Halloween Haunts

With all the time I've had on my hands lately, I have been looking for creative outlets. My Mom was always super festive for any holiday. She would cover the house in nick-knacks the kids had made over the years and products of her creative genius. She would even go to lengths such as dying all the food red for Valentine's Day or green for St. Patrick's. Now that I'm a "home-maker," I thought it was time to start building my "festivity repertoire." Here are some of this year's decorations:

Simple leftover cardstock from a previous craft, colored by me

I saw books like this at Michael's (where I purchased the skull/raven) and they wanted around $12 for it. I thought to myself, "I could easily make that." Bit of black cardstock, tape and some tracing later, wah-la!

Had some left-over white canvas fabric and whipped these up in just a couple minutes.

The hat came pre-made, I just applied a bit of tape and learned to tie a floral bow from Youtube. Simple but fun!

Michael's had an awesome sale, which as mentioned before, is where I got a lot of my decorations. I just think this candlestick is kinda fun and adds a touch of "eery" to the room. 

This is probably what I'm most proud of. I found the picture online and had a blank canvas. I really haven't done any painting since High School, so the fact that I was able to create something I'm proud of after all this time is kinda an awesome win. 

I had a lot of fun making/arranging these "creations." I can't wait til I can be that crazy neighbor with the decked-out yard that all the neighbor kids want to hit up on their Trick-or-Treating route!

Tonight we're headed to "The 13th Floor," Colorado's scariest haunted house. Apparently it's been featured on things like news programs and the Discovery Channel. We're both a bit apprehensive, but also looking forward to spending time with other couples from our ward. Hopefully we can keep our wits about us!

First Denver Adventure

About a week ago we were finally able to get out and enjoy the Denver area a bit. Our time here has primarily been saturated with Jake working and me job hunting/watching Netflix. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those extroverts who can go on adventures by themselves... I really wish we could get a dog so I could go on walks or play at the park... We just don't have the room right now.

But back to the happy news! A couple weeks back we had talked about going to this place called Estes Park, which is supposedly the "gateway" to Rocky Mountain National Park. I got sick halfway there so we had to turn around. So about a week ago on Saturday, we were finally able to do something about our boring life. We didn't quite make it to Estes, being that it's an hour and a half drive one way, so we went for Lair O' the Bear park instead.

To kick our "Fun Day" off, I slowly awoke to the smell of bacon... yum! I opened my eyes and there's a big ole plate of it! (With eggs and toast-- attached to the arm of a doting husband.) I've always wanted someone to bring me breakfast in bed, so I was S.T.O.K.E.D!

After a lazy morning in bed, we packed our water bottles, Camelback, camera and power bars and jumped in the car! We spent the hour drive really enjoying the new alternative stations Jake had recently found (he's so excited about this, finally gets to listen to "his" music.) We got a little lost up the canyon, the Google Maps system isn't always the best out here, but it turned out we had found a back way, so it was all good!

As soon as we got out of the car, that wonderful mountain-fall smell washed over us. It was amazing, we were so excited we were actually doing this! Being that we aren't the most avid hikers, we had picked this spot for its easy winding trail along this river. Such a gorgeous place! My family used to go to a similar spot up Provo canyon every fall for a BBQ, so it brought back some really warm memories for me.

Here are a few pics I snapped along the way:

We reached the car just in time to get out of the rain. We ended up stopping in a teeny tiny little town called Morrison for lunch- we were starved! We were hungry prior to our hike and luckily had some of those power bars to hold us over. We stopped in this little corner burger joint where Jake got the classic and I got a Philly Cheesesteak. So delicious! We both ate contently, reflecting on the day and how great it was to spend time like this as a couple again. :)

The night ended with a viewing of "Meet the Mormons." If you don't know what that is, it's a documentary-type film that explains a bit about who we are (normal people) and what we believe (we are centered on Christ. If you'd like to learn more, click here.) 

All in all, a really, really, REALLY great day. :) So grateful for the opportunity to explore and reconnect with the hubs. :) Looking forward to many many more adventures.

