I love this place

I know that you would never expect me to say that I love Price but I have grown to love it. Does it mean I want to stay here forever? Um... no. But there are some great things about living in a small town. Last night we were able to attend a community Christmas concert. It was a gathering involving 2 LDS stakes in Price, the Methodist congregation and the Lutheran congregation. It was so cool to be gathered with different people with different believes but having been brought together because of our belief in our Savior and being able to celebrate the commemoration of his birth. Things like this makes me love living in a small town.

Some other things going on in our lives:

As of right now, I'm a prisoner in our living room. I had the day off today and Scott and Grady (our landlord/friend) have been working on updating our bathroom. Our house is over 100 years old and a lot of the features in the house are over 50 years old, including our bathtub. It wasn't very good at draining and had caused some mold problems so they have spent the day taking out our old tub and installing a new one. This has forced me to lay around watching TV, having some much needed cuddle time with Cosmo and reading a book. I feel totally unproductive and cooped up but the end result is going to rock!

In other news, I'm not done with my Christmas shopping. That is on my agenda for this week. Also we are excited that we get to stay home for Christmas. Our plan is to have a Christmas Eve dinner and have a nice breakfast on Christmas morning and then we will stay in our jammies all day and snack on leftovers and watch movies... or Lost episodes. Scott's parents are driving from Missouri and will be here on Sunday night and then we will be spending the next week up in SLC. We are pretty excited to spend some time with them and with my family.

Scott got his first 4.0 ever! Granted he only took one class but I'm still pretty proud of him and his hard work. Also I'm loving my new position at work. I stay really busy and it makes my days go by very quickly, it's also very rewarding.

I really love this time of year and I try hard to take each moment and savor it. It's a time to reflect on how much we have and how abundantly blessed we are. I've been a little impatient lately and struggling to figure out why things aren't happening when I want them to happen, but I forget that everything always turns out how it should and I have to cling onto that faith and remember how much we've already been blessed with.

Last of all, we just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. One of these years we will do a Christmas card, but again the time has slipped away. I hope that Santa brings you everything on your list!

Black Friday

Okay, call me crazy, insane, loony, mental, or whatever you want, but I went Black Friday shopping (for my first time) and I had so much fun! My sister (Jen), niece (Kenzie 17) and I got up and went to Target at 4 a.m. We made our lists the night before, carefully planned our strategy of how we were going to execute this mission. We got there as the end of the line (0f the super crazy people) that were entering the store. People were already exiting the story with their LCD TV's, so obviously they let people in a little early. The 3 of us went in expecting we wouldn't be buying everything on our list. To our surprise we all found everything on our list within 15 minutes (plus some things not on our lists).

Getting through the line took over an hour but it was so worth it! I saved $180, which was more than I spent. To my surprise there was no shoving or fighting over products. People were polite (besides some of the people that tried to cut in line). I really don't know why I haven't done this sooner. I will definitely be going out next year!

Still have 'em.

Yup, 3 years later and we still have hundreds of the napkins that we used at our wedding receptions. It may be years til we are out of these bad boys, but these still bring back precious memories and a smile to my face... At least they are the perfect party napkin.

Clearance means good times!

I was at Walmart today buying a few groceries and they had all of their leftover Halloween stuff on clearance up to 90% off. They had a whole shopping cart with dog Halloween costumes for $2 each. Originally I loaded up the cart with 5 different costumes but after standing there for a few minutes I had time to think of Scott's reaction and how I couldn't explain the need to purchase 5 different costumes for our dog. I limited it down to 2. One of them doesn't fit as well and I wish I would have picked out the hot dog costume instead but they are both so cute. (I even went back later today to get some others but the cart was almost empty.)

Luckily my dog was a good sport. I know he looked really upset in this picture but really he's just drugged. It's laundry day and he was having some anxiety issues.
And here is Cosmo in his second costume, it's a little small but still so funny.

I know I know, I'm sure a lot of you don't understand the relationship we have with our dog (my mom may be the only one that enjoys this post), but really he is our kid. Since we haven't been blessed with children yet, he fills some of that void. We love our boy and are so glad that he lives with us!

The happenings in our home

We've been pretty busy around here. Scott just got back from a convention in Vegas. He was only gone for 2 days but Cosmo and I still missed him lots.

The governor made a visit to my work today. You know it's election time when he starts making his way to the small towns in the state. He seemed pretty nice. I got to talk with him for a minute and get my picture taken.

