Monday, April 11, 2016

fall winter now.


It has been a lonnnnnnng time since I last posted.

Let's see if I can hit some highlights (based almost exclusively off of the photos found on my phone):

October 2015:
-Went back to Utah for Levi's friend's wedding and were able to stay for the weekend which included General Conference!
-my sweet grandpa passed away, but we were lucky enough to be able to go California for the weekend where I gave the eulogy which was a really difficult, but rewarding task. It was awesome to spend the weekend with so much family celebrating a man we love and admire so much.
-we watched a lottttt of the rugby world cup and the All Blacks won the whole thing! I made banana cake for Levi multiple times during the tournament because it's his favorite and now I would really love a piece of it.
-dressed up as Oreos for Halloween!


November 2015:
-It was still obnoxiously warm for November so when we hosted soccer games at work, we could actually go outside and watch them!
-Again, it was warm, so we went on a number of walks in the neighborhoods near our apartment. If any animals were sighted during said walks, Levi was sure to chase them.
-My mom sent me an awesome birthday care package filled with delicious cookies and little chocolates and I'm pretty sure we ate all the cookies in like 2 days and I'm not even a little bit upset about that.
-Went back to Provo for Thanksgiving and my birthday! We had such a fun Thanksgiving with family and we celebrated my birthday by purchasing 16 donuts and I ate four of them...for breakfast alone.


December 2015:
-My little brother came home from his mission! He had been in the Orlando, Florida area for two years and it was so awesome to have him home. He came home on the 16th and it was killing me to have to wait like 4 days before seeing him!
-Levi finished his first semester of grad school (while also working full-time, which never ceases to amaze me).
-Star Wars came out so obvi we saw it opening night because Levi is #obsessed.
-spent the Christmas break in California with my entire family! It was for sure the best Christmas break everrrrrr. I've never been more sad to leave. :( but I survived.
-made a pretty awesome music video with my family like we do every year.


January 2016:
-my candy drawer at work was repeatedly attacked by mice and I hated it.
-Levi started his second semester of grad school and decided to take 12 credits (9 credits is full-time!) while continuing to work full time and serve as Young Men's president--I swear he can do it all.
-Levi decided it was time we learn to golf, so we found 3 cheap, used clubs for me (because I'm left-handed and can't share with him) and we've been having fun at the driving range right next to our apartment complex!


February 2016:
-gas prices reached an all-time low at $1.08 here in Oklahoma and I was starting to feel as if I was stealing gas when I filled my tank for $15...
-celebrated Valentine's Day the only way we know how...donuts! And more delicious food. :) And most importantly, remember why we love each other!
-cashed in on one of theeee coolest Christmas presents from my older brother and we went to the Thunder game! It was a once in a lifetime opportunity as we had theeee best seats ever (we could hear Kevin Durant yelling at the ref) and we even splurged and got food there (yum, nachos!) We had SUCH a fun time!


March 2016:
-after much begging and pleading from Levi, I finally made cinnamon rolls for the first time on my own! I still have a lot of work to do before they are as amazing as my mom's or my sister's, but it's a start! (though I have finally mastered making rolls, so I know there is hope for me...)
-Rachel came to town!!!!!! Levi always makes fun of me for how giggly and goofy I get when I'm around Rach or any of my other college friends, but it's just that everything is soooooo funny when they're around! We had THEE best time and now I am convinced that I need all of my closest friends to figure out a way to live on the same street as me for the rest of our lives.
-Levi and I started a round of whole30 which essentially means we're not eating grains, legumes, sugar, or dairy for thirty days. We're currently on day 20 and I cannot wait to be done, but I'm at the point where I have to go all the way and there's no way I'm stopping now.


April 2016:
-paid our taxes and that was kind of the worst.
-getting close to the end of the school semester for Levi and we are SO excited! He'll take one class in the spring and then he'll have the rest of the summer off before he starts his last semester!
-life is wonderful!

That's pretty much it! Except also you should know I really want cookies and pizza right now.

Monday, September 28, 2015

I just feel so baketressy these days.


