the L word

me & nick on our honeymoon

love makes me happy.

everyone knows how to love, everyone loves, and everyone is loved.

love is indescribable, like the taste of salt.

we are because of love.

& we do everything for love.

today i spent some time with a young lady who is definitely in love.

on the way home i sat goo-goo eyed at my honey for quite a bit, and told him i loved him at least a dozen times.

love makes us love, don't you say?

let me tell you about my love.

his name is nick hammer, like the tool.

when he gets drinks for me, he puts a straw in with no ice.

he does the dishes because he knows how much i hate to.

he lets me sleep in.

when he does wake me up, he does so with little kisses & tells me how beautiful i am.

when i have nightmares, he cuddles up to me real tight.

he holds me when i cry & everything is magically okay.

he likes my photography.

he brushes his teeth with warm water, but turns it cold when i'm brushing alongside him.

when i don't feel well, he scratches my back & runs his fingers through my hair.

i always get foot rubs.
he gets me ice cream; when he does, it usually has chocolate and caramel on it.

we sing songs in the car together, make fun of commercials, & kindly comment on the wondrous driving of our fellow utahans.

he surprises me with treats when i can't take it any more.

he picks me up & drops me off at work every day (that's 2 hours a day spent in the car).

he is the sweetest, kindest, most kissable person i've ever met.

he doesn't even mind doing the laundry.

he'll run errands & do things that i don't want to, or am too scared to.
we have already picked out our children's names.
he punishes the dog when she's done something wrong when i don't have the heart to smack her little behind.

he does nothing with me.
we're taking an italian class together so we can live in italy someday.

he respects me, says please and thank you often, opens the door every time & puts up with my hormones during that one week of the month.
i enjoy his taste in oxford shirts, banana republic, frozen gummi bears, soccer, mountain dew baja blast + pepsi, & quilts.
we're goober schwartz together.

he is hands down the best thing that's ever happened to me, 

& i love him.

weekend recap

to summarize my weekend in one not-so-simple sentence:

" i love nick; we enjoy sipping martinelli's while sharing microwave mac&cheese & playing smash bros."

before...

after!

ditching relief society/priesthood for Music & the spoken word

hello, weekend. i love you.

happy friday everybody.

cue bad day.

what started out as a happy day - thinking that we've almost potty trained koda, cleaning the apartment nearly spotless, thinking about what we could do today - has turned into a nightmare.

we decided to have lunch at a little bakery in Salt Lake called Gourmandise.

we went there to take our engagement pictures, and i just loved the passion fruit cheesecake we got.

i was way excited to go again.

we got a really good panini and some dessert.

but the dessert was where we went terribly wrong.

i can't believe we were so naiive.

the dessert is called: baba au rum.

what does it mean?

roll with rum.

literally.

so guess what we had for lunch today?

alcohol.

i cried when we figured out what the "liquid" was at the bottom.

i can't believe i'm so stupid.

then, i got to work and was told that i was to work outpatient until 5:30 because someone went home early and they needed help.

so i did.

this is the email i wrote to nick right before i was done:

I just got yelled at for 20 minutes about something I have no idea about. This lady was furious that I didn’t have her keys for her car. Yeah, sounds crazy right? It is. The valet service closed on the south side of the hospital, and someone took all the keys over to the north desk. Well, this lady just wasn’t going to walk all the way down there. She demanded that I call the desk and have them bring her the keys and get her car for her. Oh, by the way I’m working in Outpatient until 5:30 because someone had to take care of their sick daughter. So I’m here, all by myself, at the outpatient registration desks. Anyways. So I called Katherine because she’s over in inpatient right now and she went over and had the desk call me (I have no idea what that number is? They’re right across from me every day. I can just take 2 steps and ask them myself. ) so they did, and while I was on the phone with them the lady is still screaming at me telling them that this is ridiculous, and the security guard on my end was like “oh wow.” Anyways, you know how long it takes to get from one end of this hospital to the other. It’s longer than 10 seconds, heaven forbid. However, every 2 seconds this lady is like ‘well are they coming or am I just going to have to play the waiting game?” I kept assuring her. She kept saying, “I have to be somewhere at 5. This is ridiculous!” so I tried making small talk and I was like, “where do you need to be?” meaning is it far, is it close, etc. and she looks at me with fire coming from her eyebrows and puts her hand up and goes “no, no I will NOT share that information with YOU. THAT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!”