Scott got cast in a play! He will be in the production of "Our Town" at CEU. He is the "narrator", so he gets to talk to the audience and lay out the story throughout the play. I always love to watch him act. He loves it and he is so good at it. If anyone is interested in coming to see him, it is playing November 11-16.

And lastly, I got a different position at work. The title of my position is operations administrator/trainer. So I will be working with part of the operation side of things in our center and then I'll be training new hires when they start, along with maintaining quality assurance with current employees. I've been working as a supervisor for 2 years and this new position was kind of a lateral move, but I felt like I could grow a lot from this and get some experience in something different. So I'll be starting that next week and it will be a Monday-Friday which I have mixed feelings about. I love having a weekday day off but it will be nice to have Saturdays off again. I will also miss working 5-1:30, getting off of work early in the afternoon was nice. But not having to go to bed at 9 will also be nice. It should be a challenging but fun opportunity!

Another year!

Today marks our 3^rd anniversary! It has been 3 years full of lots of love and lots of growing. We spent this past weekend in Salt Lake City. It was filled with many fun activities like shopping in Park City, going to a movie, attending Music and the Spoken Word, playing at the Clark Planetarium, more shopping, watching a move cuddled up in one of the comfiest beds I’ve ever slept in, and attending the temple. We also ate at most of our favorite places including Chinese Gourment, Pizza and Noodle Company in Park City, brunch at Little America (AH-MAZE-ING!!!), Applebees and Olive Garden. It was such a relaxing, fun filled, romantic weekend. It was exactly what we needed. Happy anniversary to my best friend and the love of my life! It’s been a great year and I’m so excited for the next!

A Much Needed Break

I've realized that I've got a bit of an addiction... to social networking. I spent way too much time on Facebook and blog hopping. I've become more concerned about what is going on with others, than with what is going on with myself. I am in no way discrediting those that blog or Facebook but it's interfering with my growth and so I think it's time to take a break and re-evaluate some things. So I'm not disappearing, just doing something different for a while (I will probably last a week or so). But I figure if I can give up sugar, flour and dairy for 2 months, I can give up Facebook and blogging for a week.

Independence- And I ain't talkin' BYU

As a lot of you know, Scott works a lot of long hours. He has to go up to SLC sometimes and will be gone for days at a time. I've learned that I can be a pretty independent person. There isn't much around the house I can't do for myself. (Although I still save some of those things for him when he gets home.) There is one thing that I just can't do for myself, and that involves big spiders. I have always been scared of spiders. But when I was 20, I had the most horrific experience with two spiders plus all their babies and it caused me such emotional distress that I had to have my mom sleep in my bed with me for a few days. Since then, when I see a big spider in my house, my head gets tingly and I start to hyperventilate. Is this something I need to overcome? Probably since our goal is to move to Missouri one day, the home of all big bugs. But I still have a major struggle with it.

So the other night, when I went to brush my teeth, I grabbed the toothpaste, which I keep in a cup with my nail scrub brush and I noticed that it was super dusty in there. I didn't think anything of it because our bathroom gets dusty very quickly. So I went about my business. So last night I went to get my toothpaste again and noticed that it was not dust in the cup but a huge spiderweb with a huge spider in there. I don't know how long it's been living there but I kinda freaked out. Scott was not home, so I had to figure out what I was going to do. There was no way I would be able to sleep if I knew it had access to me. So after the tingling in my head subsided and I took some deep breaths, I did this...
It took a lot of courage to even pick up the cup, but I flipped it over and for added security (who knows how freakishly strong it is) I put a bottle of hydrogen peroxide on top for weight. Luckily I'll see Scott tonight and I'll let him figure out how he is going to dispose of it from there. :)

Check this out!

My cousin Laurel has written a book. She is truly inspiring and inspired. She spends her summers flying around the country speaking at girls camps and at firesides. She loves young women and she sees their potential. She has written another book and I can't wait to read it. You can find the book here and she wants so much for every young woman to read this that she is trying to keep the cost as low as possible. So if you know any young women that need some encouragement or that just need some reassurance in their life, I highly encourage this book. I'm not even a young woman anymore and I'm very excited to read it!

Congrats Laurel on your book! So excited to read it!

He did it!

Scott, my dad, my brother Joey, my niece Ali-Jo, my brother-in-law Jimmy and my nephew Nick all set out to hike Mount Timpanogas... not the cave, but the top. Scott, Joey and Ali-Jo were the only ones to make it to the top but the others made a valiant effort. 20 miles, sore bodies, sunburns and many blisters on their feet later they made it to this...
The summit
He's on top of the world!
They signed the log book and wrote their names on a signature rock.
They were able to see to the south tip of the Great Salt Lake, all of Utah county, up to Jordanelle and Heber and even down to the south part of Emery county. Scott said it was so worth it even though he is still paying for it. I'm so happy that some of them made it all the way up.

