"Our" Christmas

Nick and I have become very close with a couple of great families here in Las Vegas. Since it was Christmas time, it was the perfect opportunity to express our gratitude and appreciation to these families and show our love for them. We decided that putting together some Christmas goodies would be fun! I made homemade oreo's chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate pretzels(you know, the ones with m&m's and melted kisses?)! :)



I made tags for each one! Using wax paper and tissue paper, I stuffed these Christmas containers full of goodies!!


Here is the finished product! We ended up making 5 of them. We delivered them the "knock and run" method because of the number we had to deliver and the distance between each persons house. We are usually pretty sneaky at "knocking and running", but this time we got caught everything! :) Each person ended up calling us afterwards and visiting with us! :) It was great! I love doing simple and fun things for other people. We are truly grateful for these families and others who have been so kind and welcomed us to Vegas. Living here as been SO much better than I had hoped for. Nick and I have LOVED it and have these kind welcoming families to thank! Merry Christmas!!




Nick and I decided that it would be fun to have "Our" Christmas together before going home to Wyoming for Christmas. We decided that Saturday the 20th would be a great day to celebrate for 2 reasons. First, we leave for Wyoming on Monday; and second, the 20th is special because it marked 6 months of being married to one another. Man... how time flys!! We had a great day! Nick got home from work that morning around 10 am. We had breakfast and then opened presents. As you can see from the picture, the present on the right is the one that Nick wrapped for me. :) It's a pretty large present for such a little girl huh? And you have to admit that the wrapping job is classic! Nice work babe!!

We enjoyed watching one another open each present. Afterwards we watched "A Christmas Story" while I finished preparing Christmas Diner/lunch. :) We did our first Christmas ham, mashed potatoes, rolls, ceaser salad, and green beans. It was pretty tasty!! :) I was surprised that it all turned out so well. After that we had planned to go sledding with the tube that Nick got us for Christmas...BUT... our planned had changed due to FOOTBALL!! :) Nick got a call from Jason and Claire right as he arrived home from work telling him that he had free extra tickets for the Las Vegas Bowl. Let me explain how big of a deal this is!! Nick had been looking for FREE tickets for the last month for him and mostly his dad, and finally gave up and then we get this phone call. SO... we changed our plans. How could I tell him we weren't going to go to the game after all the nice things he always does for me? Plus the tickets weren't exactly cheap and we got them for FREE. So after diner/lunch we took a nap and then got ready to go to the Las Vegas Bowl! :)

This years Las Vegas Bowl was Arizona vs. BYU! Right when we got to the game, Nick called his dad to rub it in a little, and he was SOOO upset that he couldn't be AT the game. Nick explained the situation about the tickets to his dad and of course he understood. By the end of the game his dad was glad that he didn't go sit in the cold to watch BYU loose! It wasn't exactly FREEZING outside that night, but it wasn't WARM either. We got ALL bundled up, but since I'm such a wimp he gave in a took me home at the beginning of the 4th quarter. It was a pretty fun day! That tube will just have to wait until we get back from Wyoming! :)
Check out all our pics (Since it was "our" Christmas morning, I made it look that way as I hadn't showered or gotten ready for the day!)

P.S. My family will probably be the only ones to know how much this means to me... BUT... Nick found out that my FAVORITE Christmas songs are by, of course, The Oak Ridge Boys! :) Nick searched and searched all over Vegas and he got me their Christmas CD!! :) :) :) Now we can make it our tradition to listen to it when decorating the tree and house!! :) Thanks babe!


This week Nick and I also found a Condo that we'll be moving into once we return home from Wyoming. We're moving out of this house sooner than we had planned, but we're VERY EXCITED and can't wait to have our "own" place! We've been very blessed to be able to stay in this house as it has allowed us to save money and learn a great deal of responsibility. With the challenges we both faced trying to "keep-up" this house (replacing water heater, having rusty water, cleaning out the pipelines, cleaning the pool, digging up plants due to the HOA's request and finding out later we dug up the WRONG ones), we've decided that houses are TOO much responsibility and we'll be happy to live in a condo the rest of our lives!!! (kind of joking!!) We're also excited to get all the moving done before school starts again! Moving in the middle of a semester would not have been very much fun! Our condo will be closer to school and work for the both of us and now we wont have to spend 1 hour trying to travel only 10 miles because of the ridiculous traffic!! It will be a 10 min drive traveling maybe 5 miles. Things are going great and we're very excited for the upcoming year and the things that it will bring! :) I have to get back to packing now... we'll be landing in Montana in exactly 24 HOURS!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS to EVERYONE!!! Have a GREAT week with all your loved ones!!

A Few Things....

