Friday, December 23, 2011

Dog Sitting

Last weekend while my parents and brother were in Las Vegas we watched my mom's dog Charles. When I brought him over on Thursday night I was worried that him and Captain wouldn't get along but by the end of the weekend it was all good as you can see from the photo below. One has to love the boys snuggling all weekend...


 (and stealing the other's bed...)

Merry Christmas


From our house to yours, we wish you a Merry Christmas! 

I hope your day is wonderful and that you are able to celebrate it with your family & friends. We have a busy day but we are looking forward to it.

The First Skiing Day of the Year

Last Sunday Scott & I went up to Park City to get our season passes at the Park City Mountain Resort. While there we stayed and had our first day of skiing. Now if you are not in Utah, we have no "mother nature snow" but the resorts have been making snow like crazy. The snow was decent considering it wasn't mother natures but we still had a good time. Now the goal is to find me some skiis so we don't have to keep renting them... :)



Hunting in Wyomin



The week before I went to Minnesota Scott went with my dad to hunt in Wyoming. He went for 5 days (hunted for 3) and had a great time. While hunting they hit their limits every day and Scott got his first banded goose (pictured above). We are still reaping the rewards of the duck and goose hunting because of Jerky that Scott has made (the 4th batch is being dried today). Thanks to my dad  for inviting Scott-- he had a great time!

Minesota Visit

Two weeks ago I was able to take a few days off of work and go out to Minnesota and visit Nicci, Bill, Ollie, Caitlin, Mara, Steve, Alison and a few other new friends!  It was a great weekend of relaxation and catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. I wasn't feeling 100% because of a cold so overall the weekend was low key but still exciting. Below are some snapshots of the weekend's events. Enjoy!
 Olie and I hung out Friday. I was blowdrying my hair an someone got into my yarn.

He is a busy boy, he took my yogurt container and was playing with it. 

After playing so hard he crashed.

 The Birthday & Engaged Lady!

Mara & a new friend at happy hour!

Some Kinect action after dinner (NOT the best idea but it was a blast).

Olie had to get put in his kennel because he gets in the way when you are on Kinect. 

Nicci & Bill

Steve & Alison.

Caitlin & Jeff

Wedding Cake

Well earlier this month Scott & I finally remembered to bring the top layer of our wedding cake home from my parents where it was stored for the last 14 months. We waited a week to let it defrost and then we opened it and actually ate it, well I ate it and Scott had a bite.  Surprisingly enough the bottom was the only part that was dry and not very tasty but the rest of it was delicious! :)

Happy 14.5 Month Anniversary Hubby! :)





Will's Birthday


Happy Birthday Will!

I would like to wish my little brother a very delayed Birthday.  On December 5th he turned the big 2-1 and celebrated it last weekend by going to Las Vegas with my parents and his 2 good friends. The good news is they didn't get any tickets for public intoxication but they did have a good time. Good luck little brother, don't be stupid now that you are an adult! ;)

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Bills


It is nearing the start of the next month so it means that I spent the weekend paying bills. Why is it that when I was a teenager all I wanted to do is become an adult and work and "play" on the weekend. Now don't get me wrong its nice being an adult but I would love to have the carefree attitude that I did even 10 years ago. So another month down with my money going out to being an adult. Oh the joys but at least I can do what I want... (?!?!?)

Christmas

The Christmas decorations have hit the Hortin household. I decided I needed to drown my sorrows of Utah playing like crap in Football on Friday by getting all of the interior decorated. You can see below the tree, our bookshelf, and "mantle" areas.



Scott was great and started working on the outside lights on Saturday and I was able to get home and help him out to finish some things. We ended up going with all white lights  and had "accents" by using Mickey, a bear, and some path candy cane lights. You can see everything that has been done outside.  You can't really see the candy cane lights in the photo below but they are there along the pots and by the blowups. 

I have been able to get about half of my shopping done so that is an even better plus! I hope your Holiday decor is going up and you are enjoying the start of the season!

Engagement & Trip


About 2 weeks ago I got the following text: "Jeff and I are getting married!" I was SO excited when I got it because it means that one of my best friends from Lawrence University is getting married! I knew when I heard that she was going to Hawaii with Jeff that a ring was coming (no, I was not in on it either!).

Caitlin and I met at the very first LUST (Lawrence University Swim Team) meeting in 2000 and I hung out with her on a regular basis Freshman and Sophomore year and almost daily Junior and Senior years. She joined Kappa Kappa Gamma one semester after Meg and I joined and that started the "influx" of swimmers to the chapter. :) We were lifeguards together and just loved laughing the entire time (you would never know by the photo above).