Sealing Pics

Our amazing-ly talented friend, Katie Packer, took some pics of us on our sealing day last Saturday. She did a fantastic job! The pictures are beautiful and she caught some really awesome moments! Jake made the comment that she did an even better job than the photographer from our wedding, which, I can't even dispute. Katie if you're reading this, thank you so much for being part of our day and capturing it so beautifully! Please see her other work at katiepackerphotography.blogspot.com. *Warning: Pic overload may be approaching...*

The second verse of the Primary song "I Love to See the Temple" comes to mind at this moment:

"I love to see the temple,

I'm going there someday

To covn' ant with my Father

To listen and obey; 

For the temple is a house of God

Where we are sealed together

As a child of God, I've learned this truth:

A family is forever." 

I am so grateful for my knowledge of this Gospel, for the sealing power of the temple. My heart is so so full, it is hard to express in words. A big thank you to all who made the sacrifices to be there with us, whether literally or in Spirit. We were so overcome by the love and support that has been shown to us. God IS good!

One Year... or Five?

I seem to be feeling super nostalgic tonight. It all started when I wanted to finally have a contact photo for Jake on my phone. I jumped on Facebook to just use one we already have and found myself skimming through pictures of him throughout the years. I know I've seen all these pics several times, but it just re-affirmed to me how strange it is that he had a life before meeting me. It's weird for me to think about my life before him, let alone his life before me. There were pics of him with his arm around his ex-girlfriends and it just seemed SO strange. He looked so natural and comfortable there. I guess I suddenly have a greater appreciation for people who are high-school sweethearts and never review their "previous life."

Jake and I had realized a couple weeks ago that we've known each other for five years now. Hard to believe time has gone so fast! Here are a few of my favorite moments:

Our first picture together! We were at a Singles' Ward Campout, the first night we held hands. :)

Our first official date- Colonial Kitchen Sink and and Eve 6 concert, followed by building Lego's and playing battleship.

Our Chicago Singles' Ward went on a trip to Nauvoo. I love this pic 'cause it captures how goofy we can be.

In 2010, we went four-wheeling with my brother and sister in law. We found this amazing spot and took this pic. One of my faves for the longest time.

Bein goofy at the ugly sweater party around Christmas 2010.

Burzlaff family photo session in 2010. He cracks me up!

One of my fav engagements. It was actually taken THE DAY we got engaged. He had taken me out on my parent's boat, played and sang songs to me on his guitar and got down on one knee. It was amazing. We had to rush home, shower and get ready for our photo shoot. So fun to do it that same day while we were on such a high! 

And finally we were married! I knew I wanted to marry Jake like 3 days after I met him. It was a long road, but we are now so so happy.

A couple weeks ago we celebrated our first anniversary! With the move to Denver fast approaching, we decided to forgo gifts so we could eat at some of our favorite restaurants: Hermm's Inn and Pizza Plus. They were absolutely delicious! The night before we went to a Demolition Derby, which is always fun to see cars smashing and blowing up in smoke! The night of, I made some home-made Sweet Pork Salads and we enjoyed some Martinelli's. We even broke out our year-old wedding cake! Which was the first time I had really tried it, considering on our wedding day I only tasted what had been smashed into my mouth. 

The following Saturday, Jake and I were sealed for Time and All Eternity in the Salt Lake Temple. We are so grateful to have the opportunity to be a forever family, to have each other through all the challenges of this life and the blessings of the next! 

I never expected this kind of love to be real in my life. I have struggled trusting that someone could love me as purely and fully as Jake does. I am continually amazed at how our love for each other has evolved over these five years. Words cannot adequately express how full and grateful my heart is for this man! I cannot wait to see what more life has in store for us, for I know I will have a strong, understanding, faithful man of God by my side through it all.

Fails, Fun & Family

Last week we went to (what used to be) one of my favorite places on earth-- Lake Powell-- for a family reunion. Yeah, no longer my favorite...

First off, I CANNOT BELIEVE how much WORK is involved! I definitely appreciate my parents more for putting all that effort in to take us on a -camping- vacation. The meal planning, the ahead- prep time, the gathering of gear, the packing, the squeezing things into your car. It was E.X.H.A.U.S.T.I.N.G.

