Plauged

More storms and more sickness have hit the Hendo House.  Besides this odd cold we have both contracted, there was a lot of excitement that went down:

I put our V-Day decorations up:

Yes, the sticks are still with us.  I kinda like them.  I think they are going to stay around…at least until Easter.

This week it literally took me two hours to get to work.  I left at 7:40 and didn’t pull into the parking lot of my office until 9:42.  You know, the day of the “freezing rain”.  I heard there was a 20 car pile-up!  Glad I wasn’t there to witness it…

We tried a new meal this week:  steak with mushroom sauce and pureed cauliflower.  Zach loved it.  Until he realized that the “mashed potatoes” were cauliflower.

My display that I designed for Cobra Puma Golf was officially launched this week at the PGA Show.  It is used to display their new AMP drivers – it has been going on for quite some time and it’s so exciting to see it finally out and about in store locations.  It was such a fun project to be apart of.  Interesting fact:  the display was supposed to be made out of cardboard (to keep cost down) but we found a way to make it out of molded plastic!  So much sexier looking, if you ask me.

Also, my sister-in-law’s spa packaging is completed!  If you go to Beyond Spa for Valentines, check out their new retail products that we designed.  Diet Coke flavor is my favorite….for the record.

Over the weekend Zach and I caught an interesting cold.  A nose-burning, nose-running, kinda coughing cold.  We went out for dinner and movie Friday but felt too yucky on Saturday to go out and about.  So we stayed in, ordered Chinese, and watched the X-Games.

Sunday wasn’t much better.  We ventured out for church, looking very attractive…

Sunday afternoon we had a family Birthday Party for Cam!  We drove down to South Jordan, amidst the crazy storm, to see this little guy enjoy his cake [or just the frosting] and play with his new gear.

There was a heated board game to end the night – yes, a board game of motocross.

I am excited to start another week.  This upcoming weekend is my [26th] birthday.  Zach asked what I wanted for my said birthday, and I promptly replied “to be warm”.  We’ll see how it goes…

PICTURE OVERLOAD // PLUS THE PINES

Our week / weekend was pretty exciting :

The snow is still ever-present in our hood.  It’s pretty drafty at work so I have resorted to wearing scarves, beanies, and gloves to the office – and lots of layers.  The gloves are a pending problem – it makes typing a little clumsy.  Shout out to my friend Angie who made me this killer scarf…

Since we were away last weekend, for Family Night we decided to do dinner and a movie.  Sushi at Mikado – a movie at our local Bountiful joint.  The movie was fantastic, but I do love myself a good gangster flick.

 This week has been highlighted on my calendar for months – SHOT Show in Las Vegas.  I had two booths going to the show [I am sure you are sick of it by now, I apologize – but it’s kind of my life currently] and I have been anxious and excited to see how everything went.  The pictures aren’t great, and are crowded with rednecks…but you get the idea.  The Browning Booth…

The Winchester Booth…

Unfortunately I don’t have the best photos of this booth, but I do have a video via GoPro.  The illuminated gun kiosks are my favorite.

Winchester Booth Walk-Through

It feels good to have it over with.  I have been working on these projects for months now.  Now?  On to the next [20] projects.

We are gearing up for V-Day and I am making new prints for our house:  but more on that later…

 Friday we left for a mini road trip to Idaho to meet up with Zach’s family for the weekend.  We had a marathon of Breaking Bad on the way up there [pretty sure it isn’t that safe to watch movies on a laptop while driving, but it made the journey go by so fast].

We stayed at a place called the Pines – close to West Yellowstone and Island Park.  We shared a cabin with Zach’s sister Lori and her family.  That meant that the next morning Lola, Olive, and Will all got to wake up Uncle Zach.  I wouldn’t mind waking up to these sweet faces every morning.

After breakfast we all geared up to go on a snowmobile ride.

