Is it Spring yet?

I am so excited to be able to go outside and play. Only 6 weeks until the opener of the Bee's baseball season! (sidenote: the Bee's are Utah's Minor League baseball team.) Sean and I have tickets to a bunch of games this year and I'm so excited to use all of them! It's going to be so fun!

I'm so excited to go out and play catch again. Sean and I have a couple times this year but it's been a little chilly and the ground was still pretty wet, but it was great. It's one of the only things I like doing that is similar to exercise.

Speaking of tickets, we also have tickets to any Hale Center Theatre play this year. My bosses bought them for us for Christmas. Yay! I'm pretty sure we're going to see Big River, which is a great play.

Anyway, I'd say this year is going to be a good one... once it starts being Spring. haha
love, Ellen

Don't tell Edna...

I understand it's been a while since I posted. There's no excuse, I just have been excessively lazy and haven't really had much to talk about besides being tired a lot, working at a donut shop, and watching the World Series with Sean (Go Tigers! (only because I feel like Detroit needs a little love)).

So the laptop I've had all through college is a Toshiba Satellite (who I named Edna) and it's been fairly trusty up until a few months ago. Recently, it has been having screen problems where it splits into three and the two side portions flip places. Also, it randomly shuts down and has a really hard time finding the wifi.

So the solution to my problem? I'm getting a new computer (hopefully tonight). I'm really excited, to be honest. I don't get new gadgets all that often and I tend to get the thing that is already out of date. I don't have a lot of money to spend on this computer, but I still think I can get something pretty nice for my money.

Did I tell you about the time I slammed my finger in my car door, got the donut shop job, went to the zoo, and hosted a dinner party all in the same day? Well, that was way back in August when Sean's mom was visiting. Now, my finger is fine, however the nail has started to grow off. It's really kind of gross actually. Then, on Monday, Sean and I were carving pumpkins. He did this:

Super impressive. And what I did was screw up a cute pumpkin. I tried doing a Twins logo as well but I cut the W too poorly and tried fixing it with a toothpick and ended up stabbing myself in the finger. Same finger as the car door. So, essentially, what I'm saying is that something somewhere has a secret vendetta against my poor right index finger. It's made it a lot harder to do the dishes as well as plenty of other things.

There's a lot of really annoying road construction in front of our house. They're doing things at very inconvenient times (i.e. rush hour) and in a way that makes me feel like the tiny shack of a shop that I work in is going to collapse on top of me. At least I would be crushed in a building with food so while I wait for someone to save me, I can still have nourishment (delicious, delicious nourishment...).

I put on a new fall smell in our wax melter deal we bought from walmart to make our apartment smell less like previous smoker and poorly done wet paint (from a year + ago...). I really love this smell. It's
called Apple Spice & Citrus from Better Homes. Yum.

I feel like this is a lot of rambling but what can you do? Nothing.
love, Ellen

Day 25: Sport

Oops, forgot yesterday.
Here's it quick:
I'm very talented at organizing and I think it's because I spent a lot of my high school times playing tetris.

On to today! My favorite sports team only became my favorite sports team after Sean and I met. I acquired the Twins as my favorite baseball team when I fell for Sean. We've watched and listened to many a game and I even went to Target Field and saw them beat the Phillies last June!

Anyway, as of this year, I've been so much more into baseball than I ever was into any other sport. I have my own glove and bat and we go and play at the park near our apartment about 3 or 5 times a week (when we have time). I really think I'm getting good, too!

love, Ellen

Apologies, News, and MN trip

Sorry for my nearly 2 week hiatus... It seriously has been non-stop for me lately. As soon as we got back from MN, we got surprise tickets to the Barenaked Ladies concert (with Ben Folds Five and Guster) and then on Friday night, we went to a Bees game (Utah's minor league baseball team) with Brady and Katie (Sean's brother and his wife). Now we're just trying to fall back into normalcy. I'm still trying to catch up on sleep and house cleaning.

However, even our normalcy is something other than that. Sean and I are still trying to figure our situations out. I'm on the look for a new job, preferably something in the Utah Valley area doing something along the lines of Proofreader, Copy Editor, Reading Tutor, the like. If you know of anything... let me know.

