Oh Christmas Tree

Taylor and I bought our very first Christmas tree this year. It started with, "lets not get a tree this year" because are leaving town. Then it was "lets get a small tree or a fake tree" because we will be here long enough to enjoy it for a few weeks but we don't have enough ornaments to fill a big tree. Then when Nan and Keith came for Thanksgiving they surprised us with a box full of ornaments that Taylor has collected throughout his life. Between those and the ornaments we have gathered and gifted each other during our time together we had enough for a tree. So off to the tree farm we went to find a inexpensive tree. Well as soon as we arrived Taylor remembered how much he loved all the trees he grew up with and that the only real christmas tree was a Frasier Fur. Long story short, we left the lot with a 7ft tree. OH, and we affectionately name the tree Caddy, because the Internet said that the Frasier Fur is the 'Cadillac of Christmas trees!'

Our tree purchase led to two trips to Target for lights, tree skirts, ornaments, lights, tree bags, tree stands, and more lights! After a long effort to cut the trunk, get the tree standing straight, put on 1100 lights (yes, 1100), and place every ornament in perfect position on the tree, we had the most beautiful addition to our living room. For the next two weeks we would just sit in the living room and gaze at it. Tree worshipping is a hobby in the Jensen family and I am beginning to get why-- it is so relaxing! Unfortunately, we had to take Caddy down before Christmas even came. We were leaving for California for a week and a half and figured it was best to take it down. It was a very sad night though. I would be OK with making the tree a permanent fixture in the house!

Thankful

Taylor and I got to host Thanksgiving for a grand total of 18 people in our new home this year. It started with recruiting our parents and Andrew to come to Minneapolis thinking we would host everyone at Camie and Matt's. It evolved into Thanksgiving at our house since it would be a unique experience to host both sets of parents. Then our group grew even larger! Turns out my cousin Nathan got a job with a law firm here in Minneapolis and they moved here the weekend before Thanksgiving so we added 5 more heads to our headcount. Turns out, our house can host 18 people for a Thanksgiving feast! It was a blast, kind of crazy, but a blast. Luckily there were five women (and three men who are competent in the kitchen :) ) so I didn't have to do all of the cooking.

We had a delicious dinner with all of the fixings and no shortage of dessert. But our favorite part was being able to have so much of our family in our new home and to share with them our new city!

Wisconsin Road Trip

This past weekend, Hay and I loaded up the car and drove to Madison, Wisconsin to cheer on our BYU Cougars against the Wisconsin Badgers. We left straight from work and made the beautiful drive to Madison, driving through forests and pretty countryside to arrive in time for the Team Devotional in a chapel near campus. The place was packed-- we saw people in suits and people in BYU gear. I guess anything goes! Jared was in town for a work event, so we had him save us seats there. We also met up with our friend Kyle Barton and his wife Brynlee, who also work for Precoa. It was good to see some familiar faces!

I was impressed by the devotional-- they had about 30 players there. Bronco Mendenhall, the head coach, gave a talk. Bronson Kafusi-- one of our favorite players-- also gave a talk. Robert Anae, the Offensive Coordinator, played the ukulele and sang a song, and the players all together sang a song. I haven't been a big Bronco fan because of a his focus being more on the players than on a winning team, but I respect the man a lot more now. He did say 'This meeting is the most important part of this weekend." I understand where he is coming from, but I'd like to see a win against Wisconsin!!

For dinner, we went out and toured Madison by night. We found a fun place to eat-- State Street Brats-- and Hayley got IDd for the first time in her life to get in. We went upstairs where we found that the BYU basketball game was on the big screen. We found a booth, got some Brats and Cheese Curds and settled in to watch the game. We saw a group of other BYU folks nearby, and one of them came up to talk to us. He asked where we were from and what we did and all that. I asked him back and he said he was from Salt Lake. I asked if he came out just for the game, and he said yeah. I said 'Wow! Thats dedication!" to which he replied "I am Blaine Fowler- I to the TV broadcast for the games. Over there is Dave McCann. He just tweeted out that we were at a bar! The dummy!" Good times. After the BYU basketball game was over, BYUTV cut straight to some movie out of the 50s. Everyone in the bar was making fun of it-- we were a bit embarrassed!

