29Jul 2013

Rivers, Lakes, A Yard, and Some Pioneers

By K + Z 4 50 Days of SUMMER!, Activities, Family, Friends, Holidays Permalink 0

Lots of exciting things have been going on around here. Both with work and my “after work” projects. I designed a logo for a neighbor for his supplement company he is starting. It was a really unique project, but something I really enjoyed working on.

I absolutely love when people send me pictures of the invitations that I design! It is so exciting seeing a project from basic ideas/concepts to the finished product. Thank you Whitney for sharing this with me!

Wednesday was Pioneer Day. Since Zach was still in Lake Powell with his family, I decided to convince my friends to float the Weber River with me. We purchased $11 tubes from Dick’s at the Gateway [which we were really concerned wouldn’t make the journey down the river without popping] filled them up at the local Maverick, got some supplies, and made the drive up north. We dropped one car off at the take-out point and all crammed into my car to ride to the top.

Once we arrived at the starting point we noticed we had one casualty: one out of the four tubes had a hole and needed to be patched. Luckily, a quirky man and his wife were setting up their gear nearby and were willing to trade a patch kit for a cold bottle of water.

After a little exploring while waiting for the patch to set, we were all ready to go!

The weather was perfect: a little overcast and a light breeze.

It took the four of us just over two hours to float the entire route. We all were sore afterwards: not only from hitting our rears on rocks but from laughing so hard. We can’t wait to do it again! Thanks to my friends for being such good sports and for being so willing to try new a adventure.

Meanwhile, Zach was enjoying his time in beautiful Lake Powell with his family…

Having the holiday in the middle of the week made the rest of the work week fly by. Friday evening I left for Bear Lake to meet up with my family for one of our favorite traditions: a weekend at our cabin with the Caywoods, Swensons, Websters, and Storms. We stayed up late playing games, spent as much time as possible (with weather permitting) out on the boat, ate way too much food, and enjoyed the incredible sunsets.

Early Saturday morning my family set out on our boat for a rescue mission. A wedding ring had sunk to the depths of the lake and my Dad and Blake decided they would attempt to find it with the help of their scuba gear. I decided to tag along and test out my triathlon wetsuit for the first time. Just one happy wetsuit family…

The guys enjoyed exploring the bottom of the lake, but unfortunately the ring was not recovered. And I didn’t drown while attempting my open water swim. So that was nice.

We loved spending time with some of our favorite people. This particular trip we had more guests than in any of the past years, which meant there was never a dull moment!

Although we were sad to see everyone leave on Sunday morning, I was anxious to get home and see my husband. Little did I know he was hard at work setting up all the furniture in our back yard to surprise me when I got home.

All we need now are supplies to make s’mores and we are set! We can’t wait to spend evenings in our back yard with our family and friends. It only took us four years to finish…

I plan to spend every second this week smothering my husband. I hope to never be away from him for nine whole days again!

22Jul 2013

Spouseless

By K + Z 0 Activities, Family, Friends, Prints, Work Permalink 0

This week:

The Proactiv project that I have been working on for months now finally got installed. The newly designed kiosk was completed and all finished up so if you are ever in West Edmonton, Canada…go check it out?

I created some “Great Gatsby” themed birthday invitations for the cutest one-year-old I’ve ever seen. Her sweet mom sent me this picture of how they turned out. I can’t wait to see more pictures from the party!

All of our outdoor furniture has arrived for our back yard. Literally it all came within two days. Since the back yard is not yet completed, it lives in our garage until we can set it up. I am itching to get our little fire pit set up to roast some mallows. It’s only a matter of time now…

Saturday morning Zach left for Lake Powell with his family. I couldn’t get the week off from work, so he went solo with his parents. Since we weren’t to see each other for almost nine days, we went out for a date on Friday. We dined at the Copper Onion – yes, that is a fried egg on top of Zach’s pork chop…

…and saw the Way Way Back at the Broadway Theater for its opening night. You’ve never seen a happier Zach than when he receives a free T-Shirt. It was his favorite moment of the night. Also, the movie was excellent.

Speaking of T-shirts…

Zach and I have a serious problem when it comes to tees. We are tee hoarders. We have two dressers in our shared walk-in closet and 90 percent of that storage goes to tees. Pajama tees, casual tees, v-necks…you get the idea. Since Zach left Saturday morning I made myself a goal to clean out and organize our closet while he was gone. So that’s exactly what I did. I got rid of 62 T-shirts. I am not lying…I counted. I kept sentimental ones: our NY Yankee tees from our first Yankees game together, our Cubs tees from our first visit to Wrigley Field, and so on. I also organized all our bins, the two dressers in our master bedroom, and de-cluttered my jewelry boxes.

