on top of the incline and Mount Washington. It is a great city. I recommend it.
Since Pitts is the city of bridges I had to get a pic of one. The 2 rivers run together and connect into the Ohio river. That is why there are so many bridges.

The last day we had some time so we went to the university area. It is a huge college town and the university area has a lot of the older architecture. I went into a Jewish temple, it was so beautiful. Saw the Torah... and saw one of the greatest non-denominational churches. I could have sat in there all day. It had 50 foot stained glass windows with all religious pix as well as great people from history and events from history. Anyone can use that chapel. I just loved that idea, one chapel for everyone.

Here are some of the 50 foot stained glass. Beautiful huh!

These are the Torahs...
The pic below is the main study hall of the University of Pittsburgh. Isn't so beautiful! I would love to go to school in a building like that.
I really enjoy Pittsburgh and would lovef to go back one day!!!! Go Steeler's!!!

OPEN SESAME!!!!!

2009-01-29T12:47:00.004-07:00

HI-O!!! Garrick again.....
So my dad came for a visit last fall and saw the house and he really loved it, but he noticed that we still had the original 1949 garage door still attached to the house.

so he gave us an early Christmas present and purchased us a new garage door to be installed...
!THANKS DAD!

here are the old space consuming spring and levers that used to be attached

and here is the clean smooth tracks that replaced them

OHHHHHH A KEYPAD.....secret code...now stef doesn't have to wait for me to open the garage and if she has to get in it is not a friggin' nightmare.

the beautiful motor all mounted and clean

and the end product...oh it is so nice and makes the house look so put together....I never thought I would be one of those people that loved working on a house..but I AM!!! I also installed a new doorbell that day, so much fun.

SUNDANCE 2009

2009-01-28T12:08:00.006-07:00

So let's begin...first off this is Garrick writting this blog entry to tell you all about Sundance 2009. I was hired as a driver for a company named ESG to drive the celeb's around for a week and here are the people I drove, saw and met. First these three Irish actors I picked up in the morning after a night of drinking and they were hilarious!!! I actually listened to the Inaguration with them for about 10 minutes...with Liam Neeson!!! I will never forget that. Ok so here are the people I......
SAW

Here is that Kristen Stewart from "Twilight" she was tiny..smaller than my daughter.

Jim Carrey stood next to me as I waited for my person and said "HI" to the crowd..we are the same height.

Charlyne Yi from "Knocked Up" she kills me in that movie.

Kirsten Wigg from SNL fame, saw her at the airport waiting for Liam, she is tiny also.

JIM!!!! John Krasinski, I saw him giving an interview.

Can't even spell this actors name right.....Chiwetel Ejiofol....or somethng like that...

IRON MIKE TYSON...He is like 5 feet high 5 feet wide..I wish I was kidding.

50 Cent..his bodyguards stopped my car and he walked right in front of me..should have honked and scarred the crap out of him
I also saw a couple other stars..but I just can't remember their names...oh well, now onto people I...
MET

007..Pierce...incredibely nice had his wife and kids with him and said hello to me and was truely a gentleman.

I met this bunch..Tia Leon is gorgeous, Billy Bob is a hipster doofus, and I drove Kyle (Agent Cooper) around for about 15 minutes, that can segway into who I....
DROVE

Rodrigo Santoro ...!!!!!LOST!!!!!! he is Paulo killed by the Medusa Spider and buried alive!!! Also Xerxese from 300 he was so nice and so cool..he held my hand...that was ODD!

Of course Obi-Wan Kenobi ....Ewan McGregor...omg I just about lost my mind when he was in the car..he is cool as they come.

My biggest star (to me) was Mr. Liam Neeson, Qui-Gon Jinn himself...He and his wife were so nice and so cool, and I have a hilarious story about him I will tell you when we are face to face, but I knew I would have Liam in the car and so I brought this Vanity Fair Magazine and both he and Ewan signed it.....that made the trip all worth while....

It was hard work and not alot of sleep and little pay, but I believe I was meant to meet these people for the sole purpose of getting my magazine signed..it was all worth it.
May the force be with you...always.

All growed up!

2008-12-29T21:13:00.008-07:00

Well if you can believe it, Aurora has graduated from high school. Seems a little surreal, but nonetheless, she is all growed up!!!

She graduated early and for those that did graduate early they had a ceremony and they walked. So we flew down to AZ for the weekend and let the commencements begin. We got there Friday night and check in to the hotel with Gar's mom and Rog. Then we met Aurora's fam for dinner. Here she is with her boyfriend Patrick at the pizza joint.

The next day was the ceremony. It was so great, she looked beautiful! Here she is walking down.... It's a little blurry, but you can see her...

It was a great ceremony and when she walked up and they called her name, I will say that I cried. I felt so proud to see her up there and so glad to be a part of her life!

Here is Laura her mom and Marshall, Laura's boyfriend and her little brother and sister Elizabeth and Patrick. Here is us.... Good times.

Laura threw a party for her that night at a friends house. It was catered with Mexican food and we had a good time. Her mom put together a film with music and pix from her birth up till her grad. It was great, she was a cute baby. Here is Gar, his mom Deb and Aurora.

Here are the girls, Aurora and her best friends, Amy and Sara.

She is so dang beautiful, huh!!!

Well, it was so great to see your girl graduate high school and accomplish something so great!! She is a great kid and is going to go to college in the spring!!!

CONGRATULATIONS BUBBA!

WE LOVE YOU!!!

Tis the season to be Mary...

2008-12-27T10:58:00.038-07:00

We had the best Christmas, would have been complete with Nat there, but we made due. MISSED YOU NAT! We have started a great tradition for Christmas eve. Last year it was just me and Gar and Ang's family. So on Christmas eve, we decided to go to a movie and then for pizza at the Pie. This year we did it again. All of Beck's family, all of Ang's family, me & Gar, and Lynette and Mads. It was a blast. We went to see Bolt and found out it was in 3D. The kids totally loved it. Here is Beck, Gav and Benjamin waiting for the movie to start.

Here is Eden, Issac, Abe, and Everest. They were diggin the glasses. Lynette brought a ton of candy for the kids and the loved it.

These to are best friends Rio and Mads, I just told them I was going to take a picture of them and they both did this face... Not sure what they are doing. But they are SOOOO freaking cute, in the middle of the movie, they came and sat with Gar and I, too cute. Mads would laugh and snort, she is so crazy!

Nette, Ang and Kirk kicking it before the movie. All the kiddies sat all together and were so great during the movie, made it so nice to watch the movie.

Jacob and Adam... they are too cool. Some good looking boys!!

After the movie we headed to the Pie, they kids were so excited, but Benjamin kept saying I hate pie, so Beck just told him we were going to the Pizza Restaurant. Here is all of us and the food!!

While us adults were talking the kids kept running back and forth getting straws. Eden had 9 and i'm not sure how many Rio had. Here is a pic of her trying to drink out of all of them...
Here is a close up of Rio that girl is so funny!

Christmas Eve was so great. I love that tradition and hope we can do it every year!! Here are our Christmas decor... Every year we get a new piece of decor, this year is our star for the tree upstairs. I didn't get a very good picture of it, but it is super cute.

Here is Gar's tree downstairs with all of the "fun" ornaments. His Star War's one, Superman, Spiderman, Darth Vader... They are all there. It is a really cute tree, I'm glad Gar came up with the idea for his tree!
If you look closely at the pic below, you can see Gar's little Star Ward guys dressed up for the holidays. He found these toys at Target and we had to get them, they are so fun Darth Vader is holding a candy cane, hahaha!! Christmas morning was so wonderful!! We woke up at 8am, well, actually I woke up at 6:30 and tried to sleep until 8am, so I woke Gar up at 8 and we made coffee and baileys and had cinnamon rolls and opened gifts. Here are our stockings.
Having Toby is like having a real kid. He freaked out when we brought out his stocking and would not calm down until Gar got the packaging off the toys. He was so happy to find out that we got him a new squirlly and a new kong. His last squirlly died, so we got him a new one. It took him no time to chew the ears and tail off this on too.
We had a wonderful Christmas, together we got a blue ray player, The Dark Knight on Blue Ray, Gar got some cologne and his XBox World at War game, I got new running shoes and a fridge for my office, Nat got me this sweet frame for me to put all of my all of my corks in.

We had a wonderful Christmas. Spending so much time with each other, with my family and with Gar's family, I love it so much. I got to talk to my dad from Afghanistan and that was great. I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday!

A turkey for me and a turkey for you... (yes, this post is a little late)

2008-12-22T14:40:00.008-07:00

I'd thought I'd get thanks giving posted before next thanksgiving.... We went to Cali this year to spend the holiday with Gar's family. We had a blast. We left after work a couple of days before T-day and drove until we hit Reno. I got us a room there and we kicked it for the night. Reno is not the greatest! Here is the hotel, rental car, gas station we fill up at, and the Mc D's we ate at before we finished our drive into Chico.

We picked up Aurora at the Sacramento Airport and headed to Deb & Rog's. We had so much fun. For the big day, Gar's bro's Tom and Jesse and their wives came up and spent the day. It was so great. Deb cooked the best food and I managed to ruin the pumpkin cheesecake... So good thing Jesse brought the pumpkin pie.
Deb and Rog have 2 dogs, a big one named Marty and a little guy named Zoey. The little ones took a while to get along but then all they did was play. It was so freaking cute. Marty really wanted to play, but Toby would not have it. He had to be the boss and after Marty jumped Toby for taking his bone, Toby wanted nothing to do with him. I was a pretty crazy altercation between the big one and Toby, scared the pee right out of Toby, literally!!! Sad/Funny!

Jesse and Jamie had a little baby last September and this was our first time meeting here. She is so adorable and not afraid of the dogs at all.
This is Aurora and Brooklyn. The 2 grand kids and only 16 years apart. It was so great to have us all there.
Bubba and Rog kicking it on the couch... This is Gar's step dad, a great guy! Quiet, but will say the funniest things that will make you laugh out loud!

