Fun Visit with Steph and Dallin

We've been blessed with such an awesome family that comes to visit often and last week, Steph and Dallin came out and stayed with us! It was their first time to Oregon and I hope we left them with a good impression. :) We had so much fun with them!! We did so many fun things. We went to the Children's Museum in Portland, went to the park, saw some Christmas lights, went to Rob and Kristi's, went swimming, and got some GOOD hot chocolate, which I am now addicted to. :) We tried to give them some local flavor by taking them to a couple good restaurants, which they ended up loving. :) We're sad they're gone now, but we were so happy to have them here!! Thanks for the pictures, Steph!

To Send or Not To Send?

I need opinions. Should we send Christmas cards this year? Since we don't have any kids, I really don't want to mail around a picture of just Dan and me. :) But I don't think just a card with a few words and our signatures would be terribly exciting. What do you guys do or have you done before kids??

More of Eugene

So Dan and I decided we're staying in Eugene for at least 9 more months. It was time to renew our lease on our apartment so we had a decision to make. Well, I HATE moving and have done so much in the last 4 years :) that I really didn't want to move if we were staying in Eugene. That is, unless it was going to be a permanent move into a house or something. However, we aren't sure we want to settle down here. Hence, the 9 month lease. I'm still loving living here and exploring. And I'm definately not missing the snow - except on Christmas. I always love snow on Christmas. And I can't wait until our annual 4 inch snow storm that closes down the town. We do love the diversity and weirdness Eugene brings to our (well, mainly my) sheltered lives. We're very happy with Eugene and are excited for the upcoming months here!

Tagged Again :)

My friend, Kristin, tagged me. I have to answer with one word answers.

1. Where is your cell phone? Counter
2. Where is your significant other? Floor
3. Your hair color? Brown
4. Your mother? Fun!!
5. Your father? Supportive
6. Your favorite thing? Family
7. Your dream last night? Weird
8. Your dream/goal? Happy
9. The room you're in? Bedroom
10. Your hobby? Reading
11. Your fear? Losing
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Settled
13. Where were you last night? Scouts
14. What you're not? Loud
15. Something on your wish list? Kids
16. Where you grew up? Utah
17. The last thing you did? Shower
18. What are you wearing? Sweats
19. Your TV? Music
20. Your pet? None
21. Your computer? Gateway
22. Your mood? Happy
23. Missing someone? Family
24. Your car? Small
25. Something you're not wearing? Socks
26. Favorite store? American Eagle
27. Your summer? Hot
28. Love someone? Yes
29. Your favorite color? Pink
30. When is the last time you laughed? Tonight
31. Last time you cried? Weeks

I need to tag 4 people and they are: Valeri, Wendy, Deanne, Heather

8 THINGS

Betsy tagged me...!
8 Things...

8 TV shows I like to watch
1. Friends
2. The Hills
3. Real Housewives
4. The Office
5. The Pick Up Artist
6. What I Like About You
7. Gilmore Girls
8. Greek

8 Things that happened yesterday
1. Worried about Dan driving in the snow
2. Had lunch with my friend Lori
3. Went shopping with Lori
4. Picked up my scout shirt (thanks Kristin!!)
5. Went grocery shopping
6. Mailed Jon's DVD back to him
7. Went to the News Station with the scouts
8. Talked to my mom on the phone :)

8 Favorite Places to Eat
1. Olive Garden
2. Cheesecake Factory
3. Chili's
4. Firehouse Pizzeria
5. Cafe Yumm
6. McMenamins
7. Cafe Lucky Noodle
8. Hires Big H

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To
1. Steph coming to visit!!
2. Thanksgiving
3. Christmas
4. Seeing Top Gun in the theater next week!
5. Rock Band 2
6. Guitar Hero World Tour
7. Disneyland in February
8. Going to the temple

