Monday, April 29, 2013

Update: Mustache Bash

For the past few months, I had been planning a graduation party for Matt. I wanted to do something big because he worked so hard the last two years here at BYU-H. 

We decided to do a Mustache Bash because we really like that trend right now. 

We had yummy food (which included a hot dog bar, pasta salad, veggies, fruit salad, chips, baked beans, and delicious dessert.) We had awesome music. And wonderful friends and family! 

I wanted the mustache theme to be really obvious, so I tried to stick mustaches on everything. 

Here is what I came up with (with the help of Pinterest and Etsy):

{The stationary I made via PicMonkey}



{The Decor} 


{Wonderful Bunting Made by My Mother-in-Law}





{I got pictures of Matt while he was growing up and photoshopped mustaches on them.} 


{Famous Mustaches} 


{The People}




{Ari helping Josh with his mustache} 
 {Liz and Lisa from the Reading Writing Center} 

 {Susie and Creighton with the Grahams and a stray Mongolian child} 

{The man of the night}


{The Family all Mustached Up} 
 {Holland and Jen - this is the couple helping us get to Korea}
















All in all I think the party was a success. Our guests were great sports and put on their mustaches and started to party. 

The set up was stressful, but it all worked out. I think the strangest part of the night was the stray Mongolian children wandering to "help" (i.e. steal our food and decorations). By mid-party word got out to all the stray TVA children and random children of all races came to take our food. At first it was really funny... and then it got really annoying... but the worst part was that at no part did ANY of these kids parents stop by to see where their children were! 

I am happy that I was able to throw this party for his graduation! 

Thanks to my wonderful family and friends that helped set up/ clean up the party. And I have to give a special shout out to Jake (Matt's cousin). 

Jake was my personal slave throughout the day. (Which is of course what he wanted to do on his Hawaiian vacation.)  He made pasta salad, ran to the post office, helped with the set up, and much much more. 

It was really a great night!

I am of course available to plan all your parties and events. :) haha

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Catching Up: Easter

I have definitely been MIA the last couple of weeks, but I promise Matt and I have been beyond busy! 

Here is what we have been up to: celebrating Easter, coaching lacrosse, finishing up an internship and final paperwork, teaching like always, moving out of our TVA apartment, shipping some of our stuff home, planning a graduation party, having family in town, throwing a graduation party, graduation, moving into a new apartment, trying to figure out where we are going to be next year and much much more! 

It has been a crazy/ fun month, but I am ready to take it easy for the next couple of weeks and get caught up with all the stuff I have ignored, including this blog! 

So here's the first update: Easter Day

I need to start this by saying I am so grateful to have such great friends here in Hawaii. I often get  a little down thinking about all my friends on the mainland and think that I have no one out here. But looking at these pictures and thinking of our Hawaii experience I can truly say that is not the case! 

On Easter we were lucky enough to host both Easter brunch and Easter dinner! 

For brunch we had Arianna & Josh and Kea & Kaianui Graham over for great food and Easter egg dying! 




{Treats we made for our Home Teachers}






{My beautiful eggs.} 
We tried to tie-dye some of the eggs this year. I think they turned out good, but at some point we just rolled our eggs on the paper towel with the dye and got a cool marble effect. I think these are the best eggs I have ever done. Matt completed the blue, orange, and yellow eggs. 



{These treats were the only Easter treats we had this year.}

Brunch was awesome and I loved the wonderful company. It is so nice to know that we have people to lean on during holidays away from our families. 

After brunch, we went to church. This was the last Sunday we were spending in the BYU Hawaii Married 2nd Ward, so they sang Aloha 'Oi and gave leis to us as a way of saying goodbye. I must admit there were some tears while they were singing to us. While we aren't leaving Hawaii for a while, it was still somewhat sad that we were leaving the ward we have been in since June of 2011. 


After church, we skyped with Matt's parents for a bit, then got ready for dinner. 

We had dinner with Jane and Tyler Gifford. I don't have any pictures of the four of us, but I can tell you that we had a great time. The food was great and the company was even better! We ended the night by playing Jelly Bean Uno- which was a little bizarre, but fun. 

It was a really great Easter Sunday. I am so thankful to have such wonderful friends here, and a wonderful and supportive husband! I can't believe that this is our fourth Easter together! 

Monday, April 15, 2013

RACKS (Random Acts of Kindness) Month 3

I must admit with all the stuff going on this month (Matt's family in town, graduation, the graduation party, etc.) I completely forgot about my RACK of the month. 

But I am proud to say that one of my students did not forget! 

On the 14th I got this picture in an e-mail: 


It made me feel so good that my student didn't forget to give back a little this month! 

I was also doing some Facebook stalking and I came across this picture: 


This is a picture of the first RACK I did this year! Someone that I gave it to thought it was great enough to post a picture of it! 

Thursday, April 4, 2013

This Time of Year

This time of year always reminds me of when Matt and I got engaged. In fact, three years ago today, Matt proposed to me in the kitchen of his parents house. 

{If you want to read all about our engagement click here.} 

Since I have already shared my story. I wanted to share someone else's. 

Watch this youtube video of this guy proposing to his girlfriend. I usually don't like huge proposal productions, but this is one exception. I loved this video. And I am not ashamed to say I even cried a little. I tried to get Matt to watch it, but he was not impressed. Maybe it's a girl thing. 

I think this is great, and I hope you do too. 


Also, Happy Anniversary to my wonderful in-laws! {Yup, we got engaged on their anniversary.} Here's to 33 years.