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we drove down from Chico to Roseville where Tom and Jesse live and we went bowling and played video games. It was a blast. Here is the whole gang.

From left to right:
Tom, Garr, me, Brooklyn, Lindsay (Tom's wife), Aurora, Jamie (Jesse's wife), Jesse, Deb and Rog.

Here is bubba teaching Brooklyn how to play Skee-Ball. She was loving it. We got so many tickets from all of us playing the games. Jesse and Aurora got the jackpot on a couple of games.
Here is Jesse and Jamie playing the basketball game. They totally kicked mine and Gar's score.

Brooklyn love the bowling. Deb would bring her up to play. She thought is was the best thing.

Just so freaking cute!!

We had a great trip and loved seeing the fam. It had been 2 years since we had seen then... Too long. We didn't get any speeding tickets, so that was GREAT!!!

Trips, Visits, and Family

2008-12-04T19:10:00.018-07:00

I have so much to blog about, I better get bloggin... Trips, family, thanksgiving what to start with...

I will start with Garrick's dad's visit. They live in Waikiki and we don't see them to often. We went out to Hawaii last year and it was a blast. This year Ed and Eileen decided to make a trip to the mainland. We had a blast! Hit a couple of the local bars that we go to when Ed is here. Here is the whole gang.

From left to right: Eileen (Gar's step mom), Stephanie (Gar's step sister), Jodie, Quinn, Ed, Gar and Me. They were here during the election so we had a little party at our house. To see who would win.

Then Gar showed his dad his motorcycle. Ed had one when he was younger, and now has a sweet scooter, the big scooters, not the little guys... So Ed took ride down the street.

He looks pretty sweet on it!

Ed, Eileen, Quinn and Kira (half-sister) went to Mexico earlier this year and took some pix of Ed and Quinn in the Mexican wrestling masks. Gar's dad had him draw the picture of Ed and Quinn, so he drew it and they gave it to Quinn as a surprise.

Here Gar in that Mexican mask... HAHAHA!

It was just great to hang out all of them. The last time we saw Stephanie was at our wedding. She lives in Ohio, i think. This is Stephanie, Quinn and Ed at Qu's place.

Pix are so much more fun then me rambling on... so here are a few more pix during Ed's visit... This one was taken at Ed' good friends house, it had been years since they had seen each other... good times!

One more of Gar and Qu.

Hopefully next time we see Ed and Eileen, it ill be in Hawaii!!!

Halloween 08

2008-11-11T20:20:00.011-07:00

Halloween is always so much fun for me and Gar. We usually carve pumpkins just me and him, but his year his friend from work put together a carving party. It was so much fun. But a lot of pressure to come up with a cool idea for your pumpkin. We had a blast. This is not the greatest picture, but the pumpkins were fun and creative! I love carving pumpkin's, only HATE cleaning them. So some girl that I had just met that night cleaned mine out. It was sweet! I didn't have to get all dirty and my pumpkin was pretty cool!
So we love coming up with our costumes. We try and stick with a couple theme... one year we were both barbarians or the next year I was a man, he was a woman, then sexy Harry Potter and Herminie... This year we decided that we were going to be the beer garden couple but couldn't find the literhosen for Gar, so we came up with Pebbles and BamBam. It was PREFECT if i do say so myself.

We found mine to buy, but couldn't find a BamBam, so I made it. It turned out pretty cute! We went to a party and our friend dressed up as Fred Flinstone. It was so great. Here are the 3 of us.

Gar and Dave G kicking it at the party. Gar was sick so we just handed out candy and made an appearance at the party and then crashed.

Here they are, Pebbles and BamBam... We are so freaking cute! And I really am happy how good Gar's costume looked. I made it all by hand. No machine... Pretty good!

I think the most fun of our Halloween is dressing up the kids... Our kid, Toby is so great. I think he is getting used to us dressing him up. The 1st year, he was Darth Vader, then Spiderman... This year... was he a bird... a plane... NO he was SUPERMAN! And I he loved it. He totally kicked it all night in it. It was so freaking cute!

We had to have a photo session. He is the best little model. Just sits there. I took about a hundred pictures. Love that guy!

We are family, I got all my sistah's with me.

2008-10-28T18:46:00.008-07:00

I thought I'd post again soon so you won't have to see the sick animal again...

My dad is in Afghanistan for about an year or so. He left in May and got to come home for his leave and he got to spend some time with us girls. It was so nice. Nat flew in to hang out. Now all you faithful readers out there know that I am complete slacker and don't take the best pictures... Well, this visit with my dad and Nat was no exception. AND to make it better, there are no pix of me or Gar. LAME!!! But there are some great pix of the fam.

I am not in these pix because I was at rehearsal this morning. LAME again. They all got together for Benjamen's birthday breakfast and Jacob's football game. Hence the t-shirts Beck and Nat are wearing.

I did get to hang out quite a bit and love seeing the kiddies. This is Benjamin swinging in the back yard, and came up to me so I could snap a shot of the face. Could he be any cuter? I don't think so!

These two are so freaking cute. And they are buddies. They were chowing down on some fruit and kept having me and Nat take pictures of them... Posers! I have no idea where they get that from...

Over all it was so great to visit with my dad. It is so crazy that he is over there in the midst of all the horrible things that are going on. But I'm so glad he is safe and it able to help out over there.

I feel that I need to pay a tribute to a great friend of Garrick's and mine. He passed away unexpectedly the same time my dad was here and his birthday is on Halloween so i've just been thinking about him. Christian Adams was such a good man and a great friend to us. I worked with him at the hotel and we became instant BFF's. He would call Garrick his "Boo" every time he would see him. When Garrick got his braces on, he said he wanted his smile to look like Chirstians. And, he is the reason we have Toby. When Christian and his wife were pregnant with their first, they could not handle 2 dogs, so Christian gave Toby to us, we could not be more happy to have Toby in lives. He was a good man and he and his million dollar smile will be deeply missed.

Animal House...

2008-10-21T19:11:00.006-07:00

Warning, the pix below may make you sick to your stomach... be advised!

Ok, so I might be a little dramatic about this, but I do think it calls for all the drama I gave it.

The animal in the pictures, noted as exhibit a and exhibit b, was found wandering around in our basement... WTF! I was pulling out the treadmill to run and out of the corner of my eye, see it crawling on the floor. Mind you the lights were off, so it was a little dark and I could still see it trying to make our basement it's home...

This is making me all itchy just thinking about it!

So, if you know me at all, I don't do bugs, insects, spiders, roley polies, lady bugs, butterflies, bees, OR ANY TYPE OF BUG/INSECT... you get the point. Well, I couldn't bring myself to kill it, so I got the heaviest glass to put over it. Now, I say the heaviest because the thing was so huge it probably could have pushed any ordinary glass over and come charging for me.

So there it sat in the glass trying to climb up it and push it over while I ran on the treadmill. I swear it moved the glass a couple of inches towards me before it gave up... Gar got home and he wouldn't kill it. (It's so big the only thing that would kill it would be a shotgun...) So he took it outside to release it back into the wild. I told him to do it far from the house, so he put it in the middle of the street... AND it started crawling back to the house... so Gar kicked it further away and it wandered of in the other direction.

To say the least.... I'm happy the animal is gone!!!

Exhibit a

Exhibit b

The Romantic St. George Anniversary Getaway

2008-10-15T19:04:00.011-07:00

So I will have to preface this St. Greoge trip... In April, I was on a committee for an event called the Chinese Auction. It ended up I was not able to actually attend the auction, so Gar went in my place. I was able to make it to the last 20 minutes so I called Gar to have him save me a seat and he said... "Bring the other visa card". Now mind you this is an auction where people drop a fair amount of money on item and then the money goes to charity.

To make a long story short, (too late), he ended up wining a bid for a weekend getaway for 2 to St. George, hotel and 2 tickets to see Les Miz at Tuachan. It was a good purchase and the money went to charity.

This summer was Stefanie and Garricks summer of fun. We went on many trips and most of them with just the 2 of us, which was so great!! It was so beautiful in St. George, perfect weather. We laid out by the pool went to dinner and just hung out with each other, we have a blast together!

Being the 90 year old I am with NO memory, I don't remember things that well and I didn't take many photos and we only have photos of the show...DUH. But none the less, we have footage... If you have not been to Tauchan, you must go. It is a terrific venue and they put on great shows. This was Gar's first time and I have only been there once. We had the "Chuck Wagon" dinner and headed to see the show, Gar had not see Les Miz on stage before. The fountain above is when you drive in to the venue. Fun huh.

This is Gar and I the "lobby" the stage is set behind and blow us. The weather was great. We were worried, because a couple of hours before the show, there was a huge thunder and rain storm. Tuachan is an out door theater and I was freaking out a little, but we lucked out and on our drive there it stopped raining. It was perfect cause it cooled the night off!

This is the stage. It is pretty sweet. We had great seats, 10th row middle! During the show, Fantines mic cut out and she sang "I dreamed a dream" with out a mic and the girl rocked it! I'm sure the people in the back row could hear her, she has such a great voice. I pretty much cried though the whole show as I always do.
Well, we had a wonderful weekend and loved the show. Here we are... good times...

NEWS FLASH... I'M BLOGGING AGAIN!

2008-10-14T18:18:00.013-07:00

So i'm going to start with a family blog. My nephew Adam a couple of weeks ago told my sister, Beck, that he really wanted to have a family dinner at Stef & Garricks... He bugged her about it for about a week, SO cute, I love that they love to come over and hang out, anyway, we finally set a date for Beck & Ang's fam to come hangout. That day Gar and I bought guitar hero and had the kiddies show us... This is Ang claiming she knows how to rock out! She showed me up that day, but boy, I would totally kick her but now!

Beck was pretty dang good at it... She's not concentrating as has as Ang or I was.....

Now the kids all totally showed us up. They are good. Jacob can do all the songs on expert level... I was so surprised at how good they were. And could Jacob look any bigger?

Could anyone be concentrating anymore than this kid here.... The crazy thing is he was playing a song on expert level.... It was so freaking hilarious to watch. I love him.... He is always SO laid back that I didn't think he would be into this game, but he is good!