8 Things on my Wish List
1. Kids
2. Deciding where we want to settle down
3. My family to be happy and healthy
4. To like to run
5. New car for Dan
6. To know what I'm doing with scouts
7. Play the piano
8. Buy a house eventually

8 people I Tag
1. Steph
2. Kelly
3. Michelle
4. Katie
5. Karen
6. Annie
7. Jessica
8. Hope

Halloween

Yesterday was Halloween and although Angie and I had no idea what we were going dress up as until that afternoon, it turned out to be a fun night! Although my Plan A (Maverick from Top Gun) and Plan B (Derek Zoolander) fell through, I ended throwing together an awesome white trash/80s rocker ensamble. Ang was ready to give up on dressing up altogether until we found some random policeman items from a couple of stores (combined with clothes she already had). She was the hottest cop I've ever seen!

After attending the ward halloween party, we had some friends come over to our place and we ended up A) rocking out by playing Rock Band and B) chose to be festive by watching "The Others". Good times!

Bryce, Steve, Jake and my hot self rocking out to "Vasoline"

Angie, Lindy, Blake and Kristin entertaining the crowd with "Are You Gonna Be My Girl"

Kristin, Lindy, Bryce and Steve entertaining us with Weezer's "Say It Ain't So"

If you take a closer look at Blake, it doesn't look like he's enjoying it too much...

...just kidding. You're the man, Blake!

Retro Movie Night II

The same movie theater that brought us The Karate Kid for their Retro Movie Night gave us the priviledge of showing Back to the Future. Angie and I had to be there. Our friends, Jake and Annie, decided to share this awesome experience with us.

Have you recently watched one of your favorite movies from the 80s and thought to yourself, "I can't believe I actually liked this when I was a kid?" Luckily, I didn't even think that about this one. Back to the Future is one of those movies that has surprisingly aged well. The four of us left the movie wondering why Hollywood can't seem make movies like that anymore.

Although I didn't like Back to the Future II, I think it would be worth watching again because they travel to 2010, which is less than two years away. It would be funny to see what they thought this time would be like 23 years ago (you know, with flying cars and nuclear microwaves and what-not).

Once again, can you believe this movie is over 20 years old? I clearly remember my mom taking me to see this in the theater. Man, I think I have to come to grips with being 30.

Oh, and along with pictures, I found this news brief from The Onion and found it hilarious (yes, it's relevant):

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/chuck_berry_remembers_call

Silver Falls

Last week, my mom came into town to visit. We had so so much fun!! I always love when my mom comes to visit. :) We went with my brother and his family to Silver Falls - which I've been wanting to do for a long time. It's a state park that has 10 waterfalls that you can hike to (about 7 miles). Since we had the little kids, we only hiked to the first waterfall. It was absoltely beautiful! It was really cool because the trail went back behind the waterfall, so you could watch it from the back. A man offered to take a picture of all of us, but when he did, he didn't tell us he was taking it, so it looks pretty bad. None of us were looking or smiling at the same time - otherwise I would've put a picture on here of Rob and his family. Dan was sad that he didn't get to go because he was working, but I'm sure we'll make it back there soon. And hopefully, we'll hike to all 10 falls! We'll see how long I last...

Apple Pie

The other night I decided to follow my mom's recipe and make an apple pie. I'd never made anything like this before, so I was nervous at how it would turn out. Well, it turned out amazing!

Before I go on, I know what some of you are thinking: "Wow Angie, way to go!" or "Angie, you're such a good cook! Now I see why your husband's getting fat." Well, let me stop you right there. Ang didn't make this delicious apple pie. I did! That's right, Danny J Phelps made this. I'm man enough to be domesticated. How you like me now, suckas?


NOTE: before posting this, I decided to remove some other sentences from this post, such as "Holla at yo' boy!" and "Mad props to my mom and my pops!" That's what I get for listening to the Notorious B.I.G. while typing this up.

