Good Times!

Weekend Off!

This weekend I was able to take some time off before the crazy rush. However, I didn't take it off for no reason. I'm sure most girls know why. It was for New Moon! Thursday night we were going to go to the movie at midnight, which meant there was no way I was going to work at 7 the next day! So, I took Friday off! Thursday and Sunday are my normal days off. Then since the Front End got Deparment of the Month I won a free day. So, I took Saturday! I was super excited to have 4 days off in a row!

We were all very excited for New Moon! We all read the books, and really liked the first movie. So one of our friend's company rented out a bunch of theaters so we said sure! Send out Cards is the company and because they rented out so many theatres The District gave her an advanced screening at 8:00. So we got to go at 8, instead of midnight! Jackpot! BTW I am on Team Jacob!

To start it off, my friend Kaycee and I wanted to do some shopping. We had Aeropostale coupons so we started there. I bought some cute clothes for Christmas gifts, and of course one for me! She bought some cute shirts too. It was fun shopping with her, and very funny! Apparently the employees that work there are drilled about customer service. We probably got asked if we needed help 25 times, seriously like every 3 minutes! "Can I find a size for you, Are you doing ok, are you still doing ok, are you finding everything ok, can I help you find anything, are you still finding everything ok." I mean I am all about service, but WOW! We couldn't help but laugh about it! However I ended up getting a killer deal! $69 worth of stuff for $27! SWEET!

After Aero we headed over to Ross. Didn't find very many cute clothes, but we found a ton of hideous clothes that we made fun of! Kaycee even found a bodysuit! Yikes! I ended up buying towels, and she got a cute picture frame. We met up with our friend Meghann at Target where we looked around for a bit, but then decided we were hungry and it was time for dinner. We headed over to Training Table, which was quite tasty! (always is) And we really enjoyed ourselves, and ate way too much! (always do)

Then it was time.......for the show! The three of us met up with Angela, Ashlee, and Leann, to watch New Moon. They set us up with little gift bags when we walked in. Also they were doing prizes! We didn't win any, but it was fun. There was only one preview and it was for a new movie that Robert Pattinson (Edward) is in. Looks good. It was pretty funny throughout the movie though, almost every scene all the girls would hoot and hollar. When they saw Edward, screams! When they saw Jacob, screams! There was even a scream for Bella's dad! It was hilarious, but made it that much more fun! So, we had a great time and YES! The movie was also great!

Kaycee and I were super excited after the show! Why? Because we had tickets for the show again the next day! This time it was during the day, at the Gateway. So, we met up with My mom Karen, Sister Jamie, cousins Stephanie and Shara, and friends Enoch and Christina at Applebees. The food was excellent! And it was fun getting together before the show to talk, especially talking about the movie! After lunch Marie met us at the theater to watch the movie again! And yes! The movie was just as great the second time!

So, I had a great couple of days. Really enjoyed the movie! And LOVED hanging out with all the awesome people! Thanks guys! Now I get to look forward to Saturday night! Game Night at the Thorpe home! We LOVE game nights! I will blog about that soon! But so far great weekend off!

Christmas is everywhere at the Thorpe home!

I know, I know, many of you may think I'm crazy. But I am so obsessed with Christmas! Every year on November 1st the Christmas decorations go up! We have two Christmas trees, lights all over the front of the house, and lots of decorations all over the house. We LOVE decorating.


This is one of our decorations. It is cinnamon scented pine cones in a basket with holly berries, and some snowman decor. It sits on our kitchen counter.

We have some great Christmas traditions. Every year with Christian's family we do a name drawing, gift exchange. We get together for a good dinner, exchange gifts, and have a great time!

Here is our tree! It's funny every year my mom would have what we called a "pretty tree" and I always thought it was so boring without fun kid decorations. And would you look at that, now I have one!

We get together with my family every year too. It is with my Grandpa, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, second cousins, the whole shibang! There is about 40 people there, sounds crazy, but that is why it is so fun! We have the tradition of the kids doing the nativity, making and decorating cookies for Santa, each family singing, playing the piano, telling stories, whatever they choose to do, So cute to see the kids sing! Then we have a white elephant pass around story with some pretty funny gifts afterwards. Santa always comes and gives us all pajamas for us to wear on Christmas Eve. We eat, we mingle, but we always have a great time! I LOVE Christmas!

