Diamond Candle

For my "birthday weekend" Jonny liked to call it, he also got me a special candle that I have been wanting. A Diamond Candle is a candle that has a ring in the wax of the candle and you have to burn it to get it out. The ring is a surprise and can a $10, $100, $1000, or a $5000 ring. I wanted one because it seemed like such a fun cute idea, and what girl doesn't want jewelry... The sent that Jonny got me was a Fresh scent called sunwash candle, and it smells soo good :) (But you know me I LOVE the smell of Gain and laundry detergent.)

 

Once I lite the candle it was so exciting to know that there was something in there!!! I finally got to the ring on Sunday after burning it for two days. I pulled it out with tweezers and opened it up, and the top is the ring I received. I don't think its a $5000 ring or anything but its still pretty. ( I just wish it actually fit my finger) 

I think that this would be such a cute little gift for a birthday or something small. Its cute, smells great, and its fun. Here is the website if any of you want to check it out.. http://www.diamondcandles.com/

The Ring is out of the candle and it still smells GREAT and is going Strong :)

21 and Having Fun !

Yep,it finally happened I'm 21, my birthday this past week was an amazing one !!:) This is how my day went. I had classes so Jonny and I woke up and ate breakfast together, giving me a kiss goodbye he told me to go start getting ready and he will leave. When I went to leave I found that Jonny had left me flowers on the table with the sweetest note EVER. I went to school and he even stuck a gift in my book-bag.. mechanical pencils :p ( I thought that was cute). 

Jonny told me that I was not allowed to go into the guest bedroom all day, while he was gone. I am proud to say I DID NOT PEAK:). When we came home he told me to go into the room and wait for a few minutes. He came back and said, " OK come on out" I came out and there were balloons all over our floor going to the kitchen. I saw that there were two gifts on the table, I sat down and opened them and they were..... cake mix and cake frosting... I was a little confused, I was like you want me to make my own cake???? 

we went in the kitchen and Jonny had gotten all the pans and mixing bowls out ready to make it. At this point I told Jonny that once again he will have to be my Kitchen Aid, because we dont have one. ( I have been wanting a Kitchen Aid for a long time !!!!) 

Jonny then said, that he wanted ice cream smoothies AND cake and to go to the closet and get the blender.... I was just confused because CAKE AND ice cream... don't get tooooo crazzy! When I looked up I saw it...... Jonny had gotten me a BRIGHT GREEN KITCHEN AID !!!!! :)

I love it, Jonny knew exactly what I wanted for my birthday what a great husband. Even though I have a mixer now I know Jonny will always be there to be my cooking buddy :) 

He not only got me the Kitchen Aid, but he also got the ice cream attachment... ( hes been wanting to make homemade ice cream forever) 

Since we have had it we have made a cake, cookies,  peach ice cream, and  mashed potatoes. I have so many things that I cant wait to make.
Jonny not only got me a Kitchen Aid, but he also bought me a fancy chrome/ electric can opener. ( because he didn't want me to starve, when I would have a fight with the handheld one) Now I have 0 problems opening cans :) I don't know why but the handheld can opener and I were NOT friends...  

I am so grateful for a husband that loves me so much and to give me the greatest birthday of the year.

I also got a happy, happy birthday wish from my handsome little nephews Mason and Deacon. Vanessa said they were so excited to sing happy birthday to me. Every year I get a video with them singing to me and its one of the best parts of having my birthday, I love these boys :) Here is there video

 

We Love To See The Temple

I am so grateful to live so close to a temple here in Texas, growing up I lived 2.5 hrs away and that was a blessing in itself. Each and every day I think of how blessed Jonny and I are to have been married and sealed for time and all Eternity. I am so happy that I can spend Eternity with my wonderful husband even after this life and that we will always be together. What a blessing it is to know something like that, to feel it each and every day.

We went  to help out at the temple with the youth that were doing baptisms. After Jonny and I were able to participate in family sealing for those who didn't get the chance while here on earth. The temple is such a beautiful place filled with peace, love and happiness. Heavenly Father loves his children (us) enough to give us these amazing temples, all over the world. All different and beautiful in their own way above is Houston, below is Washington D.C 

  I love to hear the primary children sing " I Love To See The Temple." They will go inside one day when the time is right and be blessed beyond comprehension. I sure am blessed every day to be married in the Lords House.

Pretty As a Peacock!!!

Coming home from dinner we saw a peacock crossing the road, this was not my first encounter with them in Houston and could not find out where they were coming from. I do not think Peacocks are native to Houston Texas... I asked around and the story is some people bought two peacocks as pets and did not realize that it was a boy and girl.... well we all knows what happens in this situation BOOOM Explosion of peacocks. They got loose and now the local neighborhood is a home for these peacocks. This is what we saw when we were driving, looking down the street we saw about 30 peacocks just walking around, standing in the road in yards and of course perching on mailboxes. This is what we saw.

