New Additions!

So, sorry about how long it's been, been pretty busy.
Over the last couple months, we've added a couple new additions to our family.
First, a couple months ago, we obtained what will be the pride and joy of my kitchen for years to come, thank you Bed Bath and Beyond, in the color of my choice -- RED -- and I'm SO excited about it!

Welcome, our little Kitchenaid mixer!!! (We also go the shredding attachment!)

And with it, I made bread for what was probably the first time in my life. And it actually tasted good! I know! Score!

It was good! I think the only thing that wasn't the best about it was that it didn't look as pretty as I wish, but that doesn't matter because it tasted good!

We also added another new addition this last week, a Cocoa-Latte, which is awesome! Pour in milk/water, chocolate powder and sugar (or just simple hot chocolate mix), and turn it on. It mixes everything and heats it up to "the perfect temperature" -- which we think is just a little too hot so we just turn it off a little bit before it gets to that point -- then, it has a froth button on it and as it dispenses it out the dispenser, it froths it into the cup. Pretty great. We've used it every day since we bought it. :)

We also saw Skyfall with Tom and Rachel last week, on the 9. It was pretty good. Having not seen the other James Bond movies -- until yesterday when I saw Goldfinger for the first time, one with Sean Connery who I love -- I didn't really know what was going on, but it wasn't bad. I liked it, which was weird because I'm not a huge action-y movie fan, but I did enjoy it, so if you've been wondering about it, I'd say go see it. Warning, it is like 3 hours long if you count the previews, but that's ok.

We stayed at Missy and Burke's house that night, since the showing was so late the night before, and when we were driving back over to see Rachel again, we thought it looked really pretty with the clouds down on the mountains behind the temple, so I had to snap a couple pictures.

There was scaffolding there because they had to redo the caulk around the windows. I've never seen that before so it was pretty exciting.

Just couldn't help myself. I love how pretty nature is up here during the winter. Especially when it's in that odd phase between snowing and the sun again, like this one. I have some other ones I took during the fall, but they didn't turn out the way I wanted. One day we'll get a fancy camera and then I'll be a nature picture taking fiend! 

Anyway, I also wanted to brag about how awesome my husband is at cooking. Yeah. That's right. He's better than me, which isn't saying much, but still, it's pretty awesome. He can throw things together in a pot or baking dish or whatever, not knowing if it's going to work out, and it turns out awesome! I try that, and I'm eating something out of a box because what I decided to do tasted like.......something nasty.

So the other night, Friday, we were super tired and didn't really want to cook but we've been eating frozen/packaged dinners all week so it was time to actually cook. We'd gotten some boxes of Annie's Mac and Cheese (Thanks Marie!) and decided to make baked Mac and Cheese, but all the recipes we found online were for from scratch, and since we were being quasi-lazy that day, we didn't want to do that, so we decided to just make up our own.

And because he's awesome at this part of cooking, the making up part, I just kind of left it up to him and did whatever he said. 

It turned out great!

We made it again today for lunch. Was great.

Also, Tuesday, I slipped on some ice and twisted my knee, apparently I have an acute tear in my lateral collateral ligament -- there are three and one heals itself but the other two do not -- so we went into the doctor on Wednesday and he has me going to physical therapy for the next couple weeks to see if it heals itself. If it does, and that's what we're hoping for, then we won't have to do anything else. If it still is hurting in a couple weeks, we'll have to do an MRI and possibly surgery, which would be a downer since I've already had surgery on this knee once.
So I've been to physical therapy twice so far. It's the same place I went when my knees were giving me lots of problems in high school from running cross country, and I love the physical therapist there. He's hilarious and doesn't push you harder than your body can take, which is more than I can say for the physical therapist I had after my surgery 3 years ago, and he is really great about payments too, which is a huge bonus right now. When I am there, I have to do electrical stimulation on my knee, after having it massaged -- I have such a hard life ;) --, and they put an ice pack on top of the stimulation pads so it doesn't shock me too much. Well, the first day, it had just come out of the freezer and I couldn't resist doing a little doodle. Thought I'd share.

Such a happy little ice pack!

Anyway, that's pretty much all that's been happening. I switched my major for the last time to History Education with a minor and teaching endorsement in Math, which I'm really excited about because I've loved history since I was so small I can't even remember it. All I know is that when I'm in a history class, I don't feel like I'm dragging through it so that's probably a good sign.
David is looking at going for the accounting program because he can do the accelerated Master's/Bachelor's degree in just a year longer, which would make him able to get his CPA license in just three or four years after graduating, which is what he wants to do he's pretty sure. Just a couple of extra classes so he should be able to apply for next Winter semester. We're really excited about that and hoping that it happens according to plan. :) It would be really great.