First of all... I know it's below zero in Wyoming right now and I'm soo sorry for those who are dealing with that... BUT IT SNOWED IN LAS VEGAS TODAY!!! Can you believe it?? :) Not that is stuck to the ground or anything, but it's still amazing!! In fact, Claire said to me today, "Lindi you brought all the snow to Vegas with you!!" Sorry Claire!! :) I just had to share... anways...
Finals were over last Thursday for both Nick and I. We were VERY relieved to get them all over with. Nick's first semester went very well and he's decided that he likes school, but is VERY excited for the break!! My first semester at UNLV is over and I'm happy about that. This semester was NOT my favorite. I'm hoping that it was just because of the courses I took. I'm very excited for the break and have high hopes for next semester!!
I got sick over finals week and Nick being the sweet husband he is, surprised me with a professional back massage on Saturday! :) It was VERY relaxing and took A LOT of stress of my back. Thanks babe! We also did our Christmas shopping on Saturday... well we tried to get MOST of it done! We found some great deals! The MOST exciting thing about shopping was that we're taking all the things we bought HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!! We missed our families in Wyoming for Thanksgiving and we're so excited to go home for a week for Christmas!!
We also weren't able to make it to Bob's Graduation on Friday because of finals. We would have loved to be there Bob!! Looks and sounds like you did great though! We're proud of you and admire your will to do it ALL!!
With one week left before we go home we're just getting things ready for Christmas and enjoying NO SCHOOL!! :)

We love you MOM!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mom!!!! :) I wanted to take this opportunity to express my love and appreciation for my mom. Mom was always FULLY involved in us girls' lives. Her and dad's famous line is "Remember who you are at all times... Somebody is always watching you!" This was such great advice as it warned each of us to always be constantly choosing the right.(Ya... sometimes we didn't do what they advised!) BUT... we tried!! :) My mom never missed an event that we participated in. In fact, she was always there 30 mins ahead of time! ;) She fully supported us in every GOOD thing that we involved ourselves in. My mom taught us how to cook, clean, and care for the things that we've been blessed with. She was always helping us if we asked for it and always making sure that we put nothing less than 100% into everything we did.
As most of you know, my mom is a VERY talented woman. I've learned SO much from her and Dad's examples. You know that saying, "Parents don't know anything?"... well, this is exactly what I thought when I was younger. I thought that I knew more than my parents and could learn my own way. WELL... I sure have learned a lot on my own AND I could have saved myself a lot of mistakes if I had just listened to my mother's counsel. Parents DO KNOW EVERYTHING!!! I knew I was blessed to have such great parents to guide me throughout my life, but as the years go by and I grow up more, I realize that my mom is an amazing women. If I could tell anyone anything, it would be to listen to their parents. Mom spent her life devoting it to her kids. Now that we've moved out and their empty nester's, my dad and her have been able to spend more quality time together and have a lot of fun. I'm so thankful for that because they are such great examples for how I want our marriage to be when we're older. You both deserve to be able to spend that time together and I hope you're enjoying it. I want to thank you, Mom, for being a better mother than I could have ever asked my Heavenly Father to send me to. You have taught me so much and I have been so blessed because of your testimony and example. Thank you for everything that you do for me and Nick. We hope that you have a GREAT birthday and we love you! Thanks mom!!



hey this is nick here...just wanted to say happy birthday real quick too...happy birthday! and thanks for everything that you've done for lindi and i...it's been a blast having you as a mother in law...i always have a good time listening to you and matt and your stories and just hanging out...it's a good time and we're looking forward to being with you all again here soon...thanks for everything! happy birthday...

Our First Thanksgiving (A little late... I know!)

We had a good Thanksgiving this year. It was espically exciting because it was our first one as a married couple. :) This year was my first Thanksgiving away from home. It was a new experience for me, but because of Nick's great family here in Vegas it was a very good Thanksgiving! Nick is used to being away from home for Thanksgiving and so it was not such a big deal for him.

We had a very eventful day as it started by going to Nick's Aunt Vicki and Unlce Keith. Nick got see a lot of cousins that he hasn't seen in quite some time. I also got to meet to each of them and their kids. We had a very delicous lunch of turkey, potatoes, corn, rolls and salad. The kids all exchange their presents on Thanksgiving each year and so we watched them do that. After mingling and munching, we headed onto the next families house that we were invited to. :)

Nick's cousin, Daniel's wife Aurbi, invited us to dinner with her family. Meegan, Aubri's mom, is the sweetest lady ever. She called me ahead of time to give me a food assignment. I had been thinking that I wanted to try to make my mom's chocolate cream pie that she makes every Thanksgiving. I told her I would bring that (if it turned out) and she told me just to send her the recipe so that SHE could make it for ME!! She explained that since it was my first Thanksgiving away from home that she wanted to do something for. I really wanted to learn how to make this pie and so I insisted on doing it myself. Thanks for the sweet notion though Meegan.

