What a year!

As today is the last day of 2009, I figured it was a good time to report on our resolutions.

Mine:

1. Run two half marathons. Unfortunately, I was thwarted in this goal because of this. But I did run 26 miles in races.



2. Finish the frog quilt I started last year. Done.

3. Read every Ensign cover-to-cover. Done. I finished the December one over a week ago!

Rog's:

1. Complete a triathlon. Done. He even got me to do it with him!

2. Eat more salads. This one is hard to quantify, but I will vouch for him that yes, he did eat more salads.

3. Finish reading the Chronicles of Narnia series. Done.

And our goals together:

1. Visit Zion, Canyonlands, Arches, and Capitol Reef National Parks. Done.

2. Swim in the Great Salt Lake. Done.

3. Go on a hot air balloon ride. Done.

4. Visit the temples in Utah we haven't already visited. We are in the process of this. We still have Vernal, Ogden, Manti, and the Oquirrh Mountain temples left. But considering there are 13 operating in Utah right now, I think we did pretty good.

2009 has been a very busy year for us. There were many more ups than downs. We got to see so much of Utah, visit Alaska for the first time, run the streets of Disneyland, and so much more. And now we are blessed to have our first child growing inside me. We can't wait to see what 2010 will bring!

The past few days...

On Tuesday McKae, Rog's sister who is getting married on Saturday, went through the temple for the first time. After the session, we had Dixie's famous egg rolls and got to play with our nephews who were in Oklahoma for Christmas.

Remember our perfect flight to Denver? Well, our flight to SLC was anything but perfect. We were scheduled to leave at 6:10, so we got to the airport a little after 4. We made it through security with no problems and got some dinner. Our flight boarded a few minutes late and then we sat there for a good half hour while they worked on a weight distribution problem. After we'd been in the air for awhile, the pilot announced that we were in a holding pattern because they were clearing snow in SLC. That meant that we got to fly around in circles for 25-30 minutes. When we finally got out of the holding pattern, we still had a half hour to go before we got to SLC. In summary, we got there over an hour late.

Then of course it was snowing, so it took us until 11:30 to get to Provo. And to top it all off, our apartment was absolutely FREEZING when we finally got there!

Before I knew it, it was Wednesday morning and I was counting inventory. Thankfully it was quick and painless. By 12:45 I was headed home to spend the rest of the day with Rog putting together our new entertainment center. As you will see, we went with the $300 one.

(Excuse my ugliness, I didn't shower for obvious reasons.)

Ta da, the finished product! (Yes, I know the speaker on the right is shorter than the one on the left and the cord is hanging out. I assure you, it has been fixed.) Now we just have to figure out what to do with our extra entertainment center as I have decided it cannot stay. Does anyone in the Provo area need an entertainment center for the next 4 months? Or does someone want to store it for us until we move? We'd be forever grateful!

Christmas Part 2

We flew to Colorado Christmas Eve morning. We thought that the airport would be super busy, so we got there earlier than we normally do. Fortunately, it really wasn't bad and everything went incredibly smoothly with our flight. We even got first row seats complete with extra leg room. Never a bad thing, right?!

We were a little concerned when we sat down because it looked like we didn't have a tray table and the only form of entertainment we brought for the flight was a game I got for Christmas, Bananagrams. It's like Scrabble, but you don't have a board and you build off your own words. I'd describe it as individual Scrabble, but that's misleading because you are playing against other people.



Anyway, we soon discovered that our tray tables were in our armrests. Phew, crisis averted.



As soon as we got to Colorado we went to a party with some of Rog's cousins and their families. We had a white elephant gift exchange and I ended up with the Susan Boyle CD. Not too shabby if you ask me! Then we had dinner and opened our Christmas PJ's before heading off to bed.

Christmas morning we went down to see what Santa had brought us. We got some fun surprises, but the best part was seeing Rog's dad open his present. We all chipped in and got him an iPod Touch. He travels a lot with his job, so he'll be able to put it to good use.



After a yummy breakfast, we saw Sherlock Holmes. I didn't particularly enjoy it (could have been because the theatre was super warm and I slept through part of it), but everyone else liked it.