I know we're coming into fall and yada yada and so generally that's a good enough reason to make any and all these pumpkin. I mean, I know. And I want to. I really do. But it is still almost 90 degrees half the time around here so it's just hard for me to feel like fall, as much as I really, really want to. And so, I have not yet made anything pumpkin. Probably this weekend though the pumpkin baking urge will hit and I will want to make pumpkin bread and pumpkin cookies and pumpkin pancakes and waffles and pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin forever! Because sometimes that's just what you have to do.

Anyway, Levi and I are just living the best life right now. As you may have read in my last post, we try to stay active and not just sit around on the couch all day (though anyone that is a parent is like, so I read that post and actually what you do would be the equivalent of sitting on the couch compared to my life, so nice try but no.) Anyway, we just have a lot of fun and do lots of things that we love. And one thing I love to do is bake. Unfortunately, I often get the baking urge at all the wrong times.

Like a couple weeks ago, we came home from the gym and I realized it was very important that I make cookies RIGHT NOW or I would surely die but then it took me half an hour before I could decide on a recipe so then it was like 9:45 before I even started baking so the cookies came out of the oven, we ate two (or if you're Levi only one because you have self-control) and then went straight to bed. Normally I would sit there and eat 4 or 5, but it just wasn't in the cards at 10:30 at night. Which I guess was maybe a good thing?

I recently asked an old roommate for her bread recipe and she gave it to me and at 8:30 pm on Saturday I finally got around to looking at it and at 9 pm I decided I definitely needed to run to the grocery store to get some wheat flour so that at 9:30 I could start making the bread while Levi watched rugby. Also, turns out the recipe was probably meant for a large family because as I was putting the ingredients in I realized it called for 12 total cups of flour and that probably should have been a clue to half the recipe but a) I'd never made bread before so how was I supposed to know and b) yolo, aight? Eat all the bread! In the end, it probably should have made four loaves of bread but we ended up with 3 massive loaves and gave one to our neighbor and he said it tasted like heaven so it was an overall success if you ask me. But then of course with all the mixing and kneading and waiting for the dough to rise, the last loaf came out at about midnight as I was falling asleep on the couch. Also I lied because I totes didn't actually knead the bread...that's what Kitchen Aids are for. I just wanted you to imagine me covered in flour sweating over my bread dough. #succeedingwithoutkneading

Then yesterday after church we came home and had bread and split one small leftover of mac and cheese before we went on a walk at a nearby park. The weather right now is perfect for a walk. Anyway, we came home around 8 and then since we had mostly just eaten bread for an after church snack, Levi was feeling a little hungry. I told him I could make him something and he said he could just make a quesadilla. But I told him I REALLY felt like making something and I don't even know how it happened but I ended up making a pizza at 9 o'clock at night. Because again, yolo. And also because I'm Stacy and sometimes that's just how my life goes.

Feel free to check in on me tonight at 10 pm because I'll probably be slaving over a streudel or whipping up some bagels or something. Because I'm 25 and it's Monday night so really what else would I be doing?

Here is a small sampling of some other baked goods that have existed in the last six or so months because I know you're interested.






Thursday, September 24, 2015

burgle*


Please don't be a burgle robber* because I'm about to tell you about my weekly routine.

On Sunday, I usually have church meetings starting at 11 am, then I have church from 1-4 pm. I usually try to make a delicious Sunday dinner, and sometimes that's hit and miss haha. A couple weeks ago I made rolls and they were amaaaazing (i.e. I'm pretty sure Levi ate 20 for dinner). The recipe is from Ann Dibb (Pres. Monson's daughter) so they were destined to be delicious. But then another time I made a crockpot meal and it wasn't even cooked all the way when we got home from church so that was fairly depressing.

On Monday, we get home from work, have FHE, then go to the gym. Also, let's talk about how Levi loves to "Welcome everyone to family night" in his best Cecil O. Samuelson voice and I just need you to know that it's eerily perfect. Like, I really think Cecil is there with me. He does the voice that Pres. Samuelson would do when he would welcome everyone to devotional every Tuesday at BYU. And in case you were wondering, "Stacy Heperi, a sociology major from Santa Rosa, California" is often assigned to give the opening prayer.

