New Years Resolutions

have you ever done a new years resolution?? and actually followed through??

now that is the question! haha i have spent many a year making resolutions only to uphold them for about a month (or two if I'm lucky) and then just fall back into my old ways or whatever is comfortable. 

well this is year is going to be different....

why?

because I'm blogging about it, which now means all of you will know about my resolutions and if by some off chance i see one of you and you happen to ask me about them, i better be able to say my resolutions are going great!!

(and if i cant say that.. well, how embarrassing!)

another precaution to helping me keep my resolutions.. I'm making realistic ones! Shocker!!

so here we go..

2012 New Years Resolutions:

*write one blog a week

*drink two sodas a week

*read the book of Mormon with the hubbsters

*read the doctrine and covenants

*start my own etsy shop

*lose five pounds/tone my body

*save $200 out of each paycheck

those are my goals so far this year, as i am able to cross them off i will update you all and of course as the year progresses more will be added into the mix!

happy new year resolutions everyone!

love,

the Williams

feels so good to be back!!

as some of you may know, Joey and I recently moved to a new apartment! hooray for us, right?? RIGHT! 

only problem is that meant we needed to get everything set up in our new place.. you know all the boring stuff..

..television..

..address changes..

..moving furniture..

..unpacking boxes..

..stocking up on food..

...oh and that pesky little thing called the Internet...

that pesky little thing, for some reason, took us the longest to check off our list. today is our first official day with Internet since we moved in right after thanksgiving, and let me tell you, I'm soooooo excited!! finally can come back to blogging and saving my pictures that we have taken over the last month, ahh it feels so nice!

just to catch you up a little bit we spent thanksgiving with my family this year and it was wonderful to spend some time with my parents and siblings. we enjoyed some good football and delicious food! and after we finished my mom had us play a thanksgiving game that made us answer different question about thanksgiving some were historical, others were recalling favorite thanksgiving memories. it was fun to listen to every ones answers and enjoy each others company.

then the hectic days of christmas were upon us and i couldn't believe it.. even though I'd been preparing for it all year.. i had most of my shopping done  and everything wrapped pretty early into december and i loved seeing it all under the tree. joey and i enjoyed some wonderful christmas programs at our church meetings which helped us feel and remember more the meaning of christmas. we were blessed this year to be able to spend the holiday with both sides of our family. Christmas eve we had a wonderful dinner with laurie and doug. my parents even came up and had some dinner with us! we had our niece london put on the birth of christ christmas puppet show for the family. then all the friends and my family left and we had our christmas with joeys family, we had so much fun sharing presents with each other and watching the excitement of london open up her presents. there is something magical about a young child on christmas! then joey and i went home and had our little christmas together that same night because we had to wake up early to go to my parents house so we could be there when Elder Alameda called us! We had a wonderful first christmas together as our little family and we spoiled each other its true.. thanks babe i love my kindle fire!! we woke up at the crack of dawn and packed up all the goodies and drove down to my parents house where we waited patiently for Dustin to call.. and waited, and waited, and waited.. to no avail! he never called that morning!! we got through our disappointment hoping he would call later that day and went along with our christmas breakfast and then opening up presents as a family. after much needed naps and some yummy christmas dinner joey came up with the wonderful idea to call Dustin's mission house and track him down. it took a few minutes but we were finally able to get a hold of him and the minute he was on the phone, not even with me might i add, i started to cry.. pathetic i know! but i cant help it. it is so much different to have a missionary out of the country, i cant explain it but its definitely harder.. might also be that he is my little brother and the baby of the family who knows! but when it was finally my turn to talk i held it together pretty good and it was so good to talk to him. i broke down when i said goodbye but i know he is doing well and having a blast serving the lord!

our christmas present from my parents this year was a family trip to disneylnd! i was stoked i love disneyland and we haven't been for over six years! i know shocking.. well it it when we used to go twice a year every year.. we drove to vegas and stayed a night.. the continued on to Anaheim the next morning. we hit the beach and joey surfed then we went back to grab some grub with josh and the gang. we woke up the next morning ready for a fun day at the parks.. well almost everyone.. unfortunately joey wasn't feeling to hot.. we deduced that he got food poisoning from the food we ate the night before.. dang you baja fresh!! joey stuck around for a total of three rides and a picture before he had to head back to the hotel and take a nap, he tried to come back but that didn't go to well, and lets just say disneyland will always have a part of joey..eww.. All in all it was a fun little trip and some good quality time. now its back to real life and work.. hooray.. sense me sarcasm.. ya its there :) 

happy new year everyone!!

love 

the williams

joey on the beach of course :)

at least we got to snap a picture before he had to leave!