I'm so boring

So I don't really have much to post but we are alive. We are just keeping busy. I've been cooking dinner (planned ahead which is a miracle), I've given the dirty dog a bath (he's gotta be clean if he's going to sleep in our bed between us like he has been, I think he's been having nightmares or just gets cold), and just enjoying the last days of summer.

I finished the first season of Lost on DVD (thank goodness my sister has all the seasons), and I'm going through a bit of withdrawal because I finished it 3 days ago and the second season is up in West Jordan. I think I'll just get the rest of the seasons while I'm there so that I don't have to wait. I have to say I was a skeptic and I didn't want to give in to the craze, but I was hooked even though I know how it all ends.

Scott is hiking to the top of Timpanogas Mountain tomorrow with my dad, brother, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. They are all pretty excited about this and it's been a long time coming. Hopefully after that I'll have something more interesting to blog about. :)

Price City International days 2010

Every year in Price, they have a festival for 3 days that includes entertainment, rides and local venders that sell food and merchandise. It's pretty much like a small fair. Scott got hired to do that light and sound for the entertainment. He worked long hours and it wasn't the smoothest experience but everything ended up working out. He did such a great job and so I'm proud of all the hard work he put into this.

He was in charge of arranging the entertainment as well. For the last night he got a couple of guys to come down from SLC that perform at a place called the Tavernacle. They are called "Dueling Pianos" and they play requests from the audience. It was SO much fun and everyone there had a blast.

The city counsel that approved the group were skeptical but as you can see in the picture below they had a blast. They probably had the most fun out of everyone (besides the high school "glee club"). This is them singing along to "Sweet Caroline."

Scott's cousin Jamin and her friend Leisl (that go to school down here at CEU) came down for the festivities. They are always fun to have around.
Cosmo is always glad when the girls come to visit. He has a crush on Leisl. They are so cute together!

How sad is this face?

This is Cosmo, Cosmo has a problem. He has been diagnosed with anxiety. This condition makes Cosmo sick to his stomach and causes bad news at the Westwood home...

So this is the 3rd time in a few months that I've had to take Cosmo to the vet because of the trots. The first time they just gave him antibiotics and said it was a bug. This time I took him to a vet in Price and he said that Cosmo is suffering from anxiety. And looking back, each time this occurs there is a change of pace in our normal schedule. He also gets freaks out when we do laundry (he hates our washing machine because it squeals). But the good news is that he is being treated for his anxiety and we are happy that it's not something more serious.

Kenzie's visit

My niece Kenzie has been asking for a while if she could come down and see us for a weekend and we were finally able to make it work. We took her down to San Rafael Swell "The mini Grand Canyon". Besides the car problems, we had a lot of fun. Here is some evidence of our fun!



This is the dinosaur footprint that we saw. The sun was at the wrong angle so it's not the greatest picture. We had a fun weekend together.

To my dear Ladybug...

I can't believe it's been 2 years since you were relieved from your pain and got to go to doggy heaven. I get to see this fire hydrant everyday on my way to work and it always reminds me of you. You are still loved and we still miss you a lot!

Good family fun

This is what happens when new camera + wig + family time are put together.

Yeah my dad is pretty cool.

And welcoming Max, the newest member of my sister's family. He was rescued from the shelter. He is a super sweet puppy and he is so good to put up with us putting a hat on him and taking his picture.
I think he looks like Cosmo. Yay for Max!

Lost camera :(

I lost my camera last Saturday at a campground up the canyon here in Price. I shouldn't be so sad about a piece of metal but if you think about it, it's with me through a lot... Even though it was big and was only a 5 MP camera, it still makes me sad. I got it on Christmas, Cosmo's first Christmas in fact. It was there with me through multiple trips, through Cosmo's growing up years, through our courtship, engagement, at our wedding and was there during our newlywed days among many other milestones. We were looking at getting a new camera anyway but not this soon and were not going to get rid of that one. The good part is that I had dumped all of my pictures onto my computer so I didn't lose any of those. But I feel lucky it was only that and not something more important. It's not the end of the world but I won't be posting pictures for a while.

A summary of our amazing beach trip!

