New Baby=Perks!

My sister, Sariah, was the first week of January, but for some reason she can't go full term. Her really good friend through her a surprise baby shower early and it just so happened to be during the time my Aunt was in town from New Orleans. On the way up to the shower my mom, right, my Aunt Judy, left, and I went to The Olive Garden for dinner, yum!

Sariah was so surprised, but then she understood why her hubby had a sudden urge to clean the entire house.

My present to Ria was some belly cream, which I'm sure she didn't get the chance to use because Alexander came 7 weeks EARLY. I also made him some cute blocks.

Here's a close up on the blocks. I covered them with Modge Podge (non-toxic) so he can gum them as much as he wants.


Sariah and Jeremy bought tickets to Disney on Ice to go with their daughter, Sabrina, before the baby came. What they didn't know was that Alex came the morning of Disney on Ice. Score for the Robbins! We got to borrow my niece for the night and go to Disney on Ice.

Sabrina in front of the castle where all the skaters came out on the ice.


At the end almost all the skaters from the 'skits' came out on the ice together, if you look close you can see Timon, Pumba, Buzz, Goofy and Daisy (Sabrina was real excited to see Daisy because when they went to Disneyland Daisy was on vacation).


There were some cool pyrotechnics at the end of the show, you can probably see all the characters better in this one. You can also see how packed the Energy Solutions Arena was, WAY packed.

Jaron's favorite was Aladdin, Sabina's was the skit with all the princesses and their respective princes and mine was the Lion King, good times!

It is official, he's a MAN!

After months of pestering me and bugging vendors at midnight and searching for the perfect one at the perfect price Jaron bought a gun. He's so proud of himself too. I can't tell you how many pictures he has made me take of him with his NEW toy.

I don't know much about guns, but from what he has said, I think he got a 12-gage shot gun - maybe. He got it from someone on KSL, he called him at like 6:00 am and woke him up to ask if anyone else had contacted him yet. Apparently guns are a hot commodity right now, something about Obama becoming President makes people scramble to buy as many guns as they can get their hands on.

I just know that Jaron says that he's a real man now. He doesn't have any bullets yet, but at least once a day he'll take it out of the case and aim it at something and pretend to shoot. Then he'll pump it/cock it (I don't know what to call it) like five times and aim it twice more then put it back in the case. He's so happy with himself. Isn't he just so cute with his little gun?!

Outting with the 900 Court Crew

We love living here at the University of Utah married student housing, we've found some really awesome friends that we'll love forever. The 900 court is by far the BEST place to be! On Saturday night a few of us went up to some private property and had a small fire, it was SO nice. The weather was fantastic and the boys go up there to go shooting, so there were rock chairs already set up. We had smoores and banana boats and the boys just so happened to have their guns too so we all had to pose with them, Jaron is so proud. Don't worry mom, the guns weren't loaded.

Me, Meghan Huntsman, Kristen Seiuli and Teresa Swift. The two in the middle are expecting, I'm SO excited for them, they are both going to have such cute baby girls!

The boys thought that since Corey is on the football team he could totally hold them all..and they were right. Corey on bottom, Pete, Jaron and Travis on top because he's a whole 10 pounds lighter than Jaron.

The band of boys with their manly guns. Jaron's manliness is only borrowed right now, until he gets his own 'manliness' which should be on Friday.

The 900 Crew, we're hard core, haha!

Ward Halloween Party

Jaron and I were having a hard time deciding what to be for our Halloween party last Friday, the 24th. We were thinking Sonny and Cher, Jaron would be Cher, but we couldn' t find time to go to DI together and I didn't trust him to pick out a good costume by himself.

We regrouped and decided on McCain and Palin. I ratted my hair SO high and we spray painted his white. Jaron was kind enough to take the lenses out of his glasses so I could wear them AND still see. But I went a little overboard at DI though and I got 3 suits and a cute coat for $40, can you say BARGAIN? I can!

We looked SO good! We even won "Most Original Costumes", we rocked the party!

Here is Jaron with his 900 Court best buds (left to right) Travis Swift (Popeye), Peter Huntsman (Danny Zuko), Jaron (McCain) and Corey Seiuli (Pirate). They like to go play guns together, BOYS!

Here I am with my girls: Meghan Huntsman (Sandy), Kristen Seiuli (Pirate), Me (Palin), Jen Hardcastle (Prego) and Teresa Swift (Olive Oil).

Bishop Mangum some how was in a good enough mood to pose for me, even after his wife tricked him into wearing this costume.

Bishop and Stevie posed with their FAVORITE Republicans, Palin and McCain. By the way, Bishop is a Demo, but we still love him.

REAL SALT LAKE

It seems like every time we go to the Real Salt Lake games they either lose or tie, it really stinks! I promise, we've never been to a game that they've won. We must be a bad luck charm, we should probably just watch them on tv.

Anyway, Jaron won tickets to the RSL game on Sept. 19th from X96, that's the only reason we could go (he looks SO happy in the picture). So, we bundled up and hopped our bikes, we just live down the street. It just happened to rain on the way there and sporadically throughout the game, its REAL exciting riding bikes in the rain.

