guess who's here...

when we moved away to CA, my mom said her goal was to still see us every 

1-2 months...we laughed, but now we are seeing that she is a woman 

of her word! since moving here four months ago, she has already 

been out here three times, and we've been home twice..lucky us! 

i love that we live only an hour flight away, so it's not too crazy to visit!

another amazing thing i realized is that ...
everywhere i have ever lived, my mom has come to visit:

• she came to visit me in france when i studied abroad and saw my french school, my apartment, and met the family i lived with..
  

• she came to visit when i lived in DC and we saw every monument, all my favorite restaurants, i took her on a capitol tour, and more.
  
  
• when we lived in LA this summer, she came with my dad and we went to the beach, rode bikes, went to the dodgers game, and she helped us set up our apartment there. {and got lots of froyo with us}
  
• she came for an epic visit when i lived in london where she came to see my offices at parliament, and then we went ALL over europe just the two of us.
  
   
•  now that we live in california, she has come to our teach for america
  classrooms, met all of our friends, taken us to our favorite restaurants,
  and explored SF and the bay with us.
  
  
  i am so lucky to have a mom who is so involved, interested and loving.

i love that she knows our little life out here so well and 

is part of it although we live apart.

the point of all of this is...last night she arrived again for another little visit! 

we already love having her here helping us decorate for christmas, 
going out to eat with us, going on runs, shopping, chatting, etc. 
my dad gets here tomorrow morning and we are heading down to
 monterey with them before they leave on a trip all the way down the 
coast to LA. we are so lucky to have them here!

looking forward to the best weekend with mike & linny!

my mom & chase last night downtown after dinner!

xo

skate night date night

good news! we can now say that it officially feels like christmas time.

it's hard to remember that it's winter when living in california, 

but ice skating with our best friends last night did the trick!

we went to a downtown ice rink and had the whole thing 

to ourselves since the owner of it lives in our apartment building! 

thanks frank for the hook up! we love dustin and kendall and had 

the greatest night skating around, walking downtown and 

getting in the christmas mood. thank goodness no bones were

broken on that rink with the way our hubbies were skating/racing!

 

right before my triple axel..

 

 love this girl! 

 

the first of 500 falls for dusty

cute husbands after racing around the track...dusty is a little wet from all the falls on the ice!

 

skills

  

nothing like seeing palm trees while ice skating!

 

after we were done skating our hearts out, we walked through the fairmont 

hotel downtown and perused all of their christmas decorations ..

..and took a blurry pic to leave you with..

happy start of christmas season!

xo

tuesday ten

1.  it must be the holidays, because my sweet tooth is in full force. 

how good are these looking right now?

 

2. we couldn't live without trader joe's on rainy nights

3. it doesn't get old that this is the view from the back alley of our apartment in november

4. our watches make a cute couple 

5. husband's law school apps are officially in....big news and decisions coming up!!!

6. you can always count on j.crew for a good new iphone case.

 

7. two words: dream home. {hopefully #5 will pay off and get us this one day ...?} :)

 

8. thank you husband for discovering the name of my very favorite smell..

now if only i could bottle it up to smell whenever i pleased!

9. even though thanksgiving is over, we are still soaking up the last few days of november and using them as an excuse to use up the last of our pumpkin..by making pumpkin smoothies/bread/cookies, etc. the good news is that even though pumpkin season ends, christmas season begins!!! can't wait for december to officially begin this weekend!

10. and lastly, i found this jackpot of simple two ingredient recipes here

to get us all over the pumpkin craze and into december desserts!

xoxo

thanksgiving 2012

....our first thanksgiving married....

we loved being able to come home for a few days. it made thanksgiving 

even more special to be living away and come back for it! we're thankful 

for a holiday filled with safe traveling, the best food, good movies, 

our favorite people, some bowling, hikes in the mountains, an outing to 

the homestead, seeing the christmas lights downtown, hanging out with 

friends, pretty warm weather {utah didn't want to give us too harsh of a 

comparison with california}, and fun memories. below are some pictures. 

hope everyone had a great one!

first things first, some good runs in millcreek canyon..

one of the things i miss most about home!

we fit in some bowling and the U basketball game on wednesday night with my family, including our little niece maddie & nephew tagg..they are too cute to handle!!!

the utes even won for us! after the u game we went to see 

lincoln and it was amazing..i cried in it! go see it!

 

thanksgiving morning we woke up to my mom's homemade 

sweet rolls & avocado eggs benedict...who makes this kind of

breakfast on a day when they have to cook so much for dinner?

we weren't complaining! plus, my dad made us the best green

smoothie of our lives. still craving one now!!

after breakfast the boys went to play in the turkey bowl 

while we hiked in the canyon and watched the parade. 

i got to cook with this darling mom of mine ..she is a pro.

 

her homemade stuffing was unreal. 

straight out of williams-sonoma.

 

we had the best dinner complete with my mom's classic gratitude quotes hidden under our plates. thanksgiving is the best because it's such a simple holiday where the main focus is gratitude, loved ones, and good food. what could be better than that? mindy bought tagg some turkey baby food for his first 

thanksgiving..so even he was included in the feast! 

my assignment was the pie..linny taught me how to 

make banana cream, and it was amazing!

her pumpkin was so good too. 

we loved having paris at our thanksgiving dinner

on friday my cute mom took all the girls for pedicures..much needed girl time!

later we watched the utah football game, had turkey cranberry sandwiches 
from thanksgiving leftovers, and saw the new james bond movie that night...
and we may or may not have snuck in some cafe rio at 10pm because we 
had been missing it so much!

 

these two have the best grandma!

saturday we went with chase's family on a fun sleigh ride {minus the snow} 

up at the homestead. it got us in the christmas spirit since there was a 

santa hut with little elves..we ate dinner at maxwell's in park city 

after and it was so good. glad we discovered a new favorite place at home! 

utah sure was pretty for our visit home..tempting us to come back to it someday!

we got our fill of cafe rio, family, the temple square lights, mountains, our friends, and just the feeling of being home. we're happy to be back in CA, 

but we will always love coming back to SLC...our home!

 

XOXO

tuesday ten: we are thankful...

in honor of thanksgiving week, here are ten {of the million} things 

we are thankful for. we sat down and made this list together last night, 

and it was so hard to choose just 10! but we did, and here it it is.

we are thankful...
1. that we get to live away just the two of us in such a fun place and have adventures and fall more in love each day.

2. that we both have good jobs that make us feel 
like we're making a difference.

3. that we both love watching football and 
how the fall has been filled with it.
{we may or may not have been watching football as we thought of this one...}
 

4. that we have amazing travel plans 
booked for the coming year.

5. that emi likes to cook and chase likes to eat what she cooks.

6. that we have a cute little 
apartment #107 to call home.

7. that we see palm trees every day.

8. that we have hot running water so that chase 
can take his 2 hour showers..
{chase may or may not have left mid-list to take his long shower, inspiring this one:}
 

9. that we get to facetime with our family and 
best friends and feel like we're with them...and that we 
really get to be with them tomorrow!!

10. that we have so many possibilities coming up 
in our future that we can't wait to find out about!!

and mostly, we're grateful for a heavenly father who 
provides all of these blessings! here's to thanksgiving 
and going home to be with family!!
 

xoxo