Halloween

We had a lot of fun this Halloween. We carved some pretty nice jack-o-lanterns with Justin and Marissa. Bryan and I both carved something from the Nightmare Before Christmas.

Justin and Marissa carved R2D2 and Darth Vader.

Marissa's sister Amanda and her boyfriend Michael carved the pumpkin on the far left.

Bryan came up with the idea for our costume this year. Our costumes only took a trip to DI, some sewing, a a little paint (well, and a lot of time).

We had fun adding details to Bryan's costume (like the spurs, pull string, and "Andy" written on the bottom of his shoe)

It can be kind of depressing to make a costume and then not have anywhere to wear it, especially since we're too old to go trick-o-treating on our own. We ended up trick-or-treating with Justin and Marissa's nephews in Kaysville, which was really fun, even if it was rainy and cold.

I loved seeing how little kids reacted to our costumes. We had tons of kids point at us and tell their parents, "It's Woody and Jesse!". Our favorite was when we were handing out candy, and a little boy dressed as Buzz Lightyear came to the door. He saw us, did a double take, and then said, "Wow!" He got really excited and introduced us to his little sister. It was adorable.

We had fun dressing up.

Speaking of Winter...

This is our new house.  It's pretty small, but so far we really like it.  And it's only a few houses away from where we lived this summer (making the move very easy)

Our view of the mountains is pretty nice too.

 This was our house earlier this week.  Yeah, it snowed.  It all melted in the afternoon sun, but still.

This is not supposed to happen before Halloween.  Really, it's not allowed.

End of Summer/Beginning of Fall Picnic

I don't remember where the idea came from, but Bryan and I decided to have a picnic in the canyon this September.  We had been given a picnic basket set (complete with plates, glasses, and utensils) by my mom as a wedding present, so we wanted to try it out.

We found a pretty spot that had a nice view of the fall colors, and the weather was pretty much perfect.
 

Here you can see the whole spread.  We had bread, cheese, salami, grapes and grape juice.  It made me miss eating really cheap (but delicious) cheese all the time, like I did in France.
 

 Yum!
 

(using our camera timer)

 I made mini pear tarts for dessert, which added a perfect fall taste to the picnic.  Pretty much, every "smitten kitchen" recipe I try turns out amazing.  She knows what she's doing.

 After our picnic we drove up past Sundance to see the pretty fall colors.
 

I'm excited for fall to finally be here (winter, not so much)

Since we got married:

I haven't been keeping up on my blog, so I thought I'd quickly sum up our summer: 

We went to San Francisco for our honeymoon since neither one of us had ever been (I actually had always thought I'd been there before as a kid.  Apparently what I remembered as a childhood trip to San Francisco was actually a trip to Park City) 

 

We got to see the beautiful Oakland Temple while we were there as well.
 

On our drive from California back to Utah, we stopped in Vegas to see the Lion King, which was great.  Once we were back in Utah we got to see Bryan's sister Carolyn get married to her husband Lon.
 

We moved into this house (we pretty much just house sat for the summer while a the family left for an internship)

 

We planted a garden (this is just the herb garden.  We also had two large planters and some tomato plants)
 

We spent some time on the east coast for the Weed Family Reunion, Jared (Bryan's brother) and Tabitha's wedding, and a tri-open house for all of us newlyweds.  If you can't tell from the above picture (i.e. my sweaty hair and rolled up pants) we were there during a major heat wave.
 

A few days after coming home from Pennsylvania, we went back out east for a company trip to Disney World.
 

It was pretty magical, but Disneyland will always hold a special place in my heart.
 

I went on every ride (I think?  Minus Tower of Terror, but I've been on that one at California Adventure).  This is me experiencing my first loop.  It wasn't too bad either, though my face might make you think otherwise.
 

Here is our (somewhat) flourishing garden.  I had to battle snails like you wouldn't believe, but we did get some pretty good zucchini and yellow squash.

It was a very busy summer, but we really enjoyed it.

That one time we got married...

We have been married over four months, and I still haven't posted about our wedding, so I thought I would fix that.

 

We were married on May 14th, 2010 in the Los Angeles Temple. 

 It was a beautiful day and we were so happy that so many family members were able to make it to the ceremony (especially Bryan's family coming in from Pennsylvania, Colorado, Texas, and Utah among other places).

 

Our photographer was Christine Olson.  We loved her and highly recommend her.

 

After the temple, we had a little while to relax before heading up to Palos Verdes for our reception.

 

The reception was held at the Point Vincente Interpretive Center which is a marine museum overlooking the ocean (that just happens to have a little reception hall).  The weather couldn't have been better, and the view was amazing.

 

 We had Lindt chocolate as favors (you can see them on the table) and I found myself eating these for weeks after the wedding because I took some, Bryan took some, and my Mom gave us some.  I can't complain.

 

We could not have asked for a better wedding.  I had heard so many wedding horror stories, that I fully expected to be stressed all day.  But I felt fine the whole time.  When the only notable things that go wrong are that your cake falls over and your forget to do your first dance and bouquet toss before your guests leave, I'd say it's a pretty successful wedding (especially when you have a dessert bar so the cake isn't your only hope for dessert).

Happy four months and four days to us!

Nathan Jay

I've been having fun spending time with my almost-three-year-old nephew since I've been home.

Because he's such a talker now, he never fails to say something amusing when I see him.   Recently when I was visiting he asked if he could wear my belt for a little while.  When he was done playing with it, he gave it back to me, and I started putting it around my waist.  Nathan immediately corrected me.  "No, put it on your jeans, Kelly." My sister told him I like to wear my belt on my waist because that's the style.  Nathan looked at me for a second and then told me, "That's not the style."  He's a funny kid.

shoes

I'm back in California, and with less than two weeks until the wedding, I've decided to try to wear in my wedding shoes.  Yesterday I thought I'd go for a walk outside to begin the process.  I ended up taking my dog with me because he is starved for attention and exercise.  Almost immediately I realized I had made a mistake.  It only took one neighbor staring at me for me to realize how I looked: I was a girl in four inch heels, walking a chihuahua, in southern California.  I made a quick loop, and called it a day.