Fact Friday

I realized today that a lot of people who decide to venture to this blog (that isn't used as often as it should), don't know anything about me! Here are facts that 98% of people probably don't know of what makes up a Diana:

1. My favorite color came to be in kindergarten. My teacher was Mrs. King and her favorite color was yellow, so I decided it was mine and that has never changed. Thanks, Mrs. King :)

2. All growing up I was deathly afraid of throwing up, like deathly afraid. So afraid that I would ignore the feelings of nausea until the last possible moment and never make it to the toilet, but right in the middle of my parents' bedroom. It wasn't until my dad threatened that I would clean it up myself did I make a point of reaching the porcelain throne.

3. My favorite movie is 'Ever After' although I think Drew Barrymore's English accent in it is horrible.

4. There are no accessory organs left in my body: tonsils, appendix and gallbladder are gone-zo, but hey three less procedures to worry about!

5. I peed my pants once that I can remember...but I was in college. Yeah, you heard me right. It was after walking back to my apartment from BYU campus. Yeah not one of my proudest moments of not gauging how much time my bladder had. Luckily it happened within the doors of my home, don't worry.

6. My all-time favorite pizza is cheese and olives. No more, no less.

7. If I'm grumpy, Brandon just has to mention getting a caramel apple and then I physically HAVE to smile. That worked tonight and it's a brilliant move. We got a butterfinger caramel apple just tonight :)

8. I worry a LOT, like all the time. About work, about my family and friends or if someone is mad at me, my looks...take your pic. I try really hard not to worry but it's the hardest thing for me. Any tips?

9. My nostrils can flare like nobody's business. I have great control over my nasal muscles that it's just something you have to see to believe. They double in size, literally.

10.  Sun Chips 'Garden Salsa'  and Salt 'n' Vinegar chips are my absolute favorite snackies

Hmmm, just noticed most of these are about food.....boo ya.  xoxo.

Family {LOVE}

This year has gone by fast, but many things have happened to remind me that life is so fragile and so short. I am grateful for this Christmas season and how it brings families together. I've been able to photograph some families in my ward in time for Christmas (including my own fam of two). These images are just so incredibly special! xoxo

Here is our Christmas card this year. We were lame and didn't mail any out - but hey electronic version reaches more people! xoxo

why girls need friends

My friend Daryn and I (yes two grown women) had a sleepover the other night because both of our hubbies happened to be out of town. Instead of watching The Hunger Games movie, we decided to do our own music video to "Call Me Maybe". We were able to splice everything in about an hour which was so fun.  Yeaah so no judging here in this safe space, right? I know I can't dance, lol :)

Times like these remind me of how husbands are great and irreplacable, but we need our girlfriends :)

gag from cuteness

It's Monday! Run away!

Sooo remember my last post about being sad with Brandon's absence at work? Well the good man earned some brownie points the weekend before last. How, you ask? Well, he took me to dinner and surprised me with going to build-a-bear to make me a bear to have while he is gone. Go ahead - gag from the cuteness.

We put in Brandon's voice in there too, and chose a SF 49ers outfit. The last time I made one of these was with my sister Linda when Build-A-Bear first came out a looong time ago! To top the night off he got me a favorite of mine - a caramel apple and we watched Avengers. Best. Weekend. Ever.

THIS weekend was also very lovely with myself and the lovely Daryn throwing a baby shower for the sweetest girl you will meet - Annie. Our motto in planning was to keep it simple and that made it such an enjoyable/relaxing experience for everyone. We had great food, great ambiance, great people and great conversation, all happening in an outdoor area at my apartment.

For food we put prepared fresh fruit, cupcakes, lemon bars, and fun flavored popcorn.

For decor we did fresh flowers, that's it. The End. It was so pretty!

It was so enjoyable to celebrate her baby girl and with gorgeous women to support her!

Daryn and I with the mom-to-be! 

Me and Aubrey!

mmmmm...presents....

aaaand Daryn made her wear a bow. We love you, Annie!

Rebel, baby

Soooo ya. Now have our first SLR camera, more specifically the Canon Rebel T3i....how did I last this long without it?

I've watched the tutorial DVDs over and over, yet still can't quite figure out what I am doing. BUT practice makes perfect, right? I shoot, but I don't consciously make decisions thinking "oh this aperture would work", I just see what looks good. Eventually I'm sure I'll know what makes the difference between shots.

Lo and behold, my first photo shoot of my good friend Annie who is having a BABY soon :D So she let me do some rookie maternity photos.  Also, in watching my other friend's baby, I tried to chase her around taking photos too - much harder than a still-standing adult!