The rest of Saturday was spent at the Nordstrom Sale, a tradition since I was six, with some friends. We dined at Brio and then ventured through Nordstrom and a few other stores at Fashion Place.

I’m so grateful to have friends that share my love for sales: Jenn and Lindsey, you are the best!

Sunday I attended church at my old home ward with my parents and then got to celebrate my Grandpa’s 82nd birthday over dinner and a lemon bundt cake. No, he’s not sleeping…he’s making a wish! I adore him.

Even though I have almost seven more days of being spouseless, I have big plans for this week / weekend. This sorta single girl is on the move…

15Jul 2013

Our Week

By K + Z 0 50 Days of SUMMER!, Activities, Invitations, Projects Permalink 0

This week we:

Ventured to IKEA to get one thing. That one thing was sold out, so we decided to play Hide and Seek instead…

Almost bought a puppy.

A woman brought four male St. Bernard / Lab pups to the Olympic Oval and we almost took one home. Zach left to go warm up for his ice hockey game and I was left alone with this handsome devil.

I completed [almost] all of my freelance projects: 9 wedding invitations, 2 logos, 2 birthday party invites, 2 baby shower invites, and some custom water bottle wrappers? It’s been pretty crazy the last few weeks…

Zach and I went on a date Friday night where we celebrated 30 days of being sober. From Diet Coke, of course.

We also gawked at Zach’s favorite office space: Super Top Secret. It houses an indoor half pipe and Zach’s been dreaming about touring it ever since it was featured on City Home Collective.

We later saw a movie at the Broadway Theater which totally creeped us out. Don’t go see The East. Just don’t. Please. Unless you like seeing people bathe each other in a river…then go ahead, I guess.

Saturday was action packed. I completed my first bike-run brick workout in the wee hours of the morning [it’s where you bike and then immediately go on a run] which totally kicked my trash. I felt pretty confident about my tri training until this workout came along. But enough about that. We then worked in our yard, assembled our outdoor dining furniture, and did a bunch of other uninteresting chores around the house. We worked hard, so we decided to treat ourselves to some grilled cheese sandwiches and cookie ice cream sandwiches at Melty Way.

Good cheese, great dessert, gorgeous branding. We both enjoyed it!

I then drug Zach to every store I could think of. This included Fashion Place and Scheels. He needed a serious meal after all that, so we agreed on Cafe Trio.

The finale of our week was having my brother and his girlfriend over to our house on Sunday night for a turkey dinner and hot fudge brownie sundaes.

Another week of summer made successful…

08Jul 2013

Our Fourth

By K + Z 0 50 Days of SUMMER!, Activities, Family, Food, Holidays Permalink 0

A lot has been going on at our house. Literally. After living in this Foxboro crib for almost four years, we are finally finishing our back yard! That means there have been a lot of new faces around our place the last few days. Other than the landscaper giving me odd looks when I gave him a schematic drawing of the back yard, things have been going pretty smoothly.

Sprinklers, cement, and sod are all in!

Wednesday [felt like a Friday] so I met my mom and a friend at City Creek to do a little shopping and then met Zach for dinner at Market Street.

We decided to catch a totally random flick at the Dolla Theater in Sugarhouse before returning home. Little did we know, we were in for some pre-show entertainment!

We thought we were the only two people in the theater…until we met Frank. Frank stood up in front of his seat, turned around, and talked to us for a good 15 minutes before the previews started rolling. First, he pulled up his shirt and showed us his hairy belly button. DEAD. SERIOUS. Then, he talked to us about ‘ending the war on drugs’, his quest to legalize marijuana, and commanded us to follow his blog. I have yet to discover this blog [I was too distracted to write the URL down whilst taking this picture] and hope to one day stumble upon it. The movie was ok. Frank was the most interesting thing we saw at the theater that night, to be honest.

The next morning was the holiday and we kicked it off with my Fotheringham Family BBQ in Magna. Babies were held…

…stars and stripes were adorned…

…and pretty much everyone got soaking wet in a water fight.

After the BBQ we journeyed down south to the Henderson BBQ.

After the kids got changed from their swim clothes into their pajamas, we all made our way over to sneak onto the Salt Lake Country Club green to watch the fireworks. It was the perfect spot considering you get almost three different views of three different firework shows across the valley. It’s one of my favorite things about the Fourth.

Friday Zach and I both had to work, but celebrated afterwards with a double dinner and a movie date at the Gateway. We saw Disney’s the Lone Ranger. Cheesey? Yes. A good time? Well, sure!

Early Saturday morning was spent at the pool alongside the Viewmont Swim Team. Not on purpose, but they were holding practice at the SDRC and I happened to get a lane right next to those little champions. It was both motivating and intimidating at the same time…

Before lunch time we decided since the weather was so dreamy [overcast days are my favorite] that we would head on over to the Farmer’s Market.

We stocked up on meat, fresh veggies, homemade pasta, macarons, our favorite honey wheat bread, and of course Zach got his ICEE…

We were smart enough [lesson learned] to pack along a cooler so we didn’t have to run straight home with our goods. Instead, after we made the rounds at the market, we stopped at the Park Cafe for brunch.

By the time we made it home the weather had turned gloomy, so we decided to stay in and watch movies while we prepared dinner from our market spoils.

After church we spent Sunday afternoon at Mark and Jeanene’s for “Surf N’ Turf” night. There were steaks, salmon, twice-baked potatoes, a whole fruit spread, and Jeanene’s chocolate cake for dessert. It was a full on feast! The weather was really pleasant so we stayed outside on their deck until it got chilly.

I’d say it was a successful holiday weekend. Yes, we got harassed by a sort of homeless man…and I got a little sick from eating FOUR Paradise Bakery cookies, but that couldn’t stop us from enjoying our family on the Fourth.

01Jul 2013

Just Some Goings On

By K + Z 0 50 Days of SUMMER!, Activities, Family, Food, Personal Permalink 0

Some things that happened this week…

Everybody has bad days at work, right? Zach must have ESP or something, because this Monday in particular was a real prize peach, if ya know whatta mean. I came home late and walked into our kitchen to find this:

A serger! I have been wanting one for a few months now, and mentioned it once…maybe twice in casual conversation, never really thinking I would ever get one. When I saw this parked on the kitchen island along with a sweet note, my heart exploded. Not only is my husband thoughtful, but he actually listens to me. I cried. Over a serger. He later told me he had ‘researched which one to get’ and invited me to a ‘serge party where there will be pizza’. Just when I think he couldn’t get any better…he surprises me again. How can one little person have such a giant heart…?

Not only has my full time job been hectic, but after-work work as well. I’ve been working on a lot of logos for friends and family lately, here are a few just to catch up:

Also, I am currently working on six wedding announcement designs and several party/shower invitations. That’s the most I’ve ever had to do in one time, so things around here are pretty cray. Here are some older ones, already completed. There’s quite a few more, but I just can’t keep them all straight…

Tuesday I had some meetings with a salesman from our office and my boss down in Provo. We first met with Vivint where they were having their grand opening for their new [incredible] building. Along with a stocked candy bar and 500 Sweet Tooth Fairy cupcakes…

Friday after work Zach and I were both so hot that we decided to drive up to Ogden to take a dip in Mark and Jeanene’s pool. They were out of town for the weekend, and so we took it upon ourselves to be on pool patrol. You know…to help out, of course.

We later enjoyed our take-out from Maple Garden [Zach’s idea, obviously] and some popsicles for dessert.

Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early for my very first scheduled race. I decided last minute to participate in the North Salt Lake 5K, which literally started in my back yard…almost. I’ve never ran in a race before and I figured I better run at least one before I do this sprint in September. I can’t believe it took me this long to actually sign up for a race like this, it was so much fun! Even though I technically signed up by myself there were tons of my cute neighbors alongside me, which made it even more enjoyable. The only part I didn’t really enjoy was the temperature. If I would have known Saturday was supposed to be the hottest day of the year thus far, I might have picked a different one. Regardless of the heat, I finished and beat my personal best time and had Zach cheering me on at the finish line.

Another thing to check off my list of things to do before I die, I guess.

Later that evening after all our work around the house was done Zach and I drove up to Layton for a couples massage at Beyond Spa.

We left to go home feeling super relaxed [my massage therapist even massaged my ears…I have never had anyone do that before and I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it] and I even got myself some lemonade bath soak to enjoy later.

We ended the night with sushi at Tsunami and a late movie.

Sunday after church my side of the family drove up Big Cottonwood for one of my favorite summer traditions [also on our summer to-do list]: tinfoil dinners and s’mores. We found the perfect spot at the Ledgemere campground right alongside the river. The kidlets enjoyed walking through the shallow water to cool off…

…while others enjoyed the shade from the banks.

Each year we get more and more creative [some might say dangerous] with our tin foil meals. This time my uncle experimented with mushrooms, bacon, and cream of mushroom soup in the mix.

Everyone was pretty pleased at how they turned out.

The finale of our night – along with three of the four kiddies taking a dive in the freezing cold water – was forgetting the marshmallow roasting sticks. This resulted in having to wrap up our s’mores in tin foil and placing them in the fire. Despite the obstacle; another victory!

So yeah…this week was what we like to call a summer success. We can’t wait for the holiday coming up: more family, more food, and short work week is the cherry on top!

Monthly Archives July 2013

Rivers, Lakes, A Yard, and Some Pioneers

Spouseless

Our Week

Our Fourth

Just Some Goings On

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