I am so excited for her to start planning the rest of her life with Jeff and seeing what amazing adventures will come to both of them. The best thing about her engagement is I get to celebrate with her in about a week and a half!! I planned a trip to go out for her big 3-0 Birthday Celebration next week a couple months ago. So I get to go out and see her, some other crazy friends from LU, my sis & Bill. Can next week get here sooner??

Congratulations Caitlin and I can't wait to celebrate all of your big milestones with you shortly!!

Hunting

This fall I have gone out duck, geese, and swan hunting with Dad and Scott (a couple times). It has been a decent fall for ducks but it seems that I always go the next morning when they all decide to not come back in the morning... Anyway, here are some photos that I took during the mornings/evenings that I have gone out this fall:

 Drake getting ready for opening day. 

A look of the sunrise on opening day. 

 I surprised Scott with a photo one morning (he is going to kill me for putting this up). 

 Watching the storm roll in one afternoon. 

The night skyline of the Salt Lake Valley.

Thanksgiving 2011


This year Thanksgiving was another good year.  A couple days before Scott smoked two turkey breasts. He took one to work and let us have one for the holiday (see photo above). The actual day of Thanksgiving I slept in and then we lounged around the house in the morning. After lounging we went over to Scott's parents where we had a nice "lunch" with his parents, brother, cousins, and neighbors.  After a few hours at the Hortin's we went to my parents home. Mom & I started working on our Christmas cards, Will & Scott watched some football and Dad cooked dinner. It was a wonderful day and I hope yours was just as great as ours!

Utah Football

Another season of Utah Football has come and gone (well, minus the bowl game) and it was a better year than I had anticipated at the start. However, they really need to get their offense in a better situation than it was this year. The following are photos of the various events around the games this season.


Homecoming: Kappa won Songfest and I got to watch them at the first UNight.


Birthday: Scott has his 30th Birthday during one home game in October. We unfortunately got to cook that day but it was a good day anyway.



The 2nd to last game brought snow to the tailgate lot. Mom was supposed to do a "cold" face but she looks more of a "gross' face...


The same snow game was a game that the University honored the veterans. The band did some cool formations during 1/2 time. Below you can see some of them (I missed the submarine with moving water, sorry!)



Lets hope the Utes pull of a "W" during their bowl game or this year really wasn't a spectacular year, in my opinion.

Fall Crafts

This fall has been busy with various craft projects. After a successful Halloween wreath night the Hortin women decided to continue with craft nights. A couple weekends ago we made holiday bags. It was a good time using the Cricket and practicing our glueing skills.



This past week we decorated letters for the holidays. We decorated "Joy", "Noel", "Ho Ho Ho", "Peace", and "Merry". I forgot to get a photo of everyone's words but mine turned out pretty good. (If you are looking for an easy craft this is it!)



I am now in the process of making some holiday cards.


I had grand intentions on making all of mine but I think I'll do some and then send an electronic card to others like I did last year. I'll apologize to everyone who gets an electronic one--I just don't have the time needed to make all of them!

Monday, November 14, 2011

Car Incident (Updated from Origional 11/27/11)


Well two Friday's back I was driving home from my parents and I hit some debris on the freeway. Luckily I wasn't injured but my poor baby lost a tire and rim. A crappy photo of it is above. I was wondering what I hit and after talking to the officer who came buy it was a solid piece of metal that fell off a semi. The good thing is I walked away and my car is able to be repaired.
I actually lucked out in only having one tire where other cars involved needed to replace 2+ tires to getting body work done and tires.  The only crappy thing for me is now trying to get the officer associated with the case to call me back.

Update (11/27/11): Well I have an update. The car wasn't fully fixed with the tire.... I thought that it needed an alignment but it I ended up needing the knuckle of the steering wheel replaced. So after another 2 days of the car in the shop (for a total of 8 days) it is fully functioning again. The good news about the whole situation is that I was able to get in touch with the trucking's insurance and they will pay me back for all of the repairs. So now it is the waiting time to get the money from them...

Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from the Hortin's!

It has been a good weekend for the Hortin House. I have decorated the house and made it ready for all of the tick-or-treater's that we will hopefully be getting tonight.  Since you are probably not around to drop by:



Last night we came home from celebrating Scott's mom's birthday and carved pumpkins and ate caramel apples. It was a great night


Today at work all of us dressed up. Amy, Amanda and I were Smurfs and Janice was a black widow spider.  We did a potluck for lunch and had a great time 'lunching' with everyone.

I hope your Halloween was as Spooktacular as ours has been!