Big News!!!

So I know its been awhile since I have written a new blog, but nothing really exciting has happened until now. So here is my big news. Everyone has been asking me about this since I got married and finally I can say "Yes! We sold my condo!!!" Ok I don't know how many of you thought I was going to say I was pregnant, but sorry, not for a while. But we are very excited to have that little addtion out of our life. I just wanted to let you all know so you can do a mini-celebration for us!! Let's see what else is going on with life? Oh yeah my sister in law got married yesterday, and it was beautiful. I caught a cold from standing outside in the snow taking pictures though. But all in all it was a good day. I guess that is all that is going on in my life right now. Hopefully I will be able to find more stuff to talk about sooner than later.

Our Trip to Big Hat Country

Brandon and I decided that we were bored so we decided to take a trip down to Texas and see what this whole Hurricane Ike thing was all about. Ok it probably wasn't the best idea to take a vacation to Houston during a hurricane warning, but we had been planning on visiting our friends Coley and Jason down there for months. We didn't have any other time to go, and we figured 'How bad could a hurricane be...?" It was a very interesting vacation. For another side to this adventure please check out Nicole and Jason's blog that is linked to mine. Anyway here is our version. We had a slow start last Wednesday. We planned on leaving around noon, but we didn't get on our way until 9:30pm. Ugh! Anyway we drove down there straight without stopping. We made one stop to eat lunch. We made it to there by 10 pm Houston time. I had a deja vu feeling of being in an alien movie, everyone was on the other side of the freeway evacuating the coastal cities. I felt like a storm chaser. But we arrived safe and sound, a little sleep deprived, but nothing that we couldn't catch up from.

Houston Temple

Playing at the Park

Preparing for Ike

Downtown Houston

So after catching up with our friends we went to bed. When we woke up the next morning they drove us around to see Houston. Turns out everything was closed, but we went to see the Houston Temple and the nice houses around there. Then we went downtown and played in what I think was Memorial Park. Then it started raining and got really windy. So we went back to their apartment and played The Wii and watched the news about the hurricane. Wii Fit is pretty fun, Brandon really enjoyed it, I have a feeling we will be owning that game at some point in time. It was really funny on the news, they had evacuated Galveston Bay, but there were still some people hanging around, trying to surf and stuff, the idiots. But they ended upinterviewing this guy they asked "Why are you still here?" and his response "I am here to feel the elemental energy. Can't you just feel that in the air?" Yeah, I can feel that its called wind and rain and your impending death if you stay there much longer. Dumb, anyway we went to sleep that night and listened to the wind and rain. The power flickered on and off a few times and finally went out around 3 in the morning. We woke up with no electricity and no water. All in all where we were the storm was no worse than a bad Utah wind storm. So we ended up playing card and board games most of the day. Eventually the heat and mugginess got the best of us with no AC so we left to find real food. We had to drive about 30 miles West to find stuff that was open, but we finally did. We had fun spending time with our friends, but that night was one of the worst I have had. It was hot and muggy and gross. Luckily during the middle of the night there was a huge thunder storm.

Be glad you were parked in any of those spots

Flooding of the Bayou

This was what I was expecting from the hurricane, bright lightning, loud thunder, and massive amounts of rain. The best part was the slight breeze that was coming through the open window. I finally fell asleep. The next day we decided it was time to leave Houston. Jason's work sent him to San Antonio so that he could continue working during the clean up efforts of the storm, so we all packed up and went to see San Antonio. Jason's work put him up in a nice extended stay hotel for the week, and so we had AC and a mall across the street.

The Riverwalk

The Alamo

More Riverwalk

The first day we were there we went to see the Alamo and walk the Riverwalk. The Riverwalk was really nice there are nice hotels, shops and restaurants all around. Jason and Coley decided to go a a tour boat ride while Brandon and I decided to walk the river. We stopped to rest on a island which turned out to be Lover's Island. It is a naturally formed heart-shaped island where there is at least one marriage performed a day. We were just sitting there chatting, when he gave me a kiss on the cheek and people on the bridge across from the island started clapping. Um..thanks. Anyway we went back to the hotel for more card games and a good night sleep. Jason had to go to work the next day so Coley came with us to the mall. We got a few new clothes and had some ice cream. Then we were on our way home. Nonstop we made it in 18 hours. Then we crashed on the bed for a couple of hours. But that is our adventure with Ike. He actually had a very small appearance in the whole thing. I'll keep you posted on life happenings.