So, we love you all and are grateful for all your love and support!

Texas Trip

So this has taken a really long time to get posted, but that's because it's taken me forever to figure out how to get the photos from my phone, to the computer so I can show you some of the crazy things we did.

We left on Wednesday August 8 from Salt Lake at 9 am, got down to Houston about 4 pm, and then just kind of relaxed that night. The next day we spent part of our morning making food for the reception the next day. It was fun and didn't take too long with all of us doing it. We spent that night at his friend Jeffrey's house playing games (YES WORLD! I PLAYED GAMES!!! Be amazed....)

Friday we went to the church to set up for the reception in the morning. We recruited a few helpers, with the promise of chocolate milk and kolaches (it's basically like a breakfast thing with a hot dog/sausage type thing with cheese and other things inside of a dough. They're really good!).

Aaron and Scotty were surprisingly good at getting those vines to look good on the backdrop...hidden talents? I think yes.

David was pretty good at it too. Luckily for the overall look of the backdrop, I was simply a supervisor.

The reception went off really great. We had a good turnout of people and I got to meet a lot of the people that I've only heard about so that was really great. His siblings there in Texas all came so that was a lot of fun too. We opened our gifts back at his parents house after and got some things that we really needed/wanted so it was awesome.

Saturday we were talking about going down to Galveston and maybe going to the beach and to NASA, but we had been up kind of late the night before so we decided instead we'd rather sleep in. We went to lunch at a New York style deli called Kenny and Ziggy's to celebrate his brother-in-law Scott's birthday. It was AWESOMELY good. The portions were really big. I only ate half of my sandwich and about half the fries because it was so big. But that's good because that meant I had lunch the next day after church all taken care of. And it was amazing. David got a brisket with gravy on it, which I had never had before, but really liked too. He also had lunch for the next day.

Also, only because his brother-in-law Tom wouldn't take no for an answer, I tried my first ever Reuben sandwich. And I was pleasantly surprised. I thought it would taste less than awesome, but I was wrong, and while those words taste nasty coming out of my mouth, I was really impressed with the sandwich.

The rest of Saturday was really chill. We went shopping, had a little birthday dinner for Scott and his nephew Declan, and then hung out with his friends some more. It was a lot of fun. 

Sunday we had church and I ran into a kid I knew in high school up here who is on his mission down there. It was a really good surprise. We both kind of freaked out a little when we saw each other. That was one of the highlights of my trip, just because I haven't seen him or talked to him in a while. So that was really nice. After church we just hung around the house, ate the rest of our meals from the day before, and then played games with Scott, Angela, and his parents before going over to Jeffry's house again to see his friend Stephen who had just gotten home from his mission the day before.

Monday we drove up to Austin with his mom, Angela, and nephew Bradley to see his sister Lori and her family, and then, leaving everyone there, David and I drove down to San Antonio to see the Alamo and just kind of check out the city. On our trip up to Austin, we had a little stowaway:

This little lizard decided he wanted to travel with us. Didn't notice him on the front of the car until we were pulling out of the driveway, seeing him pop up there made me squeak a little bit, though David will tell you it was a really loud squeak, which it probably was, not because it was a lizard, but because that lizard was on the windshield of the car..... Then he disappeared and I thought he'd just kind of hopped off while we weren't going very fast, then, as we were getting onto the main freeway leading up to Austin, he popped back up. And hung onto our windshield wiper like that for a good hour or so, before he disappeared again and we never saw him again...........

After getting to San Antonio, we checked into our hotel and walked the few blocks down to the Riverwalk where we took a tour on one of the boats.

I forgot to take pictures while we were on the boat, so this will have to do.

After that we realized we were pretty hungry, so that meant it was time for dinner. We decided to eat at this Mexican place there on the Riverwalk. It was pretty good. I was happy with it.

This is where we went, to Casa Rio. It was right there next to the river and so we decided to sit outside, also we decided to sit out there because to sit inside was like a 20 minute wait so we decided to take our chances of being hot, but getting our food faster. I think we made the right call.

There was a mariachi band that was walking around, playing songs. They come to us and asked if they could play us a romantic song, but we declined, mostly because we were almost done. But it was still a really cool experience because I've never seen a real one before.

That night we walked back to our hotel, and walked past the Alamo, but it was closed so we decided to just  come back to it in the morning. These are just pictures of the outer walls that I took on our way back to the hotel.

