We're going to the Capitol

Yesterday I received word that our request for a special tour of the US Capitol went through! Yippee. Both Bran and I are so excited. We are still crossing our finger (and toes) that we'll be able to get a tour of the White House, but we won't have confirmation until April. Oh Happy Day!

Does being tagged twice mean I've very nice?

Haha, so I got tagged again. So, once again here is more info about me....

#1 Link to the person who tagged you: http://skeltdfamily.blogspot.com/
#2 Share seven random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.

Random facts:

1. Last night I was so darn tired that I went to bed at 8pm. It felt so good!
2. I cannot stand to have food in my braces. I brush at least three times a day.
3. I color code the clothes in my closet.
4. I told Brandon I didn't have time to read a book, but we picked one up at the library anyway. I'm now on page 330.
5. I have two scars on my lip from being dropped when I was a toddler. The scars were made from my teeth going through my lip.
6. I graduated from BYU and hated my entire time there. Very abnormal but very true.
7. Without my contacts in or my glasses on, I am as blind as a bat.

Laughter is good medicine - thanks Dr. Porter!

-------------> Steven (far left) with his groupies
	Brandon’s cousin Steven loves improv comedy. He and a group of buddies get together and have shows occasionally. He had one this past Saturday and Brandon and I went to it. We both laughed so hard. The photo at the left is Steve with his dog Fifi! I laugh so hard whenever I think of this impression. Hahaha. You were great Steven!

My turn to be tagged

I was tagged by two people this week, so here are my answers.

All about me and my hubby

1. What is his name? Brandon David Thomas
2. How long have you been married? 1 year 11 months 1 week and 1 day
3. How long did you date? We dated for 16 months and were engaged for 3.5 months. Most awesome fact about our wedding - we were married on St. Patrick's Day.
4. Who eats more sweets? Completly Brandon. He can't go to bed without having his 'bit of chocolate'.
5. Who said I love you first? As I recall, I said it first.
6. Who is taller? Brandon by 2 inches.
7. Who can sing better? Neither one of us sing well.
8. Who is smarter? Brandon - he totally rules in this department. I don't know anyone smarter then he is.
9. Who does the laundry? Always me because if I let him do it my clothes don't stay color coded in the closet.
10. Who pays the bills? Brandon takes care of all the bills, but I'm constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure I know how to do them just in case anything should ever happen to him.
11. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Always been Brandon. Not sure the logic behind this choice - just happened that way.
12. Who cooks dinner? Always me.
13. Who drives? Always Brandon - I don't enjoy driving.
14. Who is more stubborn? Not sure about this one. Guess you'll have to ask our families.
15. Who kissed who first? Brandon kissed me first. It must have been really scary because it took him 8 months to do it (yes, my hubby was very slow)
16. Who asked who out first? Bran was totally first - I'd never even considered him until he gave me that first call.
17. Who proposed? Well, we had talked about it quite a bit for several months. Then on Christmas Day he finally popped the questions. I was totally not expecting it, but was totally happy. Sweetie - you have ROCKED my world since that day!
18. Who wears the pants? Brandon, and he does an excellent job of it.

It's finally finished - Hurrah!

Last night I finally sewed the last seam on my new little tote. Here it is for all the world to see. My favorite part is that it's reversible. Gotta love that. The fabric I used on the inside came from a table cloth my sister and I had when we lived in our apartment together. Do you remember Lisa? The part that amazes me the most is that I created the whole thing up in my mind. I am still shocked that it turned out better then I envisioned!

Good friends are SO awesome!

Last night I had a ton of fun with these three awesome ladies from my old ward. We had a total blast at Chuck-A-Rama getting caught up with each others lives. It had been almost a year since I've seen most of them. We chatted away for 3 hours. Thank you Sariah, Megumi, and Lisel for sharing your evening. You girls ROCK!

Happy V-Day

This year I decorated Brandon's cubical at work. I think it turned out pretty cute. What do you think? Thank you Lisa for doing it while I kept Brandon away!

Coulda' been stuck at the Library

Wednesday was absolutely a crazy day for me. I had no idea that the warm weather would disappear and snow would start falling. Besides that, I almost ended up stuck inside the Provo City library. It was not an experience I want to have again. This is the story of how it all happened.

Our SBDC sponsors a monthly women entrepreneur group meeting at the Provo City library. Since Brandon has a class at the same time as this meeting, he drops me off and then comes back and picks me up when his class is finished.

So, after having Brandon drop me off I started preparing for the event. I am in charge of bringing the monthly agenda and handling door registrations. As the time quickly passed, I was surprised when none of the organizers showed up. I finally got the message from a library staff member that the event had been canceled because of the bad weather. Darn! Since Brandon was in class, I figured I would just clean up my stuff and wait for him to come back.

That worked until 15 minutes before 9pm when I heard a really loud voice come over the speaker and say that the library would be closing in 15 minutes! Aaaaahhhh! Where was my husband? Typically he is back by 8:30 to pick me up. Then I looked out the window and saw the reason why he was not there. University Avenue was an ice rink with cars "skating" all over the place.

I tried to be calm about the situation, but I realized that if Brandon didn't come soon there would be no way for him to get in. As the minutes ticked by, I began to realize that I might be stuck inside the library for the night. How horrible and scary! Especially in this old building that can be very, very dark. As I moved my arm to look at the seconds ticking by on my watch, I heard footsteps down the hallway. Gradually they came closer and closer. I was so, so happy to see Brandon attached to those footsteps.