On Tuesday, Levi has class until 10 pm (oy.) and I go grocery shopping after work. In the summer, I didn't have work on Friday so I went grocery shopping then, but now I go on Tuesday. I tell you that because I've been going grocery shopping alone for a long time now. And here's the thing, I don't mind going grocery shopping alone. In fact, Levi likes to go a lot faster than I do which can be stressful for me, so it's kind of good to just have time to go down every aisle and make sure I have everything (and I usually still forget something, but still haha). The real problem for me is that we live on the back side of the apartment building on the second floor and it's a million degrees and uphill both ways as I'm sure you could guess, so I just hate having to carry all those groceries in. Plus, I always have Levi's mantra "Second trips are for the weak!" going around and around in my head and I don't know. It's hard guys. One day Levi is going to come home to find that I have been crushed to death by all the groceries halfway between the parking lot and our door.


On Wednesday, Levi has class until 7 and then we both have mutual (youth group at church) and then we don't usually get home until 8:45 or 9 pm. We love mutual though because those kids are awesome. Levi and I were both asked to serve in the youth programs when we first moved to Oklahoma and it was especially great back then because then when we would go to ward (church) activities and still didn't know very many people, we could just hang out with the youth haha. We've since made adult friends, but still. Those kids are neat.

On Thursday, Levi doesn't have class! So we both come home, have dinner, and then go to the gym. I used to not be such a fan of the gym, but now I don't even mind it and actually kind of like it. I used to do those classes like zumba but Levi has since convinced me to join him in his weightlifting. One time we were visiting Levi's family and we were eating dinner and Levi was like "Hey, guess how much Stacy can squat." And I was like, uhhh, okay. Haha, anyway he told them and for a while I thought it was so funny how he liked to tell people how much I could squat but then I remembered how horrifically embarrassing it must have been for him when I was first learning how to squat and literally could not even squat the bar without a) whining about it and b) losing my balance and toppling over. I've come a long way, people. So yes, he's allowed to be proud haha.



And then comes Friday! The beginning of the weekend! Once we get off work, it's time to party! Usually we go on a little date or something and then we hang out for the evening, maybe watch a movie or a show or something. Last week was the opening ceremonies of the Rugby World Cup as well as the first game and you guys. The world cup goes from now until Halloween! That's a long time! Which I really don't mind because I like rugby. Except it's confusing watching rugby during football season because I go back and forth between rugby and football and they're similar-ish, but definitely different. So when I'm watching football I'm like "you have to put the ball on the ground to get a touchdown!" or "you can't just smash him with your head like that!" but it turns out you totally can. Because it's football, not rugby. Anyway, we'll be watching a lot of rugby over the next six weeks. Obvi we're cheering for New Zealand, but we have to watch all the games so we can "check out the competition", duh. Also Levi asked me to make a banana cake for the opening ceremonies so I did. He went to cut the first piece and took the entire center section of the cake. Haha, that guy. Also the entire cake was gone in less than 24 hours, but mostly because it somehow qualifies as a breakfast and lunch food as well ;)

And then finally, Saturday. We go play soccer in the morning and then try to do as little as possible for the rest of the day. Usually we have to run errands, but if we can, we like to just watch football/rugby, take a nap, and go hang out outside or with friends or something. It's the best.

Anyway, that's all. I don't know why I felt the need to tell you that, but now you know.

*burgle robber: one time I woke up in the middle of the night and told Levi that I was worried about the front window being open because "burgle robbers" might come get us. I don't even know, it was so weird.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

#BYU50 Box


So, as you may know, Levi and I both graduated from BYU. We love BYU. Sooooo, when I found out that BYU was doing this BYU50 box, it piqued my interested because I love free stuff and BYU, so duh.

So the BYU50 box. What is it, you ask? Well, BYU is really unique in that they have a good sized fan base in every state in the country. You will always see a fan section for BYU at away games because there are fans everywhere. It's definitely one of my favorite things. Anyway, because they have such a fan base they decided to do this thing where in the 50 days leading up to the first football game they drop a box full of BYU gear and prizes at a random location in each state (1 state per day). They then post a picture of the box on twitter and instagram and using the clues in the picture, you can guess where the box is and then race to find it. The thing is people know the box is going to be dropped in their state so they start guessing likely locations where the box will be dropped and started lurking in those areas. Sometimes BYU will give a clue like "It's going to be in the San Francisco area!" so you're not totally and completely winging it.

