{l + j}

it has been a while since i've done an update with pictures

so here it is

i apologize for the randomness of this post

and the quality of some of the pictures

my iphone doesn't take as good of pictures as josh's

so it all starts at the beginning of the school year

we attended some beautiful wedding ceremonies for my twin cousins

clearly no pictures of said twin cousins who got hitched. hmm...

moving on

josh celebrated his big 26th birthday on october 10th

that's right, he was one of the lucky little boogers that got a birthday on 10-10-10

to celebrate his birthday we went out for a big steak dinner at hamiltons

and by big, i mean a 20 oz prime rib for josh

it was disgusting to look at and almost more revolting to think about after he finished the entire thing

josh's mom was creative and got him $10 gift certificates to 10 different restaurants

it was so long ago that i can't even remember what i got him. yikes.

one thing i do remember, however, is that i didn't even spend his birthday with him.

i went with my family to disneyland and it just so happened to be over his birthday.

he didn't care too much, though, because he spent the weekend at wendover with his boys

so it was a win-win situation for everyone.

i spent his official birthday at church and then at the beach in newport with my family.

i thought of josh and sent him a little b-day message... kind of...

my little sister is no good at taking pictures that include the entire message

speaking of our cali/disneyland trip... i have to say it was quite the trip.

we left saturday morning and got home tuesday night

so it was short, but we packed in a whole lot of fun

including the engagement of laura and zac (previous post)

we are big disneyland fans at my house and when we realized that none of us had ever been during the halloween season, we immediately called up the travel agent and booked a trip.

since it was all grown ups that went and we didn't have young children or strollers to hold us up, we now fondly refer to this trip as the disneyland marathon.

up at the crack of dawn, at the park all day, and leave as it was closing

we literally ran through the park to all of our favorite rides

mapped out the best way to utilize our fast passes

and munched on the snacks my dad carried in his massive backpack while we stood in line

we rode every ride we wanted to ride at least 5 times

despite the park being wayyy crowded for the weekend/columbus day/uea holiday.

that, my friends, is good disneyland time management

we also spent sunday in newport going to church, seeing the newport temple, hanging out at newport beach, and getting some grub on balboa island. it was a fantastic trip.

for halloween this year, we attended a fun party at josh and emily's house. josh dressed up as the famous antoine dodson

("hide yer kids, hide yer wife, and hide yer huzband cuz they're rapin errbody out there")

and i was pocahontas. but have no pictures to prove it.

but for work i dressed up as flo from the progressive commercials

josh got us tickets to see thriller down at kingsbury hall. i loved it- except for the stupid bear/shopping cart bit. what on earth was that? we went with laura and zac, but again, i have no proof they were there.

in november, i made a quick trip to phoenix to do an on-site interview with the az hearing and balance center in chander. as i mentioned before, it is my top choice for places to do my residency and i was thrilled that my phone interview went well enough for them to want to bring me out to meet them in person. i felt like the interview went well- everyone was so nice and the clinic far exceeded my expectations. now it's the waiting game as they decide who they want to pick.

when i was leaving utah to head to phoenix, i had the pleasure of spotting this gem.

i snuck a couple of secret iphone photos, but then decided i needed to get a pix with him

he was awesome and disturbing, all at the same time.

i headed to chandler on thursday night and spend the morning hanging out before my 2:30 appointment. i checked out the fabulous mall, drove around the suburbs, and got myself a tid bit lost. after the interview, i decided to head north and see the mesa temple.

interestingly enough, just as i was about to take a pix of the temple, all of the christmas lights turned on. it caught me by surprise but was fun to see.

after a pit stop in mesa, i headed north again to scottsdale where i met up with cute lyra (see here) and her family. we have a fabulous way of running into each other at random places throughout the country and it was only fitting for her family to be in scottsdale for her husbands business. it was great to see her before i headed back to the airport.