It's fun when the kiddies come over, Gar gets to break out all of his toys. They kids LOVE it, (and Kirk loves it too).

Gar found Rio playing with some toys too.... Well, they are Toby's toy, but she was enjoying them. Could these kids be any cuter??? I don't think so!

Now this picture is really just for me and Gar. This is Brooklyn, our niece from the other side. Gar's brother Jesse, this is his little girl. Look at that face. Gar and I were on their web page and could not stop laughing at this picture, she is just TOOOO dang cute. We will finally get to meet her his Thanksgiving, she will be a year... She is so freaking cute!

my work VEGAS trip

2008-09-09T16:56:00.006-07:00

Well my work trip to Vegas was a BLAST. It was for MPI member (meeting planner international) and they wined and dined us. It was so great! The opening reception they had was at Ceasers Palace, they said it was a $2 million to put it on. It was just so amazing to attend something like that, to be wined and dined. And the best part of the convention, besides all the networking and classes, was of course the FREE drinks. In the meeting planning and hospitality industry, you do most everything over drinks, so all week the drinks were free. You can't beat that. It was all at the Mandalay Bay, with the exception of 1 or 2 events.

I had never been to the Mandalay Bay, it is HUGE... The pic below is the view from my room. The "beach" and all the pools. It was GREAT. The House of Blues is at that hotel and they had a party there for us with an 80's band that played all night long and OF COURSE free drinks. I seriously had so much fun! Everyone is so out going ( you have to be in our industry) and we all just partied it up.

After days at the tradeshow and some classes, they had the closing night reception, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, STYX was the entertainment. The closing reception was at the "beach" they closed the whole pool for our party, the convention attendance was 5,000 people, the biggest yet and it was packed. These beauties were there to greet us at the gate to the closing reception... Ummm, crazy! The one in the middle is my co-worker Blake. We were both 1st timers to the convention, we had the best time! His goal was to see how many ribbons he could attach to his badge, I think by the end of the night he had like 15 of them it was great.

Then the party started and the band played. I was front and center to rock out to STYX. They rocked it like it was 1980! The hair, clothes and all!

I new most of the song and jammed out and danced the whole time. I was able to catch a guitar pick for Gar and a bag they were throwing out. It was great, I did have to fight a big girl for the pick, was it was worth it! Gar used the STYX pick at his gig! The biggest hit hey played was "Come Sail Away", LOVE that song!

These are my Hilton girls. We all worked together when I was at the Hilton. It was a blast to be there all together, we went and bought matching rocker Vegas tanks and wore them to the reception, it was a hit!

I do loves me some Vegas and had my fill of it this summer. I didn't win big when i was there, i lost $40.00 in about 2 seconds on the craps table, but that's the fun of Vegas!!!

Brian Regan and 88M.P.H.

2008-08-27T20:32:00.005-07:00

I have been so behind, once again... So for Gar's birthday, his dad got us tickets to see Brian Regan. We went last year and LOVED it and were so excited to go this year. It was such a great time. Last year we sat so far away, so this year we were there early.

It's at Thanksgiving Point at their waterfall theater and you sit on the ground on blankets, it is so great. We got sweet seats and had a blast.

We were wondering if he was going to do all his old material, but he did mostly all new stuff, which was fun for me and Gar cause we are big fans and know all is old material. If you haven't heard any of his stuff, download it. His comedy is so funny and clean. Gar and I think that's why he comes back to Utah, he sells out here. So check him out, we are fans!!

Aren't we just to cute for words? This is us before the show started.

Gar and his band had a gig a couple of weeks ago at this fun little bar, the Woodshed, there was a private birthday party that was 80's themed so the band dressed up in the costumes and rocked out. As you can see, Gar is in a karate gee, he is dressed up at the head of the Cobra Kai in the Karate Kid... Bryan, the guy on our left (gar's right) is Marty McFly... The other, I didn't get the greatest pix of... but one is Freddy Kruger, Mario from Mario brothers, and their keyboardist is Asian so he is the Asian side kick for Indian Jones from the Temple of Doom.

They are a really good band and play some sweet tunes! Rock on 88 M.P.H.

We'll if you can't tell from the count down clock on the right, it's my birthday and Gar has the night off. I know HOLY CRAP, Gar has a night off, he's taking me to dinner and a movie and then Friday, were off to St. George for a sweet weekend together and to see Les Miz. Gar got me this trip for our anniversary... So i'll blog more next week about that trip, my trip to Vegas for work and finally the San Diego Comic Con...

3 years and counting...

2008-08-20T07:42:00.007-07:00

Today is Gar's and my 3 year wedding anniversary. I am so happy to be married to this man. I was looking through some old emails and found this one... Gar sent it 3 years ago this morning before he headed off to the church to marry me...

It is here!!!!!

August 20th, 2005 a day that will go down in infamy!!!

Stefanie Omer has agreed to be my wife....and I can't even believe it.I love you all, and thank you for all your support and kindness, thank you all for for love and help.

There are somethings that I thought I would never have in this life...a college education, a perfect smile, a beautiful wife...but I have been truley blessed, and I appreciate it all.

Again Thank You all, Stef and I could have never had this wonderful experience

without all of your help.

I love you

We love you, Thank You

Garrick Omer...I am taking her last name.

I still couldn't be happier that we are together! I love you Garrick!

Come Sail Away...

2008-08-09T08:13:00.004-07:00

So I'm off to the city of sin once again. But for work this time. I'm leaving for Vegas today to go to a convention for work. I'm a excited because a ton of work cohorts will be there and it may just cause for some trouble. I get back Wednesday night...

I am super excited not only to party it up, but the closing reception for the convention is going to be a huge bash and the 80's band Styx will be playing. I couldn't be more excited! I will be sure to share all the fun and pix upon my return. This just may be... "The best of times"! (Um, that's a Styx song if your lame and didn't know...)

A/C and Aurora

2008-08-08T18:55:00.004-07:00

Well, the swamp cooler last summer was a trial and this summer, we didn't want to hope that it would maybe blow cool air. So we decided to make the move and invest in central air. Best home decision we have ever made! There she is...

It has been heaven sent to come home to a cool dry home. We found a great guy through a friend of a friend and he hooked us up and he was fast, took it out one morning and installed everything on a Saturday. We had to get a new furnace since ours was the first furnace ever made. It was literally the one that was put in when the house was built in 1949. So with the new furnace and a/c, we could not be happier... and cooler!

Well, it was a short visit with Aurora this time, unfortunately. We love having her up and it seems the older she gets the harder it is to have her stay up here for a long time... With school, work, travel, friends. So we take what we can get. She was up here for a week and a half. The pic below is up emigration canyon where we all used to go sledding in the winter. Is she not so grown up and beautiful!

This is us at Red Iguana. Good mexi food. Aurora is 17, we can't even believe it. She will graduate next year. Time flies.

We didn't get to Lagoon or Raggin' Waters this time, she was happy to spend the money at the outlets up in Park City. Girl is smart, i would take shopping over a water park any day. We will see her again for Thanksgiving, so we are looking forward to that! Isn't it crazy how much they look a like...

Viva Las Vegas Baby!

2008-07-31T10:32:00.001-07:00

We headed down to Vegas about 3 weeks ago for 2 of our friends that were turning 30. It was a blast to say the least. Gar and I drove down with our 2 friends Scott and T-bone, road trips are always so much fun until Gar gets pulled over for speeding. Lets just say, we will fly from now on!

Anyway, we had the best weekend. The drive down was SMF and we did stop in to St. George and ate at In-N-Out! It was SOOOOOO GOOD! That's Scott by me and T-Bone by Gar.

I got Gar and I rooms at the Planet Hollywood Casino and Hotel with my Sheraton employee rate and it was perfect! It is right in the middle of the strip and it is a pretty hip hotel. All the rooms have a theme from a movie with memorabilia. Our room was the Dead Poet Society room. This is our room. Fun huh!

This is the bathroom, look at that huge tub! I didn't have time to soak in it, but our when our friends came to see the room, they jumped in, it was funny!

So the first night was the party at the Hawaiian Tropics Zone to celebrate the birthdays. That was right in our hotel, worked our perfectly! This is half the gang. Gar and I have a couple of groups of friends and 2 of the groups were down in Vegas, my old work friends from the big H and then our theater friends. The pic below is our theater group. They can get pretty crazy!

BUT, the great thing was, sitting right next to us was none other that one of my many famous boyfriends... former Jazz player Bryan Russell. I was so happy. So my friend Chris went up to him and told him that I call him my boyfriend and asked if i could get my pic with him... So great!

So we partied it up pretty good the first night. The second night, we decided to hit a Cirque du Soleil show. So we walked to the New York New York and bought tickets to Zumanity. This is the gang that went with us. From left to right... Scott (don't know why he's standing like that), Gar, Me, Chase, Aaron and Seth. Gar calls them the gay Mafia, hahaha!

This is us in front of the theater. The theater was so pretty!

These pics are small, but, before the show the actors walked around and you could get you pic with them. They were some of the most good looking people with the most amazing bodies I have ever seen. And they could do some amazing tricks. This woman was SOOO tall!

Here is the gay Mafia with a hottie... Those muscles are real. CRAZY!

This guy was SOOO creepy. He would walk around and growl at you... Those muscles are real too. See what i'm say... amazing! But he was way to creepy.

It was a fun trip, Vegas took all our money, but the gambling was so much fun! Gar and I are addicted to craps! I love that game. Gar gets so into it, it is great to watch him! and I love to roll the dice!

Not sure what i'm doing in this pic, but those drinks we had are HUGE i love them! Good times!

2008-07-29T11:15:00.003-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU BABE

!!35!!

I LOVE YOU

Theater & Family... catch up time!

2008-07-28T19:52:00.008-07:00

Wow, what a MAJOR slacker I have a been. Sooooo much has been going on and I have not blogged about any of it... I'll start with about a month ago...