Retro Movie Night

One of the movie theaters in town has been doing a retro movie night about once a week and last night they were showing yet another timeless classic, The Karate Kid. I feel a special kinship with this movie, mainly because everyone started calling me "Daniel-san" when this movie came out (I thought it was cool that we had the same name).
Can you believe this movie is over 20 years old? I remember when this movie came out! How old am I? Anyway, it was fun to see in the theater, mainly because of the crowd's reaction to certain scenes (from the cheesy soundtrack to the climactic ending). I'm excited to go back to retro movie night and catch some other classics from my childhood. In the meantime, I'll keep telling myself the following:

-Wax on, wax off
-Sweep the leg
-You're the best...around!

Utah Visit

I was able to go to Utah to visit family and friends for two and a half weeks. I had such a good time! It was such a busy trip, but I was able to see a lot of people and do a lot of fun stuff. I went for such a long time because my cousin and good friend, Jenny, got married so I wanted to be there for the shower and a little bit of the planning. It was such a gorgeous wedding and I'm so happy I was able to be there for it. I also got to go to William's tee ball games, Braden's football games, and Rachel's soccer game. Those were so fun to watch! I had a girl's night with my mom, sisters, and sisters-in-law and we had sooo much fun that night! We went to the sing-along (we didn't realize that when we bought the tickets...) version of Mamma Mia! I had so much fun trying to sing along to the songs, even though I didn't know most of them. It ended being better than if we didn't have the huge words on the screen. :) I made another slide show and actually cut out A LOT of pictures from my trip - there are only about 40 in the slide show. I take way too many pictures. :) I did have such a fun trip, but really missed Dan and when I got home, he had hung crepe paper and written cute notes on a bunch of balloons. He is such a sweet husband!

Portland Zoo

Last week, I went with Rob, Kristi, Aaron, and Bryan to the Portland Zoo. I hadn't been there before and was excited to go, especially because on the second Tuesday of the month, it only costs $2! It was so fun, the weather was nice, and it wasn't too crowded. We had to wait in line to see the new baby elephant and by the time we got up there, it was asleep. So not worth it. But there was an awesome poster that showed how elephants are born that made me laugh pretty hard. So, all in all, it was totally worth it! They have these cool Lorikeets (that are so pretty) that you can feed juice to, so we did that for awhile. They fly right up to your cup and drink out of your hand. It was pretty cool. We went to the Portland temple afterwards to go to the Distribution Center and saw the fountain and flowers, so that was really fun. I can't believe I have to drive two hours to get to a temple here - I was so spoiled growing up in Utah with so many temples so close! Thanks for inviting me, Rob and Kristi! I had so much fun!!

Labor Day Weekend

I know it's been a while since the last post, so D$ is steppin in. Brace yourself to be blogged away, king sucka mc's and queen supremes.
Our friends Angie and Josh came from Utah for a visit. This was their anniversary trip, in which we were stoked they wanted to come out and see us for that. We had a lot of fun! We went to the Japanese Garden in Portland, saw some sights on the coast, went on a jetboat excursion and partied like rockstars (well, the type of rockstars that go to bed before midnight). Anyway, we've posted some pictures that should do the explaining of what a kick-butt time we had.

Why does it take guests coming in from out of town to get us to go out and finally see some sights around here?

Lane County Fair

This last Saturday, Dan and I went with Rob, Kristi, Aaron and Bryan to the Lane County Fair here in Eugene. I had been excited for this for awhile. It was pretty fun, but it was SO HOT!! It was in the upper 90's, which is really hot for Eugene. We still stayed for a couple of hours - they had pretty good rides, good food, and pretty good shows. They had this huge monster truck that they were giving rides on. It looked pretty cool, but it was five bucks for a ride! Rip off!

Rob and Kristi went on a ride and then Dan and I went on a different (and in my opinion better and more thrilling) ride. They were four bucks so we decided one was good enough.