We spent the night with Kyle and Brynlee in their home that they bought and were renovating. We had a good time together and enjoying spending time with some old friends from BYU.

On game day, we toured Madison and walked around the farmer's market. It was incredible how many people were out and about-- the whole town basically shuts down and goes to the game. Finding parking was impossible, but we did get to see all kinds of people tailgating and pregaming as we searched. We had a few 'we're not in Provo anymore' moments as we saw beer bongs and frat houses doing their thing. Overall, it was a great atmosphere-- I really enjoyed it!

We went to a Precoa pregame tailgate party at the Red Hotel accross the street from the stadium and chatted up JJ and his co-workers. After that, it was game time. Unfortunately, BYU didn't play too well and we got beat 27-17. I think we could have done a bit better, but Wisconsin was clearly the better team. Oh well!

After a stop at Sonic we were on the road again, back to our place. It was a great trip, and well worth the journey even though BYU lost.

Happy Birthday to Us!

    We don't celebrate birthDAYS around our house anymore we celebrate a birthWEEK. Our birthday banner stays up for 7 days, we eat cake all week long and we get to give each other gifts like we are warming up for christmas. We had a pretty low key birthday this year, celebrating just the two of us one night and then with the Christensens on another.

     The most important element of birthdays is obviously the food. For Taylor's day we went to an all you can eat Sushi restaurant, which was delicious by the way. We continued the night with opening presents talking to family on Facetime and eating cake balls (YUM!). Taylor got a bike trainer from myself, he was excited to be able to continue riding his bike despite all the snow that is in our near future.

   For my birthday, I wanted to stay in and have Taylor make us a nice homemade meal. He made enchiladas all by himself. He also got me a whole collection of new indoor workout tools like yoga mats, weights and a yoga ball. And what would a birthday be without cake. We made this cool new tie-die cake that Taylors dept just added (support the brand). The kiddos loved it and we loved having them around to celebrate! Happy Birthday to us!

Odds and Ends in Minneapolis

First thing is first: It has been a crazy few weeks of unpacking and getting things installed! Here is the scene of the kitchen unpacking:

We went about 3.5 weeks without blinds, but we finally have the perfect blinds in our house. Hooray for not having to change in the bathroom anymore!

 A week or two ago, I got to go with Matt, Clayton, and Lydia to a Timberwolves preseason game against a team from Moscow. It was a fun event, and it was great going with these great basketball fans. We caught 2 extra large t-shirts. Perfect size for Clayton and Lydia! Unfortunately, we had to leave before the end of the game, which turned out to be okay since it went into overtime. It probably isn't going to be a promising year for the T-wolves, but I've never had a hometown team to cheer for!

 In other news, I ran into the Oscar Meyer Wiener truck at work! That was a great accomplishment.

We also took a trip to Minnesota's Largest Candy Store last weekend. That place was great! It had all kinds of candy from all over. We got some homemade Root Beer Licorice, some chocolate, and four different kinds of Root Beer. The place had 121 different kinds of Root Beer! There were also nun's all over this place-- we caught them buying candy cigarettes. Those rebels!

Living at the Lakes

Its been a busy first month in Minneapolis, but one thing we have absolutely loved is living at the lakes. Our little apartment is about 3 blocks from Lake Calhoun, which has a bunch of great trails and things to see. We have enjoyed walking to Uptown, biking around the lakes, and going to random Greek Festivals to get our Greek Gyros on!

One of the recurring problems we had at our apartment complex was this garage door. On our second day of work, the door was broken and no one could get out of the garage to drive to work! We all had to just sit around and we eventually got to work late. On our second day! Ugh. This picture was from a Friday when we were leaving to go to the temple. Needless to say, we did not make it to the temple this night. Instead, we took a ride to Uptown on our bikes. Unfortunately, I left the key to our bike locks back at our apartment. I didnt realize this until just after we had locked up our bikes about 3/4ths of a mile away! Ugh. Transportation was not our thing that night. 

The lake is a beautiful place, and we are going to miss living in such a great location!

State Fair!

Towards the end of last summer, all I heard about was how fun and cool the Minnesota State Fair is. Unfortunately, Hay and I had to go back to school before it started. This year, however, we were sure to go! We ended up going twice-- once with Garrett and Kaitlin, and another time with our work teams. Sure enough, the fair lives up to the hype-- there were so many people, so many things on a stick, and so many animals!

