lets play the catch up game!

Well it's been a while and a lot has happened!! Unfortunately I have been awful at taking pictures lately so this one is going to be a little scarce! (I'm going to start doing better i promise!)  But while i work on that, lets play the catch up game!! Ready?? here we go!!

First of all i had a birthday, hooorrraayyy! one year older and wiser too?? well I'm not sure about the wiser part but i definitely am starting to feel older! 22 was a great year, full of meeting my best friend, falling in love and even a wedding.. so 23 can only get better, right? i cannot wait to see what surprises are in store for this year.. Joey got me a wonderful birthday present.. dun dun dun.. a brand new cricut expression 2!! i was shocked! especially since a few weeks before my birthday i tried to buy one and found out they were sold out which meant they were gone forever.. or so i thought! surprise Joey found one a few days before my birthday and got it shipped just in time! i absolutely love it and cant wait to use it and make so many adorable things :) i also got some wonderful new books from Courtney and Nate and of course the byu tickets from josh! it was a great birthday and i look forward to my next one!

speaking of my best friend.. joey was able to play a show with one of his really good mission companions. they along with two other people played a four song set at a benefit concert in orem. they opened up for kalai! kinda awesome, ya?? well let me tell you.. yes it was! they sounded great and i had a blast seeing joey play again.. that hasn't happened since we were in high school! and hey they helped raise a little money, so it was all for a good cause.

conference was also this weekend and i was able to keep up with the little tradition that my mommy and i have where we go and sit in the tabernacle for the first Saturday session of conference. i love being able to spend that time with my mom and listen to the words of our prophet and apostles, it is always such an uplifting experience and a wonderful date with my mommy!

i got to spend more time with my mom that evening for a little girls night out when joey went to priesthood session with some of his friends. i was able to meet my mommy at Texas Roadhouse and we ate some delicious food while we watched the Utah Utes get smashed by Washington (it was fun to watch!) after eating our yummy food we headed over to hobby lobby which I've never really been to and oh my gosh!! what have i been missing out on all this time?? i was able to get some really cute Halloween decorations which were much needed, our decorations are a little on the sparse side! that store literally had everything though and i fell in love! i am going to have a hard time staying away now, especially since they have such great coupons too!!

all in all it has been a wonderful past couple of weeks and with the beginning October here i cant wait for the holiday season to be upon us and for all the wonderful memories joey and i are going to create this season! stay tuned friends!!

Rise and Shout Bri and Joey went out!!

I am very blessed to have such a wonderful brother, who is very thoughtful and understands how much I really do enjoy football.. and seeing as I have a birthday right around the corner about a week ago he came over to my place to hang out.. or so I thought.. He was in the door for maybe two seconds before he whipped two byu vs utah tickets out of his pocket!!He totally surprised me!! (and it was a really good surprise) AHHH!! Excited much?? Oh, you know, just completely!! It was all I could do to contain myself through the week to make it to game day..

The big day finally was upon us, Joey was really excited to since it had been so long since he had been to a BYU game, plus I told him when we got there that we could get him a new BYU hat, sometimes I just gotta bribe him with a little something.. We flew down to Provo.. not literally, just drove really fast.. but we got to the game just in time to grab a couple cougar dogs and find our awesome seats! Granted we were on the visitors side, right by the tunnel where the UTES came out, which was pretty awesome to see them all coming out, but it also meant we were surrounded by UTE fans!! They were all sooooo nice though and really fun to be around.

Scarfing down hot dogs, we were ready for kick-off.. and let me tell you.. it didn't start well!!! It was a really sloppy game the whole way through on BYU's part but they made the first half really fun and entertaining to watch. It was a close game all through out the first half and we got to see plenty of action down on our end.. as well as a TON of turnovers :( Once we came back for the second half you could tell, as Joey would say, BYU just didn't make the adjustments they needed to make and UTAH most definitely did. Exploiting all of BYU's weaknesses and running the ball like crazy. Before we knew it the game went from 10-14 to 10-30.. then 10-40.. then when it his 10-47 late in he fourth quarter we decided we'd had enough fun and adventure over at lavell edwards stadium and headed back to our car. Even though BYU lost (or got massacred.. whatever) it was still a blast to be there and to enjoy watching a team that I love show me a little bit of hope that maybe someday we'll get back to where we once were..

Here's to hoping BYU..

Our Tickets! THANKS JOSH!!

Utes coming out of their tunnel.. look at that guy muggin my camera..

Ready for kick-off!!

a little game time action :)

outside the stadium :)

a little Jake Heaps love.. to bad he fumbled..

we found out Brigham Young is a UTE fan!