GQ even in 3D shades!

epic fail? NEGATIVE!!!!

Mickey hands!

chip and dale :)

silly chip... or dale?

good ol' donald duck!

uh oh mickey!! hands off my hubby!!

Holy Frijoles, what a trip!!

Joey had a birthday, and that meant we had some celebrating to do!! we decided long ago we were going to take a trip to california for a week and man did we pack it full of fun times and seeing lots of family! what did we do you ask? let me tell you..

*we stayed with his Forrest and Jenny for a night, and they bought donuts, score!

*sat in a hot tub and caught up with the in-laws :)

*saw paranormal activity (for a halloween thrill)

*went to church in Tracy

*had lunch with my wonderful Grandmother

*drove down highway 17

*camped at manresa state beach(for two nights)

*had a bonfire with jordan

*joey surfed at manresa

*and then he surfed at rockview while i layed in the sun for possibly six hours

*had a bonfire with john and leah

*ate jack in the box!!

*drove highway one to san franscico
*stopped and checked out all of joeys favorite surf spots
*found a really cool lighthouse called pigeon point

*stayed at chris and kalei's place in san fran

*spent all day at ocean beach watching the rip curl pro search

*witnessed kelly slater win his eleventh ASP title (technically not but I'm still counting it)

*went to pier 39 and shopped!

*ate clam chowder at boudins bakery.. yumm!

*went to my uncles house and played with my adorable cousins, while enjoying a chat with the ever lovely, uncle lance!

*went to my first ever sharks game with Forrest and Jenny.. and they won, in overtime, with a shootout.. yeah..

*stayed at joeys unlce marks house for a night

*joey and mark surfed at rockview

*i ate jamba juice oatmeal

*we drove to monterey and stopped at the gilroy outlets for more shopping!

*spent a wonderful night in monterey at a beach resort

*went to lovers point

*ate at bubba gumps for a birthday dinner

*walked around cannery lane

*woke up to cinnamon rolls in the morning

*drove to tracy to say goodbye to forrest and jenny and the girls

*had birthday cake

*drove to folsom to see my aunt pam and family on the way back to utah

*enjoyed a delicious dinner and yummy birthday cupcakes

*started our journey home

ya.. we did a lot!

now here are some pics of it all!

california sunrise

highway 17 and camping at manresa

bonfire while camping.. and SMORES!!

joey surfing at rockview

my view of rockview :)

ate jack in the box!!

 drove highway one to san francisco

 found pigeon point lighthouse

 san francisco

kelly slater 11 time asp champion

met my adorable cousin

 sharks game

yummmmmmm!!

 lovers point

yummy birthday treats!


hope you all enjoyed!! i know we did :)
Love, the williams

Cricut really does cut fabric!

i found this tutorial a few weeks back thanks to pinterest and was so excited because it claimed that the cricut machines cut fabric! now i have heard this "myth" before and i wasn't so sure since i had never actually heard it from provo craft (the makers of the cricut) so i was a little hesitant to try it. but after seeing this tutorial i decided i had to try. and then the perfect opportunity arose! every friday at work we have fun Friday's and a this past Friday happened to be favorite letter day. now how do you suppose you show off your favorite letter you ask?? well I'll tell you.. you cut it out of your cricut machine duh!!

So i decided that my favorite letter was B.. why? because my name starts with B? or because i found this really cute bumble bee fabric and bee starts with B? or maybe because all day my students said, "B.. for Ms. BRI!!" any way in order to make your cricut cut fabric you have to get something to make it stick securely to the cutting mat. i used heat and bond..

i also heard that you can use the quilt sticky spray, but this heat and bond was way cheaper than the quilting spray so i gave this a shot. (also i heard wonder under or pellon is not as good as the heat and bond.. but i wouldn't know because i didn't try it) i just followed the directions on the back of the package to apply the heat and bond to my fabric then cut it down to size to fit on my mat...

once it was cut down to size i was ready to load the mat into my cricut machine..

now this was the scary part, i know i had seen the blog and she did it just fine.. but this was my cricut not hers.. i was terrified it wouldn't work, or worse id break my machine but what do you know??