Welcome to Beaver...

Brandon and I decided to take a short trip down to St. George to see a play at Tuacahn. We wanted to get away and Les Miserables seemed to be the best way to do that. So after a long 3 days of work we decided to get on the bike. We didn't take Dave this time we are adding a new addition to our family, but its going to be shared custody with Brandon's brother. I don't have a name for our newest bike, but its a Harley Davidson Ultra Classic, so I'm sure I will think of something. Maybe this one is a girl... Classy??? I don't know I'll get back to you, anyhoo back to the story. We have an uneventful trip down to St. George except for the fact that I was freaking on fire!! I thought I was going to burn alive on the bike. But it was a very nice ride, my butt was very comfortable on the seat, and we had radio. This bike had everything but cup holders. We made it the entire 4 hours with only one stop for gas and to get a drink. When we got to St. George we stopped to eat at In-n-Out Burger, very tasty and then went to check into our hotel. The Country Inn and Suites. It was brand new and very very nice. I highly recommend it. So we chill there for an hour or so and head off to our show. Its a beautiful drive out to the amphitheater. We get there and we had paid for dinner so we go to fill our plates with pulled pork, chicken, salad, fruit, rolls, carrots, potatoes, and yummy raspberry lemonade. The biggest problem were the stupid bees!! I think they got mad because I tried to shew them away from the pork I was trying to dish up and so they followed us and harassed us while we tried to eat. I think we moved 4 times outside before we let the bees win and went inside to finish dinner. Finally it was time for the play! We actually had really good seats for a good price. I could actually see the actors spit, crazy! But it was great to actually see Les Miserables the full version, I mean. I had seen the concert version and the movie without any music(boring) so it was nice to see it all together. I thought all the actors were very good. Brandon liked it too, even though I thought he wouldn't with it being a pretty sad story. Leave it to Brandon to make that story happy. I would try out for the part of Eponine if I was going to do that kind of stuff. On a side note, on our way out I saw this really cool waterfall that went all the way down the stairs and through the parking lot. It reminded me of a similar water feature I have seen in down town LA. I think near the tar pits. So it was an uneventful evening and morning. We checked out of our hotel and start heading home. Brandon wanted to stop in Monroe and have lunch/dinner at his favorite place to eat so we decided it would be good to be on our way. I told him that we should probably stop for gas in Cedar City because I didn't think we would make it all the way to Beaver for gas. He decides that he is going to stop just outside Cedar at Summit, but he missed or forgot to take the exit and we ended up drifting off the next exit into Parowan. We pull into the first little community we see to ask for some help to get gas for our now useless bike. There we met Bonnie and Loraine. Nice ladies. Bonnie took Brandon to get some gas while I hung out with Loraine. People have interesting stories. About 10 minutes later we were on our way again. In between the 2 Beaver exits all of the sudden the bike starts fish tailing while we are going 75 on the freeway. Luckily he was able to get us safely to the shoulder and stop the bike with out it tipping over. I was really scared for about 30 secs. Turns out, we have a flat tire. What do we do about a flat tire in the middle of nowhere Utah. Its not like we can just pull out the spare and be on our way. Luckily we had rented to bike for the day to try it out before we buy it, so all we had to do was call Harley and let them know we had a flat tire. Their answer to this... "We will send someone to pick you up." Ok we are down in Beaver and they are in Lindon, 3 hours away!!! What do we do? Start walking down the freeway to the rest stop at the next Beaver exit. Luckily we were not walking long. A nice guy stopped and gave us a ride to the station. He said we didn't look too threatening walking hand in hand down the side of the road. We get there and realize we have 3 hours to occupy ourselves. We realize we left the book we were reading back at the bike. That sucks. Well I guess we are going to take another little walk. We start on our way back to the bike where we are meet by Mr. Highway patrol. So I finally got to ride in a cop car. How cool is that? It was one of the nice Chargers. Very cool. So he takes us to the bike. We grab some stuff, and he drops us off at the Subway to eat fresh. He tells us that he lost 35 pounds by drinking Slimfast and eating Wheathins. Hmmm what an endorsement, maybe I should give it a try. We spend the next few hours in the lobby of the Best Western reading. Finally the guy comes to pick us up. I slept most of the way in the back of the truck. But we finally made it home in one piece, but with no Monroe dinner like Brandon had wanted. So that was our most recent vacation. I'll try to keep you all updated with my interesting stories.

