The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne is a great read. I had never heard of it before (or the movie that they based off this novel) and needed to read it for my Book Group tonight. I finally got around to reading it yesterday - it's a really easy, quick read - and found that I loved the writing style of this man and the story itself is, in my opinion, very inspired and it makes you reflect on humanity and the horrible event that was the Holocaust. I have no real understanding of the pain and suffering that the Jews went through but it's an incredibly sad thing, nonetheless. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. The book itself does not go into detail about the conditions of the camp. It's about a 9-year old boy and his innocent views of the events going on around him. There was some controversy by some about certain realities of the Holocaust not being portrayed correctly, which you can read up a little on Wikipedia, but I wouldn't do that until after you have read the book or you will definately come across spoilers.

A Sure Way To Brighten Your Day.

Today I attended the baptism of a 36 year old man and his two sons. The youngest (11) is in Paul's primary class and scout group. Since he is in primary, I attended the baptism since baptisms are somewhat my responsibility in my church calling. Before I got put in my position, I probably hadn't attended a baptism in seven or eight years and it's actually a very happy experience for me to see young children baptized every month. They are all special, but today was pretty awesome. So many people showed up to lend support to this family and the three getting baptized. Two sets of missionaries who had taught them were there. And I have to admit that I teared up as I saw this man go in the water and get baptized and have two of his sons follow him right after. They were all smiles and 'radiance'. Without being too mushy or anything, I feel so humbled to witness things like that and see this simple yet important ordinance take place in someone's life and feel their 'light' -you can't not be affected by it. My testimony stengthens every time.

Oh Deer.

So I work in Bluffdale. I see deer nearly everyday and it's fun to see them so very close. Funny thing is is that I use to live in Bluffdale, only a couple blocks away from where I work on the other side of Redwood, and I never saw deer unless they were roadkill.

Zoyie's Birthday

Paul's little sister turned 8 on Tuesday. The family got together at B.J. and Hilary's new home Sunday evening to celebrate. It seems weird that she is 8 now, since I started dating Paul when she was 2. Holy. Crud.

This is Paul with his little brother, Matt. After scarfing down pizza and watching some good football, they played some serious ping pong in the Refrigerator (I named their basement that because it's literally 20 degrees colder the second you set foot down there).

Paul is always a big hit with the kiddies:

We did the present thing, and the cake thing:

And I'm throwing in this picture because I was having fun snapping some random and useless photos and caught Paul looking like this:

We all had a good laugh at his GQ modeling shoot.

Lunch Wit' My Girlzzz

Saturday afternoon I, being an extremely lucky girl, was able to meet up with my friends from college. These girls were not my roommates at Snow but they might as well have been. We did a lot together, and you could frequently find them at my place hanging out with me and my roommates. Pretty much the only time I have seen these girls since college has been at our weddings! We have never actually hung out besides that all together, although we have tried.

After meeting at South Towne, we enjoyed some nummy food at Mimi's Cafe and spent the next few hours catching up with each other's lives.

Me & Amber:

Me & Debbi:
Me & Kori:

I love getting together with friends from college, roommates and would-be roommates alike. Besides a few awesome friends that I still keep in touch with from High School and another best friend from after High School, the girls that I met down at Snow have been my closest friends and (warning: corniness ahoy) I am forever grateful that I found myself there and made the friends that I did.

Fablehaven

My sister-in-law introduced me to this series. It's written for youngsters but enjoyable by all - hence, why I read them. I've always been fascinated by fairies - I love the idea of them - and the creatures and characters in this book are fun and entertaining. Each book gets better (and better written) and more adventerous. If you are looking for the next thing to get your hands for reading material, I highly suggest you pick these up!

Why Hello There, Paul Wesley. Need Some Company?

So......this is my biggest reason for watching The Vampire Dairies:

HOLLAAAAAAA'

Need I say more? Okay, don't mind if I do!! Besides the fact that he has dark hair and dark eyes and a hot face, and great lips, he has a FRICKIN' HOT BODY!!
If you watched last night's episode, History Repeating, then you got an eyeful of him shirtless and he has one of the most amazing physiques. Mmmm yum yum. I highly recommend that you go and check it out on TheCW.com. It's worth the watch.

Goatboy's Birthday

Classic Skating. Or as it is now called 'Classic Fun Center'. That's where Paul and I were Saturday night.

I haven't been there since probably Jr. High. I can't even remember - I just know it has been a thousand and fourty-one years. When my friend, Mason, told me his party would be there, I almost choked. Was he serious?? And then I realized, of course he's serious. It's Mason. He loves doing the unexpected and doing crazy outrageous things, just for laughs.

