picture dump

(again)
It seems like most of my blogging these days goes a little like this:
boring, wordy post about... well. nothing in particular.
followed by an overwhelming upload of pictures that sort of (sometimes) go along with the previous boring post. however, because they're pictures it seems less boring? maybe?
Oh well. The main point of this ramble is my apology for being a stinky blogger these days. Not to point fingers, but our laptop is well beyond gently used and it probably has every computer disease known to cyberspace. In short- it's slow. :p So I don't blog because my complete lack of patience intervenes every time without fail.
Anyway.
Rambleramble... here's the pictures.

Thanksgiving:

Bull Valley Gorge. Can you see the bottom?

This kinda makes me think of Lion King a little? Not
entirely sure why. Ya know the stampede part? And
Simba hangs onto that tree in the middle of it?
Maybe it looks kinda like that? anyway.
Lion King shrubbery.

Waaaay up there, right under the dirt road bridge if you look
super close you can see a small glimmer... kind of.
That's a truck that fell into the slot canyon years ago
and they just built the bridge over it. Crazy, right?

The fam

I've decided we're not a very enthusiastic looking couple.
But I like us anyway. :p

Pretty much I love this man a lot!
Cute Grandpa Barton always has stories
about the places we go adventuring in.

This was the best one we had... :)
Left to Right:
Mom, Megan, Marissa, Uncle Jared, Aunt Mindy
Rhett, Matt, Me, Brianne, Grandpa, Caleb and Tanner

We occasionally like to participate in awkward family photos

It's a tiny caveman for the tiny cave! 

For the record, this and the next picture were of us standing
on a ledge thing about half way up the canyon wall...
so it makes this more impressive, right? ;)

Rhett, Uncle Jared, Aunt Mindy and Caleb

We love Grandpa!  (And secretly he likes posing for pictures!)

(It's because he's so handsome.) :)
(and adorable.)

It's not fair that my little sisters are more gorgeous than me! :p
... but really. I have four BEAUTIFUL sisters.
That's what happens when you have beautiful parents. ;)

Caleb

Tanner

Matt, the waterfall model :p

said waterfall

It took serious yoga moves to keep shoes dry... but we did it!

The top of the waterfall

The boys thought they should show off their mad hops and leap over the 'tiny slot canyon' ditch thing right below the waterfall. ... I have to admit, it looks pretty impressive!

                                     

                                                        

 That one time I made dinner and was almost domestic.

Thank you homeward Relief Society. I went with my mom
once and they taught us how to make homemade noodles. 

Yes. They were delicious.

(i so love our little soup dishes! thanks aunts!)

Matt set the cups out.... he was feeling fancy? I just love
how disproportionate it looks. I laugh every time. :p

Sometimes we look drugged in front of our Christmas tree
but we post it on the blog anyway so we look like we like
Christmas. :)

My cute through-the-kitchen neighbor, Megan,
planned a craft day. It ended up just being her
and me, but it was super fun!
We (and our husbands) were covered
in glitter for the next two days. At least. ;p

Finals week de-stressing?

Matt has a sling shot from Brazil... 

And he tried to teach me how to use it. 

Clearly I'm great. 

Matt's birth-week! 

(Matt had finals on his actual birthday- Wednesday- and I had a mandatory orientation for the Pharm Tech program so we had dinner with  my family on Monday and then partied a little bit Tuesday, aaand a little more on Wednesday, and tonight we had his birthday dinner. Birth-week seems more fitting than birthday. :)

Monday's Dinner

Before going to the Messiah at the Heirtage Center. :)
P.S I dyed my hair, but you can't really tell in most of these
pictures... I'll have to find a good one. Matt talked me
into doing a red-ish color again. (and it ended up lots darker
and more red than I anticipated. I think I'm past being in
shock, and I think I like it! At least Matt does. He has to see it
more than I do, right? :p)

Wednesday 12.12.12!

Ok. Here's the story. Matt was supposed to be gone all day Wednesday studying in the morning and then taking his final, and then going to his ambassador party. So after making his birthday breakfast of choice: omelettes (which by the way, I don't know how to make. I know, I know. So I googled it... and found on allrecipes.com that you could put it in a baggie and boil it for 13 minutes. Don't do it. Just don't. So when that didn't work we plopped it into the skillet... and burned it a little... and had more of a scrambled eggs breakfast.) I got ready and hit Deseret Book and Walmart. After I had all the notes in all the balloons, ready on the bed, I got a call from Matt saying he was coming home to wrap his white elephant present. ... Crap. So I gathered all the papers and balloons and stuffed them in my trunk. Did I mention it was super windy outside? It's quite an adventure to carry bags of balloons outside while gusts are trying to scatter them all over the parking lot. :) But! I got everything hid and he didn't even suspect anything! The funny part of all that was his reaction after I told him about it later. He just laughed and asked why I didn't just hide them under the bed or something. I didn't know if he's a snooper or not! It was too risky. ;)

I had it set up before I went to my meeting in St. George, so he
would have some sort of celebrating between when he got home
and when I got back. :)

Ooh. Another birthday adventure... deciding whether or
not our wall furnace would blow away the birthday
message. I guess they were as determined as I was
that they'd stay because it was all in tact still
when I got home!

Aaand layer two of wrapping paper... 

Meet my husband. He's kind of always full of it. :) He's
always pulling faces, or saying obnoxious things.
He seriously always has me laughing at something he's
doing. Life is pretty great with this guy. :) I kind of like him. ;)

Babysitting!

Ok, so I can't really remember all the funny quotes I was going to tell you about... so you might have already heard these. 

The other day when it was raining Alida looked over at me between bites of mac and cheese (which I'm now a total professional at making ... as if I wasn't already a pro from college life) and asked, "Is it raining?" so I said yes it was raining, to which she responded, "Big droppings or little droppings?" "I don't know, Lida, should we go look?" She nodded, "Later it will be big droppings and we will run in it with a rella. Ok? Is that a good plan? Not now, later. Ok?" 

She says that a lot, "is that a good plan? Ok?" It gets hard to say no to that. :p 

And she's been on a 'probably' kick. We probably can do everything, and everything is probably good... I love little kid conversations. It's super entertaining!

And then there's Ryan, who is one of the happiest babies I've ever baby sat. He's stinkin adorable! It's funny to get him pulling faces when he's in his high chair. It's been so awesome to have the chance to baby sit for these guys, it's been a much needed income, but also a really awesome alternative to sitting at home all day figuring out what to do with all the time I have on my  hands before I find a job and start classes. Thanks guys! :) 

Oh, hello brown eyes. Cutest kid ever!

This is one of his famous faces. :)

Feel free to admire Alida's and my fort building skills. :)
She was in a reading mood the other day, so we read lots
of books in the squishy cozy fort ;) (it was tricky to get
myself in that thing.) And then we watched a
'Clues Clues' (blues clues) episode on my ipod, which was
pretty cool. :) A tiny TV! ;)

The past couple of times I've baby sat Meg wanted to come
play with the cute kids, and it's been so fun!
She's seriously so cute with them. (Meg, please
don't hate my guts. :) This is a good side of you! Promise! ;) )