Reading the Book of Mormon

So as I am sure many of you know who are LDS and I'm sure many who are not, there has been a page going around on Facebook challenging people to read the Book of Mormon. Not just to read it though, but to read it by December 31, 2011!! So I decided to accept this challenge, but since it is not just me in my little family I have Joey reading with me. I am very excited for us to read this together, seeing as we have both read the Book of Mormon before on our own but now we have the wonderful opportunity to read it together. Of course we will be able to read this many times together, by ourselves and with our growing family as we progress on our adventure. Since we have a deadline to finish by, I got online and googled a reading plan, so in order to finish by December 31 we have to read two chapters a day, or 4.5 pages a day and the wonderful plan has it all written out for us on what we need to read each day, then we get to mark it off so we can stay on track. We have only been going for two days but so far I love having this time to bond with my husband and grow together spiritually. 2 days down, many more to go!!

Hoooray for Swiss Days

If your a woman, and your addicted to pointless crafts that decorate your home and some awesome and amazingly cheap jewelry and baby clothes and pretty much anything you can think of then you should have made it down to Midway this weekend for the wonderful, amazing, stupendous SWISS DAYS!! It is by far the most wonderful craft fair in the world.. well that I've been to any way..

They have booths upon booths upon booths of stuff, filled with the now Utah famous bumbles, awesome Christmas paper from the Swiss chalet, or touch piece jewelry(one of my FAVES!) There are endless baby booths with everything you can imagine in them from burp rags to tutus its all so cute, to bad I don't have a little one or I would have bought it all.. eh, maybe it's a good thing I don't yet..

You can find any type of home decor you would wish, any hair accessories you can fathom and even manage to pick up a matching tie set for your husband and little man. I'm telling you people they think of everything!! I suggest sending your husband to play golf, get a babysitter for your kids and find some girlfriends and shop till you drop! It's only once a year and as far as I'm concerned it's well worth it and well deserved :)

This year I had to venture out on my own, I usually always go with my mommy, but seeing as I recently changed jobs I couldn't get Friday off and that's the only day my mom goes because she is convinced it's the best day to go.. I beg to differ but that's for another time..

So in order for me to go I had to wake up around 5:00 am and take Joey to work..shocking I know!! Me waking up so early on a Saturday morning!! But its Swiss Days its a must! Once i got back from taking Joey I tried to catch a couple more ZzZz's but I was to excited for the day ahead of me, I tossed and I turned for about 20 minutes before I couldn't take it anymore and I jumped (literally jumped) out of bed and started getting ready.. I finished getting ready a half hour before I really needed to leave and you can't get there to early because the booths don't open till 8:00.. so I twiddled my thumbs, cleaned a little, let Joey a note and finally looked at the clock to realize it was time, I COULD LEAVE! Racing out the door, I got in the car belted up and sped away! I had my breakfast in hand, good 'ol diet coke (my mom would be so proud) I set out to find my way to Midway! Thank goodness for my handy dandy navigator on my phone or else I probably never would have found it! You see I've never come from the north before, so it was all new and unfamiliar territory. But Mrs. GPS didn't let me get lost not even for one second, here is where I say thank you :)

Upon arriving in Midway a short hour and five minute drive later I meander through main street trying to remember where my favorite place to park is. Every year we park in the same little old lady's ranch pasture she has, it's right off main street and only costs five bucks, SCORE! Plus this is the cutest little lady you have ever seen, and I mean EVER!

Once I parked I made my way across main street and into the town center where everything is set up. My eyes were huge, I had to see everything!! So I slowly but surely made my way to each booth, some weren't my style, I don't need a dream catcher, so I would politely skip that one and continue onward. The ultimate goal is to get through before it gets to hot and to crowded, and boy can I tell you I kicked that goals trash this year!! I was in and out within three hours, I'm pretty sure that is a Swiss days record, go ahead look it up.

Of course you cant leave without buying a scone, and we're not talking any scone we are talking the most delicious scone you have ever tasted in your whole life and they're massive too! So on my way out I grabbed a scone sat down in the sun and enjoyed a little piece of heaven, it was the perfect way to end the perfect trip to my second favorite place on earth.. first favorite it Disneyland.. duh..

leaving all by my lonesome

Nutritious and delicious :)

beautiful view on the way

worlds best scone, hands down!!

ALL THE LOOT!!

Oakland temple.. shh its a Christmas present..

Magnet board with adorable magnets

witchy, witchy, screamy, screamy, happy, happy, HALLOWEENY!
(i couldn't possibly resist)

new bumbles watch face and bands!! hoorayyyy :)

cutest alphabet flip chart book and cd for my preschool class

FHE in the Williams household

Monday night rolled around, Joey picked me up from work because he is an amazing husband.. and because we only have one car, no big deal he is still amazing.. when he doesn't forget me.. but he is still amazing! We had no plans thought about what to do, realized it was Monday night which means family home evening for us.. but it is just the two of us.. and we are good at it i promise but this week we spent some quality time together on the golf course. I watched as Joey hit some balls at the range and we got to talk and just relax with the wonderful weather. We also saw some friends there, so apparently we are not the only ones who think hitting range balls is a perfectly acceptable family home evening activity!