Aaron LOVES Cotton Candy! I had no idea, but when I bought some and we got him to eat it, he kept coming back for more. It was actually handy though because if he wouldn't walk where we wanted him to walk, I would bribe him with the Cotton Candy. :) I'm such a bad influence...

They had pig races that we watched for a little while. The little pigs were so cute! I decided I'd have a baby pig as a pet someday. :)

Dan took off to get us an Elephant Ear to snack on and while he was gone, he ran into Smokey the Bear and got his picture taken with him. I had no idea he did this, but I love that he did. I think I'm rubbing off on him - this is something I'd do. :)

They had a guy named Dizzy Hips that does a hula hooping show that I was SO excited about! Where else can you see a guy that specializes in hula hooping?? So we went to his show and I was actually a little disappointed. He spent way too much time telling stupid jokes instead of doing tricks. Although I must say, when he did do his tricks, they were pretty impressive. So I'm happy we went - I doubt I'll get another chance to see something like that. :)

Here's a cute picture of Rob and family. :) I'm glad they came with us - they made it so fun!

Long time, no blog

It has been a while since we last posted on our blog. The last time Angie posted, I had just turned 30. Argh! Fact is, I don't feel old at all. To those of you who are dreading this milestone, don't sweat it. I feel the same as I did when I was in my 20's (see, you can say stuff like that when you're my age).

Anyway, Ang and I got a little culture in our lives during the past three weeks (and no, the fact that we were so bored and saw two movies at the theater a couple of Saturday's ago doesn't count). We attended a Scandinavian Festival last Saturday out in Junction City. It was entertaining for about an hour. The best part of the festival was the food. We had Swedish pancakes and a Finnish funnel cake (which was strikingly similar to a normal funnel cake). I also had a Swedish meatball-filled pastry that was surprisingly awesome! I'd definitely go back next year, but mainly for the food.

We visited our friends David and Kathy who just moved from Eugene to Medford recently and hung out with them down there. Ang, Kathy and her kids went to Ashland to see the sights and walk around the shops. It's a fun town to go visit for a weekend. I met up with them for lunch at a place called Louie's. They have some awesome garlic feta fries!

We also went out to the Oregon Sand Dunes and took a couple of dune buggy rides with a work associate of mine. We got up to 85 mph in those things! We even rode out to the ocean. It was both fun and adventurous for us.

Oh, and we went up along the McKenzie River and made a campfire and had s'mores with our Cub Scouts. We also visited a fish hatchery area up there, as well. Good times!

Those have been the highlights of our past three weeks. And keep in mind that we took none of these pictures.

The picutres came from the Scandinavian Festival's website. Check out the awesome music at the beginning!


http://www.scandinavianfestival.com/

Nakemiin!

Happy Birthday Dan!!

Today is my cute Dan's 30th birthday! I really feel blessed to have him as my husband and best friend. He is so sweet, fun and entertains my crazy ideas - even me making him think of fun things to do for his birthday week. :) I felt bad he had to go to Medford from Monday to Wednesday this week, so he didn't get to do anything fun those days. We have so much fun together no matter what we're doing. He has made our move to Oregon so much easier than it would've been and I'm really grateful for him. I know this picture doesn't show his face very well, but I know he loves the pictures of him and his sister at the World Series a couple of years ago, so I had to put this one up. Happy Birthday, Dan! I hope you have a fun day! I love you!

Seattle

Dan and I went to Seattle on Friday and Saturday for a mini-vacation with our friends Dan and Lori and their kids. It was tons of fun, but we were so worn out since we hadn't totally recovered from our trip to San Diego - not that I'm complaining. :) We ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe (cool setting, but the food was NOT good), walked around the Space Needle (we didn't go up it - too expensive!), went on a roller coaster that I thought would for sure crumble to the ground, went to a Mariners game, and went to Pike's Place. I had never been up there, so it was fun to see. We had really nice weather and it was fun to be with friends. I'll post another slide show since I apparently think our pictures are too awesome to leave out. :)

Road Trippin' to San Diego!

