Happy Birthday Tiff!!

Yes, I know that I am a week late, but I need to acknowledge Tiff's birthday. It was the best weekend ever!! It all starts a week ago Friday, when my parents called to let us know that they were coming down to St. George for a weekend of fun. They decided to come down to Vegas that afternoon so that they could take us out to dinner and celebrate Tiff's birthday. We ended up going to the Cheesecake Factory and it was AMAZING. I got some chinese dish that I can't remember the name of- it was like carmalized asian chicken or something... anyways it was the most delicious chinese food I have ever had. And that is saying something. I have been craving it like crazy ever since. I am disappointed that I didn't take any pictures of that night, but thanks so much mom and dad!

The awesomeness continued later that night when Tiff's whole family showed up at 12:30 a.m. to surprise Tiff! It was my surprise Saturday to her- the fact that I kept it a secret. It was quite funny actually, because I knew that if Tiff were to know that her whole family was going to be staying with us she would freakishly clean the house and make it perfect. So, I thought "If I were Tiff, how well would I clean and prepare the house?" and I became that person. I should have cleaned a bit better, but I was at least able to get new shower curtains for the extra bathroom and totally clean up our extra bedroom and put new lamps in there. Tiff just thought I was being extra nice making the house look great... but it was for her family's comfort. Plus I'm nice. Tiff was so surprised and excited that she started crying when they came in- it was awesome.

After they arrived we stayed up a bit chatting, then went to bed. During the day Saturday we went shopping, watched the BYU game, and then went out to eat at California Pizza Kitchen. It was some goooood stuff. They were able to stay and come to church with us, then we had dinner at Tiff's aunts house Sunday afternoon. It was AWESOME!! I am so glad that they were able to come stay with us. I was also VERY impressed that our apartment is able to accommodate 4 extra people very comfortably (if you don't mind sleeping on an air mattress on the floor) - so if you are in the area feel free to stay over!

On Tiff's actual birthday (Monday) we were able to celebrate on our own. We had presents and instead of cake we had cinnamon rolls (Mmmmmmmmmm).

Tiff wanted some Harry Potter movies

She mainly wanted a Brita filter since the water in Vegas tastes like sewage

I don't think either of us needed this gift in the house... but I couldn't resist it at Costco for her

Tiff asked for sheets. Sheets? That's a boring birthday present. But, to her defense, the white sheets that we have been using recently turned pink in the wash... so maybe its time.

Here is Tiff's cinnamon roll cake. it was gooooooood!

For Tiff's Birthday dinner we went out to a place called Sammy's woodfire pizza. It was SO GOOD. Seriously. I got a Thai chicken salad that was off the hizzy. Tiff got a hawaiian pizza that was also no longer on the hizzy. It was so good. the pineapples on it were pre-barbequed even. Oh man. THEN they brought out a birthday dessert that was one of my favorite things ever. It wasn't necessarily something different than others in ingredients, but just presentation. This next picture does it no justice since it was taken with my phone. It was ice cream with tons of chocolate sauce and caramel, a huge thing of whipped cream on top, and walnuts all over. The sauces were running down the sides of the cup onto the plate. Delicious.

This next section is dedicated to our Surprise Saturday yesterday. We went to the airshow!! It was awesome. There's nothing like getting a few tax dollars back with a free show after they spend billions on war planes.

Here are a few videos for your enjoyment

Happy 1st of November!

I am awful. I really am. Two months without posting. I am ashamed. Anyways, I guess I will put a few pictures in from various Surprise Saturdays and such. This first one was finger painting saturday- we went to 7-11 to get some slurpees and we finger painted while watching movies. It was awesome.

We had stove smores on this one. Did you know that your stove works great to create a perfectly golden brown toasted marshmallow? I did. I'm surprised you didn't know that.

Tiff decided to give me a pedicure this day. It was actually very nice. I see why women spend so much for such a luxury.

This is the party we had at Tiff's parents house for she and her dad's birthday. It was pretty rockin. Tiff's uncle gave her a see's candy cigar.... so no, she doesn't smoke. She just eats chocolate.

Here are our pumpkins that we carved for Halloween. We had ONE trick or treater. He was probably 6 years old, and he came to our door alone at 9:45. ??. I was a little weirded out.

I will try to be better at posting. Everything in school is going really well- things are really busy for both Tiff and I. She is working full time AND substitute teaching, so we are both working all day long. Needless to say we are REALLY excited for Christmas break!!