Husband Tag... My First Tag ( so special)

Ok so Coley tagged me to do this almost a month ago, and I'm sorry but I just found time to read your blog so here it is...

1. What is his name? Brandon Timothy O'Keefe

2. Who eats more? Him, definitely him. I've never seen someone eat so much food and stay so skinny.

3. Who said I love you first? He did, although he slipped a couple times while we were dating, he says he was just thought I was being cute (uh huh).

4. Who is taller? He's got about 6-7 inches on me.

6. Who is more sensitive? I'm pretty sure he is, I'm such a robot!!

7. Who does the laundry? Me, even though I barely have time to do it. It usually gets done every two weeks, as soon as he runs out of clothes and reminds me that he doesn't have as many as I do.

8. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I do, it feels weird if we switch, he just thinks I'm crazy.

9. Who pays the bills? I pay the utilities and stuff, but he takes care of the rent.

10. Who cooks more? We split that, whoever gets home first usually starts dinner.

11. Who is more stubborn? I am definitely more stubborn. I try not to be annoyingly stubborn, but if I want something bad enough, I will get it.

12. Who is the first to admit they are wrong? We are both pretty good about admitting when we are wrong, but I'm never wrong so there isn't much of an issue. :)

13. Who is more clean? We are probably equal on that. I probably clean up around the house more, but he helps out a lot.

14. Who has more siblings? Brandon wins, 2 brothers 1 sister. 1 sister for me.

15. Who wears the pants in the relationship? He wears the pants, but he will almost always give me what I ask for.

16. What do you like to do together? We usually just stay home and veg after work, watch TV or movies, read a book, but we will go out to eat on occasion.

17.Who eats more sweets? Neither of us have much of a sweet tooth, but probably me.

18. Guilty pleasures? Computers, motorcycles, movies, electronics, video games, and just about anything that will get your adrenaline going.

19. How did you meet? We met through mutual friends at the Ogden Institute.

20. Who proposed? He did, as only Brandon could, the best and most spotlighted way possible.

21. What is his best feature? His eyes are the best thing, the color changes from golden brown to greenish brown, depending on who knows what (I haven't quite figured that out yet) and he has these 3 little flecks of dark brown is his right eye, its pretty cool.

22. What is his greatest quality? That he loves me and wants to make me happy, also that he is so fun loving and acts like a kid sometimes. It makes life fun and interesting.

Now, who to tag?... Amber, Mel, and Bren.

Ah a theater... a lovely theater

So we took this trip to Cedar City awhile ago, but I am just getting time to blog about it now. I thought life would calm down after the wedding and stuff, turns out...not so much. But anywho here is our trip to Cedar City. It wasn't too eventful. We left Friday around 7 or so (on Dave the bike, of course) and took a "small" detour to Monroe so that we could eat "the best steak on the planet" for dinner. But by the time we get to Monroe the restaurant is closed and Brandon gives them this sob story about driving down from American Fork just to eat their food, so they gave us free cheesecake, which was pretty good. And then we didn't have any cash to tip them, so I felt like scum. Next time we stop by Monroe we promise to tip really well. Anyway we continued on our journey south. Now it was dark and cold. We have both decided that we do not like riding on Dave at night, its very cold and very scary. No more night trips for us, thank you. So we finally arrive at our hotel in Cedar around midnight. Brandon goes to park the bike and unload while I check in. The girl at the counter looks up at me as I walk in and says "Wait a minute while I count the till." Ok no problem, I've counted a till before, it takes what a minute or so...no no this girl is counting going on 5, 10, 15 minutes now to count the stupid drawer of a register. Oh Come On!!! Finally she finishes with that and attempts to check us in. She messes something up on the computer and has to call her computer guy to figure it out. We are on hold for 10 minutes while she fiddles around and fixes the problem herself, finally checking us in. We go to our room and die for the night.

