Thanksgiving break!

Oh yeah, it's Monday after Thanksgiving and i'm already on top of posting about it!

Hold your applause!

Our Thanksgiving was so fun and much needed! We drove the 8 hours back to Richfield Utah and Evie did AMAZING in the car! She watched movies on the iPad, sang (I assume) songs, ate snacks, played with her socks and slept. Thanks heavens. Our families both have roots in Richfield so we got to see Brandons family and my family this week! It worked out perfect! Now before I get into pictures i'd like to apologize for my photo quality ha ha ha. I decided last minute not to bring my Nikon and just bring our little point and shoot that has been dropped and sucked on one too many times by a certain 1 year old. So my photos are sub par and it bugs me ha ha ha. Enjoy.

Me and my little sisters! 

Kaili is about 23 weeks along now! Can't wait! Thats my very FIRST nephew in there! 

(even though you can barely tell she's pregnant)

We ate SO MUCH FOOD! Kaili brought some of that cookie pudding stuff and I'm pretty sure I took 3rds of it. Homemade rolls, turkey, mashed potatoes! YUM!

While we were in Richfield we stayed at Brandons Aunt Holly's house and she has the "dream backyard" for any kid. Evangeline was literally in HEAVEN! I think she spent 6 hours outside on Thanksgiving Day! She convinced everyone at least once to take her on the swings, the playground or the tramp!

.It was pure bliss.

 After thanksgiving B passed out on the floor so Evie thought she'd help out with that

That night we watched The Avengers and my family got to town! After the movie a few of us brave souls took off to Walmart for some Black Friday craziness. It was my very first time doing black friday and I figured since I'm in a small town i'd try it out this year. We got to Walmart, looked at the line at the check out, wandered around for 30 minutes and left ha ha ha ha Huge failure but it was fun. 

The next day the Valantines packed up and we moved over to my Grandpa's house in Elsinore to hang out with my family! Yahoo! We hit up all you can eat french toast at the Ideal Dairy and then did some Christmas shopping at my favorite shopping spot, Christensen's!  After we blew our Christmas budgets we took the 4 wheelers out for the rest of the day! 

 Evie thought she was gonna drive all morning while we were getting the bikes out and started up ha ha ha. Evie ADORES her uncle Jared, it is just hilarious to watch her with him, she goes nuts and just squeals at him all day!

Evie would NOT go down for a nap, we wanted to get out on the bikes but she was being so stubborn! Then my mom remembered that Jared used to pass out on the 4 wheelers so we thought we'd see if Evie would be the same way and viola! 

.worked like a charm.

We took the wagon and went and saw farm animals, Evie of course loved that! 

The week went fast and we were sad to go but we are glad to be home ...

okay we're glad to have Evie in her crib 2 rooms away from us again lol 

No offense to Thanksgiving but LET CHRISTMAS BEGIN!!

We've been non stop watching Christmas movies and my Glee Christmas playlist is on repeat! 

I put our tree up and a Christmas miracle has happened! 

Evie BARELY touches the tree!!

I thought she'd tear it down on day one! She will come up and touch one ornament 

(one I got from the dollar store and intentionally put right at Evie eye level on the front) 

then after she looks at it for a second she just moves on to other things!

.amazing. 

Merry Christmas to All!

Halloween!

Halloween this year was a BLAST! We have the funnest friends out here in the Mile High City! For Halloween this year we decided to have a big halloween party and EVERYONE had to dress up for it! It was so fun to see everyones fun costumes! Our costume was Evie inspired. Brandons little brother Cary taught her this move we have come to call The Hulk! She's squeezes her fists together as TIGHT as she can and then makes a hilarious grunting noise until her face goes purple! HA HA HA HA It kills us! We love it!! 

So while trying to come up with a costume for our family we decided on The Avengers JUST so Evie could be The Incredible Hulk! (well... a more girly cute version of him)

 Evie was the Hulk, I decided to be Black Widow and Brandon couldn't decide for a while who he wanted to be. He either wanted to be Tony Stark (not Iron Man, Tony Stark), Captain America, or Thor but only Thor during the part where he has just his jeans on and no shirt ha ha ha ha!  

.Luckily we finally landed on Captain America.