When we got to the game our whole row was packed, we had to squeeze through all the fatties and then wedge our skinny buns into one 'seat' because the larger people on both sides of us were encroaching on our seat numbers.

RSL scored one quickly, but then the linesman called it Off-sides, but it was WAY late and it was a BAD call. So they took the point away. Then in the second half one for their offenders broke through the RSL defence and was headed for the goal fast, a defender caught up and took the ball away just as soon as he did the RSL goalie ran right into him, taking him DOWN HARD. I'm sure they both felt it the next morning. The offender, untouched and with the ball scored. Ending the game 1-0.

Despite all the shortcomings we had a really good time, we were closer than we've ever been (which doesn't say much) and Jaron grabbed a shirt that was thrown into the stands (unused). We had a good time!

Birthday Weekend

Ok. So, for all of you who don't know, I don't know why you wouldn't, I turned 25 on the 16th of September. Instead of going out for my actual birthday (Tuesday) we had many cheap opportunities to go out the weekend before. On Friday night we went to the Symphony, it was pretty good, a lot of weird people in weird clothes. The music was great for about 30 minutes then Jaron got bored and it got hot and we lost interest until they played another song we knew. We would have enjoy it more if we were more cultured.

Then on Saturday we got free tickets from my work for the Dew Tour, we only went to the Skateboarding Finals though. It was still pretty cool from the nose bleed section. The course was really awesome, I took a picture of it below. THE cool trick of the night was if you could kick flip on then kick flip off the orange rail in the almost center of the picture. The winner, 14 year-old Chaz Ortiz did the trick a few times and also did a trick (an ollie thing) up and over the gigantic fire hydrate on the left, WAY COOL.


Then on Sunday after Stake Conference we went to the last day of the Utah State Fair with Kristin, Brandon and Carly. We met my ma and pa there too. We ate SO much: Polish Dogs, Chili Fries, Fresh Lemonade and a HUGE raspberry Funnel Cake (my fav). When you go on the last day most of the animals are already gone, but the pigs never disappoint. They are always there with the cute piglets.

Then for my actual birthday we met my parents at Chuck-a-Rama for din. I wanted Golden Coral, but Chuck-a-Rama was closer and I was STARVING! Apparently the U of U football team was too, they were also at Chuck-a-Rama, I wonder if they have to pay more because they eat more? Anyway, we talked for a bit and I had a 3 plates, yum. The scones were especially good. When we got home a present was waiting for me in the middle of the living room floor, a big box wrapped in tin foil (he said I 'hide' the wrapping paper so he improvised). To my delightful surprise tit was a sewing machine!! YAY! Now I can fix Jaron's clothes so his bum doesn't hang out of his shorts and what a cute bum it is.

It was a great 25th birthday, thanks to all of you who love me and remembered me. I appreciate your calls and wishes!

Lake Blanche

Jaron and I haven't really gone out to do much recently so he planned a nice little get away for us. Keep in mind this wasn't a nice relaxing get away, this was a backpacking overnighter up Big Cottonwood Canyon. We didn't know that when the map said it was 2.8 miles it meant 2.8 miles from point A to point B, not counting the switch-backs and turns ALL UPHILL. Three hours later when we arrived it was dark and I was BEAT. We ate some pitas with string cheese and pepperoni, they were good! (We also had some with Tuna, but they were really dry and not so fantastic) The only thing that went really well that night was the air mattress that I hauled up; it was heavenly, UNTIL it stared to rain and the wind threatened the integrity of our walmart tent. I slept about 4 hours Saturday night, in between the big wind gusts.

When we woke up the next morning the sun was shining and we wandered around for a bit; discovering waterfalls, bugs and pretty lakes (Lillian and Florence). We got packed everything up and headed down just in time to miss church.

It is now the next day and my whole lower half lets me know that 3 miles up and 3 miles down with a pack is NOT a good thing. I mostly want to cry, the occasional mile jog around the complex is not going to happen for a few days. I do however, get to ride my bike to school and work tomorrow. Its a good thing its all down hill.

Tragedy

I'm sorry that this has to the first of my 'weekly updates'. As many of you know, my mother-in-law, Molly Robbins, was taken from us suddenly on August 8, 2008. For more information the news has done a pretty comprehensive job of reporting, you can look on ksl.com, myfox13.com, etc. For funeral info go to http://www.rememberingmolly.blogspot.com/.

Thank you to all of you that are praying for us and supporting us, we feel the love that you are sending our way.

Life

Not a lot of people read my blog, mostly because no one knows about it or I don't update enough for anyone to really stay interested in what I have to say, so as a goal I'm going to really try to update weekly, there's no guarantee. I know that's not earth shattering, but it is a lot for me.

I haven't really been very motivated to do much exercising since I came home from my mission (April 2006) and as a result I've gained a little weight. I'm currently steady at 140, before I would fluctuate anywhere between 130-140 depending on the day's activities and what I had eaten. I'm not too happy sitting at 140 so I'm starting to run. I'm not much of a distance runner, but I figure the complex I live in is about 1-mile around and who can't run 1 mile??