Last week, Angie and I drove to San Diego for vacation. We met up with one of Angie's sisters and her family down there. This was my first time to San Diego and I absolutely loved it! San Diego and the surrounding area is amazing and I would recommend it to anyone, except people who suck. They can go to L.A.
Anyway, there's so much I could ramble on about regarding our trip, but I'll spare you and give the highlights:
-We pulled off to get gas in a northern California town called Weed. I think Snoop Dogg is the mayor here.
-California was pretty smokey from all of the wildfires in the state. At one point in northern Cal, the smoke was very thick and brown. I swear this state looks like a giant fart outside, especially from outer space.
-Pulled off the freeway to get gas and ended up in a dirty part of Oakland. Good times!
-We stopped in San Francisco to stay the night and visit my sister. We ate at a kick-butt restaurant called Luna Park. They even let you make your own s'mores.
-Sea World was a blast! I wasn't too excited to go at first, but I ended up having a great time. Shamu and Co. put on a great show.
-We hit up Legoland and were amazed by all of the creations they had made out of Legos there.
-Stopped by the San Diego temple and walked around the grounds. This temple is highly visible off of I-5 and is a very beautiful and peaceful to walk around.
-Ang and I took a long walk on the beach at Mission Beach. We saw dolphins swimming out in the ocean! Very random and pretty cool.
-Went to Carlsbad beach to play in the ocean. Great times!
-After swimming in the ocean, we changed in the car (didn't even shower to get the salt water off of us)and headed straight to Petco Park for a San Diego Padres game. I love going to major league ball parks! One of my favorite things to do in life.
-We paid $4.77 per gallon for gas! Ugh!
-In-N-Out Burger. This is a must if you're traveling to California.

Unfortunately, we didn't run into Ron Burgundy or anyone else from the Channel 4 News Team. Oh well, maybe next time.
We have pictures, too. Enjoy the slide show!

Birthday Week

So I absolutely LOVE birthdays. I totally make a big deal about them (well, mine and Dan's). I love doing birthday weeks where we do something fun every day for the entire week. Unfortunately we were both sick for a few days out of the week, so some of our "fun" things were pretty tame. On Sunday, we invited Rob, Kristi, Aaron, and Bryan over for dinner to kick off my birthday week. They're so cute and they brought brownies and cut ANG into them. It was awesome. Monday, we got Rock Band for the Wii! Dan had to go to Coos Bay for work from Monday to Wednesday so I went with him. We had so much fun! Tuesday, we ate at my favorite restaurant there, Benetti's and then went to Sunset Bay and walked along the beach. The water was actually warm enough to walk in, so I was ecstatic! Then we went to this ocean lookout point and just watched the waves for awhile. I love being on the coast! Wednesday we were both not feeling great, so I think we just made cookies that night. Thursday was another yucky day so I think we just got take out for dinner. Friday, I had a girl's night with a bunch of girls from my ward (we do it once a month to celebrate birthdays) at my house, which was so fun. But at the end, there were just a few girls left, someone came to my door (at around 11:20 - we were a little confused...). It was Jodi, John, and Tysen!! They had come to surprise me for my birthday!!! I was SO excited! I couldn't believe it!! I screamed a little and I think I kept saying 'are you serious??' It was so fun to get to know Tysen better. He's so dang cute. He is so easy to take pictures of because he's so smiley all the time! He loves watching John sing on Rock Band. He would just stare at him! He was so fun! So they stayed for the weekend and we had tons of fun!! It was HOT HOT HOT in Eugene, so Saturday we went to the coast and it was so much nicer. We went to Depoe Bay and to the beach. Sunday, we went to the rose garden and saw some fun things unique to Eugene, like a Sailbus. It was a VW bus with a boat welded to the top. Gotta love Oregon. :) I had so much fun this week!! I love my birthday! Thanks everyone for making it such a fun week!!!