Trevor and Afton

Hanging in there

2010-04-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

Yes, we are still alive, I think! Life has been crazy lately, especially the past two weeks and I don't think it's going to let up any time soon. With school coming to a close if just a few short weeks, the stress levels get higher and the free time gets lower. So that has been the reason for our MIA status. Plus we have been snowed in for the past week it seems, it's the ninth day of April and we have received 16 inches of snow in the past week! But would you expect anything different from spring weather in the Rockies? Anyway, I hope all of you are doing well, and we will try to keep our sanity until the end of the semester :) Talk to you soon!

Finally, a post!

2010-03-10T08:47:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! I know it's been forever since I have written anything, sorry, you know how life gets. And the last blog I wrote was so depressing, so sorry for leaving on that note ha ha! So here I am, sitting in the Library on campus, and I have a few minutes before my next class, so I wanted to just write a little post. Wow, if I can concentrate...this girl sitting next to me is munching on some celery, and I don't think I have ever heard anyone eat celery so loud! I wonder when she will run out of stocks...she just keeps pulling them out of her back pack! Ha ha, sidetracked, sorry about that one. Anyways, Saturday was mine and Trevor's one year anniversary. I can't believe how fast time has gone by! It seems like yesterday we were engaged and making the wedding plans, and now it has already been a year that we have been married. And what a fun, happy year it has been. I seriously have the best husband on earth, he is the perfect guy for me. I consider myself very lucky to have ended up with such a catch. I love you Trev! Lately I have been thinking a lot about time and our lives, how quick it all goes. I can remember looking at the upper classmen in high school graduating and thinking to myself, that will never be me, it will never come. But it did. I can remember watching all my friends start to get married and me thinking, is it really that time? Are we really that old to actually be getting married? Obviously, we were. I can remember taking my engagement pictures with Trevor thinking oh my gosh, this is the guy I am going to be with forever! I am getting married! Now all my friends are having babies, my sister has a baby, my sister in laws have babies (no this is not a hint, we are not expecting) and I am thinking, wow, that is going to be us someday. It is just unreal how fast life goes, and I must admit, I have been taking it all for granted. I just get up, go to school, go to work, do homework, make sure the house is clean and dinner is made, just go through the daily grind to get through the day. And lately, it's been taking it's toll. I don't want to live like that, life is too awesome to live like that. I want to make each day count, really live life and enjoy it. Because before you know it, time has past you by and you look around wondering where you have been. So I am challenging myself, and you, if you have been doing the same thing I have, to stop and slow down. I know the prophet has told us this many times, and for good reason. Our lives are so busy, just slow down and enjoy the ride. Make time for the things that really count. Family, friends, faith, that is what really makes us who we are and brings us true happiness during our lives. So that is my soap box post, I will come down now, celery girl is really getting on my last nerve anyway. Yes, she is still munching on celery, loud as ever! But anyway, I wish you all happiness and joy in your life, and slow it down, enjoy every minute you have. I am going to start trying harder to do that, I know it's really important. I got class, have a great day!

Oh, and by the way...

2010-02-15T12:30:00.000-08:00

Yes, it is snowing again in Logan. I know that groundhog saw his shadow, and we are not out of the winter months quite yet, but I SO want spring to come. I miss short sleeved shirts and capris and my FLIP FLOPS!!! I miss the sun and going swimming outside, not in an indoor heated pool or jacuzzi. I miss flowers and birds and not having to turn my car on a half hour before I leave to go anywhere just so the ice will thaw on my windshield. I miss opening the windows at night and feeling the cool breezes blow in while you fall asleep. I hope I can make it a few more weeks :) Here's to spring on its way...

Happy Valentines Day!!!

