Happy 25!

Well, Todd's birthday went pretty well! I wanted it to be a nice and relaxing day, and I think that it was. I made Todd breakfast, pancakes with syrup from his cooking show. I also wrote "I love you Todd" with the pancake mix (I used a syringe from my daddy's work, in case you were wondering how I could be so talented). We have a short video of breakfast that I'll post when I get a chance. Then I drove him to work.

Todd went to work, and I stayed home, but I didn't tell him. I cleaned up everything I could, and went grocery shopping for dinner. I even had to go to the state liqueur store to get some wine to cook with, and it was strange. I didn't know that they didn't open until 10:00, so I got there about 10 minutes early. But I wasn't the only one waiting for the "Closed" light to go off and the door to be unlocked… I felt awkward, like I was a hard core alcoholic or something. But I just needed some cheap wine to cook with!! Anyway, while I was home getting everything ready, the stinker head Todd came home in between jobs. It was lame. But it wasn't to big of a deal, I just moved all food out of the way and told him he couldn't go in the kitchen.

Later, I picked Todd up from work and brought him his biggest present.


It was a pot that I picked out for him, but I knew it was the wrong kind. So on the way home we stopped by Bed Bath & Beyond to exchange it for the one he wanted (luckily, I had just found our B B & B gift card from our wedding that still had almost $90 on it, plus I had a 20% off coupon. Otherwise I would have paid almost $200 dollars for it!!! ouch.)




When we got back, Todd read me the instructions for his new cast iron pot while I finished preparing in the kitchen,


then he went and showered, and I set up our computer on the table. I had planned to watch his gnocchi episode and make the dish together (I know Todd already knows how, but I thought to have the episode would be fun.) Unfortunately, the computer decided to be extremely slow, and we ended up making dinner without it. oh well. But it was still a lot of fun! and we enjoyed just being together.

















We ate at a very fancy place setting, and drank some sparkling cider. Our gnocchi turned out so good, it was the lightest pasta I have ever had, very very light and fluffy, and delicious!!! We also had some nice candles and some music to set the mood. (A quick note about the music- I had been working for a month on a playlist of good love songs for Todd's birthday- but THE DAY BEFORE my entire iPod got erased. I was pretty upset- mostly because my iPod was now useless to me, but also because I had nothing for Todd's birthday and no time to make a new list. I cried. But I called my little sister Lauren, and she was so nice and spent over an hour putting a new playlist together for me. I just stopped by my parents' house while I was out earlier in the day, plugged it in and downloaded the list. It worked great. THANKS Lauren!!!!)










Of course, after dinner it was present time!!! I had worked hard for about three (maybe more) weeks to get Todd things that he would love. The T-shirt I got him, I ordered from a catalogue, and it was supposed to ship one week before Todd's birthday to give it enough time to arrive. I called on the 17th (only two days before), and it was still sitting in their warehouse! I talked to a manager, explained I needed it for my husband's birthday, and she was nice enough to send it 2nd day shipping, for no extra charge. But that was a close one! Unfortunately, I also ordered some Josh Groban CD's on Borders.com, and they said to expect shipping within 3-8 days. Well, I ordered them 9 days before Todd's birthday, and I still don't have them. lameo! Otherwise, Todd got a meat thermometer, an oven thermometer (our oven is about 10,000 years old- who knows how accurate it is!), 2 bricks of parmesean cheese imported from Parma (Todd served there for a little while on his mission), some VERY nice tongs from William's Sonoma, and also a DVD that Todd REALLY wanted from Deseret Book about modern evidence of Lehi's journey to the promised land. (THANK YOU Grandma for helping me with that one!). His last gift was a cute little fondue pot with some different flavored chips (chocolate, peanut butter, and white chocolate). When he opened that one, I brought out a plate with some angel food cake, strawberries, and marshmallows to dip in it. He made a mixture of the chips and let it melt, while he put in the video and watched some of it. Then we had our fondue and watched a movie.











This was my favorite present, when it comes to wrapping. Isn't it cute?




I put dry markers in the box with the movie so he couldn't guess what it was, even if he shook it








Unfortunately, after all our food and fondue, we were to full to eat Todd's birthday cake. Before dinner however, I took some pictures of it just for fun. Later I learned this was a very good idea. After school on Thursday, Todd came home and ate a big piece! He didn't even let me come home and sing to him with all the candles lit. I was sad. But he said it wasn't his birthday anymore so it shouldn't matter. But I don't think that way! So when I got home, I lit all the candles anyway and singed him the song. I suppose at least it was memorable!