We started looking for a new place to live just North of SLC but then we found out today that our ward needs us to revamp the nursery. It's a problem for our ward that's too big to just fix in a few weeks before leaving, it seems. It seems like there are more things keeping us here than there are opportunities for us to move. It's just something we've been questioning for a while and we finally have a bit of an answer.

Anyway, I just thought I'd let you know what's happening. Also, on a side-note, Sean and I started our Academy Award Best Picture Winners movie challenge. We're still in the middle of the first one which we started yesterday. It's a silent movie from 1927 called Wings about a couple of pilots in the war. It's interesting but pretty long (2 hours).

And remember how I promised that I would tell you about our trip and have pictures.

This is one of the first places I saw in the Mall of America. IT'S A FREAKING AMUSEMENT PARK. ridiculous. Of course, I didn't go on any rides... Roller Coasters are not our thing. We also had lunch there and then  went shopping. I got a new pair of pants at H&M. By the end, my feet were so tired!

 This is some incredibly delicious lemonade from Matt's Bar (Home of the Jucy Lucy) in Minneapolis. It's the best bottle of lemonade I have had, I think. 

 This is the afore mentioned Jucy Lucy burger with grilled onions. Absolutely magnificent. If I talk about it too much longer I'll have to change my shirt from drool. If you're in Minneapolis, GO HERE. 

Go TWINS! This game was seriously SO much fun. We sat so high up, I almost puked. They shot off fireworks during the national anthem (while I was still trying to get used to the height) and I almost collapsed from fright. The Twins won the Phillies that night 4-3. It was a great game and we ate nachos out of a Twins helmet bowl (YUM). And we got to hang out with a couple of Sean's friends from MN. 

Overall, it was a fun trip. After all these things, we went to the family reunion and that was a blast too! I met so many great people and, if you can believe it, I can remember everyone's names. I also learned how to make little creatures out of sewing and felt. I'm thinking about selling them or making them for needy children. 

Anyway, I thought I'd just send you an update. Have a great week!

love, Ellen

Minnesota? Nice.

Hi, everyone! Guess where I am. Minnesota! Sean is in the shower and I thought I'd just post a little bit about what's going on. So far this trip all we've really done is gone through old pictures, played video games at Sean's friend Bloom's house, had dinner with our friends Marcus & Whitney, and gone to a graduation party. Woo fun!

But now the real fun stuff starts. Today, we're going up to the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul, for those of you who are wondering) and shopping the Mall of America! And we're probably going to see the aquarium in the mall and maybe I'll get a new outfit. Woohoo! Sometime after we go to the mall, we'll drop our stuff off at my brother-in-law, Damien's house where we're going to sleep tonight. Tomorrow, we're going to bum around the cities and then go to a Twin's game! awwwww yeah. I can't wait for the delicious stadium food and game! Apparently, we have really great views of the city skyline from our seats. We're going to the game with Marcus, Whitney, and 5th wheel Bloom. I'll take some pictures or something for you.

Our last leg of the trip will be a family reunion on Sean's mom's side where we're going to be camping (with beds and showers... but it'll be in the wilderness!) and then we're on our way home.

Let me know if you know of anything fun to do in the cities tomorrow so we don't just end up sitting on the couch all day. It probably won't happen, but it might.

love, Ellen

May 1: life in a paragraph

I'm doing this. It's a real goal and I really will do it.

I started off living in Ogden, UT. From there, my family moved approximately 7 times and then I turned 9 and we settled down in a real house. It was hard for me to find friends but I got along by hanging out with my mom a lot and asking people if I could sit by them at lunch.  I graduated from high school with honors and went to college an hour south of home and quickly met and fell in love with an incredible guy from Minnesota. We dated exactly 5 months, were engaged in a dinosaur museum, and married in a little temple just outside the Twin Cities. Now I'm graduated with my associates, still working as a barista, and learning how to play catch.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Isn't that fun! I like blogging and this is great because it has prompts that are solid! awesome. 

But it is true, Sean bought me a new mitt and we've been playing catch. I'm proud to say that he's impressed with my ability to throw a baseball and i'm still working on my catching... haha. It's actually a whole lot of fun being able to spend time with my husband doing things we like. 

okay, have a great day! see you tomorrow!

love, ellen