Friday Favorites

I may not be the most consistent at actually writing on my blog, but boy do I love to read blogs. I'm constantly finding ones that I just adore and I thought I'd share a few of them with you. These are five of my current favorites:

One Good Thing by Jillee: This is my MIL's AMAZING blog. I know I might be a tad bit biased on this one, but really, her blog is fantastic. She posts one great, practical tip every day - hence the name of her blog, "One Good Thing". From genius cleaning solutions, to delicious recipes, DIY beauty products and more...she really does it all. If you love finding money and time saving tips, this blog is for you. 

Something Charming: Ok I'm biased on this one too. Joelle and I have been friends since we were like 3-years-old and I've mentioned her blog on here many times before. But even if we weren't friends I would still adore her blog. She's an aspiring writer and really has a knack for writing down-to-earth, relatable posts. So many times she's written things that I've thought about before but was never quite sure how to articulate. She also has impeccable style and just started her own wedding planning business. Her blog is great for 20-something girls just trying to navigate their way through life. 

Busy Bee Lauren: This is another one of my favorites that I've posted about before. Lauren is the cutest young, married LDS girl in Arizona. She and her husband are expecting their first baby in a few months. She writes about anything and everything. From fashion, to photography, books, movies, and food. There is something for everyone. I especially adore her great vintage style, gorgeous photos, and her relatable writing style. And if you're a Hunger Games fan, her blog is a must read. 

The Happy Hour: This is another darling lifestyle blog that I discovered a couple of weeks ago. Megan and her husband Tanner met in Utah while they were both in college. Now they are living the life in Southern California where Megan works as a dental hygienist and Tanner is in advertising (I think...). She has adorable style and posts tons of cute pictures and videos of her and her husband. Plus, they have this awesome red Vespa that they're always riding around on. If you love witty writing and beautiful photos then you'll love The Happy Hour. 

6th Street Design School: I am currently obsessed with anything having to do with interior design. I saw Kirsten on Studio 5 a couple of weeks ago and just had to look up her blog. I instantly fell in love with the bright, clean look of her blog and all of her amazing design tips. She has fabulous taste and a beautiful home. She does a "Feature Friday" post every week where she shows another blogger's home that she just loves. It has become one of my favorite posts to read on Saturday mornings. I'm stating the obvious here, but this blog is great for anyone who loves design. 

It was really hard to narrow this down to five but I didn't want this to turn into a novel. I am such a blog addict and love telling people about the awesome blogs I find. This might just have to be a weekly post for a while. 

What are some of your favorite blogs?

It's Friday, Friday...

Am I the only one that still sings that song every Friday? And does it bother anyone else that one of the worst songs ever to hit the airwaves is now a permanent part of pop culture? Like I'm pretty positive I will sing that song every Friday for the rest of my life. Rebecca Black really should not have that kind of control over my life. 

Anywho...I know Friday is almost over but I'm just chillin' here on my couch while my hubby plays Call of Duty. He's trying to "level up" his AK-47 - whatever that means. So I thought I would put up a little post. 

Friday night is date night in the Nystul home. Tonight we went to Don Pedro's in Heber for dinner. It was quite scrumptious. After dinner the weather was just too beautiful to stay inside so we grabbed a couple of baseball mitts and played catch for a while. Poor Erik...I'm horrible at sports. He told me tonight that when he found out  that I'm a huge baseball fan and basically grew up at Angel Stadium, he thought, "Wow, playing catch with her will be so fun!" How wrong he was. Just because I could name the entire Angel's roster in 6th grade does not mean I know one bit about actually playing the game. I'm horrid actually. But Erik is trying to teach me and I'm slowly learning. 

So we've basically had a fun night so far and now we're killing time until the late show of The Hunger Games. Yup, we're going to see it again. We just can't resist. 

I'm really excited for this weekend because it's the Annual General Conference for our church. Twice a year our leaders speak to us from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City and it gets broadcast all over the world in about a million languages. Their words are always so inspiring and uplifting. So we'll get to spend the weekend at home watching conference in our pj's. 

Although I LOVE watching conference, probably the best part about this weekend is that Erik will be home for the whole thing! You see, he usually works on Saturdays but because we live in Utah he got to work today instead and has tomorrow off! Yay! I'm so excited to have him to myself for two whole days.

So what are you doing this weekend? Anything exciting on the agenda?

p.s. This is how I feel about the weekend:

That's my excited face in case you couldn't tell. I live for the weekend. 

This stuff...

...is ridiculous. Do yourself a favor and run to your nearest grocery store and grab a pint...or two. 

Wedding: Part Two

It's that time again! I'm linking up with Joelle at Something Charming for Wedding Wednesday. This week it's part two of our wedding photos. I thought I'd share photos of our awesome wedding party. 

You might notice from the pictures that our wedding party is a bit lopsided. Erik really wanted his two cute brothers to be his only groomsmen, but I just had to have 5 of my best girlfriends plus my awesome new sister-in-law as bridesmaids so we decided to just be a bit unconventional. And if there is anything I've learned about weddings it's that there are no real rules. It's your day so do what you want! 