1 Week and 100%

Only one week left until Todd's 25th birthday! This year I wanted to do something for Todd that would last much longer than just one day, so I came up with the birthday tree! I got the inspiration when I was in my parent's storage room and saw one of their short, fake Christmas trees. I borrowed my little sister Nikenzie's play jewelry, and she helped me decorate the sign for the top of the tree. Then I brought it home, so I could celebrate Todd's birthday almost a full month! I keep adding a new present underneath it every few days. It has been so fun!

Todd took his biology test today, and didn't miss a single question. Not one. I am so proud of him! He has been working so hard this semester, he's doing better than I am. But that doesn't mean I'm not working hard to!

You Can't Pass This Up!

Megan and I have come across what we feel is a business opportunity that can not be passed up! It is called IBS Elite and it's a brand new company that you probably have never heard of. They are not even starting up officially until the middle of January. Just to give you an idea of what it is, you know how banks make billions if not trillions of dollars a year off of credit card transactions? Well this company came up with a way to give you back a portion of that transaction, and a portion of all others that end up signing up underneath you! The idea is brilliant and you would be getting in just at the right time, considering the fact that it has not even begun yet. Megan and I have already talked to a few of our friends and they absolutely love it and so do we. If you want to really know what it is, just go to www.ibselite.com and there you can watch a video and get all sorts of other information about it. And if you really like it let us know, and if you have any questions just ask us, my brothers father in-law is in direct contact with the owner and has already answered many of our questions. And I have never been interested in these types of things before until now, it just seems like to good of a thing to not try for at least a little while. 

CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!

The sports gods where finally, finally, after twenty five long years, smiling down on the beautiful city of Philadelphia!!! Philadelphia has not seen a major sports championship in twenty five years, and the Phillies last night won their fist world series championship in twenty eight years, and for me the moment could not have been any sweeter! When the Phillies first made the playoffs this year, like always I was very hesitant about their chances of winning it all, just because of our past twenty five years of failures and misery! But as they kept wining and wining, my belief and hope grew and grew. By the time the world series rolled around, I felt a sense of confidence that I had never felt about a Philadelphia team that had made it to a championship. I really felt that they could win it, but I also wanted to stay grounded and not get my hopes up to much. But believe it or not they started wining. They started out by splitting the first two games in Tampa, and then when they went back to philly they went up 3-1 in the series! I couldn't believe it, it was here, there was no way they were going to blow it this time. The championship was ours. Then Monday was game five and we were all together to watch the clinching game, and everything was going right until it started to rain. It started raining harder and harder, and then Tampa Bay came back to tie it in the sixth inning and then they suspended the game! And they didn't restart the game until wednesday night! And during all that time we were all thinking "oh no, here we go again!" But sure enough this team was a team of destiny, and tore down the past twenty five years of misery and became world champions!!! It was the greatest feeling in the world! It was everything that I expected it to be, and we are now world champions! Megan and I watched and celebrated this game with family. Scott my older brother and his wife and little kids were there, and my younger Dan was there as well. What a great night, one that we will never forget!

Our Trip To Jackson Hole Wyoming

Well it sure took us a very long time to finally post and talk about our vacation that we had up in Jackson Hole Wyoming! We went at the end of August and now its already the middle of october, oh well! It was a very fun and needed vacation. I had just spent the entire summer working and going to school without any type of vacation, yeah I felt just a little burnt out! But lucky for us our good friends Christy and Jason invited us to go on this camping trip in Jackson Hole where they both have camped out many times before. Needless to say me being from Philly and not to familiar with camping, also still scared emotionally from the "not Nick" camp out when I was a little kid, (a family story) I was a little weary about the whole idea of not having any of the every day amenities, such as my own bathroom, electricity, and most important of all, NO Sports! I know I am pathetic. But Christy and Jason were able to calm my nerves and tell me that it would be just fine, and Megan just told me to suck it up and get over it. Actually that was the best part of this trip for her, no TV and no sports for four days! Well I was happy for Megan. 

We left late Wednesday night and drove all night and got to the camp site at about five thirty in the morning. The reason for that was at this site its first come first serve, so we were trying to snag the best camp site possible. We had to circle the camp site a few times but we were finally able to snag what we thought was the best one out of them all. It was kind of in the back corner away from most other people, which was nice. But the only down side to it was we would be the first place were the bears would have come in looking for food. Luckily we avoided any bear encounters the whole trip, but the first night was really windy, and because of that leaves and pine cones were falling all night. So we got scared and thought an entire army of bears were circling and planning and elaborate attack on our poor tent and us! Luckily we just imagined the entire thing. But I will admit I was cowering like a little girl!