Here is the beautiful Annie:

Here is the adorable little one:

 And for good measure if you need something to make you smile, I captured this:

Truth Tuesday

Oops I was doing so well at blogging consistently last month... :)

Today is truth Tuesday, and it's late and I am avoiding going to bed, as it's what I tend to do when Brandon is traveling Monday-Thursday every week. Can you believe it's been a year since we've moved here? Crazy! That also means one full year of traveling for my hubby, and one full year of sharing him 4 days out of the week.

(Some of you spouses out there might think, "My spouse traveled all the time for years and I had kids, suck it up!" which I applaud you for and I think you are amazing. I know this one year of 50% travel could be worse, especially with families who have spouses in the military, etc. Just humor me knowing that you are 100x more amazing than me).

I feel like we've managed the whole traveling situation pretty well considering it is aaaall the freaking time. However, every Monday morning when he wakes up early and kisses me goodbye it gets harder and harder. Here are my thoughts on this whole travel thing:

• Brandon being gone is now the norm and his time when he comes home is the not-normal... it's just been turned inside out. Weird!
• Nights are the worst - I stay up really late so I'm incredibly tired and I don't waste any time lying in bed being sad and thinking.
• Nights are also the worst because I get really scared - especially by the side door attached to our bedroom; I'm convinced one of these days someone is going to try and get in that door! Any booby trap ideas I could set up in my bedroom in case of an intruder? Anyone?
• We do get the benefits of racking up miles and hotel points - but I would trade the all away instantly if that meant to have him come home every day!
• Every Thursday night Brandon comes home and will have a present for me. Never fail it will include gummy bears and/or M&Ms. It's always a candy item and now I always expect it when he comes home, so if he ever misses a week it would totally throw me off.
• I have amazing friends here that take care of me and give me opportunities to have some human contact. I work from home so I'm alone ALL. DAY. LONG. So having friends to support me has been such a blessing
• Brandon's being away hasn't weakened our relationship, if anything it makes us stronger (most of the time, lol) and we take advantage of the time we do have together.

If anyone has some great tips on not freaking myself out at night with the thoughts of an intruder, those would greatly be appreciated! xoxo.
I sure love him!

itsa first

Today I was doing this:

over the phone....


to my unsuspecting supervisor at work...

it was just a baaaaad work day...

I had no self control and there was no stopping.

Poor guy.

Truth Tuesday

I decided to hop onto the band wagon and do a Truth Tuesday post. I might forget to do it every week, but it's a great idea to have something specific to write about even though the items might be dumb and completely a waste of the three minutes of your life spent reading this :)

1. I just discovered that I don't like bananas. I've always like them, until recently I found myself avoiding them for breakfast and every other meal until finally they just got old and banana-bread worthy. I bit into a fresh one the other day and it was just icky mush in my mouth. Do I really not like bananas anymore?! I've never heard of someone who DOESN'T like this easy, accessible, cute, harmless fruit.  Mushrooms I understand completely (look absolutely freaky) but bananas?!

2. My dad recently moved from Provo to Philadelphia, and I REALLY hate having him on the opposite side of the country. He has always been around in reach and now he is not and it's so weird.

3. I signed up for my first race. A marathon! JUST KIDDING -  major just kidding. No, it's a 5K. Yes, go ahead, laugh your head off since I'm sure for most of you a 5K is what you run like twice a day. But I've never been a naturally gifted runner or done something like this, but I'm excited. The best part of it is that it's called "Mermaid Run" in San Francisco by the water front. The name itself is worth singing up for and I'll get a t-shirt with the word "mermaid" on it. Be jealous.

4. If you didn't already know I'm hooked on Vampire Diaries. Yes, believe it. The season premier is on October 11th and I'm so tempted to create an Evite to have a party just for this event.

5. Speaking of friends here in Walnut Creek, we have been SO blessed to make amazing friends that are all in our ward. There are a lot of other couples in the same stage of life that we are who moved here and they are all hilarious, smart, kind and good looking. haha. With all of them I just think "they are way too cool for me", seriously they are the BEST.

6. I LOVE the show "So You Think You Can Dance" and next week is the finale! Here was my favorite performance from last week, it was soooo good!

Have a Happy Tuesday! xoxo.

Caricature

This Labor Day was so much fun as we took a much needed vacation! Heaven knows we both needed a break from every day life VERY badly.