See what I mean? A bit lopsided. 

That's better. 

My beautiful bridesmaids left to right: Anne Johnson, Molly Hunter, Britta Nystul, Brillante Self, Karen Cassebeer, and Kaitlin Rackham. These girls are THE best!

So you might be wondering...why are two of my bridesmaids missing from this picture? Well I just had to get a picture with these four girls. We all met in the dorms our freshman year at BYU. Seven years later and we're all married and Molly and Kaitlin each have a beautiful baby. It's crazy how much we've grown up since then and that we're still the best of friends!  

Somehow I didn't get pictures with each of my bridesmaids but I'm so glad that Karen and I did! We've been friends since 7th grade and have been through so much together. She is probably the kindest person I know and I just love her to death! 

I had to get a picture with the Johnsons too! I've known Michael since we were little kids and like I said above, Anne and I met our Freshman year of college. Have I ever mentioned I introduced them? And now they're married? Oh yeah - I pretty much rock. 

Could these three be any cuter? That's Kell on the left and Sten on the right. 

I'm not quite sure what's going on here - but I do know that Erik is loving being the center of attention. 

Stay tuned next week for more fun wedding photos! 

Locos Tacos and Beyond!

I had every intention of writing a little weekend wrap-up yesterday (because we had a great weekend!) but this random windstorm hit Utah on Sunday which caused my allergies to go crazy. So basically blogging was not happening last night because all I felt like doing was laying on the couch finishing this (which was SO good by the way). 

So here I am on Tuesday night writing about my weekend - which I'm pretty sure is against blogger rules or something. But, hey, I've always been a bit of a rebel so to heck with the rules! Ok - actually I've never been a rule breaker. But this is the start! I feel so liberated! 

Ok now I'm getting distracted - back to our weekend. It all started Friday night when I came home to these:

So pretty, right? Erik really is the best. 

Then we moved on to this:

Pretty sure he's going to kill me for posting this photo - oh well, it's already on Instagram. And yes that is a Doritos Locos Taco that Erik is chowing down on. And yes it is delicious. We've had them twice already and will definitely be going back for more. 

After our fancy dinner at Taco Bell we headed up to the outlets in Park City so Erik could check out some sunglasses he's been wanting. Well we didn't buy any sunglasses - because he happens to have a hook-up to get them for 50% off - but I did get this:

A seriously lime-green winter coat at the Columbia outlet! You could spot me from a mile away in this thing. They have some amazing deals right now! This is the best time to buy a new coat for next year because they are all on sale. I got this one that has two different layers (this is the super warm under layer and the top layer is waterproof with cute blue and green stripes) for $60. The full price was $250! I couldn't pass up a deal like that. Especially since I've had my current winter coat since '04. 

Anyway, enough about my new obsession coat. After our little jaunt up the road we headed back to Heber for The Hunger Games!!!!! I would have loved to do the midnight show the night before but I am just getting too old for that, haha. I just about died at work after the Harry Potter midnight premier - which was totally worth it! But after that I knew that midnight premiers were just not for me anymore. I'll leave those to the youngins' from now on. 

Our little hometown theatre in pre-sold tickets for the midnight show, but not for the Friday night shows. So I was all worried that we wouldn't get in or that we'd have to wait in line for hours. We decided to try for the late show hoping that everyone else would go to the early show. And yes you did read that right - the theatre in town only has two shows on Friday night. I love small towns.  Actually I REALLY, REALLY LOVE small towns. Because when we got to the theatre 30 minutes before the show this was the line:

They weren't even selling tickets until 15 minutes before the movie started. I think we ended up being like the 8th and 9th people in the door. Like I said, I LOVE this town. 

So I'm sure you're dying to know what we thought of the movie. We LOVED it!!!!!!! It was sooooooo good. Erik hasn't read the books and still loved it and now he's dying to read the them. We even ordered the box set on Amazon yesterday. I devoured the books about a year ago and was so excited to see the movie. It definitely lived up to my expectations. I would agree with many of the reviews I've read that say it's the best book to movie adaptation they've ever seen. It was that good. I'm not the best at writing movie reviews but I adored this from one of my favorite bloggers, Lauren at Busy Bee Lauren. She did this awesome countdown to the Hunger Games series on her blog which got me even more excited for the movie. And now that I've read her review I'm dying to see the movie again. I think I know what we're doing for date night this week ;)

On Saturday I went down to Provo and hit up my two favorite stores - Target and DI. Target was kind of a bust but I found a couple of awesome things at DI. I'm hoping to share them on here as soon as I get around to it. After my shopping trip I went to my cute friend Meredith's bridal shower. She started dating her fiance around the same time that Erik and I started dating so it's so fun to see them getting married too! Yay for love! Then Brillante and I had a little girl's afternoon spent chatting and browsing at Ross. We don't have nearly enough girl time now that we're both married and it was so nice to catch up and talk each other's ears off for a while. Plus I found some red skinnies at Ross which I can't wait to wear. 

