Vinylmations!!

Since before Sean and I were married, multiple discussions have come up about where to display Sean's ever growing collection of Vinylmation figurines.  Usually the conversation would just turn into jokes and I would never give into Sean's display ideas.  

But, because Sean has been so understanding about my hesitations to display them in the house, I decided he deserved to be rewarded for his sweet patience.  I was thinking about surprising him with the display, but soon realized that it was going to be hard to set it all up without any of his input and help.  I came up with the idea and pitched it to him, and he instantly loved it and we started going to town!!

We made a few trips to Home Depot, and were painting and measuring and drilling holes over the last few days. There was some trial and error with paint colors, hanging options, and figuring out how to display them all.  Sean worked so hard, and it was fun to listen to him talk about his strategic placement of each figurine.  

Sean and his handiwork!

It is such a happy edition to our little home, and we are both thrilled with how well our first little home project together has turned out!!

City Creek Saturday Night

So on a whim tonight we decided to have a date night in downtown Salt Lake.  We hadn't been yet to the new City Creek shopping center and we thought that would be a good place to spend the evening.

Ok, that place is pretty awesome!  We weren't quite sure what to expect, but whatever expectations existed were satisfied and then some!  When we first got there we literally stood up on the balcony for a few minutes just taking it all in.  We knew that the big feature was a retractable glass roof, which we could not identify for the life of us.  After a good search we realized we were looking in the wrong place, because there are two outdoor courtyards and then two indoor areas with the retractable roofs.  

So City Creek is located right across the street from Temple Square and one of its purposes is to beautify downtown around temple square to keep it looking nice.  So not only is it a huge new shopping mall, but a lot of the businesses are a little higher end than most malls.  The first three shops we walked by were Tiffany & Co., Rolex, and Porsche Design Clothiers.  As we walked by Cory questioned whether we were actually even allowed to go in, because they all had security guards at the doors, and the scowls on the employees faces told us they only wanted to deal with serious customers.  We were content window shopping.

However, there were some "stores of the people" sprinkled around that were a little more welcoming.  As soon as we saw people coming towards us with Disney Store bags we followed the trail and felt confident enough to cross the threshold and browse a little.

Behind me here you can see the wall of the Disney Store with Mickey and Minnie  hanging off.
We are up on a bridge on the second floor of one of the outdoor plazas.

So in the past three days Cory has started to familiarize herself with Instagram.  I am still not sure exactly how it works, but I guess all the kids use it these days.  It seems to mostly just kind of put different effects on the pictures you take, but she has been excited about it, and I do admit that the pictures do seem to have a nice finish, especially for photos taken on a phone.

We headed to the food court and looked at all the places.  They have a Red Iguana fast food style there which was interesting, and also a Greek fast food place with gyros, which also sounded good.  I was especially tempted by the "Wasatch Gyro" complete with grilled onion and Honey BBQ sauce.  Anyway, we settled for Chick-fil-A after having been told by Joseph that anytime you say "thank-you" there they are trained to say "My pleasure."  So we decided to put them to the test.  Sure enough the three times I said thanks, they stuck to their training.  Cory could NOT handle it.  She started to laugh after the first time and actually had to walk away while I finished expressing how grateful we were. 

From there we headed to Farr's for some FROzen YOgurt...I have never really said "fro-yo" and I am not sure I am ready to start now.  What was cool was that they had Dole Whip there, which is the pineapple ice cream we had on our honeymoon in Hawaii.  We both got some and Cory got some strawberry "yo" (did I use that right?) while I got some tasty tangy lime sherbet.  Here is Cory reminiscing about our Hawaii days:

After we finished our tasty treat we walked across the way to Temple Square where some nice woman was kind enough to take our picture before it became too dark for our camera phone to capture the moment.  I always forget how big and majestic the Salt Lake temple looks in person.  It was perfect weather and we enjoyed the walk.

