Sweet Surprises...

The other day, Mark came home with these beautiful pink Gerberas--just because! I love little surprises. He also got me a HUGE costco sized box of my favorite candy. Yum! Now I have lots of treats to sneak into movie theaters with :)

Lucky in Love...

Mark and I celebrated our first anniversary this past weekend. I can't believe it has already been a year! Mark kept on telling me all last week that he had a GREAT idea on how to celebrate, but I asked him to surprise me. However, Friday night he let it slip since he was so excited :) He booked a room at the Hotel Monaco in Salt Lake for Saturday night. It was really nice! We were bummed out though because it didn't have a pool. We wanted to go swimming! It was still nice to "get away from it all," even if it was only 45 mins away.

In our Junior Suite

Once in Salt Lake, we went to this delicious Italian restaurant in the Gateway called Biaggi's. We took the Trax to get there. I had never been on Trax before, it was a little nicer than the metro back in D.C. I was thrilled because I expected the restaurant to be really expensive, but really the menu was no more expensive than the Olive Garden and the food was 20 times better! I hope to go back there soon. Mark and I stuffed our faces and felt rather sick afterward. It didn't help that the temperature outside was at 101 degrees while we waddled around the Gateway from shop to shop trying to "walk it off."

My lasagna was to die for...

As you can see, we cleaned up our lobster and crab dip quite nicely, and Mark got the seafood pasta

On Sunday morning (our anniversary), I was reluctant to leave the hotel since I love being in Salt Lake so much. But, once we got back to Provo, it felt good to be home :) we had planned to make spaghetti for dinner, but since we had Italian food the night before, we just decided to make a salad and eat cake! We got a Coldstone cake since our wedding cake is still in VA (and I'm not so sure we would want to eat it anyways since it's a year old.)

Mark in his "MARK ALLAN 4 LIFE" shirt. There is a story behind that...

In high school, Mark was pretty much the school heart throb. Every girl either hated him or loved him, and I am convinced that those that claimed to hate him secretly loved him (since I played that card for a while myself). Anyway, I had a couple of close friends my age who were also infatuated with Mark. One of them made shirts for Christmas with the above message on front (with his name spelled incorrectly, maybe to be more covert? I don't think that worked) and on the back it said our names along with a heart and Marks initials underneath that. I am not kidding. Mark knew about these T-shirts and wanted one for himself, so he took one of them (that wasn't mine). When we started dating, he felt it more appropriate if he wore my shirt since it says "Katy loves M.A." on the back. He tends to wear it on special occasions :)

We had a wonderful anniversary together! I am very lucky to have a romantic husband. I can't wait until valentines day! I have some ideas up my sleeve...

Seersucker Sunday

When it comes to fashion, it seems that I always get shown up by my own husband. I've always admired his sense of style. Now I'm just jealous that he always looks better than me...

I love the seersucker suit. This purchase must have been inspired by the one and only Papa Greg. It seems that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree...

yeah, we have difficulty with the self timer...



Oh, and I just discovered picnik on the web. I know it's been around for awhile, and I did a crappy job with the above photo, but it seems fun.

Company Picnic

I had the pleasure of accompanying Mark to a picnic put on by the company he works for. Nothing beats a free meal, raffle prizes, and games. I was able to witness Mark in the heat of battle in a badminton tournament. The prize at hand was an Ipod Touch, which I knew Mark wanted very badly (probably because his brother Nathan has one). Unfortunately, Mark and his middle-aged partner were knocked out in the first round. They were up against fierce competitors from Canada who play frequently and take the game quite seriously. Ironically, all winners of the different competitions were in one of the head positions of the company, so essentially they bought Ipods for themselves. But, we still walked away with a generous gift certificate to Best Buy that was givent to all company employees. Good deal.

Creepy Crawlies

The Summer months seem to have invited every little insect and spider in the area to our apartment. I have frequent encounters with these little creatures. As mentioned in a previous post, I am terrified of spiders. However, I have faced my fears (when Mark is not available) made use of my winter boots in July. Those suckers don't stand a chance against them. Now, I just look forward to a day where I won't see a little something scurrying across the floor near my feet. I don't know how many more freak outs I can endure before inducing a heart attack. Yes, I am aware of my young age, but I am convinced that my body has aged 15 years faster than normal due to:

• my bad back
• varicose veins (gross)
  
• my desire to take frequent naps
  
• my severe inflexibility
  
• gray hairs every now and then...(maybe they are just really blonde?)
  

Looks like Mark will have to ship me off to assisted living sooner rather than later.

O.C. Obsessed

Since I opted not to take Summer term classes, I've had a LOT of free time on my hands. I searched for a job, but not aggressively due to (a) the economy (nobody is hiring) and (b) I really don't want to work in the fall considering that school kind of owns my life. I had plans to grab a good book and read for fun (something I haven't done since middle school), but I remembered a T.V. show I had started yet failed to finish my freshman year with some friends. Luckily, Best Buy had all four seasons of The O.C. for sale for pretty cheap. Apparently it was pretty popular a few years ago, and I saw why when I started watching--it's entertaining, dramatic, and contains losts of twists that you would never expect. Perfect formula to addict an audience. I'm glad I waited till now to watch it though, because I would have gone crazy with commercials and cliff hanging endings after most of the episodes.

The O.C. is basically a drama that portrays the fictional lives of a group of teenagers and their parents in Newport Beach, California. I actually found myself google-ing the name of the high school in the show to find out if it was real or not. Of course, the show is fictional, so it is not real...pathetic, I know.

I finished season four this afternoon, and sadly now I feel a void in my life. There is no more to watch! I am so sad! I know that sounds completely ridiculous, and I know it is. But, when you have a husband that works most of the day and then comes home only to leave and go play golf (did I marry my father?), it was a pretty entertaining way to fill my time. Now I guess I'll look for a book...