My good friend Erica works for the D news as a theater critic among other things and she was sent do to Tuachan to review the summer line up... Sound of Music and Les Mis. Tuachan is such an amazing theater. It is in Ivans Ut and set right in the red rocks... It was cool cause in the beginning of the Sound of Music, Maria was actually in the mountains singing, and then came down to the stage. I thought that was pretty cool! the rest of that show was OK, but I really like Les Mis. Gar got me tickets to it for my birthday and I can't wait to see it again! Erica and I had a blast. As you can tell from the picture below... I were out at the pool ALL DAY LONG on Saturday before Les Mis and I got a little too much sun.
You think after 30 years I'd learn that I just don't do the sun very well... But, it was fun and we had a blast! If you have the chance, you should get to a show down there. It is a really cool experience!

What next... Well my sister Ang got into running a few years ago and this year she ran the Wasatch Back relay. Yes, she is the crazy sister. Gar and I watched the kiddies over night while Kirk helped out and Ang ran. It is always fun watching the kids over night. I don't know how families do it with more than one kid...

We got pizza and watched the Bee movie which is really cute. They always have fun kicking it downstairs.

Then we went out to the fire pit and roasted mallows and ate smores. It was a blast.

We just sat around the fire and chatted, telling embarrassing stories and just hanging out. It was fun! Those kids are too cute!

Then we got the blow up mattresses and got the sleepover going. E always sleeps on the couch and the others get the blow up mattresses. They love it! We let them watch cartoons while the lay there. Toby loves it too, he usually cuddles up with them. Rio only woke up once during the night because she was falling off the mattress. Gar has to wake me up because I'm so deaf that i can't hear them calling me. SAD for me and my 90 year old hearing!
Then we had a dinner at Ang's... it was so long ago, I can't remember if it was a birthday or just the usual Sunday dinner... Anyway... we all got together and Net and Joe brought over their bounce house. It was so dang cute. The little ones loved it. The bigger kids wanted to jump too, and the bounce house wasn't having it.
Then uncle carnival ride AKA Gar always plays with the kids and they LOVE it. They can be as rough as they want, Gar's pretty tough. This is Gar putting Abe and Adam in a head lock. They know when to tap out. It's so funny! Even the little ones wrestle with him. He is the best uncle to let them tackle him!
The funniest was Gar putting Beck and Ang in the head lock. It was hilarious! Beck always thinks she can take a man down if needed, but whenever she fights with Gar, she realizes... maybe not.
So apparently, Joey took our camera when we set it down... So I'm posting this sweet pic! That's what you get Jome!!!!
WOW, there have been so much going on and I still forget to take pix. I bring the camera, but forget to use it... The pic below is at Abe's and Isaac's baptism dinner. It was a fun day. I just really can't get enough of the kids! God love em'!
OK - so up to come is Aurora's visit, again not a lot of pix cause I'm a space case in my old age, Vegas and the San Diego Comic Com... Stayed tuned for more Good times!!!

TECHNO-TARD

2008-07-16T10:18:00.002-07:00

So I like to think that I am pretty good with technology... Not a genius or anything, but I can work my way around a computer... Well I was fixing something on my dashboard here on blogger and deleted my entire link list. DUMB! I will re add everyone, but wow, how dumb can you be!?

And Gar and I have been up to a ton, so I will blog and update everyone!

!BREAK A LEG!

2008-06-12T08:04:00.004-07:00

Tonight Gar's show "Indiana Bones" opens!

I went to the preview last night with the kiddies and it is going to be a fun show! The kids really loved it and they got to sing happy Birthday to Abe.

It runs until mid August so go see it! Break a leg honey!!

PS: Happy Birthday Abe - He's 8 today!

TOYS AND FIRE

2008-06-02T17:56:00.004-07:00

When we bought out house last year, we didn't have all the necessities for maintaining our new house... We needed a lawn mower, when we moved in last June, the yard was a JUNGLE. So, the amazing friends and family that we came to our rescue and Lynette's parents, Steve and BonBon, had just bought a new mower and were so great to give us their old one. See below pic... It was on its last leg when we got it, but none the less, it was free (free being key word here) and in working order. So we jumped on that and had a lawn mower.

It lasted us all last summer and the first month of this summer and then we decided to put it to bed and purchase a new one. THANKS YOU Steve and BonBon for being SO kind and giving us new homeowners a much needed helping hand. It was great to not have to worry about spending $$ on one last year.

So a couple of weeks ago we went to Lowe's and bought us a new, shiny, RED, lawn mower... It was so much fun to get it out of the box and to watch Gar put it together. It was so shiny and pretty, I really couldn't believe how excited i was to get a new lawn mower...There she is... new and shiny and RED! I mow the lawn and Gar does everything else. I love mowing it now with our self propelled mower. It is hardly any work at all now!

Our next project for the yard we decided was to put in a fire pit. We went to a friends house a while back and they had one, it was fun to sit around and chat it up and have some drinks around the fire without the hassle of camping. So we thought we would put one in our yard. We had the perfect spot in the backyard to put it. So here is the before pic...

Gar had to pull all the weeds and bushes that were there and then he leveled it. Then we got started on putting it together. It was nice because with the changes we had made in the front yard with the new planter and walk way, we had some leftover brick and spacers that we used for the pit.
Here is the finish product! Isn't it so great! We have put our camping chairs out there and it is so great to sit out and chat. Gar is so good at this kinda crap. I love the red rock and white rock, makes it look so good!

The pic below is just a pic of the backyard while we were putting in the fire pit. Gar has done such an amazing job of making it look so nice and getting the grass so green. Now all we need is a hammock and a BBQ and were set!

The Dogs name was Indiana...

2008-06-02T17:26:00.006-07:00

It's a good thing that my husband is a nerd! The night Indiana Jones premiered, the D-Star had Gar dress up as "Indiana Bones" and go to Jordan Landing movie theater and hand out flyer's for the show... I say it's a good thing he's a nerd because, there was a radio station asking questions about Indian Jones and kids would ask Gar for the answers because they really thought he was Indiana Jones. They would even get their pictures taken with him, good times!

So last week was the season finale of LOST and we are huge LOST fans, so we threw a party. It was really all Gar's doing. He made this great invite for the Oceanic 815, and then we made all of our party snacks look like the food that DHARMA had on the island. It was a blast!

Before the show started, we had everyone talk about their theories of LOST, I know, total nerd convention right in my basement... but we had fun. Gar had some questions and if you answered right, you got a prize. Nettie won the Jack action figure, they were good prizes!

It was a good time and the season finale left more questions than answers, of course! We can't wait until the season premiere party!

Catching Up

2008-05-20T18:48:00.010-07:00

My show is almost done and I can't wait, i'm counting down the hours, I just can't wait to be done and have so much time for me and Gar and our house! Oh, yeah, and workig out with Lynette! So I am finishing my show, but Gar is starting his. He got cast in the new DesertStar Playhouse show, "Indiana Bones". He is Indiana Bones. That show starts on June 7th and runs until mid -August. So go check him out.

SURVIVOR

We had a little get together at our place in honor of my new job, Gar threw a little party for me, what a nice guy... Well so one brought some of there friends and it turns out that one of the friends was last years winner of Survivor: China. Here he is on the show.... And this is us at out house. It is me and my friend Scott and Todd the winner... It was crazy meeting him. I was wondering why he was so tan and skinny! That was the highlight of the party. The millionaire at out house!
RACE FOR THE CURE

This year Gar and his work did the 5k Race for the Cure. We didn't sign up in enough time to have me do it, but that was a good thing, have not been running and the 5k would have killed me. It is a for a great cause and Gar love to do it. He did a great job, 26 minutes. We have not been to the gym in a while so 26 minutes was great.
GO BEE'S

The weekend that the Jazz playoffs were here, Gar's work gave him the suite for the Bee's. So we got to hang out and watch a little baseball. It is always fun watching a ball game. We were the only one's in the box so that was nice.
And i must say that i am happy with the turn out of American Idol. I do love little David, but i'm so glad that David Cook won! Now on to So You Think You Can Dance!

Landscaping

2008-05-13T20:04:00.006-07:00

With spring here, kind of, we are starting to do our yard and make it look presentable. Gar has it all mapped out in his head which is good, because all I do is mow the lawn. We have a ton of plans and are starting with the front yard. Next to the garage, we had this weird tree, it was growing sideways and just not that pretty of a tree.

So about a week ago, i went to the theater to do my show, and when I got back, the sideways tree was gone. It look SO much better! We are not sure what we are going to do with that space, maybe use if for more parking space, who knows. But it looks so much better already!

So with that started we marked off the front yard with what we (and by we I mean Gar), wanted to do. We wanted to rip out those ugly dead bush things, make them square planters and re-do that little walk way with pretty stones and make it NOT ghetto!Then Gar ripped everything up. The pic below is it ready to start from scratch. It is really crazy, the process it takes to re landscape your yard, and how Gar knows what to do, I will never know. He just knows.
First he did the walk way and it makes the biggest difference. I love it. This pic is RIGHT after he did it. I need to take a new pic of this with the grass trimmed and it all cleaned off. But isn't the stone pretty. It matches our brick on the house perfectly! So with that done, he started the planters.
Again, last Saturday, I went and did my show and came back to this....
He was DONE, I was So happy, and it looks so great. The pic above is before the lawn was mowed and trimmed and it still looks so beautiful! What a difference! I may plant some flower in there, but I'm thinking i will just leave it with just the bushes. It looks so nice and clean and I love the squares! The next project is to make the sides of the front porch in to planters. That will be a HUGE job, but it will look amazing!

Then Gar trimmed up the crazy tree we have in the back yard. I was growing pretty crazy and he is amazing and make it look presentable. You should have seen it, he was literally on top of the tree cutting and shaping it. It was great, we did end up making a bird really mad because Gar cut the branch that her nest was on, but we put it back in the tree so she can be happy again!

I can't wait to get a fence built on this side of the house. I'm not a fan of chain link, and this is the only part of the fence that is chain link, so it will be nice to one day put in wood fence to match and for more privacy! But the tree looks so much better!