2010-02-15T11:49:00.001-08:00

It's that time of year again, Valentines Day. I feel like there are two kinds of people when it comes to this Holiday, those that hate it and those that love it. I am a fan of any Holiday, so I have to be in the latter group. I know my husband doesn't appreciate the fact that flower prices double just for one day, but he was still nice enough to have these waiting on the counter for me when I woke up Sunday morning. I love roses!!! There is nothing better than the smell of roses. He also had a very sweet card that almost made me cry (I know, pathetic, what can I say, I am a hopeless romantic). He also got up early and made me the best omlet I have ever had, with bacon and sausage and orange juice! My favorite...

Since it was Sunday, we had to change gears a little from the typical Valentines Day. Usually we would go out for a nice dinner. This year we stayed in, and we had a blast. We got out of church at noon, so we had a lot of time before dinner. So we made Valentines sugar cookies that were delicious! We got a little carried away and made a ton of cookies, so we stashed some in the freezer for later.

So here are the official Valentines cookies we made for each other. They were dang good.

The day before, Trevor had told me he was going to make dinner for me as well. I was a little nervouse because his specialty is Taco Salad...and that's about it. I love you Trevor, but I usually do the cooking. But I was so impressed and so proud when he made me crab legs, shrimp and french bread for dinner! I haven't even made crab legs all by myself before. He did an amazing job, just goes to show I have the best husband in the world. We set up candles and had Martinellis bubbly stuff to drink. I can only have like one glass of that stuff, it makes my stomach feel like I ate a gallon of pop rocks or something. But anyway, here is a picture of our dinner before we ate :) P.S. I don't know what I was doing in this picture, so don't ask.

I love my Trevor so much, I really have the best husband anyone could ask for. He is my best friend and I love spending time with him. I guess that's a good thing since we have eternity to look forward to! I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day too, and it was spent with those you love so much!

Good News!!!

2010-01-22T11:44:00.000-08:00

As you can tell by Rylee's face, we have some big news in our family!!! And we are very excited about it. Shannon is now engaged to Preston Henrie! They will be getting married on August 6, 2010. I am soooo excited because we all love Preston so much and he fits in with our family perfectly. Congrats to Shannon, Preston, and Rylee. She is a big fan of Preston as well. Here is a picture of the ring, he did a very good job...

Rylee takes after her mom because she kept wanting to wear the "pwetty" ring. Can you blame her?? So Shan finally let her wear it, just for a minute though :)

Yummy Ribs!!!

2010-01-16T11:23:00.000-08:00

Alright Mindy, this one is for you...My mom gave me this receipe for the easiest, most yummy baby back ribs in the entire world. Don't consider yourself a chef? That's ok, this recipe is so easy, even Trev can make them! I guess that wasn't that good of a comparison though, because he can cook a few signature items really well, but you guys get what I am trying to say..

So all you will need is a big crock pot, your favorite BBQ sauce (I recommend Famous Dave's Rich and Sassy!), and as many baby back ribs as you will need depending on who will be eating them.

First, put an inch and a half of water in the bottom of your crock pot and turn it to high. Wash the ribs and put them in the crock pot. Let them cook for five hours. After that, line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and put the ribs on the cookie sheet. Smother them with a ton of BBQ sauce. The more the better! Put them in the oven at 350 for 25 minutes and you are done. These seriously are the best, we eat them all the time! You can eat whatever veggies you want with them, rolls and mashed potatoes go really great. So try it out and tell me what you think :)

2010-01-12T20:51:00.000-08:00

On our last Saturday before school started, Trevor and I took off to Park City for a fun snowboarding trip. One of the perks Trevor has as a manager at Sports Authority is we get passes basically anywhere we want. So we took the passes for The Canyons because I had never been there. This place is huge, we are talking like five mountains! We only went on like four runs because it was so big. It was fun to hang out with Trevor all day and be in the beautiful mountains. Don't be jealous, I know I look absolutely gorgeous in these photos! :) Good thing I wear a beanie and goggles all day so no one could look too closely at me. That's right, there are no pictures of Trevor boarding because...I fall a lot more than he does, like a lot more, so I was afraid I would smash the camera to bits if I tried to do two things at once. Maybe we will get some of him next time!

