Cards

Thursday night I went to a Stampin' Up party and made 5 beautiful cards. Each card was already pre-cut so we just had to put them together. I don't like cutting the paper because I usually do it crooked, so I really enjoyed making these cards. I also learned about a cool website that gives card ideas for the stamp sets from stampin' up. Here's some pictures of the cards we did.

I loved this butterfly stamp set.

Thankful for Warm Weather

I am so happy that warmer weather is coming our way. My mom sent me some pictures of the snow at the end of March. After seeing these pictures I tried not to complain about the cold weather, because at least we didn't have 4 feet of snow to trudge through!

Here's a picture of the trampoline. It's almost to the top! My Dad's old Chevrolet truck covered with snow. I don't think he drove it for a while.
Wow, I don't know how I survived winters in Idaho!

So anyway, like my title says, I'm thankful for warm weather today.

Lately, Nels has been playing soccer. He plays indoor soccer on Fridays and then they usually have a game on Monday. For the first THREE weeks in March/April the games were cancelled due to rain. : ( But he finally got to play two games and they won both of them. Here's a sweet action shot, but it's kind of dark. I tried to lighten it up a bit. They played around 8 p.m. Notice how he is wearing all Adidas, his favorite type of clothing. I'll have to blog about that another time.Oh and don't worry, I won't quit my day job to become a sport action photographer. I was sometimes too slow taking the picture and ended up getting just grass, so that was the best picture I got.

Chicago Video

Here's a video that I took when we were in chicago. Our computer is slow, so it took forever to load!

Nels' Facial Hair

Friday, Nels picked me up from work. I got in the car and did a double take. "You shaved!" Yep, Nels has gone from a full beard, to a goatee, to no facial hair. So below are the pictures of what he has looked like these past couple of months. I don't know how to put a "vote" thing on here, so if you want, leave a comment for which one you think Nels looks best in.

The BEARD:

The GOATEE:

CLEAN SHAVEN

Catch Up!

I finally got the computer away from Nels, so I'm going to make a quick post. :)

Quick catch up. For Easter, Nels' family came down the day before. They brought the ham and we did the fixin's. Nels did the potatoes with his now famous salt rub. (It's famous to our family because we made it more than once now.) Nels and his dad talked about tires and cars. Nels' mom, sister Anna-Lisa and I did our nails. Then we all dyed eggs and played chicken foot. I have to give props to Mom Nyborg who won chicken foot. The funniest line that was said while playing this game was the following exchange between Mom and Anna-Lisa.

Mom says, "I love this game because I don't have to think."

Anna-Lisa chides back, "Then what's taking you so long!"

The rest of the game Mom would go super fast and then when it was Anna-Lisa's turn Mom would say, "come on, what's taking you so long."

We always have a good time when they come to visit. So thanks for coming!!!

Not much has happened during the week other than Nels' midterms and me going to work. So we were excited when yesterday, Friday night rolled around. We went to Curtis and Shayla's place. They are just a lot of fun. We ate pizza and played...Guitar Hero. It was awesome. Before last night, the only time I played Guitar Hero was in Wal-Mart for 5 minutes because Nels made me. (I didn't want to play in Wal-Mart because, well, you know, it's crowded, I felt a little self-conscious.) The boys would play then Shayla and I would play. I stayed on the "easy" level, but I think I was getting better as the night went on. I'll have to try "medium" next time. Nels is so funny when he plays because he pretends like its a real guitar and he's singing the songs. So cute. Here's a picture...don't you love my rockin' "I love you" sign. I'm still a rock and roller in training. :)

Engagement

Five years ago Nels popped the big question. Here's my side of the story.

After school on Friday, Nels picked me up and we went to Salt Lake. It was probably about 6:30 or 7 p.m. when we got there. We were just window shopping and taking our time, but Nels was acting really weird. He wasn't talking very much and he seemed on edge. Nels had made reservations at the Melting Pot for 8 p.m. So after walking around a bit, we went to the restaurant. The waitress took us back to our booth table. On the table are three red roses in a vase. I looked at the other tables and they didn't have any roses. "Oh, thank you Nels for the flowers!" He just kind of smiles...he's still acting pretty weird. I try to start a conversation with him, and then suddenly he is down on one knee next to my seat. I don't remember everything he said, but I do remember this part, "Rebecca Daisy will you marry me..." he was about to say something else but I jumped in with "Yes!" Then he finished with something like "and be with me forever." Then I said yes again. Then he put the ring on my finger. The waitress came by and took our picture. After that Nels was normal and talked and talked. The dinner was amazing and truly a night to remember!

Here's the photo that we had taken. Don't we look so young and innocent?