The whole family took a ride to Big Springs.  For the record, snowmobiling with the Hendersons is a little different than with my tiny family of four.  Also…snowmobiles have really evolved since I was young.  I remember sitting on the back of a sled and feeling like my backside was going to break.  These new age snowmobiles are like recliners on sleds.  With hand warmers and everything!

 

Some of us didn’t make it to Big Springs awake…

We spent the rest of the day eating, napping, eating some more, hot tubbin’, and playing games.

Sunday was spent making crafts with the kiddies…

Zach fed the kiddies…

…and we watched the BIGGEST football game of Zach’s existence.  The San Francisco playoff game.

He brought all the essentials:  soda, popcorn, and his throwback jersey.  He was glued to the tiny TV for the duration of the event.

After all was said and done, the Niners won and are on their way to the SUPERBOWL!  It was such a great game – and Zach has been ‘waiting for this for YEARS.’  I was really grateful they won as well;  that meant I didn’t have to make the drive home with a fussy husband.

When the victory dancing was over we packed our bags and made our way back home – with the most gorgeous Idaho sunset to finish off our weekend.

Thank you Mark and Jeanene for such a great time!  It was my first time to Island Park and I hope it won’t be the last.  We love our family!

Surviving the Storm

How we survived this week’s super storm[s]:

Jazz vs. Mavericks game at ESA.

Eating Reese’s hearts while watching the Biggest Loser at work.  A new low, even for me.

Meal planning…sort of.  [This is one of my New Years Resolutions.  It has definitely helped me get more organized, unfortunately what usually is planned for Tuesday ends up on Thursday and Wednesday‘s meal ends up on Sunday.  But whatever, right?  There is a plan in place, nonetheless.  I even made myself a sheet to help…click on the link below the image to download.]

Meal Plan

Helping out the staff at a Wendy’s location in Evanston, Wyoming when a man spilled his entire super-sized beverage all over the floor.  The napkins didn’t help much, I realize…but the sign sure did.

Purchasing corn dogs and 8-Ball tickets for the Idaho 80 million dollar lottery…and losing with both, honestly.

Bribing deer with apples and then scaring them all away to check on them every 10 minutes…

Watching the playoffs [most importantly the 49ers game] at the cabin with my family…while getting a foot rub.  Football for Zach = Foot rub for Katie.  It’s a fantastic trade off.

Below freezing temperatures at Bear Lake.  -6 to be exact.  See those grassy areas amidst the snow?  Those are deer beds.

Taking the gorgeous road home through Logan Canyon.

Watching the Golden Globes and eating Manicotti – Zach’s favorite.  This was supposed to be Wed’s meal, by the way.

This upcoming week we have a lot going on – including a trip up to the Pines [Yellowstone] with Zach’s family over the weekend.  I can’t imagine it can get much colder than -6 degrees…but I don’t dare jinx myself.

This week’s assignment:  stay warm.

Resolutions – Killing Me Softly

Three things summarize this week/weekend for Zachary and I:  work, food, Breaking Bad.

I wish I could say that the first week of January was barrels o’ fun…but unfortunately Zach and I have both been consumed with work.  We have a lot of big projects going on at my place of employment [Browning and Winchester’s two-story booths among many others] and they are coming along nicely [just in time for them to ship out to SHOT Show in Las Vegas].

Custom acrylic light fixture for Browning’s booth

Custom Winchester desk

The Winchester booth almost completed…

These babies are all I think/dream/talk about these days.  I can’t wait until next week when we say goodbye, can return to my regular schedule, and can move on to some new projects.

However, we did manage to fit in a few exciting things into our free time:

Date night to see Jack Reacher and dinner at Market Street [the food I was referring to…]

A crazy late night run to Costa Vida/Nielson’s Frozen Custard [more food…] where I wore my hammer pants [I had the name Hammer Time in High School for a while], no make-up, and a gorgeous free Classic Helicopters hoodie.  In public.  That’s how many hours I worked and how much I cared.