While we are outside working, Toby is right there watching us through the fence. Gar got this pic and it is too cute.

I really don't think this dog could be any cuter! He has a TON of toys and like to get them all out and play with them all. If we get him a stuffed animal, he will usually chew it apart and we have to end up throwing it away because all the stuffing is coming out. Well, he has this one we call squirrelly. We got it for him 2 Christmas's ago and the first thing he did was chew the ears and tail off. But that was all he did to it. And he still has it. It is his favorite toy. He plays with it the most and it is funny, because if we are downstairs and ask him where squirrelly is, he will go upstairs and get him. It is so funny. It's Toby's little woobie.

Well the other night, we were going to bed and saw this... He was laying on the bed cuddling with squirrelly. He has done it a couple of times and this time we were able to get a pix. I love him, he is TOO cute!

The Adventures of Super Toby!!

2008-05-06T20:17:00.003-07:00

So..I don't blog on this page much..but when I do it is good! I have a program that can turn pictures into comic pages (of course I do) and so I made this one of Toby.

A new place of emplyment

2008-05-06T09:38:00.003-07:00

Most of you readers out there (all 7 of you), know that I got a new job.

If you didn't know, I recently was asked by the Sheraton to come and interview. They offered me a great package that I couldn't say no to, so I took it and ran. I gave my resignation letter to the Hilton and was off to start a new career at the Sheraton, all this after a long 7 years at the Hilton. I am done, i have cut the cord. It was a strange feeling to leave, a few tear shed, but it was a much needed change that had to happen for my career to further itself.

I have officially been at the Sheraton for a week now and I am loving it. I haven't received my first paycheck yet, but I am really exited to get it and start paying of those damn bills.

So that is what has been going on. It was not planned, but in Gar's and my life, when it is supposed to happen, it just does and it happens fast.

Arizona here we come... (or there we went)

2008-04-24T18:18:00.015-07:00

BUSY TIMES....

First: could The Office be any funnier, B: Grey's is back, and Forth: could LOST get any crazier???

Ok - Back to the subject at hand....

We took of first trip of the year to Arizona to hang out with Aurora for her 17th birthday. That's right, Gar and I have a 17 year old daughter... CRAZY huh!!! We decided that we would drive down and make it a fun road trip. I had a free night's stay at the Red Cliff's Lodge in Moab so on Wednesday, we drove down to Moab and got to our room. That is a great hotel. We went for a little hike at dinner by the river and sat in the hot tub. It was a great way to start out our first vaca of the year.

These pix are on our hike. This little canyon is where they filmed that Mission Impossible was filmed and hottie/crazy Tom Cruise was rock climbing, so that was pretty sweet.

There is my HOTTIE, he kick Toms' a$$ any day!

The pic above is the view from our room, you could walk down right to the river from the rooms, it was so beautiful there. Moab is one of my favorite places. And going there this time, i didn't get in trouble with my HR.

Then it was off the PX, well actually Scottsdale, that's where we stayed. We had a blast with Aurora and her boyfriend and her other friends. We went to Dave&Busters, a really fun arcade place that it not in UTAH, of course... This pic below is all the kids playing Skee Ball, I am addicted to that game.This is, from left to right, Amy, Patrick and Bubba playing a car racing game.I love the boxing game. My arms get SOOOO tired, Gar got a pic of me, but is was not that flattering, so here is one of him playing it. Then on Saturday night, Auroras mom, Laura planned a murder mystery dinner party that was set in the 30's. It was a blast. Everyone dressed up. Here is Aurora and Patrick all dressed up.
This was all the women. Aurora and I got out of the costumes as fast as we could so we are in the back. The 2 girls in the maid outfits are Bubbas good friends, Amy and Sara. Their job was to serve us. They were such good sports.
This is the MEN! Gar had an ascot on, but it is not in this pic... It was a good time.
We were so sad to go and leave bubba, but we had a great trip, the weather was perfect and we go to spend some quality time with bubba!

The driving was ASWESOME! I think this was the first road trip where i didn't fall asleep. We took our time and went the scenic routes and it was a blast. This pic is us at the Glen Canyon Dam. I am SO in love with this pic. Aren't we so dang cute? So that is our trip in nutshell, a tiny nutshell. I will have to post later about the new job!!

NKOTB

2008-04-08T08:24:00.009-07:00

Gar is going to laugh that I'm actually doing a post on this... But it needs to be done.

If there are true fans out there, then you know who these boys in the picture below are - They are my first love, the ultimate boy band - Yes, New Kids on the Block. You can remember such sweet hits as... "Please don't go girl", "Hangin' Tough", and "Step by Step", just to name a few.

Hello and Welcome Back Boys...

Joey, Jordan, Jonathan, Donny, and Danny

(poor Danny, still not that cute)

The rumors are true, they are releasing a new album and going on a tour... I just don't believe it. I was at their concert in Germany and almost lost my life (literally, not even kidding about that, Ireally almost died, strangled to death by a rope and a 700,000 mad 15 year old German girls)...

I could go on and on about the memories of NKOTB, but I will spare you readers... Anyway, you can bet that I will have their new album and be the first in line, along with my sisters, to get a ticket to their concert if they come anywhere close to SLC.

crazy grass and boy bands...

2008-04-06T19:49:00.009-07:00

So last year when we bought the house, we signed the papers and officially owned it in June. So we were not there in the spring time when flowers usually bloom. Well, mid-March this year, we noticed somethings growing out of our grass by out porch...

It turns out that, we this is what we think happened... The people we bought the house from wanted to get it re-done and sold quickly, so it appears that they just put grass right over the flower beds... So we now have on one side daffodils growing right out of our grass (top pic) andTBD flowers growing on the other side (2nd pic). It is quite funny. AND, now by our two little tree/bush things in the front year, we have some daffodils growing around those as well. Gar and I just laugh. Gar has some plans for the yard, now that his show is over, he is excited to do some projects.
The house is always keeping us on our feet. We love it, but as time goes by, we find little things, characteristics if you will, that only a 59 year old house can have. Like if we have the space heater on downstairs and we heat something up in the microwave, it cuts the power... I always seem to forget that and with the cold weather, I tend to blow that fuse a lot. That is just one of many fun little things we love out the house...

Gar and some of our theater friends have got a band together, I think I have mentioned this in a previous post. They wanted to start a band that does 80's music. They have been practicing for a couple of months now and had their first official paying gig at the Woodshed (this great little bar downtown and it is smoke fee, LOVE IT!)
The band is called 88m.p.h. (what movie?). Once they have a full set, they will try and get more gigs! I will let ya'll know when they are, they are really good. I'm not just saying that cause my hubby is the lead singer and a total hottie up there playing the guitar, they are really good. And their song selection is SMF!!

Garrick the Artist

2008-04-03T13:54:00.005-07:00

If you are a frequent reader of the gstdean.blogspot.com blog, then you are well aware that Gar and I are HUGE fans of LOST. Gar was at work and totally NERDED out and made this design. I think it is pretty sweet. It would be pretty cool to have on the back of a t-shirt.

Gar's freelance work is blowing up. He was hired by the Desert Star Theater to design their back drops and a sign that will be in the show. He was up day and night literally... And he even let me help! I painted the edges and help with with the black and white. It was so much fun.

This is the finished product and the theater LOVED it. He really is an amazing artist. The holes in the bottom are for lights. Pretty fun!

He also did the backdrops for them. The show is the "Wizard of Odd". So he came up with a couple of concepts and it just evolved from there. They are HUGE, something like 26ft X 35ft. This first one is my favorite. This is the munchkin village (or kinda the smurf village).

They just turned out perfect. When they printed them to actual size, they said they look amazing. I can't wait to see them.

I love the "Emerald City". If any of you have been to the Desert Star, you know that they are all spoof's of different shows and they make a ton of Utah jokes, that is why the "Emerald City" is really downtown SLC and our mountains. If you look close, you can see the U and the Y on the mountains.

Gar is still working on more freelance project, the man never quits.

His show, Civil War, is over this weekend and then mine starts... Good times, then we are off for a little vaca... We are going to Phoenix to hang with Aurora. I can't wait!

Today for you, tomorrow for me....

2008-03-27T19:22:00.014-07:00

Once again, it's been too long since I have updated the day in the life of the Dean family. So much has been going on. It seems to come in waves. There will be times that we have nothing going on, and other times we don't know what day it is and Toby probably thinks that we have moved out and left him... Poor little Tobs.

To start off Stef and Gar's weeks of fun...

Chicago came and went, it was great. It is one of my favorite cities. Nettie has not been there and she needs to go. Both times I have been there it was in the beginning of spring and just a bit chilly. Next time I go I hope it is summer and Gar's with me and we can do the river tours. This is a picture of the bridge that starts of the "Magnificent Mile" . It is a big city, but not overwhelming like NYC.
Below is some art work that is part of the bridge you can see in the distance in the above pic. The architecture their is so beautiful and amazing. I was staying in a suburb called Downers Grove, so I took a taxi and just walked around the city for about 5 hours and LOVED it.

There is the park, Millennium , is right by the Chicago Institute of Art and right by the Lake Michigan, which is HUGE. It was like i was looking out at the ocean, I was in heaven. The park has a ton of different art pieces and this one is my fav. It is just a giant metal bean, you can walk under it, it is huge. I love that you can see the cityscape in its refection.
It was a good trip, short, but good.

Gar's show Civil War is coming to it's end. It closes on April 5th. It is such an amazing show. The music and talent is amazing. There is nothing more hot than a bunch of hot guys singing some sweet harmony. Merrill Osmond is great and some of his family has come to see the show. Gar was not there the night that Donny Osmond was there, but he there the night that Marie came. I lucked out and it was the same night I had tickets.
Marie went back stage and hung out with the cast and answered questions and took pictures. I got to kinda meet her, well, I went back stage and said Hi and walked past her, that was the extent of my meeting... But Gar had fun meeting her (she parked next to his bike and he told her not to scratch it, only Gar would say that to a celebrity)... If you get a chance, you need to go and see it. It is a great show!

