Best Friend Surprise Visit!

It started out as a typical Saturday. I got up, got ready, and was looking forward to the little breakfast date at Kneaders with my husband. He asked me if I would want to go the day before, and OF COURSE I said yes. Who can resist their cinnamon french toast? No matter how hard I try, I just can't say no!

But when I was informed that we would be going to the Kneaders in downdown Salt Lake instead of the only only two miles away from our house, I got a little suspicious. I started thinking someone was meeting us there, to surprise me. I instantly thought of my mother, who I haven't seen in almost seven months and was missing like crazy. I thought to myself, "Maybe she felt really bad when I told her I started bawling when I went to bed Christmas Eve, since it was my first Christmas away from home ever!"

We arrived at Kneaders, and Geoff basically started dragging me to where the line to place your order started around the corner. I figured he must be really hungry! But we got to the line, and as I'm looking over the menu, even though nothing will ever compare to their cinnamon french toast, I hear my name. I look over, and to my surprise, my best friend is right there! In the flesh! Literally standing next to me! Not enough exclamation marks can express how excited/shocked I was!!!!! And instead of jumping up and down to express my excitement, I started bawling. Like literally crying uncontrollably. It was embarrassing, but I guess that is what happens when you are completely surprised. Geoff can never keep a secret, so this was a big deal to me!

I had not seen Holly in a little over a year, and it was about time we got together again. Her now 11-month old was only a month old when Geoff and I got married, and since her husband had started his spring/summer job of selling for Vivint right before our wedding day, she wasn't comfortable flying on an airplane with a newborn and 2-year-old by herself. I don't blame her!

I hung out with her for a couple house at the City Creek Mall in Salt Lake until I had to go babysit. It wasn't enough time to catch up on life! So I was able to get off work early the following Monday so we could hang out the rest of the day together. While her husband was doing stuff for work, she and her kids came over to my house. Geoff was begging me to open up this Hot Wheels track that he won in some random contest. I figured we could sell or give it to a little boy that could use it, but having Bentlee over was the perfect opportunity to open it up. How could I say no to that?! Before we got to my house, I told Bentlee that Geoff had a surprise for him. He was so excited to see what it was, and onec it was all set up, the Hot Wheels track did not disappoint!

It's hard to tell who's having more fun!

Later on, we met up with Holly's husband, her brother and sister-in-law, and a guy her husband works with we went to a place where the adults could ride go-carts. They were extremely fast! Holly and I just watched Bentlee and Anslee while every one else rode the go-carts. We also had time to go out to dinner before Brad and Holly had to go to the airport to catch their flight.

I loved my best friend surprising me, and I'm grateful Geoff was able to keep it a secret from me! We will definitely have to get together more often so we can have fun more often as well!

Reunited and it feels so good!

Birthday and Christmas Fun!

I had such a wonderful birthday and Christmas vacation with Geoff and his family! Before we left, we had an early Christmas since we couldn't take our gifts with us. I was definitely spoiled! Geoff got me a FitBit Charge, so now I'll be more motivated to work out and keep track of how many calories I burn and all that fun stuff. It even tracks my sleep and I can set an alarm so it vibrates to wake me up, and it also vibrates and lets me know who is calling me on my cell phone! Pretty sweet. He also got me a Zumba workout game for the Xbox, a $50 Amazon gift card, a book I've been wanting by one of my favorite vloggers, the new Taylor Swift album and a Christmas album by another one of my favorite vloggers, and of course some cute socks and pajamas

I got him a car vacuum since he's been wanting one for forever, an Xbox game, a new watch, an awesome tie, some manly lotion and body wash, a gift card for lots of car washes and of course some pajamas.

I woke up to some lovely roses and a little gift beside it from Geoff. The gift he gave me was a spa manicure and pedicure, and I'm so excited to get pampered sometime in the next month or so!

We spent the majority of my birthday with Geoff's Uncle Roger, Aunt Leanne, and his cousins Ryan, Robby, April and Samantha. They were visiting Salt Lake for the day as they made their way from Washington to St. George, Utah. We hung out at the mall before eating a yummy dinner at Tucanos Brazilian Grill.

Geoff's family was driving from Washington to Arizona, and picked us up that evening so we could go to Arizona with them. We had Dairy Queen ice cream cake for my birthday before we made the 12 hour drive all through the night to Gilbert, Arizona.

Only picture I got of the cake... Oops!