I am glad to have a wife that will explore new places with me and keep taking Instagram pictures of me until I finally feel like I don't look as awkward as I do in the rest of the pictures.  She is a trooper!

Hole in ONE!!

We went mini golfing on a whim last night, and my baby hit a hole in one!!

And to make the night even more exciting...he hit another one!

ps-this picture was my first instagram photo.  I have been waiting for the opportune time to finally use instagram.  We seriously stood around hole 4 for 10 minutes while I tried to figure it all out.  Sean was patient and practiced his putting!

Pioneer Day

OR..."Pie & Beer" day.
OR..."Pie on Ear" day.

We both had the day off for Pioneer Day and it was so nice to have a mid week break!  

We started the morning off with Sean watching the Salt Lake Days of 47 Parade, while I slept in for once in my life!!  I can't even remember the last time I slept in past 9:30 am.
I was sad to miss the parade but they showed a highlights reel with the credits so I still got to see a lot of the floats!

Then Seany made pancakes and Anna came over with Bananas and we all stuffed our faces with peanut butter and banana pancakes.  Ironically, there were no references to "Banana Pancakes" by Jack Johnson.

After forcing off multiple desires to fall into a food coma, we started brainstorming and working on some home decor projects...I'm sure there will be a post to come soon!!  Be watching out for it!

A trip to Home Depot, for some wood, and Michaels for paint had all of us in the mood for some Shave Ice!!  We made our way up to Summer Sno for what Anna and I consider the best Shave Ice in Provo (well, technically Orem).

So focused on the task at hand

Brett invited us over for a BBQ, and we couldn't resist the chance for a summery activity and visiting with friends.  Sean helped Brett man the grill, and was smelling like a cookout into Wednesday night.

He was really happy when I interrupted his man time to take a picture... 

After scarfing down multiple hot dogs and countless Hamburgers we headed inside where Anna and I inevitably fell into a deep sleep, while Sean and his buds laughed and chatted about the things that make them laugh, Hobbit songs, witty jokes, and trying to steal sips of Josephs Big Gulp ensued.  Here is a picture of the three of us, who all coordinated (a little on purpose) our outfits for the party.  Gray tops and blue bottoms!

We ended the evening with a few rounds of Star Wars Dance offs on the Kinect.  The best part was that all the songs were super corny parodies of pop songs.  

Welcome Home Anna

...or should I say Anna Welcome Home.

My mom came down and surprised Anna at the airport when she got home from her Taiwan trip.

It was a quick trip, and super last minute, but it was fun to have her visit and she brought little Georgie, too!

Sean and I with little Georgie!

She arrived early Sunday morning and went to church with Sean and I and came to our Sunday school lesson.  Side note, I really like teaching Sunday school with Sean, he is super handsome and if it was up to me he would teach it all and I would just sit there and try to look pretty.  My mom said she thought the lesson was great, and that we had great chemistry and asked good open ended questions.  She was seriously impressed, because she kept telling us over and over how great she thought it was.  It was nice to have the feedback because, let's be honest, Sean and I are kind of biased critics of our own lessons.

After church we ate some of my mom's yummy enchiladas and all went down for a long nap.
Sean suggested we make a sign to help welcome Anna home, and for not having any poster board, running out of tape, and only having a black permanent marker, I think it turned out pretty awesome!!

It took forever for Anna's plane to land because of a small storm that had come in, and we were so anxious and impatient.  We kept ourselves entertained by people watching and trying to guess if the next set of legs coming down the escalator were Anna or not!

When she finally came down she was freaking out and super surprised.  My mom was sure that Anna probably knew she was going to be there, but Anna definitely had no clue!  Anna was crying big time before she was even off the escalator!

The surprise was a hit, and we are so happy to have her home!!

Seany took me to the Driving Range...

...and I pegged a little asian boy in the ankle.

But, we also had tons of fun.  I struggled a little at the beginning, but with Sean's help by the end I was hitting them pretty well and pretty far.  I am definitely not a pro by any means, but there was some major improvement.