There were all kinds regular, albino, and mixed. I got out of the car and they surrounded us, partly because we were feeding them gram-crackers. I think I counted 28 just in view of the car, I wounder how many others there were out there. I was afraid to get back into the car because they where blocking my way and I did not want to get attacked by a huge birds.

We were holding the crackers out of the windows and they would come right up to us and take it out of our hands. I was scared that it was going to take my fingers off, so I kept on dropping them. I'm the top right and Jonny is the bottom right. I think its crazy because there was this guy out there mowing his lawn and you could tell it was just a common thing for him, you would think they would be pests. It was really cool to just stumble upon this treasure in the middle of Houston, I guess it does have some surprises here and there. Below is a video I made when we pulled in, we are with DJ and Katie, Jonnys brother and sister in law that were visiting.

Austin, Texas State Capitol

This weekend DJ and Katie, Jonnys brother and sister- in-law where visiting form UT and we wanted to go and do something fun. We decided to all go to Austin for the weekend, to check out the springs, capitol and city. While David and Kye went rock-climbing we took a tour of the state capitol..:)

It was really cool to see how HUGE the capital was, it was constructed between 1882 and 1888. Many news papers say, "Meet the largest and perhaps most interesting Capitol in the nation." I was impressed of how elaborate it was  compared to the other capitals I have seen. The door handles and door hedges reminded me of the Salt Lake Temple, the hedges seemed to be very tamper proof, not that I would try to break in or anything. :)


The room of the House of Reps. was really pretty and open, but the Senate room was even more impressive with giant paintings and emblems every where. The thing that caught my eye the most was the ceiling in the very bottom picture on the top right.( the star is a pretty cool emblem to have)

When we walked into the center dome it seemed like it went on forever, it made you dizzy looking up into it. We walked up all the grand staircases and saw each level, with many, many offices in running halls. These didn't seem like ordinary offices, they had large carved woodwork around each door and frosted glass surrounding it. ( Bottom right) shows a hall full of just offices, what a special place to work. We decided to take the elevator down, I thought it was funny Jonny said, " Yes, you may have a nice office, BUT you work for ME!!!" :)

It was a lot of fun touring the Capitol, even in the short time we had. Its cool to see the history around us and how things all started.

Here are ten interesting facts about the Texas State Capitol. 

1. The Texas State Capitol is the largest in gross square footage of all state capitols.
   
2. In one of the largest barter transactions in history, the builders of the Texas State Capitol were given 3 million acres of land as payment for their work. The 3 million acres become the largest cattle ranch in the world.
   
3. Considered such a beautiful example of late 19th century architecture, there are laws prohibiting obstructing the view of the building.
   
4. The Texas State Capitol is the second largest Capitol in the entire nation; second only to the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
   
5. Standing at 308 ft tall the Texas State Capitol is 19 feet taller than the United States Captiol which is only 289 ft tall.
   
6. The spiral staircase leading to the dome lantern is one of the original staircases.
   
7. "Sunset red" granite was quarried for the external structural walls a mere 50 miles from the construction site.
   
8. On the grounds are 17 monuments, including monuments of Confederate Soldiers, Volunteer Firemen, and a replica of the Statue of Liberty.
   
9. Even the minor details were important. Beautifully carved wooden doors were hinged with custom bronze hinges.
   
10. During your visit, don't say anything you don't want repeated! The rotunda is a whispering gallery.

Nananana BATMAN!

One of the mane attractions in Austin is the huge Bat Colony that lives under the congress bridge that comes out every night. This was our second time trying to see the bats fly, but we missed it the first time. It was really cool to see all the sudden millions of bats fly out at once. It was really cool and an experience I can now say I have had. :) Below is a little history on the bats, its really interesting, at the bottom I posted a little video. ENJOY :) 

A Little History from: http://batcon.org/index.php/get-involved/visit-a-bat-location/congress-avenue-bridge.html

 Every summer night, hundreds of people gather to see the world's largest urban bat colony emerge from under the Congress Avenue Bridge.These 1.5 million bats are fun to watch, but they're also making our world a better place to live.
When engineers reconstructed downtown Austin's Congress Avenue Bridge in 1980 they had no idea that new crevices beneath the bridge would make an ideal bat roost. Although bats had lived there for years, it was headline news when they suddenly began moving in by the thousands. Reacting in fear and ignorance, many people petitioned to have the bat colony eradicated.
About that time, BCI stepped in and told Austinites the surprising truth: that bats are gentle and incredibly sophisticated animals; that bat-watchers have nothing to fear if they don't try to handle bats; and that on the nightly flights out from under the bridge, the Austin bats eat from 10,000 to 20,000 pounds of insects, including agricultural pests.