WELL SORRY OBESE WOMAN OF THE DEVIL, MAYBE IF YOU WEIGHED LESS THAN A WHOPPING 500 POUNDS YOU’D HAVE A MORE PLEASANT DISPOSITION, I’M SORRY YOU’RE LATE TO FAT CAMP. IT’S TOO BAD THEY DON’T FIX PERSONALITIES THERE TOO BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE WORST ATTITUDE I’VE EVER SEEN. get out.

I hate crying at work.

and so, the rest of my day commenced.

i can't stop crying at work; it's awful.

i feel sick.

and i'm starving.

but hey, only an hour and a half to go, right?

whatever.

i'm done.

checking out for the day, and i'm going to cry all night.

i hate this hospital, and i hate salt lake.

oh, dear.

the mexican stalker vehicle ice cream man drove by our apartment today.

i think i saw a similar, un-stickered van parked in our parking lot just a few weeks ago.

majorly creeped out. 

silly koda

she just loves strawberry banana smoothies

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition utah!

actually, really,

but both nick and i are volunteering to help build the house.

heard of daybreak utah?

my grandparents moved right over there.

but that's beside the point.

we're going to make some family's dream come true on June 30th.

care to join us?

you get a free t-shirt, and stuff.

but mostly it's just for fun.

a vacuum, a game, and a recipe.

today was one of those days that rocked.
nick and i were feeling particularly adventurous this morning, so we went to bed-bath-and beyond and got a vacuum.
it's a $180 vacuum, and we got it for $4.30
we feel exceptionally proud of ourselves.
then we went to walmart and nick got Super Smash Bro. BRAWL
to go with his new Wii he got for his birthday!
wooooo
we're super excited.
if my parents are wondering where these items went:

• lego star wars
• wii play
• when in rome
• evolution
• and 17 again

they accidentally escaped and wandered to our apartment in my purse. sorry.
then we got items for lunch.
this is a recipe my mother has, that wasn't in my cookbook so i totally forgot that i loved it.
it's called....

• Chicken Salad Croissant Sandwiches •

- tossed salad in-a-bag -

- ranch dressing -

- red grapes -

- canned chicken -

- costco croissant rolls -

you put however much you want (relatively equal parts of each) of everything but the rolls into a bowl and mix it up good.

then you put it onto a croissant roll cut in half, and walah!

it's an easy-peasy lunch/meal for any college student, newly wed, or anyone really who has a craving for something fresh and delicious.

plus, you can use the rest of the salad for a side salad at dinner, the ranch for homemade french fries and salad, the grapes for breakfast and snacks, the canned chicken for sandwiches, and the croissant rolls for any number of things.

see? versatile.

that's how i do my shopping.

except we went to the dumbest walmart in existence.

we couldn't find anyone to get the wii game for us, and then a manager walked back to the bathroom area and grabbed a worker for us.

the typical i'm-40-and-i-still-live-with-my-mom-and-she-makes-me-snacks-when-i-get-home-from-work-every-day-while-i-play-world-of-warcraft kind of guy.

he looked stoned. honestly.

anyways, so that happened.

at the same time i was looking for the "fabric" area of walmart, you know, where the nice old ladies cut out yards of fabric for you and tell you how cute it is?

there was no such thing.

there were a bunch of quilting cutouts of fabric squares and fleece blanket kits, but that was it.

i was amazingly disappointed with walmart.

i didn't even look for patio lights, i was that upset.

not a huge surprise, but it's never really happened before.

and i might as well throw this in there, but one of my co-workers left the first book of "the hunger games" on the desk, and since yesterday was the longest and slowest day of my life i figured why not.

i started reading, and was utterly dissapointed with the writing style.

it was juvenile and reminded me a lot of twilight.

twilight was a good series with relatively good books and writing.

but all i could read/see in my mind was a whiny bella, and it ruined the whole book for me.

i couldn't get myself to be intrigued or interested in the least bit.

so i went home and nick gave me the short version, and i was a little surprised at how similar it was to a certain book...

as nick put it, "it's a manly version of twilight. lots of killing-- lots of blood."

in the end, i'm very content with letting it rest there.

and as i've disclosed to my facebook, i may be the only person who doesn't emphatically drool over these books, but i really don't care.

done and done.

me and nick bought giant marshmallows and hershey's chocolate bars today in hopes of having s'mores tonight, but i'd like to have some buddies to light things on fire with.

so we'll see what happens.

