J+P

New Year's Eve 2011

2012-01-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

We had another successful New Year's Eve Taco Bash. Always a good time with family and food.

Aren't those little penguins adorable! Mom made them.

Eating yummy tacos around papa's train table.

Cousin love! And P giving the kiddos some math problems to figure out, which led Jack to say "P can you come be my personal math teacher, you make math so fun!" ha, hilarious! They love him and P enjoys having someone to solve his puzzles.

This cutie couldn't resist licking his plate clean, mmm chocolate cake!

Sparklers at midnight.

Excited for what 2012 will hold for our family!

Christmas 2011

2012-01-09T17:06:00.000-08:00

I can't believe how fast Christmas came and went. It always seems to come and go too quickly. This year P and I didn't exchange gifts with each other and it was kind of nice not to have to worry about what we were going to get each other. It helped me to focus on the true meaning of Christmas rather than finding that perfect gift, although don't get me wrong, I love to pick out gifts (and receive gifts, of course!) so we still bought for siblings and our parents and received some wonderful gifts from family.

Christmas morning was spent with Momma Phyllis and Jen. We attended church and enjoyed having Christmas on a Sunday, it was a great reminder of what we were really celebrating that day. After church, Jen made us the best breakfast ever, she is a wonderful cook, I always look forward to anything she cooks or bakes.

Christmas day and evening was spent with my side of the family. We opened presents with my family, enjoyed a wonderful dinner (prime rib made by mom, it was her first time) and then headed over to Nana and Papa's for more eating, acting out the nativity and playing games.

Complete with costumes straight from The Holy Land. My parent's brought them back this year from their trip to Jerusalem and Egypt.

Thanks to our friends Robie and Chelsea for introducing us to our new favorite game, Spot It. It was one of a few small things I bought for our family from Santa :) It's such a fun game.

Christmas Eve 2011

2012-01-09T17:02:00.000-08:00

Since we've been married, we spend Christmas Eve with P's side of the family. This year we went out to a movie, Sherlock Holmes, ate out at a delicious Sushi restaurant with friends, and sang karaoke!

And just incase you were wondering, Brittany Spears is my favorite to sing when I'm doing karaoke! I made P sing "Oops I Did it Again" with me. It reminded me of the last time I sang Brittany karaoke with Kristyn in China- good memories!

Thanks Momma Phyllis for a delicious dinner and thanks Jen for treating us to the movie!

Goodbye Provo

2011-12-31T10:55:00.000-08:00

In the middle of December I had my last day at work and we packed up and said goodbye to Provo. We've left Provo many times, but we've always come back. It felt ~~weird~~ great knowing that our time there was coming to an end. We enjoyed Provo- it's where we met, made many fun memories, and met wonderful friends that we hope to always keep in touch with! But we've both been living in Provo for a while now and we were ready to move on.

P caught gaming rather than packing

Leaving work was bitter sweet for me. I started as an intern at Utah Valley University, in their Wellness programs, back in the Fall of 2009. I worked there from Sept-Dec and then we moved to California for 6 months.

I was lucky enough to come back and finish my internship there, in Sept 2010. In Dec, my internship hours were finished and I started working there part-time. I've been at UVU, working in their Wellness Programs, since then and it has been a great job.

I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to use my degree to educate the students and faculty at UVU about health and wellness. One of my favorite things that I had the opportunity to do there was coach clients in Intuitive Eating. It was so rewarding to work with someone and watch them make a behavior change.

I'm grateful to my boss, Amy, who was always so flexible (letting me leave in the summer, work from Arkansas, come back to UVU, etc) and I'm grateful to have met a great friend there, my co-worker Becca- I already miss her tons!

Last day of work :( Amy, me, Becca

My College Grad

2011-12-28T19:08:00.000-08:00

Between Christmas, moving, and BYU not having a commencement ceremony for December grads, I feel like P's graduation from BYU was a little unnoticed. Thought I better at least document it on our blog!

P has graduated with his bachelors in Finance from the BYU Marriott School of Business. I'm so proud of him for all of his hard work and determination to finish and do well in school.