Holiday Recap!

2010-01-08T09:36:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday! I know we had a really great time, although it always seems to go so fast...I hate it when that happens. But we had so much fun anyway. So here is a quick recap of our happenings.

We made it down to Monroe at about 6:00 on Christmas Eve, which was just in time to indulge in the my favorite meal of the year, our seafood buffet! It was wonderful as usual, Mama Liz out did herself, and Dad did a pretty good job on the grilling as well. We ate until we absolutely couldn't eat anything else, and then in true Holiday style, we took a five minute break and ate some more. It was YUMMY! This is all that was left on my plate...poor crab, better luck next year...or probably not!

I didn't take any picture on Christmas Day, which now I wish I would have, but we were just so busy playing, I really didn't think about it. But Christmas Day was great! We don't have any little kids in the house anymore, so we got to sleep in...sort of...I guesss longer that in the past years. But after we opened our presents, Mom made us a great breakfast. When we were done eating, it was time to get bundled up and go out sledding. There was a ton of snow down there and perfect for hitching the sleds behind the four-wheelers and snowboarding. Just me, Trevor, Aubrey and Michael went out on Christmas, but it was still fun. That night, we had the traditional Ham dinner and ate ourselves sick once again. I love that! The next day Trevor had to head back to work, but would be coming back that night because his niece Brooklyn was getting blessed that Sunday, so I opted to stay behind and hang out in Monroe so more. That morning, we all went out on the sleds again. This time everyone came, the parents, Shannon, Preston, Michael and Aubrey. Even Preston's little brother Carter came along. We had just got out to our sledding spot and Shannon, Preston and I had gone down the hill and were waiting for the four-wheeler to come pick us up, when all of a sudden Shannon started screaming and pointed over my shoulder. I turned around and saw a Bronco that had flipped over onto it's top right into a canal on the side of the road. All three of us took off running towards that Bronco as fast as we could. When we got there, all I could hear was a loud hissing sound and immediately I pictured gas leaking and all of us getting blown up! I was hesitant to go any closer, but then I saw the people inside the Bronco, pounding against the glass trying to get out. The canal had wedged the top of the Bronco just perfect so the doors couldn't be opened at all. So Preston and I ran around to the drivers side and were able to get the door opened just a little bit. By then, some near by neighbors had come running to help as well. They started pulling out little kids that couldn't be more than 5 or 6. They handed the kids to me and my sister and I thought I would break down in tears as I tried to comfort the poor little guys. My dad brought the sheriff and we were able to eventually get all the people out. There were three adults and three kids in there...none had seatbelts on...but they were all ok. It was quite the experience. So after everything was handled and we all settled down, we decided to continue sledding for a little bit more. The rest of the weekend was quiet and fun, thank goodness after that incident. Brooklyn's blessing was so great. We got to spend time the the Call clan over the Holidays as well. So fun.

For New Years Eve, Trevor and I just decided that we wanted to go to Temple Square since we hadn't made it down yet and I love to see the lights. So after work on New Years Eve, we headed down. We stopped at one of our favorite restaurants, Famous Daves, to eat dinner. I love that place so much. Then we continued down to Salt Lake, where my parents, Shannon, Preston, Michael and his date Kenzie met us. It was so fun just to walk around and feel the spirit of Temple Square and enjoy each other's company. They had programs going on all night, but we ended up leaving a little before midnight, so we could all get back home at a decent hour. So at midnight, Trevor and I were in the car driving (I know, pretty exciting), but it was a fun night none the less. Here are some pictures that we snapped...

Me, Shannon and my mom in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building warming up...I don't know why I looked so HORRIBLE, like I am about to die, but oh well...

This red tree was HUGE, and sooo pretty. So we had to get some pics by it. Preston, Shannon, me and Trev.

Lame, I know, but we had to do the kissy picture...

It was sooo cold out I think my face was frozen in the pose after the picture...seriously!