The next morning, after being so rudely awakened by the cleaning staff at 9 banging on our door and, even after we said to go away, they tried to get into our room, we checked out and went over to the Alamo. It was a really cool experience. It's something I've always wanted to see and I was glad to be able to. Here's a few pictures that we took.

We really wanted a picture by the super old cannon. So we both got one.

This tree was crazy! It was really old and gnarly, the branches were hanging everywhere. Here's a couple closer looks at a couple of the branches.

They were supported by metal poles! WEIRD!!!!

I just really wanted a picture of the squirrel.

After the Alamo, we were walking back to our car when, lo and behold!, we found this awesome place!

So of course we had to stop in and get some. It was delicious. I got Rocky Road and David got a berry sorbet. It was really good.

We had been told about a really good breakfast place to go to by someone at church on Sunday, so we decided to give it a try. It was the Magnolia Pancake Haus. He said it was really good and that the wait times on the weekends were crazy. Well, we went at 10 on a Tuesday morning and still had to wait almost a half hour. All the while I was thinking, this better be worth it.

IT WAS! It was so good. Most breakfast places all taste pretty much the same, but this place was really a cut above the rest. I got an omelet with goat chesse, baby arugula, and a creme fresche on top. I was really impressed with it. It doesn't sound like it would be good, but it really was amazing. David got the hash and it came with pancakes. It was really good hash and the pancakes were divine! They were so light and fluffy, they didn't taste like pancakes you get anywhere else. I loved it. The only downside was the biscuit that I got, it was really hard, but the rest of the meal was fantastic.

Then we drove back up to Austin to pick up his mom, Angela, and Bradley, then drove back down to Houston. That night we took Stephen, the one who'd just gotten home from his mission on Saturday, to see the new Batman movie, because he's just as much in love with Batman as David is (maybe even a little more if that's possible...), and after went to Denny's for the midnight breakfast? Ha. It was fun. 

Wednesday we had decided to go down to NASA and the beach, but again decided we liked sleep more and said we'll do it next time we're down in Texas. So we basically spent all day Wednesday hanging around the house, playing with Bradley, watched a couple movies, packing up our stuff, and just relaxing. We went laser tagging that night with his friends but I twisted my ankle and put some pretty bad pressure on my knee the first round, so I sat the second one out.

Thursday was just basically just us getting the last few things packed up, suitcases loaded into the car, and hanging around a little bit before going to the airport. We met his dad for lunch at Whataburger, I think you spell with an H but I'm not 100% positive, which is a really good fast food restaurant that they only have down there right now, well, it's moved into New Mexico and Arizona a little bit but it's still mostly just a Texas thing. Then we flew home.

It was a really great trip. I had a ton of fun and wasn't even really that hot. I was surprised and happy about it. Yeah, it was a little humid but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be so I was happy about it.

This week school started, so that's been fun. I'm not sure how I feel about the whole big school thing, I think I was spoiled with a small school for so long, but it's something I'll need to get use to.

Our schedules are pretty close to the same, so we can drive down together everyday except Friday, for right now.

I'm taking Organic Chemistry 2 (because I got a lower grade than I thought I should have last semester), Analytical Chemistry and the lab, Freshman College skills (Because I needed a really easy filler class that was at least 3 credits to get my up to full-time 12 credits and this was the one that was the easiest and fit my schedule the best), Chemistry Literature (Which I haven't gone to yet because it's only on Fridays and he cancelled class this last week for some reason or another), and Chemistry Seminar (Which I only have to go to really every other week because those are when he has seminars scheduled for so that's lucky). It is mostly just a lot of reading and so that's what takes up the majority of my time.

David is taking Statistics, Linear Algebra (which isn't seeming like the Linear Algebra I took last year because none of the stuff so far has been at all familiar), Business Law, Accounting, and Doctrine and Covenants. He has a lot of quizzes each week, so that takes up a lot of his time, but he has some downtime in between classes and  things so he's able to get a lot of it done there on campus. He's still working at Mail Services at BYU but he's been trying to get a position where I work, because he'll be paid more and it'll be easier for us to coordinate schedules (and we won't have to be in Provo by 7 every day, even when we don't have classes until 10 and noon). They said they'd be hiring the next permanent employee, which is the position just like mine, this month so we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Speaking of work, it's been really good. It's really easy, the people I work with are really great, and I love the flexibility of the hours. It really was a blessing to find it and to have it all work out the way it did. We were very fortunate. Hopefully luck will smile twice and David will get on there too.

Well, that's it for now. Sorry it was so long and that it took me so long to get it all put up. Now I know how to get my pictures from my phone to my computer so I should be more on top of it from now on.

