Jazz musings and the ZOO

So our fabulous friends Kacey and Joe have Jazz season tickets. Because they're awesome they offer their tickets to us sometimes when they can't use them, so we've been to a couple of games this season. We always love Jazz games, especially when they win. Last night's game against Detroit was a lot of fun! It was a really close game the whole time and it had a very exciting finish. The game went into OT and we ended up winning by 3 points. This was quite possibly the rowdiest Jazz game I've ever been to that wasn't a playoff game. Taylor had already been to the BYU football game earlier in the day so he was nice and hoarse by the end of the two games.

Here's a pic of Taylor watching the Jazz game very intently in the 4th quarter.

Even the halftime show was really awesome last night. It was a group of seriously extreme jump ropers. I'm not sure if they were the Summerwind Skippers as I couldn't understand when the announcer introduced them, but I think it might have been them. They were amazing! And how could I not mention the Jazz Bear? I love him and I think he is so talented and funny. When I was in NY for my job training, Taylor and I went to a Jazz - Nets game. It was the Nets' mascot's birthday so he had invited some of his mascot friends from around the league to come party with him. The Jazz Bear was one of them that came to the party. At that point I'd probably been in NY for a month and a half and it was so nice to see him and feel a little closer to home. I know that's cheesy but it truly was nice to see a familiar piece of Utah right there in NJ that night.


Changing subjects, a couple of weeks ago we went to the zoo with Kace and Joe. It was SO worth our time and money. We chose the perfect time to go; the weather that Saturday was not too hot or too cold and we went early enough that we missed the afternoon crowds. The animals were so neat and we got to see all of the new cute baby animals that were born this spring.

Who knew that I'm basically the same size as an adult male gorilla?

Baby giraffe

Penguins are cute

Kace and Joe on the train

The highlight of our trip to the zoo? Zuri, the baby elephant. SO CUTE!

I think the one in the BYU hat is cutest

My Mom

Well my mom's Birthday was a couple of days ago. I am late posting about it because I spent the weekend with my mom and sisters attending the Time Out for Women conference downtown. I am so glad that Marilyn had the idea for all of us to go to it because it was pretty awesome. If you haven't heard of it before you should definitely look into going to one of their events next year; we all loved it.
Anyway, back to my mom. I could not pass up the opportunity to post about her and to mention just a few of the reasons why I think she is so amazing. My mom is exactly what I aspire to be when I grow up. She was the best mom that I could ever imagine anyone having. She is the sweetest and most caring person that I know; she is constantly serving others just because that is her nature. When I was growing up my mom would always make enough food on Sundays to take dinner to cute little old widowers in the ward. It was such a special little thing that we were able to do each week and I'm sure that none of us, especially my mom, has any idea how much of a blessing it was for the numerous men who got to benefit from my mom's delicious cooking. That is just one of MANY examples of my mom always thinking of others. She cares so much about people and I wish I had half the amount of Christlike love that she has in her.
My mom is the least lazy person that I know. She sleeps a fraction of the amount that the rest of us do. I think it's because she secretly feels like the rest of us sleep a little too much (us Lymans are famous for being good sleepers) so she is trying to make up for our lack of productiveness a little bit by being extra extra productive all of the time. She has a million things going on all the time and she manages to do everything so well. We always had warm home-cooked meals growing up; she even made breakfast. We sat down to delicious dinners together every night. With seven kids there was never a shortage of laundry and dishes and cleaning and helping with homework and everything else that comes with a big family. She quilts, she gardens, she bottles food, and she takes the time to teach her kids how to do those things too.
I've never seen my mom lose her patience. She is so sweet and calm. Her grandkids just love her to death because she is such a fun and kind grandma who always has time for them
Something kind of interesting about my mom is that she doesn't really like sugar. She says that it makes her have weird dreams. Maybe secretly she just thinks that the rest of us eat too much sugar (because like our ability to sleep more than most people would think humanly possible, we also really really like our sweets and we eat a lot of it) so she is trying to make up for it by staying away from the sugar. No actually I believe that she really just doesn't love sweets, which is kind of crazy if you ask me, but it is a trait that I wish I would have gotten more of.

My mom is literally everything that I aspire to be in a mom. I've heard her say multiple times that she doesn't know how her kids turned out so well. We had no choice but to make pretty good decisions with the parents that we had. They did such a good job of teaching us right and wrong and of being such great examples. My mom is the best person that I know and I love her so much; I am so lucky to be able to continue to learn from her always.

stuff

This is going to be a bit of a catch-up post with a bunch of random stuff

First up is Kacey's wedding last month which equaled my first (and most likely last) attempt at making a wedding cake. Don't get me wrong, it was fun to do and it turned out decent for our first time, but I am not quite ready to quit my day job. Noelle and I spent the day before Kacey's wedding doing her cake. We had our mishaps, but in the end it all turned out ok.

Kace doesn't really like cake so she requested rice krispy treats for the bottom layer. That was the biggest rice krispy treat I've ever made/seen! It was so much fun to make and I think it was real fun that she decided to do it.

Here's the finished product. Kacey chose a simple and classic design and it fit her wedding and reception perfectly.

The happy couple cutting the rice krispy treats (didn't cut quite as easily as cake)

Next is Halloween. My team at work dressed as college students just so we could take advantage of the opportunity to wear jeans and hoodies. I rocked a BYU hoodie and enjoyed the comfort of it to the top T! Halloween night Taylor and I went to a Halloween party at our friends Taylor and Melissa's house. They put on a great party and we're really glad that we went. We dressed up as hippies.


Last weekend my fun sister-in-law called and asked me if I would possibly make a birthday cake for the family celebration the next day for two of her sons' birthdays. I gladly said yes. The only requests she gave me were that they wanted a chocolate cake and it should be football themed. I went to work. It was so much fun to make; I love theme cakes!

The footballs on top of the football field were cake so the whole thing was edible. Porter's flag football team was the Dragons and Jaxon's football team was the Jaguars.

Lastly, I need to send a late birthday shout out to a couple of my wonderful sisters! Marilyn's big day was last week and Heather's was yesterday.
Here are a few reasons that I love Marilyn:
She is the oldest child in the family so I'm sure she wore my parents down a bit for the rest of us.
She loves to try new things and she's so much fun to be around.
She is a really really good example. She is a fabulous mom to her kids, a great wife, a fun sister...she does it all and she doesn't do anything halfway.
If it weren't for Marilyn I probably never would have gotten into running. I still don't like running but she pushes everyone in my family to do 5Ks and triathlons and other fitness events. I am a much healthier person because of her.
Everyone has always told me that I look a lot like her. I have been called Marilyn more times in my life than I can count. I take that as a compliment :)
I am so glad that she is my big sister and I love her so much!

Now for a few reasons that I love Heather and I am so glad that she married my big bro:
She is the sweetest person that I have ever known and it is completely legitimate...she really is that nice!
She makes Jeremy so happy.
She is such a cute and fun mom. Her kids are her life and she does such a great job raising them.
She puts up with us Lymans and she goes along with the stuff we like to do (she even ate biscuits and gravy with us without complaining up until this year!)
Heather is one of the cutest people I know and I just love her so much.