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Monday, September 30, 2013

october resolutions

at the beginning of every new year, millions of people decide on their new year's resolutions, or their goals to work on till the next new year begins. and as we all know tomorrow is the first day of october...not the new year, however i have decided to take this "start" of a new month  to be my "new start." it is time for some october resolutions people!

for the past few weeks i have been in a weird funk. i'm happy with my life, so so happy with an amazing husband, a great job, and loving friends and family. i am so so very blessed with so much, but i didn't feel like i was getting much accomplished at the end of each day. i haven't been holding myself accountable or pushing myself to achieve new things, so the need for some resolutions or goals has set in. and not only is it just me, but the hubby has noticed that our marriage could use some goals to work towards in the short-run, long- run and as he put it the long long-run. we have so many great ideas of things we want to accomplish together and it's time to put those goals in writing and make plans to accomplish them.

our goals in our marriage will be featured in there own snazzy post once we have them set, but for now i need to crack down and set personal goals to work towards this month. so without ado, my october 2013 resolutions shall be...

  • Finish organizing and decorating our little newlywed college housing apartment. (That seems like quite a large goal, but we have been living there since the end of August and it is just time to get everything in its final place, and decorated more to be our little home for the next 8 months.)
  • Learn to crochet (or knit).
  • Exercise smart and eat healthier every day. (Lose some weight while you're at it!)
  • Practice piano at least 5 times a week. (I have been struggling to practice multiple times each week and that is no good if i want to improve.)
  • Read your scriptures every day with a purpose, and remember to start and end with a prayer!
  • Don't forget to pray! Pray each morning and night and often in between.
  • Listen and study a General Conference talk each week.
man, i think i could go on forever! i have so many different ideas in my head of areas i want to work on, but those are the big ones lately (especially getting our apartment together and finished once and for all). it will be interesting to see how this goes, but i'm excited to work towards improving myself and using my time wiser. and to be honest, i'm even more excited to sit down with the hubby and make our goals together.

so here's to a fun fall month full of resolution work!

Friday, September 27, 2013

our weekend adventures

so even though i should be coding surveys for work and there are a billion things on my to-do list, i have been itching to put another blog post up. i have a million and one things floating through my head lately that i hope to put into somewhat of eloquent wording and express here on the blog, but until then i'll put a few measly pictures from our weekend adventures up here and dream for more meaningful posts another day.

friday night was a low key night for us since i was babysitting for a few hours, but once i got home we headed out for to pick up a movie and some ice cream. well, we came home with ice cream, but no movie. i don't know if it's just us or if the movie selection really is poor lately, but every few weeks we get the urge to rent a movie, but never find one worth watching. all is well though, we fill our time with seasons of duck dynasty and pretty much any show on the food network. 

and cody probably won't appreciate this, but we have been watching more and more of the national geographic wild channel. it all began when i got hooked on a show about wildebeest late one night while he was trying to sleep for work early the next morning. he gave me such a hard time the next few days for watching a show about the wildebeest migration (and i didn't make it any easier on myself when i would tell him a million interesting yet useless facts that i had learned from the show). to both our astonishment though, he started watching it with me, and enjoyed it! so now we are a nat geo wild channel loving family!

that was quite the tangent, but back to our weekend festivities. saturday morning i babysat again for a few hours and then we were off for a full day of events. first stop was for an amazing session at the lds temple in logan. i love love love to go to the temple with my husband, and it was our first time back since we've returned to logan. i'm so grateful we have a temple just minutes away from our home that we can attend whenever we want (and if you're unfamiliar with lds temples, just check out this website).

once we were out of the temple, we headed south to check out the wizard of oz movie in 3-d and digitally remastered. (we made a quick krispie kreme stop along the way though of course. who could pass up a krispie kreme donut!)



oh man was it good! i remember watching the wizard of oz as a child and thinking it was so scary with the witches and flying monkeys. and now it has been 75 years since it was first released, and still such a classic that we both really enjoyed. if only they still made such classic movies like the wizard of oz.

we headed south again after the movie and got a quick dinner at the red iguana in salt lake city, since it is such good mexican food! they even had two fellas playing and singing spanish music to the guests which was the best kind of entertainment in a mexican restaurant. i know cody enjoyed it, probably more than anyone else there.

and no weekend is complete without a great church experience, and time to relax with friends and family (and great tasting, but not-so-good for you food). being newlyweds, on a college budget, in the middle of logan we don't always get to enjoy friends and family, but with cody's family only 30 minutes away we've been able to more and more, especially on sundays. and this past sunday we were able to make the short trip north to see cody's little brother, collin, receive his eagle, and eat some sweet homemade treats from his mother as well.

it's already friday again, and i can't wait to see what this weekend brings us, especially since i know saturday night ill be listening to some amazing women  and men speak at the relief society broadcast. listen or watch online here!

Thursday, September 19, 2013

farm boy's big 2-4 celebration

way back on may 17th of this year, my favorite farm boy turned the big 2-4!

don't let the young stud in him fool you, he is starting to get up there in age now. i mean he is almost half way to 50. ouch! the giant chocolate shake he is enjoying below was our way of "celebrating" his birthday after a day of working on the hog farms (which is a whole another story for some other time). we had actually drove 45 minutes to the "big city" of cedar city to run errands, but all the birthday boy wanted was to eat his birthday dinner at beaver's local little town diner, el bambi. and i do not blame him one bit, because they cook up some amazing comfort food, diner style of course. 

and that my friends was the extent of our celebration...until the end of july when we could finally enjoy the birthday gift i had bought for him way back in march.

jason aldean is one of our favorite country singers, so when i heard he was coming to salt lake, i knew it was the perfect surprise birthday gift for my farm boy. 

it was quite the show with not only jason aldean, but his opening acts thomas rhett and jake owen. we had heard a few songs by thomas rhett, but loved him so much more live. he was a great opening act! we loved the entire show, especially since jason aldean played his song flyover states, which includes some great shout outs to indiana. who wouldn't love that!

happy belated birthday to my favorite farm boy, and my best friend. hopefully we can celebrate your quarter century birthday even bigger next year!

