My niece got married!

My niece, Cami, got married this past weekend!!!! I am so happy for her and her husband Garrett! They looked deliriously happy all day Saturday (their wedding day). :) 

I didn't take many pictures this weekend, but my sister, Heather did. Most of these pictures are from her camera.

The only picture that I got with Cami and Garrett that day. At their reception! The whole day was beautiful and such a happy day! :)

While we were waiting for the photographer to finish, we had to take some silly pictures of our own. :)

I love my sisters!

All of my siblings were there except Tim. I think they're pretty great! 

The flowers outside the temple were gorgeous!

 I got lots of cuddle time with this little guy last weekend! Isn't he adorable?!

Nate, Pete, McKenzie and I surprised our Aunt Marva and Aunt Valerie at their ward on Sunday before we all flew home. 

Overall the weekend was a lovely one! A beautiful wedding, a lovely day, and lots of family time.

Randomness (Cami returning home, Pi Day, my new niece etc)!

Here are a few pictures from my phone from the past couple of months. 

 My niece, Cami, returned home from her mission at the end of January! Yay!

 Almost all of our family that live in the area were at the airport for her arrival. :)

The Washington D.C. temple is now closed for over two years while they do some updates and renovations to the inside. After 2-1/2 years of volunteering there, this picture was taken on my last day I worked there before it closed. Isn't it beautiful?!

I love Pi Day (3.14/March 14). Any excuse I can get to make pie, I'll take it. :) I asked one of my friends if she would host and then we both invited a bunch of people to join us for a Pi Day party.

I haven't had a pie party every year but I want to make it a tradition! I made 6 pies (Key lime pie, 30-minute fudge pie, Chocolate peanut butter pie, and 3 quiches)

 At the party!

I had to try a little piece of all of them! I loved them all. :)

The only box of Girl Scout cookies that I'll buy this year. I love Samoas, but I try to not buy them because when I do, I tend to eat them all very quickly. ;)

I bought a new rug for my living room and I love it!

We had a snow day! Although I don't know that the roads were really all that bad, I didn't want to find out, so I just worked from home this day.

 I have a new niece!! Yay! She is soooo cute! Her name is Anna Juliette.

 Look at that adorable face!

 And here's Anna's adorable big brother, Ben!

I got to do some dog sitting for my sister and her family while they were out of town. Some times this dog is a little stinker, but for the most part, he's pretty cute. :)

 Cherry Blossoms at Hain's Point in D.C.

 Spring time is just so beautiful!

 I got to visit little Anna again!

Anna's big brother, Jack, saying Hi to me for Anna. :)

Lincoln in his bear costume before bed. He sure is a silly nephew. :)

Some flowers from my walk today!

I love my family and friends and am grateful for them!

The Greatest Showman Soundtrack

I've been slightly obsessed with the soundtrack from The Greatest Showman recently. I bought the cd last week and haven't stopped listening since. :)

I especially love this song!

And this one!

And this one!

Turn up the volume and enjoy!

Electricity!

I am so thankful for electricity! On Friday, there was a big wind storm here in Virginia. We lost power at my place on Friday at 8 AM and didn't get it back until that night at 9:30 PM. Not having electricity for a while made me realize how much I use it and love it! I couldn't cook anything, the heater didn't work, I couldn't watch a movie, I couldn't get on the internet, I couldn't charge my phone.

There were a lot of things I couldn't do, but I did finish a book that I hadn't been able to read in a while. I did spend some quality time with some family members in the area. I did write a card to my parents. I did go to Mod Pizza for dinner with Coldstone ice cream for dessert. :) I did get to use my flashlights and emergency candles.

My candle-lit living room. It was actually quite bright, but not quite enough to read a book without a flashlight.

I am glad for what I did on Friday without electricity but I am so thankful to have my power back!

Cookies!

I love cookies, baking them and eating them. :) I feel like I've had lots of cookies in my life recently and I love it!

Someone posted about these cookies on Facebook and I decided to try them. They're Brown Butter Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were soft and delicious! A little more time consuming to make than I'm used to for cookies, but still really good. :)

I brought them into work the next day and they were gobbled up quickly.

I've heard about cookie exchanges before but I've never been to one or hosted one. I've actually been thinking about hosting one for a couple of years now, but it's never worked out... until this year.

I think it was a success! I had each person bring 4 dozen cookies, 1 dozen to sample that day and 3 dozen to divvy out evenly between each person. We had 9 different kinds of cookies. Jam filled Cream Cheese Cookies, Sugar Cookies, Chocolate Toffee Cookies, Mexican Wedding Cookies, Classic Spritz Cookies, Spicy Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies, Peppermint Shortbread Cookies, Chocolate Peanut Butter Bites, and Gingersnaps.

I made the Chocolate Toffee Cookies.

I might have bought this Cookie Monster shirt just for the cookie exchange, but I feel like it might be appropriate, in general, for me to own this shirt. :) 

I wish I had gotten a picture of all of us who were at the cookie exchange, but, alas, I did not. 

I went to visit my parents in Utah for a week at the beginning of this month. They had warned me before coming that they wanted me to do a lot of baking while I was there. I was happy to oblige. :) 

I made Hot Chocolate Cookies, M&M Pudding Cookies, Toffee Crunch Cookies, and Fudge (not pictured). My parents had a list of people they wanted to give cookies to so we divided them up according to how many people in the families and then they delivered them to friends and neighbors. 

Cookies are awesome! :)

Fall Happenings!

At the beginning of September I went to the beach at Flag Ponds Nature Park in Maryland! I went with Lara and Glen and family as well as Heather and Tim. I really like this beach! It wasn't very crowded and the waves were calm and we could go pretty far out and still touch the bottom.

Soaking up the sun!

I kept on hearing about this place that had bagel doughnuts which I had never heard of before but decided I needed to try. :) But it was hard to get to because there were only two locations open at the time, one in D.C. and one in Leesburg. I finally made it to the one in Leesburg!

So basically it's fluffy fried dough that they inject with cream cheese filling and put savory seasonings on top or a sweet filling with sweet glaze on top. I tried both. I liked the dough for both, it melts in your mouth. But I liked the sweet one better. I felt like the savory one was too salty.

One of my friends who has moved to California came into town for a visit and she invited a small group of us to join her for dinner at Euro Bistro, a German restaurant. She served her mission in Germany and Euro Bistro has pretty good food! I enjoyed this meal. I don't remember what it's called but it was delicious!

At the end of September, my friend, Kara, invited me to visit the town of Staunton, VA for a Harry Potter festival. It was pretty awesome! They had decorated the whole town up with Harry Potter stuff and many people were in Harry Potter related costumes!

And we're ready to head to Hogwarts!

Platform 9-3/4!

Butterbeer!

Goblets of Fire made at the glass factory in Staunton!

Hagrid!

Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall!

At the beginning of October, Lara and I flew to Utah to visit Mom, Dad, Heather, and Nana! Dad had a stroke in the middle of August and so Lara and I decided we needed to visit them and spend some quality time with them. I love this selfie of us.

We did get to do some fun stuff while we were there. Lara, Heather and I went to the BYU Homecoming Spectacular with Kristen Chenoweth. Before hand we ate Galilee Grill. Yum!

The show was awesome and very entertaining!

Then we walked around campus after the show.

A beautiful sunset on the way to SLC!