Anyway, I wanted the box. Not so much for the stuff inside the box, but just for the fun of it. I mean, seriously, BYU fans racing for a box at a random spot? I'm totes in. I was ready to battle it out with other fans (because you would be surprised at how fast the box gets picked up--most of the time, it's within 15-20 minutes and sometimes less than 5! the fans are everywhere!). Anyway, the Oklahoma day was on a Saturday. It was super awesome that it was a Saturday because then we knew we would be free to do a bit of lurking ourselves.

We woke up Saturday morning and I basically checked twitter every 2 minutes (and I don't even use twitter, so that was fun, i.e. embarrassing). We went and played soccer in the morning and then came home and saw a tweet that the box was going to be dropped in the early afternoon. This was nice because it meant we could shower and eat breakfast without being stressed that the box might drop at any minute because we all know I am not above racing for the box with soaking wet and soapy hair haha.

I seriously don't know why I was so excited about it, but we decided we would hang out around the downtown area because we guessed it would be somewhere around there. At first we thought we might hang out at these gardens they have downtown, but then we decided to just drive around town. I mean, they did say they would be dropping in the early afternoon so we wanted to be on the prowl...or something like that. Anyway, as we were driving around we saw a BYU fan lurking around the gardens and by the arena so then we were supes paranoid that maybe there were more!

Anyway, we're driving around when suddenly Levi yells "It dropped! It's at the ballpark!!" So obvi I started j freeeeaking out because I was so excited haha. We were one block north of the park and two blocks west. Soooo close!! I turned to go south (I was the driver and Levi was the "runner") and ended up right behind a bus!! Haha, I wish you could have been there. I was yelling and screaming and bouncing up and down willllling that bus to move faster!! I turned east toward the park and tried to zoom over but we hit a red light!! I was losing it, it was so hilarious. I just wanted to winnnn!! Finally we get close the corner where the box was placed only to see that someone had already claimed it!! Wah wah. Haha, but we still jumped out of the car to see if we could get a consolation prize or something which we totally did. We got 3rd place, but we still got an XL t-shirt that you can see me sporting in the photo above.

All in all, it was so super fun. Levi can attest that I weirdly loved it because I literally talked about how fun it was all day. And I just kept going on and on about how much I love BYU. It was just so much fun to be racing against a bunch of other BYU fans! And I think at the heart of it, I just love celebrating how awesome BYU is. Going to BYU was my dream all growing up and then I finally got to go there and I had theeee best time of my life. There are honestly very few things I love more than BYU and that is zero percent a joke. I received the best education, had the best memories, made some of the greatest friends, and of course, met my husband there. :)

Anyway, this is me sending all the heart-eyed emojis to BYU from all the way out in Oklahoma.

P.S. TWO DAYS until game day!!!
P.P.S. Here's a video that BYU recently posted and I love it. Also I miss BYU, so just a couple teary-eyed emoji's are appropriate here as well.


The BYU Student Experience - with Stacey Harkey
An education "to become different, better people." This brand new video gives a comprehensive look at what it means to be a student at BYU.
Posted by BYU (Brigham Young University) on Saturday, August 29, 2015

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

it would appear that levi is in pretty much every picture these days.


So good news, Levi likes to build things. One night after FHE he wanted to go to Home Depot which is pretty much his favorite store in the world. It's like if I went to Daylight Donuts or Target or something. I mean, seriously. He loves it. He could go there every day.

Levi is also super into fixing our cars on his own. Which is actually pretty amazing. Saved us a tonnnn (and I mean a TON of money) fixing one of our cars a couple months ago. Had a super sore back after being bent over the car for 9 hours, but still. A TON of money. And we drove the car to Utah and back the week after he fixed it. Oh yeah!

Also, Levi likes to build things and so does Mitchell. Somehow Levi convinced Mitchell to buy a table saw (Mitchell says he wanted it, but I'm still a little worried that Levi may have pulled out some of his bullying tactics from his playground days to get Mitchell to buy it...) Anyway, Levi designed a guitar pedal board and that was their first project on the new table saw. It turned out pretty awesome. Since then they have also built these really cool shelves for me and Heather. They hung ours in our living room recently and I'm so obsessed with it (I'll have to post a picture of it soon!). Seriously, in just the past couple weeks, we've moved our bookshelf out to the living room, someone gave us a couch for free and we hung that shelf. It's really starting to feel like a living room now that we have more than just the 1 1/2-man couch (though we are so grateful for that little couch as well--we've been very cozy in it for the past year!). But now that we have two free couches we can actually have friends over! It's the best.