We took to the road and drove down to Santa Cruz, Monterey and Carmel.

I'll maybe post up some details later of our massage, seeing panoramic views of the ocean, etc. But I wanted to share my favorite and most hilarious highlight from when we were on the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz:

This guy was SPOT ON in exaggerating each of our prominent features. We couldn't stop laughing when we saw it and I still giggle about how hilariously right this caricature of us really is. This shows how Brandon and I really couldn't be any more opposite :) xoxo

outta place

One word to summarize tonight: bahahahah!

This week I am in Seattle with Brandon (yes he still travels to Seattle Monday-Thursday every week for work) as his cousin is getting married on Friday and I can work from anywhere.

Anyhoo, at the end of the day we usually go explore a new restaurant here in downtown Seattle. Tonight we decided to go to Trulio, an authentic Italian restaurant near our hotel.

Let me just say that after tonight's experience, it's a reminder that we are totally all American with no sense of culture for cuisines other than sandwiches and cereal.

As soon as we took a look at the menu, our eyes went cross-eyed with all the terms we had never seen before. Usually the description under the title of the food gives you a helpful idea of what is in the dish, but the description just made it even more confusing.

Now the waiter....I've never met anyone who spoke so eloquently and proper as he did - an air that matched the high quality and price of the food. Just talking to him made my IQ go down 100 points. He went on to describe the special of the day, and I just smiled, nodded and said "great!" as if I knew what he was talking about. I think he could see right through our fake nods and could tell we were so out of place and had no idea what we were doing there. The only thing this guy was missing was an English accent.

Giggling and still looking at the menu, another employee came over with an odd assortment of a yellow and white thing drizzled in brown stuff which was "compliments of the chef". One bite and I couldn't finish it. Our graceful waitor came back and said in a disgusted tone "Oh, not liking the cheese and tomato I see", and briskly removed our plates. Oops.

We decided on a dish, and it was the one that said "ribeye" because that was the one familiar thing on the menu. As our waiter took our order we went directly to the entree. He laughed and said "Oh dear it looks like we're doing things backwards. That's okay, what would you like to START with", pointing at the list of mysterious appetizers. We kind of paused and somehow found ourselves being suckered into picking something he said had "meat and cheese" which turned out to be a horrifying spread of meat that looked like it came from a haunted house. I tried to make it look like we ate the appetizer by spreading around the weird looking meats and other oddities to give the appearance that we had touched it.

Every time our waiter walked by, I was struck with fear afraid that I was breathing the wrong way or not looking intelligent, as we were obviously obnoxious in this fancy pants restaurant. So hilarious.

But no fear - dessert was a triumph as it was a chocolate/peanut butter/banana/caramel gelato....mmmmm. I know what that is! Success! This was a hilarious experience as there is nothing quite like feeling out of place, is there? I'm glad I had my best friend with me to enjoy the ride :)

un-guilty pleasure

Junior Mints. Delicious. My un-guilty pleasure.

They honestly don't seem like a junk food, but a refreshing joyous snack. Divine.  Is this sounding creepy yet?

I feel completely un-guilty when eating these. They leave my mouth feeling minty and my tummy feeling happy but not icky/full - they can't be unhealthy! Lol.  Who's with me???

Sooo....I might be making these sometime soon:

http://baking.food.com/recipe/junior-mint-brownies-39717

First sale :D

I just recently decided to have a shop on etsy.com to sell some of my artwork! No, not on a real canvas with paints but on the iPad. I have this cool painting app that allows me to make artwork that is textured just like real paint and it is SO much fun!

I decided to put my artwork on etsy to sell as 5 x 7 nursery/kids room wall art or prints and today I had my first sale! You might not care but I'm SO excited. Visit my etsy store but here is a taste of what type of wall art I have on there:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/YouAndDi

Beloved Bishop

On July 27th we lost our amazing bishop, Matthew Lyon. He was only 42 years old with four kids between ages 12 and 4, and a strong incredible wife of almost 17 years. Our whole ward and community is in shock from this tragedy as everyone loved him and felt the love and acceptance he just radiated.

In my adult life I've never had such a caring and genuine Bishop as Matt and he touched so many lives. Every time he spoke to me it was as a friend and not out of obligation or "making the rounds" in saying hi to everyone. I felt I was needed and appreciated in our ward family because of him. 

There is a website dedicated to this family and the memory of Matt. Feel free to visit this website to read about this family and there are opportunities to serve via donations for his wife and kids.

http://www.lyonfoundation.com/home/donations

Jennie-No.