We wanted to take Evie Trick or Treating this year and B's school was doing a Trick or Treat day at the school so we decided to do that!
Evie LOVED IT!!!

A lot of the husbands got let out early from classes and got to meet up with their kids and go trick or treating. Evie was HILARIOUS! The first 3 stops took us around 3 minutes each because when someone would put a piece of candy into her bucket Evie would put her face into her bucket and just SQUEAAAAAL with joy about it! 

HA HA HA 

She would FREAK OUT for a few minutes and then we could move on to the next stop and do the entire thing over again! 

.Too funny.

Heres our friend group out Trick or Treating with the kiddos!

After Trick or Treating we met up for a Halloween party!

It was so fun! We had games and sugar cookie decorating, halloween music, good food and lots of awesome costumes!

Boxers and a Fairy                                                                       Mustard Ketchup and a Hotdog

African Safari Tourists                                                 A Sailor, Captain, and Mermaid

The Flinstones                                                                       Captain America

I LOVE that I married a man who will dress up like a super hero and run around with little kids :)

 B did awesome in his event, he had to hang a jar lid from a rope around his waist and drop it on to a soda bottle!

.Group Shot.

Kori and Lidia enjoying some sugar cookies

Evies first Halloween was AWESOME!

I can't wait for a lot more fun years of Trick or Treating to come!

Ma Belle Evangeline

I used to do a month to month update of Evie until she turned 1 and then stopped. She has been growing and changing so much that I decided I'd do another one for my own benefit and for my family that now live so far away from me and don't get to see her very much.

Evangeline is 15 months old now! She may only be 15 months old but you'd think she was a 2 year old. She is SUCH a toddler! Evie is the most adventurous little girl I've ever met! Nothing scares her! Her best bud at our apartment complex is a 8 month old, 100 pound, Alaskan Husky that knocks her to the ground licks her face and she LOVES IT! She looks forward to seeing this dog EVERY DAY!

She has no fear of water or running out in the street (which I love)

She is shy at first and then gets super chatty once she knows you.

She climbs on the table EVERY chance she gets and empties out my cabinets 20 times a day.

She's beyond happy if you take her outside and LOVES animals.

She insists on going down the BIGGEST slide at the playground all by herself and always chooses to play with older kids. She will do stairs until her shoes wear out if you let her. 

Oh, she has the BIGGEST feet ever! She is already in a size 6! (she gets that from mom)

She's currently addicted to Tangled, Princess and the Frog and Curious George.

Thank goodness too because Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was making me insane! 

She pushes all my pillows off my sofa every day no matter how many times I tell her not to.

She think's it's funny when I tell her "No!"

The only way I can get it across to her that I mean business is to sneak up on her, smack my hands together and yell NO!!! Like, scare her to DEATH!! It seems like abuse but she finally stops, but no worries, she still laughs at me...  

She likes to velcro her own shoes when it's time to go.

If you say the word "go" and you are not standing on the front porch in the next 3 minutes you'll have a major meltdown on your hands.

She still only says "mom" "dad" & "Uh-oh"

Every time I try to take her picture she tries to put my lens cap back on my camera so all my pictures look like this..

Every time she gets hurt (no matter to what degree) she takes about 5 seconds to recover and then wants to be put down again. She loves to get tangled up in the blinds, especially if we've just told her NOT to get tangled up in the blinds. Her hair is super curly (like her daddys) which I love, but it gets fluffed into an afro as soon as she gets in her carseat so no one ever gets to see it. Her hair is finally long enough for pig tails and they KILL me every time! She loves to clap! She'll clap and won't stop until everyone in the room has joined in too. She claps between every bite at lunch and whenever a song plays. She is constantly hiding in my closet and is not trust worthy in the bathroom. 

She climbs on EVERYTHING! 

I can't get her to eat anything right now. She only eats bananas and peaches. Makes me crazy.

She's such a blast

I can't get enough of her firey personality!

She's a handful, and makes me nuts, but she's my sunshine :) 

xo, Meg

Whimpy Salsa

I made some of my "Whimpy Salsa" the other day and I've had a flash flood of people asking me for the recipe so instead of re writing it 20 times I thought I'd just make a blog post out of it.  I love salsa but I am a major baby when it comes to anything spicy! (like, too much Ketchup is spicy for me) 

I found a recipe on Pinterest, it was a cilantro lime chicken recipe with tomatoes on the top, I made it for dinner one night and it was really good but I made WAY too much of the tomato topping and didn't want to waste it! 