So now that the worst of the heat is upon us here in Oklahoma, the daily grilling has begun. Also, fun fact: we didn't turn on our A/C until June 4th this year. And if you live in Oklahoma, you know that is a big deal. So, our apartment would be pretty dang hot until like 10 pm, but usually in the evenings we have mutual or we go to the gym or we go to our friends' house. I will admit, I didn't love sweating like crazy in our apartment when it got up to 85 or 86 degrees, but it was probably worth it. We still set it at 78 degrees (#pennypinchers) but hey! I don't want to pay that much money for cold air! Anyway, thank you to Levi who lived without complaining as I slowly melted away without A/C. But even still, we had to buy a little grill so we wouldn't have to heat up the oven or stove or anything. It's the best.

In other news, Levi and Mitchell found a turtle (this was the day Levi was fixing the car--hence the nasty hands and old work clothes).

Also, apparently there is a chair at OU where Levi works that the queen sat in once. So apparently now Levi sits in the queen's chair. ID even K, people. It's Levi. Also, yes he wears shorts and workout socks to his professional job. #summersatuniversities

Utah-apalooza!

To go whitewater rafting on some rivers, you have to apply for a permit. Sometimes you have to enter a lottery and then only some people get a permit. Soooo, my family wanted to go rafting. So we all entered the lottery and guess who won?! This girl!! Oh yeah! The chances were crazy slim, but I worked my magic and luck was mine! So captain Stacy was in charge of the trip! Actually, what really happened was that my dad and mom and uncle and aunt basically got everything ready and I just showed up with the permit. I texted my family a picture of the permit to confirm that we really did have it in the car as we headed out on our long, long drive.

We had such a magical time on the trip except for a little hiccup at the beginning. So, the one thing that I was required to do was talk with the ranger for every little thing. He had to go over all the rules and requirements with me to ensure that we were doing everything right. So I'm going over this stuff with him and I'm like, umm, I have no idea if we have a z-line kit or 50 billion life jackets or where the first aid kit is? I was like, um, can we just wait until we have the boats all set up and then my dad can tell you if we have everything? He was like, yeah that's fine, just come and get me. Fortunately, before I convinced him to stop going over the list, I had heard a couple things. One of the things he said was that we had to have 5 extra life jackets (one for each boat). So later while they were still setting up, I casually asked my uncle how many extra life jackets we had and he said we had two. I told him what the ranger had said (not expecting it to be a big deal) and then people started to get concerned. Five extra life jackets?! We've never had to do that before! Anyway, we go talk to the ranger and he confirmed that yes, you have to have 5 extra ones and there are no exceptions and the closest place to buy new life jackets was THREE HOURS AWAY, six hours round trip. It was so sad and it was set to ruin the day and potentially the trip.

So we go back to where everyone is setting up and we explain the situation and RANDOMLY the other group that was also setting up just so happened to have tons of extra life jackets and offered to let us use them. Talk about a huge blessing! As it turns out, they had actually forgotten something that they had to have and so they had to drive the six hour round trip to get the stuff. If that hadn't happened, they would have been long gone by the time we realized our huge problem. So it was a bummer for them, but a huuuuuuuge supersized blessing for us.

We were then able to start our trip on time and had just the best time. It was so fun to spend a week with my family out on the river. And even though it was still super hot at night, it was still such a blast and so beautiful! Plus, it was Levi's first trip and homeboy looks good on the river. Please note his mega short shorts in the picture above (they're somewhat hidden by the backpack he's carrying, but they're there). Plus, he got way mega tan.

