What you've all been waiting for!  

Posted by Amber

A catch-up post for the last like two months :)

So, the rest of February.... my work has finally offered us 401Ks.  Maybe not much to you, but I was pretty excited :)  We will at least have something in a retirement account again. (Some may remember we cashed out Matt's IRA to make the down payment on the condo.)

On February 26th, I hung out with a friend from high school.  Love her!  We met at the Provo mall and got some lunch and talked.  Then, of course, we went shopping! I only ended up getting a pair of earrings, but we had fun :)  (Thanks to Matt's aunt Lynell for the gift card to Christopher & Banks from ages ago that I used to buy said earrings :) )

That night, Matt and I headed up to Salt Lake for the WUSPBA Great Basin Branch awards dinner at Golden Corral.  Matt brought home a trophy for 1st place in grade 2 snare.  Lots of other members of our band also brought home awards.  It was fun.  They put together a slide show with pictures from all of the bands in our branch that we watched after dinner.  It was much fun. :)
Matt and DeAnn Goodman, current branch president
White Peaks represent!
L-R: Don, Diana, Tashina, Zach, Matt, Katie, Susan, Ian, Justin, Meika, someone I don't know ;), Natalie

So that takes us to March.  On the 12th was the St. Patrick's Day parade at the Gateway.  I left the band to go get some breakfast, which was an awesome idea :)  I read my book until I heard bagpipes outside, so I missed the first part of the parade.  It's okay, though, because it was chilly.  WPs wasn't until much later, but I snapped a few shots with my phone :)


Matt's birthday was on the 28th.  He is officially closer to 30 than 20, which makes him a little sad.  On Saturday, the 26th, we headed up to Rio Tinto Stadium for the RSL game.  We were a little late and heard them make the first goal as we were walking over from the parking lot.  Then, we decided to stop and get some dinner, during which they made another goal. :)  Happy for lots of goals, sad I didn't see them.  We had pretty good seats and it was lots of fun.  We were high enough up that we didn't get too much rain, either.
 Heading to the game!
 Half-time fun
Beginning the second half
Jimmer was there, and Matt pointed it out on the TV, so we were looking there when we scored yet another goal.  Stupid Jimmer.  I missed LA's goal too, but I did get to see 1 RSL goal, so it was alright.  RSL won 4 to 1 against the LA Galaxy, so it was a good night. 



We won!

Earlier that same day, Matt's brother Curtis performed his Trombone Junior Recital.  He was amazing, as usual.  It was fun to watch him perform and visit with family.  Curtis also did a little didgeridoo piece, which made me want to go back to Australia :) *sigh*
Sunday we had dinner and brownies at Matt's parents' for his birthday.  I can't recall now if it was Sunday or Monday, but my parents also stopped by our house for a short visit and to give Matt a cute birthday card :)  Yeah, he's loved ;)

So onto April... really the only thing of note (besides General Conference, which, yes, was amazing, as it always is) was this past Saturday, April 9th, we got to go up to the Draper temple to see Matt's cousin sealed to our family.  I've never witnessed the sealing of children to the parents, but it was awesome :)  I also didn't know that the other kids (if they're under 21) can come watch.  It was so fun to see the whole family there in white joined for eternity. :)

Afterward, we all went to dinner at Chuck-A-Rama.  Yay for more visiting with family :)  After dinner, Matt and I went to Ikea because we'd never been.  Sorry to those who absolutely love Ikea (*cough* Natalie *cough*), but I wasn't that impressed.  The whole concept was weird to me.  It probably didn't help I was still in a skirt and dress shoes wandering around the showroom...  we eventually found our way out of the store and back to our car so we could go home. :)  I think if I want to purchase something from Ikea, it will be over the internet :)

So, that brings us up-to-date. Yay!  In other exciting news, this weekend we're going to Vegas! I'll be sure to take pictures.... and maybe one day I'll get around to blogging about our adventures ;)

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On being girly...  