Here is Christian putting up the lights. Apparently he thinks they go in his mouth instead of on the house. For being scared of hieghts he sure does tough it out to get the lights hung for me! Luv ya dear! Thanks!

A new tradition we started last year was to go to Layton on Christmas Eve. Since we don't have kids yet, Christmas day can get very boring. So, we sleep over at my sister's house so we are there when her kids wake up to Santa! My parents come over in the morning so we can all open our gifts. And every year my step dad makes this AWESOME breakfast with eggs, potatoes, sausage, cheese, and a little piece of heaven!

Here is another decoration, new this year. Gotta love Tai Pan! I Love Josh Groban's song believe! what a better sying during Christmas than "we still believe"

So, I would say, ya! I love Christmas! I just love this time of the year. The people all buying gifts, the Christmas music! All of it! And, just to let you know we are not the only crazy ones, two other families on our street put their lights up the day after we did! That's how we do it on Gullane!!! Hopefully you and your family have a marvelous Christmas! Oh and I guess, Happy Thanksgiving as well! But really, it's just a day to eat lots of food.

Happy Halloween!!!

Our October was full of Halloween festivities. It took us awhile to figure out what we wanted to dress up as, but this was definitely a good choice! I told Christian "We should be something together, and you should be the girl." So, this is what we came up with! With the help of my mom and her sewing machine, we were able to make his cheer top. We found his skirt and leggings at Walmart ,(thanks to Miley Cyrus) and the rest of his costume and mine we had at home. We got some great reactions out of it! We were pretty happy with our choice!

Our first extravaganza was with Christian's family. Bricker and Bridgett had us all over. We had our first costume party with them this year and it was GREAT! Tons of fun, great costumes and yummy chili! We had a couple games for the kids, and then the adults played Pictionary while the kids watched Corpse Bride.

Jeremy, Angela, and Kaitlyn

All the cute kids!


This is Christian's mom playing. Pictionary is a perfect party game! It was so fun! And hilarious to see what people would draw! It was a great party! We had a ton of fun, and laughed a bunch!

Every year at work we have a costume contest and a pot luck party! This year went just as great! We had some EXCELLENT food! Homemade chicken noodle soup from Meghann, Chili, rolls, salads, drinks, and lots of desserts! It was very tasty! This year a bunch of people dressed up! There were quite a few good ideas and really cute costumes. It is so great that we are able to have so much fun at work. Everybody seemed to have a great time and a great day!

On Halloween night we had a party to go to. Our friends Joe and Jessica hosted, and they always go all out! It was super fun! Wii zombie killing, dancing, TONS of great food, bobbing for apples, caramel apple making, mingling, and more great costumes! They set their house up with black lights, fog machines, halloween lights, and lots of other decor. It was really cool, and lots of fun!

Wayne and Garth

Baker's with a bun in the oven

Me and Kellie (Kip)

Nick and Richard, killing Zombies

So, Halloween was great fun! Now we are just super excited for Christmas!
**53 shopping days left!

Round 2!!!

Well, in my previous post I talked about how we traded in one car for a newer nicer one with a better payment.
So, we thought why not do it again?!?! So we did just that! We were driving what we called, "The Crappy Car" a 2002 Hyundai Accent with 100,000 miles, back windows that were taped up because the gears broke so they couldn't roll down or up, but would frequently fall down. No guts, AT ALL. It struggled to go up the slightest hill. OK, so I guess we were lucky because we never had huge engine problems, but come on. That good news can only go so far. So, anyway this car lead us to go back to the dealership for round two!

Round two brought us back to the dealership for more test drives and more calculating from Doug Smith Dodge. We knew we were a little upside down in our crappy car, but they were so awesome and gave us way more than we thought we would get! We only had to pay $72 bucks to get out of our car! Awesome! So, they were able to get us into a car that would have been $8,900. We ended up getting it for just under $6,000! And again, lower payments than we had on our crappy car! Just kept getting better and better!

The car they found for us is a Dodge Stratus. 2005, only 61,000 miles, and definitely NOT a crappy car! We got lucky again! They gave us a great amount for our trade, lowered the amount of this car almost $3,000 bucks, and we were able to get a newer, less miles, WAY better car. We are super excited, and can't believe how lucky we are! Everything fell into place for us! We are so grateful! We have been blessed!

A trip to the car dealership!

