Life is Good...

Just some fun pictures of things we have been doing lately

On a date night scooter ride...

A Cooking Competition...

Last Saturday all the wives got together and we had an Iron Chef competition. We split into two teams and had to draw out an ingredient we would all use to make an appetizer, main dish, side dish and dessert. The ingredient was heavy whipping cream (so healthy, I know). Our team's menu: Spinach artichoke dip on a baguette, green salad with homemade ranch dressing, Chicken Carbonara and triple berry ice cream. It was all so good and the competition was a blast. Part of the judging was on presentation, so I made those cute little cards to label all our food to make up for our lack of cute presentation dishes.

And a trip to Utah for my cousin's wedding...

Complete with getting my cute little Vietnamese grandpa out on the dance floor...

Some more dancing... Aren't Asian people cute?

And here's the pretty little bride herself.

And lots and lots of cute brown baby holding...

And the rest of the trip consisted of lots of family time...

Sister time.. with our boy Taylor Lautner

And a fun date with some of my best friends...

This summer is going great, but we're definitely excited to be back in Utah in one month to get our lives back to normal and be close to our friends and family. Not to mention the word y'all is getting unbelievably annoying. And that may even be an understatement.

Kickin it Back Old School

Doing a musical at school. This is how we met. I always loved that sailor outfit on him

Clint was the lead guitarist in his band Guns N Roses. You may have heard of them before.

This was me talking to Clint on the phone while we were dating. I picked out that couch for my mom. You can't see it, but I also bought some green shaggy carpet for my parent's house. I just got done watching a M*A*S*H marathon when this photo was taken.

Clint was the all star of his high school team (right). It's weird because they actually let his dad on the team as well (left).

This is my mom and dad in high school after winning Prom Queen and King!! It was even more exciting because Clint got to drive them on the football field.

Clint's mom and dad were actually the Homecoming King & Queen at the same high school earlier that year. It was tradition that the Prom King & Queen and the Homecoming King & Queen set up a pre-arranged marriage for their son and daughter, so that's why Clint and I were married. It's working out pretty well for a pre-arranged marriage.

Tips from the Kitchen of Natasha

 I've actually been getting the hang of cooking. It's been a challenge and there's a lot more to learn but so far, so good. If there were cooking skill levels from 1 to 10, I would put myself at a 5. These are tips that I learned from levels 1,2,3 and 4.

• If you burn something and you don't want your husband to see, all you have to do is bury it under something that's already in the garbage can. It works out nicely.
• Sometimes butter is wrapped in a silver wrapper. Don't put this kind in the microwave. Unless you want a miniature firework show, then I suppose you could.
• If you check on your food that's in the oven, make sure a rag doesn't fall in without you knowing- because it will start on fire a few seconds later. And you probably won't notice until you smell something weird. Then you have to grab it out and put it in the sink and it can be extremely hot. And the smoke detector will probably go off too
• 90% of the recipes you find online will probably clog your arteries just by reading them and lead to obesity. (My goal is to get good enough at cooking, that I can make my own healthy recipes.)
• There might be a hole in your oven mitt. If there is, that's risky business and you should probably buy a new one
• If you get cute oven mitts and an apron, you feel way more legit.
• If you don't use enough flour in your cookies, you might think to yourself, "Why are there pieces of cardboard on this baking sheet that I put cookie dough on?" It's the weirdest thing.

...You live and learn I suppose :]

A Real Life Texas Horror Story

Texas has definitely been an adventure, and we are both having a lot of fun. I have been pretty sketched out by all the people and since we've been watching the show Prison Break together, I get suspicious of everyone haha. I have a pretty intense story that I just had to blog about. All of the boys had to go sell in a town that's about two hours away. So instead of driving there and back every day, they got a hotel. They were gone for around 11 days total. I am so paranoid and get scared of everything. One of the wives out here, Vanessa, is the same way so we decided it would be smart for us to have a sleepover every night. On Thursday night, we were watching tv in her front room and it was pretty late (probably close to midnight) and we heard a knock at the door. We both looked at each other and I'm guessing our faces probably looked the exact same because we were both scared to death and wondering who in the world would be at her door. Vanessa 911 dialed on her phone, and all she had to do was press the send button if something happened. We got up and when I looked through the door peep hole, whoever was out there was covering up the peep hole. The door wasn't locked, so we hurried and turned the locks and then started freaking out. As soon as we locked the doors, the person started turning the door knob, trying to get in. I've never been so scared in my life. Vanessa looked at me and said that we had to get out of the house. We ran to her room and woke up her 1 year old daughter and tried getting out the back door. Meanwhile, Vanessa had called 911 and as she was trying to get the door unlocked, I was giving the police our address and telling them what was going on, and Chloe (the baby) was crying. All of a sudden, the person stopped wiggling at the door and I frantically looked at Vanessa and told her we couldn't leave out the back door because they might be coming around that way. By this point, we were both shaking so bad. The cops were asking me what was going on now, and if I was able to see anyone outside. I went to the front door and looked out the peep hole again and I saw these two figures, ducking down by the front door with stupid little white hats that had the letters APX on them. (APX is the company that Clint is selling for). We knew that it was our husbands by that point and finally opened the door. Vanessa was on the phone with the cops and just hung up because as you can imagine, we felt pretty dumb. Long story short, the police called back, asked us if everything was ok and then said that we couldn't just hang up on them because they didn't know if something bad happened (Go figure, huh?) We had a pretty good laugh about it. But 10 minutes later when we were walking home, my body was still shaking from being so scared! Every time I look back, I literally laugh out loud because of how dramatic we were. It's funny now, but it definitely was NOT funny when we were desperately trying to escape from the mad kidnappers who were trying to get into our house. Those punks.