We've been thoroughly enjoying our break... Lots of good food, games, and Wii time interspersed with some wedding preparations. We're definitely not looking forward to going home tomorrow and I'm absolutely dreading counting inventory on the 30th. Too bad vacation can't last forever. Such is life, I guess!

Christmas Part 1

We celebrated our Christmas over a few days this year. On Tuesday, December 22, we decided to open our gifts to each other rather than take them all to Colorado. We aren't very good at surprises, but we did both have at least one gift that was a surprise. Mine was a beanie. I mentioned that I liked the kind with braids hanging down and he got me one. His surprise was a BYU hat and a wind-up caterpillar. While Rog and I were at Michael's getting stuff for the ornaments we make at our most recent Relief Society meeting, we saw the wind-up toys. I remembered he liked this caterpillar and went back to get it later. His shoes were also kind of a surprise, but he guessed they were shoes from the shape of the box and because I asked what size shoes he wears.



On Wednesday, December 23, we celebrated our traditional Christmas Eve with the Riries a day early. My parents and Jared were going to visit my sister in Texas and Rog and I were going to Colorado to visit Rog's family (our flights left on the 24th in the morning), so we convinced them to have it on the 23rd. My dad served his mission in Denmark and there they celebrate "Little Christmas Eve" on the 23rd, so we said this was our "Little Christmas Eve."



After the party, we opened our presents from my parents. Among other things I got 7 cricut cartridges. My mom is great at finding good deals on ebay, so she didn't pay full price. I'm very excited to get back to Provo and use them!

Entertainment Center

Merry Christmas everyone!! I'll be posting about Christmas soon, but I don't have all the pictures yet. (I need to get them from my mom.) So I'm going to post about our adventures with our entertainment center.

Our apartment is furnished and our apartment managers are kind of Nazi about removing pieces of furniture. When we got our new 32 inch flat screen, we knew our entertainment center that came with our apartment would not work. We asked in the office if they would remove it and they said they would put us on the waiting list, but we figured it would never happen. So we came up with a plan to switch entertainment centers with some of our friends who were moving at the end of the the fall semester.

The day before we were going to make the switch we got an email from our apartment managers saying they would take away our entertainment center. We looked at the RC Willey Outlet and found a few in our price range that would work. But Rog decided he didn't want to have to move it when we move in April. So we turned them down and went on with our original plan to switch.

A few days later we found out the people who moved into our friend's apartment really really wanted the entertainment center that we stole from them. Rog went and talked to them and explained that we switched because our entertainment center wouldn't work with our new tv. (Now it's important to note here that they don't even have a tv or at least they didn't when we were talking to them.) He told them that we would switch back if it was really that important to them. We didn't hear from them for a few days, so we thought they were going to let us keep it. But unfortunately they came up and said they wanted to switch back. We were pretty astonished.

So now we are going to have to buy a new entertainment center and either store the useless entertainment center or have two. We'll see. We went to IKEA and found a bunch we liked. Here are our top 2.

This one is $299. Our original budget was $250, but we got some money for Christmas. So we might splurge and get this one.



This one is $130. Not as great, but it will work.

So which one should we pick? Stay tuned for our final decision.

Holiday Cheer

Roger's mom always has a coookie party before Christmas. Every Christmas we've been married, Rog tells me we need to do a cookie party. Finally this year I gave in. Wednesday night we were up until almost 1:00 am making all the cookies. At first our dough was way too sticky and I was sure all was lost. But we added some flour and they turned out pretty good.



On Thursday night the party itself was a success. Not too many people came, but all of our best friends were there. We had a great time talking and laughing. Oh and decorating some cookies. We were left with a TON of cookies, so Emily and I decorated a bunch and doorbell ditched our neighbors to get rid of them.

On Friday night we got together with the Petersons to make gingerbread houses. I do have to say that Amber and Dane's house was much better than ours, but we had fun making them. Notice that our snowmen live inside the house and are absolutely HUGE!! We had a great time hanging out with the Petersons and playing with their cute boy, Tyce.

