Stadium of Fire!

Mark and I scored some free tickets to Stadium of Fire this year!! (Thanks Jeremy and Christina!) Our seats were awesome. This was our view.


To start off the night 4 F16 airplanes flew across the stadium and after we sang the national anthem, 2 black hawk helicopters flew by and around the flag.


The entertainment for the night was SHeDAISY and the Jonas Brothers. SHeDAISY was good, but the crowd went completely wild when the Jonas Brothers came out. All you could here for the fist half an hour was teenage girls screaming their hearts out. You should have heard the crowd when one of the brothers said, "We love you." Holy earsplitting screaming!

The best part of the Jonas Brother's act was when they told all the parents to get up and dance while they sang Sweet Caroline, and then told them "Go wild! ...but don't hurt yourselves." It was great. Even more fantastic than that would have to be all the teenage girls singing their hearts out while semi crying because this meant the world to them. It was, in a word, fantastic.


At the end of the night they retired the gigantic flag by putting it in a huge oven thing and lighting it on fire. It was pretty cool. It burnt like a huge candle. This flag was first made a looooong time ago, and then during the Olympics in Utah they used the same flag to hang up in Salt Lake. It was time to retire it I guess.


The best part, and the part that we were looking forward to the most, was the fireworks!! Here's a little clip of just a few of the fireworks that were lit. Mark and I had watched the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire for 2 years sitting on the grass away from the Stadium and now we actually got to see if first hand! The only part that we didn't like about it, was that we had ash and debris falling on us the whole time....

Can You Say "RELIEVED"?!?!

I woke up this morning at 4:30 needing to throw up. I've been having this throw up feeling all week, every morning and every night. Needless to say this got me thinking that I could be pregnant. Well this morning was the breaking point for me. I wanted to leave early this morning just to go to the store and pick up a pregnancy test to see what was up, but I thought Mark would be worried if he found that I wasn't there. SO I waited. I stayed up for an hour just thinking about "what if I were pregnant?" And started to FREAK OUT!! As much as I talk about wanting to have a baby the thought truly scares me. A million things ran through my head and I could picture Mark being just as scared if I found out that I was.

So when Mark left for the gym this morning I went to Smiths and bought a pregnancy test. I initially thought I should tell him about this, but I'm a very private person, even with Mark about some things, and so I wanted to do this alone. Plus, Mark never reads this blog, so at the back of my mind I thought it would be really funny that I would go through all of this and they only way he would know that this happened was if someone else read this blog and called him. I can really picture his face then, and I think it would be quite hilarious. :)

After I meticulously read the instructions I took the test and saw this.







YEA ONE LINE!!! Can you feel my relief?!?! Whew!!

Don't get me wrong, we still want to have children, but it's one thing to have a surprise, and another to start when you feel ready. Obviously I'm not completely there yet!



On a random note, I got this video from my sister. It's my brother making his baby girl Mckayla laugh. I love it. :)

Markie's Birthday!!

Yesterday was Markie's birthday :) I bought gifts for him weeks before and surprised him in the morning with them. We need to take pictures of him wearing his new clothes. We did a fashion show today, but I forgot to snap pictures! Needless to say, he looked stunning in the clothes I picked out for him.

Mark's dad called me up and wished me a Happy Birthday. He said that since we're married now, I get 50% of all the gifts that Markie gets. Both he and I had bought Markie suits recently, so I'm taking the coat and Big Mark is taking the pants. Good deal.

Besides my awesome gift giving skills, his birthday was also celebrated with cupcakes, and dinner at Outback with some of our bestest buddies here in Utah. We were missing Nora, Britney, and Matt though. :( Maybe next year we'll have them there with us, and since everyone is either pregnant or already has kids (besides us) we'll have our party at Chuck-e-Cheese. :) Fun times.


On our way to the restaurant Mark told me that Tim had a surprise gift that he bought from a dirty prank store. I told him if it was furry, smelly, or elephantesk that it was going straight into the trash. So far I haven't found out what it is because Tim didn't bring it to dinner with him. We'll see what happens.

Miracles DO Happen!!

Mark GRADUATED from Utah Valley University Friday, May 01, 2009!!!

This weekend was a bit of dejavu for us. Almost exactly a year ago I graduated from BYU, and then we were married. This year Mark has just graduated and now it's our anniversary!!



We're very proud of Mark for all the years of hard work that he's put in to getting his degree. It's definitely been a long road for him, but now we can see the finish line and it is BEAUTIFUL!! He has his capstone class to take during Spring/Summer and then he's officially done!

The keynote speaker was President Thomas S Monson, the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.


He talked about 3 key things that the graduating students could do in starting out their future.