We had a lot of fun in Arizona visiting family and doing some fun activities! Here's a rundown of some of the things we did:

• We saw the Christmas lights at the Mesa Arizona Temple.
• Saw the Loop of Lights, which is a street of Christmas lights where the houses go all-out.
• Spent lots of time with all the family members that live in Arizona.
• Ate way too much yummy, homemade food and homemade Christmas candy.
• Went swimming... outside... in the middle of December... Who does that?!
• Had a yummy kabob barbecue at a park where we played volleyball and frisbee.
• Went on a hike and saw the most gorgeous views of Arizona.
• Spent some time at the mall shopping and having fun.
• Went shotgun shooting (Geoff's favorite part, I wouldn't go near the guns!)
• Saw the gorgeous Gilbert Arizona Temple numerous times since we drove past it almost everyday.
• Looked through some photo albums from back in the day when Geoff was the cutest little boy!
• Played lots of board and card games. New favorite... Ticket to Ride!
• Shared lots of memories, laughed way too much, and slept way too less!

Mesa Arizona Temple

Gilbert Arizona Temple

Nativity Reenactment

Hiking

The Whetstone siblings with Uncle Sean, Aunt Suzy,
cousin Noel and Geoff's dad

All of Geoff's family besides two of his siblings

Whetstone 2014 Christmas Cards

I wanted to do Christmas cards this year, since it's our first year married and thought it would be something special to do! Although I didn't design the cards, I love how they turned out. I found the template on Etsy and was able to put in my own photos with Photoshop. Pretty simple and stress-free! I ordered the cards through the same company we ordered our wedding invitation and wedding thank you's from. Can't beat getting 100 cards for only $32 bucks!

Getting in the Christmas Spirit!

It's been exactly a month since I've blogged... A whole month! I don't have an excuse, other than we really have had nothing exciting going on. Until recently, which I'll talk about now :)

We had an untraditional Thanksgiving this year. We spent it with my dad at a condo in Henderson, Nevada, only about 15 minutes from Las Vegas. One of his friends has been begging him to take a trip down there, so we decided it would be perfect to use over Thanksgiving weekend. We enjoyed the warm weather, and getting some Christmas shopping done at the mall. We had to wait 3 hours to get into a buffet on Thanksgiving, that was not fun! The food was pretty good though.

Now that it's officially December, I'm totally in the Christmas spirit! We put our little tree and stockings up in our living room, and I'm loving it. I can't wait to put some presents under there for Geoff!

My awesome cousin Miken took some Christmas photos for Geoff and I since I'm wanting to send out Christmas cards this year. We drove into Cottonwood Canyon near our house and stopped at a picnic area with lots of trees and scenic backdrops. There was one photo we both fell in love with right away, so that's the one that will be on the cards! I also ordered a Christmas ornament for us to use in a photo on the cards and hang on our tree, since it's our first Christmas together as a married couple :) I'll have to post the Christmas card on here once we send them out in the next week or so!

And that's about it! We have some fun things planned on my birthday on the 20th, and we're also leaving for Arizona to spend Christmas with Geoff's family as well on my birthday. So I'll hopefully have a lot of fun pictures and Christmas updates to post once that time comes!

Until then, we'll continue our usual, working, adult life routine!

Happy Halloween from the Whetstones!

Since my work was having a Halloween party and we were told to dress up in our most creative costumes, and since it was Geoff and I's first Halloween as a married couple, I decided to go all out!

Now, you should know if you don't already, I don't like dressing up because I don't like attention. So this was a big deal for me. Same goes for Geoff. He also doesn't like dressing up too much. I'm glad he was a good sport for our first married Halloween!

I made my own piñata costume, and Geoff was my silly, Mexican sidekick.... who didn't abuse me with a stick like many people thought of when they saw us! But my costume took about 3 hours to make, gluing streamers with fabric glue to a tank top was not as easy or fun as I had originally anticipated. I made sure to get a really big tank top, knowing it would shrink a little bit with the streamers glued to it. It was almost impossible to put on! I made Geoff come in the women's bathroom at my work because I was struggling putting it on by myself. But it was fun being silly for a couple of hours on Halloween!

Aren't we so colorful?

Next year will be much simpler... I'll most likely stick with a traditional witch hat and call it good!

Halloween Poster for Charity Event for Lupus Foundation

One of my co-workers is hosting a Halloween Charity Night for the Lupus Foundation and asked me to make posters for her to hang around Salt Lake. I thought what she was doing for the Lupus Foundation was awesome, so I got to work right away making this poster for her. Since the event is at a Pub, I thought having potion bottles filled with their own concoctions (like drinks in a pub have) would be a neat thing to include on the poster. I hope she is able to raise a lot of money for the Lupus Foundation and this poster helps to spread the word!

Autumn Drive Through Alpine Loop

This weekend, Geoff and I decided to go take a drive through Alpine Loop to see all the fall colors through the mountains. It was gorgeous! There were also some good views of Mt. Timpanogos as well. Here are a few of my favorite pictures we took.