Upgrading our home

In the past few months, we have made a few upgrades to our home. We rent an apartment, so they weren't things to the place itself, it was more upgrading our stuff. A month ago, we made some upgrades to our bed room. 

We finally got bed side tables 

(I'd been waiting over 2 years so it was a big deal)

We got a new duvet cover and new decorative pillows

(the pillows were bought after this picture was taken)

And attached a dimmable light strip to the back of our headboard

(instead of bed side lamps; we got the idea from our hotel in Vancouver)

And we also added a piece of "furniture" to our living room. 

I got a piano :D happiest day of my life- not really, but it was up there

(Unfortunately it can't be centered because our hall starts right after that and we wouldn't be able to get through)

Next upgrade will be new couches... We'll see when that happens.

Travels

Those of you who know Scott and I, may know that we LOVE to travel. We find any excuse to go somewhere. We love to explore together, and frankly, we get a little tired of being in one place for too long, even when it's somewhere as amazing at Seattle. We also know that once we have kids, it will be 10 100 times more difficult to travel where and when we'd like. So we are taking advantage of these years without kids to travel as much as we can. 

Fortunately, I work for a family who lets me take time off any time I need, and Scott has breaks from school every few months and a good amount of vacation time at work. 

So far our trips for this year have taken us here: 

Vancouver, B.C. 

(view from Stanley Park)

Salt Lake City, UT 

(view from our hotel room)

Fortunately, we have 3 trips already planned, and many more ideas in our minds. 

Our next trip (this weekend or next)

Portland, OR

In April, we will be going 

New York City, NY

In August, we will be going 

on this boat

(yes those are water slides on top)

we will be leaving from 

Long Beach, CA

and going to Mexico. 

I can't wait for our trips this year, they are so exciting.

I've decided to start making "yearbooks" for Scott and I so that we have all our pictures from the year in one place and we can remember when we went on what trips. 

I better start taking more pictures! 

Date Night

Scott and I thought we'd make this Saturday night's date extra special. We got all dressed up, and I wore my new dress (from Anthropolgie) with black pattern tights and silver heels (from mormon prom).

We went to bin on the lake (thanks to the awesome family I work for) and ate incredible food. Every single bite was amazing. 

We started out with all 3 types of Charcuterie, the country pate with quince was both of our favorites. I got the seared scallops (my first time ever having scallops) and they just melted in my mouth. Scott got the hanger steak, and it to was cooked to perfection. We got the Brussels sprouts to share on the side and were both amazed (I usually hate Brussels sprouts). And we finished off with a apple galette with ginger ice cream and cognac caramel. 

Scott really wanted to go to a casino after dinner, so we drove to Snoqualmie casino 

got $5 each, played until we ran out (didn't take me long at all) and our eyes started stinging from all the people smoking then headed home. It was such a fun night and the latest night we've had in a long time (we've been in bed by 9:30 lately and we didn't get home till midnight!) . I love dating my husband.

Oh ya, and Scott took me to a few stores to look for a piano. Unfortunately they are on back order everywhere, so I don't know when I'll get it, but I'm pretty thrilled for it to get here!

(I do still need to buy a bench and some good head phones)

Piano Obsession

Life has been wonderful. I have started playing piano again. A friend in the ward is giving me piano lessons, to fill in the many gaps I have in my piano knowledge, in exchange for babysitting her awesome kids...total win-win! Now I'm just dying to get a piano in our little apartment so I'm not driving to the church almost every day of the week and hanging out in a dark empty church building for 3+ hours a week.

This is the one I wish I could get:

It's a Yamaha NU1 Hybrid, it works just like an acoustic piano mechanically. It has the same keys used in Yamaha's acoustic pianos but the sound is from digital samples taken from their concert grands. Unfortunately, it weighs 240lbs, making all our future moves much more complicated, and it costs well over $5,000. So....

This is the realistic one I'm looking at for the moment. 

It's a Casio PX-750, an 8th of the price, easily moveable, and still feels much more like an acoustic piano than most "digital" pianos (at least at this price-point). 

