Before & After and Happy Birthday to ME!!!

BEFORE

Surprise!!! If you didn't know already I chopped my hair off! I have been wanting to cut my hair off and donate it again for sometime now, but have been waiting for the right moment to do it. Well that right moment came in August while Scottie was out of town. I got 20 inches cut off and ended up having 3 hair cuts until I was finally SUPER happy with the way it turned out. (Thanks Deanna)

AFTER

I ended up being able to still surprise Scottie even though he was super suspicious while he was out of town. He kept asking me to send him pictures of myself...so I would cleverly have to attach my cut hair to my head and take a picture LOL. He came home and totally loved it. Then I got to head home to Washington and surprise my Hansen family too. They were all so surprised and my Mom started to walk by me in the airport because she didn't recognize me! LOL.

Here is the first hair cut...cute, but not my favorite. I like the A-line that I have now with the spicy layers.

I turned 27 on the 24th of August!!! My birthday ended up being a super great day and I got to feel special all day thanks to many people. Scottie was out of town so I was feeling sorry for myself thinking my BIRTHDAY was going to be lame, but I couldn't have been more wrong! My birthday started out with me getting birthday EVE flowers from Scottie who had a neighbor put them in our house, while I was in class.

Then I went to work on my birthday and discovered that my boss had decorated my office and arranged for "Birthday Elves" to bring a flower, balloon, and gift card to my office every half hour throughout the day! Here is the first birthday elf of the day.

Then my good friend Hannah stopped by and brought me my MOST favorite thing to eat in the whole world!!! Meier cinnamon rolls:) Thanks Hannah you are seriously the BEST EVER!!!

Me with another birthday elf!!!

Some more:)

Then at lunch we had a pink birthday party, and I even got a pink cake with my name on it!!! Funny how little things like that can make you so happy:) Connie is the greatest and planned the whole day out for me!!! She made it perfect and I love working with her.

Another birthday Elf!!!

Me at the end of the day with my birthday stash!!!

Then that night 15 gals joined me for my birthday dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse. It was great to be surrounded by so many friends!!! Oh yes everyone entertained me and wore birthday hats at the restaurant. LOL.

The Birthday Crew!!!

Me with the gift card loot! I think my shopping needs will be set for a couple of years with all of these!

Then that night after I got home from dinner Scottie called and told me he had hid something for me in the house. It was a box full of presents, so I could still have a birthday circle even though he was out of town. I will admit he got some major points and I was way impressed that he went birthday shopping, wrapped the presents, and hid them all a month in advance so I could still have presents to open while he was out of town. I love my Scottie and feel blessed that he takes such good care of me.

Me in the birthday circle. I had two of them just in case you were wondering why my outfits are different. One by myself while Scottie was gone and then one once he got home.

Another fun thing I did for my birthday was sign up for every possible email birthday offer that gave you something free on your birthday. Some of my free birthday meals included: Mad Mex, Spaghetti Warehouse, Noodles and Company, Pita Pit, and Cold Stone. It was a great birthday and I am grateful for everyone family, friends, co-workers, and Scottie who all made it such a great day!!!

My birthday present to myself was redecorating my living room wall. Here is another before and after picture series.

BEFORE

AFTER

I was super happy with the way it turned out! Also I need to give a special shout out to the Taylors for helping me hang the shelves and frames. Well thanks for reading this post all about me!!! Stay tuned for more things that include Scottie like: our trip to Chicago & Scottie's Boards, Austin's visit to C-bus, and Jason's visit to C-bus.

Summer Update

Holy cow it has been too long since I posted, so be warned this will be a massive post! First up our GARDEN!!! One of the perks of moving to our condo was that we have space for our very own garden. Scottie is the best and appeased my desire to have a garden, he even went along with creating a Parker Family Garden Blueprint. Our garden had; cantaloupe, lettuce, green beans, 4 tomato plants, 3 green bell pepper plants, cucumbers, and zucchini. Everything did really well...until the very end when our zucchini got a disease and all three plants died:( It was very sad, but after talking to lots of people I discovered that happens out here in OHIO. Here are some pictures of the garden along the way:
MAY
Planting our garden

Me with the Parker Family Garden Blueprint. We had carefully planned out how to maximize our gardening space, and I think we did a darn good job!

Scottie and I going to work (below)! I don't think I will ever get over the excitement of growing a garden. It is still so hard for me to believe that you put a little seed in the ground and then wowla you get crops galore and food!!!

Ohio has a really early growing season and we had everything in the ground by Mid May and then had produce in June...starting out with us being able to eat our green leaf lettus first.
JUNE

Our tomatoes

Our green beans (2 rows), lettuce, and cantaloupe.

Our first pepper, I seriously couldn't get over how cute it was!!!

JULY

Cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, OH MY!!!

Our three zucchini plants....which all later died on us:( I felt like I was losing a family member! It was sooooooo sad.

August

Our garden looks like a jungle now and Scottie and I have enjoyed eating all the fresh HOME GROWN produce all summer long:)

Our huge tomatoes and peppers. Each pepper plant has 5+ peppers on it, and one plant even had 9 at one point!

Me watering our garden....see how big it is??? You almost can't see me!

Here is one of our cantaloupes, yes it is all just one, it was huge! We got 8 off our plants this year...pretty impressive if you ask me!

Amish Country
Besides all our garden we did this summer we managed to get in a visit to Amish Country. Getting up to the Berlin area has been on our OHIO bucket list for a while now, so we decided we would take advantage of the 4th of July weekend and headed up there.

Here we are at the cheese factory. You could watch them make the cheese, and then the best part was that they had samples you could try. I don't think I have ever seen so many different types of cheeses.

See lots of CHEESE!!!

The Amish Bakery also had samples and here is Scottie enjoying some!

I never could get over the buggies and horses on the road!

The Yoder Farm.

Me petting the horses-this one's name was Sparky

A beautiful view of Amish Country

For dinner we had to eat at the famous Der Dutchman restaurant. It was good, and worth the experience...even though I think my home cooking was comparable.

Dinner

One our way home we stopped off at the Longest Covered Bridge. Called the Bridge of Dreams.

While we were on the bridge an Amish couple rode by on their horse buggy!!! I was thrilled.

July 4th weekend Cont....Scottie and Daniel made cornhole boards together! FYI-Cornhole is a super big deal out here especially during OSU's football session. These boards normally cost $100-200 dollars and these boys made theirs for way cheaper!!!

We also checked off another place on our Ohio Bucket List this summer and went to Alum Creek. We had a great time with some friends eating yummy food, playing cornhole, and playing in the water.

Me and Steph

Birthday Party Cornhole Tournament. I just realize there is a lot of cornhole in this blog post LOL. Our friends in the ward had the best idea for a birthday party. They had each couple dress up and then come play cornhole. Scottie and I represented the Utah Junior Jazz and both wore Scottie's old basketball jerseys. I think the jerseys must have been good luck because we made it to the semi-finals!!!

Here are the die-hards!!!

Well thanks for reading about our summer happenings!!! I can't believe that Autumn is just around the corner, stay tuned for more updates.