 Yeah... thats a trailer on a stick. Everything, I tell you!

Among other things, we ate grilled corn on the cob, grilled kabobs, rib sandwiches, chocolate dipped banana, and much more! It was hot, and the root beer was flowing

The Music Scene

There have been a handful of things Hayley was looking forward to with our move to Minneapolis, but none as much as the Michael Buble concert. It has been on her radar for quite some time now. Unfortunately, tickets were pretty expensive, so we didn't think we'd be able to go. The day of the concert, however, we were watching Stubhub and the tickets dropped significantly in price as the day went on. We ended up snagging tickets and having a blast seeing Michael Buble in concert. He was great!

My absolute favorite song he did was at the very end when he took off his mic and sang a short little song thanking the crowd for coming. It was so cool hearing his voice and talent without any mics. The man has pipes!

The next day was the National Sales meeting for Target. We all dressed in our red and khaki and headed over to the Target Center for the afternoon. Each of the executives gave speeches about the company and where we are at and where we are going. In between several of the speeches, there were musical performances. We had heard rumors all week about who they might be. Turns out it was pretty fantastic-- we heard from the following:

1. The Band Perry- 2 songs
2. Luke Bryant- 2 songs

3. Bruno Mars- 3 songs

4. Justin Timberlake- 4 songs

It was a rockin afternoon-- we have lots of pictures, but aren't supposed to post them anywhere. Sorry! The kicker in this whole thing was that Hayley scored stage-side seats with her department! She was front-row for all of these people! That lucky duck. 

Our New Home!

This post has been long awaited on our blog! Here is the story of how we got our house and some pictures for your enjoyment!

So,  there were were. Minneapolis. Our new city. We arrived a week before our first day at Target in order to search for a house. We had been searching all summer online and getting ideas of the different things we liked and didnt like, as well as what areas we'd like to live in. We arrived Monday afternoon, and were off with our real estate agent first thing in the morning on Tuesday. She had us set up to see 14 or 15 houses on Tuesday, and then another 12 or so on Wednesday. It was fairly exhausting running all over town looking at different houses. It was a lot to take in! There were some that we kinda liked, some we were so-so on, and a lot that were a no-go. After days one and two, we had our areas fairly well picked out, and just were trying to decide which house would be the best fit. There were a few that we liked from our first two days of hunting, so we went back and checked those out again. The good news is that new houses were still coming online and that there were probably 4 or 5 houses we looked at that had come online that same week. 

Of our 2 favorites, we werent ready to spring on either. Both seemed a touch over-priced and we were nervous about buying a 2 bedroom place in a predominately 3 bedroom neighborhood. We liked the two a lot, but were just nervous about pulling that trigger. We decided take Friday off to think about things, and then looked at just a few new ones on Saturday. We decided our plan was to wait either for the two homes' prices to come down or for something we loved to pop onto the market. 

On Monday, our first day of work, I got a text from our real estate agent saying that she had a new one that we probably needed to check out that night. After texting back and forth during our breaks at work, we decided we would head up. As soon as work was over, we jumped in the car to go and see it. Hayley didnt really want to head up-- we had looked at a ton of houses and had just finished our first day of work and were kinda tired. But we went up anyways and were thrilled with what we found. 

Turns out that our real estate agent had called the sales agent for the neighborhood this house is in on Thursday and left her a message. We had seen 2 buildings that were still under construction and were wondering if there were any left. Unfortunately, they had all been sold back in April or May. This sales agent, however, had someone call in with financing issues that were forcing them to get out of buying the home. This sales agent remembered that someone had left a message the day before, and so she gave our real estate agent a call on Monday. She said that we could come see the place on Monday and make an offer if we like, and that she would put the house on the official market the next day if we didn't take it. 

We went up there and checked it out and absolutely LOVED it. It had all the upgrades we wanted, was in a good location, and was at a price that was very fair. We moved on it that night and bought it! The best part is that they wanted us to close ASAP-- meaning Sept 23. We were done with our 1 month lease near lake Calhoun on the 18th, so that worked perfectly for us! We are so happy to have found a great place that worked out so well for us! Here are the pictures of it when it was still under construction: