And So It Begins

I LOVE the holidays and the holiday season!! Once Thanksgiving arrives, the holiday season is in full swing! We went up to Mat's parents for Thanksgiving in Idaho Falls. We were so excited to get a break from the daily routine of Utah.

On our way up to Idaho Falls we were able to stop in Pocatello to see some of our friends. Mat caught up with his friend and old co-worker, Brad and I got to see my best friend, Bethany. Mat & Brad ran off to go duck hunting, while Bethany & I did the more traditional shopping route. It was great to window shop and have some girl time. Bethany is also expecting her first child in the Spring, so we were on the hunt for baby shower ideas. She is just so stinkin' cute at 6 months pregnant!

We were able to catch up with Mom & Dad Haderlie Tuesday night and just spend a little time together, since we haven't seen them in months!

Wednesday morning, we caught up with Mat's brother, Tucker & his wife, Mary in Rexburg....it was 8 degrees outside!! I couldn't hardly believe it could get that cold, but then again, it is Idaho! We spent the whole day visiting and catching up with family members that we don't see very often. It was simply relaxing to be around those that you love and that love you for you. By the end of the day we realized it was the calm before the storm.

Thursday was full of food and food and more food! Mom Haderlie "smoked" the turkey (it was more of a marinade that I can't even begin to describe) - it was AMAZING! Then her rolls are legendary! She told me that I could make them, but I chickened out. These rolls are sooooooo yummy, we are talking the best rolls ever! I tried making them once and they hit the trash before Mat could even see them - I don't know what happened, but I was not about to take the chance on her rolls on Thanksgiving. So she did her magic and handled everything, but the sweet potatoes - that was my job. I made Aunt Jeanette's sweet potato souffle, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving for me without it! It was a small quiet group for dinner, but it was full of great conversation. We were able to see Grandma & Grandpa Haderlie, which was a real treat! And then mom Haderlie's best friend from high school, Pat and her dad joined us. Since it was a last minute change of plans to go up for Thanksgiving, Mat's siblings had already made other arrangements.

We skipped out on the Black Friday craziness since we had to be back in Provo by Friday afternoon for Mat to be at work. We really wish we could have stayed longer, but cherish the time that we had.

Also, last weekend, our friend & wonderful neighbor, Rachel, took our Christmas pictures. They turned out FANTASTIC! She also caught some great pictures that just made us laugh! So here's an assortment of what she captured.

And now for a few that you just can't help but giggle at....

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

Take flight!

Mat's birthday is actually the 15th, but to throw him off his game I threw him a surprise birthday party on the 8th! I was trying to figure what I could do for his birthday and really make his 25th birthday the best. It came down to a party, but then it developed into a surprise birthday party.

It all started with the invitations....
I made mini passports with map envelopes. Yes, I cut out envelopes from actual maps and glued them together. The inside included:

Date of Flight: November 8, 2009
Passengers (that's YOU) must arrive by 4:30pm.

Pilot will be landing at 5pm, so please be prompt on YOUR arrival.

Airport Location: Haderlie Airways
Dinner, beverages & cake will be served during flight!

I actually made the majority of the invitations in front of Mat, yet, he had no idea! I even passed them out with him in close radius, but he didn't catch anything. :) That is only the beginning!

I had the worst time keeping the "fibs" I was telling Mat all straight so I had to actually write them down! I threw them out the morning of the party so he wouldn't see them, but here's just a few of them:

*I made chicken as the "big" entree for the birthday dinner. I told Mat that it was for a company potluck lunch on Monday.

*I made cheesy potato casseroles which I told Mat were for families in the ward.

*I made bunches and bunches of cookies which I told Mat that they were for our friend Angela & Jayson's nephew's birthday party on Sunday. (Angela saved the day over and over again - keep reading to hear more!) Mat also helped decorate all but the ones that were put on the cupcakes above, I did those just so he couldn't use that against me!

*I went over to our friend and neighbors, Anson & Tennille's to scrapbook signs for Mat's birthday and to pass along the chipotle ranch pasta salads they were going to help me make. Mat did show up while we were scrapbooking, but I told him we were scrapbooking a few things for Tennille's class (she's a teacher).