So we are back from California and it was SO MUCH FUN! We got to spend some quality time with family which was great. Our days were filled with activities and adventures and we made so many memories.

The first day we drove to Vegas. I didn't get off work until 12, so we decided to just drive half way and get a good night's sleep instead of driving the whole way and then having to set up camp late at night. We stayed in a nice casino on the south end of the strip, and when I say the south end I'm talking 10-15 miles down from the city. So there wasn't a lot of traffic and when we got up that morning we were past all of the morning traffic which was awesome. Our room was really nice and super clean. There was even a phone next to the toilet. I don't like staying in casinos because I hate smelling like smoke but it wasn't too bad and we didn't stink afterward. We went that night to Buffalo Wild Wings. We were lucky enough to hit $.45 wing night, so I think we ended up ordering over 40 wings. It was super yummy.

Wednesday we drove through to California. We made some stops at some outlet malls and got some killer deals on a pair of sunglasses and some shoes for Scott and a purse for me. Then we went to lunch at a restaurant in Irvine called Houston's. They have awesome baby back ribs and since it was Scott's birthday I decided to take him there for lunch. He got the Prime Rib and I got the ribs. It was super good and such a cool atmosphere. After that we drove to the Newport Beach Temple since it was only 5 minutes away. I really love that temple, it is one of my favorites. Then we headed for Carlsbad to the beach. We were able to set up camp and his family had bought him a cake so we ate some yummy cake. (Do you like his awesome crown that the kids made him? He is such a great sport!)

On Thursday Scott's parents stayed with the kids while all of the adult children went to the San Diego Temple. They were doing some work on the outside but the inside was stunning. It seriously took my breath away. I can see why people love it so much. It was so great to be in the Temple with family. The rest of the day was spent at the beach with family and some extended family that happened to be on vacation as well.


Friday was Disneyland day! It was more exciting than Christmas morning for me. I've been wanting to go there since we got married and it just hadn't happened yet. We spent the day in the Disneyland park. It was so fun to be with the little kids and see their excitement. I went on Splash Mountain against my better judgment (not my favorite ride), and I got soaked. We did that ride at about 10 in the morning and I was completely dry by about 6 p.m. I think the favorite ride of the day was Space Mountain. That ride just makes me giggle and the little kids loved it! It was a long day and we were all exhausted by the end but it was well worth it!

(Scott convinced me to sit in the front instead of the second seat. I was the most soaked. Obviously he thought it was hilarious.)
Saturday we all slept in and then went to the beach. It was the only day that we spent on the beach that had sunshine. The rest of the days were cloudy and foggy. So I did what any girl would do that really wanted to live it up... I didn't wear sunscreen. Less than 2 hours in the sun and I was fried. It was pretty painful but now I have a nice bronzed tan in it's place. That evening we ventured down to Old Town San Diego. We went to the Mormon Battalion Visitor's Center. It is hands down the coolest, most high tech visitors center I've been to. Even the kids were so intrigued by the tour. It took about 45 minutes for the tour and then we went out back and panned for gold and made bricks and did some other activities. Then we went through some shops and decided to head back to camp.



(A random van we saw in San Diego, it was decorated in bird cages and ever had a bird cage in the front seat with a bird it in, so random!)

Sunday we went to the local ward in Carlsbad. The people there were so warm and welcoming. I love going to church out of state, it's always a positive experience. We took a Sunday nap and just chilled at the camp. It was fun to just spend the day relaxing.

Monday we went to a little taco shop in Encinitas and got some awesome Mexican food. Then one of my best friends Amber (who I worked with at Su Casa) came down from Corona to hang out on the beach with us. She brought her 2 darling kids and we just had fun visiting and playing in the sand. It was so good to catch up with her. I miss her a lot!
(How cute is this?!?!)

Tuesday we cleaned up camp and went to Disneyland again. We spent most of the day in California Adventure which was great cuz Scott had never been there. We went on a few rides and I got kinda motion sick so we went to a few shows in between some of the rides. We saw the Aladdin show which was awesome! It was like a 45 minute broadway play. That night we stayed with Amber in Corona and drove home the next day.
(This is me trying not to freak out, but it was so much fun!)
(Scott playing on Tom Sawyer's Island. I sat in the shade since I didn't feel well. He said he got a lot of weird looks exploring the island by himself.)

It was such a fun trip and I'm so sad it's over, but we really enjoyed ourselves and we enjoyed being with family!

Some ironic things from our trip...

• Scott noticed that the most outdated ancient bathroom in all of Disneyland is in Tomorrowland. The most advanced bathroom was on Tom Sawyer's island.