Aurbi's family is so sweet and considerate. We had a good time getting to meet everyone and visit with them all. We ate LOTS and LOTS more there too!! :) So we got all sorts of good food and company. We got home around 5 pm that night and since had not gotten any sleep that day, we both went straight to bed and were knocked out until 12 pm that night. :) I guess all that food did it for me! Nick had to work at 1 am and since I didn't have class or work the next day, I joined him at work. Since it was a holiday there weren't many costumers and we were able to watch movies together and snack on goodies all night (I know, really healthy)!! Even though it was a Thanksgiving away from home, it was a good day with LOTS to be THANKFUL FOR!!! :)

The following Saturday we decorated for CHRISTMAS!! I'm extra excited for Christmas this year!! I was telling Nick that I think I took for granted the time I got to spend with my family on holidays, because when you're away from them and not spending the holidays together, you can really tell the difference. I am so grateful that I was able to be with Nick for Thanksgiving and we're even more grateful that we will BOTH be able to spend Christmas with BOTH of our families. Anyways.... We didn't want to spend a lot of money for lights outside because we will be moving into an apartment soon and won't need outside lights for some time. So we went through the Christmas stuff in the garage. :) I usually only like to use one solid colors of lights when decorating anything for Christmas, but the only lights we found in the garage were multi-colored! :) Great huh? Well, we(I mean Nick) put them up anyways!! :) Yes it looks very hott!! :) He did a great job and would be willing to compete with brother BOB anyday!! :)

We also went a picked out a REAL Christmas tree. This was super exciting for me because my mom is allerigic to pine and so we always have a fake tree. The smell this tree is filling our house with is WONDERFUL!! :) Sorry that you're allerigc mom!! :( We picked the most beautiful tree ever! :) For a real tree is sure does look fake because its SOO full. We figured that since we will buy a tree every year, that it would be worth our money to buy clear lights and some things to decorate the tree with. :) We got some great things at Michaels and Nick picked out our stockings!! I think he did a pretty good job!! :) Decorating our first Christmas tree was kind of a big deal because Nick says that our FIRST tree topper has to be our tree topper FOREVER!! So as you can see the main theme for the tree was important. The results turned out pretty cute! As you can see we don't have ornaments yet, and so I picked things that would still make our tree pretty and not bare. What do you think? We also made the "Tree Juice" and poured it in. This was also a new experience for me because of having fake trees my whole life. The way we brought the tree home was also a BLAST as people driving by were looking at us like we're CRAZY!! :) Check all the pics out!!

I still have to take pirctures of the lights outside and the stockings that Nick picked out!!

Are You As Disappointed As Me?

Yes, I'm talking about the Twilight movie. I was warned by a couple of people not to get very excited about this movie for 3 different reasons.
1. Movies are NEVER as good as a book. You all know that these books were AMAZING!!! Could the movie really match up?
2. The movie wasn't going to follow the book exactly. It was only based on the book.
3. The book was about VAMPIRES!! Of course the movie is going to be a little strange.

With all this in mind, and trying not to get excited, I still was. I don't mean to offend anyone who really enjoyed this movie, but I personally thought it was a very poorly scripted and filmed movie. You could defiantly tell that it was a LOW budget movie. And of course no matter how each of us pictured this book in our minds, a movie could have never met that perfect image for any of us. We compare the movie's image to our own and of course the movie would fail. I guess I've learned that a movie based on a book always has the chance not to please us. Either way I'm glad that I went because I wouldn't have known wither the movie was good or bad. I've decided that I'm going to read the books over again to get a better picture in my mind.

On a more positive note, the night was still a BLAST!! A night with Claire and Aubri could not go bad!! :) We still had a great time making fun of the stupid parts in the movie and talking about the good parts that we agreed on. Imitating some of the stupid parts afterwards was probably the best part. ;) Thanks for the fun night girls! I would say lets get together for the NEXT Twilight movie, but I think we already know the answer to that!!

I'm interested to know what everyone else thought about Twilight!! Let me know if you were satisfied or disappointed!!

Family Gathering

You're probably looking at this picture and thinking, "Family gathering?... It's a UNLV basketball game!" :) Hey... if it takes a UNLV basketball game to get this family together, then so be it. As I mentioned before, the people in this picture are one of the reasons why I love Vegas. Daniel and Jason are Nick's cousin. Aubri and Claire(not in this pic) are their wives. I have grown very close to these two girls and I love them to death. It has been VERY FUN to get to know them and to be able to call them when I'm in need or just to get together. :) With all of our individual busy lives it has been very hard to find time to get together for diner or just to visit lately. Jason told Nick that they had season tickets and we were pumped because we get in free and they'll always be there. I'm thinking that from now on out UNLV basketball games will mean something more than a game (well, to ME anyways... probably not the guys!) :)

This little guy is Emmett. He's Aubri and Daniel's baby boy. He's pretty dang CUTE isn't he? I met this guy on the 4th of July, but haven't seen him since. I've been WAITING and WAITING to be able to hold him and play with him. So here is our first time hanging out! :) He got to come to the game because his headphones finally came in the mail. :) He doesn't like the noise and so Aubri had to wait for the headphones to be able to bring him. He looks pretty cute in them. Emmett is extra special because he was born on the same day that Nick and I got married. ;) Happy 5 month old birthday tomorrow Emmett!!

Thanks for the fun night guys!! We had a blast! We'll see you at the next game!! :)
(and girls... I'll see you FRIDAY... TWILIGHT!!)

Late For Work?... What To Tell Your Boss?