Sunday was church or course. Erik and I teach the 13,14, and 15 year-old Sunday School class which is so fun. We have a great group of kids. And this Sunday I got to be on a little mini panel in Young Women's with another super cute newlywed girl in my ward. The Young Women's president asked us all kinds of questions about self-reliance, things we did as teenagers, and how to prepare for marriage and life in general. It was so cool to reflect on how far I've come since I was a 16 or 17 and think about all that I've learned in the last few years. Boy does time fly. 

After church one of our favorite couples - Elise and Seth Bracken came over for dinner. These two happened to have met while serving as missionaries in South Carolina just like Erik and I. Elise was one of my companions and it's so fun to get together with her and Seth since we all served together. We had some seriously delicious steak for dinner along with fresh green beans, Waldorf Salad, and glass bottled IBC Root Beer. Then, we finished the night off with a rousing game of Uno. 

Wow, that was one long-winded post about my weekend. It was such an enjoyable one that I couldn't resist. Plus, I basically fail at ever writing in a real journal so this will have to do. I know that my future children will be just thrilled to read about how we spent our newlywed weekends.  And I'm sure you are too :)

Ditto

Have you ever seen the movie Ghost? I just love that movie. I don't think I'll ever be able to listen to Unchained Melody without thinking of that one scene...you know the one I'm talking about ;) 

So if you've seen Ghost I'm sure you know that one of Patrick Swayze's little quirks was that he never said "I love you" to Demi Moore. She would say it to him and then he would just say "Ditto" back. Well, when he dies and he's trying to communicate with Demi through Whoopi Goldberg the only way Whoopi can prove that she's really talking to him is by telling Demi that he says "Ditto". I love that part where Whoopi just yells, "He says ditto!", and it dawns on Demi that she's telling the truth. Awww...such a tearjerker. 

Anyway, I've realized that Erik and I have a little "ditto" thing that we do. I'll ask him all the time, 

"Can I have a kiss?" and he never just says yes. He always says, "You can have two!" 

So the moral of this story is, if Erik ever dies and has to communicate with me through an eccentric medium that's the phrase she'll have to tell me to prove that she can really talk to my dead husband. 

But I think I might have just ruined that whole theory by posting it publicly on my blog...oh well. Let's just hope there aren't any deceptive mediums reading this.  

p.s. Did anyone else get totally freaked out when the demon things come for the evil guy at the end? I'm pretty sure those things gave me nightmares as a child. 

Honeymoon: Part Three

Just a few last photos of our honeymoon that I wanted to share!

 We started out our last day in San Diego by going to the Broken Yolk Cafe for breakfast. 

This place is seriously so cute. Erik has seen it on Man vs. Food and was dying to check it out. They have a challenge to eat this massive John Wayne Omelet. 

Luckily Erik didn't attempt the challenge, but just got a downsized version of the John Wayne instead. 

I had one of the best and biggest biscuit (yes, just one plate sized biscuit) and gravy of my life. We'll definitely be going back here the next time we're in San Diego. So delish! 

It was kind of a dreary, rainy day so after breakfast we decided to head to Balboa Park and check out the Natural History Museum. We totally felt like little kids going to the 3-D movie they had about dinosaurs and playing with all the exhibits.  I'll admit to being the tiniest bit board but Erik really had fun - and I enjoyed taking lots of funny pictures of him. 

After the museum we went over the huge Coronado bridge to the island and just drove around for a bit. Then we decided to be total bums and go back to our hotel and take a nap. And when I say nap I actually mean nap ;) We were just crazy exhausted after a weeks worth of wedding and honeymoon festivities! We had every intention of going back to Coronado for dinner that night but ended up sticking closer by our hotel and going to a cute place in Little Italy called The Mona Lisa. 

The next day we packed up our stuff to leave. I was soooo sad to leave! I was definitely not ready to go back to real life. 

Before heading home we stopped at my parents house in Orange County to pick up our wedding presents and then headed to Vegas for the night. Erik had never been to Vegas and thought it would be go for the night. You'd think as young newlyweds in Vegas we'd totally go out on the town for a night of frivolity - but you would be wrong. We were tuckered out from a day of driving, so we ordered an overpriced pizza from room service and stay in for the night. We really must be the most exciting couple around - haha, we're such homebodies. 

The next day it was back to reality. But at least it's newlywed reality - which happens to be THE BEST kind of reality there is. 

Wedding: Part One

I know I said I'd be back tonight with part three of our honeymoon pictures but I wanted to link up for Wedding Wednesday with Joelle at Something Charming.  So instead of honeymoon pictures, tonight you get the first part of our wedding pictures! Yay!

Just a quick side note before I get to the pictures - for anyone who doesn't know, Erik and I are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Members of our church generally get married in one of our many temples around the world. Marriage ceremonies in temples are very sacred and take place in front of just a small number of family members and friends.  So that's why we don't have any pictures of the ceremony.

 All of these pictures are outside of the Newport Beach Temple where we were sealed for time and all eternity. One of the things I love about my faith is the importance we place on the family. We believe that in temples we can be sealed to our families forever. So to go along with the spirit of forever families I'm starting with mostly family pictures tonight. Enjoy!