We drove down Wednesday night, right after I got off work. I got off to a bad start because last minute I realized I hadn't set my vacation responder on my e-mails or recorded a voice-message. So I had to leave ten minutes late. I know, I shouldn't freak out, but when things don't go my way like that, I get SO BUGGED. I was livid basically all the way to Salt Lake. I had to give myself a stern talking-to and I was able to relax the rest of the drive. Thank heavens Jake is so patient and forgiving.

We got there at about 12:30 a.m. and had to set up our tent. We were so tired (and once again crabby) from the drive. I had to walk the beach a bit to find my family while Jake sat in the car. We finally found them and my amazing dad and brother Ben were up and helped us A TON.  They showed us where to set up our tent, helped us stake it in and brace it against the wind. Our tent's one of those with super flimsy poles, so we had to tie a rope to the banana and another to a log to keep the poles upright. Kinda ridiculous.

I won't bore you with a play by play of each day, but I'll give you a general overview. Each morning the sun would come BEATING down on our tent, making it impossible to sleep- so freaking hot. Most mornings we'd just sit around waiting for breakfast to be ready. One particular morning, my aunt and uncle were assigned to bring an essential item and they didn't show up for like an hour and a half after they were supposed to be there. We were all pretty bugged and hungry. Fortunately, in the meantime, my extended family put together a soccer game. (One of the only things we did that even resembled family time-- weird considering it was a 'Family Reunion'...) It was SO FUN to see Jake out there playing. He even made a goal!

Afternoons were spent hiding out in my parents' 5th wheel. The wind was so strong, it was blowing sand EVERYWHERE. You could hardly even keep your eyes open. I literally considered wearing my snorkeling googles to walk around outside. (No, I didn't actually, but would have made for a good photo op.) Jake and I literally had to spend an hour and a half that first night cleaning our tent out of all the sand that had COVERED everything we had in there. Way annoying.

Before I go on much further, you have to understand that all growing up, Lake Powell trips were all about boating time for my family-- early morning ski's/wake-boarding, afternoon knee-boarding/tubing and evening ski's into the sunset. NOT THE CASE on this trip. The weather was SO windy most days, it was nearly impossible to even get the boat out. So that caused a lot of frustration, drama and arguing for time when the water WAS good. Fail #... I don't even know what we're up to now. It was so draining being between arguing parties. I think that really ruined the trip for me.

Last fail-- spending next to no time with the extended family. I had a few conversations and brief interactions with various family members, but it was nothing close to what we've done in the past. I have no idea why I was so lame. I think I've gotta chock it up to the bad weather and having to hide out in my parents' trailer a lot of the time... But I also think we've all grown so much, many of the cousins have kids, and we have limited ties to each other... Perhaps next time will go smoother and help us reconnect better?

Fortunately there WERE some positive highlights from the trip I can share:

1- Getting quality time with two of my nieces/nephews I haven't had the opportunity to get to know. They were adorable, so well behaved and so fun. I really built a lot of trust with my nephew-- we went swimming together and he held onto my life jacket and kicked and kicked all by himself! I was so proud of him!

2- Jake thinking ahead to plan other activities for us. We brought our snorkeling gear (didn't really see much, but glad we got to test it out), he got to do some mountain biking he's been dying to do, and we got to see Horseshoe Bend! That was gorgeous, breath-taking and awe-inspiring. (See pic below)

3- One of my favorite parts of the trip though was when my brothers Aaron, Ben, their families, Brent, Jake and I hopped into the boat to go try to find some shelter in a cove. We were fairly successful and found a nice spot to swim and mess around.

4- The last night, the weather was calm enough for us to have a fire as a big extended family. We sat around and, in celebration of my Dad's birthday, shared favorite memories, or things we admire about him. It was really special and put a great positive twist on the trip for my Dad.

All in all, I'm grateful for the re-connecting I was able to do with my brother Ben and his kids. I can't remember the last time we had that good of a time together.