This is a totally random story (sorry, once again no pics) but Nick and I got a real good laugh at 7:30 this morning... maybe that's why it was so funny. ANYWAYS...
The house that we're currently living in has a ADT security system. Of course the last question I ask Nick each night is, "Did you lock all the doors and set the alram?" And of course he always say yes! Well this morning, our alarm clock went off at 6:45 am and I did NOT want to wake up. So Nick said that he'd take a shower first so that I could sleep for a few more mins. Next thing I know I'm WIDE AWAKE because the ADT alarm goes off! WOWEE! That thing is louder than a fire alarm. So I FREAKED out because I thought Nick was still in the shower and someone has broke into the house and I'm going to die! Well not knowing what to do I just sit there in our bed waiting for whoever broke in to come down the hall and kill me, I guess?!? Then I'm thinking I know Nick can hear this alarm going off so why isn't he coming out of the bathroom to safe me and beat up this person who just broke into the house. Well... don't worry... Nick just opened the window in the bathroom and neither of us were aware that the windows were actually set on the alarm. So Nick slammed the window shut, grabbed a towel, and met me in the hallway where I was prepared to KILL someone and he says, "Sorry, it was me. Don't freak out, don't freak out!!" After we got the alarm shut off we both had a good laugh about how I was prepared to kill someone.
By this time it was 7:30 and I needed to be out of the shower by now and getting ready for work (if I wanted to be on time.) But of course I couldn't just hurry from then on and get ready. Nick had a test today and it was about taking the correct steps in order to save someone who has just been hit by a car. Nick had asked my last night to help him study and I thought that meant that I would just be asking him some questions to see if he knew the answers. Well we didn't get time to study last night because I wanted to go to bed. LOL! So this morning, before I could get ready Nick asked me to help him study!?! He said "You've just been hit by a car. Lay there unconscious." Nick then proceeded to test himself by running throught the correct procedure on how to safe someone. I'm glad that I could help Nick study because he did great on his test.
Well... as you know from the title of the post I was late for work, and I was all prepared to tell my boss that someone broke into our house and then I got hit by a car!!

Pretty Laid Back...

I haven't posted anything for the last week and 1/2 because to be honest with you, there hasn't been much excitement in the Anderson's lives. :) The last two weekends have been very relaxing as Nick and I have taken each Saturday to lay around and relax and just spend time with one another. This has been very nice and fun for both of us. We're also just counting down the days until the end of this semester. It has been a very boring one for me. I register for next semesters classes this Friday, so I'm hoping that I can get some more interesting ones. :)
This semester was nick's first. He loves going to school to get his paramedic classes out of the way. It's just the first step in the right direction to becoming a professional firefighter. Along with his paramedic classes, he's also required to do 6 clinical's. Two of them were in the E.R. at one of the hospitals, one of them was in the Delivery room... yes... Nick saw 6 babies born that day. I told him by the time he was done witnessing that and being a part of it, we'd be able to have home deliveries when the time came. LOL! One was in the crazy person home... which was a pretty pointless day for Nick because he didn't really perform any medical procedures at all. It was more like babysitting? And the last two clinical's are ride-a-longs with different fire departments. His last clinical is a ride-a-long and it's Wednesday. His first ride-a-long with one of the fire departments was a blast for him. He LOVED every second of it. Even though Nick has loved his first semester at school, is has also been very competitive and demanding. He's learned a lot and is looking forward to moving onto next semester.
We also went to the first UNLV basketball game of the season. We met some of Nick's cousins there and that's always a blast. That has been one really good thing about living here in Vegas... we've gotten to know them very well and it has been really fun. Nick says that we're becoming UNLV BASKETBALL fans... LOL!... their first game was very fun to watch and we're excited to see them play more.
We also found out that we'll be moving out of the house that we're currently house-sitting in March. We've been very blessed to be able to live in this house for awhile and to be able to save a lot of money by doing so. However, I'm getting very excited about moving into our own place and making it "our home." We've been apartment/condo searching the past couple of weeks also. We've been able to find some pretty good deals... even though this economy is a very difficult time for many, it does have it's up's (lower rent prices). We've also been keeping our eyes peeled for good furniture sales. We went to Ashley Furniture on Friday as they were having a 1/2 off 1/2 the store sell. We found some GREAT deals on a love seat and ottoman. I know that we're not moving out until March, but we have the room to store it and it was a deal we could not pass up. So... as Nick puts it... "We bought our FIRST couch!! That's a pretty big deal!" :) You know Nick... he had to tell the lady at check out that too! :)
So... like I said, we've been pretty boring and quiet around here lately. With both of us always running 100 mph it has been just what we needed! :)

One Nation Under God

This semester at UNLV, I'm enrolled in 2 Political Science classes. Yes I know, what a time to be enrolled in these kind of classes. I have learned more about our government and politics this year than I ever have. I'm glad for "having" to take these classes because of the knowledge I have obtained. However; with this years very competitive election, it can be very overwhelming at times to constantly hear about it in class, on the radio, on the tv, on billboards, and in the newspaper. I honestly have to say that it has been a very eye opening experience for me. I've also learned the level of debate that can go on when discussing this topic, so please understand right now that my intentions of this post are NOT to affend anyones beliefs or thoughts about this years election. Many of the discussions in my classes have addressed the legalization of gay marriages, abortion, and mariguana. Some topics like these are VERY heartbreaking to me and it blows my mind that people even have these thoughts.
Last weekend our stake had Stake Conference and we had the privilage of hearing from Edler Harry Coleman. His main concern was the state that our country is in and asked us to continue to do as we know is right and have faith. He also talked about being prepared for the worst... having a "shelter from the storm." This was very informative and also a comfort for me to hear. I also recieved this email from my mom today which also gave me a comforting feeling. This email and past weekends conference is the reason why I finally decided to post about this topic. Here is the email I recieved...

Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, 'The Rest of the Story,' and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired.
Billy Graham's Prayer For Our Nation: 'Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem. We have abused power and called it p olitics. We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free. Amen!'
With the Lord's help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called 'One nation under God.'

Halloween Happenings

Our Ward's Trunk r' Treat was Thursday night. Our ward is pretty fun and we've made a lot of great friends so it was really fun. We're also primary teachers and have a class of nine 5 year olds...SO I was super excited to see all the kids in their costumes. Along with the trunk r' treating, we also had a chili/corn bread diner. :) I made chili using my sisters recipe and it turned out pretty good. :) I was looking forward to having some left overs to take home, but it was GONE!

Nick and I had been thinking about what we should be for Halloween for the last month. We thought about Woody and Buzz, Beast and Bell, Tinker bell and Peter Pan, Wizard of Oz characters? None of them were working out so the other night after watching The Best of Will Ferrell, it hit us... THE SPARTAN CHEERLEADERS!!! :) If you have no idea what I'm talking about, this is a clip from the video. (p.s. I have NO idea why 2 of them show up? When I tried to edit them, none of them even showed up? only watch one!)

Well, we found the costumes and it was classic. We were so excited and once we got to the trunk r' treat we started to wonder if ANYONE would even know who we were? Well we were a HIT!! Everyone LOVED it!! We decorated our Trunk with streamers and candy and sayings from the video. We also had a little dvd playing of the video clip in case no one knew who we were. It was a blast.

Friday night Nick and I just wanted to hang out at home and have a quiet night together. So we watched Hocus Pocus which is absolutely the best Halloween movie EVER!! :) And then we made the BIGGEST sugar cookies and decorated them. :) It was pretty hilarious. They turned out the size of a plate. It was fun though!! We also had quite the amount of trick r' treaters come to our door too. It was fun just relaxing and getting to see all the kids' costumes.

That night Nick had to work. Of course he had to wear his uniform, but this is how he went to work! :)

Our LOVEly Weekend

This friday Kate Jones, one of my best friends, flew into Vegas for the weekend. Kate and I first met while attending college in Wyoming. We graduated together in May and the last time I saw her was at our wedding. Nick also got to know Kate very well and we've always had a BLAST together.

We told Kate that we had a surprise for her and she would find out when she got here. While Nick and I were waiting for Kate to come down the escalator at the airport, Nick was talking to a couple of LAX escorts. LAX is a club at Mandalay Bay. The escorts were waiting for Reggie Bush and they told Nick he would see him later at work that night if he didn't see him coming down the escalator. So I while Nick and I were supposed to be looking for KATE, he was TOO busy looking for Reggie! ;) I found Kate first, so Nick had to wait until he went to work. lol!

Once we left the airport, we went to eat diner at Stripburger. We told Kate we had to get her surprise before we could get diner. We pulled up to the Mirage and walked to the concierge desk where we picked up 2 FREE tickets for the LOVE show and purchased one. The LOVE show is a Cirque du Soleil show featuring The Beatles. As some of you know this show is pretty expensive. The only reason we went was because one of Nick's classmates works at the Mirage and got us 2 free tickets. The show ended up costing each of us $46 which is amazing compared to a total of $420. You can see we would have NOT gone if we didn't get any free tickets.

The TICKETS!

Hangin' with The Beatles After the show

We went to the show Saturday night after a full day of shopping and going to the temple. It was great to do baptisms together. Nick and I haven't done them for a very long time and Kate actually couldn't make it to her wards temple day so it was perfect for us all. What a great experience it was too. That day while Kate and I went shopping, Nick went to an Elder's Quorum activity where they watched the UNLV v. BYU game. And I do have to say that BYU didn't KICK our butts this time. :) It was tied the whole game until the very end where we ended up loosing. And of course the LOVE show was the highlight of the weekend. For anyone who has the chance and money to see this show and is a BEATLES fan... it's totally to die for. It was amazing! Check out this clip from youtube...

Sunday we went to church and Kate got to meet our cute primary class. :) They LOVED the Halloween treat bags we made for them too. After church we had a great diner of potatoes, steak, salad, and corn on the cob. :) When Nick and I got married, Kate got us this CUTE Caramel Apple set. So... since it is the Halloween season we decided that making caramel apples would be a blast. Check it out...

And then we TRIED to eat them.... YUMMY MESS!!

We also decided that carving pumpkins was A MUST....

Here is the finished product...

A sister missionary that was in Nick's area while he served his mission was also in town this weekend. She dropped by to visit him and meet Kate and I. She was a such a sweet girl. It was fun to hear their stories and get to know her. Another friend of ours, Bruno, also stopped by on Sunday and dipped an apple while we finished our pumpkins. It was so fun to be with them all.