Well, it is sad day for the Thorpe Home, Our Dodge Caliber's lease is up! Which means on halloween we have to go give this car back to Doug Smith Dodge. This has been the best car we have ever had! It is just the basic model, but we loved it! It is spacious, awesome color, great gas mileage, and I love the hatchback trunk space! This car would be a perfect family car, could fit three car seats if I needed to (would most likely get a bigger car with three kids though) Plus, it is blue, for the cougars!!! All in all it has been the perfect car! I sound like I could be in a commercial huh! Ha!

Anyway~So, Last Thursday we headed down to Doug's to start the process of finding a new car. We only work with Doug, no other car dealerships EVER again! Too much hassle. Plus, since it is a family business we always get the Smith Family Hookup, very nice! So, for the last few days they have been searching for a new car for us. Yesterday, they found it!!!!

Our Pretty New Car!!!

That's right, we got another Caliber! Told ya we loved it! However this is a newer model, with tons of extras! It is an R/T, Sunroof, Leather seats, heated seats, alloy rims, chrome accents, cruise control, radio controls on steering wheel, ESP, which means Electronic Stability Program - is accident avoidance, power everything, night vision rear view mirror, Homelink - garage door opener built in to the car, subwoofer in back that pulls out for tailgating, chill zone drink cooler, low mileage, excellent exterior and interior. This car has everything! We love it! Best part of all! Our payments will be cheaper than with our other Caliber! We are super excited for this car and for the payment! Gotta love the Smith Family Hookup!

A bunch of fun stuff!

Conference Weekend we had a blast!

We stayed at my sister's house in Layton (which is a tradition) Friday to Sunday. Saturday morning we woke up early to go to the kids soccer games. All three kids play, it was awesome to watch them! Taylor's team was awesome and scored 9 goals! Morgan played next and it was so cute to watch this big clump of girls go after the ball and get it into this cute little goal. She NEVER stopped smiling! So cute! Kelby's game was last and he also did an awesome job! Jon is his coach and Jamie is the coach of the two girl's teams. I am glad we got a Saturday off for Conference and we were able to see the games!

Taylor is in Pink

Morgan was great at going to the ball!

After the games we went back to Jamie's to watch conference. It was a great session! Mandy came up too. She had to work Saturday morning, but was able to join us for the second session of conference! Saturday night we always have a girl's night while he boys go to Priesthood. We all bring a ton of food, pig out, play games, talk, laugh, and the kids all play. Unfotunately we played too hard and forgot to take pics, but it was a lot of fun! This year Rod Works had 50% off any one item, so we went there after the girl's night. We all got some really cute house decor.

Our Conference weekend, like always, was a ton of fun! I'm so glad we have this tradition and get to do it twice a year!

Ashlee is 21!

Our next fun outing was for one of my best friend's brithday!
Ashlee turned 21!!! So, we went to Chili's to celebrate! It was a ton of fun!
We got her a bunch of jewelry and some lotions from bath and body works. I think she ended up having a great brithday!

Me and Christian

Meghann and Carly

Ashlee and Jake

Company Party

We had a company party on Sunday, the 11th. We went up Millcreek Canyon and got a large picnic area. It was pot luck and we had a ton of great food! Our Store Manager has recently moved from Texas, so he wanted to show us what Texas BBQ was like. I am here to tell ya, AMAZING! He made Ribs and he seasoned them with barbeque sauce, brown sugar, and heaven! They were juicy, they practically fell off the bone! It was just Really yummy!

We also had a fire there which was awesome! I love sitting by the fire, especially with all of our friends from work just sitting there mingling! It was great! And the canyon was gorgeous! We had a great time laughing and talking with everybody in such a relaxing environment.

For most of the night Christian and I stole Scott, our store manager's, baby. He was so cute and wouldn't cry when we took him! We tried to get Scott to trade him for our turtle, but his wife said no. :(

This is all of us around the campfire, great shot of me Christian!

Austin and Kaycee, so cute!

Austin is 20!

Saturday night we went to Texas Roadhouse for a surprise birthday dinner for Austin! It was awesome becasue he was truly surprised! There was a bunch of us there waiting and I had been texting Kaycee and we got it all situated, told her where we were in the restaurant, and she brought him back! It was awesome to see the look on his face! Even better was the look on his face, that you see here, of him on the Saddle while they yelled to the entire place that it was his birthday! It was great! And oh man was the food amazing! We were all so stuffed! But it was a great night, and yes, I forgot to take pictures other than this one at the very end. haha! Oh well!