So the first day that we were there, we set up our tent and got everything situated. Then we took a nap because we had been driving all night. Then we did a lot of hiking that day, and when you watch the video that we posted you can see some of the beautiful scenery that we saw! The second morning we made our now famous episode of french toast, if you still have not watched it it is a must see on our cooking blog! Then we kind of lounged around for a while and just soaked up the opportunity to just sit around and do nothing. Then later in the afternoon we went boating on canoes. Megan and I, lets just say we had a hard time getting in sync, and we liked going around in circles! But it was still very fun. Then we went back and made dinner and I continued to dominate in scum! I think I won fifteen straight games! Then the last full day that we were there we went into Jackson Hole. We went swimming, and site seeing, went out to dinner, and bought cool sweat pants that say Jackson Hole on the side. 

Thats about it. It was a very fun trip and I was able to overcome my need for sports, and only texted Scott one time to find out what happened in the Eagles pre-season game against the Patriots. Thank you Christy and Jason for inviting us to come with you guys, it was a blast!

Caught red-handed

So we have these cool cameras at work that we can pull up online. My coworker Maranda did that for one of them, and this was the picture she got:




So you can tell that I am a very hard worker

It's Here!

Hey guys, our first episode is UP on inyourkitchen.blogspot.com. Check it out and try the dish, then let us know how it goes!

A Wedding!

So Puddle got married on August 2nd. I was going to blog about it last week, but alas, laziness got the best of me. I didn't want to do it right when when I blogged about Todd's and my anniversary, because as much as I love Puddle, my own wedding will probably do a lot more for me in my life than hers, and I wanted to give the first year a good celebration.

She looked beautiful! It was very fun to actually be able to attend her wedding. It was also funny because my old sign language teacher was there to interpret for Puddle's sister-in-law who is deaf (Amy.) It was great to see her again and do a little catching up. Right outside the temple was fun, we all got little bubble blowers to blow on Puddle and Ryan as they came outside. I thought it was such a cute idea! We shuffled around all the other brides for the good picture spots, and Got some really fun ones. We took a bunch of pictures to give to the newlyweds, so we can share them now with you!

The reception was also very beautiful. There was no luncheon because they had had a dinner the night before instead, but we weren't able to go. (Can you guess why?!!?) I was very impressed with the reception. It was at a church, and there was a scarlet curtain that hung all around the gym, which made for a great backdrop. The food was simple, yet delicious, and the atmosphere was very pleasant. It was especially fun for me to see a bunch of people using sign language (Amy was there, and some of her family, plus almost all of Puddle's family knows sign language too. Whoda thunk?)

Everything seemed to flow seamlessly. What a fun day to see one of my best friends get hitched!

Their entrance to the world as a married couple


Bride, groom, and parents share a romantic moment


Me and Todd.


The bride and her best friend :D


The four of us. I think we will be great friends.


The very pretty cake


And cake in the face


Britt. She was taking the pictures so she didn't get to be in many

One Year!

Well folks, we made it. Up to the the mark where everyone says the hardest is over. sweet. Anyway, we spent Thursday night at mom and dad Faber's house to make sure the kids weren't throwing a wild party while they were away. We got up and ate breakfast at Magleby's Fresh, only the best french toast and pancakes around. Then we came back and put on some nice clothes to go to the temple. Lauren was so nice and loaned us her camera for the day so we could take pictures. In the temple we did sealings, which was such a fun experience to kneel across the alter from one another in the exact same building wearing the exact same clothes exactly one year after our special day.



After the temple we packed up our things and headed to Park City. While we were up there we went shopping at the outlet mall, but pretty much everything we saw was ugly. I ended up getting a black skirt (which has been much needed for a long time now) and a shirt that I will probably end up taking back because it was more expensive then we thought it would be. But still fun anyway. Then we just ate lunch at Burger King and relaxed a bit.



After lunch we headed over the the Alpine Slide. When Todd found out we had to go up on a ski lift he said he wouldn't go. We were going to have caricatures of us drawn instead, but when I was off looking for an ATM to pay the guy, Todd decided to man up and do what we had set out to do. We got on the lift and he was very brave. I made it all the way to the top without losing circulation in my arm once. When we got to the line at the top, we decided to take the less adventurous trail because the line was much, much shorter. We had a great time! P.S. as you are looking at the pictures, please notice that I wore my wedding shoes in commemoration of the day. :)



When we got done with the slide we could finally check into our room at the Yarrow Hotel. We went up and just relaxed and watched TV for a while. Then I got ready for the evening by putting my hair up. But I forgot to bring a mirror so it was very hard in light of the fact I couldn't see the back of my head. Oh well. We got all dressed up, and Todd wore his wedding tie, while I wore my wedding jewelry and the dress Todd gave me for our wedding (I didn't put on 15 pounds by getting married, it still fits!) We drove around for a while looking for a place to eat, but ended up eating dinner at our hotel. I know, ha ha. It was very tasty. When we were done we went and dressed up our wedding cake with some strawberries to make it pretty again. Unfortunately the blackberries we bought turned out be be moldy. rats. We also had some Martinelli's from martini glasses (both of which were stolen from my parents. THANKS mom!) And also thanks to mom for keeping our cake in her freezer that doesn't defrost, because it was still absolutely delicious. And by the way, Todd put the captions on these last pictures. Enjoy!!