On Saturday night we got to see Diana and Jason!! They flew into SLC and had dinner with us before heading up to Idaho where Jason's family lives. We were excited to see them because we hadn't seen them since August and we didn't think we'd see them until this summer at the earliest. We miss having them 7 doors down from us!

It was a great weekend filled with holiday cheer! Only 2 1/2 days of work left until Christmas!

Catch Up

It's past my pregnant lady bedtime, but I can't stand that my blog is so horribly behind. So here is an update of the past few weeks.

A few Saturdays ago we went to the Festival of Trees with Roger's brother, Taylor, and his girlfriend, Martha. I always performed at the Festival of Trees growing up, but I never got to just enjoy the festival. We had a great time looking at all the beautifully decorated trees, admiring the gingerbread houses, and eating yummy scones and sweet rolls. Here we are with our favorite tree - BYU of course!

And another one of my favorites - a frog tree!

Later that day we picked out our tree and decorated for Christmas. Or rather, I decorated for Christmas while Rog watched football.

The next day while Rog was napping, I decided to make Rice Krispy treats in Christmas shapes. He woke up from his nap to find this...

And this...

Obviously I needed a little help. But they turned out great - well worth all that effort! (Even though Rog may disagree.)

For awhile there it was REALLY, REALLY cold in Provo. So cold that we got frost INSIDE our apartment. Don't worry, our comforter keeps us nice and warm! I just had to take a picture.

I moved into my cubicle in the new APX building. The best part obviously is the free meals - even if once I couldn't eat my meal because the beef tenderloin was seriously mooing at me. I've never seen so much blood come out of something that was "cooked." My other favorite thing about the new building - walking up and down the 3 flights of stairs to get from the main floor (where the cafeteria and entrance are) to my cubicle on the 3rd floor, multiple times throughout the day. (I'm really not being sarcastic, it's good exercise.)

For our Relief Society December Activity we did a service project and made ornaments. I was in charge of the ornaments. These are the 3 we made. I was particularly proud of the middle one because I came up with the idea all on my own!

Rog is busy with finals this week and I am trying to get everything ready for Christmas! I can't believe Christmas is only 10 days away!

Sunday Thought

I LOVE this quote from the visiting teaching message this month.

"In the end, the number of prayers we say may contribute to our happiness, but the number of prayers we answer may be of even greater importance. Let us open our eyes and see the heavy hearts, notice the loneliness and despair; let us feel the silent prayers of others around us, and let us be an instrument in the hands of the Lord to answer those prayers."

- President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Announcing...

Baby Phillips!

No this is not a joke, Rog and I are expecting a little bundle of joy. Due date: June 22, 2010!

I had an ultrasound a month ago to check dates and here are the resulting pictures. This first one is measuring the heartbeat; it was going strong at 160 beats per minute!



And this one is just a regular picture of the fetus. At this time it was 13 mm. Of course it is a lot bigger now.

We had our second appointment last Friday. We got to hear the heartbeat and our doctor said that everything sounds great. I've been feeling pretty good. I do get queasy if I ever let my stomach get anywhere close to empty, so saltines are my best friend these days! But considering I can count the number of times I've thrown up on one hand, I'm considering myself lucky. By Christmas, I'll be in the second trimester and hopefully feeling more like myself again. Yooohooo!

APX Alarm Ribbon Cutting

It's an exciting time to be working at APX Alarm. On Thursday we had the ribbon cutting ceremony for our new corporate headquarters. Mitt Romney came and spoke. I'm a huge fan of him, so I was super excited!



Tons of news stations were at the ceremony. Here's KSL's take on the event.

After the ceremony they fed us lunch and we got to see the finished building. The design is very unique. They wanted to be like google, so there are a lot of crazy chairs and stuff. My favorite thing about the new building is the cafeteria. For every 8 hours we work, we get a free meal! No more packing lunch for me! Oh and the chef is the chef from the Chef's Table (a very fancy restaurant in Provo), so the food is good, really good. Anyway, check out these chairs!

They gave us this candy bar as a momento from the event.

Yesterday we packed up our office. And on Monday we will start working in the new building. Yoohoo!