The next day we hang out in Cedar eat some yummy Godfather's Pizza and read a book. Just passing time until the main event. Fiddler on the Roof. Cedar has this great thing called the Utah Shakespearean Festival that goes on every year and we decided to go down. The Green Show was entertaining and the play was awesome. We loved it. After we were done we were starving so we found the one place that was still open in Cedar to eat, Taco Time. They were practically closed when we pulled up, but we still got food. Its fun carrying a bag of food on a bike, BTW. Anyway we head back to the hotel for our banquet of tacos and burritos and then sleeping. The next morning it was home we go. This time it wasn't so cold, but we did have to dodge some rain storms. All in all not too eventful of a trip, but fun none the less.

My Ride to Logan...

Ok so its been a month since my last post, I will try to be better, but here is my one for now. Brandon finally has his motorcycle, a Harley Davidson something or other that is pretty cool. It is the Harley Davidson orange color, with the added accessories of a back rest, windshield, and bag that attaches to the back rest. I have affectionately named the bike Dave. So we took our first long trip on Dave up to Logan to go to my friends wedding. Stephan and Jo were married in the Logan Temple on Wednesday and it was awesome. The ride there from Ogden was a little cold because the morning was just starting to warm up when we started, but it was kind of cool. The wind on my arms and face and blowing the little tuff of hair sticking out underneath the helmet. It was a different perspective to say the least. My bum was numb by the time we got there, but the canyon was beautiful to look at.

After the ceremony and some pictures we headed back to American Fork. We stopped off in Perry for my introduction to Maddox, one of the best ranch cooking restaurants that I've been to. I enjoyed the rolls the most. Back on Dave and we were on the freeway. This is a very interesting experience. Driving at freeway speeds with only a helmet to protect my head. I could have reached out my hand and touched the cars next to us. Very interesting feeling. It was good none the less. I was happy to be back in Hottie when we reached Centerville, where I had music and UV protection. My arms have a nice farmers tan on them now. Love it! I guess that's all I have to say about my ride on Dave. I told Brandon that I would only do a cross country trip if we could stop every hour and let me walk around to de-numb my legs and bum, oh and I definitely would need my ipod to keep me entertained. That's all for now. Post again soon.

A New Skill

So I have a new skill to add to my resume. I can now build a computer. Pretty cool, huh? I can take a case, put in the motherboard, put in the CPU, disk drive, hard drive, and connect all the wires to the right spots, well most of the time. :) The reason I learned this new skill?...Brandon has 25 computers to build for the Harley job he is working on. I built them and he installed the software. We had a pretty efficient team going, and we had them all built within a week. Pretty cool if I do say so myself. I'll keep you updated with any new skills that I learn during my new married life...

Finally what you've all been waiting for...

A new blog!!!

Ok so I haven't been the best at keeping up this blog, but you know life gets kind of crazy when you rearrange your life for the guy you love. I am now done with moving, wedding, and honeymoon. So what should I talk about first... I don't have any pictures from the wedding as of yet, but I do have some honeymoon, so I guess that would be a good place to start today.

After the wedding Brandon and I went on a awesome 7 day cruise to Mexico. But before we go there we have a day stop in California. We decided it would be fun to head down to San Diego since we had a day before we headed out to sea, so we took a drive from LA down the coast to Sea World. I took Brandon to all the fun shows that this park had to offer, because he had never gone to the shows. I wonder what he did at Sea World if he didn't see the shows???? Weird, any who we remedied the problem and had a wet ride on Journey to Atlantis the best and only ride there, that's really worth going on. But after that we drove back to our hotel and went to dinner. There just so happened to be a Mideviel Times right next door. So we went. It was awesome, we were the blue knight guy, who I thought might actually win and then the yellow knight guy killed him, that sucked. Than we booed the evil guy and cheered when the good guy won, all was well. It was really awesome food, great service, and a fantastic show. I totally recommend it, wow I should sell advertising for these people. Any way on to the cruise...

We had 1 Fun Day at Sea and 1 Sea Day of Fun before stopping at our first Port; Peurta Vallarta. We woke up early and walked ALOT we decided to walk into town (only 4 miles) and when we got there we decided to walk up the street which turned into a mountain, but hey we saw some real life Mexican dwellings. We got up to the top and decided to go back down, awesome morning. We then found some guy that offered us a free taxi ride to the other side of the island and back, free lunch, and discounted para sailing. Sounded good to us. We get to this amazing resort where they proceeded to try and sell us a time share. Hello! We just got married and we are trying to build a house, do you really think we have the money to buy a time share? I think not. So we turned them down, they were upset and sent us on our way to go para sailing. Which was awesome! Brandon went first and I watch him go thinking "What am I doing? This is too crazy." But we had already paid and I didn't want to whimp out. So when Brandon got back it was my turn. It was a lot easier than I thought. It was just run and sit and you were up. Then you are about 200 ft in the air and you can see everything, it was awesome I wish I could have taken the camera, but we do have some photos from the ground. By the time we were done we were tired and ready to go back to the ship. We were starving and our feet hurt from walking so we went to the dining room to have an amazing dinner served by Jamie and Renato our awesome waiters.