Did you know he almost chose to study pre-med and become a doctor? Before his mission he took a bunch of courses (at Snow College, University of Utah, and Iowa Sate) to go the pre-med route. After his mission, he decided do pursue a different career path, and chose business. His decision to study business (along with his decision to attend BYU after his mission) added a couple of years to his college experience, but we're happy he chose the course he did. And I'm so happy he came to BYU so we could meet!

Congrats babe! No more studying from 8am-11pm in the Tanner (I'm not sure who is more excited about this one, me or him!)

Love you P!

Toffee Christmas Tradition

2011-12-23T18:21:00.000-08:00

I wrote this post for my best friend Synth, to post on her awesome blog called Igniting Creativity. She posts recipes and other fun ideas from people who have ignited creativity in her (such a fun idea for a blog). She asked me to write about a favorite recipe of mine and tell who has ignited creativity in me. I decided to post what I wrote on my blog too because I want my posterity to know that this toffee is a Christmas tradition.

Toffee

(don't be mislead by the name! If you are like me and you don't enjoy traditional toffee, the kind that's super hard and crunchy, don't worry, this does not taste like that, I promise!)

Heat oven to 400 degrees.
Line a large cookie sheet with foil. Heavily grease foil with lots of butter.
Line cookie sheet with saltine crackers, salt side up.

Mix the following together in a saucepan, then cook on medium/high until it comes to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes. Stirring constantly.
1 cup real butter (no substitutions)
1 cup brown sugar

Pour the above mixture over the crackers, spread around (it will start to thicken).
Put in oven for 5 minutes (watch it because you don't want the crackers to brown too much on the edges or burn). Remove and cool for a second.
Pour 1 bag of chocolate chips (I use less than 1 bag) on top and spread around until all the crackers have chocolate on them.
Put sliced almonds or any kind of nut you like on top. (optional)
Let cool (place in freezer or outside if you're in a hurry) and then break up the crackers into small pieces.

I chose this recipe because it reminds me of Christmas time and my mom. I remember helping my mom make this recipe every Christmas. She taught me how to make it (even though it's super easy) and we gave it away to neighbors and friends. That is, if I didn't eat all of it! It's super addicting!

My mom has ignited creativity in me by always encouraging me to "Dream Big." She always taught me that I can do anything I set my mind to-- which I actually learned was true in college! She was right, but moms are always right, right? And although I wouldn't consider myself a very creative person, I truly believe (thanks to her) that I can achieve any dream I have- with hard work and determination, of course!

Here's to our future!

2011-12-19T21:08:00.000-08:00

After months of interviews (this whole process started in September), with ten different companies, we finally decided on a company!

It's definitely not who we thought P would be working for- but we've learned that life often surprises you and this was definitely a surprise (a good surprise). And even though this company wasn't on our radar at first (he almost turned down the fly out interview, so glad he didn't!) we feel very blessed to be a part of a great company and to have a secure future.

Come June - yes he doesn't start until June! - we will be calling Michigan home, Midland Michigan to be exact.

And P will be working for......

DOW Chemical!

We are both so happy to finally know where and what we will be doing. I decided it was necessary that we celebrate by toasting to our future, with a little sparkling cider, of course.

Notice anything funny out this first picture?

We had to do a re-do photo the next day because I forgot to draw the letters backward so they would spell DOW instead of WOD! oops!

That's better!

Since we have a few months until we start we'll be vacationing on a tropical island until June......ha! I wish! This was my idea, but I was informed by P that unfortunately we don't have enough money for that! But we are hoping to visit Thailand for a bit before P starts work (we've been planning this for a while and are happy that it seems to be working into our plans just right).

We'll also be moving back to Centerville to live with my parents until we start in June. I'll be working for my Dad, and P will be studying and prepping for the GMAT/hopefully finding some kind of work to keep him saine.

We are so so excited for this next chapter in our life.

Life Lately

2011-12-07T20:14:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving break came and went, but it was such a nice break! Here's a best and worst of the thanksgiving break and the first weeks of December.
Best
-stuffing ourselves with thanksgiving yumminess
-sleeping in and working out all but one or maybe two days (quite an achievement for me since I usually don't work out on vacation)
-spending time with family, visiting with my mom's sister, Lisa, who came into town to see Grandma for the last time (we hardly see her or her family since they live in Alabama)
-going to the movies with some of the fam, saw Hugo, a great family feel-good film!
-helping Mom decorate the christmas tree
-a quick catch-up with a best friend
-hanging with Melis, who was in town
-shellac gel nails with my aunts and cousin nicki, awesome
-watching Matt perform in RENT- he's a superstar, he had 5 or more parts and he did all the costumes for the show
-finally deciding what job P will be working for and where we will be living!!!!