Here's Nels' version of the evening:

I picked up the ring that afternoon. It came in a wooden box. I was really nervous and excited because I knew what I was going to do! We had gone ring shopping earlier in our relationship, so Becky knew that sooner or later I might propose. We had narrowed the ring choice down to three, but I knew the one I got was her favorite. She did not know about the diamond choice. I had to learn about diamonds, so that I could pick just the right one. I determined that she would have a really good 'cut' and 'clarity', so I got one that was cut to show 'hearts and arrows'. (I still think that the precision engineering shown on her diamond is amazing.)

Anyway, I had learned about the Melting Pot from Clark, who would soon be my best man. It was pretty late in the week to get an earlier time, so I figured we'd walk around Salt Lake City for a bit. However, I had that huge box in the pocket of my khaki pants; I wasn't wearing a jacket, so I just knew that Becky would notice it! When she'd walk on one side of me, I'd switch the box to the opposite pocket; luckily, she never caught me in the act! I just didn't want to hand her the ring all by itself when I asked her. (Hey, it's a cool looking box!)

I planned all day as to how to phrase what I was going to ask. I had it all worked out in my head, so I couldn't talk too much because I was sure I'd forget what I was going to say. It ends up that I could've phrased it, "Will you marry me?"; THAT would've been a LOT easier to remember....

I asked her, "Rebecca Daisy, will you marry me and be my best friend and lover accompanying me through life and eternity?" So, yeah, in hindsight, it's no wonder she'd forget my exact words because once a girl hears 'marry', she gets excited in either a really good or a really bad way. Well, I'm still thrilled that Becky said, "YES, YES, YES!" to me because she will always be my sweetheart.

Spring break was great! It was very, very nice to do something besides work! We went to Chicago and visted Nels' family in Valparaiso.

We drove up to Valpo on Saturday. We went with Nels' family to the Bass Pro Shop. I'm not really into the whole camping, fishing thing, but this store was pretty fun. Anna-Lisa (Nels' youngest sister) and I practiced our fancy shooting skills at the stores shooting gallery. It was a lot of fun and Anna-Lisa beat my score every time! We went to Red Robin afterwards. Although they are known for their burgers none of us ordered a burger like we usually do. I ordered a hawaiian chicken sandwich and Nels got Fish! But we did enjoy the bottomless fries.

Monday and Tuesday we went to Chicago and instead of driving we took the train back and forth. It was a lot less stressful than driving. On the train Nels and I read Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. I love reading books with Nels and it helped the train ride to go by faster.

Our first stop in Chicago was the Field Museum. It was our lucky day too, because every second Monday, Target sponsors free admission to the museum. So we got in for FREE. Of course we saw Sue the world's largest, most complete and most famous T. rex. It's hard to miss since it's the first thing you see when you walk in. Other exhibits we went to were Ancient Egypt and Ancient Americas. An odd exhibit was all about soil. Throughout the whole exhibit I kept making a face and saying "ewwww!" Here's a couple of pictures:

Sue the dinosaur--the head alone weighed 600 lbs.! The whole thing weighed 5 tons!

We had fun walking, reading, and learning together. Inside the Field museum was a Corner Bakery. I love this place! They took our order and then about ten minutes later they came to our table with a chocolate cake and sugar cookie. They said that they were sorry, but our order was going to take about 5 minutes longer so they gave us these desserts for free. Who care's if it spoils the healthy lunch we paid for, we gobbled up the chocolate cake and it was GOOD.

Tuesday we spent the afternoon walking up and down Michigan Avenue in Chicago. This is where all of the shops are like Nordstrom, Levi's, GAP and hundreds more. It's fun to just window shop like at Tiffany & Co and Saks Fifth Avenue. Ha! We didn't even try to go into those places. Maybe someday and maybe not. For now we were content looking in the Apple Store and my other favorite stores below. Ghirardelli's and the Hershey Store are wonderful. Ghirardelli's always gives free samples and Hershey's was giving samples too. I just like looking at all that candy! We did end up buying these awesome ice cream bowls. Nels got the Reese's and mine is the Hershey's. We tried them out yesterday with a lot of ice cream and they worked great! I can finally say that I have eaten the Chicago Deep Dish pizza from the renowned Gino's East. We ordered a small supreme which was 4 slices and about 3 inches deep and we ate it all! So good! We forgot to bring white out or some other marker so that we could write on the walls. All we had was a pen. But we managed to find a very small white space to write our initials. Aw!So last but not least, we went and saw the musical Wicked! Wow! We both thoroughly enjoyed the music, the story, everything. They wouldn't let us take pictures before, during or after the play so the only one I got was the sign outside. The link above takes you to some photos. But we would highly recommend seeing it.

We are slowly returning to normal life and are greatly anticipating the spring with warmer weather!