Afterwards we treated ourselves to one of our favorite custard places in Bountiful, Nielsen's Frozen Custard!! We just got one, my current favorite, chocolate chip cookie dough and sat in the parking lot and ate our hearts out.. really this stuff is incredibly delicious!! I think it is so wonderful that we can have so much fun together doing the simplest of things, another wonderful family home evening with my hubby.. next time we'll do better..

Joey hitting his range balls

our yummy treat :)

Oil changes and air filters

When Joey and I became BIG and bought are car together we anticipated our first oil change, and as we saw the mileage add up and it came round to that time we watched as we didn't ever change out oil.. (don't tell my dad!!) Finally it got to the point where I couldn't take it any longer and I called Joey while he was at work and asked him what I needed to do, where I should go and what I should get! Once I had all the critical information I got online to check out the business hours and of course to see if there were any coupons, who doesn't want to save a buck?! I found a coupon but every time I tried to print it out it wouldn't let me!! LAME! Oh well, moving on I headed down to the local Jiffy Lube and got in line, they took my car from me, I got to go inside and get a free soda and enjoy a People Magazine while they assessed the damage of my oil and took care of all my needs.

Now my only problem is that my being a girl and going to do this by myself, I sometimes feel like they try and take advantage of me. After they did there checks they called me back to go over my "options" and one such option was charging me about 30 bucks to have them change my air filter for me. I hemmed and hawed and eventually told them no, but the young man kept insisting how much better gas mileage I would get and yada, yada, yada.. I know he is right but who is to say they are actually showing me MY air filter, maybe they just have some really dirty,yucky air filter hanging around and they show it to people and trick them into spending to much money on having your air filter changed.. Maybe not.. but that's what I think about when I got into places like these. So I told them no and walked out of there with an oil change and a delicious dinner with my hubby :)

But that still meant that we had to check our air filter and see if it really was as yucky as they said. Once we realized our filter was pretty disgusting we drove to our Auto Zone, not napa auto parts because Joey doesn't like there song haha and bought a new air filter then went out into the parking lot and Joey taught me where the air filters go and how to put them in, but not until after I got some pictures!!

The new air filter, I didn't realize it was on the Spanish side till after I took the picture, OH WELL!

the old and the new side by side, YUCK!

check out that butterfly!!

Joey putting the filter in :)

change makes me nervous.. really, really nervous!

Once Joey and I got married I moved to Bountiful and I didn't really think much about how how it would affect me, or my work or anything practical like that (your not really practical when your in love, are you?) One thing that didn't even cross my mind was my new commute to my job in Draper. I figured it wasn't awful and I'd be able to do it no problem, but working in a daycare there are always ebbs and flows with the consistency of enrollment. Summer is one of our slower times and we weren't seeing a lot of kids at the daycare which also meant I was not seeing as many hours at the daycare as I have been used to the last three years. Before I knew it I felt like I was working to pay to put gas in my car to come back to work! The commute just became to much, and TOO EXPENSIVE!! Something had to be done, I started looking for a new job. It was sad and scary but I needed something that would be closer to where we live. When you work somewhere for so long you get into that comfort zone, and mine was so comfortable I never wanted to leave! I had a couple of interviews but nothing was seeming to really go through or I was having insane anxiety attacks over the place I was interviewing with and would literally have dreams about the horrible experience it would be to work for them. Until I walked into this place, it looked wonderful, the people seemed nice and friendly and I thought OK, OK, I can do this.. RIGHT?? After a few interviews and a couple tours around the building I was offered the job! Only one catch, I had to pass the background check, which shouldn't be that big of a problem since I am already currently working at a daycare.. wrong!! The director made this background check sound like it was the DEVIL! Like it was the evil of all evils, and then I started panicking, am I going to pass the evil of all evils?? It took about six days to get the results back, and they were the longest six days of my life!! I was convinced that for some reason I wasn't going to pass, ask Joey I wouldn't stop talking about it I was extremely nervous!!

But as it turns out I was nervous for nothing, because they saw how awesome I am (yes I am..) and they offered me the job!! I am now the proud worker at a daycare in Bountiful only a few miles from my home saving Joey and I a ton of gas money and miles on our car, HOORAY!! getting used to the new place is still a little stressful but I know that it is the best move for our little family and it is going to be a wonderful transition in the future :)