2009-12-24T12:57:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!!

Bored

2009-12-19T20:17:00.000-08:00

Trevor has to work until midnight tonight...ughhhh. I love the Holidays, but when your husband works retail, it is not always fun. But I am very grateful that we both have jobs, we are very blessed. I just hate being in my house alone. I wish we could get a dog or something, I am a big scaredy cat. Oh well...

Today was very busy. If any of you went out and tried to do any shopping today, you know exactly what I mean. I guess I heard someone say it's the busiest shopping day of the year. I guess the Saturday before Christmas even beat out black friday. I don't know if that's true, but it was interesting to me. And after braving the crowds and the traffic today, I don't have a problem believing it. But I did finish all my shopping, and am officially ready for Christmas! We are spending Christmas at the Abbott house this year. I am very excited to let Trevor experience our traditions and festivities. We celebrate Christmas Southern style. My grandparents on both sides are from the south; Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. And of course, most of you know, my dad is Mr. North Carolina. My mom was raised in California, but her parents had their southern habits that rubbed off on her. Anyways, it was a tradition way back when for all my grandparents (I think) to eat seafood on special occasions, because all lived so close to the ocean, and that is what was plentiful. So for as long as I can remember, on Christmas Eve, instead of eating turkey or ham or something like that, my mom steams king crab legs, shrimp scampi, and cheese biscuits, while my dad grills salmon and oysters. He is the only one that eats the oysters though. I can't stand them. Of course we have other dishes to go along with it, but the seafood is the main point; this dinner is my favorite of the year. I am very excited. I am sure most of you are probably thinking, that is gross. I know you either hate seafood or you love it. My family loves it. Good thing Trevor does too. Our Christmas Day dinner is pretty typical, we always have ham. And we will usually go see a movie as a family and if there is snow, we hitch up sleds behind the fourwheelers and ride around until it's dark. It will be fun. I hope all of you have a great Holiday spending time with the people that you love and taking part in your own traditions. I am so grateful for everything I have and this time of year; to be with family and celebrate the birth of our Savior, who gave us the gift to be together forever! Merry Christmas everyone!

Tis the Season for Consuming Extra Calories...

2009-12-16T22:27:00.000-08:00

So Trevor and I decided that tonight we needed to make a Holiday treat. I thought it would be fun to make these delicious thingys. They are called Bear Claws. Obviously not the typical Bear Claw you think of, you know the ones, the pastry things filled with fruit or something like that. These are soooo much better. These are pretzels wrapped in caramel, and then dipped in chocolate. They are one of my favorite holiday treats. My mom's best friend Jerrele Dowell would always bring these to us around Christmas, so it made me feel like old times to make them.
Trevor actually surprised me a lot tonight by how helpful he was. He got way into cooking the caramel, he diligently sat stirring and watching the thermometer. I must say, he did a great job because the caramel turned out perfectly. So I am very proud of him. We were a great team when it came time to dip the pretzels in chocolate because he took over the white chocoate, while I manned the milk chocolate. What a cutie...he was so proud of his work.

We ended up with a ton of freakin pretzels, so thank goodness for neightbors, co-workers, and visiting teachees. It was a lot of fun spending time together and also starting our own holiday tradition of making Bear Claws each year.