Worst
-getting a call late saturday night that Grandma was possibly dying. She didn't end up passing, but we hope she will soon since she's not doing well and we don't want her to suffer any longer
-having to come back to provo/real life after vacation
-the crazy wind storm that hit Bountiful and my hometown Centerville, 102 mile per hour winds, lots of damage and the city is practically tree-less. Well at least when it came to pine trees, those suckers just seem to blow right on over, roots and everything, when you get a lot of wind!

movie time, 3D style

matt and jod

after Matt's performance

This was just the damage near our house. Our back fence was missing some panels, and the huge tree next door blew over. There was a lot more damage spanning Bountiful and Centerville that I wanted to photograph but didn't get the chance, so crazy!

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T12:08:00.000-08:00

I'm a believer in being thankful and counting your blessings all year round, but I do enjoy the wonderful Thanksgiving holiday each November. And not only for the food, but also for the extra time to think about how blessed we all are.

Things we are thankful for in 2011.......

Jess...

A loving Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ, the knowledge I have about where I came from, where I'm going and what I can become. This knowledge comes from my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

My husband-for the way he makes me laugh, puts up with my many moods, and shows me so much affection and love in his own little way.

Health. Especially when I have multiple family members who are currently struggling with their health. I have two grandmas who are not doing so well. One just got out of the hospital yesterday, one is currently in the hospital (she went in yesterday), and my cousin Jake is also in the hospital with an infection!

Family and Friends- for their constant love, support, and example.

Job offers- we have been so blessed with multiple offers, which P has worked so hard to get. I'm grateful I can feel secure and confident about our future because he is such a hard worker.

Food, clothing, shelter, warm beds, warm showers, washer and dryer, clean water to drink

My job-I've been blessed to have a job to help support us while P finishes school.

Freedom- so grateful to live in America

Porntepp... (transcribed by jess, I'm sure he meant these in no particular order (seeing how elmo's voice made the #2 spot), but this is the way they came out of his mouth)
Jess
Elmo's voice- he's on an elmo kick lately, meaning he likes to impersonate elmo's voice. Each morning I'm greeted by elmo saying, "Welcome to Monday, Welcome to Tuesday, Welcome to Wednesday, etc... I think you get the point, never a dull moment with P.
Thanksgiving
Family
The Gospel

Happy Thanksgiving to our wonderful family and friends, we love you!

Looking forward to eating this amazing pie my brother Matt made (he makes our pies every year, he's got major pie making talent!)

Recently we've been....

2011-11-12T15:34:00.000-08:00

-Trying hard to live and enjoy life now, rather than wishing the next months could fly by and we'd know more about our future
-Me-still working at UVU, P-preparing for interviews, interviewing, and studying for his classes in between
-Supporting Ty in his play "You Can't Take it With You"

Ty and me after his performance, it was awesome Ty, so proud of you!

-Spending lots of time at my parent's house and with Momma Phyllis
-Visiting Grandma Annie as much as I can while Mom is gone.

picture taken in June 2010

-Eat lots of Halloween candy....still, even though the holiday ended 2 weeks ago!
-Flying around the country (P only, not me)....Atlanta, San Fran, L.A., Minnesota, Michigan, Seattle
-Making too many trips to the airport (see above)
-Still doing Zumba (and loving it) also trying out Yoga (not very good at it but I'm enjoying the good stretching that goes on in a yoga class)
-Talking lots about our future and what career will be best for our family
-Making dinner at home and transporting it to BYU so that I can eat it with my husband while he studies
(I think we've only eaten twice at our apartment this whole semester!)
-Trying to get used to life at home without the internet-it's terrible! For some reason the internet at our apartment will not work on my computer, so frustrating!! And P always takes his computer with him so once I get home from work I don't have any access to the internet. Thus my lack of blogging. I wish I could say I've been more productive at home without the internet, but sadly it's probably not true. I have made dinner most nights and finished one craft so I'll count that as productive.
-Looking forward to the Holidays (it snowed a ton yesterday!) and spending time with extended family
-Enjoying as much time with family now since we know in 2012 we will not be living in Utah. We know we're moving out of UT, just not sure where to yet.