*I had to order Mat's other present, a RC plane from one of the hobby stores here in town. They conveniently called while I was with him to tell me it had come in. I told Mat that it was the scrapbooking store and I had ordered a few things, they were just calling to tell me they had arrived.

*I also had Mat's boss's help in picking up the right gun and all the supplies that goes with it.

*I called the Robisons to help me in distracting Mat on Sunday. Mat has a stake calling which he shares with Sean. Sean called Mat and said he had to leave right after church on Sunday and couldn't stay to attend to their callings. However, they gave me a ride home and helped with decorating the house!

*Our friends Angela & Jayson Kelly are awesome when it comes to playing this type of game! They also helped with the distraction of Mat while I was setting up. The Kellys were getting rid of their rocking chair and I couldn't resist giving it a new home! So, to Mat, the only day that it could be moved was Sunday because Angela needed it out of her house. And....here comes the big whopper of a fib....The Kellys needed to follow Mat over to our house to unload the chair and so they could pick up the cookies, dishes, etc. The other funny thing was that Angela helped make the cookies and brought over a few of them on Friday night. :)

*I was so excited that I couldn't sleep on Sunday, so I was up at 4 am cleaning the house (I told Mat I just had a lot on my mind and couldn't sleep) and making brownies - also for the work potluck. Mat even vacuumed before we went to church!

Overall, it was such a huge success that I couldn't have done without everyones help!!

Here are just a few photos to recap the day:
We couldn't figure out if everyone should say "Happy Birthday" or "Surprise" so it was just a bunch of yelling when Mat walked in the door - he was slightly confused since his birthday wasn't for another week and then he realized what all was included in the party....the food....:)

There were over 30 people invited, so there was no shortage of food by any means!

I was going to make Mom Haderlie's Chocolate Mint Cake, but I was running out of time...so I had to settle and order cupcakes. They turned out quite adorable I must say!

I wrapped all the presents in blue paper and then sponge painted clouds on the paper, I wanted to have cupcakes to match...what do you think?

Apparently they tasted really good, our friends and old neighbors Nate & Carlee along with their little guys Reid & Link were able to make it to the party! Reid was our official cupcake taster and he said they were really good, and who can argue with this face!?

Mat had no idea at all which made this whole party so much better than expected! I thought he might have had an idea....but oh no, no, no....not even a chance!

Thanks again to everyone for ALL of their help!!

October in a Nutshell

I kept telling myself I was going to blog over and over again the whole month of October. I even typed up blog entries on some of our travels to copy and paste....as you can tell they didn't quite ever make it to the blog.

Now that it is officially November, I am going to cram everything from October in one post. I do have some pictures! At least I was thinking some what ahead! There's a lot going on for November, so I will try to post as things actually happen and not wait weeks after.

Mat & I took a road trip at the beginning of October to San Antonio, Texas. Yes, we drove from Provo, Utah to San Antonio, Texas and then back to Provo all in about 4 days time. My grandfather passed away and we wanted to be there for the funeral. Grandpa had lung cancer and fought such a strong fight that we had prepared ourselves early to make the trip when it came time. It was wonderful seeing family and friends, we don't get to see our Texas family very often and love to spend as much time with them as we can. It was also great to hear stories about Grandpa that I had never known before. Mat had only a few times to see grandpa, so he got a real kick out of some of the stories. :)

On our journey though, we wanted to make it out to be more of a "memorable experience" and let me tell you...there were some very memorable moments...

Mat & I don't have much of matching schedules right now. We're both in school - Mat goes during the day and mine is mostly at night. I am working full time during the day and Mat works part time at night. This trip, we spent 4 days (more like 3 1/2 actually) together...straight. And really LOVED it! It reminded of us of the month before our wedding. Mat & I both lived in Utah, but our wedding was in Idaho Falls and we had to drive every weekend up until the wedding to Idaho. It's all good memories :).

The service was on a Sunday, mainly so family could all make it into town. I had to work a half day on that Friday, so we left about lunch time. Our goal was to make it to Albuquerque, New Mexico to spend the night and drive the rest of the way to Texas on Saturday. I think of flat hills with a few rock mountains here and there and the desert when New Mexico comes to mind.....which is really what there is....

