part of my new position at gap is to reward awesome performances in creative ways. in the month of january my store had a goal to sell a specific amount of jeans and both the adult and kids store met that goal. for the reward i was in charge of making cupcakes and writing a letter of recognition. the other manager that i work hand in hand with bought all the other snacks. any way, the reason i am sharing this with you all is because i am so proud of my letter i wrote to my co-workers, plus i think it will make my dad proud (because of the play on words). we had dry roasted peanuts, M&Ms, cupcakes, chicken in a biscuit, and nacho cheese doritos set up all pretty on the table...


and of course, no blog can really be complete without an adorable popplewell photo. we love you all!

our new best friend.

first of all this is NOT our dog. we did not adopt, buy or steal him. as bad as we wanted to just bring him home, we did not. okay now that is out of the way we would love to introduce you to our new best friend, curly. we made a weekly trip to our favorite thrift store, paws and shop, and met a new addition to their staff. one of the employees adopted curly from the humane society and brought him into work. he is a 6 month old poodle pug mutt with an adorable underbite. he followed us around the store and was so precious i just had to take a picture to share. now look into that pup's eyes and tell me you don't love him. yupp i knew you couldn't do it! <3

one eyed one horned and it flies!

we finally got a second couch! now when people come over no one has to sit on our hard wooden kitchen table chairs! it was a fluke of a find. mike and i have been searching the thrift stores for the past two months hoping to find a decent couch for our living room but we hadn't had any luck. but friday afternoon we payed a visit to the dogs in the central oregon humane society (its one of our favorite things to do) and realized we hadn't been to their thrift store in a long time. so after saying goodbye to potential pets we made our way to the thrift store. any way, an awesome and cheap couch had our name written all over it. so we took it. the people eater is purple, extra long in the seat area, has removable back cushions and is oh so comfortable! as you can tell we are super excited about our new edition...and so are the dogs :)

after jodie and clay's post last week all we have wanted was cupcakes. so i finally made the time to make them. a lot of them. but since mike and i are trying to eat healthier, the majority of these tasty treats went to my work and our friends. they were truely a hit. some of my favorite comments were:

"oh the frosting just melts in my mouth!"

"this is the best cupcake i have ever had!"

"i couldn't help but shove the whole thing in my mouth!"

and...

"am i in heaven?"

i'll tell ya if there is an award for best cupcake i think i might win with this batch.

we hope everyone has a good week and we would just like to say to dad & mom olson, we love you so much and are thinking of you always! dad you had an awesome run and no one will ever be able to take your place in the hearts of the ward memebers. you were an amazing bishop!

laugh.

the most important thing that i learned this week was to laugh at myself. it has been a stressful week, to say the least. after an exceptionally difficult day, mike showed me a picture he took of me while i was sleeping and said, "sweetheart, laugh at yourself. just laugh." that was saturday and since then we have just laughed. at everything. may i suggest if you find yourself in a tough position find something to laugh at [search talking animals on youtube...your side will be in so much pain. good pain :)]
here are a few things we have laughed at this week...

happy new year!

family and friends, happy new year! we have never been much for living it up on new years eve so we spent the last hours of 2009 watching episodes of glee. we actually missed ringing in the new year because we were so into what was going on with the glee club :) any way, we thought as our first blog of 2010, mike and i would share our favorite moments of 2009.

[january] i started playing my cello again.

[february] we celebrated having winston for one year.

[march] i discovered my love for baking. i think this is more mike's favorite moment rather than mine!

[april] we celebrated pippin's first year with us. mike's birthday dinner with mom and dad olson at joe's crab shack. we miss them. and joe's crab shack...

[may] kris allen was crowned the american idol.

[june] after 10 years of waiting, i finally got a jetta (thank you kirsten!). we traveled to emmett with the robinsons to pick pounds and pounds of cherries!

[july] as strange as it sounds, mike losing his job with verizon. it was a blessing in disguise that took 5 months to understand.

[august] we finally took our honeymoon to cannon beach! 3 days of gardening with grandma and grandpa jenkins. spending one full week with little hallie, jodie and clay.