Vegas for Justin's Wedding

2011-10-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

Back in May we went to Vegas for Justin's homecoming from his mission. In October we went for Justin's Wedding! Don't worry, Justin and JayCee have been dating since high school so when he got home from his mission I think we all expected marriage to happen soon, and that it did. Five months later and they were married! JayCee is beautiful and so sweet, we're happy she is now in the fam.

I was lucky enough to go down to Vegas on Wednesday night with my family. P was able to fly in on Friday night just in time for the wedding on Saturday morning. I was so grateful he was able to come because he really needed a little break from school/studying and weddings just aren't as fun without your husband by your side!

Here are the pics from the Wedding Dinner. P wasn't there for this, but he flew in later that night.

P was in Atlanta on Thursday and Friday for an interview. Unfortunately it wasn't his best interview, and he had been practicing since September for this interview so it was a big bummer. But we picked him up from the airport and went to the Vegas strip so he could drown his sorrows shopping at the huge H&M. I'm not sure that it helped, but he did find some dress pants that are smoking hot so I think it was alright. Later that night we ate tongue tacos and beef head tacos- yum! They actually had really good flavor, just don't watch them cut up the huge tongue before they place it in your taco, that was kind of disgusting!

P, and cousins Ty, Jeff, and Scott

Stick out your tongue if you love tongue tacos!! Melis missed the memo :)

Cousin Melis, brother Matt, Aunt Lisa, Aunt Jodi and cousin Dominic

Saturday was the big wedding in the Las Vegas Temple. Later that night was the reception at a cute little ranch. It included fun dancing (as well as some entertaining people watching), lots of eating delicious treats and sipping some hot cocoa.

The gorgeous couple with Justin's parents (my aunt and uncle) and his brother Jordan and sister Haylee.

Matt, Errin, and I stuffing our faces. First dance as a married couple! Us with the Bride and Groom!

Mom, Dad, Jake and Uncle Brian tearing up the dance floor :)

Cousin Love

At the end of the reception they had a little surprise. Two motorcyclists performed a show in that big cage on the left. Then things got even more exciting when they had Justin and Jaycee get in the cage while the two motorcyclist went around them! SCARY! It was pretty intense, I heard she was most worried about her dress though :) definitely a bride thing and her dress was gorgeous so I don't blame her!

It was such a fun weekend. I absolutely love spending time with my family and extended family. I feel so blessed to be part of such a close family. And although our family is crazy and chaotic at times (i.e. Aunt Lisa yelling right outside the Temple doors when it took us all 30+ minutes to decide where to eat) I love them and wouldn't trade them for any other family in the world.

Congrats Justin and JayCee, your wedding was beautiful and we're so happy to have you in our family JayCee.

The following pics I stole from Melis, thanks Melis!

The Wall Fam

Wedding, Bridal Shower, Babies & Family Time

2011-10-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

Back in August I went to my friend Elise's wedding reception, we grew up on the same street and in the same ward, her family is one of my favorites! She looked so stunning. I went to the reception with Synth and it was so much fun to catch up with each other (I had just returned home from Arkansas). Her and I had a fun little talk about getting married, it was great!

Candace and I hosted a Bridal Shower for Synth, I didn't get too many pictures and the ones I got were blurry (I didn't even get one of her and I together, what was I thinking?!) but I do love this one of Synth and Carly. Carly made her this darling apron.

Excited or nervous to see what's in that box!!?

A couple of weekends ago we got to play with these cuties. They loved jumping from the couch to the ottoman. First they would roar like a bear or some animal (maybe like the cougar in the background? Yes that cougar is displayed in our family room, I guess you could say my Dad is proud of it) and then they would dive head first onto the ottoman. It was so fun and funny to watch.

They are so cute and I love watching P play with them. He's going to be such a great dad in the future :)

My cousin Melissa came into town for Conference Weekend. It was great to see her and to be with her family who was also in town. I miss hanging out with all of the Bigelow boys; we got to see Jeff who just came home from his mission, and Blake and Scott. Scott told P and I about his new girlfriend and it made us laugh our heads off, he is hilarious. We celebrated Nana's b-day and P and I even got a turn wearing the b-day hat too since we were gone back in June for our b-days.

