Saturday, January 30, 2010

Medical School!






Scott has been accepted to Des Moines University in Des Moines, Iowa for medical school! As long as all goes according to plan, we'll be heading there at the beginning of August. So exciting!

Thursday, January 28, 2010

The Circus!

Some of our friends had some tickets to the circus that was in town, so we made it a double date! Here is a picture of us and a couple of fun videos. I don't know how the sounds it, so you may want to mute it. The first video is of two motorcycles riding in circles in a little cage - so neat! The second video is of two elephants performing. The elephants are my absolute favorite!









Saturday, January 23, 2010

Primary!


When Scott and I were first married we served in the nursery together for about nine months, then taught CTR 6 for a few more months until we moved to our place in Orem.

We moved into our current ward the last week of December in 2008, and a month or so later Scott and I both received callings. He has been serving as the primary pianist (which always brings a good story) and I have been playing in nursery with the little kids. The first few months of nursery are tough, getting to know the schedule and procedures as well as the kids. The kids also tend to be a little afraid of you until they realize that you're an okay grown-up. :) I have been in this ward's nursery for almost a year, but now I am teaching CTR 7! I have never taught a class by myself before, so it's a new experience and I am loving it! I miss nursery a lot, and the new sunbeams who know me always turn around and point saying "dere's my odder teecher!" There are only six kids in my class, but so far I have only met one of them.

I forget how much kids like to talk about themselves and how easily they get sidetracked, but with only one child in the class we have plenty of time for tangents during the lesson. :)

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Photos!

So here is my photo catch up of my posts throughout the break. I spent a lot of time perfecting this post since blogger is really horrible for this kind of thing, and my changes weren't saved. Grr. I'm just posting it in an attempt to conceal any OCD I might need to clear myself of. Enjoy!

Making the gingerbread house!


















The lights at Temple Square!























Jeff & Scott on the roof of the conference center.


















The view of the Salt Lake Temple from the conference center. I love how it glows.


















The lights at Temple Square!


















Liz brought these cool markers that you can use to write on frosting and we wanted to make sure they were edible. This is the result. :)


















Scottie and I at the cookie-fest!


















Danny and Liz at the cookie-fest!


















The whole cookie party group! From left to right: Scottie, Danny, Liz, Coventry & Nicholas, Erin, Mileah & Todd.


















From my high school ballroom team get together (left to right): Lizzy, me, Michael & Lindsey, Brandon, Danny, Nicole & Glen. There were a bunch more people, we just forgot to take pictures before people started leaving.


















Family Christmas Party at Dad's! In this photo we have Gage & Hailie (Misty & Zach's kids), Oliver & Aeris (Steven & Leslie's kids) and Morgenn (one of Amber & Brian's kids) along with Grandpa Steve.


















Amber's oldest daughter Caitlyn. She is so beautiful!























Misty Jo and Hailie Jo! Misty also has another boy on the way!


















All of the grandkids! From left to right: Alyx, Morgenn, Hailie, Gage, Caitlyn, Owen, Aeris and Oliver. This was the best photo we got - Ollie wasn't too interested in being part of the picture.


















Scottie, Oliver and I. He is so adorable! Also, probably the most fearless little kid I've met.























Another random photo from the family Christmas party. You should have most people down by now :) but here are the names again! Dad (aka Grandpa Steve) is on the left with Gage and Ollie. I'm next with Sean standing behind the couch (so grown up!) Amber is next to me holding Alyx, then Katya is holding Morgenn. On the end we have Misty holding little Hailie.

















Gage and his new toy!























Scottie and I. :)


















Scottie and our stocking at my dad's house. What a stud!
























Scottie's new Boise State hat from Joey!























Scottie and the gifts I gave him.























One of his favorites (mine too)!























Me and the gifts Scottie gave me!























The boots that I really, really, really wanted. :)























A Boise Christmas! Melanie and the parents. :)


















A Boise Christmas! Janelle, Julie & Landon.


















Scott tubing!


















Janelle tubing!


















Scottie & I snowmobiling!


















Julie & Landon snowmobiling!


















The beautiful scenery around the cabin. So nice!


















Last but not least, Jeff and Scott at the Fiesta Bowl!





Saturday, January 16, 2010

Life Update!