So I thought, 

"hmm I BET I could turn this into salsa!

So added my own stuff and VIOLA! Wimpy Salsa was born! 

It's more of a zesty-lime-vegetarian-salsa so don't feel bad about eating 2 bottles of it in one sitting

.i don't.

So first off sorry about the bad instructions

I didn't major in fractions so I never use measuring cups if I can get away with it lol

My recipe makes about 7 cups of salsa so I'll let you do the math if you want more or less than that :)

Here are the ingredients

1 White Onion

8 (ish) Scallions (Green Onions)

3 Big Tomatoes

2 Cans of Corn

Cilantro 

Salt & Pepper

Olive Oil

Sugar

Lime Juice 

Dice up the green onions, white onions and tomatoes into small chunks. Pour the corn (no water) and diced veggies into a large bowl. Stir. Add 3.5 table spoons of lemon juice, you can add more or less if you like, just keep tasting it as you go. Stir. Pour on olive oil, i'm not sure how much I actually use, I just cover the top and then mix it all in. If I HAD to estimate I bet it would be around 3/4's a cup. Just make sure the mix has a light coat, don't drown it and you'll be fine. Stir. Finely chop up the cilantro, I always use 1/2 to 3/4's of the bundle but this is another ingredient you add as much or as little as you like. 

(This is dumb but I add just enough to make the salsa look pretty and then call it good ha ha ha.) 

Add to mix and stir.

Next step is the MVP of this recipe! THE SUGAR!! I put about 3.5 table spoons of sugar in, especially if my tomatoes aren't perfectly ripe. Add to mix and stir. This is another ingredient you can add more or less of if you like. 

Last, salt and pepper to taste!

I put mine in jars so they stay fresh and I can easily take them over to peoples house.

GREAT neighborhood gift at Christmas and everyone LOVES this stuff! 

Enjoy!

Xo, Meg

Patmos Greece

Today was an AWESOME day for our trip! Mine and Nat's husbands are big motorcycle guys and they both had to sell their bikes when they got married 

.I'm now wearing Brandons Harley on my finger :).

So since we feel bad about that we try to do at least one day on every trip on some sort of bike.

Since Patmos is such a small Greek island we decided today was a great day to rent some Vespas!

We woke up just off shore of the Island for an AMAZING view at breakfast and then headed for the tender boats!

We hit up a little scooter shop right off the dock and got the day started early

Here's Joe checkin' out the selection

Jareds wishful thinking of driving his own scooter instead of riding in the car with Mom and Dad and Evie lol 

.Sorry Jay.

. and of course Evie running laps around everyone and winning over the hearts of the natives .

 We drove around to a few beaches and saw most of the Island and then worked our way up the mountain to a really holy site for most churches.

 On the Isle of Patmos there is a grotto at the top of the mountain where it was said that John received the inspiration to write the Book of Revelations. Inside the Grotto was really cool, you couldn't take pictures but they had places in the rock plated in gold where John had supposedly laid his head or nelt to pray. 

  .the Grotto is the domed building on the right.

After that we climbed the mountain a little higher and visited a really beautiful Monastery!

(again, couldn't take pics inside but it was amazing how much detail these people put in their work inside)

These 2 pictures pretty much describe my entire trip with a one year old...

. I tripped over her so many times i'm surprised she lived!.

 After the Monastary we headed back down the mountain to the beach and Jared finally got his ride on the vespa :)

 The beach was great! 

Evie loves to play in the shallow part but, being the Miss Priss that she is with mud, she hated the rocky sand in the shallow end and insisted on being held for the rest of the afternoon.

 We ate lunch right on the beach and then got back on the ship.

That night we went to a "Cinematastic" show on the boat and Evie danced and clapped and spun circles through the entire thing until she crashed ha ha ha

My next blog is on an AMAZING day in Kusadasi Turkey!! 

There are no words to describe this place!

p.s Sorry I don't post a ton of my "photography" from this trip on my family blog. I kind of save the majority of those for posts on my photography blog. I'll be sure to send links when I post those though!

xo, Meg

ATHENS!