That's all, and I think this is about the most random post I've ever written.

Synthia's Wedding

2011-09-25T13:18:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I attended my best friend's wedding. Synthia and I have been friends since we both moved into the same ward/neighborhood back in 2001. I love her to pieces and I am so blessed to have had her as my friend growing up. She has always been an example to me of Christ-like love. She is selfless, kind, loving and always looking out for the well-being of others. She is loved by everyone who comes into contact with her because of her loving nature which makes you feel like you are the most important person. Matt, her husband, is such a lucky guy :) and even though I don't know him that well, I can tell that he is an amazing guy and they will make a great couple. Thanks for letting me share in your special day, Synth, it was such a wonderful day!

The wedding reception was the night before, I spent most of my time helping out at the sign-in book. The reception was in her back yard and it was gorgeous, I wish I would have taken more pictures of the yard and decor. The weather was great until the sun went down and then it got windy and chilly. But it was still a beautiful reception.

Some of my family at the reception- minus P, Zach (who had already left), Cris and Matt (who had his tonsils out this morning so he couldn't come, bummer!)

The gorgeous couple!

After the reception, Candace and I helped her out of her dress, which by the way was gorgeous!! She looked so stunning, her hair, make-up, dress, everything. She looked so so beautiful!

Because she wasn't leaving for her honeymoon (the actual wedding ceremony was the next day) the clothes that she had to change into were the same ones she had worn over to her parent's house earlier that day to prepare for the wedding reception. They were these crazy, baggy, comfy pants from Jerusalem. She wore them as a dress (because she couldn't find an undershirt) and she looked so cute, I just had to take a picture, even though you can't tell they are pants in this photo! And I love that she's still wearing her veil.

Friday, was the wedding ceremony in the Salt Lake Temple. It was beautiful, I'd never been to a sealing in the SLC temple and I was so grateful to be there. Thanks to Candace and her husband for helping me get my temple recommend (I realized late Thursday night, after the reception, that I had left my temple recommend down in Provo, whoops). Thank you, thank you, Candace for saving me!

Again, she was absolutely stunning!

Later that day was the luncheon. And then we helped her out of her dress one last time and she was off on her honeymoon to Hawaii!!

Both days were so wonderful, everything was perfect and I am so happy for you Synth!
I did miss my husband, who wasn't able to come to any of the festivities because of school and interviews, wish you could have been there babe!

Shrimp Etouffee

2011-09-18T21:24:00.000-07:00

P offered to fix us dinner tonight, and I obviously wasn't going to turn him down on that offer. When I sat down at the table I just laughed and had to take a picture. P is a really good cook, he doesn't cook very often but when he does I'm always impressed at how well he can throw ingredients together to make a meal (he doesn't like to follow recipes). And I'm always impressed by how he presents his meals. Totally opposite of how I present my meals....

He presents the food beautifully, always putting it on my plate for me and I don't present it at all, I make him dish up his own plate from the pan!

I think I can take some lessons from him, I mean just look at that plate, doesn't it look like something you'd get from a fancy restaurant. The shrimp on top of the perfectly rounded mound of rice makes me laugh, and the cilantro garnish, it's just lovely! Now if only he had time to cook for me more often, like on the weekdays, but I'll take what I can get!

Oh and incase you are wondering how it tasted, it was absolutely delicious. Sometimes I feel bad for him that he has to eat my boring meals, sorry babe!

206 miles, 3 states, 1 day = LOTOJA

2011-09-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

LOTOJA is short for LOgan TO JAckson. The Lotoja is a cycling race that begins in Logan, Utah and finishes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming (or Teton Village, if you're being specific). The race is 206 miles, covers 3 states (Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming) and is all completed in one day! The course also includes 3 mountain passes (a.k.a. really steep hills), making the total climb during the race nearly 10,000 feet! It is believed to be one of the longest single-day road cycling races in North America and possibly the world.
Doesn't is sound miserable?! 206 miles on a bike!

Well my Dad decided in February that he wanted to race in the Lotoja. He enlisted a guy in our ward named Gary to help him. Gary has rode in the Lotoja 18 times and he also happens to be an amazing cyclist, this made him the perfect coach. He told my Dad exactly what to do to train and my dad followed it to the T.