Kate had to be to the airport by 6:00pm on monday so we made the best of our last day together. Nick missed out unfortunately and had to get some sleep and studying in for school. Kate went to work with me for a few hours and then I had one class I had to go to. After that we hit the strip and visiting M&M world and the Coca-Cola store. I've never really done the whole "trourist" thing, so it was all new and fun to me. We also walked down to the Mirage to check out the LOVE show gift shop where Kate found a coupld of souviners for her family. It was sad taking her to the airport :( But we were SOOO GLAD that she made time to come to Vegas to see us and we couldn't have had a better time. :) Thanks Kate!! We love you!

Bite of Las Vegas

This weekend Nick and I went to Bite of Las Vegas at Desert Breeze Park. For those of you who don't know it's a food and music festival. There were over 40 different GOOD resturants there as well as the bands Puddle of Mudd, Secondhand Serenade, Lifehouse, and Metrostation. It gets even better... it was only $8 a piece to get in. It was a very fun and relaxing family atmosphere where you could just enjoy the food and listen to the music from a distance OR try to make your way to front of the crowd. We did both and it was very fun! We went a little later in the evening so we only got to hear Lifehouse, but they did a GREAT job. Nick was laughing at me because it was my SECOND concert... yes, in my whole life. The first concert I went to was Garth Brooks in Montana. My Grandma took all of her grandaughters and what a sweet memory it is to us. :)

There was a photographer at the park that was randomly taking peoples pictures and then handing out cards with a website where we could get our free picture. Here it is! Not the best picture, but my camera wouldn't download the vidoes we took or the pictures last night? So it's the best I can do. The other picture is the lead singer of Lifehouse.

Before we went to the concert, we also went to the temple which truly made our week. I'm SO glad that we've set a goal together to attend the temple each week. It really is the best thing for both of us and a great way to spend our time together. When we were there I told Nick that it would be awesome if we could attend EVERY temple in the world just once. I don't know if that'll happen, but I do know we're going to try and attend every temple that we're near at that specific time.

Just to catch up on a couple of other things... Nick has a phone now. :) AND it's the same number so that makes it easier for everyone. So if you need to get ahold of him, now you can. :)

You know that I'm really into scrapbooking and digital scarpbooking is the new thing; however, I haven't really gotten into that until recently. I'm just learning, but I've found that I love it just as much as regular scrapbooking. I've been experimenting with designing my own blogger layouts and headers. The one you can see right now is my FIRST. Yes... I know it's a little rough but I'm excited to see how much I can learn and see what different things I can create. It's a fun new hobbie for me esepically when I need something to distract me from homework! ;)

Making Tips and Getting Jipped!!

As most of you know Nick is working at Mandalay Bay. He's working the graveyard shift full-time as well as attending school full-time. Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming for a couple of different reasons...
1. It seems like he's ALWAYS going, going, going and never sleeping;
2. I know it's life, but we don't get enough time together; and
3. the atmosphere at work is NOT the best, if you know what I'm saying.
But there are also some good things about working there. The people that own this Valet Company are such great people and treat Nick so well. In fact he was just moved to graveyard Supervisor. He continues to move up and up! :) We are blessed because of these good people and Nick's hard work.
Nick also has made some great friends who have just gotten off their missions. I always ask him how work was and what happened and so on. He always gets the most random tips and meets a lot of different celebrities. SO... we sat down the other day and wrote up a list of all the people he's meet and random tips. Check it out...

Famous people:
Mike Tyson
Shug Knight
Rob N' Big
Ja Rule
Nikki Hilton
Jermain Oneal - He gave Nick a $100 tip :)
Michael Jordan
Zab Juda
George Bush - saw him in a limo- didn't actually meet him.

If you don't know who some of those people are, don't worry I'm the same way. He always has to explain to me what show, or music group they're in.

Random Tips:
4 different hats
Corn beef sandwich
In n' Out Burger-Double Double
2 Ties - Nice ones too!! :)
Cases of water - the whole crew... not a personal tip
Cases of Monsters - energy drink
$20 in poker chips - no he didn't go inside the casino to use them :)
Pizza
McDonald's Gift Certificates
CD's
Hot Chocolate
Krispy Kreme
Disneyland Key Chain
$100 tip from some drunk dude!

AND OF COURSE... a Prostitute stole his phone... yes it's a long story. :) So when he's not getting tipped he's getting jipped. So if any of you have tried to call his phone and it says "out of service", that's why. And his favorite is when people from Wyoming come through. :)

Our Weekend

Our weekend began Friday night as Nick took me to the movie, Nights in Rodanthe.

This is a must see for all you ladies. ;) Nick made fun of me throughout the movie because I cried more than once. I have to be honest, I was wondering what we got ourselves into in the beginning of the movie. It was very slow moving and kind of lame. But as it went on it got better and better. So if you have the chance, go see it.