As the city came to appreciate its bats, the population under the Congress Avenue Bridge grew to be the largest urban bat colony in North America. With up to 1.5 million bats spiraling into the summer skies, Austin now has one of the most unusual and fascinating tourist attractions anywhere.

 It is kind of hard to see the bats, they are so small and they move so fast. Plus the video quality is not the BEST, but at least you can see what it looks like.

Too Good to Part With

About a month ago I bought this bench for $12 wanting to repaint it and sell it for more than I bought it. When I got it, it was really dirty and stained and water damaged. Well after sitting in our office for almost a month I decided to do the project. I was not quite sure how I was going to paint it or how I even wanted it to look. I found some wrapping paper that was really cute, and I wanted to use it on the bench. So I painted the bench black and then I bought Mod- Podge at the craft store and I mod- podge it on the suffice.

I think it turned out great, so great that Jonny does not want me to sell it. Since then I think I have joined his way of thinking. This could be dangerous of flipping things having the intent to sell than ended  up keeping it. :) Maybe next project I will have the courage to sell.

Getting Crafty

We woke up today and we had plans, but the weather had other plans. We sat around trying to figure out what to do, then we both decided to just go to Hobby Lobby ( a craft store ) and get crafty :). I bought modge Podge and lots of other craft utensils. While we were there I found Jonny in the molding clay isle. He suggested that we buy clay and practice molding things for when we go to a pottery place and make something. So we bought molding clay and came home, and we decided to make it into a competition. WHO CAN SCULPT THE BEST... our first try was of a sea turtle with a box between us we went to town, 30 min latter we had our sea turtles. Here is what we made...

Left is Jonny and the Right is mine. I think Jonny won on this one:) his was a lot more 3D than mine was. The top right was the picture we were looking at. After that we decided to make flowers, and here is what came out of that...


It was so much fun just to see what each other made, and how they went about making it. I think its really cool how our minds can see something and our hands can create it. YES, we know we are no Leonardo but he had to start somewhere to. :)I always have so much fun with Jonny, we always finds a fun way to brighten a rainy day.
 P.S. Jonny says I have been watching to much CAKE BOSS... :)

New Home Additions

This past week with my moms help we made some additions to our home. I had finished our living room, but I have been wanting to make our bedroom more homy. It only took us half a day to put together our new room and an hour to finish our map frame...

The 3 frames are going down our hall, and to the bottom left is my side of the room. We painted the wall, hung curtains, got new lamps and hung the painting on the wall. They were all simple things, but they made a big difference in the room. Plus the curtains are great they keep out the light, but also keep out the HEAT .... ( Im sure our bill will go down this month:))
The bottom right is our map frame, mom and I put it together really fast but it turned out great. On each state is a little Heart of where we lived and live, California from Jonny and North Carolina from me, and of course Texas is our Home. Home is where we are together.

New Hair, New Look

Since we have gotten married I have not cut my hair and it was getting pretty long. Along with it being long, it had its share of split-ends. I wanted to do something different, but was not quite sure what I was going to do. put highlights, get bangs again, or go VERY bold. So here are the before and after pictures.

AND

Turns out I only got about 10 inches but off, and my bangs cut a little shorter. I was thinking about getting highlights, but the lady told me that he will not ruin my beautiful hair with highlights. She told me never to dye it or highlight it because I have such great hair and highlights already. ( that was nice to hear :)) This is it straight, I'm sure when it gets curly it will look a lot different. I am just glad that it looks and feels so much healthier, that's what I was looking for the whole time.

Castle Adventure

While my mom was visiting for a weekend, we decided that we wanted to do something fun. So we took her to a CASTLE!!!!!

Newman's Castle was really cool, Neman the owner and builder bought 22 acars of land and built a castle on it. With having no experience in masonry, architecture, carpentry, and construction he did it, and its pretty impressive.

There was a large mote around it and it was beautiful lily pads all around it. This guy built a CASTLE on his land, because of a dream he had when he was little. Props for him keeping his dream alive. It is not done yet and is being made into a bed and breakfast. He has already worked on building it since 1996, well almost 18 years latter hes got a landmark with a very yummy bakery.

We arrived at Newman's Bakery received a fresh baked bread sandwich and lunch that came with the tour and drove to the castle. The cool thing is he actually lives there and he just lets you wander free around after the tour. He also built a great dinning hall, a dungeon, a chapel, and a working draw-bridge that Jonny and some guy got to bring up ( top left). Everything was really accurate to how things use to work back in that time period, he even built and had a working catapult. Some people call him crazy, but hey its something that he shares with many other people.The dungeon was really cool there was a cage that he put me in, and Jonny in the stocks.
We had a lot of fun walking around the grounds and spending time with each other. We had a great week Mom thanks for coming down!!!. Love you Mother Dear.