Next stop Mazatlan...We arrived at what appeared to be a place were old cargo containers were dropped off to die, but they put us on a little shuttle thing and we were surrounded by taxi drivers, tour guides, and who knows what else in no time. We decided to take one of the taxi driver's up on their offer and had him take us to where the "good shopping" was. He dropped us off in the grungiest part of town. I can now say I have been to a "real" Mexican market. Needless to say after walking around for a bit and me getting a little more uneasy by the minute hopped in another cab and had him take us to "The Golden Zone" this is the place we wanted to go in the first place, we should have been more specific. We get there and find these great little Mexican shops and find a bunch of stuff that we want to buy and take home. We found a chess set hand made out of marble that was just too good to pass up. He gave us the "K-Mart" special so we had him pack it up. Then we wanted some lunch and we had a coupon to the restaurant called Senior Frogs. We had passed it on the way so we decided to walk back to it. Turns out to be a very far walk with a very heavy marble chess set. Finally we got there, CRAZY!!! There were guys walking around with Tequila in gun holsters shooting it down people's throats. We politely refused and they called us chickens, but we got some cool balloon hats and free chips and salsa. Than we finished shopping and headed back to the ship.

Final stop and personal favorite, Cabo San Lucas. It was so beautiful, I've never seen water this blue. We couldn't pull into the docks, so the brought boats to shuttle us in to the port. This place definitely has money, everything looked new and clean and awesome. We walked through town and finally around to the beach because we wanted to go snorkeling. I have never seen sand like this before either. You know the color you picture when you think of sand, well this sand was actually that color. A gorgeous tan/yellow color with the water it was an amazing site. After was seemed like forever walking on the beach we found snorkeling. We get taken out to this island and dropped off for an hour and a half and get our snorkeling equipment and hop in the ocean. FYI salt water is nasty stuff. I was doing pretty ok with this snorkeling thing, but Brandon was having problems. His goggles kept filling up with water, so after a bit of seeing the fishes, I trade goggles with him and we decide to swim back to the spot with our clothes and stuff, along the way I keep feeling sharp little stings on my arms and legs so I just haul to the beach as fast as I can and get out to find little jelly fish stings all over. They went away within a few hours but they weren't fun. Brandon had some too, some of his were worse and I felt bad that he'd been stung. I don't think snorkeling was the funnest experience for him. Than we got back to were the shuttle boats were and finished up some shopping and went back to the boat. It was awesome!

Our final day at sea was just that, we had definitely run out of things to do and all we could do was walk around the ship. We decided to have a couple of virgin drinks and play some cards. That was fun, but all and all an uneventful day. I think we were ready to go home. We had an awesome trip thanks to our awesome waiters and our cabin steward who made us a towel animal each night, thanks Gilbert! I guess that sums up this trip. I don't think I left anything exciting out, but if I did I'm sorry. To be told at a later date I guess. I hope to post again soon. I have no idea what it will be about but I'll try.

I hate the snow!!

Hi Everyone!

This is my first blog ever and I think its going to be kind of fun, don't you? Anyway I am here at work and just decided to start a blog. I think it is a good way to keep in touch with friends that are far away (Coley) and for anyone else to be updated with my life.

Today has been a very boring day! I have had barely anything to keep me occupied. I have sat here trying to decide what I am going to do tonight. I have much to accomplish before my wedding in 3 months and little time to do it. I still have to put deposits down on everything! I have to leave work early today to go down and put the deposit down on my reception center before I lose my date. I still haven't found a bridesmaid dress that my sister approves of or anything else for that matter. I found my videographer and I still need to pay him the deposit, which (get this) is more than the deposit for my reception center. Dumb! I still need to pick out my flowers, cake, invitations, his ring, and figure out how I'm going to do my hair. Ahhh, maybe I will just elope. That sounds like the cheaper and less stressful route.