Oh, and I forgot to mention; we were able to stay with Levi's family the weekend before the trip and as luck would have it we got to Utah the day before good ol' Rachy face and her family left Utah (back to South Carolina). It was so awesome to get to hang out with her and Kenneth and her two adorrrrrrable little boys. It was awesome because little Kenny loved Levi and convinced him to play with him the whole time. Although things got slightly out of hand when Levi convinced Kenny to crawl through the cat door. Haha, but seriously I was so stoked to see Rach. You should seriously consider going through the "Rachel" tag on my blog because there are some quality gems in there...one of my favorites being this one when she thought she was doing a "polishing" service project. Literally, I die.

And then finally, the picture of breakfast. Free continental breakfasts at hotels are what I live for. Truly the best. Bagels, donuts, ham, golden. Best start to the last leg of our trip home.

And last but not least, 4th of July shenanigans. Basically we spent the whole weekend with the Walsers because that's what we do. The 3rd of July included an awesome trip to Lowe's to buy wood (this was the day they built the shelves!) and then to the Walser's house to build the shelves...or if you're me and Heather it was the time to make homemade oreos because duh. Later we grilled and then we did fireworks! Mitchell and Levi looooooove fireworks, but were so kind as to buy some sparklers and "tro-its" (I think most people call them pop-its?) for Heather and me.

Then the next day we went to a friend's house to have another BBQ and more fireworks and of course, for Levi to sit on the children's toy horse. Obvi. We ended the night by watching the town firework show from the roof!

I love America.

And that's a wrap.


Thursday, July 9, 2015

no but really. what is even happening right now?

Soooo...I wrote this post two months ago but then never posted it. Why? I have no idea. But I went to blog today and I found this in my drafts. My apologies. So basically this only catches you up to about the middle of May. Also, for once in my life there might be more pictures that words. So basically you won't drown in the paragraphs on nonsense as you look for the next picture. Celebrate the little things, I guess. Pffffft.

Things that have happened during my long absence:
 


+ went home to CA for the long weekend to celebrate my sister's bridal shower and so everyone could meet her fiance and to celebrate Valentine's day and mostly to eat chocolate covered strawberries.

+ chaperoned a youth dance. Levi said if one of the kids thought I was a teenager and asked me to dance, he would take me out to ice cream. Turns out Levi is the youngster because some girl asked him to dance! What the heck? Also, we didn't get any ice cream.

+ spent fifty billion years trying to find a dress for my sister's wedding. Finally found one! 


+ went to the medieval fair here in town. Medieval-ness is wild, for sure. But I did get to eat a turkey leg and part of levi's navajo taco and we also go to launch marshmallows off of mini catapults and saw a lot of interesting outfits and also I got a sunburn.

+ had our huge work event and didn't die from it.

+ made banana bread, but I think I want to try a different recipe for it now...one that is a little more moist.

+ had Levi's little brother in town! went to some of our favorite places: KD's restaurant, a Thunder game, guitar store, raising cane's, dick's sporting goods, etc. It was super fun!

+ levi got a new guitar! many thanks to his mom and grandma for it. he seriously loves it and plays it evvvvvery day (and sometimes tries to get out of doing the dishes by sneaking off to play...)



+ storm season started and we had a couple small tornadoes and a lot of thunderstorms. we've even had to get in the storm shelter once (and we took a #shelterselfie!). also, I really hate flash flooding. maybe you've been reading about the flooding in houston right now? (...oops. like I said, I wrote this two months ago haha) stuff like that is the worst to me. levi's car got flooded one night and it was the worst. and it's really scary. turn around, don't drown!


+ went out to provo for BYU graduation! we're so proud of lauren for graduating and we're excited to see where life takes her next! also, it's always good to go to our favorite food places in provo!




+ we went straight from provo to california for my sister's wedding! It was super fun and I just love love love being with my family. It always goes by too quickly, but I'll admit: I'm glad to be done with weddings for a while haha.

+ came back to oklahoma and we've had even more storms. it's been a really wet may! I don't mind the storms just as long as I'm in the safety of my own home. but you guys, driving in it is the pits, yo. also, the sky gets such weird color during the tornado-y storms. the pic above was taken at like 10 pm and it was way more yellow-y and weird than you can see here...