1) Glance Bakwards
2) Reach Outward
3) Press Forward

It was a fantastic talk and will probably come out in every church publication soon. Utah Valley University also gave Honorary degrees to President Monson and his wife Frances. It was so sweet because after they both got their robes put on them, President Monson gave Frances a kiss. It was really sweet. :)

Both of his counselors were there as well. Oh, and just in case you were wondering what kind of phone President Eyring has, he has an iPhone. :) He was having his bodyguard take pictures of himself with his wife, President Uchtdorf, and Sister Uchtdorf. That's just my little plug in for the iPhone. :)

Mark's mom, dad, and both grandpas (Jimmy and Bill) were able to come up to Utah to see him walk. It was a busy weekend. Thursday night we went to Red Robin to eat dinner. Friday was the commencement at 10:30 and then convocation the same day at 2:30. In between we went to Burger Supreme for lunch.

Side note: He broke our family tradition of eating at KFC on graduation day :( (he's obviously too good for KFC)
After Convocation we picked up Tucanos catering and had a family get together at his cousin's house. Sooo good!!! If there's one thing the Shinoda family does well, it's food.

Saturday we ate at Callie's cafe, went to Tai Pan to check out the competition, ate J-dawgs, took a tour of the Valley, look at houses at Midway, and ate dinner at Happy Sumo. It was definitely a busy day, but a great day. :)

Whom the Lord Calls He Qualifies

Markie just got sustained today to be the 2nd Counselor in the BYU 195th singles' ward!! Exciting stuff. We haven't even been married a year yet and now we're back in the singes' ward. We started church at 9, and he just got back home at 4.



What's really funny about this is what happened before today. A few days ago we called our families to tell them the news. This is how the conversations went with Tiffany's mom.

"Hello! Guess what?!? We have great news!"
"You're pregnant!" (never failed to be the first assumption of everyone we called)
"No, Mark got a new calling. He's going to be a Counselor in a singles' ward!"
"That's great! So Tiffany's going to be a Sacrament widow."

That's the funniest thing we've ever heard.

The old Second Counselor who just got relesed today told Tiffany that it's a tradition for the wife of the Second Counselor to have a baby while they're in the ward. Tiffany's very excited about this :) Mark is not. :( Keep your ears open for any exciting news!

Cruising it California style

During Mark's Spring Break we decided to go to California and see his family. Mark's kinda like Superman. If Superman is away from the Sun for too long, he loses his power. For Mark, it's the California sun and Utah weather is his kryptonite. So it was obvious that we had to go for Mark's health. :)

We got to play tourist while we were in California for the weekend. We spent a ton of money on shopping for clothes, ate out for every meal every day, and even got to go to Universal Studios with his family.

Here we are on the Simpsons' Ride. Joseph really wanted to go on it, but it was pretty lame as you can see by our faces in this picture. The weird thing is that I completely tore a nail off even though it's a stationary ride...

Mark's sister Erin couldn't come with us, so either there's a safety space between the two guys, or we were keeping a space for Erin to be. I'm not sure which one that is.


Joseph has a knack for always being able to squeeze in your pictures.

This was definitely a space for Erin. At the end of the day we really liked imaginary Erin. She didn't complain about anything, and we could still all fit together on the rides. :) We like the real Erin more though.

We decided that we could replace imaginary Erin with Homer's head instead, at least in pictures.

As we were walking out of the park there were some women selling long stemmed roses. I pushed Mark toward them, but he just kept walking. I was fake mad at him, so as I stood in line to get movie tickets for us, he ran back to get me a rose. Sometimes he's so sweet. Too bad I have to push him to do it sometimes. :-p

Single Awareness Day! Good thing we're not single :)

Valentine's Day is definitely not my favorite holiday. There's too much pressure to get something great for the other person. I think that I feel even more pressure than Mark since I'm the "creative" one of the relationship. This is what Mark got me.

Chocolate truffles in a lip box.

A personalized caramel heart

This is what I made Mark.

A candy filled heart box. If you're ever doing paper mache I have a wonderful alternative to using a ton of Elmer's glue. I make my own glue out of cornstarch and water.

Cornstarch and Water Glue Recipe
Bring 2 cups of water up to a boil.
In the mean time mix 2 Tablespoons of cornstarch with 3 Tablespoons of cold water.
When the water is boiling add in the cornstarch mixture and whisk constantly until the mixture is thick and clear.

Let the mixture cool before you handle it.
It will not be smooth as normal paper mache mix, but it when it dries, it's perfect! Plus this is a lot cheaper method. You could probably even use this as a normal glue recipe, just use a squeeze bottle to apply.

For Mark's box I used just some red streamers and this glue recipe and it looked really professional. :)