chana and zach also came up to logan one weekend to hang out. chana had always wanted to show zach our old stomping grounds so we made a date night out of it. we did dinner at the yummy callaways and then went to the jon schmidt concert that night on campus. it was fun hanging out with them!

over thanksgiving weekend, i called up my sweet gma beckie and asked her if she'd teach me how to make her famous pies. my gma is known for her amazing cooking/baking skills and i want to take advantage of her as my teacher as much as i can in the next few years. we baked and baked and baked all day wednesday. we made 2 raspberry/blackberry/black raspberry pies with double crusts, one sour cream lemon cake from scratch, and one to-die-for banana cream cake. we also had plans to make a coconut cream pie and brownie pie.

my 2 favorite lines of the day?

gma: "liz add a little sugar to the top of the berry pies to give it a nice glaze and crust"

(so i add about 2 tablespoons to the top of the pie)

gma: "no, no, no... not like that... like this"

and she adds about a cups worth of sugar to my 2 tablespoons

also,

gma: "and this is about how much sour cream you add to the lemon mixture"

liz: "would light or fat free sour cream work just the same?"

gma: "i have no idea what light or fat free sour cream is. i would never purchase such a thing"

oh grandma, you're such a lovely southern belle

i took about a million pictures of my pies because i was so gosh darn proud of them. they actually tasted better than they looked!

thanksgiving was fabulous, as always, but of course i have no pictures to document the day

we spent the morning sleeping in and not running the cold turkey run we had registered for up city creek canyon because i we could not justify running a 6k at -5 degree weather

we ate a delicious turkey dinner with josh's family and spent some time with gma laurie who was in town from cali

and then we headed my aunt diena's house for pie.... and it was all soooo good

and then back to josh's house for games with his family

friday was spent hanging out with my girlfriends because stacy was in town from texas

we did dinner at cheesecake factory and indulged in peppermint cheesecake, pumpkin cheesecake, and godiva chocolate cheesecake. we laughed lots and reminisced and caught up on each others' lives.

then, it was off to see the radio city rockettes with my mom and sisters

i have always wanted to see them, and even have a friend from my high school who actually is a rockette

the show was amazing (as expected) and i was so sad when it ended!

i think my favorite dances were the 12 days of christmas dance and the soldier dance

after the rockette show, i was picked up by stacy and we headed straight to the jazz/lakers game with katie and rj (sadly, josh had to work friday and had to miss out on the game)

oh my goodness... best game i have ever been to

there were so many lakers fans there and it was a constant screaming battle between the fans.

i should have worn some ear plugs because my ears were ringing after about 10 minutes of being there

but the game ended up in the best way possible and we beat the lakers after being down by 19 points.

my throat hurt so bad after cheering so loudly, and i could barely talk the next day

day after thanksgiving 2010 = best day ever

we have also made a little bit of time to take our little pup out to play in the snow. she loves it and i think she looks pretty dang cute in the pink coat josh bought her :)

and lastly, this past week i defended my research project to my committee

it was about 2 years in the making and it feels great to finally have it done

now i just have to do some final touches on my paper

and make a poster which will be presented at the upcoming ehdi conference in atlanta in february.

kind of exciting to be a student and have presented one research project last year and have another one accepted for this year. nerdy, but exciting.

and that wraps up the longest, post i've done in a very long time.

josh and i have officially become a boring, old, married couple

tonight to liven things up, josh said we'd have a competition

a fruit ninja competition

and if you know us at all, you know we would rather slit our own throats than lose at anything

side note: fruit ninja is a terribly addictive game on the iphone where you race the clock to slice as much fruit as you can. if you're good, you get all sorts of combos and bonuses and such.

well, the person who got the most points by midnight got a pair of shoes

any shoes they wanted

my shoe choice are these or these... i have been coveting them ever since i first saw them

josh's choice are something like these....

well, let's just say as of 12:02, i am a very bitter young lady

grr... i swear he cheated