I mentioned before that I finished last semester with my best college GPA yet, although I received a B for my dance team. I have been e-mailing my coach to get it worked out, because there was no way that I had lost that many points. I seldom missed practice and wasn't late too often. I also attended every single performance even when I wasn't dancing. Tonight I received the final word that my coach is submitting a grade change form for me on Tuesday to raise my grade to an A-. Hooray! I could not be more ecstatic, especially because my GPA will be even higher now, even if not by much.

As for this semester, I will be keeping busy. I have 17 credits, three of which are dance. The rest of my credits are core credits including Hotel Operations, Food & Beverage Management, Food & Beverage Operations/Controls, Hospitality Marketing, and Effective Business Presentations. I love them all! Right now I am working on completing all that I can in advance. My goal is to have every assignment (as listed on the syllabus) completed by Tuesday so all I have to do is submit them when the time comes. It makes for a crazy few weeks, but that is better than a crazy semester. I am also going to be working about 32 hours each week because our call volume is starting to pick up. At work we now have a cafe where you get a free meal for every eight hours worked. The best part? The meals are delicious! With the way my schedule is I will go straight to work after class and have time to eat for free in the cafe before my shift starts and the nights that I work later I can catch some homework time because things slow down at night.

Scott is also picking up the pace a bit this semester with his BioChem class at UVU. I can't remember if I have already mentioned this, so here is it (possibly again). One of his acceptances came from Des Moines University in Iowa and we chose them over the school in Glendale, AZ. Well DMU requires one course in BioChemistry (which most schools do not require) which Scott has never taken. Since he has already graduated he can't go back to BYU for credit unless he is a grad student, so Welcome to UVU Scott! The experience is very different, but I think he is coming to like it. He is still at APX as well, getting in his 40 hours each week and benefiting from the in-house cafe as well.

Last but not least is exercise and hobbies! I have dance every morning from 6:50 to 7:50 and I have a technique class on MWF for an hour as well. While I am off dancing, Scottie likes to play basketball with some guys from work. They play at APX in our big gym and he loves getting up and getting his exercise. We decided that we needed an activity to do together and that it wouldn't hurt for it to be some form of exercise. We each have a membership to Throwdown Elite Training Center (which is primarily for training cage fighters) for free through APX and they have some really great fitness classes. We decided to go for Yoga because it would be low key and calming. It was definitely calming, but in no way was it low key. We have gone to the class only once although it runs twice a week. It was 70 minutes long and crazy difficult but we absolutely loved it! We can't wait to start going regularly, and I think that it will really help me with my flexibility and balance for dance. Not to mention the fact that we now have something to do together that neither of us is experienced in. :)

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Fiesta Bowl 2010

The day after we got home from Boise Scott and his cousin Jeff drove to Glendale, AZ to see Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl! As the first Sunday of the new year, church began at 9:00 am, so we went to our meetings before Jeff came by our house. We packed up their things in the car and set out! On their way out of town the boys dropped me at my dad's house so I could borrow a car while Scottie had ours. I stayed with my family for a few hours just hanging out before going home to unpack our things from Boise and relax a little. The boys stopped in Cedar City to visit Jim (their uncle), Valynn and family. After some time there they made there way to Vegas where I booked them a cheap hotel for the night. Monday morning they finished the drive to Glendale and spent some time with Jeff's grandma before heading to the game. They took some great pictures at the game and had such a good time! I opted out of the trip because it wasn't worth buying myself a ticket when I'm not a huge sports person (although I'm learning!) and I thought it would be nice for Scott and Jeff to have a road trip together. After the game they spent the night at Jeff's grandma's house which was great! In the morning she loaded them up with snacks and they made the long drive home. It was a quick trip, but totally worth it for them. I also got a nice recap of the game from Scott so I really didn't miss much. :) And if you were questioning, Boise State won!

Monday, January 11, 2010

More Water?