I'm also going to need to get a good set of headphones so Scott is still able to do homework in our home after I get it. And so he doesn't realize how long I practice the same thing before it sounds the way it does when I play it for him.

Anyone want to buy these for me as an early birthday present??

2 Years Down, Infinity to Go

Scott and I celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary over 6 days! Anyone who knows me well will know that making big deals out of special events is my most favorite thing ever, and Scott sure did make this anniversary special!

It started the night before our anniversary, Thursday, December 27th. The family I work for gave us some certificates for a 5 course tasting menu at a super nice restaurant as an early Christmas present. I saved it for our anniversary since it was something really special.  We ate amazing food, and Scott's face after taking his first bite was priceless.... I should mention that his first bite was a piece of bread!

Our menu, which did not help us know what to expect next!

Scott getting ready to eat his Seared Barramundi (course 3)

Happiest, full bellied Scott I've ever seen :)

Our delicious dessert (course 5)

The next morning, Scott got out of the shower to his small anniversary surprise. 

And surprise me with these when he came home from work. They're dried, which means I get to enjoy them for a super long time! 

We got a piece of cheesecake from the Cheesecake factory and called it a night so that we could be up in time for our bus to Vancouver the next morning. 

This was our hotel. We were on the 27th floor!

We got to our hotel and were super excited for our awesome room. 

And couldn't get enough of our amazing view, during the day. 

Or at night. 

We got a nice welcoming gift of some delicious chocolates! 

And got to have a cool card key

We went for a walk and found a music store, I found hybrid pianos, and fell in love. I want one so bad! So much better than the nicest digital piano. 

Our walk continued and we found these lights on the front of a hospital. 

We woke up the next morning to this accident, and Scott took ten billion pictures, everyone crawled out safe. 

We couldn't find gas stations anywhere in the city, but we found one out in the water! Good thing we didn't need gas, cause it may have caused some water damage. 

Here are some pictures from our foot-travel sight seeing we did the second day:

The olympic cauldron 

I thought he looked like a lego whale

One of the Fairmont's. The top square was what looked like an amazing 2 story suite. 

North Vancouver 

A steam powered clock. 

The next day (NYE) we decided to rent a car and drove to Stanley Park.

Here are some pictures of my handsome husband from the day. 

And the beautiful places we got to be 

 Saw some totem polls. 

And a bridge Scott was in love with

A hollow tree

 A beach.

And the city 

The night before we had heard an extremely loud noise and were really startled, but no one around us seemed to think anything of it, which really confused us. It sounded like a cannon. So when we found this the next day, it made a lot more sense. 

When it got dark, Scott took me to see the Christmas lights in the park since I had told him I really wanted to do that. 

 They were pretty cool, but it was much smaller than expected. 

Scott also got me some roasted chestnuts since I had been telling him how I love them so much and haven't had them since a winter I was in France when I was super little. The smell brought back so many memories! I loved them, Scott not so much, so I ate almost all of them on my own. 

We got some take out sushi so we could eat in our room with our view that we couldn't get enough of. And my goodness, was it delicious sushi, we could only eat half of it! 

The next day, we went on a final walk and enjoyed the beautiful, clean city of Vancouver one more time. We also thought we should at least get one picture that had both of us in it since it was our anniversary trip.  

We were both ready to go home, even though we had an amazing time and would miss our hotel. What an unforgettable anniversary! 

So, after 2 years, what have I learned from my marriage to this wonderful man?? 

I learned that I can never be too patient or too understanding. Marriage forces you to give the other the benefit of the doubt, to humble yourself, to become more patient than you thought you could be, to try and look at things from the other's perspective. I am very lacking on all of those things, but luckily, marriage also teaches you to be forgiving, and Scott is the most forgiving person I have EVER met.

I learned that you can feel at home, no matter where you are, if your highest commitment is to your spouse and you have them by your side. I have come to understand myself better, and have become a better person because of him. He helps me strive to do what's right, at ALL times. 

I am so thankful that I made the decision to marry Scott 2 years ago. It has been the smartest decision I have ever made.