I am constantly picking up toys at my house. You would think that little kids lived here instead of a puppy. Here are all of Buster's toys, nice and tidy, in his kennel:
Here is Buster, untidy-ing his toys:
And dragging them out to play with: 
He brings them out one by one until my living room looks like this:
And then I pick them all up, and put them back in the kennel and the cycle continues all day long. *sigh*
My old boss, Ryan, had sent me the trailer to this movie a while back, and I had wanted to see it but never got around to it. Then Nathan's brother lent it to us ages ago, and it's been sitting on our shelf because I could never get Nathan to sit down and watch it with me. Last night we finally watched it for our own little FHE. It was amazingly good! I highly recommend it to anyone married or even engaged. The couple in the movie are considering divorce and their relationship is in a really bad place- Nathan and I are no where near that point, we're a happy couple, but I still took a lot away from the movie. It reminds you of the importance of the atonement and your relationship with God and is a good reminder of how you should treat the person you love every single day. If you haven't seen this movie yet, it's a must see! Here's the trailer:
Nathan and I spent the last couple weeks going through all our junk, deciding what we wanted to get rid of. We used to call our spare bedroom the junk room because it had so much stuff in it- but we cleaned it out pretty good. We had 3 big boxes full of stuff, and two garbage bags full of clothes that we decided to part with. Lucky us- Nathan's brother and sister were planning on having their second garage sale and they invited us to come sell our junk with them!
So, this past Saturday, I woke up at 3:50 a.m., got ready, and drove up to Marvin and Sarah's house for our garage sale. We had so much stuff, and I've gotta say, it was some pretty good junk! It wasn't like most garage sales you drive by, and think "Who would buy that?!"- we had a lot of really decent items, and a bunch of good clothes!
On September 16th I turned the big 2-3! It was a pretty good day. I got to sleep in a bit- then I got all ready to go to a job interview. Before my interview, Nathan took me out to get breakfast at Jamba Juice! It was delicious, as usual.
After my interview and a change of clothes, Nathan and I headed northward to drop Buster off at Marvin and Sarah's house- they were so nice to baby-sit him, so we could go out and about on my birthday. After that, we went to Applebee's for lunch and the Border's- because I had a 15% birthday coupon! I finally was able to purchase Glenn Beck's book, Common Sense, as an audio book to listen to in the car! We also stopped by Spirit Halloween Superstore to look at all the creepy stuff there. I still really want the foggy bubble machine I saw there last year- in fact, I am determined to get one this year!
Then Nathan really surprised me and took me to my all time favorite shopping center- Kierland Commons! It was fun, but I was sad to find out that my favorite store there, Artifax, had closed. We were still able to look around Crate & Barrel and Restoration Hardware though. By the time we were done wandering there, I was a little tired- so we went back to the apartment to relax before our big night out!
The big event of the day took place that evening at Dave & Busters!! Nathan and I, my mom and dad, Nathan's mom and dad, Marvin and Sarah, Kassi, and my Aunt Lara all had dinner together. Since there were so many of us we got our own private room, which was kind of cool! I ordered a chicken parmesan sandwich and a delicious, fruity, non-alcoholic birthday drink- Yum! I even got a free birthday dessert that I shared with my fabulous husband. Then we got to play games. It had been about a year since I had been there, and they had some cool new games. They even have Guitar Hero now- but it doesn't give you any tickets for playing, so I only played it once. I spent the most time playing the haunted house game and Deal or no Deal. By the end of the night Nathan and I had a combined total of over 5000 tickets! We didn't cash them in for anything though. They might have some better games, but D&B's prizes are not as good as they were last year.
I was pooped after that fun filled night, but we still had to go pick up Buster. I managed to stay awake until we got him, but I totally crashed on the way back to the apartment. I was soooo tired! That's a sign of a good night!
- - -
The next Saturday evening we had a little birthday celebration over at Nathan's parent's house for me and Robert (Nathan's brother in law). It was really fun too! Nathan's whole side of the family was there, and my parents even drove up for it too. We went swimming- I actually think it was the first time I had done that all summer. The water felt so fabulous because I had spent most of the morning outside in the hot, yucky sun. Then we had a super yummy dinner- hamburgers, pigs in a blanket!, potato salad, pasta salad, chips, soda.... so good! And we finished off the meal with homemade ice cream.
The day after that, there was ANOTHER birthday celebration at my parents house for me, my cousin Jared, and my brother in law Jon. This time it was my whole side of the family! We had pizza and little mini cakes and pies for dessert. A good time was had by all. I was a happy birthday.
I sucked at taking pictures on this trip, but luckily, other's had their camera's out! Here are some more pictures from the Isom family reunion over Labor Day weekend!