Posted by Amber

Ooo look! I do remember how to blog ;)  I know you're all so excited.  Well, I don't feel like doing a 'what we've been up to in the last 1 1/2 months' post, but as I was sitting here reading others' blogs and whatnot, I thought about my nails.... lol that's random, isn't it?  No, not really.  You see, yesterday, my morning was consumed by french tipping my toe nails, which led to me removing the (very pretty and newly purchased) dark red polish on my finger nails.  Ugh for dark red though. LOTS and lots of nail polish remover and time went into trying to get it off of my nails and fingers.... After that, I decided they were still too pink to just leave, so I pulled out some glitter polish.  I didn't realize the glitter was so thick, so I ended up doing two coats of glitter on my fingers and topping them off with clear coats to create my glitter nails - in bright gold. 


So yes, I'm rocking some fancy nails today :)  But that isn't all.  For years (yesterday, when I was thinking about it, it's probably at least been for the last 10, if not 15 years), my typical hairstyle was half up in a hair claw.  Quick and easy.  Well, at work, the chair back is so high that the hair claw is in the way if I try to lean back.... and that causes my neck to have pain.  So I've switched to banding it when I wear it that way.  But not only that, I've become more adventurous in my hair styles.  Working at noon every day means I have time to actually do my makeup and whatnot before work, so I've worn my hair lots of different ways as of late :)

But then I suppose that brings us to makeup, doesn't it?  I love makeup.  I like to be creative but still tasteful - this usually ends up being some sort of eye liner drawn beyond my eyes. Fun stuff!  We can thank Ms. Taylor Swift for this adventure.  She's so pretty and I absolutely adore her! She's a hero of mine - so when I saw her liner drawn out, I just had to do it too!


 

Anyway, with having more time in the mornings, I've paid more attention and time to my appearance, and I love it!  It has gotten me kind of consumer-y though.  Like buying new lipstick so I had a good true red.  And buying that nail polish I mentioned.  And trying to find good red eye shadow.  Ah... I've gotten so much bolder as I've aged. :)  I enjoy pushing convention a little :)  It makes one stand out, you see?  As long as you look good while doing it, I think it's a good thing :)  So there you have it.  I like being girly. :)

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2nd Playthrough  

Posted by Amber

Yep.  I finished my second playthrough yesterday morning at about 3:30am.  Plans worked out well.  I made Alistair king and married him.  Convinced Zev to stick around, but we're just friends.  I played mostly with Alistair, Leliana, and my dog (who was named Brom this time around), which was different from last time.  But getting Zevran so late meant Leliana's lockpicking skills were superior, and since I was not a rogue myself, I needed someone to break into locked chests. 

I'm going to play as a man next time, but I'm not certain which story I'll do.  I'm leaning toward being a mage and romancing Morrigan, but I'm not sure which fate I'll leave Alistair to.  Maybe I'll let him leave and let Loghain join the Grey Wardens.  I may marry Anora myself.  I don't think I'll let her kill Alistair this time.  I'll save that one for a later time.  Maybe.

Also, Bridgitte only ended the game at level 21. What's up with that?  I did more side quests and even played through Return to Ostagar (a downloadable quest).  Oh well.  I did gain some more achievements, which I'm looking at on social bioware right now.  LOL I love this one: Easily Sidetracked - completed 75% of all side-quests. :)  I also gained Traveler - set foot in every area of the game.  Anyway, good times.  Don't know when I'll start my third play through, but I will tell you I just pre-ordered DAII :D yay!

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Valentine's Celebration  

Posted by Amber

Since I told you in the last post I would write about what Matt and I did over Valentine's weekend, I suppose I should to that :)  I just put the pictures on the computer this morning, which reminded me I should do that, too.  So here you go.

Since the 12th was to be (relatively) warm and sunny, I told Matt I wanted to go to the zoo.  We often go to the aviary, but we have memberships both places and haven't used our zoo membership enough yet to pay for itself.  It was also the Worldwide Leadership Training, but I didn't go....  Instead, Matt got up early to take his car in for service and safety and emissions, I mosied out of bed much later and got ready at a leisurely pace, then went to pick him up from the dealership. :)  He made me come inside because a friend of ours from school worked at the dealership and wanted to say hi, so we chatted for a bit.  Then we stopped at McDonald's for breakfast before heading up to the zoo :)

I thought being the first truly warm weekend that there would be more people there, but it wasn't too crowded.  We went around the duck pond first and fed the silly buggers.  Part of the pond was frozen and a Giant Canada Goose, a Trumpeter Swan, and one duck dared brave the ice to get closer to people throwing food. The little duck made Matt laugh because he'd go running across the ice to get the pellet, which was entertaining to watch.


Check out how big those webbed feet are!

Did I mention in the ZooLights! post about the poor goose who was honking up a storm begging to be fed?  And we couldn't feed him because they had the bridge blocked off where the pellet dispensers are?  We met him and his little friend on the other side of the pond and went back to get pellets for them to make up for it.  He would take them right out of our hands :)



When we got to the small primate building, we were surprised to find an art exhibit as well.  We wandered around enjoing the animal art, and the warmer tempuratures.  They had some awesome stuff, and a great painting of tiger cubs that would go great over our couch, if we'd had a spare few thousand dollars lying around :)  We enjoyed it quite a bit.

Also at ZooLights!, we discovered the Colubus Monkeys had a baby.  Well he (or she) is growing up and is quite rambunctious :)  The babe would climb all over everyone and jump up and down.  Quite cute :)


Here are some more pictures of our zoo adventure :)
 Bored Ring-tailed Lemur
 European Glass Lizard - yes, lizard. Not snake.
 Burrowing Owl contemplating lunch
 Western Spotted Skunk snoozing - upside-down :)
 Rose-ringed Parakeets
 Lunch time!
 I thought the cats would be more active since we have cooler temperatures, but they were all snoozing.  Matt liked this one cuz he was sleeping on his head...
 This giraffe came over, and I stuck out my hand, and he touched me :)
Helmeted Guinea Fowl - they make me laugh

After the zoo, we went to PetSmart, Petco, and Animal Ark to see if any of them carried Harrison's bird food for Turk (they don't).  It was adoption day at PetSmart, so there were lots of puppies all around the store for people to adopt.  Most of them looked like rescues.  Petco is having their adoption day tomorrow, the 19th, if anyone is interested.

Then we headed back to the dealership so Matt could pick up his car.  After that, we met at Red Robin in the Provo mall for an early dinner, which was perfect because I was starved. (Thanks Larry and Carrie for the gift card!)  We'd only had a little bit of breakfast at McDonald's around 10:30am, and had dinner around 5pm.  We had a good time and enjoyed our food.  Matt got this tasty drink, which was not only tasty, but pretty to look at, both full and empty.
So there you have it.  We called this Valentine's and called it good.  It was a fun day hanging out with my honey :)

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V-day  

Posted by Amber

Today is Valentine's Day.  I don't really want to get into V-day and everything, but my dear friend posted this awesome post on her blog about love.  And I loved it.  And I love her.  And I think you should all feel the love and go read her post. :)  Matt and I celebrated on Saturday, more on that later.  But for now, go read her post!

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Recent Happenings  

Posted by Amber

So, while I'm playing catch-up, here are some other things that have happened recently that don't really warrant their own post :)

Saturday, Jan. 29, Matt and the band competed at the Dave Barclay Memorial Indoor Competition (seriously, why do all things pipe band have such long names?).  I was going to go up and hang out and watch, but I went to bed late.  And, I decided I would be super bored because it is just piping and drumming - no vendors to peruse during off moments.  So instead, I sent Matt off early with the camera and instructions to make someone video him soloing.  When I eventually woke up, I played Dragon Age for an epic amount of time and finished my first playthrough :)  While Matt signed up for two solos, he only actually competed in one.  He took second (of two, but that doesn't matter, right? ;) )


The band did well, taking first in both competitions.  They also took first in drumming in both competitions.  Matt was pretty happy about that :)

We also added two little ones to our family.  Matt's aunt Melody's mom moved and can only keep three of her pets, so we adopted two of her canaries.  I don't know how old they are or what their names were.  All I know is one is supposed to be a boy, and the other is supposed to be a girl.  Don't ask me which is which, though.  They're quite fun, and they're squeeking in the other room as I type :)  Cinco is quite fond of them as well, and they don't seem to mind him, unless he swats at them while they're getting a drink.
Bandito
 Bethesda
Cinco inspecting the cage for durability