Well I think that for the last 2 years I have said that I was going to retire from the theater... Well, apparently I will just jump at the chance to be in a show if I get a call. Ok, here's the story... I auditioned for the show "Annie Get Your Gun" and said that I want to be Annie or nothing. It turned.. out I got nothing.
So, to make a boring story short, someone ended up dropping out of the show and the theater called me to see if I would step in and take the part. So I said yes. The part is in the chorus, but I get to say one line. Should be good times. So Gar is finishing up with the war and I'm in rehearsals for AGYG. It opens the week after Gar's show closes.

WOW, this is quite the long post... What next... Oh, Easter.

Gar and I hung out with the fam for the Easter. It was good times. We had a wonderful dinner made by Beck and Ang and I pigged out. We did the Easter Egg Hunt in Ang's back yard.
These kids are just so freaking cute, I don't know what to do. I had intended to take a bunch of pix of the kiddies for Nat, but I struggle and forgot break out the camera, good thing I have Gar, he busted it out and got some good shots. We had the kids close their eyes and listen to Ang as we told them the rules, that was the only way to get them quiet... It takes some creativity to get all 8 of them to listen. Rio and Benjamin in the above pic are to die for. I just heart those two crazy kids.

We bought them some cheap toys and Benjamin got a little toy gun, and would follow Toby around yelling at him to sit and to drink water all while pointing the gun at him. It was so freaking funny. That kid is so crazy! You would never know it by looking at the innocent face.

I have so much more to blog about... our wired grass/flower bed that we have discovered growing, Gar's band, painting, backdrops... So soak up all of the fun above and I'll post more this weekend.

Chi-Town

2008-03-11T18:06:00.006-07:00

I am in Chicago! One of my most favorite of cities... I had to take a business trip for a co-worker and was SO happy to do it. I LOVES me so Chi-Town. But, i'm not soaking up the scene you see above. I am in a suburb of Chicago, OakTerrace which is 20 minutes from downtown, i'm hoping to get downtown tomorrow. We shall see.

I apologize for not posting more. I know how boring it can be to come to a blog and it NOT be updated. I hate that more than anything... So I promise to pull some creativity out and keep you updated on our lives.

Oh, that man of mine.

2008-02-17T11:08:00.005-07:00

Gar is in Civil War at Hale Center Theatre. Merrill Osmond is starring in it and it has been a good time for him so far. I've see a couple of rehearsals and it is going to a great show. It is full of MEN! Which, there is nothing better than a bunch of men singing... (Gar is top row, 2nd from the left.)
In rehearsal yesterday, they were running the show and it was the big fight scene and to make a long story short, he got hit in the nose with the butt of a 20lb rifle...
He is ok, has quite the cut and it will leave a scar, but will make for a good story.

TAG - I'M IT!

2008-02-13T08:02:00.010-07:00

So Nettie taged me... It is a get to know your husband question and answer. So, here we go...

What is his name? Garrick

How long have you been together? Married for 2.5 years

How long did you date? almost 5 years

How old is he? 34

Who eats more? I think it's an even tie... Sad for me (he's 6'2" and i'm barley 5'6")

Who said I love you first? I think I did

Who is taller? Gar

Who can sing better? We both can sing pretty good, but i'd say i'm a little stronger singer than him.

Who is smarter? Gar, he knows a lot of random trivia

Who does the laundry? We both do, I love that we are both OCD and like to keep the house tidy.

Who pays the bills? Gar

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If your looking at the bed, Gar sleeps on the right.

Who mows the lawn? I do, because I hate any other yard work. Gar does all the other yard work.

Who cooks dinner? I try to when we have time, but we all know, Gar's the real cook.

Who drives? It depends, in the winter Gar, in the summer, I do and Gar rides his motorcycle.

Who is more stubborn? Garrick

Who kissed who first? It happened at the same time, we were in a show and we had to do a stage kiss, that was out first kiss...

Who asked who out first? Gar asked me first...

Who proposed? Garrick, in Maui and WOW, they should make a movie of our engagement!!

Who has more friends? Gar

Who is more sensitive? That tough, Gar may think i'm wrong, but even though he is a big hunky man... he has a soft side and is sensitive, but I will say, I do cry more, I cry at EVERYTHING!!!!

OK - I tag Natalie, Debbie, and Erica....

DARTH VADER VS. OPTIMUS PRIME

2008-02-06T19:32:00.001-07:00

We have have so much freaking sonw it is just crazy. The snow we had last winter in November, December, and January, we have had just this January 2008. It is CRAZY! A couple of nights ago we had a huge storm that brought in a ton of wind and Gar had a dream that the big tree in our back yard had broke and hit our house. So when we got up the next morning and looked out the window and a huge branch had really broken off and fell only 5 feet from the bedroom window.
Gar had to get a ax and chop it up. That big hunk of a man had to use all his muscles to lift it, that thing would have went right through our little brick house. It was really hot to see Gar out there with an ax...

Last Saturday, we had Ang's kids over for a sleepover while And and Kirk got away for the night. We had a blast. I slaved in the kitchen and made some dinner...

Then Gar brought out the light saber and we played around. The kids love Gar and he's so great about letting them play with his toys.... Here is Everest being so serious, those acting classes have really paid off.Rio is SOOOO freaking cute. She would not leave Gar's side. It is too cute. We rented EVAN ALMIGHTY, which is pretty cute, and she sat on his lap and watched it. Adorable!

Again, with the Star Wars, this is Rio showing her Vader muscles. Can it get any cuter? I don't think so.
Then we have Optimus Prime and Darth Vader fighting... It was a close fight, but Optimus Prime did end up kicking some Vader butt!

Toby .VS. Chewbacca

2008-01-28T20:29:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to make an observation...
Toby is a little Chewbacca.
I think that is why Gar loves him.

Can't you see the resemblance? The hair color alone is a dead give away.

This boy is just too damn cute. With his long hair he is the long lost brother of Chewy.

We love this little guy.
It is really crazy how attached you get to your pet.
I never thought I'd love a dog like this. I mean growing up with our MILLION different dogs,
I'd thought I'd never have a little guy of my own.
But when you see him, your just in love.

Just a warning...

2008-01-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

OK, so to preface this blog, I'm no critic... Gar and I went to see this movie, Cloverfield. I won't give anything away. But the preview looked good, I love J.J. Abrams, but this, not so great. I didn't like it. I'm not hear to rip on the movie, but what I will say is if you get any type of motion sickness from ANYTHING, take something before you see this movie. THE ENTIRE movie is filmed with someones home camera. So it is like watching a really bad home movie of someone running for 85 minutes. I put my head down about 6 times and had my eyes closed for at least half the film.

So today I go into work feeling horrible. I was so sick all morning, had to sit down and put my make up on, had cold sweats all morning, felt dizzy, was so nauseous I couldn't eat or drink anything. So I went home and crashed, thinking i had the flu, NO... it was still the effects of the motion sickness, a little vertigo from that damn movie. UGH! Motion sickness can last up to 24 hours. That is how bad the filming was. ( I see what they were trying to do, but come on... it was bad).

So to say the least, take something before you go, or just don't go, you won't miss out on anything, I promise.

LAZY DAYZ

2008-01-14T18:35:00.001-07:00

WOW, have I been SO lazy since Christmas. I went from working 3 jobs down to one. Just one job, the day job at the hotel. It has been wonderful. No more PB. I just wasn't diggin it and had to get OUT! Carol closed on Dec. 23. So I went from have no time to do anything to all the time in the world. And what have I done with all of this spare time. Not a thing and it has been amazing! But back into reality, I need to get off my lazy booty and do something. Well, to give myself a little love, I have been working out. But that's it.

We had a wonderful holiday. The 2 pic below are of my work "Holiday Party". We can't call it a "Christmas" party, we have to be PC and call it a holiday party. Anyway we had a good time and I won some sweet pic frames that are nicely displayed in my office. I was so excited to win them you would have thought I won a million dollars.

This is my B.F.F Britt. She is great and the one I get into a ton of trouble with, I'm not kidding, just ask Gar or H.R.
To sum of Christmas for us, we got ourselves a big flat screen plasma TV. We LOVE IT!!! It is so choice! Gar go it set up on the wall and all the speakers hooked up. Finally we can use our surround sound to it's full ability. It is great to have a little home theater.

The other gift was really for Gar, but I must say that I am slowly turning into a nerd and I am really excited about this one... We are going to the San Diego Comic Convention. Yes, you can say it. N.E.R.D A.L.E.R.T!!! Gar used to go every year, and then we started dating and he has not got once... So I got us tickets, including preview night, and a great hotel room. It is in July and we just can't wait!

I'll keep up on the posts, I promise... I am done with my lay on the couch phase, I think.
Love you all!

Braving the COLD

2007-12-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

On Friday night we met the fam down at temple square to check out the lights. I guess last time we did this is was not minus 100 degrees out. But we braved it and Beck's fam, Ang's fam, and Nett's fam all came down. We had a blast.

We all had our cameras so it was pretty much a photo opp every 2 minutes. It was FREEZING, but the lights were beautiful of course. We didn't last very long.

Joe and I decided to get a pic and Joey said that he did the smile that me and Nettie do in all our pix. HA HA HA! He pretty much nailed it~

The kids were having a blast. There were nine of them and about a million people there, so it was a work out keeping track of all of them. They all found a fountain and walked around it for quite a while. That was the only time all the adults could talk.

All the kids were so bundled, kinda like in the Christmas Story. Gar got this awesome shot of Mads. I love this one. She is so freaking cute. They all are!

We didn't last very long in the artic weather, maybe 30 minutes or so. So we decided to ditch the cold and make the trek to our house. Gar and I were thrilled to have everyone over. It's not the biggest house, but it fit everyone perfectly. We had our Christmas present up, don't think I've blogged about it yet... I'll get pix up. Its our big flat screen TV. We love it. The kids watched Spiderman 3, played the Xbox 360 and we got out the toys they could play with them. Benjamin came up wearing this.....