December 15

2009-12-15T20:27:00.000-08:00

So school is finally done, as are finals, and I absolutely love all the free time I have on my hands these days. I still have to work of course, and so does Trevor, but to not have school to worry about until January 11 is the best feeling in the world. Every semester after the finals have been taken, I always wonder how I survive through the stress. But I always do, and here I am actually seeing my husband during the day and spending time together! Ha it's great! And I did watch a really great movie just now with my free evenings. I definitely recommend it. It's Julie and Julia. It's about this girl that basically has a midlife crisis and to fix it, decides to cook her way through a Julia Childs cookbook. I loved this movie so much because I LOVE to cook and I LOVE to eat, and the character Julie works a job that is identical to mine. In fact, when I was watching it, I started laughing out loud because the things her customers were saying to her were exactly what I hear everyday. Every last detail from her hideous headset she has to wear and her tiny cubicle reminded me of my wonderful, fulfilling job at Qwest. But hey, means to an end right. Anyway, I really liked this movie. If you watch it and don't like it, sorry, I really enjoyed it. But that's about all for tonight. Nothing too interesting and no pictures. I am a boring blogger. And I am hungry now since I was talking about food....remember to watch the movie. But don't watch it with you husband, or boyfriend. They will ruin it. It's a girl movie, or a by yourself movie :)

This Week's Review

2009-12-05T12:38:00.000-08:00

So the Thanksgiving Holiday was a lot of fun, I am sad that we didn't get to stay with Trevor's family for very long, but at least we got down there and spent some time. All of Trevor's 12 siblings were there, except Nate, so we had a full house and it was so great to have a break from school and work and just hang out with everyone. Trevor's oldest brother Rob and his wife Natalie just had their baby girl, Brooklyn. The pictures of her are the only ones we took the whole time (oops) so here they are...

After we got back to Logan, my mom came up to stay with us for a couple days to finish out the Thanksgiving Holiday right by shopping the weekend away! Trevor even joined us for a little bit. It was a really good time. Then came Monday and it was back to the usual, work and school. Nothing to eventful happened, except the USU vs BYU basketball game on Wednesday. That was AWESOME! Utah State's Men's basketball team is so good and they are so fun to watch. This was an especially good game because BYU has refused to come play us for the past four years because they didn't think we were worth their time and they were so sure they would beat us. (I just think they were scared ha ha) But anyway, they finally came up here and we sent them home with a loss. We beat them by ten points, it was so funny! I hate BYU by the way, just their Men's team and their coach. I won't go bashing them or anything, but just know, I don't like them. And here is a picture of us at the game, we both look beat up, and well we basically are from work and school, so yeah...

And then today, while I am supposed to be studying for my Physiology final next week, what am I doing? Blogging and watching tv! Although I did have an excuse to watch tv, Trevor's family were on the World's Strictest Parents so I had to watch that. I think it was really well done and the Call Family did a very good job. I laughed a lot because the kids are just so stupid, but the Call's put them in line, and I enjoyed watching it. It will be showing at 6 and 9 tonight on CMT and tomorrow at 2:30. Here is a link to check it out.

http://www.cmt.com/shows/dyn/worlds_strictest_parents/161911/episode_about.jhtml When my husband found out they were asked to do the show, he was like,"I knew it! I knew I wasn't just being a baby growing up!" It was cute. But anyhow, things are good with us, we got a ton of snow today and it hasn't let up yet, so we may be snowed in for a few weeks. At least we can snowboard I guess.

