utah happenings

so..it's been a while. this i know. BUT here i am to update the world on our recent happenings.

sometime in october when i was wallowing in self pity over the move, i purchased a plane ticket to see my family for a month and a half. november seventeenth came around and i ventured--without husband--to utah. i then proceeded to participate in activities such as:

..new moon premiere (which i've now seen three times and have come to the conclusion it won't be like twilight where i just keep going back to see it. it's TOO long and TOO emotional. but i did indeed enjoy it the three times i did see it..haha)..

..spent time with christopher's family..

..thanksgiving dinner with my family..

..VEGAS with holly and jeremy's family..

..panda at least five times, rubio's once and indulged in IN-N-OUT(i found a new love for this place--i now understand the hype after eating a burger "animal style")..

..spent much needed time with my dearest alix..

..finally got to see miss sarah beth and her hubs after SIX months(way too long)..

..shopped a little..

..read a few books (wuthering heights, the host--again, the rescuer)..

..wrote a little(got 25,000 of the 50,00 words i wanted done because my computer broke. that was a good day)..

..had lots of sisterly and motherly bonding time..

..and missed ryan way to much to ever spend more than a couple days away from him ever again..

i will post pictures for each event in a different post with a little more detail if i can remember.

logan getaway

for any of you who have ever worked in the food industry you probably would agree that it's not the greatest. probably my least favorite occupation. but you do what you gotta do for moo-la in rexburg. so for the last week work has sucked with a capital S. i won't go into detail and bore any of you..it's just been complete H E double hockey sticks. so after i got off work on saturday i told ryan i needed out of rexburg! away from anything that would remind me of work. the first thing that came to mind was to head to logan to spend some much needed time with anna banana. so at 6:30pm ryan and i got in our car and took the 2 hour drive to see her and her hubs. we didn't have to time do a ton of things, but for the time we had we had a run to sonic for some strawberry limeades(delish),relaxed by a lake up in the canyon and just got caught up on life.

it was only a short visit, but just enough to make the little drive completely worth it!

quality time

the weekend of father's day ryan and i headed to utah to spend it with my fam. after 6 months, ryan finally got his chick-fil-a fix and we both got our panda fix. haha..we're truly pathetic. what can we say..we love food. that friday night the guys decided to go see year one because it looked HILARIOUS in the trailer. but apparently..it's not recommended? and us girls just had a little girl time. us girls included(me, my mother, holly, heidi, alix, jane and ravvy(savannah)). saturday was spent looking at holly and jeremy's new house being built, shopping, and watching "new in town"-love that movie. the weekend was a nice getaway, but after the weekend was over i hadn't really had my friend/family fix, so i "spontaneously" convinced alix and my niece burgandy to come spend a few more days with us up in rexburg. ryan had quite a bit a homework so he wasn't forced into joining in on any girly activities. we watched a few chick flicks, had a bit of girl chat/gossip, ate snowies(tigers blood and cream-a definite fav), walked around porter park and decided riding the carousel there was a must. the carousel it kinda randomly placed and i didn't even know it existed up until a few months ago, otherwise, i'm sure as roommates we would have gone on it often. it was really awesome having them for a few more days. thanks for coming and keeping me company guys! i sure love you BOTH!

i can now die happy

okay! so i've been waiting a year to see this woman! sarah beth and i sat in our nose bleed section seats and loved every minute of it. originally the date for this concert was set for november, but celine got sick and had to postpone it until this past weekend. we were all so bummed! but the wait was worth it! CELINE is my hero!

red iguana is delish

so while we were in utah for thanksgiving we went to this hole in the wall place in salt lake called the red iguana. the best mexican food ever. mexican is my least favorite food, but if it wasn't so expensive and if we actually live in utah, ryan and i would eat there every week. Red iguana was featured on one of my favorite shows: diners, drive-ins and dives. So when you're in salt lake it's the place to stop and experience.

i love my family

while waiting for our food our family played a hilarious game, but since the rest of my fam isn't as shameless as i am i would get my bum kicked for posting the pics. haha..But i'll tell you how we played. i started playing this game 3 years ago with my roommates. so roomates that read our blog: you know this game well. one person makes a face and takes a picture, no one can watch them. the next person looks at the picture and tries to make that face. it's like telephone, but with a camera. by the end the faces only get worse and it makes for some good laughs.

STRETCH ARMSTRONG!

Ryan and i happened to be in Utah for Halloween, but the REAL reason why we went was for my brother Scotty's Stretch Armstrong reunion! Scotty started this SKA band in 1990. NO DOUBT once opened up for Scotty's band and another time Stretch opened for NO DOUBT. For those that don't know who NO DOUBT is(which you should!)...NO DOUBT was how Gwen Stefani got her start. Anyway, Scott's concert was AWESOME!!! I'd never gotten the chance to see him in concert before so this was especially cool for me. I was such a PROUD little sis!

For your listening pleasure..

rockin out!

ryan enjoyed himself, but refused to dance with me..haha...go figure.

Best show of the night!

sisters with cousins nicole and natalie.

when the van wagenen family gets together...

As you may have gotten from my last post my Mummi (english translation: grandma) came from Finland this past week! I was especially excited because i hadn't seen her in over 8 years! Because she came our whole family got together. All 24 of us plus my mom's brother and his family(lasse, eva, lauri and eero). We did all of the things we never would have done if it weren't for the finns, like antelope island in the great salt lake, kennecott copper mines, bee's game, and music and the spoken word. We're really grateful we were able to spend time with my family.