The evening that we arrived home from Boise I noticed that our bathroom rug was wet, but I figured that somehow it just hadn't dried from before we left. I also noticed that the light was very dim and yellow so I figured that a bulb needed changed (although I only remembered putting one bulb in last time they burned out). Sunday evening I was spending some quiet time with myself and decided to change the bulb. Why not? I grabbed a chair to stand on and slowly started unscrewing the light fixture from the base. After all the screws were off it was still hanging, so I carefully tugged it toward me. It came off with a little resistance, along with a bunch of smelly water. It was everywhere, including the front of my dress and my cozy pink slippers! I walked upstairs to grab our landlord Darren in the event that there was a big problem. He said that the bathtub upstairs had overflowed during the week while we were gone and he forgot to check into it later. He carefully removed the entire light fixture and put up a brand new one that he had sitting in the garage. Talk about great service!

We've also had issues with our sink since it overflowed and flooded the apartment in October, so we came home to old bits of food crusted along the bottom of our sink (sent from the kitchen disposal upstairs). I washed the sink out really well and inspected the area to be sure it hadn''t overflowed and all was well. A few days later I came home from work and found that both sides of the double sink were full of dirty water. Ick.

Our sink has also had a few issues since it overflowed over Halloween while we were in Nauvoo, but nothing too bad. Sometimes water will backup a little but it drains after a few minutes. Well last week I came home from work one night to find that both sinks were full of dirty dishwater from upstairs. I asked Darren to come down again to take a look at it - I feel like we bother him a lot, but it's better to tell him before things get out of control - and he tried to drain it to no avail. I told him that it didn't need to be taken care of right away, so he spent most of the next morning and afternoon taking care of it. He ended up running a snake from the roof (which I didn't know could be done) and fixing the problem. Our sink has never worked better!

Christmas!

This is going to be a very long post, but I need to get caught up! I will follow with pictures later.

Christmas was wonderful! I finished the semester with the highest GPA in my college career (although I only managed a B for my dance team. Really? I'm waiting to hear back from my coach about that) and I am so glad! Although school ended, I didn't slow down a bit. The day that finals ended (Thursday) I hosted a closing social for my dance team at my dad's house which was...interesting (to say the least).

On Saturday Scottie and took time to purchase/wrap gifts for our families and decorated a gingerbread house! In the evening we met up with his cousin Jeff to see the lights at Temple Square. They were beautiful as always, and I loved every minute of it! After we got home Scott discovered that our tv/vcr combo will work with the nintendo 64 (we got rid of our tv a few days before) and he was ecstatic. Since I wanted to bake lots of treats we stayed up extra late with our fun activities. I made three different batches of cookie dough, two pudding pies and two batches of muddy buddies (so good!) before being to tired to stand. The next morning we had a Christmas program at church that was very nice. After church I starting baking all of the cookies and we had a bunch of friends over to decorate them with us!

After the cookie fest ended, we went to my dad's house where I hosted a get-together for my high school dance team. We had a great time catching up with each other and eating some great snacks!


Monday I had one of the worst migraines ever, so I left work sick after less than an hour. I have never called in sick or left early sick like that, so it was unhappy, but nice to rest in a dark room for the day. Tuesday evening we had a family Christmas party at my dad's house where we had dinner, singing and a gift exchange. Everyone was able to make it except for Cherish (who lives in San Francisco) and it was so fun to have everyone together. My sister Amber did a great job planning everything and taking charge. I handled the name drawing for gifts, and all went well. On Wednesday Scottie and I just spent the day at work - not too bad.


Christmas Eve was wonderful! We started the day with my family to see The Blindside and have lunch at Tucano's. The movie was great - I definitely recommend it - and Tucano's was delicious as always. After lunch we took cookie jars to a few friends and stopped at my dad's house to open the family gift: a Playstation 3, Rockband and the Beatles version of Rockband. It is so awesome! After that we spent Christmas Eve on our own because it was our first chance to do so since we have been married. We pitched a tent in the living room by the tree and watched Harry Potter 6. We didn't last long into the movie and fell asleep around ten, then woke up at midnight wondering why we thought a tent on the floor would be comfortable enough for the night. Needless to say, we found our way to our real bed and put the tent away the next day. :)