It actually worked!! i was just as surprised as I'm sure you are! and i only had to cut the fabric once! i did however slow down my cut and make my pressure as hard as it could go.



then i just peeled it off the mat and since there was already heat and bond on the fabric i used that to apply the image onto my shirt, since the heat and bond had lost some of its stick from the mat i ironed it twice and then i secured the edges with a basic stitch all the way around.



and of course i had to model the finished product! i think its safe to say i had the cutest favorite letter shirt at school :)

this seriously opened up the doors to so many possibilities! i cant wait to play with it more.. stay tuned!!



thanksgiving point gardens and talons cove golf course

a few weekends ago joey and i were blessed with the opportunity to spend time together while enjoying things that we both love. Joey was kind enough to join me for a walk through the thanksgiving point gardens and while we were purchasing our entry we discovered that they have a new "garden". It is called the light of the world garden and it is compiled of these beautiful statues of Christ and his life and the things that he taught. Joey and i wandered around the garden for a little while enjoying the scenery before we made our way to the statues, which were truly breathtaking, and then finished up our walk at the giant waterfalls.. here check it out...

oh Joey..

inside the secret garden

the italian garden

the waterfalls

joey climbing up the waterfall

and then we saw this.. oops!!

 

then Joey and i headed down to saratoga so joey could have a little fun at the Talons Cove golf course. we got on the course right away and i got to drive the golf cart while joey played the back nine holes. i only stayed for the back nine then went over to my mommy's house to do a fun halloween craft while joey played the front nine :) we both got the best of both worlds this day and we able to do it together! i love spending time with my stinky face :)

 

oh.. did i mention the course was gorgeous??

driving the cart around :)

joey posing for the peanut gallery.. that's me.. :)

 

we went to the PUMPKIN PATCH!!

as soon as fall came knocking on our door i told joey i wanted to go to a pumpkin patch. i was feeling in the fall spirit, (plus since I've been blogging i think about my life and how i can blog about things) and thought that going and picking our own pumpkins would be something fun for us to do. after i got joey to agree to go i looked up pumpkin patches around us and found one called patch's pumpkin farm, it wasn't to far away from us and sounded like it was pretty good! i started to get excited as the week went on, and it is safe to say that i was way more excited than joey.. evidence you ask?? well i made up a song on the way to the pumpkin patch that pretty much consisted of me saying pumpkin patch over and over.. but it caught on and before i knew joey was singing the quite catchy song too! (it really wasn't catchy, and joey only sang it to make fun of me but hey he was singing right?!) once we made it to patch's pumpkin farm we got to pick up a wheelbarrow and some handy dandy stem clippers to cut the pumpkins off the vine and set out to find the perfect pumpkins! it was really muddy and for some reason i was expecting the pumpkins to be huge but they were kinda just normal.. we started looking for pumpkins and we found a lot of contenders so we piled them all into our wheelbarrow to decide which ones we wanted. after looking for a few minutes we decided we had some keepers already and chose two out of our pile and took them to get weighed! our pumpkins weighed nineteen pounds!! all in all we spent six dollars and 25 cents for two great pumpkins and a walk through a pumpkin patch as well as some great pictures with scarecrows and some quality time together!

the pumpkin patch was a success and i definitely want to go back again :)

Patch's Pumpkin farm

checking out some pumpkins.. gotta make sure we get quality pumpkins!!

no comment..

pumpkin clippers to the rescue!!

clipping a pumpkin :)

joey with our winning pumpkins

the scarecrow!

joey as a scarecrow haha

Now of course you cant get pumpkins and not carve them! so we took our pumpkins home and pulled out our handy pumpkin carving kit that i bought from hobby lobby (my new favorite store, still cant believe i had never gone before!) we both chose our designs, i picked a ghost and joey picked a scary jack-o-lantern face. we had fun pulling out the pumpkin guts and carving our pumpkins together, which surprisingly turned out way better than i thought they would! here check it out..

before they got cut open

joey carving his pumpkin :)

my ghost pumpkin!

joey's spooky jack-o-lantern!

the finished products

and of course after they have been lit up, not gonna lie they are quite awesome :)