I was super impressed at how far Sean could hit the ball, it was mind blowing really.  There I was hitting about 50 yards out, and Sean was nailing his over 250 yards!!

So, the story about hitting the kid at the driving range.  First off, I want to say that it was definitely not my fault, and had nothing to do with me being bad at hitting balls.

Sean, and I were hitting balls and minding our own business.  Every 3 or four tee off spots there was a super tall mesh fence and Sean and I were the only ones in our little area.  There was a group of people that were taking lessons and they all broke out to start practicing and hitting.  For whatever reason, there was a group of about 3 guys who were all standing about 5 feet up from the tee of spot.  they were out in the longer grass and I guess they were practicing hitting out of the grass.  Since all 3 of them were farther up, it was fine and there was no risk of getting hit from someone teeing off behind you farther back.

So, this youngish Asian boy decided he wants to practice hitting out of the grass too.  So he comes over to the little area where Sean and I are teeing off.  He was hitting from the last spot before the fence.  He decides it's ok for him to stand about 5 feet out like the other 3 guys were doing on the other side of the fence.  I was getting nervous.  He wasn't that far out, but Sean was hitting by him and I was scared he was going to peg him with a ball.  Sean said not to worry, and that even though he was out in the grass he wasn't out far enough and we would have to really shank a ball hard right if we were going to hit him.

Then things got more scary.  The guy would miss-hit the ball and it would roll a few feet and he would scoot up and re hit the ball from where it landed.  This happened over and over again because he was not very good.  Pretty soon he was about 20 or 30 feet out in front of where you are supposed to tee off, and I was getting worried.  He was definitely in range for one of us to hit him.

This was where he originally started out, and moved up probably another twenty feet
before he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sure enough, I shanked one off to the right a little and that ball nailed him right in the ankle.  He yelped and started hopping on his left leg and grabbed his ankle.  He then turned around and shot this dirty look at us.  I yelled out "Sorry," but in my head I was thinking that he had it coming.  I have no clue what he thought was going to happen when he was standing so far out and we are hitting balls right behind him.  Needless to say he left and never came back by us to hit balls.

Sean likes to compare this to walking out on a shooting range while people are firing guns.  So crazy!!

Our Wreath

Probably the very first thing, besides my little flower pot, I made and put up for our house was this precious green wreath.  I am seriously obsessed with it, and meant to post about it ages ago.  It was my first real housewife craft and I love it every time  I see it.  I am sure that Sean can attest to the fact that I probably say something about how cute it is every time we leave the apartment!

My pride and joy!

Draper

This afternoon Cory and I continued our goal of visiting the temples in Utah.  The skies weren't quite as clear  today as they are in this picture but nonetheless we had a really great time at the Draper Temple.  It is kind of boxy on the outside, but of course it was beautiful inside.  It wasn't very crowded at all, but there was a huge group of missionaries arriving at the same time as us and everywhere I went people asked me if I was a missionary and tried to direct me to the large group from which I had obviously wandered.  Luckily almost none of the temple workers were quite agile enough to catch me and I stuck by Cory's side as much as I could.  It really wasn't that bad, but I was asked by a few people if I was with the group.  I mean, my ring is so blingin' I don't know how they didn't see it, but oh well.  Great trip!

Fore! and Cory's Gold Glove

So yesterday my good friend Joseph Naylor and I headed to the golf course at the Cascade Center to play nine holes.  I haven't played in a long while, and Joseph is taking a beginner class at BYU.  He is required to play 27 holes during the term, and I volunteered to go with him.  It was a TON of fun.  We went in the middle of the day in 102 degree heat, but that didn't deter us.  It was fun for me to be back out playing the links.  I played on my high school's golf team for a year (not as prestigious as you might think...there were no try-outs and everybody who signed up got on the team.) and I have a lot of memories going with my grandpa while I was a teenager.  