That being said, not sure I'd be up for going again for all that work. Didn't really feel like a vacation once we got home and got everything cleaned out. (Still not all put away-- why you ask? I came down with a sinus infection the same night we got home.)

I'm grateful to be home and to be sheltered from the elements. I'm grateful for family. I hope we'll all be able to come together again and have a more positive experience!

Car-less

Well, it happened. I’m car-less. The first time in my life. No, I’m not one of those spoiled little rich kids
that get a car right at 16. I shared with my parents, making arrangements when I had to work and asking
for permission when they weren’t using it.

When I was 18, my Mom starting working more, and it was more downtown, so it made it virtually
impossible for everyone to get where they needed to be while sharing cars. So my dad and I struck a
deal and found my “Tiny Tim” (so dubbed by high-school friends) for $300. This car was a BEATER. Those of you who know him will fondly remember the rusted paint, the multi-colored panels, the scrunched up
leg space in the back and the drowning out of voices as we raced down the highway. That car was a tin
can. But it served me well for about 4 years-- til it kicked the bucket.

I was in college at the time Tiny Tim went down. My dad is some kind of car-genie-genius, so he
swapped me out for a time, while he tried to fix it. He got it running again, but it wasn’t quite the same
and still had a bit of a problem. He let me keep his car and ended up selling it to me at a discounted
price for my college graduation present.

I will fully admit I did not appreciate that car as much as I should have. I didn’t like that Tiny Tim handled
driving Sardine Canyon way better than it ever did, nor that it was my Dad’s car... I wanted something
a bit more girly and something of my choice. (Cue judgmental thoughts—“spoiled, ungrateful brat.”)

However, that car saw me through thousands of trips from Salt Lake to Logan and back to see Jake
on the weekends, trekking all over the Wasatch front for work with the foster care agency, and the
eventual move back to Logan.

The problem all started about a year ago. The check engine light came on—and I ignored it for a couple
months (like any responsible adult would do...) The car seemed to run just fine for the longest time. My
dad and I eventually decided it was time to work on it, including the replacement of the timing belt and
EGR Valve system. The light stayed on... and now it was worse... The car would literally shudder at stop
lights and the rpm’s dropped a ton like it was dying. But we persevered.

Really, the car ran (and still runs) fine. The registration expired at the end of May this year, so I went
in to get the required inspections. Come to find out, if your check engine light is on, it’s an automatic
fail for the emissions testing! >:S The light was on for the same reason—the stupid EGR system. We’ve
replaced absolutely everything in it, even swapped out the computer of the car to get that dang light to
go off, and sure enough, it’s still there!!! Ugh!

Jake and I talked about it and decided it was the responsible thing to do, not to drive it until we can
(hopefully) get the issue resolved. But it’s not looking super great. My wonderful Dad took it back to Salt
Lake with him this weekend to explore our options. They don’t look great.

In the meantime, I’m riding my bike to work most days. It’s kind of a love-hate relationship, this biking
to work thing. When I get there, I feel ok about it, but I don’t enjoy actually doing it. I hate the sweating
in business-casual clothes and gasping for air. I like the idea of getting more exercise and being good to
the environment. I hate the close calls with cars that don’t pay attention. I don’t enjoy being restricted
to the work building for lunch. I miss being able to do errands while Jake’s at work... I’ll get used to this
eventually, right....?

....Maybe let’s all pray the car gets fixed, sooner rather than later.

Comings and Goings

What?! It's been nearly TWO months since my last post?! Where has time gone??? 

Back in April, a good friend had asked me to shoot her wedding reception. Now, let me just stop you there. No, I'm not a photographer. Do I love taking pictures? Absolutely! Do I love weddings? Heck yes! So naturally, I didn't have to think twice about it-- that is, after some careful warnings and quite a ball of nerves. I spent all my spare time the two and a half weeks before learning everything I could about photography. I read a book my Mom gave me like two years ago for Christmas, and an abundance of YouTube videos. I thought I was fairly prepared going in, but oh what a whirlwind! 