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

my first piano lesson

i found this little gem one day while i was trying to organize the million and one things we have in our tiny apartment, and if you look closely the very first quality the twelve year old version of me decided i should develop is playing the piano. darn you young women leaders for making me fill these things out and now look back wondering what i was thinking!


back in the day i took piano lessons, but eventually gave up on them and now i am left with measly music skills, and a random memory to play the star wars theme song. 

i'm working to catch up with my twelve year old self though and have taken up piano lessons again! this time my amazing mother in law is my teacher because well let's face it she has led, taught, and inspired her entire family to be so musically inclined and it is absolutely beautiful. in the three plus years that i have known the swainstons i have witnessed countless musical numbers on all different levels, venues, audiences, and settings, and they never disappoint. 

cody finally pushed me to set up an official lesson time with his mom, so we could actually get things started, and yesterday was my first lesson!  
my lovely husband secretly snapped this picture while i was hard at work.

and now today i start my homework for the week. i have actual "homework" pages in one of my books, but i have playing "homework" to practice this week as well in the other books.

this just goes to show that even after you graduate from college, you will still have homework to do.
 

so here's to one goal of mine that i'm working towards...now if i can just figure out a way to have perfect hair everyday and cook like bobby flay.

Monday, September 16, 2013

a girl can dream right?

one day i'll live in a big and beautiful farm house with a wrap around porch,
My House

one day i'll look out my window and see a herd of my favorite cows grazing,
Mama Jersey cow!! CUTE TOO! :D :P

one day i'll have my dream hobby "job" of baking cupcakes all day,
CUPCAKES!!

one day i'll have one (or a few) of these to do all my "work" with,

one day i'll pick up the violin/fiddle again and play some good old tunes,
Playing the violin, and being a music teacher is a huge part of my story :)

one day i'll cook like the pioneer woman for every family meal.

Easter Ham
                                                                       
a girl can dream right?

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

30 minute drive turned 2 hour

farm boy and i are quite the country loving couple. we would much rather go visit a dairy farm together than go spend a night hanging in the city. don't get me wrong we love a good night of eating out and catching a movie, but some of the best times we have together are when we just cruise around the back roads.

we made a quick trip to preston, idaho (cody's homeland) sunday to watch his cousin open her mission call, and i say quick because it is only a 30 minute drive from where we live in logan, utah. once the celebration was over, farm boy and i headed back to logan. he decided to take a few back roads (quite a few actually since he didn't exactly know the correct roads to take) and show me a local elk farm they have in preston. so neat! they raise elk there and then move them onto their hunting property for trophy hunts. i had never seen one before and always enjoy seeing any kind of farming or agricultural operations. (and of course i didn't take any pictures!)

we continued our journey back to logan by taking as many back roads as possible which i loved! giant fields of grain, open pasture of cows, and farm equipment everywhere is my idea of heaven. and as we cruised around sunday night admiring the beauty we came across several hoop barns on a farm. and typical of us we debated what was in them. i suggested hogs especially after we noticed a small hog barn right next door to several of the hoop barns...farm boy was skeptical though. so i suggested he pull over and i would run over to the nearest barn and put the debate to rest. it seemed like a very logical idea to me, but farm boy had an even better one. he pulled right up to the house and knocked on the front door.


yep, that's him just chatting it up with the hog farmer and his son (and yes, i said hog farmer! my assumption was correct). 

after their good chat about the hog industry we continued our way home. and although it may seem mundane or odd to some people, i loved every minute of our drive home. farm boy and i sure do miss the country, but we keep reminding ourselves that our short 8 months here in logan is necessary if we want to spend the rest of our lives together in the agriculture industry. until then we will keep taking the long way home and talk about all the big dreams we hold so dear to us. 



Friday, September 6, 2013

farm boy's hidden talent

every wife loves to brag about their amazing husband. i always thought it was a little too mushy for me, until i got engaged, and all the mushy posts began. i mean, how could i not gush about the wonderful man i call my husband?!?

                            

so what caused this somewhat mushy post you ask? well my hunk of a husband is not only a cute goofball, but he is an amazing singer! and i love love love to listen to him sing all kinds of country songs. he is often bashful about showing the world his talent, but today he actually posted a video on facebook for all his friends to see. and as his loving caring wife i decided to broaden the audience a little and post a link to it here on the blog for all to see.

so please check it out here, encourage him a bit, because he clearly needs to be doing this more often.

i sure do love my farm boy :)

Thursday, September 5, 2013

my attempt at keeping everyone in touch

so here i go again....trying this whole blogging thing one more time.

this time it's not just my boring old life but my married boring old life! yep that's right if you know me at all then you know i got married to my best friend over four months ago already!

this is me and my farm boy right after we were married in the idaho falls temple on may 3rd.

                                              

yep, that's a chocolate milk toast you see! we dairy loving kids don't mess around.

it has been a crazy four months since we got married (i just happened to graduate from college the day after we were married), and with this blog i am hopefully going to recount it all, while also keeping everyone up to date and keeping a "journal" of our lives together.

here's a little sneak peak of what we've been up to:
                     
(i just scanned fb for pictures from our summer and only found these...i need to get better at this picture taking thing, if not this blog is going to be very plain! wish me luck!)