Here is Joseph around the sixth hole I think.  He actually did really well for his first official round of golf while taking the class.  We both were ridiculously over-par, but we hit some great shots.  If only our great shots came more frequently than once every ten tries.  I brought my grandpa's straw hat for Joseph to wear, and I think it may have given him special powers.

Like I said, it was over 100 degrees, so we decided to split the cost of a cart.  It was probably the greatest decision of my week.  I am not sure if we would have made it walking.  Interestingly enough, there was a young kid playing behind us that was walking and carrying his clubs the whole time.  We were convinced that his bag was heavier than him, and he was sweating profusely.  He was also the next Tiger Woods, and eventually we just told him to play through because he was actually finishing the holes in a respectable number of strokes.

Here I am at the same hole, and below is Joseph about to sink his final put on the ninth hole.  Overall we had a great time, and it made me feel like I want to get better at golf.  Also, I'm not really feeling how much money it will probably take to do that, so maybe that will be a long term goal that I will make headway on a little further down the road.

Last night we also had another co-ed softball game, and the game ball definitely went to Cory.  Ok, so we don't give out game balls and we didn't even win, but that is beside the point.  Cory started the night at catcher and was doing an awesome job, and then she moved to second base.  I particularly enjoyed this because I was playing short stop so I got to talk to her more due to our close proximity.  While at second, she made some amazing plays.  She caught her first fly ball for an out, and the look on her face immediately after was priceless.  She was so excited, and the team was, too.  That pretty much gave her all the confidence she needed and a couple of plays later she actually caught another one while falling forward to her knees!  It was beautiful.  She did a great job and is really starting to get the hang of softball.

Pizza Night

Bottom Line about my marriage:  Cory has never made a meal yet that I didn't care for.  I'm not sure if it is because she already knows what I like and don't like, or if she is just an Iron Chef.  I think it might be a combination of both.  Anyway, a few weeks ago she made some homemade pizza that I loved, and so I asked her to make it again.  However, instead of just making it again without me knowing, she offered to teach me to make it so that I would forever realize how easy it was and be able to make it myself in the future.  So I carefully followed her instructions as she supervised me in the kitchen.  Unfortunately, she had a little accident opening up the pizza sauce...

Other than that little mishap though, it went really well.  I was surprised how quick it was, and mine tasted almost as good as Cory's original.  

Schiess Family Reunion

Summertime is the perfect time for a family reunion.  I have to be honest, Sean and I both have never been to an official family reunion.  (I actually have been to a few when I was a small child...but I didn't know anyone there hardly. -Sean)  Sean's family is pretty small, and I have always thought that my family was small.  I think the problem was that we have never had everyone at the same place all at the same time.

We were both excited to head up to Idaho for a weekend to get together with my Dad's family.  It was great because now that my Momma is living in Caldwell, we got to see her and my Grandma Pladsen, too!!  We stayed with mom, and headed to Boise everyday to take part in the Family Reunion Festivities.

Day 1:

We trekked across utah and Idaho, well we drove.  It was about a 5  hour drive and we arrived safe, sound, and very tired in Caldwell at my mom's.  We got to check our her place, and it was nice to feel at home.  We caught up with her and eventually hit the sack, to catch some Zzz's.

Day 2:

Friday found us up bright and early to head to the Cemetery where my Grandpa Schiess was buried.  The cemetery was absolutely huge, and we were following Sarah and Darron.  I swear I have never seen a cemetery that big, and it wasn't until we turned down this random dirt road,  that we realized it was even bigger and my Grandpa's gravesite wasn't even in the first part of the cemetery we had been in.  We finally arrived and there was tons of, "long time no see's," "have you ever met's," and "congrats on getting married's."  I met my two cousins, Axel and Penelope for the first time and I saw a lot of my aunts and uncles for the first time in...I don't even know how many years.  It was fun to see everyone, but not even everyone was there!

Sean had forgotten a shirt and pants for church so we headed to the mall with my Dad, Sarah and Darron.  The following conversation preceded this event:

Cory: Dad are you going to ride with us to the mall?