Another great weekend!

Todd's parents were in town this weekend. They flew in on Tuesday, stayed with Margie's parents on Tuesday and Wednesday, and showed up at our place late Wednesday night. On Thursday we went out to IHOP with the parents while our car got a new windshield. Boo. Then we hung out with Scott, Lisa, Crystal, and new baby Seth. In the evening we went to Mom and Dad Faber's house with all the Itri's for dinner. We ended up staying late into the night. It was a blast.

On Friday we basically just hung out.

Saturday was a busy day. Todd and I got up early for a ward breakfast, then came home to get ready for the temple. We met Todd's Aunt Cathy and Uncle Michael, Todd's brother Dan, and his two cousins J. Dee and Jason (plus we rode in the car with Todd's parents of course.) We did some family file names, both endowments and sealings, that Aunt Cathy had dug up from our trip to Italy last year. It was way awesome. Then we went and ate at Pizzeria 7-12. Here is a picture of us eating our authentic italian pizza:

After that Todd and I babysat Crystal and Seth while everyone else saw Batman. Actually, I mostly watched the kids while Todd cooked amazing manicotti. We ended up with 16 people over, all squished in our little apartment! It was so fun and everyone RAVED about Todds cooking. Aunt Cathy said it was definitely memorable food. What can I say, I'm a lucky gal!



Sunday was Seth's baby blessing. We went to the blessing, then spent the rest of the day at Lisa's parents house just chatting. It was a very nice evening to finish off a great week with Mom and Pop Itri.


This is me with my favorite cousin Julia:



On Monday night we got to play with my family. My Aunt Laurine was in town with her daughter Saria, so we all had dinner with them and my Grandparents came too. We ate great food that my mommy made, then played pictionary. It was a blast! After the serious game was over, a few of us just took turns drawing while everyone guessed. I turned out to be pretty dang good at it. I even drew a pretty awesome picture of Kenzie. And of course, everyone guessed the word "slack" when i drew an amazing picture of Will lying on the couch with a -er after it. Ya know, I like the realistic pictures Ü.

The 4th of JULY!

We had a great fourth of July!! We drove up to Todd's aunt Jill's house in Fruit Heights and played all day! First we had a barbeque where Todd grilled up some way yummy steaks and we ate lots of good food. Then we all got together and went down to the softball field for a "pick up" softball game. We had three teams of 5 each. The first team to 10 runs would be the winner. Our team had zero runs for the first two at bats, and Todd was getting pretty frustrated. He blamed the other teams for playing terrible defense when we were in the field with them, and then awesome defense when we were at bat. But, the next inning we scored 5 runs! I even got around the bases, only by my cunning bravery in smacking right into the second baseman to be safe. Todd of course hit better than everyone else, but I was a sweet runner. In the next inning we pulled out another 5 runs to win the game! Todd was extatic and couldn't stop talking about it the rest of the day.

We came back to aunt Jill's and just relaxed for a while from the heat and exercise. I ate some ice cream while Todd had to stick to his diet (he only cheated a little, which is pretty good for a holiday!) Then we played volleyball for hours. It was way fun, and I actually was able to help the team (sometimes....) At first all the boys on my team kept crowding my space because I'm a girl and I've only played volleyball in P.E., but then I told Todd it was mean, so he told our team he would break their heads if they got in my space after that. It actually helped! I got to play and it was a lot of fun.

After volleyball we went and watched a pretty fireworks display which was fun to. Then we all ended up sleeping over! We played The Newlywed Game until about 2:30 in the morning. It was funny, and Todd's brother Scott and his wife Lisa pretty much kicked everyone's trash.


Todd showing his disdain for terrible defense


Todd and his professional batting stance


On my first run I accidentally missed the plate and had to run back to tag it, and found another teammate coming in at the same time


Me after smacking into the second baseman. I think if I didn't hit him he would have caught the ball and I would have been out!


Me and Todd at the dugout with our teammate Jason at bat


Our newest nephew Seth watching the action

p.s. I added a post in May (even though I actually wrote it after this one.) You should all check it out.