For example, he and all his guy friends all wore extremely short and/or extremely tight shorts. Just imagine a group of guys roller skating around a rink in these:

And these:

It's quite funny.

Paul and I opted for good old fashion roller skates, but eventually traded them in for rollerblades. I can't believe all the things people can do on roller skates. Paul and I were in awe, especially cuz we couldn't figure out how anybody can do anything in those things.

We grabbed our camera and just went out to goof around. We got some fun stuff while we were on the rink:

This is me and my hunny:

And me and my friend, Mason, who somehow got nicknamed Goatboy in High School:

Halloween Party #5: Our House on Halloween

On Halloween Night, Paul and I don our costumes once more and deck out our front yard as much as possible (we add slowly ever year!). In keeping up with past Halloweens, we invited our good friends Amanda & Spencer and Becky & Judd over. I look forward to it so much because it's so fun to get dressed up and be dorks with your friends, try to scare the kiddies, eat some food and play around!!

I made a White Bean Chicken Chili and Paul helped me cut up the chicken. I snapped this picture, proving that even Superheros cook!!:

The three of us being super! The Spirit, The Flash and Super Dog!:

I love this picture of Becky and Judd! They are so cute:

Me and Becky:

And all of us being dorks, as mentioned above!:

Judd is our man for hiding in the leaves and jumping out at the kids. We didn't have that many trick or treaters this year, unfortunately, so there wasn't a whole lot of that going on.


And Amanda and Spencer joined us after they took care of all of their Trick or Treaters! They dressed Quinn up as a cow and the two of them went as Cowboys! Quinn looks so adorable, yeah?:

Amanda and Becky making Quinn smile:

Along with being super, my dog is also a total angel, see?? Now everybody go "Awwwwww!!":

I love this picture because it was really late and Bacardi kept falling asleep while he was laying right here. It reminds me of a little kid trying so hard to stay awake for the excitement but not quite succeeding. His head kept nodding and his eyes would droop more and more and finally close only to open again a minute later and start all over again:

We played mini Air Hockey and mini Pool, a little bit of Guitar Hero, and then we played Taboo and Catch Phrase. My friends are so funny and I always laugh a lot!:

I LOVE Halloween!! It's my favorite and this year was super fun!!

Halloween Party #4: Ashley & Cody's

After our Ward party, Paul and I went over to my friend Ashley's house, for her Halloween Party. Ashley and I have been friends since Jr High, I believe, and we were also in the same 4-H and Rodeo Clubs. We don't see each too often anymore so it's always fun to go and see her and her husband, Cody.

Me and Ashley:

Me getting ready to fight some bad guys:

Cody was Santa Claus and he had a present for everyone in his bag. Here he is digging for Paul's present cuz it's way down in the bottom:

And here it is. Can you tell what it is?:

Paul and I with our presents from Santa:

We had fun catching up with some people that I have seen in years, some of them not since High School, and watching a few rounds of Beer Pong. They are some of the funniest people I know so just being around them is entertainment enough!!

Halloween Party #3: Ward Trick or Treating

Every year, our Ward puts together a neighborhood party. We have soup and rolls and then the kids trick or treat around the building. Paul and I like to sign up to decorate a door and pass out candy. It's really fun to see all the cute kids and see what they dressed up as that year (my favorite is my friend's daughter, Aspen, who they dressed up as Tinkerbell - cutest thing I have ever seen!)

All the adults dress up, too and it's a lot fun to see what people come up with...like our good friend Paul Edmunds. He does a pretty good old dude. I tease him that those days are just around the corner now :):

Paul and I manning our door:

This year, we were all told not to do anything 'scary'. Totally ridiculous since nobody has ever done anything truly scary. But Paul and I stuck with cutesy webs and stars instead of our bones and gauze because Halloween is all about cute, right?? Whatever.

While we were bumming around, Paul showed me the many faces of The Spirit.

This is Non-Chalant Spirti:

Thoughtful Spirit:

Surprised Spirit:

& Angry Spirit:

Afterwards, we stayed to help clean up and Paul, ever the favorite with the kiddies, gave Mitch a ride on the sweeper mop.

From there, we left and went to another party thrown by a friend of mine.

Halloween Party #2: Annual Pumpkin Carving

Every year, a few days before Halloween, my immediate family gets together. It's tradition to dress up in our costumes, have soup in bread bowls and everyone carves their own pumpkin.

When we are all done, we light 'em up and line 'em up and see what everyone did.

My dog's costume arrived just that day. Since I had the costume sent to my parents house anyway, and my dog was already out there for the day, this was his first time wearing it. It was really cute!!!

This all of us that decided to dress up and be dorks: