Christmas cards for the troops

My friend Marina asked a bunch of us in our little people group to make some Christmas cards for the troops in Iraq. So this is my card that I made. It's a little hard to see, but I cut a square window in the front of the card and stuck a metal ornament tied with green ribbon on the inside of the card so it shows through in the window. I stamped the front of the card with a star stamp to make a watermark. The star is a mimic of the star design on the metal ornament. I then stamped a Christmas saying on green paper and attached it to the card with foam squares. Very simple, but cute.

Tonight Mike and I are hosting the monthly little people dinner at Ruby Tuesday's in Draper. So far we have 28 people showing up. That's our largest group yet for these dinners. Hopefully I'll get pictures tonight and post them this weekend.

15 Years

15 years ago today I move to Utah to get married to Mike. It's hard to believe it has been 15 years already. Time flies by. I was so nervous to move away for the first time. I lived in the same room in the same house for 18 years and wasn't sure what it would be like to live in a big city. Salt lake city is huge compared to my hometown of 7,000 people. I had a rocky start, I got lost (a lot), I startd college and hated it, Mike worked 12 hours a day, six days a week at his music business, so I was alone a lot. My poor, patient mom got a daily call from me because I was so lonely. I lived in a house with 5 other girls who were 8 to 10 years older than I was. It was an eye opening experience for me. I will never voluntarily live with 5 adult women again.



Now 15 years later I would live nowhere else. I love Utah. It is such a beautiful place. The city is big, but not so big you feel lost in a maze of people and everyone is so friendly here. Now I need to convince my parents to move here after my mom retires. I'm sure that won't happen, but I can always try.

CraftyChick

My friend Adawna has a new blog showing the cute crafts she makes. She is extremely crafty and I love that she will have a blog to show people what she makes. She made me the cutest vinyl lettering for my front door that says Welcome to our home. I haven't put it up yet, but when I do I'll post a picture. I've seen the boo letters she has made when I was down at her house on Saturday. Super cute!

Be sure and go to http://www.littlecraftythings.blogspot.com/.

Greek Festival

On Friday, Mike and I with some friends went to the Greek Festival. This was my first time going to it. The others had been there many times. It was a blast. We got there around 7:30 and the line for the food wrapped around the entire tent holding the festivities. We sat down around 9ish with our food. I couldn't believe how friendly everyone was even though we were all spending over an hour in line just to get food, but so worth it. The food was fabulous. We all ate so much we were sick by the time we left (around 10:30).

My favorites were the gyro, the greek rice and Loukoumathes(deep fried dough with cinnamon). Oh so yummy. We ate two orders of Loukoumathes between the five of us. During our dinner we watched traditional greek dances. They were very entertaining to watch. I told Mike we need to make this an annual event. There's nothing like good food, friends and entertainment.

33

I turned 33 on the 28th. It was a fun day. I ended up working that day since Mike did too. Work had my desk all decorated and a few people sent me birthday emails. After work my friends, Michael, Nicole and Ashley took me to dinner at Red Iguana. Our favorite place to go for our birthdays. Mike had the night shift so he didn't go to dinner with us. As usual it was fun. They crack me up like no other people. When Mike got home from work he had a surprise for me. He bought me a card and a cake! Mike never gives me cards and not once has he given me a cake for my birthday in the years that we've been married. I was totally shocked and pleased. He definetly earned some points with me.

The gifts I got were great. My parents gave me a book, The Host by Stephanie Meyer. Two movies, 27 Dresses and Ratatouille. I love those movies. I also got a scrapbook magazine and a couple of cute shirts. Mike and I did joint gifts this year. We took our trip to California and bought concert tickets to see Coldplay in November. Mike also took me to dinner at Thaifoons for dinner on Wednesday. We love that place. Michael, Nicole and Ashley gave me a gift certificate to Target.


P.S. The Utah LPA chapter will be doing a fundraiser booth at the Avenues street fair next Saturday. We do face painting for the kids. The fair starts at 9 and goes till 6. It's on Third Avenue between I and N. I'm sure I will be there most of the day. Do try to stop by if you are in the area.

CODA Fundraiser

The weekend of August 15th the Utah chapter of Little People of America had the opportunity to assist a new non-profit organization with their fundraiser. CODA is an organization that was started by Matt Roloff (Little People, Big World) and Marty Klebba(Pirates of the Caribbean) to help raise money for LP adoptions and higher education. Each year they hold a fundraiser in a different city, this year it was in Salt Lake.

Our local chapter set up a booth and did pirate tattoos for the little kids. Marty and another Pirate actor did autograph signings, there was two showings of the first Pirate movie and a silent auction. It wasn't as largly attended as they hoped, but still did well in the fundraising.

We had a lot of fun being apart of this fundraiser and hope they choose our city again. Here are a couple of pictures. One is with Adawna and I with the two Pirate actors, the other is a bunch of us with the Jack Sparrow look a like they hired from Disney.

Twin Falls Temple

Mike and I had the opportunity to go up to the open house of the Twin Falls Temple earlier this month. We went with my parents and my Aunt and Uncle who live in Twin Falls.

It's a beautiful temple. I think it's great that there is a temple in that area. The closest temples to there are Idaho Falls, Rexburg and Boise. Each of them at least two hour drive.

The greatest part was going with my parents. They are non-members so they have never had the opportunity to be in a temple. I think they understand the concept better now that they've walked through the temple and could ask questions.

After the temple open house we went to dinner at Outback Steakhouse and then went home to watch the Olympics.

The picture isn't so good. I took it as my dad was driving by the temple. I cut Moroni (or bugle boy as my dad calls him) off.