Dad: Yeah, sure.

Cory: Oh, well you can't.  We don't have any room.

Dad: (silence)

Cory:  I mean it was more of a generic question, like just wondering if you were coming.  Our car is really full with stuff, you can still though.  I think Sarah and Darron have room.

Sean: (laughing) Really, Cory? (laughing)

Okay, so it didn't come out quite right.

The mall was fun, Sean got some super cute little dress pants.  Then we grabbed lunch.  It was fun to sit and talk and catch up with my dad and Sarah and Darron.  Dad ate Taco Time, still not really sure why.  I have never eaten at Taco Time.

That night was the Talent Show, family pictures and dinner at the Church building my Grandma goes to.  We all took a big group family shot, and some individual family shots too.

Our little family!

We played some basketball, set up chairs and tables, and practiced a surprise number for my Grandma.  All the brothers and Sisters of my Dad, me, Sean, Sarah, and our cousin Shane, all sang "Be Still my Soul."  It was this really nice arrangement, and since it's her favorite song we knew she was gunna love it!!  Needless to say, she did.  And even though many tears were shed during practice, we really pulled it off during the performance.  I have never been a big singer, and I can't read music at all, but it was super fun to participate and I know Grandma LOVED it!

The rest of the performances varied in style and type.  Davis and Noah performed stand up comedy routines they had memorized from youtube, they were so hilarious, and both had great stage presence and timing.  Sarah recited a poem she had written, it was clever and cute, she did awesome!  Then we saw air guitaring by my 7 year old cousin Charlie, beaded keychaining by Peter, and an absolutely fabulous rendition of the ABC Song by my littlest cousin Edmond.  My Uncle Andrew and his family really stole the show with their singing and guitar acts.  My cousin Aaron who is 14 plays a mean electric guitar, it was way awesome and the song was kind of latin so it sounded way cool.  Then my cousin Nick and aunt Michelle sang a few songs together while Michelle played guitar, they were really awesome and it was so sweet.  Overall, it was a huge success and Sean is still sad we didn't come up with a performance, maybe next time.

The talent show to me was so much fun, and I loved watching Sean just loving all of it.  He told me later that he loved feeling like he was part of a big family and that he had never really had big family experiences like that.  I was glad he felt like he belonged and that he was enjoying the reunion.

Day 3:

By day 3 I did not want to get up, we were having early morning and late nights and I was beat from the work week before the weekend even came.  We slept in a little, and then headed up to the Boise City Downtown Market.  We got there late, but luckily spotted family rather quickly and joined right back in.  The market was neat.  It is really huge, probably the biggest Saturday Market I have ever been too.  The best part was all of the little street performers.  I had never seen so many before.  We also enjoyed plenty of donuts.  It seemed like everyone in the family had some, and everyone kept offering them to us, and we were not complaining.  We met up with everyone at this big fountain, and regrouped while everyone took their last chance to browse at the market.  It was hot and we were all beat, and hungry!!

We all headed over to the Sun Ray Cafe for lunch.  It was a cute little cafe and we all sat together in the back room, there was so many of us!!

I ate my first Gyro for lunch, and there was tons of laughing and talking and catching up with my little bros!

After lunch we headed back to my Grandma Schiess's house for a much needed nap.  The little ones napped, and I tried to snooze a little.  Soon I was interrupted by two, no, three cute boys wanting me to join them in a game of 2 vs. 2 basketball.  I will not lie, I was hesitant and tired.  After about 5 minutes I  was up and ready to play.  Sean and I played some 2 vs. 2 with Logan and Noah.  I have to admit, although it was ridiculously hot, we had a great time.  Me and Noah won the first game, and then we switched it up and Sean and Noah won.  Logan was so funny, and kept shouting out made up rules he wanted us to follow.  We had an awesome time, and on the last game Logan scored all the points for his team and he and Sean won!  He was sinking shots all over the court.  I think Sean really loved playing with them and liked making memories with them that they can remember us by.


