Water Goes With Everything

Adrian and I got a babysitter on Friday night and went to dinner and a movie - it was lovely! We went to Ghost Town which I thought was really funny, though it was just us and 4 other people in the theater so obviously it hasn't been the most successful movie. I think Ricky Gervais is hilarious - I love his particular dry and uncomfortable brand of humor.

But the funniest part actually happened at dinner at fabulous PF Chang's. We had a most memorable waiter - he had great spiky hair and started off by saying, "I'm going to bring you guys out some ice water first. I think ice water is so refreshing and is the perfect pallet cleanser. It tends to go with pretty much any dish - spicy, sweet, or savory. How does that sound?" We told him ice waters would be great and then waited until he was gone to have a chuckle. Yes, isn't it strange how water goes with everything??!!:) Oh, it was great and honestly you probably had to have heard him to get the full effect - it was as if he was the first one to think of ice water as an accompaniment to food! And as a side note later in the evening sadly our waiter dumped my very refreshing ice water all over the table. I actually felt really bad for him because he was so embarrassed. It must be hard to be a waiter in that situation. But dinner was not a bust at all, we had the most wonderful Mongolian beef and Sichuan asparagus!! SO good! And it was wonderful to get out. We are so happy to have found a really nice babysitter who lives only 4 doors down, so we don't even have to pick her up or take her home. Nice!

Couch Potato Thursday Nights

Just as an update we did enjoy Eleventh Hour last night. I must admit it wasn't the best pilot I've ever seen, but I think as a series it could be nice. I guess future episodes will tell. I always enjoyed the weekly weird hunts of X-Files and that's what this show seems to be. I was a little miffed that Rufus wasn't using his natural accent, which is awesome, but instead seemed to be pulling an American or country of unknown origin accent. But his voice is still cool no matter what so I'm okay.

Another show we watched last night on our Thursday night of complete couch-potatoness was Life on Mars. I had seen the British version of this show on BBC America once and was intrigued by the concept, but never really watched it again. Well last night's American pilot of the series was really really good. Thank goodness for our DVR because we were able to record both The Eleventh Hour and Life on Mars since they play at the same time. The funniest thing though was seeing Lisa Bonet!! When she came on the screen I kept saying look it's Lisa Bonet! I hadn't seen her since the Cosby Show!

So it seems like Thursday is now our favorite TV night! We have 3 shows - The Office (Meredith!! Oh last night was horribly awesome!!), The Eleventh Hour and Life on Mars - fun for us. What did you guys think of the shows last night??

I hope this show is good!!

So my favorite actor since Tim Curry, Rufus Sewell, is going to be in a new TV series called The Eleventh Hour and it starts tomorrow. (I say "since Tim Curry" not because Tim isn't around anymore, but he's kind of turned his focus to voice work. Which is totally great cause I get to hear him as the librarian in Higgley Town Heroes while watching with the kids. I still love you Tim Curry!!) Anyway, I so hope Eleventh Hour is good. It is suppose to be something between X-Files and CSI... Hmm, might be promising. I just hope it's not gory. I think I need a new show, because House is getting a bit depressing and other than that and The Office it seems like all I watch are reality and cooking shows... Okay, really I don't "need" a new show, but having a show to look forward to, especially one that Adrian can get into as well, is fun to me. I remember how Adrian and I used to look forward to X-Files every week and it was nice to snuggle with my hubby while we both watched something we enjoyed rather than one of us enduring the others favorites. (Hence, my loathing of SciFi Fridays and Adrian's loathing of John and Kate Plus 8 Mondays.:)) Well wish us luck, maybe it will be like recapturing those X-Files nights of yore.

On a side note, Rufus Sewell has been growing on me ever since I saw ShakespeaRe-Told: Taming of the Shrew - have you seen that?? I loved it and laughed through the whole thing. Rufus plays Petruchio and Moaning Myrtle plays Katherina! It really is awesome and hopefully I'm going to be getting it for Christmas (hint hint Adrian). I'm sure even if you haven't seen Taming of the Shrew you know Rufus. He was Seth in Cold Comfort Farm, the bad guy in A Knight's Tale (*sad sigh* Heath Ledger was so cute in that) and lots of parts in British made series and movies like BBC/A&E's Troy and Charles II. He's also been in lots of big movies lately like The Illusionist and Tristan and Isolde. He's usually the bad guy actually, but man he has a cool voice and crazy wide eyes. I like my actors quirky!:)

Tristan and Isolde BTW just happens to be Adrian and my perfect actor-match-movie because it has of course Rufus in it, but also Adrian's favorite actress Sophia Myles. I did not realize Adrian really liked this actress until about 6 months ago when I was going through TV shows and movies that Adrian had saved on our DVR and seriously 4 or 5 of them starred this actress. So funny and I deservedly teased him a lot. (I only had one or two movies at most starring Collin Firth so I had every right to tease him!:)) Sophia Myles was even on Dr. Who so really she is the perfect actress crush for Adrian! We both laughed about it the other night when we watched Tristan and Isolde together and there they both were. As a note, I am completely fine with Adrian liking this chick, to me she is better than Angelina Jolie who used to be his favorite!

Wow, well this post all about Eleventh Hour got all tangenty didn't it??! Funny how far a train of thought can go. Now you all know a little more about me and Adrian than you probably wanted to! Oh well, if not that, what are blogs for??