**by the way, eating s'mores with oatmeal cookies instead of graham crackers is the new way to go, the new "black" if you're the fashionista type, and i will never regress into my old habits.

i'd also like to give a shout-out to these people:

meghan carlisle: HAPPY FREAKING BIRTHDAY! I owe you big time.

mccall gunderson: when are we going to run away? i've been practicing my ukulele skills.

tiffany harris: i'm getting tired of not seeing you. fix it.

chelsi lukens: i'm so glad you found such a great apartment! now let's PLAY!

ally best: i'm so happy for you, and every time i read your blog i grin from ear to ear. thank you for being so inspirational!

rachael & drew: when are we going golfing?!?! i took nick to hit a few balls on his birthday, and i'm not too shabby! let's do this thing!

my family: how about you all move up here so i can see you more!?

and finally, nick hammer: YOU ARE A SAINT. thank you for doing all that laundry, making a delicious dinner for us, and being a ridiculously amazing husband. this is my favorite quote from last night: "steph, can i rub your back for you, or massage your head? oh, hold on, i have to put the laundry in the dryer, just a sec."

you're definitely a keeper.

haha, oh! and we gave koda a bath this morning.

i have never seen a dog squeal and fight light she did!

she HATES baths!!

she wouldn't even get within 5 feet of us after we took her out and attempted to dry her off.

sorry babe, but you just have to get clean sometimes!

i'm trying so hard to be patient and wait until she gets her last puppy shots to buy a leash and take her out on walks all the time.

nick's just paranoid, and frankly so am i.

we don't want our baby to get sick.

we're strange, and aware of it.

take care, all you peeps and whatnot.

try not to be overly desperate or annoying on facebook, choose the right, always use turn signals, clean up your own dishes, and don't steal your sister's shirts. these habits, my friends, will take you far in life.

z is for zion's

i loved my little birthday weekend getaway with my hubby! 
we hiked angel's landing (first time for him) and it was crazy fun. 
if you hike angel's landing, my advice to you is 


1. bring lots and LOTS of water and snacks 
2. hike early in the morning otherwise you'll be burning hot, and 
3. bring a first aid kit. i cut my leg and got a bloody nose because of the abrupt altitude change.
4. wear a hat if you can
5. don't give up! it gets really rough & kind of scary at the top, but don't stop. just keep going. it's all worth it once you up there and look over the valley. 


we started climbing at 11 in the morning, and after hiking to the top and resting for lunch, we made it back down around 3:30, 4 ish. so it takes a little while.


we also saw the new pirates 4 movie. then we sat around on sunday and just played and watched tv.
this morning we drove home and i went straight to work.
my nose is sunburned and peeling, a thanks goes to no sunscreen, my legs feel like jello with sticks in them
and my bum is nice and tight. all i want to do is sleep, and instead i'm here at work. boo! 

i love my job, but i'd do anything for a chilly bowl of mint chocolate chip icecream wearing nothing but my skibbies and all cuddled up with my puppy and nick watching an extreme chick flick.

:) you bet.

i think i'll buy a pie.

here's a cute picture of my dog.

unfortunately, it's fuzzy because she couldn't stand still, the rascal.

we still can't potty train her.

dangit apartment complexes. give us yards!

i miss mccall, chels, and tiffany.

i really want to go to strawberry days this year. i've never tried the strawberries and cream! (be sad..)

tomorrow i'm going to buy fabric from walmart and go crazy.

maybe i'll buy some patio string lights and put them on my porch,

then make a fabric string of flags and hang it on our banister

then i'll make flower headbands and tshirts.

we call her Koda Bear

we bought a puppy, and it's a girl!

7 weeks old

yorki-poo

and we call her KodaBear.

:)