It was just the cutest thing we had seen. The Vader helmet was huge on him and he kept his finger on the button that makes the Vader breathing noise. Then all the kids were wearing it. It was just too cute.

It was a great night and we loved having everyone over. It would have been perfect if Nat and Steve-o were here... miss you!

I told you that we will start a tridation in the Dean home of having 2 trees in the house. The nice one upstairs that I will decorate and then the "kids" tree downstairs. Gar went and bought a "Charlie Brown" tree and decorated it. It is so cute. He has the big cheesy colored lights and all of his sweet superhero ornaments. It is so great.

Then we made one more holiday decor purchase. Gar's work is giving these sweet "3 Wisemen" out as gifts to client's and he could get a deal. So we got them. They are beautiful. They are the "3 Wisemen" that are carved out of wood and then have the nativity scene carved in then. Aren't they so neat?!?! They are different and artsy, that's why we love them.

Tis' the season to be Merry...

2007-12-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

It has been a crazy ever since T-day ended. Aurora, Nat, and Steve all went home. It's always hard when the house guests leave. It's so quiet. But the quiet only lasted for second and then back to the grindstone it was.

I worked at the PB, we had tech week for Carol, both of our day jobs have been so busy... And to top it all off we had the first snow of the season. Finally it feels like the holiday season.

It is about time that we had a night off, together. So we put up our Christmas decorations. We don't have many, but over the years we have started a collection. We bought a fake tree a couple of years ago... here is Gar putting it together... We will need to get the pine tree sent to make it smell like Christmas.

So Gar has a few ornaments that he has collected over the years that I will not let him put on the tree. We have to have a nice classic looking tree, just the way I was brought up. So we decided that this year we would do 2 trees. The "nice" one upstairs for all to enjoy through the window, I will decorate this one. And then we will get a real tree, on the small size to go downstairs that will be Gar's. Kinda like a kid tree... So the superman and spiderman and stromtrooper ornaments can hang proudly... after all these years.

I have been eyeing the cutest stocking and stocking hangers at the PB ever since we put out the Christmas floor set. So I got them and am so thrilled how they looking hanging on my beautiful mantel. You can see it in the pix but the stocking hanger is J. O. Y and each of the stockings hang from the letters. The are just too cute!

I'm not the best decorator ever and i'm still working on collecting some really different/cool ornaments, I got some really great ornaments at Tia Pan last year, here is the finished product this year...

I love the house looks when it is all decorated for Christmas. When I was going up, it was such a big ordeal to decorate for the Christmas season, as I'm sure it is for everyone. There is one tradition that we had when I was little that I really want to start with Gar. While we decorated we listened to... are you ready for this... "Christmas in the Stars". Yes... This was the Star Wars Christmas album. A classic and a staple in the Omer household growing up. It wasn't Christmas growing up without that.

So i'm on the search for the album. I mean, you can't beat the hits such as...

"What can you get a Wookie for Christmas, when he already owns a comb"

"R2D2 we wish you a Merry Christmas"

I need to find it, if you see it, snag it for me!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

T-Day

2007-11-26T18:14:00.001-07:00

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! Food, family and fun! This is one of my favorite holidays and Gars fav...

To begin, Aurora came into town for the week, not only to celebrate T-day, but also to get her wisdom teeth out.
She did so good. They knocked her out, Gar and I were there to watch that part. It was quite comical... Then they pulled them out and that was that. That all happened on Monday, and by Thanksgiving she was ready to eat a full meal!

Thanksgiving Day came and we had the whole fam over at Becks. It was a nice time. The food was delicious and Beck made her famous pumpkin cheesecake. We had a wonderful time.
After gorging ourselves, we hung out, sang around the piano and watched the kids play. This is Batman/Benjamin... love that he is without pants! What a great photo op!
Dad and D went home Friday morning and us sisters had a fun night out at the Jazz game. We got back stage passes and got to meet them and shake the teams hands. I even rubbed shoulders with my boyfriend Matt Harpring.

We finally got a fam pix of me, Gar and Bubba. She is so beautiful!
What a cute little fam are we!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Only 28 more days until Christmas... Hope your saving up to get me a good gift!!

GOLF

2007-11-19T16:07:00.000-07:00

So I went golfing for the first time at a client event for work back in September at the Homestead up by Heber.

I had a blast. Before this event I had hit a bucket of balls once, about 10 years ago. So needless to say, I am a horrible golfer, as is Britt. So, Britt and I took a quick lesson the day before, which I'm SO glad we did. It actually helped out a ton. We didn't suck... too much (that's what she said, HA HA). Fran (the one in the middle) is a great golfer so compared to us she was Tiger Woods. We had a blast, had a little Baileys with our coffee and I rammed Fran a couple of times with the cart. Good times!

Moab, Music, Magic, and Football...

2007-11-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since my last entry. A lot has happened... Let's see...

Moab: We went, had a wonderful trip/meeting and now were back! It was a great trip. Nice, relaxing and some great team bonding for work. We stayed at the Red Cliffs Lodge. It was soo beautiful. The pic below is the view from the restaurant that is in the lobby. We could not have asked for better weather, it was warm enough that we didn't need coats. That is the Colorado river.

It is not like a normal hotel these are their rooms and then they have cabins. (The boss got a cabin so we could party it up). The rooms are great and the back door is right at the river. At night, Garr and I would sit out on the back patio of our room and look at the stars, it was amazing how many you could see. Just perfect!

We got there Thursday evening, checked in and met in town for dinner with everyone. I ate entirely TOO much! Then we had a little party with some of us and then hit the hay. We got up Friday, at some breakfast and the had our meeting. It was good and had some fun team building activities where I learned that I am bossy... that is according to one of my co-workers...

Then it was time for the big team building activity... You can tell from the pic below, but we are on the back of the HUMMER getting ready to go 4-wheeling! This is me, Britt and Scott...

Here are our 2 hummers. We had such a blast. I have not done anything like that before, SMF! The ride was a little over 2 hours, of course before we started, we had to stop off for some adult beverages to take along for the ride... (I love my work). We did all different kinds of tricks with the hummers, some of which were pretty scary. I did scream a lot. We went up this super steep hill backwards... Our driver was totally laughing at us. He would just tell us to hang on to our drinks...

I wish the pix really told how crazy this was. It was SO freaky... this is us... just hanging out. Good times... We stopped in a couple of place to soak up the beauty of Moab. I forget how beautiful it is. I have been there a couple of times, but the beauty never gets old.

While we doing our "work" stuff, Gar took the car and drove through Arches National Park. He had a great time. Time to himself and relax and not think about anything. We needed this little retreat!

Since we have been back, it is nose to the grind stone just working and rehearsal. The show is going good and I can't wait to open. It will be a great show.

Ang called and gave Gar and I tickets to the Utah Symphonies, Music and Magic. The music was so beautiful, there is nothing like listening to live classical music. Then they had a magician come out and amaze us with her magic. She was really something. I have never been to a live magic show and I just loved it. I love that she had a hot male assistant. That was great too.

Ang and Beck brought the kiddies and they had a ball. They couldn't believe all the tricks that the magician did. It was fun to be there with them. The are all so dang good looking. Must run in the fam!
I told Nat I'd post this great pic of Jacob in his football uni. We went to his last game of the season, I think I mentioned that in an earlier post, but here he is... All growed up!

And their off...

2007-11-08T09:31:00.001-07:00

We are off today for a little Moab get-a-way... Well, it's actually a marketing retreat for my work, but, nonetheless, Garr and I will be AWAY! It should be alot of fun. We may even do a little horseback riding!

SEE YOU LATER!

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T15:22:00.001-07:00

Every year at Halloween there is a little competition between departments at the hotel. Accounting always wins. It can get pretty annoying. We, the sales department, never can get it together enough to win. This year we made a decision we were going to kick accounting's booty... So I thought of the best idea... We have one African American guy in the office, T-Bone, and when throwing around ideas, I thought of doing "Thriller". T-Bone would be Michael Jackson and the rest of sales team would be the zombies.

Well the team pulled it together and everyone one of us dressed up. We went all out. The pic above is the team. Don't we look pretty sweet... Michael Jackson is HOT... We had a team member Halloween rally (or a pep-rally) and that is where the costume contest would take place. T-Bone waited until the last minute to put on his costume, as to not spoil it...

We decided to take it up a notch and not only have fantastic costumes, we wanted to do the "Thriller" dance. We practiced a little ditty and then at the beginning of the rally, they played "Thriller", and we all walked up like zombies and did our little dance. Needless to say, we won. Finally, after 4 years of competing with accounting, we blew them out of the water!!!

The pic below is our HR team. They were our competition this year, but we took it! I guess Halloween is pretty big around the hotel.

Gar's office was at the other end of the spectrum. They opted not to do the death theme and go with the comedy theme...

THE OFFICE

Gar was Jim. Don't you love his "Jim look" he has it down. I love that Michael has the wrapped foot from burning it on the George Foreman Grill... HA HA HA!! The guy playing Ryan looks just like him. Good times!

Hope everyone had a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

WINNERS

2007-10-29T13:23:00.000-07:00

I don't really need to say much,

other than I knew they were going to take it.

It just makes the win that much more sweet...

4-0 baby!!

GO RED SOX!

2007-10-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

I don't follow sports too much. But in each sport I have a team. In baseball it is the Boston Red Sox and the Yankees...

If anyone has been following the playoffs, the Sox and the Indians were playing for the World Series... and the SOX took it! WOO HOO! They are the American League champs and will play the stupid Colorado Rockies! In the World Series!

GO SOX!

GOOOooo UTES!

2007-10-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

We have this great client event for my hotel... We tailgate up at the U for one of the Ute games. It is such a fun event. We go all out. It's not your ordinary tailgate. We have it decked out! Full bar and all. Here is a pic of the set up... I get to bring Gar with me. He loves this event. I can't bring him to all of them, but at least he can come to this one. This is me, Gar and Trevor, or T-Bone as I like to call him. He works with me and he also does theatre with me. He will be in Carol with us as the token black guy. Good times!!