Donny's Biggest Little Fan

Last year when Nina was just a wee little thing I posted this. Well it turns out our Nina is still a huge Donny Osmond fan!! Tonight, while Adrian's at the Priesthood session of conference, I was watching the Pioneer Day Celebration that was rebroadcast on BYU-TV and Nina spent almost the whole show glued to the TV. She seriously does not usually have this kind of attention span and I am convinced it is because Donny Osmond and the Osmond family hosted the event. Whenever Donny was on the screen she stood right next to the TV and swayed to the music. It was hilarious and I just had to post about it! I don't know if she is the future Osmond fan club director or if I will someday be able to use this post as blackmail.. Either way it is definitely worth remembering!:)

Crafty Measures

I've been trying to decorate the kids rooms with minimal budget effects, so I've turned to crafting... And here's what I made for their rooms:

I made the kids each a Martha Stewart style bulletin board to match their bedrooms. Sophie's is the lavendar one, Ben's room is Star Wars themed (of course :)) so he has the planets one and Nina's room is still Tinker Bell themed so hers is the pink and yellow butterfly one in the middle. It was actually super easy and I learned how to do it at a mother-daughter activity day. The green canvas with flowers is something I painted for Sophie to match her bed spread. I'm not sure I was ready for just how many coats of each color it was going to take to paint it, but after a few days of work on it it was finally done. The green "S" which is kind of camouflaged in front of the bulletin boards was the fastest project and probably only took me 45 minutes to paint.

Anywho, I guess the urge to decorate has driven me to take crafty measures. I am happy to say though that the kids have been pleased with my efforts and Ben is thankful for his Star Wars room every night in his bed-time prayers and that makes me feel happy.:)

Getting Settled

Okay, I have major guilt that I haven't been commenting on everyones' blogs, (so sorry) but I have been reading all the posts and I've been wanting to comment... Soon I'm going to have a real schedule, things are getting much more settled around here and with Sophie and Ben in school and preschool now I know life is going to start getting back to normal. But here's what I've been up to in the mean time:

House stuff:

We got our blinds up finally!! Oh, I can't even say how much of an improvement this has made! And slowly but surely we are unpacking all the rooms. We now just have our room to unpack. Yay for progress.

And here's some house pics:


This loft area upstairs is one of our favorite spaces in the house - it's pretty much a replica of our family room in Maryland, so it feels very comfy and homey to us.

School stuff:

Sophie has been back in school for over a week now and is doing well. Ben started preschool, but promptly got sick so wasn't able to go the rest of the week. The one day that he did go was a good day. His teachers said he had a small break down during snack time, but quickly recovered and honestly I call the first day with only one break down a success. Ben usually had a harder time adjusting to new situations. He couldn't stop talking about preschool and so wanted to go even when he was sick.

My bday:

I am now 31. How did this happen? As if it wasn't annoying enough to turn 30!;) I had a good birthday. Adrian got a babysitter and we found a lovely Japanese steakhouse (my favorite type of restaurant) like a Bennihana. It was SO yummy!! Tepanyaki is still #1 in my book, but this place was a close second. After dinner we went to a movie, House Bunny, which I wouldn't recommend, but had some very funny moments. Earlier in the day I went to the mall and got myself a couple sweater hoodies - happy birthday to me.:) I plan on stretching my birthday out a little though and I'll probably get myself more presents this week. Birthdays last at least a week right?!

Fun night out with Jenny:

Last night it was so fun to have a girls night with Jenny. We went to the Claim Jumper and had some seriously awesome food! I had to laugh and laugh when my dessert, a brownie sundae, came out and it was bigger than my head!!! It was yummy, but I barely made a dent in this beast of a dessert before I was completely stuffed. It was so fun to chat and laugh with Jenny and I can't tell you how grateful I am to have such a great friend here in Colorado!

You can't see Jenny's dessert very well in this picture, but it was also ginormous. The sheer size of our treats made us get out our cel phones to take pictures!:)

Boxes Boxes Everywhere

Wow, I've been missing in action for a while now! It's been a crazy busy time with unpacking and school and preschool starting so blogging has sort of taken a back-seat. It has been hectic, but finally we are starting to uncover our floor at home and in fact the whole main level is unpacked! Yay! We still have lots of unpacking of clothes and books etc. and we haven't even started to think about all the boxes in the basement. Unpacking is so not fun, but hopefully if we keep on plugging away it will be done soon.

Sophie started 4th grade yesterday. She had a good first day and said she made friends and likes her teacher. I got to meet her teacher earlier this week she seems like a wonderful energetic teacher.

Ben went to his preschool get-to-know-you open house yesterday and will start on Monday. He'll be going to preschool at the elementary school that Sophie goes to and he was overjoyed to get a school T-shirt that looks just like Sophie's. There are a couple boys from our ward in the same preschool so that's very happy too.

Nina has been running around like a crazy child going up and down our stairs constantly. My first project was to unpack and fix up the playroom and she loves spending time in there with her play kitchen and all the Barbies or "princesses". She's been much happier since we moved into the house - the extended stay place we were in before did not have a lot of room to play. I think she, Ben, and Sophie will be excited when they put our grass in. That is suppose to happen sometime in the next week or so. I can't wait for the landscaping to get done either actually, it will be so nice to look out and see grass instead of dirt.

I hope to take some pictures of the house soon and put them on here. I know my Mom really wanted to see how the porch and kitchen turned out so stay tuned for an update.:)