The place was GORGEOUS. I have seen a handful of receptions in my life that were held in a church Cultural Hall that took my breath away. This was one of them. There was soft lighting, greenery everywhere, and white Christmas lights to top it off. I tried to be as "obnoxious" as I could, taking tons and tons of pics (filled up my memory card two hours in, had to delete some as I went to get more space...) Luckily her family thought I was fairly funny, so I got a few candid smiles out of them. I tried shooting from lots of angles, using different lenses, and varying the use of my flash. That was probably the hardest part of the whole thing honestly-- the low lighting. Since I'm not a photographer, I only had the flash that comes standard on my camera. No stands, no bounce cards, no external flash (they're a little pricey!) A fair amount of the pictures were blurry or had a bit of noise. I did my best to clean them up with my editing software. Here are a few of my favorites:

                         

In other news, as many of you know, we've been contemplating moving to Denver for Jake's work. The discussion came up again for us to consider. At first, I was VERY skeptical and nervous about it. We decided to take some time to fast and pray about it, and I didn't feel like I was getting an answer. We decided I might need to see the area to get a feel for it, to see if it could work. 

Going into our little trip, I was feeling super positive about moving, confident that was the right thing. We got in Thursday night and spent Friday morning on the campus of Denver University. (I was thinking about looking into their Master's program, but it ended up being way too expensive for us.) We proceeded to the temple grounds and I had a great time taking lots of pics of all the tulips on the grounds!

It was getting to be lunch time and I think we were both a little grumpy, so by the time we left I wasn't feeling too great emotionally. 

We grabbed some lunch at this Chicago-like restaurant with Italian Beef, our fave! So delicious. :) We were both pretty exhausted by then, but felt like we should go see the warehouse Jake would be working in. Don't really know what to say about that-- it was a warehouse. I probably wasn't in the right frame of mind to really get a good feel for it, I was just so tired. We ended up heading back to the hotel room and crashed for about an hour before we had dinner with his co-worker and his family. 

We had a great time eating dinner and playing games with them. There was a guy in their ward that came over and talked with us about Denver University some too, so that was cool. It was a really strange mix of emotions, enjoying time with them, but I also felt strongly pressured to make the move for them. Which I knew wasn't the right reason to do something so life changing, but I felt the pressure was so intense.

Saturday we went downtown and saw some sights for a bit. It was a surprisingly clean city! We had a bit of fun on the steps of the capitol:

That afternoon we got to spend time with my brother, Alan, and his family. We got to see my two nephews' Flag Football games, which was SO awesome! I love getting to do those kinds of things as an aunt. :) That night we got some delicious food from a "Ma and Pa" type restaurant called Georgia Boys. Delicious BBQ! We chilled talking about the fam and things for a time. The next thing I know, I'm trying to head outside to help Alan put some stuff away and I FALL OUT THE FRONT DOOR LIKE AN IDIOT... TOTALLY sprain my ankle, bad! I thought I had broken it, the feeling was similar to when I had fractured my foot before. I was stressing and a hot mess! The poor kids were probably traumatized, seeing me lay there bawling my eyes out!

We had a pretty good experience at the ward we went to with his co-worker. It was Fast and Testimony meeting, so there were some pretty interesting messages shared, but it really strengthened my feelings about the truthfulness of the gospel. Getting through the airport later that night was an interesting experience to say the least, hobbling around. Luckily they had trains to get you to the terminals. 

All in all, I was feeling super confused by the time I got home about whether or not we should go to Denver. For about a week and a half I really struggled with it. On the following Tuesday, I was in the throws of an intensive project at work-- headphones on, music blaring, vigorously reviewing numbers-- when a voice suddenly stopped me in my tracks. "You should go to Denver." So we're going! We plan to leave Logan at the end of August or early September. Crazy, bittersweet feelings, but excited about the adventure. 

Last but not least, this past week we had Stake Softball. I AM NOT a Softball player, by any stretch of the imagination. I was SICK with anxiety about playing, but I had been encouraged by some amazing members of our ward. I ended up scoring two runs AND catching the last out of the game!!!!!! I was stoked!!! 

And that's about it! Sorry about the long post, but thanks for reading! Til next time!