Great weekend Kickoff!

We have not been back to the Bountiful Temple since we were endowed there almost 3 years ago. We were heading to Layton to stay for conference weekend so we planned to go to the Bountiful Temple with my family. My sister Jamie and her husband Jon met us there, as long as my mom and step dad Jeff. As we were walking in my sister said, "Hey do you guys wanna do sealings?" So we all said sure! Our Sealer was amazing. He shared so much with us while he went through it. I felt he spirit so strong. Plus, I have not done sealings with my family so it was so great to watch my parents and my sister completing a sealing. It was a great experience!

After the Temple we went to Mimi's Cafe for dinner. Unfortunately I did not take any pics, but we really enjoyed ourselves. Christian was extremely excited when he found out the served breakfast all day. HAHA It was great to catch up with the family and share the temple experience. It was the perfect start to our great conference weekend! Blog about that coming soon!

A night full of laughs!!!

We were able to add a new Temple to our list! The Oquirrh Mountain Temple recently opened in Daybreak and we were eager to check it out! We had been wanting to go to the Temple with Natalie and John (My sis in law and bro in law) So, we set up a date. We met at their house and then headed over to the Temple and had plans to go to dinner afterward. It was great to catch up with them and awesome to share a temple session with them. At the Oquirrh Mtn Temple you have to make reservations, so we got it scheduled for 4:00pm. This temple was so gorgeous! It is so modernized. Dark woods in some rooms, really light wood in other rooms with really pretty white furniture and just amazing chandeliers. I really love going to new temples to see what they do differently. It was an excellent experience. One funny thing about our temple session, however. During the session Natalie's Veil fell off and they were really struggling to get it back on correctly. So, John started to snicker a little bit. Well, when you are not supposed to laugh it really just makes you laugh that much harder, so because he was laughing we all started laughing. Luckily I could control myself. The other three however, not so lucky. They all got the giggles and could barely control themselves. Luckily they were able to brush it off like coughs, but it was pretty funny to see three grown adults have a giggle fest. We ended our session and even with the giggle fest, it was a very spiritual very good session! And again, the temple was gorgeous!

When we were finished we headed over to Olive Garden for dinner. The food was excellent and we were able to have some great conversation! Of course we laughed more about the fact that they had a giggle fest, but we also talked about the great session, talked about work, and a bunch of other stuff. We had another funny thing at dinner. So, John and Christian ordered the all you can eat pasta, which means you can choose what you want. So, originally John ordered sausage on his pasta, but it came with meatballs. No big deal he will get sausage on his next round he said. So, the next round he orders sausage and Christian orders meatballs. Well, Johns came out with meatballs again and Christian's came out with nothing. So, we laughed about it and asked to get some sausage. About 4 minutes later a different Waiter came to our table with a side dish of food and said, "did somebody need some meatballs?" We all busted out laughing!!!! And said again, we actually needed sausage, but since Christian had ordered meatballs we kept those and waited for John's sausage for him. I know you are wondering, so Yes, he did finally get them, but wow! It was so funny! We couldn't help but laugh about everything that had happened!

It was an excellent night and we had such a great time laughing and talking! Plus, we were able to add to our Temple list! If you didn't know this before we are trying to get to as many temples as possible and would like to at least do all of the ones in Utah. We are getting closer! Our next one is going to be Draper!

John and Natalie

Me and Christian

Weird excitement!

If you are a driver, you know that this picture pretty much sums up how we feel about road construction. However, I bet you have never gotten excited about road construction!

Well, if you live in Eagle Mountain or Saratoga you are ready to cheer with me!!! Seems funny to blog about this, but seriously we are excited!

Driving home today we go to experience Redwood Road as a 5 lane highway! Who knew it could be so amazing!!! I could pass the slow grandma drivers, the crazy speed demons could pass me instead of drive 5 feet from my car, best thing.....I didn't have to wait for anybody to turn left or right!!! Turn lanes are a wonderful thing!!! It actually came together on time, and we didn't have too many delays because of it. Well done Geneva Rock, well done!

So, yes you may be laughing at me right now for blogging about my excitement about road construction, but if you live out here, or drive out here frequently, you know why I am so happy! From Bangerter to the crossroads in Saratoga you have 5 lanes!!! And the rest of the construction is about 95% complete! Woohoo!!! Come visit!!!