• Ants are not my friend and they were everywhere on the beach. I think I handled it quite well considering my dislike for them.

• The longest line we experienced in the park was when Scott got a corndog for lunch in Disneyland. It took him 40 minutes.

The beach

This is a sneak peak at our trip. The beach was beautiful...we had a blast...we made priceless memories... and spent a lot of time in the car. All in all it was an incredible trip (minus the ant infestation at the beach). I will post more later. Despite making sure my house was clean before I left I have mounds of sand covered laundry and stuff all over the place. I am going to responsible and do some work on that although I'd rather watch the Lakers/Celtic game and just chillin' with my doggy.

P.S. I took 5 pairs of flip-flops on the trip, however I only wore 3 of them during the trip. And I took 4 other pairs of shoes besides those. Don't mock, it never hurts to be prepared. :)

Is there such a thing as too many?

I love love love flipflops. The hard part is trying to pick out which shoes to take to California. I am taking guesses on how pairs I take. And I have no problem taking as many as I need.

What defines a good time?

A day at Grandma and Grandpa's Smith's cabin..

And the filthy dog to prove it. (He is usually pure white except his ears and tail.)

Good times, good times...

I'm coming Mickey!!!

In honor of our trip to Cali I have changed the background of the blog once again. I tried to set a goal to no talk to Scott about it everyday but it hasn't happened yet. Some of you have asked where exactly we are going. Scott's family has a tradition of going camping on the beach of the 4th of July in Carlsbad. They don't do it as often since they moved to Missouri, but when we went back for Thanksgiving they told us that they wanted to do the trip this year. They usually go for 2 weeks but where they have to plan 2-3 day travel time each way we decided one week would be good. So we are camping on Carlsbad State Beach. We will be going to Disneyland (yippee!), exploring San Diego, and spending countless hours soaking up the sun on the beach.

I was talking to some co-workers about it and I was saying there is no where else that I would rather go this summer than southern Cal. They were boggled by this. But I haven't been in 5 years and that is the longest amount of time that I haven't been there. My parents are from Anaheim and my grandparents lived there until I was 8, so it was the vacation spot of choice. My mom's brothers worked for Disney so we would go down and stay with my grandma and then they would just usher us into the park. We got free souvenirs and all that good stuff. My brothers and sisters used to beg not to go there cuz they would get sick of it. But not me! When I go there, I feel like I'm home. There is nothing like driving through Barstow and going down Cajon Pass. At that point you roll your windows down and you can start to smell the combination of ocean and pollution. I know it doesn't sound like a pleasant smell but it is one of my favorite smells in the world.

Our second home

We are relieved that if we are every homeless we will have a back-up plan. We are pretty excited about this and are ever more excited to use it on the beach in California and in the mountains this summer! Scott was so excited he even slept in it last night in the cold. Even the dog things it's totally awesome. Yay for summertime!

Westwood Family Update

I am such a slacker! It has been a crazy month filled with twist and turns and by the end of the day I just want to go to bed and not blog. But I have so many fun pictures to share from the last month that I thought I better get on it...

So a month ago while Scott was out of town my mom came down and helped me plant some flowers and start a garden. Here are some pretty petunias that are on my front porch.

And my little strawberry bush that is finally growing. I planted 18 of these babies and about 5 are starting to form leaves. The others are still trying to survive my horrible soil. My neighbor ordered the plants online and they are supposed to produce huge strawberries.
My blackberry bush...
My raspberry bush (which is being eaten by some type of bug, if you have any suggestions of what to do about this, I am willing try anything.)
The vegetables will be planted next week. It will be fun to do a garden again.


In other news, our renter moved out. Yes we had a renter. She moved in last August and surprised us by randomly moving out a couple weeks ago. But that's okay, we feel it's for the best. But we had Scott's cousin Jamin living with us for 4 weeks and that was a blast. She is not a dog person, but a few days before she left she said she couldn't imagine living without a dog now. Her and Cosmo became bff's and he was super sad when she packed up. He would do this to her everytime she got home from school or work. He would sit like this until she would love him and play with him.
And this is how I found them one day. How cute is that!
And the last picture was just for fun. Cosmo had a sty in his eye and twice a day we would have to do compresses so Scott would wrap him in a blanket and hold him like a baby and I would do the compress. It got to the point where Scott would hold him for longer than necessary. And then they fell asleep one time. They are so cute together.
PS. 24 more days til we go to Cali!