5 STEPS

Today was amazing! We had no alarms, no work, and no grown-up things to do. Tyler played some much needed video games and he even let me play some. We then plucked away a little more at the Aussie goodie packages we're sending to my sisters and their families. We bought a whole bunch of little kid candies for our nieces and nephews. We wanted to gift them with these little jars we've been collecting (thank you Talenti and all your lovely flavors). We first wrapped them in paper, then I printed out each of their names and colored on the back of the printer paper with a pencil. Then I placed each name onto the paper covered jar and traced over the name on the printer paper. The graphite on the back of the paper transfers onto the paper wrapped around the jar. Lastly I took a Sharpie to the pencil-traced name and there you have it. Tyler had some Aussie stickers from way back on his mission that we decorated the rest of the jars with. I sure hope they like them.

HIGHLIGHTED

Today started out incredibly stressful; I think people's breaking points have been pushed to the limits at work and the outcome is being shoved onto those who don't deserve it. All things were resolved by lunchtime and everyone went about their Friday with the lingering hope that the weekend was just around the corner. Tyler was working late again, so I went to Sydney's house and we both worked on our personal websites. We have both been bouncing ideas off each other about how to go about branding ourselves. There are a couple of things I am thinking about and color is one of them. I absolutely love this color—this is the sketchbook that Tyler bought me in Australia and I think it has become my inspiration for the direction I want to go. Bold yet subtle.

STARVED

Tyler and I are sooo out of groceries, and I mean really out of all food that contributes to making a real meal. We're not entirely poor (although Australia did make a significant dent in our wallets), we just haven't had time to do some real hardcore grocery shopping. Somehow that seemed to be the theme at work, for everywhere I looked someone was giving away fruit because they were going on vacation, or veggies that were overflowing their garden, or pastries just because. I came home with tomatoes, cucumbers and kiwis—of course that was not enough to make up for how out of fresh food we were, but it definitely helped—what great co-workers! After Tyler got home from work, we braved the supermarket to shop 'til we dropped.

BELATED-LY

You know what's a great thing about birthdays? There is almost always a chance that you get a present(s) before or after the actual date. This, my friends, is one of those. My thoughtful friend Sydney got me this lovely cake pan that has a tasting cup. You pour batter into the pan as well as the little cup and set it in to bake. After a couple of minutes, you pull out the cup and taste the cup to ensure that it tastes as lovely as the recipe says it should. Quite genius, no? She got it from quirky where you can make your inventions and ideas come to life. I can't wait to use it; I've got to find the cake recipe to break this bad boy in. 

BOOT CAMP

My co-workers have been talking for some time about starting some sort of exercise thing after work while the weather is still good. My one co-worker is a mad Zumba instructor and has taught multiple boot camps, so naturally she offered to whip us into shape twice a week. One day a week we will work on our arms and the other day work on our legs; both days we will do cardio and abs. Today was the first day and boy howdy have I put on some pounds. It doesn't help that while in Australia I justified every morsel of chocolate with vacation. We looked so funny in the parking lot with our yoga mats doing all of our reps. I'm sure I will be sore tomorrow, and the next day and the next day…

CHALK IT UP

Tyler's mom is in the Stake Young Women presidency and asked me to help her with an upcoming project. They were going to have a meeting/dinner where they were announcing the upcoming youth theme for 2014 and needed some hand-lettering done, among other things. They bought six of these acrylic chalk boards and wanted the theme lettered on it with the scripture to give to each ward. I went to Lynchland after work to do some experimenting with fitting the scripture on these boards and going over all the deliverables needed for their meeting next month. I'm excited to do something with my hands. Sometimes being stuck behind a computer hinders my creativity and it gets mundane, so this will be a nice way to change things up.

ALL GONE

This morning we rushed to Lehi for my cousin's farewell. After the meeting, we rushed back to Murray for our church. Tyler had to go into work, so I went to nursery by myself. It went okay, but there are definitely some kiddos that just can't cope when Tyler isn't there to save the day. Tyler tried so hard to get his shift covered today, but no luck; we both were super bummed about that. Tonight, Nicole and Matt came over to give us some lovely cookies. We were excited because we knew they'd make the perfect picture for today, but we were so hungry that we gobbled them up before either of us remembered to snap a photo (they were that good). Tyler starts school tomorrow—summer is officially over.