I'm so sorry it's been weeks since I promised to post my Athens day. Athens is always one of my favorite days. The history here is amazing! Well, we flew from London to Athens in the middle of the night and when we got to our hotel they messed up our reservations and had no where for us to sleep! So we had to walk down some sketchy roads in the middle of Athens at 3 a.m until we came to our next hotel. It was pretty scary but we were exhausted and ready for a bed, no matter what condition it was in lol. 

We started out the day at the "grocery store" to buy diapers and wipes :) After diapers we went to this really good Gyro restaurant and got some lunch, then we started the trek up the mountain to the Acropolis! 

The Acropolis is incredible! It's just crazy how old this history up here is! The Acropolis includes the Parthenon, the Temple of Erechtheum, a few major amphitheaters, and lots of other ancient sites.

Evangeline loved climbing around on all the rocks, walls, and crumbled pillars on the mountain.

It was SO hot today! (not to be our hottest day) but when your up that high and there is NO SHADE you get pretty sweaty lol

(sorry for the visual)

Once we came down off the Acropolis we went to the Acropolis Museum where they keep all of the artifacts they've found on the property. It was pretty amazing to see what has kept for so long! We spent a couple of hours there.

 After that we went to the temple of Zeus and the Olympic Oval 

(Evie was asleep so I stayed in the car)

Then we RUSHED back to the hotel and got our stuff and loaded it into 2 VERY small taxi's ha ha ha ha Luckily my dad is the bungee chord master and got us all put together and tied down tight 

Before we left I got a statue of my FAVORITE statue! (that sounds funny)

It's the Nike of Samothrace, she's the daughter of Titan.
The statue was made around 200 BC and was made to celebrate a battle at sea.
It's currently in the Louvre but the Greeks are really proud of this piece.
I got one and I love having on my shelf :)

 I would like to give Photo credit to my lovely sister Natalie. I didn't bring my camera today so all these pictures were taken by her :) THANKS NAT! xo

Next Blog will be Patmos Greece!

Camping, POH, Rocks, Tubs, Splash Pads and more!

I Don't know why everyone has been telling me 

"medical school is hard for the students but it's even harder for their wives!"!?

 I've been having a BLAST SO FAR!! 

There are so many fun and free things to do all over Colorado and I have made so many amazing friends already! 

i'm thinking these next fews years may be easier than I was dreading!

When I first moved here I got called by another first year wife asking if I wanted to bring Evie and go to the beach with her and some other first year wives, I went and it's been a party ever since! We have girls nights, play dates, book club, morning walks, and more on a weekly basis! I've been more social in the last 2 months than I have in the last 3 years! and Evie and I are LOVING it!! So, because we are doing SO much here this post is a MASS overload of pictures from our first few weeks in Denver! 

I'm sorry to say though, since I have SO MUCH in this post already I'm going to put off Athens for another couple days. Sorry those who were waiting to hear about Greece!

So one of my FAVORITE things about Denver are their FREE splash pads!! They have one thats right by our house and it's the most legit splash pad i've ever seen and Evie is FEARLESS when it comes to these things!! In the pic below, this is her first 10 seconds at her first splash pad EVER! I didn't even have her sunscreen on her yet and she took off head on into this spiral water shooter!! 

.the 2 pictures below that one are 10 seconds after the first picture was taken ha ha ha. 

wild woman! I love it!

This is Ambry and Kori with their babies! They are champion mamma's and i love them!

This is the public splash pad

We went with Evies friends Halie and Cameron

 Cameron kept drinking the fountain ha ha ha ha He is too funny!

Evie and him have this hilarious love hate relationship going on.

They are the closest in age and Cameron is quiet the ladies man ;) 

and Evie isn't quiet sure how to deal with him

(heres an example of that..) 

----------------------------------------------------------

Since Brandon and I were in Egypt on our anniversary we didn't REALLY get to celebrate it "just the two of us" so we decided to have a "Fake-Aversary" one month later on August 18th!

Since it was B's year to plan the event he surprised me and took me to the parade of homes!!

. I love this man.

(p.s Parade of Homes is FREE in Colorado!... yes FREE!!!)