As of right now, life is good. I can't complain too much.

The Mazza

Jaron will eat anything, but he's not one to venture out and discover new foods he likes, he'd be happy to eat tortilla and cheese the rest of his life. We decided to take a chance and go to this Middle Eastern Cuisine restaurant on 9th and 9th that we see all the time, the Mazza. We invited one of Jaron's buds from his mission, Stanton, and his wife, Rubi.

I'm no food critic, but I should be--it was awful! No one finished this meals, even the salad was icky. I was very unimpressed with the food, the service was good though.

Afterward Jaron convinced Rubi to cut his hair, he finally got the 'javi-hawk' he's been wanting for so long. She was so nice about it too, then we just sat and watched the boys play Halo 3 for an hour.

Memorial Day

For those of you who don't know, Jaron was recently called to be 2nd Counselor in the Elder's Quorum. Each year they put on a huge breakfast for everyone in our 900 court (about 300 people), this year the new President was in Hawaii over Memorial Day with his family and left Jaron in charge. Little did I know that meant I was in charge.

A few days before we got a TON of food from Costco, the most bacon I've ever seen (we practically cleaned them out), 5 containers of 5 dozen eggs, turkey sausage, just add water pancake mix and tang. In order to get everything ready for the breakfast we had to prepare the night before, I whipped a good amount of the eggs and put them in Tupperware for easy storage and pouring, we mixed all the pancake batter and Tang in drink coolers and defrosted the bacon in our tub.

Despite all our preparation we were not prepared for the rainy Memorial morning, 300 people didn't show up and we had about half of everything leftover. We had a really good time despite the rain and we didn't run out of bacon, which was the goal.

The Green

From May 4th until May 6th Jaron, Curtis, Tara and I kayaked down the Green River. It is named the 'green' river because that's what color it is--GROSS! The water was SO cold too, the one time I got in up to my shoulders I slammed my shin into a rock, big ouch. The water actually helped to numb it and my adrenaline was kicked in because I had to psych myself out to step in.

It was real hard work and my shoulders are still sore two days later. We put the kayaks in at Ruby Ranch (windy, dusty, bumpy 30 minute drive) and we ended at the Mineral Bottom, I think it was about 45 miles.

We all had a fantastic time! We even saw some beavers, a deer and birds of every kind. Our last night camping the boys found some tumble weeds and decided they wanted a bonfire. Crazy kids!!

THE Daniel Tosh Experience

For those of you who watch Comedy Central religiously you MUST know of Daniel Tosh. For those of you who don't you should YOUTUBE his name along with the word 'waverunner'. HILARIOUS!!

Jaron has liked Mr. Tosh since we first saw him on tv and as I was surfing the net one day I stumbled across his touring dates. What!? The University of Utah on the 11th of April!? The only trick would be keeping it a secret for a few days. I had to involve a few friends, which included some risk that my plan would be exposed, but none of our our friends blew it! I thought we were home free until we show up at my friend, Kim's house party. Our hubbys met and Kim's hubby didn't know it was a surprise and said,"So you're going to a comedy show after this?". NNOOOOOO! Ruined, all my hard work, ruined.

It turned out great though, Jaron was real surprised when he found out and that was the point. We got there at 9:40, the doors opened at 10:15 and we got fantastic seats (close, but not close enough for him to pick on us).

My abs were sore the next day, that's how funny he was. We got pictures with him afterward and it was a good ending to a crazy week.

Zion National Park

As promised, here are the pictures from Zion National Park, St. George-ish, UT. Jaron and I had SO much fun! We were there for 1 1/2 days, were rode our bikes and hiked and rock climbed a trail (it was intense). We planned to hike Angel's Landing, Weeping Rock and Lower Emerald Pool, I knew I wasn't going to last the whole day so we started with the hardest, Angel's Landing.

WOW! Where to being, the hike to get to the top did me in, I'm SO out of shape. Since neither of us had ever been there before we didn't know that we had made it, so we kept on hiking up the mountain. I wanted to turn back several times, I finally got my way when we asked a ranger how much further to Angel's Landing and he said a mile the OTHER direction. Down was SO much easier. The mouth to Angel's Landing is cool, you can see the chains bolted into the mountain just in case you fall; however, you can't see the end. It was SO worth it: climbing on the edge of a drop off, the slow kids, the stupid bottle-necks of people coming and going and the terrible photographers were all worth going through to get to the top.

We didn't get to Weeping Rock because I pansied out after the Emerald Pools, they were really good though. A real easy 2 mile round trip walk to three water falls and 'emerald' green rocks from the algae, hence the name Emerald Pools.

Easter Weekend

WOW! What a busy week! After we got back from Zion National Park, which was AMAZING, we stopped by Smith's Market Place. Just a casual walk through the furniture department and we fell in love with a cute brown/black microfiber number. Come to find out it was the LAST one, cha-ching 10% off. An additional 10% off from the ad in the paper and thanks to our U of U student Smith's card -5%! They almost paid us to take that couch home!