Happy Labor Day everyone!!!!!

Insert Witty Title Here

This week has been pretty laid back. We've just been getting ready for our trip to Texas -- we leave on Wednesday, just packing and making sure we don't have anything that will spoil before we get back on the 16. Our reception down there is the 10 so we'll spend the first few days getting ready for that, then after that we'll see what happens. We'll go up to San Antonio for a few days, maybe down to the beach Saturday. We'll see specifically later.

I also had a job interview and should be hearing about that in the next couple days. It's a toy warehouse place in Heber that sends orders to Amazon for customers. So I don't have to deal with angry customers!!!!! SCORE!!!! They seemed to like me and the interview went really well. They just had to talk to the other owner of the company about it and then will let me know. It's the perfect job too. It's really flexible hours and as long as you get the work done, they don't mind if you have to leave early or come in late because of appointments or things. So fingers crossed!

Also our first week of teaching Sunday School went pretty well. There are four or five kids that come regularly and they seem like they're gonna be easy to teach. They actually participate in class, which is awesome. So that seems like it'll be a fun calling.

Other than that, it's been quiet. Not a whole ton to report on. Next week there will be though.

PS - for those of you who know what it is, we've almost gotten him caught up on the How I Met Your Mother episodes. Which is the main  highlight of my week. ;)

Month One

Well we've made it one month today and we haven't killed, maimed, or driven each other crazy so I think we're doing good. :) To celebrate, since we didn't really want to do much on Sunday, Saturday we kind of celebrated our one month.

To start off, he said he had to go run some errands, like get some AC recharger for his car since the AC has been a little weaksauce lately. About an hour later he gets home, with all this:

It's two Hershey's with Almonds -- my favorite --, two bouquets of flowers -- one is green roses just like our wedding colors--, and the Skylanders set I've had my eye on for a little while. It's a video game with little figurines. It's crazy addicting and this is one of the little guys I've wanted for a while but never got.

Later that day, we decided we'd go to dinner, and since we were heading down to give my sister back her camping chairs we'd borrowed for the movie a couple weeks ago, we decided to go to dinner down in the Provo area because there are more options down there than there are up here in Heber. So after dropping off the chairs to my sister in Lehi, we realized there was an Olive Garden down close to her in American Fork, so we went there. Their 2 for $25 deal is awesome. We got so much food that I was stuffed all night long. Definitely recommend it to anyone. Well, and I also just love Olive Garden.

We tried the Bella Limonata. It's like a pomegranate lemonade and it was actually really good, just not much pomegranate.

And I just had to reiterate, I have the best husband ever. He bought me TWO bars of Hershey's! TWO! I am a lucky girl. :)

He's also been watching the Olympics with me a little bit, even though I know he'd rather play video games while I watch the Games. I've been waiting for the women's gymnastics, since that's my favorite. And today we watched the US men's water polo team beat Motenegro by one goal, which was a nailbiter -- I played water polo in high school so it was awesome getting back into the groove and seeing the sport played again. Just waiting for the women's to come on while I'm updating this. It looks like it's gonna be a good games. Excited to see how it all plays out.

Until next week!

Numero Uno

Okay. So this has been taken a while to make, just because I keep putting it off since life hasn't had a ton of exciting things happen. Though this week has been relatively exciting.

First thing to say, being married has been awesome! We finally finished unpacking his boxes -- he had more than I thought he would -- and getting things set up. It is finally starting to sink in that this is real, not just a dream, and it's been great.

We went and saw the movie he's been SO excited to see I'm pretty sure for years, The Dark Knight Rises. The final Batman movie in the newest Batman sequence. Midnight showings are killer, just in case anyone was wondering. But it was a really fun night. We went to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings in Lehi -- always looking for an excuse to go to dinner there haha -- then we went to sit in line. I saw a couple friends from high school there so that was fun. Then we went into the theater about two and a half hours before the movie started.
We waited for Kevin and his date and Steve and his wife to show up, then played Monopoly on Steve's iPad until the movie started. By the time it started the game still wasn't over -- goodness that game is long. I forgot just how long it was. The movie was really a lot better than I expected it would be. It wasn't as dark or intense as the Dark Knight which I liked. So all in all the movie wasn't a bust. It was also a fun little evening for us, so that's always good.

That's really the biggest thing that's happened for us over the past few weeks besides getting adjusted and unpacked. Gearing up for school to start in a month and have our one-month anniversary on Sunday.

Sorry for the boring-ness of the post. The more I do this the more I think I'll get into the picture taking and putting up. And hopefully there will be more fun things to post about in the coming weeks.

Love ya!