We got up early on Saturday and dove right into the remaining portion of our trip. I drove most of the day so Mat could drive at night :). Side note: I hate (HATE) driving at night! We were very blessed to have such good weather on this trip though. There was a little bit of rain in Texas on the way home, but no where near the Oregon style of rain the rest of the time it was blue skies and sunshine!

We figured once we were into Texas we'd have time to celebrate since we'd be "almost" there....San Antonio is almost to the east side of the state and we came in by El Paso, which is on the complete west side of the state....but at least we were in Texas! :)

Getting through El Paso was an adventure though! I was driving, the speed dropped from 80 to 65, yet everyone was still going 80! To keep up with the traffic I was speeding with my fingers crossed - the last thing I wanted was a ticket on this trip, let alone in another state! Just when I thought we were in the clear, all the lanes of traffic were being veered off of the two lane highway....I had no idea where we were going and was tired from the drive so I started panicking...did they see me speeding? am I going to get a ticket? are they going to take our muffins? Like I said, I was tired! :) It was just border patrol! Nice guys, but they puffed our little rental car and just asked if we were U.S. citizens. They checked out my muffins in the back seat though, but let us go. We also go stopped on our way back, but it was in New Mexico rather than Texas.

We did see Mexico though! The hills anyway! We were right on the border so we are able to say we at least saw it! :) We made it into San Antonio about 7 pm that night. We stayed with our other grandparents that evening which live about 45 minutes outside of San Antonio. They loaded us up with Big Red Soda (my fav!) and Blue Bell ice cream (Mat's fav!)! They also kept us up until 2 am visiting :). Those darn kids! We really wish we were closer to see them more often - soon enough though!

The service was wonderful. It fit Grandpa and overall was quite uplifting. He will be greatly missed, but will always be remembered. :) He was a true Texan fellow. Mat & I met my mom, her boyfriend and my sister down there. We also got to see our Aunt Jeanne & Uncle George - they are the best! (That's a picture of all of us.) Before we left to come back home, we were able to all go out to dinner. Mat & I realized that we wouldn't mind calling Texas our new home after school is done (for Mat). He's been begging me to go for a while and this trip really changed my mind. It's so nice down there! After dinner, our goal was to drive until it got dark and then stop for the night. It rained on Sunday, so driving was a little more interesting. Coming from Oregon, rain isn't to bad. Being in Texas, in the rain, a whole different story. We were still able to make it to Fort Stockton, Texas for the night.

The next day, however, was full of driving, driving and driving....we hit 5 states in one day! We left Texas and then it was....

(We forgot to get the Welcome sign :) )

We took a detour and stopped at the four corners too! We were looking forward to this, mainly thinking that it was something we'd both had never seen. Come to find out it's a monument that is not really in the four corners (someone apparently miscalculated and it's a little off) - however we still made to all 5 states in a day! The four corners monument though is this.......I will admit there were some amazing views though and to add to that, a gorgeous sunset!

The trip back home seemed much, much longer. We had never thought that we would be so overjoyed to see the Welcome to Utah sign, but we were! It was such a wonderful sign and a HUGE landmark on our little road trip. We were almost home!!

The day after we were to be home, Mat had a big test for a rating, so he was studying while I was driving. Once he was driving I started quizzing him. (He did great by the way on the test!)

I got this picture of him, but I'm not sure if the disgusted look on his face is from all of the studying and quizzing or the driving...I still think it's a pretty comical picture :).

We made it home safe and sound though. The trip really through the whole week off for us, but we recovered and got back in the swing of things.

October also brought my birthday...I wanted something more low key this year. So Mat took me shopping! :) I got a new coat, a food processor (sooo excited) and then took me to Cafe Zupas (my new obsession) for dinner! We made it home just in time to watch the Biggest Loser. The downside of my birthday was I had finals that week, so I was a little bit of a stress case. Not as much as usual, but the best part was I passed all my classes with A's!!

Speaking of good grades....Mat was inducted into the Golden Key Honor Society!! Only the top 15% of the school is invited to join. And Mat received an invitation! He's worked so incredibly hard and I am sooo proud of him!!

Other than that, October came and went....November on the other hand just started! I will have to post later today (I promise I will!) all about the surprise birthday party I threw Mat!! And boy was it good!! :) So, consider this to be a TO BE CONTINUED....