I was being a fuddy duddy and didn’t want to go out Saturday night after all that had been going on – hence the Costa Vida encounter.  So instead, we stayed in and watched the first episodes of Breaking Bad.  How?  How in the world have we never watched this show until now?!  We are both hooked.  I blame it on our Apple TV, one of my Christmas gifts from Zach.  It makes watching stuff almost too easy.

 Lastly, another bomb.com meal up at Zach’s parents’ house for Sunday dinner.  [The the last straw: way too much food.]  
All this show-watching, junk-eating, computer-sitting-whilst-working has made my body and brain at little too soft.  The holiday season has totally killed me  >>>  flash forward to this morning at 4:45 am when I hit the gym hard core [one of my New Years resolutions] after taking a holiday sabbatical.  My lungs still ache from my puny run.  It made me think of an article I read recently about New Years Resolutions.  This article stated that they are always impractical and often get abandoned after the first two-six weeks of the year.  It suggested to make a list of things that you plan to do in the new year that are “uplifting, exciting, and good for the soul” rather than goals that feel impossible.  So I did this!  I am not giving up on my resolutions, just jotting some things down that are a little more feasible.  Besides, I feel like I can accomplish anything if I have a list.  It has 42 items on it, because I am a psycopath like that, but here is the first handful…
1.  Spend more time outside
2.  Eat breakfast for dinner
3.  Plan a vacation together [this is going to go hand-in-hand with travel somewhere new, hopefully]
4.  Write more letters – send less emails
5.  Organize
6.  Take a weekend trip
7.  Try a new restaurant
8.  Go horseback riding
9.  Get a couple’s massage
10.  Have a movie marathon
I have to do better than hammer pants.  That might be item #43 – no more pajamas in public…

Two Thousand Thirteen

NYE / New Years Day went down as follows:

Zach made a reservation at Newpark, our favorite Park City Hotel, for the night of New Years Eve.  So after I got off work and packed we made our way up to Park City as the snow fell.  We had dinner on Main Street, dessert at Coldstone, and a brief visit to a random supermarket to get some Martinelli’s.

The rest of the night we hunkered down in our room, watched some interesting TV specials, discussed our resolutions [see below], and toasted to the new year.

The next morning we checked out and drove to Park City Mountain Resort for some snowboarding.

We did a handful of runs and then spent the rest of the day in the park.  Zach was blessed with incredible balance.  His athletic ability is ridiculous.  This kid could do anything if he had a board to ride on.

Which makes my teeny tiny box rail look comical, but I’ll take it nonetheless.

Zach got a GoPro Camera for Christmas from yours truly, and was excited to test it out on the slopes and in the park.

 When the sun went down it was time to head home.  We packed up our gear and made a brief stop to the Tangar Outlets.  Yes, I wore my snow gear into J. Crew – it was worth getting 20% off my entire purchase, though.

Each year, Zach and I make some very personal resolutions.  Both singularly and together.  2012 was good to us.  We have been blessed beyond deserving.  In 2013 we plan to change it up a bit.  Some of our resolutions are too silly and personal to share, but some are pretty general:

Katie:

1.  Save, save, save.

2.  Travel somewhere we have never been [I realize this is hypocritical of number 1 – but something’s gotta give!]

3.  Cook more meals at home – this proves to be more and more difficult with my work schedule, but I intend to get better!

4.  Reach my fitness goals – this is general but does include my one, glorious chin-up previously discussed.

5.  Attend the temple more often – once a month is practical for Zach and I, and we’re going to do it!

Zach:

1.  Play hockey more often

2.  Bike more often – this might involve Zach purchasing “stretchy pants”, but only time will tell…

3.  Daily scripture study

4.  Reach specific milestones at work

In 2012 we have made some pretty amazing memories.  We have traveled, accomplished a lot of our goals together, ate at too many delicious restaurants, made some new friends, worked hard at our jobs, lost some loved ones, cried a little, and laughed a lot.  I am a little scared for 2013.  The unknown is frightening for me, but I know that fear can be a very motivating factor in my life and I intend to use it to my advantage.  Zach and I believe we can do anything if we have each other.

2013, let’s do this thang.