Christmas morning we took our time getting ready after sleeping in, then we opened the gifts that we got for each other. I gave Scottie new socks (much needed!), some pj pants (that he returned later. lol.) and two new movies (Meet The Parents and Hot Rod). He gave me some new boots (that I LOVE!), a super cute apron (I have really been wanting one), a cheese slicer (I have REALLY been wanting one) and a copy of Eclipse (from the Twilight series). After putting on my new boots we went to my dad's house for a light breakfast and some gifts. All of my siblings happened to be there around the same time, so we got to see everyone together again! It was nice to relax and open gifts one family at a time. Scottie and I got some neat stuff from my parents. He got a new capo for his guitar and some stuff for his green smoothies. I got a bunch of baking items like a large pizza pan with holes for even cooking, nice baking sheets and a large cooling rack as well as some nice measuring cups and a silicon cupcake pan. I love everything! In the early afternoon we went to my mom's house to get ready for the big meal with all the cousins. My mom gave us our new pjs (I love my pink pants!) and we got some great BYU gear as well! It was fun to see all of my family that I had missed the night before and the dinner was delicious (as it always is when Alan is the chef!). After spending time with everyone we made our way back to my dad's to try out The Beatles Rock Band. So great! If you get a chance to play, don't pass! After rocking out we met up with our good friends Dave and Janice to play pool. It was nice to relax after a long day with lots of people and I was able to brush up on my billiard skills. :)

The day after Christmas may have been one of the most boring days of my life. We both got work off to drive to Boise that day, but had a change of plans and didn't leave until Sunday afternoon. We went shopping and made returns although the day after Christmas is historically the worst day to be within walking distance of any retail establishments (if you don't believe me, try working through the holidays somewhere retail...it is insane!)


After the most boring day ever came Sunday morning and we went to church where the primary sang during the first hour (Scott is the pianist, hence the change of plans). We stayed for the full three hours, Scott in the primary and me in the nursery where I love it! After church we stopped home to change and grab our bags, stopped at my dad's house to get warm boots and gloves for snow activities, then hit the highway to get to Boise! Scottie drove us the whole way which was relaxing for me. Upon arrival we hugged the parents (tradition of course!), ate some food, and had another Christmas! We had a great time opening gifts with everyone after listening to Dave and Mel's piano duet. Everybody probably says this, but I wish I hadn't quit piano lessons after watching them play! We got some wonderful gifts including Mrs. Doubtfire (thank you Julie and Landon!), a Boys Like Girls CD (Love Drunk - we love it. Thank you Janelle!) and I got the one of the newest Nicholas Sparks novel from Melanie. So great! I got some new clothes from the parents including my very own big girl pjs. You know the kind with matching top and bottoms, buttons up the front, with a collar and cuffs? I absolutely love them. Scottie also got some new clothes - his dad did a great job shopping for Scott and got everything just right which is something I still struggle with a bit.

Monday morning we packed up our snow gear for a few nights in Donnelly at a friend's cabin. Janelle and I went grocery shopping and added a few must-haves to our shopping list: Oreos (holiday oreos were not available) and bulk candy. Sugary goodness. We loaded up the cars and headed out of the city in the late afternoon. The cabin was great, and it was so kind of the Hunt's to let us come stay with them! We had a great time watching movies (they have a huge collection) and playing games in the evenings. We also went snowmobiling out on the lake (so beautiful) and tubing at this awesome hill (they have a tow rope to take you up the hill, so not much work involved just lots of fun!). We had a great time and headed back to Boise on Wednesday afternoon to spend more time eating and watching movies!


On New Year's Eve we all just did our own thing throughout the day, then Melanie went to the stake dance, Janelle went to the institute dance, and the old married couples (aka Scott and I, Julie & Landon, and Mom & Dad) stayed home watching movies. We didn't even realize it was midnight until we started receiving text messages wishing Happy New Year. Friday we all just spent time together relaxing after Julie and Landon flew home. Scott, Janelle and I made a trip to Kohl's before going to dinner with the family at Sakana Sushi - something I suggested as a joke to Melanie who only loves to eat cheeseburgers and fries. Instead everyone thought it was a good idea, so I was victorious! The food was delicious and we went home later to watch more movies. :)


Saturday morning Scottie and I packed everything up and headed on our way back home. I drove from Boise to Ogden, then Scottie took the wheel while I took a nap. He said that I was snoring like crazy, which makes sense because I had a cold and wicked bad allergies weighing me down. We arrived home in the early evening and spent the rest of the night watching movies I think. Surprised? :)