Then it was time to get ready and head over to the pool for Charlie's 7th Birthday Party!!  All the cousins were swimming, and diving off the diving board and eventually the swimming turned into a huge water gun fight.  We had all these little toys that would shoot water super far, and I can't even tell you how many surprise attacks and shots to the face I took.  Little Peter seemed to have it out for me, and he was pretty relentless.

There was also an unofficial cannonball contest with the Uncles.  Here's my dad's attempt   --------->







We ate tons of yummy tacos and after Charlie painfully waited all night, it was time to open presents and eat cupcakes!!

It was a fun birthday, and definitely memorable.  It's not often that everyone in your family is at your birthday party, at least that's never happened to me.

The close of the birthday party meant saying goodbyes, and after heading back to grandma's to gather our stuff, it was sad to think that the weekend and the reunion were over.


We both had an awesome time, and a big thanks to Darron for all the awesome pics!!

Independence Day

Happy Birthday America!!!  Today Cory and I celebrated our first 4th of July together as a married couple.  Last year was pretty eventful up in Powell with my family, but this year we stayed home in Provo and enjoyed the festivities with our family (Anna) and friends here.  Provo has a huge parade down University and luckily my old roommates live on University so we watched the whole thing on their front lawn.  We had an American flag and I waved Old Glory as all the veterans passed by.  It was a fun morning. Joseph and Abbey made red and blue pancakes which we all enjoyed as we heard the bands march by, and watched the pageant girls wave so elegantly at us.  It was the first time I had ever seen the parade in my time here at BYU.  I was surprised at how may people were there.  The streets were packed!  Here we are on their porch with our Anna and friends.

After the parade I had to go to work for a few hours...you know...no holidays for the missionaries.  But when I got home, Cory and I planned on watching the Stadium of Fire fireworks from afar.  So we headed to the field in front of the temple just east of the stadium and waited.  We didn't actually know what time they started so it was funny that every time fireworks went off in the general vicinity (which was about every 2 minutes) we wondered "Is it starting?"  We finally had to stop and tell ourselves that it would probably be so obvious when they actually did start, and it was.  The real show's fireworks were ten times the size of all the other ones we had questioned.  We enjoyed the show and then spent a good forty minutes fighting the traffic to get back home.  Totally worth it!!!

Going Away Party, and Big Raffle Winners

So tonight we went to a going away party for our friend Stephanie Lee.  She is moving to San Francisco to start a new job and become a real person, so there was a party put on by Jenessa and her roommates to say goodbye and make one last memory.  Steph was in our freshman ward, and then Cory lived with her their sophomore year while I was on my mission.  Cory may think that she is closer to Stephanie than I am, but technically our relationship goes farther back.  I was Stephanie's FHE dad freshman year and I think it is safe to say that our connection is deeper than just friendship: we are family.

Anyway so the party was fun, and they had some fun activities.  When we got there we got raffle tickets, and throughout the course of the evening they raffled off some of Stephanie's possessions that she wasn't going to take with her.  It was usually a pretty random thing that got a few laughs.  For example the grand prize was a two night stay in her old bedroom, which Joseph won...and Cory and I were also winners.  Cory won a triangular curling iron, and I won a paperback copy of The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.  Overall I would say the night was a success!  If I had to describe it in one word?  WIN....except for the part where it was one of the last times we would see our friend in a long time.

The winner, and her prize!!

Sean went Grocery Shopping

I asked Sean to go grocery shopping on Saturday night while I was at work, so we would have stuff for dinner on Sunday.
When I got home I asked him what he bought, the conversation was as follows:
Cory:  So what did you get?
Sean:I don't know if any of it will go together.
Cory: I'm sure we can make something with it (or something like that)
Sean: So, I got hamburger meat, spaghetti sauce, and bow tie pasta.
Cory: What do you mean you don't know if it will go together? That will make spaghetti.

Silly Seany!