We watched General Conference on Saturday and then we had the opportunity to have the Crosby's stay with us the rest of the weekend. Brett and Des came and only brought their youngest, Matthew, and I told them they were in trouble for not bringing the rest of their kids. This is the Crosby family. :)

Cute family huh? They are from Wyoming and my family and I are very good friends with them. I worked for them for 3 years as a secretary/nanny/run the errands/clean the office/work on their new house/my pickup needs washed... You get the idea! :) and I also got to travel with them to New York, Nashville, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Brett travels a lot due to his job and sometimes the family got to go along, so I would be the nanny. It was such a great opportunity to go with them and learn so much from their great kids. Brett sang at my Wedding reception and Des was one of my friends who threw a Bridal Shower for me. As you can see, they're pretty close friends and we were very excited to see them again.
Brett enjoys to run Marathons... yes those things that are 26 DREADFUL miles long where you have to run the whole time... he likes to do this, and so he ran the Saint George Marathon on Saturday morning. And yes he could walk afterwards, but not very easily. ;) I have to give him props for running those things. We all know I'd rather jump off a bridge than RUN at all. :) Anyways... They arrived at our house Saturday night. We enjoyed some diner and dessert and then due to everyone being so tried, we went to bed. :) Sunday we had breakfast, watched conference, had lunch, and then took them to the airport. I don't have any pictures from our fun weekend and yes their visit was short, but it was so good getting to see them and visit with them. I love getting visitors from home. :) Thanks for taking time to see us Brett and Des!! See you in December! :)

I've been tagged!!

The rules of the game. Go to your pictures folder and take the fourth picture from the fourth file and post it. That's it. Then tag four friends:)

LOL!! I was tagged by my mom and I'm sure that some of you have seen the ridiculous picture posted on her blog. I'm not so sure I'm that embarrassed now... LOL!! Katie's face is PRICELESS!! I think it's HILARIOUS!! I'm pretty sure we were taking a "gangsta face" pic. So there she is as a gangster. HAHA!! I love you Katie!!
I TAG: Dani, Kara Beth, Aubri, and Shannon!! HAVE FUN... and NO BREAKING THE RULES!! :)

Funny Females and Foul Football

While I was writing this post, I asked Nick to come up with a title... It describes our weekend PERFECTLY!!

We'd ALL been planning and looking forward to this weekend and what a BLAST it was!! On Friday morning I picked up Nick at 9 am from work at Mandalay Place. We planned to wash the car, get gas, and a few snacks for the road. We were headed to Logan, Utah for the weekend. We stayed with my oldest sister Dani and her husband Bob. My little sister Katie also made the drive from Powell, Wyoming that day too. Her and I planned to meet at Dani and Bob's at approximately the "same time"; However, when Nick and I were 45 mins out of Logan Katie text us and said she would be little late because she took a wrong turn. If any of you have driven from Lovell to Logan you know how many tricky turns have to be made and this was Katie's first time driving there. Well... poor Katie took a wrong turn to EVANSTON from Kemmerer and ended up being an hour behind schedule. We all had to laugh pretty hard about this because she didn't call until she was already an hour in the wrong direction. This little event started our weekend off JUST the right way!! Thanks Katie! ;) After Katie arrived we went to diner at Firehouse Pizza. We had a BLAST. My sisters and I are VERY close and we haven't ALL been together since my wedding, so we were SUPER excited. :)

Saturday's event was the main reason we made the trip to Logan. As some of you know it was the BYU vs. WYO game in Provo. And YES... Wyoming got their butts KICKED!!! ALL of us were proud to support our home-state team and went dressed in head to toe in WYO colors. We were VERY out numbered by Cougar fans as you can imagine. And even though Wyoming looked pretty pathetic the entire game, we still cheered for everything that they did right. The highlight of the game was meeting up with Nick's parents and youngest brother. They made the trip from Wyoming also. Jerry and Terri were the only two of our group who wore blue and white, so at least some of us weren't losers! ;) On our way to our seats I ran into my roommate from Northwest College in Wyoming. It was such an ironic thing to see her there and so fun too. As always... there seems to never be enough time to do everything you want or spend enough time with everyone that you want, but it was nice to see everyone. The game was very HOT and kinda of boring for us Wyoming fans. In fact it was a little embarrassing. :( After the game, we ALL went to t.g.i Friday's. It was a good food and fun time all visiting with one another. I was coming out of the bathroom and heard someone say "Lindi?" I turned around and there was one of our cousins Kelly. It was SOO crazy to run-into two people that I knew and had NO idea they were in the area. After dinner Nick's family went to Nick's aunt house in Provo and the rest of us headed back to Logan. Even though we were VERY tired from SUCH an EXCITING game, we decided to go to the movie WallE that night. I was told it was a very cute movie as I fell asleep on Nick's shoulder half way through the movie. :) I saw the very beginning and the very end and from what I saw, it was a good show. :) We all went home and straight to bed.
Sunday morning we slept in a little and then had a GOOD breakfast made by Bob. Katie headed for home and after going to Sacrament meeting with Dani and Bob, Nick and I headed back to Vegas. We couldn't of had a better time. We're SO glad that we went even if it was a short trip. I've missed my sisters SOO much and it was JUST what I needed to hold me over until Christmas when we're together again! ;)

To explain the title a little better... when my sisters and I get together, it is very loud with laughter as we are SOO excited to see one another and talk about everything. And I'm pretty sure the last part of the title is obvious!! Thanks for such a great weekend Dani and Bob and for letting us stay with you!! We love you and will see you at Christmas in WYOMING!! :)

Husbands are the BEST!!