Yeah! He said he had convinced a staff member that was leaving the library to let him in. Whew, what a relief. I've never been so happy to see my husband in my entire life.

Our date night

A year or so ago UVSC purchased a building located in the old Word Perfect Complex in Orem. UVSC planned on using the building for their Culinary Art program, but the building cost them so much to renovate that they needed some way to recoup the money they had invested into the building.

A solution to this problem was eventually found and the department I work for was asked to oversee the solution. To recoup the money UVSC has setup 49 cubicles in the basement of this building and small/startup companies are renting the cubical spaces. The task to fill this building with renters has fallen upon my shoulders since my director is currently overseeing efforts at the State Capital (he is a member of the House of Representatives).

In addition to filling the building up I also have had to order furniture, coordinate internet/phone wires to each cubical, figure out how to get the right keys to everyone, and in general keep everyone happy with their space. Anyway, for one of the companies UVSC was going to provide them a new desk. The agreement made with the purchasing dept. was that we had to find a way to assemble the desk ourselves.

So on Friday Brandon and I put together a desk. These is how the process worked. Brandon sat and figured out how it went together then I handed him the screws when he told me too and held the together when he told me too. Wow, what a smartie! I'm so glad that Brandon came with me because I'd still be there trying to figure out which way was up and were to use the screws. If the "thing" doesn't come with an instruction manual I'm completely lost.

My little craft project

A few weeks ago I fell down on the ice and was so upset when I realized there was a large hole right in the back of my jeans. Needless to say I knew that I wouldn't be able to wear those jeans anymore. I felt bad throwing them away and I knew I couldn't give holey jeans to DI. So, I came up with a cute idea on how to use the denim from my jeans. This is the progress I've made so far. I'm hoping to completely finish the project this week so I can move on to my next project - two pillows. BTW, does anyone have a good recommendation on where to get lovely fabric? I've already tried JoAnn's and haven't found what I want.

Becoming Educated

Tonight Brandon and I are both going to class. On Thursday nights he has a lecture series class and when they sound intersting I tag along and we both get "educated" at the same time. Besides enjoying an awesome lecture I get to sit next to my sweetie. Goodness, I love that guy.

Last night my sister Amy and I went to go and find her a cute outfit for the work party she has this coming Saturday. We found some really cute stuff at Kohl's. If she ends up moving to Amercian Fork I think it will be her favorite store. Amy eat your heart out here: www.kohls.com!

I promise to post more later on. I want to show you all a little crafty project I'm working on. TTFN.

Hello to February

Yes, Brandon and I love February and we couldn't help but decorate our blog in the true colors of this month. We hope you like our hearts and the symbol for LOVE in Japanese (that was Bran's idea and I love it)!

With the passing of President Hinckley I felt the need to take a break from posting and have my own "time of mourning". It is so strange to know that he is gone and we'll never see him again in this life time. Mom Thomas recorded his funeral for Brandon and I to watch and I am really looking forward to seeing it. He was an awesome prophet!

Brandon and I spent some time working on more things for nursery this week. We figure that the more organized we can get it, the smoother Sunday's will be. We made it a goal to get this cute poster made this week and we purchased this cool trimmer just at the right time. The sign was so much easier to make with this trimmer. Since it was 40% off we got the main part plus all the accessories. Thank you Roberts Craft Store! Even Brandon enjoys shopping there.



For lunch on Saturday we got the very, very special opportunity to go and have lunch with Brandon's parents and siblings at Red Robbin. Mom and Dad kept us "in the dark" about the reason for taking us out. For two weeks we tried to figure out what could be going on. Was the celebration to announce they were going on a mission, pregnant, selling their house, having Dad called to the Stake Presidency, reading us their newly written will, or just to get us all together to chat. We were all anxious and very excited to be told the good news. Yes, it was good news and it wasn't anything that I listed above. Mom and Dad got us all together to announce that they have officially paid off their home. Yippee! Dad brought a copy of their original mortgage and symbolically shredding it to pieces. It was so much fun clapping and telling them congratulations. After 21 years they truly deserved a celebration. I pay tribute to both Dad and Mom for their dedication in paying off their mortgage earlier then the typical 30 years. They are a wonderful example of managing money wisely and I hope that Brandon and I follow in their footsteps. I am so very lucky to have such inspirational in-laws that I love to pieces. After eating, all nine of us casually strolled around the mall enjoying each others company.

Brandon and I came home and decided to do our taxes. We should have known that the bad would follow such a delightful morning. No matter how we looked at things and refigured the numbers it looks like our tax return this year is going to be nonexistent. In fact, it looks like we've got quite the debt to repay the IRS. Ouch! Let's just say that the amount we owe could have sent us on an expense paid 7 day vacation to Disneyland :-( We read a bunch of tax laws and code to try and figure out what went wrong and we pin pointed the problem very easily. It's because my salary doubled last year and not enough taxes were taken out to compensate for the increase in pay. It was a good lesson for us both to learn and we don't plan on repeating it. Thankfully we have made it a priority to put a little money aside for a "rainy day".

However, we can't be too sad because we have been really, really blessed this year already. For instance, Brandon is steadily progressing on his Senior project, work is going well for both of us, and we are getting more used to church. Besides that, we also made the decision of where to go to celebrate Brandon's graduation. We will be spending 6 days in Washington D.C. scooping out our Nation's capital. We are both very excited to go and we hope we get to see many awe inspiring places. Since Brandon's been there before I am excited to go and see his favorite places.