This is a pic of my good friend Britt, she and I work together. She is incharge of putting this shin-dig together. She's on the left and a good client of ours is in the middle. She used to preform in Disney World as one of the characters.

Look out... Here comes Spiderman!!

2007-10-13T18:10:00.000-07:00

Halloween 2006 Toby was
DARTH TOBY
as you may recall.

This year we searched far and wide for the perfect costume. Well, actually we were buying dog food at the local Pet Smart and walked past the costume rack and this one jumped out right in front of us.... Was this totally meant to be or what?

SPIDERTOBY

While Gar was at his show tonight, Toby and I had a little pre-halloween photo shoot. What a good little model he was...

He actually like it I think. He just stood there and let me take the pictures. I was really surprised. I would bribe him with a treat and he would look at the camera with his cute broken ears and I would snap these great photos.

He is just too cute for words. I let him walk around with it on for a while and got this cute one.

It was a fun little photo shoot and while I started posting this entry, I looked over and SPIDERTOBY was tuckered out! He was laying in his spot on top of the big chair just kicking it... It's so hard being a superhero!

Garrick Look-A-Likes

2007-10-07T20:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this is Garrick posting...I never do this, I let Stef do all the posting and such, but she ran a facial recognition on the myheritage.com and came up a crazy assortment....I thought I always had a little Matthew McConaughey in my looks....guess not.

Celebrity Look Alike...

2007-10-04T18:31:00.000-07:00

There is a website that you can put a pic of yourself on and it comes up with celebrities that you look alike...

I need to get a better self portrait of myself, but this will do for fun.

So here you go. If you wan to give it a try go to myheritage.com and click on celebrity look alike.

Gooooooooooooooooaaaaallllll!!!

2007-10-01T19:03:00.000-07:00

So we have these great friend who have season tickets to the Salt Lake Real. Every once and a while, when they can't use their tickets (which are GREAT seat by the way), they give us a call and see if we want to use them. Ang and I were at the opening game, it was a blast.

We got a call to use the tickets about a week or so ago and low and behold, they were for the Real vs Galaxy. YES... David Beckham and the LA Galaxy...
Ummm, hello, can you say HOTTIE.... I was so ecstatic to see him play in person. I have been following the MLS a little and know the Mr. Beckham had been injured, so I looked on their website to see if he would be playing and was so PISSED when I read this...

LOS ANGELES GALAXY
OUT: DF Chris Albright (R hamstring); MF David Beckham (R knee);

WTF... I was given tickets and he would not be playing. Not only was he injured and out, he was not even there... LAME. Oh well, there was plenty of good looking soccer men to gaze at... Gar took this pic of me... It's alright. We were in the 7th row, great seats.

I noticed that I really get into the games and find myself yelling and screaming at the refs. They really made some horrible calls... The seats were in the middle of some super fans. That was pretty fun to see them getting all mad and crazy at the refs. I almost caught a water bottle that the mascot threw... But it slipped out and some dumb kid ended up with it.

Gar and I had a good time and the game ended up tying 2 to 2. Not too bad. There were 2 penalty kicks and a couple of yellow cards. Over all I had a blast. To bad Mr. Beckham was not there to enjoy my presence! Thanks John and Ally for the tickets.

Ok, so this pic... I will give anyone a dollar if they can guess why Gar took this photo...
(HINT: It's NOT to show you what good seats we had...)

Christmas is coming...

2007-09-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

Daunting a little, isn't it, to think how true that statement really is. Summer is officially over. Today it's snowing... October starts tomorrow... The days are shorter. (Wow, Debbie Downer, huh!)

But, alas, there are many fun things about fall. Let me name just a few...

A) Fall Fashion. I love me a cozy sweater and scarf!
2) The holiday season is coming and that means, we get off work!!

D) Garrick and I are going to do Christmas Carol again at the Hale!!!

Christmas Carol 2006

I was not going to do it again. I was just going to keep working at the PB. I keep claiming I am retired... but, come on. Who am I kidding. I love it and had to do it again. Gar was asked to come back to do Christmas Present again (yes, he's just that good folks!)

So I went to call backs, sang a tune, and called called to be in the show. (That's the short version of the story). I am SO excited. It should be a good time. We start rehearsals a week from today and we open the first week in December! I will still work at the PB on the weekends, the cash is too good to let go of!

2007-09-20T19:00:00.001-07:00

ONE WEEK, SEVEN DAYS
I love Jim

Gotta love Ang.....

2007-09-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

IF YOU BUILD IT...

2007-09-17T17:31:00.001-07:00

This weekend was a fun, family weekend. We both worked on Saturday and then went to a birthday party for our friend T-Bone. It was fun... from what I remember. HaHaHa!

Then Sunday came and we built a fence (this is where the clever title comes in...). We bought all the supplies last weekend. It really amazes me how guys just have it in their blood and have the know hows to build things... I went a married myself a handyman. Who knew? It just keeps getting better!

When we were at Lowe's, he knew all the proper building supplies to get... I told him that I would have just bought the fence that was already assembled and propped it up on something. But Gar got all the necessary parts! Amazing... here are all the parts in our garage eagerly awaiting to be put together.

So Sunday morning, after stopping to get some greasy breakfast to kick the hangovers, Gar got his hammer, leveler, nails, measuring tape, little shovel, big shovel, and his tool belt and got to work. I'm sure that there were many more tools that he used, I just have no clue what they are called.

This is the one of the holes for the posts. Who knew that you had to dig a hole and cement the post in? Not me.
The holes are dug and ready for the cement. Now, I wasn't just sitting there looking beautiful while Gar slaved away digging the post holes, I was mowing the lawn. That is the only yard work that I actually like to do. I still remember the time my dad taught me how... Ahh, memories...

At any rate, it took no time to get the posts in the ground and cemented... I really want to know where Gar got this knowledge. I helped him while we were dating to put up a vinyl fence for his Aunt Phyllis and it took him no time, he didn't even have instructions. It must be in the male blueprint I guess.

There are many steps to building a fence. Again, I had no idea that home improvement work is so involved. But it is fun and I enjoy the time that Gar and I get to spend together. I love him and our little family.

So here we have both posts up and the 2, lets call them the guard rails (?) up. It's starting to resemble a fence, no?

Half way done and just a few slivers. In fact, we went without injury. I did manage however to break a nail. What's a girl to do?

We did it the old fashioned way, no electric hammer, just Gars big guns and my help of holding the frame in place while he hammered away.

It only took a couple of hours, maybe 2 hours, and we were finished. Doesn't it look great? It is 8 feet long and 6 feet high. We decided not to stain it. I think the natural wood color is very nice looking and looks great against the tan brick of the house.

We are stilling trying to figure out what to do with this little piece of land... Rip out the tree? Cement the whole thing? Plant a garden? (That last one is entirely too much work!) I tell Gar that we should cement it for our boat. A girl can dream, right.

Gar is such a great handyman and husband. He has done so much to make our house a home. It is true, the projects never end.

While Gar and I were working we look over and see that Mr. Toby wants to help. This little guy has the ENTIRE yard to himself. But, the boy hardly ever leaves our sides. It's endearing really! We look over and he is hard at work digging a hole of his own. We have never seen him do this. It was adorable. His tiny little feet just working away. He so wanted to help.

So the fence is up and Mr. Toby has his field of grass, a territory to guard, and to call his own. I think he is going to love it. I know I'm going to. This morning I opened the door, let the little man out and then closed the door and finished getting ready for the day. How liberating it felt. I didn't have to stand outside pleading with Mr. Tobs to "GO POOH ALREADY!!"

It's a good life we live.
And how thankful I am for everyone and all that I have in it.

Vegas and Babies?

2007-09-10T19:28:00.001-07:00

What is the title of this blog entry all about you ask? Vegas and Babies.

Well, Gar's bro, Jesse and his wife Jamie, just a baby girl... Gar is a proud Uncle and I am a proud Aunt once again. This is the first niece/nephew that Gar has from a blood sibling. She could not be any cuter, right?

Brooklyn was born last Thursday and she is perfect. The little family is doing great. Jesse is Gar's baby bro. He and Jamie are too cute and are both very into animals. Let me just tell you they live with about a million animals. They decorated the nursery with the cutest animal decor. It is super cute!

Welcome to the family little Brooklyn. We can't wait to meet you.
We love you Jesse and Jamie, CONGRATULATIONS!

Well while Jesse and Jamie were having a life changing moment and making a family, Gar was in the city of sin... When he got home on Saturday I told him he forgot the camera, he said "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". HA HA... Well lucky for me, one of his co-workers manage to document the fabulous trip and Gar gave me a few to share.

This is Gar and a couple of co-workers that went along too. The nerd headquarters was at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. They stayed at the Luxor hotel. FUN!

Here are some great photo ops of Gar. Not quite sure where they are or what these sculptures are, but they are pretty cool...

Yea, that's Gar on the top of the snake thing....

He had a blast and said that the nerd convention was great. He learned a ton and managed to only loose a few dollars to Vegas.

VIVA Las Vegas

2007-09-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

I wish that I can say that Gar and I are there on a fabulous vacation, but that is just not going to happen... Gar is actually headed to Vegas right now as I type, but it is for work. I am jealous though, the man will have free time and will have a blast and if he plays his cards right (no pun intended) he will win us millions and I will be able to leave the PB and he won't have to do the DStar... We'll see. Keep you fingers crossed!

He is going to a nerd convention, wait, I meant the huge photoshop convention there for his work. It's the biggest nerd/photoshop convention in the world, fun! There are about 5 of them going. What a blast! I did however manage to keep his debit card and check book here... So that is a good thing. He will be back Saturday! Can't wait.

I will take some more photos of the house probably tomorrow and post them... Until then..

Gotta love this one

2007-08-30T19:31:00.001-07:00

What I would do to be Madeline Cahn...

Brian Regan Comedy

2007-08-23T21:50:00.001-07:00

Here is little bit of the funny man.