[september] we sang-along at the jason mraz concert. the move out of the shannon glen apartments was amazing and much needed. i found a new job. before mike did :)

[october] mike and i celebrated our one year wedding anniversary...in one foot of snow. we moved into our beautiful townhome in beautiful bend.

[november] we were very impressed with the twilight saga: new moon. so worth the wait!

[december] mike lost 30 pounds this year, and i lost 40. according to mike, we lost a 5th grader. we started our own holiday traditions. my wedding ring was recovered by the bend city police after three weeks.

we are very much looking forward to the next 12 months and as most people we made a new years resolution. but our resolution is awesome...this year the popplewells are going to go on an adventure. <3

ho ho ho!

we hope everyone had a wonderful christmas! our christmas was amazing. i really didn't expect it to go so well considering how homesick i was...and how olson-sick mike was :) thank you everyone for our gifts and cards you sent, it was so exciting to see family pictures and family updates. mike and i had a lot of fun taking pictures. here are just a few of our favorites!
jodie, clay and hallie mae, as you can see, we love the blanket! it was the first thing we opened. it is so soft and SOOOOO big...the perfect cuddle blanket! <3

ahhh...the scent of mexican vanilla! yummy! we knew this would be a present, and when we got mom and dad olson's package we almost opened the vanilla so i could start baking with it right away. but we were patient! however, i immediatly used it for french toast and vandi hansen's vanilla syrup and boy did it make it taste so amazing! <3

after 2 months of mike dropping mad and crazy hints, he finally got his guy fieri cookbook [diners, drive-ins and dives]. and he was ever so happy. <3

kirsten we had so much fun trying to guess what is was from williams-sonoma you gave us. we were very pleasently suprised to find out exactly what was in that box. we love it! such a great gift idea and it will definatly be used! <3

okay, you all know us well which means you all know how much we love our animals. so christmas morning wasn't just about mike and me opening presents, it was about them opening presents as well. they didn't understand why they got all these new toys and chewies, they just knew they were going to have the time of their lives playing with everything. <3

i know how to drop hints too! ever since the release of dan brown's latest thriller on september 15th, i have done nothing but drop hints. all the time. i thought that maybe it would be an aniversary gift (don't get me wrong, i love my james bond) but noooooo. so when i opened that rectangular shaped gift at 6:30 am on christmas morning i was giggly and giddy, to say the least. this is mike's favorite picture from this christmas. <3

this year we had a great time hosting a gift exchange with some friends. we had such a blast, a ton of laughs and got an adorable picture out of it! <3

i love my husband, obviously. but this christmas i realized just how much i love him. he got me the glee soundtrack, volume one. jodie and kirsten, i'm sure, understand. i cried. and it has yet to leave the cd player. <3

as a stocking stuffer mike received bean boozled. as a joke. i really didn't think he, eric and kyle (our friends) would open the box and start popping them in their mouths. it was pretty funny though! <3and so family and friends we leave with this. we love you, we miss you, we can't wait to visit and spend time with you. the weather is cold, windy and snowy, but our hearts and home are warm with the love you all sent us this year. have a happy new year!

popplewell update!

happy holidays everybody! yes, we know it has almost been two months since an update, however, we do not have our own computer or the internet. So if you just live for our blogs a nice christmas present would be money so we can get the internet :) it's very expensive over here. any way, this is what we have been up to!

we have our very own christmas tree! for the first time! we bought it super early to ensure that we would at least have a tree. maybe no lights or ornaments, but at least a tree.

but we waited a few weeks, saved some money, and bought everything to decorate our beautiful christmas tree.

let me just say that we love our tree. look how pretty!

thanksgiving was, well, interesting. at least we got a cute picture out of it!

mike couldn't wait for the blessing to start sucking the turkey bones dry. maybe it was because he was so excited to get done with dinner so he could do this...

a member of our ward recently bought and fixed up an indoor sports complex. he invited everyone to play roller hockey thanksgiving evening. did you really think mike would turn that down?

We have been very busy with work and staying warm (it got down to -19 degrees last week!). we will try to update you all sooner than two months from now. but until then, we love you all and merry christmas!