Events of notable nature

So a couple weeks ago Tiff and I made our way up to Utah. It was great! We had to take advantage of the time we had, so we started our fun by going on a little hike at Pepperwood falls. It is a super short hike, but so beautiful! I really miss living so close to such awesome things.

Later we went to Bear Lake where we had a lot of fun. This picture includes Tiff's brother Mason, who played me in Jenga- we did amazing- we got up to 36 levels high! We looked it up and the highest recorded jenga game got to 40 levels, so we were pretty proud.
We were also able to go sailing on Tiff's family's sail boat. It was AWESOME. It was a really windy day, so the boat was tilting way over to one side. Tiff was freaking out, but it was very cool.


We were also able to go wake boarding and tubing, which is always the highlight for me
When we got back home we were able to have another Surprise Saturday- I surprised Tiff with a Movie hut where we watched a rented movie and had popcorn- it was quite fun.

Surprise Saturday!

Hello everyone. I owe you all an apology. I have not blogged for some time, and I realize that my life is not very available to you by any other means. I am going to try to be better. This post is dedicated to a new activity that Tiff and I partake of every week- Its called Surprise Saturday!! And it deserves capitalizations and exclamation points. Because I like it a lot.

During the first month here in Vegas Tiff and I began to feel a bit sad. I think we felt sorry for ourselves since we had to leave so many awesome friends in Provo. Plus it was so easy to hang out since they all lived like 3 doors down from us. Needless to say it is a bit different here- and don't get me started on the hellish heat. To get us out of our boredom funk Tiff came up with Surprise Saturday- its become a beloved tradition.

The rules are thus: Each Saturday one of us is in charge of planning something that is a surprise for the other. It can be anything- some sort of outing like a date, or just doing something different. It can really be anything. It could be watching a movie with popcorn at home, but the whole fun of it is either planning something for the other person or wondering what the surprise is going to be that week. We set a money limit at $5, so it requires that the one planning needs to be at least somewhat creative.

Our first Surprise Saturday was up to me. I found a web site with a bunch of free stuff to do in Vegas and I found that there is some gigantic aquarium in the Silverton that anyone can go to. It was really quite awesome. They have all kinds of tropical fish- sharks, sting rays, dori and nemo fish, AND they do a mermaid show every hour- real people dressed like mermaids get into this aquarium and swim around with the fish. So it was pretty cool.

None of the pictures came out all that awesome, but here is a sting ray

These pictures don't do it justice. I swear its a big aquarium.

After that we checked out the GIGANTIC sports store. It's like Cabellas only way bigger.

The next Surprise Saturday Tiff took me to the MGM grand Hotel, where were participated in Sitcom testing. Basically you watch a new sitcom that they are working on and you critique it. Then they give you coupons for stuff. It was actually really fun. The sitcom was absolute garbage, but it was fun.

This snake almost devoured Tiffanie.

There will be more to come.

Real or Joke?

I'm not sure. Is this video real, or is it some joke? Either way, the oversmiley kid in the blue shirt deserves a sledge hammer to the chest. There is no way around it. If there has ever been a video in serious need of a recreation, this is it. I am at your disposal when I come to Utah, Paul.

YouTube - The Lawrence Welk Show: Chicken Dance

Enjoy.

Tiff and I are obsessed with these skits now. They are too funny.

New things

I'm going to try REALLY hard to blog at least once a week. For some reason I always have a hard time thinking of something exciting or different- but we did get new callings today! I was almost certain that we were going to be called to the nursery (since there are three in our ward) (and our sacrament meeting sounds like a cd track of jungle noises performed by small children) but we were called to the next closest thing: primary! I am actually pretty excited. We are teaching the CTR 5B class, so we have 4 girls and 4 boys that are 5 years old. I think that we will have a fun time.

In other news, school is still going well. For those of you that are interested in the happenings of our cadaver, we have opened him from the lower abdomen to the chin. We are looking at all of the neck muscles and the thyroid area right now. OH, and it was so cool! He has a pacemaker, so while I was cutting the skin off I suddenly hit metal- at first it looked like a large vein, but I had just hit the rounded edge. It's crazy what kind of things we have to keep ourselves alive. Very cool!

Vegas has treated us well so far. The weather has been PERFECT. It has been a steady 88 degrees with a slight breeze for the past couple of weeks, so we are still dreading the REAL Vegas summer.