My favorite house had this AMAZING 3 story court yard in the middle of the floor plan! Every patio had an amazing dining room or a beautiful hammock and the BEST part... there was an art studio attached to the house with a private balcony out into to court yard above a lions head fountain...

. I was in love. 

It reminded me of this place we stayed at in Rome, I took a million pictures of it and I took even more at this house! I came home and drew out the floor pan as best I could remember because I WILL build this house for B and I someday, and I can no longer accept anything less than a private balcony into Rome off my art studio ha ha ha ha 

----------------------------------------------------------

Now for the best part!

The Doctors had their first final and it was on a friday!

Which means NO BOOKS, NO ASSIGNMENTS, NO TESTS, NO NOTHING ALL WEEKEND!!

So, we wives took that opportunity for a much needed camping trip!

We decided since none of our babies had been camping yet it would be good to take them all together so we can all help each other out (much better than going with a bunch of "single couples" and trying to manage a baby)

Well.... our trip was... an experience ha ha ha

We got to our camp ground and about 3 minutes into setting up our tents it started to DOWNPOUR!! 

and I mean DOWNPOUR! We're talking, hail, wind, the whole thing!

All the girls grabbed the babies and headed for the cars while the boys faced the storm and finished up the tents

Me and E hung out for a while in the car

took pics

ate Pringles

try to lick the rain off the window...

Once the rain stopped we came back to the camp site to 3 soaking wet men

After that, camping and babies was CRAZY!

The entire site was flooded and we have water babies!

We had to follow babies around all afternoon and give them the 

"nooooo... we don't play in puddles.." talk

and then face the "BAAAHHH NO PUDDLES" melt downs afterwards

.so fun. 

we had babies sitting in puddles, falling in the mud, picking up mud balls and of course...

playing in puddles

so after  cleaning off outfits with wet whipes and water and making a few "drying trips" to the bathroom hand dryers

we decided to just hang out in tents for the next little bit...

 

After the ground dried up and we decided to be brave and let the babies out Evie went into outdoor adventure mode! 

She kept wandering off into the woods on random trails!

Sometimes she wouldn't even find a trail! She'd just start trekking through the woods!!

She even convinced Cameron to come on a few off road adventures

Once it was dry enough we tried to start a fire...

that was a joke..

Firewood up here cost us an arm and a leg so we only bought enough to make dinner and squeeze in a smore or two!

I'm obsessed with Halies little reindeer outfit! ha ha ha

Since we had no fire to sit around we all hung out in our tent and played games till late which was a blast! It was so nice to see our husbands so relaxed and worry free for a few hours.

That night it blew like hurricane Katrina

and of course E slept like a rock through the entire night!

In the morning we had a nice.... smokey.... breakfast and sat around the last bit of our sad fire until it died out. Then we decided to pack up and head on home

It was a little chaotic but it was SO fun to get out into the woods for a night!

----------------------------------------------------------

So here is an update on our stinker Evie

She's 14 months now and in FULL SWING toddler mode!

She was a handful when she learned to walk but now it's almost impossible!

She is so independent and smart she just makes me crazy

when she's walking away from me and I say "Evie... you come back here please..."

she won't turn and look at me she'll just freeze in her steps for a few minutes until I forget to look at her again and then she takes off again!

She thinks when I say "NO!" it's funny...

I have no disciplinary handle at all on her because she thinks i'm just playing with her!

I have a lamp on the arm of the sofa and she'll go smack it! So i'll pull her down and give her a big, firm, "EVIE NO NO! We DON'T smack moms lamp!" and she'll just give me her big cheese burger smile and climb back up and smack it again!!! 

She just knows how to push my buttons and will do anything to do so!

I think my only option at this point is boot camp ... or boarding school...

The other thing we're doing now is REFUSING to get out of the tub!

She will freeze to death for 10 minutes in an empty tub rather than get out when I ask her to!

... freakin' stinker...

There are rock pits surrounding our apartments and EVERY time we go in or out of the house we MUST stop and pick up 2 rocks and take them with us...

So I have a PILE of rocks in my car and in my house...

. yup.

So instead of making her put them back right then and having an ear splitting scream come my way I just let her bring them along and throw them out every 3 or 4 days.

.sigh. 

well congratulations! you've finally made it to the end of this never ending post :) 

glad you came, glad you stayed!

Next blog will be Greece I promise!!