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Nathan and I are kind of an artsy couple. He loves pottery, and I love collage art. One of my favorite ways to release my creative energy is working on my altered books.
For those of you who don't know what an altered book is-- here is the definition I found online.
"An altered book is a form of mixed media artwork that changes a book from its original form into a different form, altering its meaning.
An altered book artist takes a book (old, new, recycled or multiple) and cuts, tears, glues, burns, folds, paints, adds to, collages, rebinds, gold-leafs, creates pop-ups, rubber-stamps, drills, bolts, and/or be-ribbons it. The artist may add pockets and niches to hold tags, rocks, ephemera, or other three-dimensional objects. Some change the shape of the book, or use multiple books in the creation of the finished piece of art.
Altered books may be as simple as adding a drawing or text to a page, or as complex as creating an intricate book sculpture."
I hadn't really had a chance to work on my book since I got married, but when we cleaned out our junk room, and I had to reorganize all my art supplies, the creative bug bit me, and I had to bust out all my stuff.
Here are some pictures of a few pages from my book.
Inside the front cover is mirror with a collage border that says "What matters the most is how you see yourself" with a green collage of pictures of myself on the opposite side.
I love circles.
This page isn't quite finished yet- but I really like the progress I've made so far.
So there it is- I have a bunch of other pages in progress right now. I don't know if I'll ever "finish." Nothing too amazing-I'm not a professional artist by any means, but it's what I love to do! Just thought I'd share. =)
We love our little baby Buster- he always makes us laugh- even when he's sleeping! We find him in some of the silliest positions when he sleeps.
Here he looks like he fell over and fell asleep mid run!
Snuggled up with his teddy bear.
Oh yeah, Buster! We caught you!
All four legs in the air!
And his favorite way to sleep is snuggled up to mommy or daddy.
The first week in July we headed up to St. George once again for ANOTHER family reunion. This time it was the Isom (Nathan's mom's side) family reunion.
On Friday after work, we dropped Buster off at Nathan's sister's house. Amy was nice enough to watch all the family pets (minus Sarah's dog Rusty)- that's 4 dogs plus her own puppy! After leaving Buster, we drove up and picked up Marvin, Sarah, and Rusty. We decided to carpool up to Utah this time to save on gas. It was a little cramped having for adults in my little Corolla, but it was fun having other people to chat with on the way up.
Just getting out of Phoenix was an adventure! Since it was Labor Day weekend, it seemed like everyone was trying to exit the valley all at once. We didn't want to sit around in traffic forever, so we took some side roads and found our own way out of town. Instead of going up the 17 to Flagstaff, we went through Wickenburg and Kingman and VEGAS! I was excited because I had never seen Vegas before- unfortunately I was half asleep when we drove through- but it was still cool.
On the drive up we saw one of the coolest lightning storms ever. There was lightning all around us. It was like the ultimate lightning drive! Marvin tried to take pictures of the lightning- it was pretty funny to watch. He was taking pictures as fast as his phone would let him and he'd either get a picture right before or right after a lightning strike. I tried like twice to get a picture and then gave up!
I think we got to Grandma Smith's house around 2 in the morning- I don't really remember. I was so tired! I just wanted to go to sleep because I knew we had to wake up in like 6 hours. (Nathan who claimed he wasn't tired when we got there wound up falling asleep before me.)
The next day, we all woke up and got showered and headed to Hurricane to meet up with the rest of the family for breakfast. It was fun to get to meet MORE family. I was finally able to match names with faces, and place cousins with the right aunt/uncle.
After breakfast, we were introduced to a new game- Bocce Ball!
It was pretty fun to play, and the rules were easy! We played a few games, then we headed over to Peach Days!
While we were there at the Ranch, Nathan's cousin Daniel suggest that we take a drive over to Kolob, because there was an amazing look out over there. He said it would take about 15 minutes to get there- so we hopped in the car and took off. An hour later we pulled off at a lake- it was a very pretty lake, and the sunset made it even prettier-- however, it was not the place Daniel was trying to take us. It was starting to get dark, so we decided to head back home.
This is a picture of all of Sarah's wealth at one point in the game. Check out all those houses and hotels! Marvin and Nathan tried to make a similar deal, but they greatly under-estimated our power. Marvin and I were eventually out of the game and it was between Nathan and Sarah- Nathan would not give up! He was forced to give Sarah the last of his properties, and his overly competitive brain was still telling him he could win with the $6o he had left. Sarah literally owned every single property on the board, all the $500 bills from bank, and practically all the $100s. Sarah was the champion in every way possible, and yet as we were lying in bed that night, Nathan muttered, "I still think I could have won...." Oh goodness!