We're bad.  We only managed to keep the birds quarantined from each other for like a week.  Turk is only interested in them because they get to eat more seeds than he does.  He'll fly to their cage and try to get in to eat the yumminess that he is denied :)

This past weekend, we had stake conference.  It was so good! We sat with Matt's parents at the adult session (after enjoying yummy pizza and family at their house).  I recently have started reading my scriptures again (never was a strong point for me) and was reading in Matthew. During my reading, I keep getting the impression we need to do better with preparing - not just reading scriptures and such, but temporal preparedness, getting 72 hour kits, actually getting food storage.  Guess what theme I came away with from conference?  That's right, preparedness.  And what else?  They went over the scriptures I had just been reading :)  It's a sign - I really need to do more to prepare our little house in case of an emergency, not just for us, but our animals too.

The Sunday session, we actually arrived on time (15 minutes early).  There were still some soft seats near the front, but we sat a row behind and over from Matt's family.  Again, such an awesome conference.  I think conference has helped me with reading my scriptures at night (aside from the fact I should do that anyway...and this year's primary theme is I Know the Scriptures are True...).  I just love the gospel :)  Also, didn't play Dragon Age Sunday (go me! - they talked about bad distractions in conference too).  Not that I can't play (because I have the last couple of nights), but I really need to keep that in check with my family's needs.

That afternoon (yes, superbowl sunday) we had our Priesthood Preview, for which I made adorable invitations, of course. I heart them :)


I drew the tie and created the stripes (which say "PriesthoodPreview" over and over)


So there you have it, the things that have happened in our lives lately.

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DAO Update  

Posted by Amber

So for the one or two who may care about my DAO (Dragon Age Origins) progress, I finished playing on January 29th.  I hooked up with Zev, and after much turmoil, had decided since I was a Dalish elf and he was also, I should stick with him.  However, in actuality, I married Alistair to Anora and stayed as his consort, but I kept Zev around too.  I'm horrible, I know.

 
I promptly began my second playthrough :)  It's an addiction, but I'm working on that.  I didn't play at all this last Sunday, and I didn't play yesterday morning.  Or this morning, for that matter.  This time I'm playing as a human noble, so I can actually marry Alistair :)



It has been fun playing it again.  This time, I didn't kill Connor or Isolde.  Go me!  This caused me to get Zevran later, but it's okay because I turned him down to be with Alistair :)  You'll also notice that it has helped my leveling.  I ended my first playthrough at level 20.  I've only done 2 of the main quests this time, and I'm already at 14.  Other fun/new things, I talked to the other recruits at the beginning of the game more - Daveth made me laugh :)  I also got Sten in my party, which I failed to do the first time around.  I still haven't played with him in my party, but I could if I wanted to.

However, some parts have been boring/redundant.  Mostly I was bored with Lothering.  I also was displeased because I didn't get Coercion (which allows you to persuade/intimidate people to get different results), which I had at the beginning of the game last time.  I missed some of the ways I could handle things the first time, which I failed to do this time.  Oh well, I do have Coercion now, so it's not too bad.

Anyway, I do intend to play through it at least two more times after this as well.  Partly because it's so intricate that you can have many different stories, and partly to get more achievements. :)  Next time I think I'm going to be a male dwarf - romance Morrigan and (*gasp!*) let Anora execute Alistair.  Tragic.  Hopefully I can hold to that.  That character is pretty much going to be polar opposite of me, so in that mindset, hopefully I can do all the "naughty" stuff (siding with the Templars and the werewolves, for instance).  I also intend to play as a female City elf and be strictly with Zev.  And then I'll let Alistair sacrifice himself.  (Still sad, but less upsetting than how angry he gets when you make Anora queen and she executes him...)  There will be a couple other playthroughs as well to get the "play through every origin story" achievement.  Maybe one of these days I'll get around to playing Mass Effect 2.... :)

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