+ celebrated our anniversary!! I can't believe how quickly a year has flown by! the day started with me having to go clean the church (ha!) but then I came home to find flowers and donuts and my favorite juice waiting for me in bed with my favorite guy in the world! please note levi hiding under the covers (for modesty!).  it was such a fun day of hanging out together, reminiscing on all the incredible (and some less incredible) events that have transpired over the last year. we ended the evening with dinner on the 49th floor of the tallest building in town. It was amazing! It was almost cancelled due to--surprise!--a thunderstorm, but fortunately it wasn't. In fact, we ended up having an awesome "light show" (i.e. tons of lighting) while we ate our dinner. It was awesome. (Suuuuper crappy anniversary pic...really not sure what the guy was doing but it was so blurry and dark that I had to like edit it all weird (and I have no idea how to edit btdubs) but it's the best we have haha)

+ and then just this last weekend (lies. two months ago) was really fun. We had the long weekend and on Saturday we went up to Penn Square mall to redeem my reward for winning my family's March Madness bracket (1 pound of See's Candy!). Of course, as we were ready to leave, the flash floods were starting. Because of where we were parked, the water was deeper (probs 4 or 5 inches) so we wanted to get out of there before the water got to the engine! It continued to pour rain, but we made it home safely and spent the evening in our sweats and eating the chocolate!

+ and there you have it. The last three months in a nutshell. Out.


Thursday, February 12, 2015

let's! go! fly a kite!


up! to! the hiiiiiighest height!

So, be honest with me. Have you ever been able to successfully fly a kite for more than 30 seconds at a time? I mean, where in the world is it windy enough for long enough so you can fly a kite? I mean, serious questions people.

Well, I have the answer for you. Oklahoma! You know, like in the song? "Oooooklahoma where the winds come sweepin' down the plains!" Duhhhhhh, right? And that lyric is truer than true around here. It is windy all day, every day. You get used to it though. I mean, it's not always going 50 mph, but probably at least half of the time it actually is going that fast. It'll freeze your little face off if you're not careful.

*side note: a couple lines later in that Oklahoma song, it says "ev'ry night my honey lamb and I, every night, we sit alone and talk and watch a lazy hawk makin lazy circles in the sky." What the? For those of you that were curious, Levi and I have not yet had the chance to watch lazy hawks make circles in the sky. But also for those of you who were curious, I definitely refer to Levi as my honey lamb.

Okay, so anyway. Since it's always windy and this last weekend was supposed to be upwards of 70 degrees around these parts (yes, winter is hard...jokes), I thought hey! Why not go fly a kite?! Levi had to work at some graduate student orientation yada yada on Saturday, so I was put in charge of grocery shopping and other errands (let's not talk about how I had to go to Office Depot three times. I'm so tired of that store). Whilst shopping for the groceries, I was like, hey! Since I'm at Walmart I will buy some kites! (and I'm at Walmart because there are like zero regular grocery store within a 20-stoplight radius of our apartment--seriously, I already have to go through like 5 to get to Walmart and it's literally like a 1/4 mile away).

I went back to the toy section and the kind employee directed me to the only kites in the store (not many options, because it's still winter...sort of). Anyway, they had Cinderella and Barbie. Obvi I took one of each (at $1.37, the price couldn't be beat!). One for Levi, one for me. When Levi came home from work I told him I had a surprise and I showed him the kites. Originally he picked the Cinderella one but then he decided that Barbie had better hair, so he made a trade. As my friend Danielle pointed out, this probably means I should stop doing my Cinderella hairdo's and starting perfecting the Barbie wave if I want to impress this guy.

So we went to the local high school and flew our kites. I have this terrible memory of flying my older brother's homemade kite when he was in cub scouts or something and I accidentally let go of it and it got stuck in some trees and I ruined the day. I also remembering being significantly more upset about it than anyone else was (including my brother), but still. Traumatizing.

But out on the open field where the wind was a-blowin' and Cinderella's face was a-smilin', we had a grand old time. Seriously, it was so fun! There was plenty of wind to keep the kites afloat and the activity easily entertained us for an hour. Levi found some giant tower to climb on (he said it was where they film sports from?) and we also figured that we could put the handles in our pockets or attached to our shoes and they would still continue to float while we sat down and just stared at our kites haha. It was really such a great afternoon. So for all you fools that want to fly a kite, come visit us! You can choose Cinderella or Barbie.

Now pictures!