Thanksgiving Break Plans

2009-11-25T09:53:00.000-08:00

Well, if you could call it a Thanksgiving Break in the Call house...seriously, I am so mad right now. First, let me give you a breakdown of my poor husbands grueling schedule. He wakes up to be to school by 8 which is pretty standard. He goes to school up until the minute he has to work at his awful job, managing a retail store, at 1. He then works until 10 pm and starts on his absurdly long and detailed projects for his Interior Design progjects. For those of you who don't know much about this major, I don't recommend you or your spouse of anyone that you emjoy seeing on a regular basis go into it. Trevor then proceeds to stay up all night either in the office or down at the lab on campus to try to finish all his homework just so he can go back to school at 8 the next day. So he deserves a break for the holidays more than I do. But jolly Sports Authority (Trevor's lovely work place) thinks that staying open on Thanksgiving is the coolest thing ever, because the CEOs that decided this don't have to work, they will just make all the guys that are lower on the food chain do the dirty work. But, by some miracle Trevor was able to get Thanksgiving day off, but of course he has to be back by 10 am the day after to tame all those unruly shoppers. There are four managers at Trevor's store, three of which live here in Logan, so they don't have to travel, so that's how he got it off. But this one guy who seriously lives one block from the store, complained to the store manager that it was unfair Trevor got the day off. Boo Hoo, work until 3 in the afternoon and then drive a block to see the family. Welcome to the world of middle-aged men that work at Sports Authority and hate their lives. But whatever. So our thanksgiving day will consist of driving 6 hours to Moab to eat some turkey and say hello to everyone, go to bed and wake up at 4 am to 6 hours back to Logan so Trevor can be back to work at 10 am. Sounds good and wonderful right? Spending the day that we get as our Thanksgiving beak driving for 12 hours! We mind as well just get takeout Thanksgiving to eat in the car so we will have more time to say hi to everyone down in Moab. I know it is the Holiday season and I am happy to go see everyone, it's just really frustrating that everything will be so rushed. I hope Christmas break will be better, but for some reason, I am not getting my hopes up :) Anyway, I hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving break and have a lot of fun and much deserved rest. I will post some pictures of Thanksgiving if there is time for me to snap some pictures in the little time we have!

I can't think of a title....

2009-11-23T19:43:00.000-08:00

Wow, so it has been seriously almost a year since my last post. I am soooo sorry, for those of you that know me well, does this really surprise you? I thought the blog would help me keep in touch with people better, since I suck at calling people on the phone and checking up. And it did for like a week, but this time I will do better! I promise, and if my blog goes unchecked for another year, those that gently prodded me last time, please do so again. I love you all, and will do better on the blog :)

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

2008-12-06T15:34:00.000-08:00

I absolutely love the Holidays! I am one of those annoying people that start listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. Not that I don't respect Thanksgiving and everything, I just love the atmosphere of the Holidays and I usually get caught up in it a little too soon. So, naturally, I went and bought a little Christmas Tree a couple days before Thanksgiving and had to set it up right away. And later that evening, Trevor and I went shopping for all types of Christmas decorations to make my house festive. Here is the product of our little pre-christmas adventure.

Whoo Hoo!!!

2008-12-05T20:31:00.000-08:00

Well everyone, I finally decided to get it done, I am now officially a blogger. And even though Trevor's name is on it too, I will probably be the only one that ever does anything with it, so you get to hear a lot from me! So the big day is coming up in like three months, it still sounds like a long time to most people, but it is coming so fast I can hardly believe it. Last month, we arranged to make the four hour trek down to Monroe to take our engagement pictures and my Bridals. So we took time off work and headed down there. We were scheduled to take pictures at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday. When I woke up at 6:30 to start the grind of getting myself ready, it was pouring rain. Those of you from southern Utah know that when it rains there, it usually only lasts for an hour or so at the longest and clears up pretty fast. Well, as my luck would have it, at 8:00 it was still pouring, and there were no signs of it letting up. So we arranged with our photographer to wait a while until it cleared up and then we could take some pictures. Noon came rolling around and it seemed as if it were raining harder. So we waited and waited, went to lunch with Mom and Aubrey, and still waited, but the rain didn't stop. I was beginning to think that the four hour trip had been a waste because there was no way we would be able to take pictures. Then, sometime around 3:00 p.m., the rain let up. I quickly called our photographer and we were out the door to at least try and shoot a few pictures. It had started to sprinkle as soon as we started snapping photo's, but we stuck it out and got a bunch of shots. We had to hold off on the Bridals because there was no way the wedding dress could have survived the weather. So I planned another trip a different weekend. I was really nervous to see how they would turn out because we were tromping through mud, sitting in puddles and my hair gets really curly when it comes in contact with any type of wet! But when we got the pictures, they actually turned our really good. Besides a few pictures when you can see the waves starting to form in my hair, you can't even tell it was raining. Thanks to Shannon Hepworth for braving the elements with us and doing a really good job! Here are some of our favorites...

Here are the wet bums and wavy hair....