Even though almost everyone one the UNLV campus doesn't believe in marriage espically at such a young age, I am SOO glad to be married. I know I've told you all this before, but lately it's been a little crazy with adjusting to school and work schedules and also being able to spend enough time with each other. This summer I got really used to staying at home and cooking and cleaning while Nick went to work. Once he got home, we would have all the time in the world to do those things that we wanted it seemed. Once we both get home at the end of the day we're both tired and worn out. We both usually have homework and so we do that and then go to sleep. I still try to always have breakfast and diner cooked everyday. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the amount of "things to do TODAY", but Nick, even though he has worked so hard with school and work, ALWAYS helps me even when I don't ask. I'm so thankful for his hard work around the house and yard. For example, Monday I left the house at 7 am knowing that by the end of the day I needed to do laundry, clean the kitchen, bathroom, and office, and when I got home from work and school that day Nick had it ALL done. We always do something little and simple to celebrate our Monthly anniversary and yesterday when I walked out of work, my car was covered in streamers, Oreo's, and window paint(yes, I know the 20th isn't for a few more days, but we'll be in Utah this weekend so we're celebrating early this month). He wrote all over the windows with sayings such as "Your hubby loves you". I could go on and on about everything that he does, but to sum it up....He's just always doing such sweet things and always making my day better. I'm grateful for his good attitude about everything when mine isn't so great. I know I am blessed to have him as my husband and I couldn't ask for a better person to spend the rest of my life with. Thanks sweety!!

BBQ, County Fair, Football Game, and Exhibition....

Since school has started, Nick and I have been trying to adjust to our "new" schedules. We've found that with both of our school and work schedules, it's hard to spend as much time together as we'd like. Yes... I know, this is real life and we're adjusting. So when we do get time together, we try to make the best of it and we've had A LOT of fun the past couple of weeks. When we do get time together, I try not to sit on the computer and blog, so therefore, I am very behind and am going to combine A LOT of events into one post.
We went to the first UNLV football game the weekend of Labor day. It was pretty fun and we kept moving up and farther away from the "wild student section." We finally found our comfortable place at the top of the student section where we also noticed a couple of LDS families had also made it "their place." :) Much nicer atmosphere up there. UNLV ended up winning which was kind of surprising since they aren't very good, but then again, we were playing the Aggies. :)
On our way TO the game (Saturday night), we decided LAST min. that we should invite some friends/families over for a Labor Day BBQ. We invited up to 30 people and planned to have Bassett burgers, Brats, Potato Salad (which I made using mom's recipe... very nice turn out), No-bake Cookies, Sugar Cookies, Chips, Watermelon, and Pop. We ended up having about 20 people show up and it was VERY fun to just relax and visit with everyone. Everyone said they enjoyed themselves too which is always a relief. I did learn that we won't do something like that last min. because of ALL the hard work that goes into. If we would of had more time to plan, clean, cook, and organize, it would have been a little easier. :) Live and learn right?

The next weekend we went to the Bodies Exhibition. As Nick is taking his EMS classes and they were covering the Anatomy section, his professor told him that if he went to this exhibition, he would receive extra credit. The tickets to this exhibition are $35 dollars a piece and so it WOULD have cost us over $70 to go, but one of Nick's classmates works at the exhibition and got us in FREE!! Yes I know, we lucked out again! :) For those of you who aren't familiar with this exhibition, you have to check out this website (then click on the video or picture gallery on the right side of the screen). Yes, they are REAL human bodies that have been preserved so it's kind of freaky if you think about it. :) But I do have to say, that after you get past the eerie part it, it's truly amazing to see what our bodies are made of. I kept shaking my head in awe. I told Nick more than once that Heavenly Father sure is a genius and VERY creative. If ANY of you haven't seen this, but get the chance someday, I'm telling you... you HAVE TO see it.
And to fully catch us up, this weekend Nick and I went to the Temple and then to the County Fair. We've set a goal to go every other Saturday and we missed last week and so it felt as if we hadn't been there in FOREVER. Afterwards, we both agreed that our visit was LONG overdue and we were SO glad to go back. We set a new goal because we feel so blessed to have a temple in the same city we live in and LOVE going to the temple. I was telling Nick that my testimony of the temple is growing more and more each time we go. That week that we missed was NOTICED in that week in school and at work for the both of us. We are now going to try our hardest to go every Saturday and are looking forward to it. After the temple, we went to the County Fair. Okay, it's NOTHING like the Powell, Wyoming fair. Of course there were THOUSANDS of people and so it made the lines for the rides and food VERY long. We weren't there for very long because of the atmosphere and amount of people. It was fun to experience though, and now we know the difference of a Nevada county fair and a Wyoming county fair. ;)

Here are a few pictures of the UNLV football game, the BBQ, and the Fair (in order).