Sisters by chance, best friends by choice :]

I had to post some pictures up of my little sisters because I am just amazed at how fast they're growing up. I love bragging about my family, so this will probably be the first of many posts like this. :]

Shantelle Lien.

Just graduated a couple days ago.

One tough little cookie.

Has always been my other half.

My best friend and absolutely gorgeous

  

Mikayla Ty

She's only 13... so guys back off. ;)

Better at sports than any guy I know.

Doesn't care what people think about her.

Stunningly gorgeous and hilarious.

Mariah Ai'Lexis- "Roo"

The smartest little girl you'll ever meet

Future doctor, lawyer and US President. Seriously.

Creative and awesome at piano.

Beautiful little thing. She's my baby girl.

Roo, dad and Kayka. My dad is their coach and is so proud of his little girls. People at lacrosse games always know who "the Vu girls" are because of how good they are.

This is an old picture, but it's one of my favorites. I'm just amazed by the strength of my family because of how close we all are. Every area of weakness I have, is strengthened by them- because my weaknesses are their strengths. I am so blessed to have the amazing relationship I have with each of my family members and my baby sisters. I love watching them grow up and I know they'll become some of the most amazing women.

"Other things may change us, but we start and end with family."

Living in the Lonestar State

At the end of the semester, we decided we would go on an adventure and we've found ourselves living in Texas for the summer. We are living in the Fort Worth area and have been here for 2 and a half weeks. Clint is selling alarms for APX and is doing really well so far. He went out with APX the summer after his mission and installed the alarm systems, but this year he decided to try selling. He works Monday through Saturday and it's a tough and draining job, but he doesn't complain. And it helps that a lot of the people he has sold to love him. One lady gave him a $20 gift card to Wal Mart and another lady gave him a fingernail clipper set (so random). He actually sold to a lady that was LDS and in our ward. He saw a picture of the temple in her house and asked about it. Then he said "What if I told you I've been there?" and she held out her hand to shake his hand and said, "I would say 'Hello Brother.'" Haha my favorite story.

We've been able to do a lot of fun things while we've been here. We went to the Dallas Cowboys Stadium last week with the whole group of sales guy, technicians, and their wives. We got to tour the locker rooms of both the cheerleaders and the football players and also were able to go down on the field. Clint and all of the guys played a football game together and they even posed for a picture in the cheerleader's locker room.

 The boys playing football

 Player's locker room. Clint refused to stand by Tony Romo's

Me and some of the wives in the Cheerleader's locker room

My favorite picture. The boys copying the cheerleader's poses

The Stadium

Last week was Clint's birthday and so my parents flew out for the weekend to take us to dinner. The next day, we went to a Texas Rangers vs. Chicago Cubs game. We had a good time with them here. Too bad the Rangers lost.

Me and my parents at the game

My two favorite men

Since Clint and all of the other guys in our group are gone all day, the other wives and I plan a lot of activites to kill the time. We have had a lot of fun together so far and they're all super nice. We do crafts, pot luck BBQ's, go shopping, watch The Bachelorette together and of course go to the pool. Our lives are pretty tough out here ;) Right now, the boys are in a city that is a couple hours away so they're staying in a hotel for the whole week. So we have a lot of activites planned to keep ourselves occupied. We're going to go line dancing on Thursday which I'm super excited for. I had to sleep at one of the girl's night last night becuase I was way too scared to be by myself. But my cute brother is going to come stay with me later this week, I can't wait!

So far, it's been a great adventure for both of us- and we've only been here for two and a half weeks. More to come!

... and in case you're wondering, yes, I did bring my cowboy boots. :]

Happily Ever After...Our Wedding

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about our wedding because most of the people that will be reading this were probably there. But I'll put up lots of pictures :]

To sum it all up, our wedding day was perfect. We were married in the Salt Lake Temple on October 15, 2009. I remember looking around in the temple and seeing so many faces that were there to support us and it was the best feeling in the world. I continued to feel this way throughout the day as we saw more family and friends outside of the temple, at the luncheon and at the reception. I was so happy to be with my new husband and some of the people that mean the most to us. So many friends and family were there and we feel and felt so blessed to have so many amazing people in our lives there for us. We love you all! Thanks for sharing our special day with us. And a special thanks to my mama who probably put up with more than she should have to help us plan everything out. I love you!

I'll let the pictures tell the rest! I don't have the disc with me, so I'll have to get it and put up more of them... you can never have too many pictures :] You can see the entire album at http://www.garzandphotography.com/

Clint and our niece, Hannah

Me and my papa

Me and my brother

Some of my friends at the temple

My bridesmaids, sisters, and best friends

Clint and Zach at the reception

The fight for the bouquet

Dancing at the reception

We had a photobooth at the reception (definitely one of the highlights of the night!) Here are some that I had on my computer. I have the whole disc so if anyone wants copies of theirs, let me know!