noviembre

because i've been mia on this blog machine for november i though i'd recap the month for you. here we go...

we've spent lots of time with family since adam's two youngest siblings got married this month! we got to see some out-of-towners (can, casey and kids) which was great, especially meeting candice's brand new baby landon.

first, sean and megan got married on the 4th in the draper temple THEN jenny and jordan got married on the 17th in the salt lake temple.

both weddings were amazing and beautiful and we are so happy to now officially have megan and jordan in our family (even though we already considered them family).

thanksgiving this year was with the clarks. dinner was amaaaaaazing and we stuffed ourselves silly. we had a great day until about midnight when adam started feeling sick. long story short, we spent our black friday in the emergency room so adam could get an iv and meds. it ended up being some really awful, no good, really bad stomach flu that only lasted 24 hours but left us with a hefty ER bill.

poor guy. nothing like puking your guts out, or watching your spouse puke their guts out, to make you soooo grateful for your health! 

we've been running a lot this month, training for our next marathon in california in february. although it may take a lot of discipline to get out of our warm bed when it's 30 degrees outside to go for a 20 mile run, i've secretly really enjoyed the time i get to spend with adam, when it's just the two of us, running together with no distractions for hours. he's the best running partner a girl could ask for!

it was a busy but great month. thanksgiving is always a great reminder to count your blessings and we do feel very blessed! i've been gettin my christmas craft on and now that our home is all decked out i say bring on the holidays!

halloween half marathon

last weekend we ran the halloween half marathon. it was a great course starting up above sundance on the alpine loop and ending down the canyon just before the shops at riverwoods. we both got our best times so far so we were happy. all the downhill left us with some pretty sore gams over the next days following the race but it was worth it. 

it was hard coming up with costumes that we wouldn't want to throw in the gargbage after 13.1 miles but we managed somehow. adam was a pirate and i was a cat. we weren't the most festive ones there but i'm happy to say our costumes didn't bother us one bit!

our race stats:

there were about 3,400 runners total, over 2,300 women and almost 1,000 men

adam finished 35th overall for the guys, 4th in his age group with a time of 1:24 (6:27 mile average)  

jess finished 19th overall in the girls, 1st in her age group with a time of 1:30 (6:55 mile average)

party in the NYC

after 3 years of being lonely during the boys annual deer hunt, this year i got smart and went to new york  while adam spent the weekend being a man and shooting things. i went out with my parents to visit my favorite new york couple, brother chris and sister-in-law kimmy. 

here we are walking the brooklyn bridge. it was such nice weather the weekend we were there and this night had an especially beautiful sunset. 

 we spent a little time at the museum of natural history. after all the walking around the city i felt a little like that walrus pictured below, flopped over on belly, super beat. 

 my parents hadn't been to new york for 24 years (they told me that's where i was conceived and i told them that that was too much information) so we did our best to see everything! 

 and of course we saw a broadway play, mary poppins. it was my first broadway and i loved it! it was much different than the plays i've seen at the hale center theatre, that's for dang sure!

we had lots 'o fun in new york. thanks to chris and kimmy for letting us stay in their apartment and being our tour guides. also, thanks to my parents for letting me tag along. it was kinda fun to spend the weekend just me and the ma and pa, felt like i was a little kid again. 

murder among the mateys

every october adam and i make it a point to have a murder mystery party. this year, you guessed it, was a "murder among the mateys" pirate themed party. we ate dinner by candlelight and spent the evening accusing one another. it was magical.

everyone really did a great job dressing the part (minus shane) if i do say so myself.  jamie (bottom, right) won the best dressed award for her lovely pink dress and hat ensemble. 

 

 malcom's "costume"(below, left) was my favorite i think. he showed up in normal clothes and slowly the layers started shedding and eventually he ended up looking (in someone else's words) as a "gay pirate", with a scarf tied around his neck, a couple of gold hoop earrings and eventually, shirtless.

we stated from the beginning that someone would be walking the plank (diving board) after the game into my parents pool that hadn't been heated for about a month. 

poor jimmy was the victim because he was the murderer. however, eventually all the men ended up in the pool through some very aggressive tackling and wrestling into the water. some clothes were lost in the process, those pictures are not shown. 

and as always, adam laughed so hard he fell on the ground. the usual. 

thanks to all who came, we had faaarrrrrrrrrrr too much fun!

girls will be girls

there's a group of us girls that all grew up in the same neighborhood, been friends forever. one of us (ravey baby) is going on a mission november 9th to washington state so we decided a girls only trip was in order to send her off properly. we all hopped in this giant, awesome sauce, white van and headed down to st george for the weekend.

this was just soooo kassidy, we had to snap a pic and make this our trip theme.

