While Mike's away... I craft away!!! ;)

After High School, Michael joined the Marine Corps. 

He did all of his training before the mission, and has 

been able to start back at Camp Williams since his return from Madagascar. 

Since he is in the reserves, he only has to go once a month to Drill. 

While he is gone, I spend my time in Orem with my parents. 

These weekends can be really long, but thankfully,

 my Mom keeps me busy! This past Drill, 

we worked on a couple of fun things!

The first project was to spray paint a white dresser black! 

Our bedroom is pretty large, and has tons of awkward walls.

 We wanted something to cover a wall, 

so we made the wall art in the picture below.

The other project was a pallet shelf! 

Most people didnt think it would look good, 

but I am pretty excited about how it turned out!

These projects were simple, but added a lot to our home!

Thanks for Reading!

The Ridings :)

Home Cooked Manicure!

Michael Linley is the most amazing person ever!

Seriously! My dear, dear husband gave me a manicure!

It definitely wasn't perfect, but not too shabby for his first time!

Poor kid just got himself into a lifetime of painting his wife's nails!!

Thanks for reading!

The Ridings! :)

A R C A D E S!

I don't think Mike and I will ever officially grow up.

Sure our bodies may mature and our family may grow, 

but at heart, we are both little children.

Recently, Mike was put in as 2nd counselor in the Young Mens.

Naturally, we were so excited because this gave us the opportunity to 

make friends in our ward!

In an attempt to start the friendship, we suggested we go bowling.

The other couples agreed, and we decided to go to FatCats. 

We did a lot of things while there, 

although the wait on bowling was too long so we never did bowl.

HOWEVER, we did spend a sufficient amount of time in the 

little arcade they have there.

Boy did we go crazy there!

The other 2 couples scored big at certain games, and got a lot more

tickets than we did, but we were bouncing off the walls like little children!

I guess the sad part of the story is that less than a week later, we 

were back at the FatCats arcade with my older brother and his girlfriend!

We can't stay away! 

It's an evil addiction!

Anyone want to go to the Arcade with us!?!?!!?!! 

 

One time I fell in the parking lot into a giant mud puddle... It was SUPER embarrassing... 

Thanks for Reading!

The Ridings!

:)

Frontrunner FAIL!

For anyone who knows me, I don't always have the best of luck.

I tend to be a little clumsy, and things dont always go my way...

This happened a little while ago, and am just now getting around to posting about it,

but it is quite the sad tale.

A while ago, Mike and I had this brilliant idea that we would

ride frontrunner down to Orem, instead of paying for gas.

Through UHEAA, Mike's place of employment, he gets free UTA travel,

so we would only be paying for one ticket. 

It was a brilliant idea... In theory...

Earlier that morning, we had decided to walk to the station, and even save 

more gas by doing so. 

Little did we know, it would take us a whole hour to get to the station! 

It was snowing, the snow on the ground had turned to slush, and definitely windy.

Nevertheless, we pressed onward determined to make it to the station. 

Upon arrival to the station, we couldn't find a time for the train to leave.

We had heard rumors that the train left every 20 minutes, 

and decided to just buy the ticket and wait.

After purchasing the ticket, we realized the train wouldn't come for another

3 hours... 

At this point, we were completely distraught! Only then did we remember that

we did not need to walk all the way to the station because we could have gotten on the free trax to the station... 

It a devastating day. Fail, after fail. 

We just couldn't catch a break!

Picture taken after we took the trax home... 

We were all still smiles!

Thanks for reading!

The Ridings!

:)

Valentines Day!

For the sake of any possible readers out there, I will spare the mushy gushy lovey things about our Valentines Day, and only post a brief explanation of what we gave each other!  

This Valentines Day was the first time either of us had a Valentine!

I know what you are thinking, 

"How could 2 such young, good looking, funny, 

AMAZING people never have had a 

Valentine to call their own?"

GREAT QUESTION!

My answer: Any other possible Valentine wouldn't have mattered, 

because this was the best Valentines Day EVER!

This was one of the things I did for Michael.

Yes, you may have seen this idea on Pinterest, but let's be honest,

who doesn't steal ideas from Pinterest.

If you think you dont, you are lying to yourself.

Anyway, I printed out pictures of us through our relationship and

wrote something special on the back of all of them!

Cheesy? Yes.

Ashamed? Never.

This is one of the things Mike gave to me!

As crazy as it sounds, I have never been a huge chocolate eater.

I know! I know! SINNER! It's the truth though!

I was super surprised, however, to find when I opened the box,

little notes all stating reasons he loves me. 

I am a super sentimental person, so the fact that he 

sacrificed himself, and ate all the chocolate really meant a lot to me!

NO SERIOUSLY!

I almost cried!

Anyway, just some creative ways to surprise your love!

Thanks for reading!

The Ridings!

:)

S O R R Y ! ! !

I understand it has been such a long time since I last posted and 

since Mike is away with the Marines this weekend, 

I figured I might as well catch up on what's been going on

 in our crazy busy lives! 

This post isn't so much about our lives as much as it is a 

chance to just brag about how absolutely 

amazingly talented my husband is! 

He is a wood burning guru! 

No joke! Check these out!

This is something he did for my Dad's Birthday!

He looked online at both my parents family crests,

and mashed them together! 

He freehanded most everything on this piece!

This is the present we gave to his parents for Christmas!

He whipped this idea out, and finished it all in just 

a couple of days!

He is so creative! 1987 was the year that his

 parents moved into their current house!

Most people don't know how talented he really is, and I hope to post more of the things he has done! He definitely isn't one to brag about his 

abilities, but that is why he got married, right? Now I can do it for him!

He has one piece I haven't taken a picture of I will post a bit later on, that he did for his final project in woods that is absolutely unreal!

Man oh man do I hope our kids get his talents!

Thanks for reading,

The Ridings!

:)