so much whoopie cake, a personal fav. we just went at it with forks, no plates allowed. oh and baby maddie, how cute is she holding her mama's legs?

our dance party pictured below. people were on the ground, using the broom to limbo, really everyone's best work. insanity. a trip highlight for me.

of course we hit up nielson's custard.

what a trip! we sure will miss our pal raven over the next 1.5 years. Our friend get togethers will not be the same without her but she's going to rock it as a missionary! for those who couldn't come on the trip, you know who you are, you were sorely missed!  

celebration station

i made a happy anniversary banner, you know, to celebrate our love. naturally, i made adam take a thousand pictures by it before we left on our anniversary date. little did he know that the self timer was taking 10 pictures at a time. it made for some interesting shots. 

after our photo shoot we headed out, weathering the awful storm, which was reminiscent of our wedding day. we ate dinner at sundance and then hit up the park city outlets for a little shopping. it was magical. great way to celebrate 4 years together. 

 if you're sick of all the pictures of just adam and i, i'm truly sorry. that's what you get since we don't have babies yet. 

4

today is the four year anniversary of when my bff adam and i got hitched.

 this is right after we became mr and mrs clark. just happy as a clam.

the jokes alone have been worth the trip. love you husband. cheers to the next four years, and every year after that.

bathroom: before and afters

i know, i know, this bathtub screams disgusting! don't judge us though, we had vision for the place when we bought it. i scrubbed this tub till my arms almost fell off, happy to say it's now pearly white and mold free!

there was tile all around the walls which we tore down. 

yucky old vanity

if you're wondering why half the tiles are black and half are tan, it's because the owners before us had put black tape over all the tan tiles. why???? who knows, it's a mystery to us. that was the first thing to go.

and after....

a few of the touches. new oval shaped mirror replaced the outdated medicine cabinet. we updated the light fixture and sink hardware.

painted the vanity, updated the knobs and added beadboard where the tile used to be. 

we also painted the yucky red walls a cool gray which we love combined with the crisp white.

and that's it! what used to be a nightmare is now a place where we feel we can get our "business" done in peace.

make like a tree and leaf

yesterday we took our jeep out for one last hoorah before we put the top back on. we drove around squaw peak and south fork. the leaves are in full fall colors. GORGEOUS! the trees were so beautiful, i didn't want to leaf. wa wa. what a place to live eh?



california take two

we headed down to california again last weekend for jimmy and jamie's wedding. it was a quick trip but worth every bit of the long drive down! we all rented a beach house in huntington for the weekend and had waaaay too much fun for our own good!

we pretty much ate ourselves into a coma, played ultimate frisbee and cracked tons of jokes in between all the wedding events. oh and incase you haven't seen pictures or heard from others yet, the wedding was perfection!

as the buddies would say, "the jokes were ON". for a more thorough trip breakdown, check out emily's post.

crosby beach trip

we had such a blast at the beach with my family this year, as we do every year. adam and i got to stay down there for about 10 days, it was heaven. we also got to see chris and kimmy (who live in new york) and katie (who lives in san clemente).

we ate shrimp tacos at our favorite place, rode our beach cruisers to the wedge, hit up all the surf shops in town, played bocci ball and frisbeeon the sand, ran on the boardwalk, and pretty much just loved every second of it.

BIG thanks to mama debbie and papa greg for the trip and to grandma and grandpa alexander and crosby for lending their homes. we love you all!

i'm always a little depressed after getting home from the beach and this time is no different. the only thing giving me hope as fall weather quickly approaches is that we are headed back to sunny southern california next week for a wedding, hip hip hooray!

kitchen: before and afters

we bought our house about a year and a half ago. it was built in 1954 and had very little, if any, renovating done since, as you can tell from the before pictures...

these pictures were taken after we'd ripped up the yucky tile, before installing the wood flooring. 

after a lot of hard work we now love our kitchen!

we painted stripes on the wall entering into the kitchen

my favorite thing about the kitchen is it feels so light and airy, thanks to these giant windows opening to the front porch.

 we added more canned lights in the kitchen for added lighting

 the flooring we added matches the original wood flooring that we refinished throughout the rest of the house

 all the veggies are from our garden :)

we left all the cabinetry the same just painted it a fresh white, added new hardware and also added the beadboard (kind of hard to see in the photo) as a backsplash

more beadboard by the kitchen table. i knew i wanted a blue kitchen and we love the blue we chose although it is showing up different colors in all these photos. also, added some shelving for decorations, recovered the chair seats in a green apple color and painted the kitchen table gray.

 new sink and faucet

 our fridge and all appliances were replaced when we moved in, they were old and gross before.

one of our favorite places in the house, and not just because it's filled with food :)