This past Saturday was the big race and I went with my Mom, Gary, and his wife Michelle, to support my dad in the race. Gary road with my Dad in the race, and my mom, Michelle and I were the "support crew." As the "support crew" we drove in the car and met the guys at the "feed stations" to give them food, water bottles, and moral support to keep going on!

As the "support crew" we did our job great, we were there at every "feed zone" on time and with all the specified food we were suppose to bring. The day went so smooth, until the very end. After we left the last "feed zone" we traveled a different route than the cyclists to the finish line. For most of the race, the "support crews" travel a different route than the cyclist. This way, we are not trailing or following the cyclist throughout the whole race; it's safer this way.

Well, as we were driving to the finish line we missed a turn and went the wrong way for 25 miles!! Once we realized we were headed to Idaho Falls and not Jackson, we turned around and sped back as fast as we could, so fast that we nearly got pulled over (a cop put on his flashing lights and everything but for some reason he didn't pull us over, it was a miracle). But unfortunately we didn't have time to make it to the finish line before they guys. It was terrible, I'm still sick about it!

We weren't able to see my dad cross the finish line, or hear his name as he crossed the line, or hold up my sign for him to see, or take pictures as he crossed the line. Uh, it was a horrible feeling as we drove into Teton Village knowing that he was crossing the finish line and we weren't there! Of course my dad understood, but it took my mom and me a long time to get over it! I'm still not over it!!

But the important thing is that he finished! And not only did he finish, he placed 6th in his category! Amazing, especially for his first time! It took him 11 hours and 20 minutes.

I am so proud of you dad. Thanks for inspiring me to reach for my goals and dreams. When you make up your mind to do something, you do it. You put all your effort into it and you make it happen. To me, that is so admirable. I enjoyed every minute of supporting you and I am so proud to have you as my father. Love you Dad!

Love this picture of my parents- they're so cute!

Before the race, Dad, Gary and Michelle

The scenery was beautiful! And we were able to enjoy it since we were in the car not on a bike!

At the feed zones, trying to stuff him with food and water.

Leaving one of the feed zones.

FINISHED!!! Picture taken outside of the hotel rather than at the finish line :(

It was Labor Day Weekend

2011-09-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

We had a great Labor Day Weekend with family. Saturday we headed up to Park City to ride the alpine coaster and zip line. I love Park City in the summertime, the weather and scenery are so beautiful there. We've never done the zip line before; it was fun but goes by way too fast (for how long you have to wait in line and for how much you pay). We went with my parents and cousin Ty. It was so fun to have Ty there with us because it has been a while since we've seen each other- he's be in Bulgaria and Europe for the past month.

Here we are on our way up the alpine coaster. I'm not sure why P is doing ninja poses?

On our way down, so fun, I love the coaster, if you haven't tried it you should!

On Sunday we went to church with Momma Phyllis and spent the rest of the day with her. We had a delicious dinner, she's such a good cook, I learn a lot just watching her. In between making dinner P wanted me to quiz him on some math and case interview problems (he's preparing for a really intense interview next week). His mom wanted to get in on the action too, so for about an hour I asked them hard math questions, they used their head to answer them and I used a calculator to make sure that they got the correct answers. I wish I had their smart Asian brains, they can figure out math problems (hard ones!) in their head and they have the answer before I can even type it into the calculator!! This photo below just makes me laugh...they're both concentrating so hard.

On Monday we headed to the lake for a bit. It was a little chilly and overcast so not the best day, but it was great being with family.

Bloopers and other random pics that make me laugh.

Two of my favorite pics of the day..

this handsome boy that I'm so lucky to call mine

and this beautiful lake surrounded by mountains (Pineview Reservoir)

Later that night we had a BBQ with Nana & Papa. It was such a fun weekend, I love spending time with family, it is the best! I'm trying to spend as much time with them as I can since we most likely will be moving out of state in a few months, sad but exciting.

Bees

2011-08-31T20:43:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to say thanks for all the nice comments about my hair. One thing that I don't like about blogger is that I often want to comment on a comment that someone has made on my blog (does that make sense?). But there just isn't an easy way to do it. I mean I know that I can comment on my own post, but the person may not check back on my blog and therefore wouldn't see that I had commented about their comment. I also know if I click on their name/profile I can email them my comment, but I feel kind of weird emailing you just to say thanks, so I'm brining it up now..THANKS!

Also, thanks for the concern about our no AC situation. We do have one small unit in our window in our bedroom (didn't want you to think that we are completely without AC). But since we pay electricity we don't like to run it all day. We do run it at night for a bit before we go to sleep, then turn it off and keep our fan on all night - we do have a fan.

I had to laugh today (although the other night I threw a fit about it. At least this time around I chose to laugh, right?) when we were attempting to kill another bee that snuck into our apartment. During the evening hours we keep our front door wide open and the fan outside our door in an attempt to blow the cool, outside air into our apartment.

Well this wouldn't be a problem if we didn't have a bee house right outside our door. There is a tiny hole in the bricks outside of our apartment. These smart bees have made their home inside this tiny hole and therefore they are flying in and out of the hole all day long. Well when we have our door open some of the bees end up in our apartment. Those little guys buzz so fast once they get inside our apartment, and it then becomes a game for us to find them and kill them. Well P does the killing, I'm good with my eyes and can usually spot them. Oh what a fun game to play every evening!

Here's a picture of the hole, which you can't really see because there is a bee covering it in this photo. And if you're wondering why there is duct tape around the hole, that would be because P thought he'd take matters into his own hands and attempt to close up their hole. So he put duct tape over the hole (I knew all along that this would not stop them, bees are smart!). After one day the bees had eaten through the duct tape! The bees definitely won the first round, but round two will include chemical warfare, as P put it, so hopefully he'll will that one!

In other news, P heard back today from some companies that he's really been wanting to interview with. Very exciting! But stressful for him as he now has to prepare for the interviews. I'm sure that he will be grateful when this interviewing process is all over, although his favorite thing to do is look for jobs, so maybe he won't be happy that it's over.

I also tried Zumba the other day for the first time and I loved it! I'm addicted, does anyone who lives in Provo go? I'd love to go with you, I need a buddy.

I think that's all for now, the iron has been hot and waiting for me for the last 10 minutes so I better go do my "wifely duties" (aka- iron the husband some dress pants to wear tomorrow).

Recent Changes

2011-08-24T18:34:00.000-07:00

The last week has been busy with some changes for our family....

-arriving in UT after a long 2 day trip from AR

-moving (again!)

-changing hair colors (and loving the new me!)

-adjusting to living in an apartment without AC (sweating lots during the day and then sleeping with ice packs in an effort to get a good nights sleep--it's not working)

-starting back up at work (for me, P is still taking some time off)

And next week P will start his last semester, hallelujah! Some day soon we will know a little bit more about our future...such as where we will be living, what company P will be working for, etc. I can't wait to know!

And on a random side note, these are the only pictures that I have of us in Arkansas!

Here we are with the mascot (he's a Sasquatch I believe) of the Northwest Arkansas Naturals Team, we went to 3 or 4 of their baseball games this summer.

Here is Kit and his adorable girlfriend Ally, we got to hang out together the week she was in town.

Sadly we never got a picture with our friends Kimmy and Eric (they are from BYU and were there doing an internship with Walmart). Her and I bonded and I loved the afternoons that we spent together!

We also become friends with Mark and Marissa, they live in AR and were so kind to have us over a bunch, we miss them!

Expressions of Love

2011-08-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

This morning I was pleasantly surprised when I found this little note from P telling me to watch this video that I've posted below.

I wanted to share this video, and although I think it's a little cheesy at the beginning, it reminds me of what is really important in this life (eternal families through eternal marriages) and to never repress an expression of gratitude or love.

The video quotes Elder Richard G. Scott's talk that he gave in April 2011 Conference, titled "The Eternal Blessings of Marriage." I remember listening to that talk in April and loving it- especially the stories he shared about his sweet wife. The way he spoke about her was so tender and loving.

I love what Elder Scott says, (I have to quote it here so that I don't forget it!)
"Marriage provides an ideal setting for overcoming any tendency to be selfish or self-centered. (THIS IS SO TRUE) Express gratitude for what your spouse does for you. Express that love and gratitude often. That will make life far richer and more pleasant and purposeful. Don’t withhold those natural expressions of love."

So whether you are married or not, don't withhold these natural expressions of love to those who mean the most to you! And to my sweet husband, thank you for sharing this video with me, and thank you for all the expressions of love that you show to me. I'm so blessed to have you for eternity.

And I just couldn't post this without telling my Mom thanks for her expressions of love. In my mind she is the Queen of Expressions of Love. Growing up she was always leaving me notes here and there - a note written on my banana in my school lunch, a note folded into my laundry when I came home from college to do laundry on the weekends, a note in my jean pocket, notes by my bedside when I came home late from hanging out with friends in high school, a tiny heart note in the corner of the visor mirror in my car, and countless others. I've saved many of them and still read them to this day. Thank you mom for these notes, they mean so much to me, and also for the verbal expressions of love that you so frequently showed me growing up. Love you!

Vegas over Memorial Day

2011-08-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

Way back in May, we traveled with the fam down to Vegas to give a warm welcome home to cousin Justin. He came back from his LDS mission. We frequent Vegas at least once a year to stay at my Aunt and Uncle's house down there. It's always a party, lots of people, lots of eating, lots of sitting around and sometimes boating at lake Mead. This time we mostly ate and sat around, oh and listened to Justin's homecoming talk- he did fantastic. Here are the few photos that I took....

We also celebrated family b-days and graduations. Mom had a delicious ice cream cake and this cute banner to celebrate graduation.

He loves posing for the camera :)

I love him!

The Best of Friends...

2011-07-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

Back in May we had a little friends get together at my parent's house. It is always so fun to see my closest friends from high school and catch up. I hope we can continue this tradition for years to come because I love these girls so much! Thank you Anne, Carly, Pam, Candace, Aimee, and Synthia for being the best friends a girl could ask for! Oh and we missed you Stacey and Rehni!

A few flashbacks for good memories (and laughs!)

Left Photo: 2004? Park City, Pam & Anne's condo. Right Photo: 2003?, Park City Utah, Alpine Slide.

Left: All Night Graduation Party 2005. Right: December 2006 Candace's House

Left: 2005 Bowling! Right: December 2007 Pam and Anne's House

Graduation

2011-07-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

Since I graduated in December, and BYU doesn't have a commencement ceremony in December, I finally walked in April! It was such a fun day and I'm glad that I was still around to walk across that stage. Being at the ceremonies made me want to continue on and get further education. There was just such a wonderful feeling of accomplishment and achievement in the air that I thought, "I really like this feeling, maybe I should get my master's degree!" That might actually happen if my dad keeps on my case; he wants to get his master's in Public Health so he wants us to do it together! We'll see :)

My mom came down on Thursday to go to the commencement ceremony, where Elder Scott spoke, with me. I'm so glad she came down because P had a final that day and he wasn't sure if he would be able to finish his final in time to make it to the ceremony. He didn't finish in time, so thank you so much Mom for coming with me! I didn't wear my cap and gown so I was able to sit by my mom during the ceremony which was fun.

Then on Friday both my parents, P's mom and my grandparents came to convocation where I walked across the stage and had my big moment of fame. The college of Life Sciences, which I graduated in, was huge; I think it took an hour and a half for us all to walk across the stage! That was a little long and boring but I'm definitely glad I was able to attend and they even pronounced my last name correct! They had to ask me how to say it a few times before they actually said it over the mic, but they got it right!

My mother-in-law came and brought me that beautiful lei, it was made with pretty ribbon and money! Thanks Momma Phyllis for taking the day off to celebrate with me, it meant a lot to me, and i love you.

My Papa and Nana are big BYU fans and were so excited for me because not only am I the first grandchild to graduate form BYU, but I'm the first one ever on the Wall side to graduate from BYU so they told me they've waited a long time for this day! Also, my Nana woke up that morning and was really sick, she told me she started crying beacuse she thought she'd have to miss my graduation and she wanted to come so badly. She asked my Papa to give her a Priesthood Blessing and thankfully she was able to come! It was a little miracle and I'm so grateful they were both there.

Afterwards we headed up to SLC to eat at Setebello's Pizzeria. I thought the pizza was alright, it wasn't my favorite, but I sure enjoyed the gelato! It was a wonderful day, it felt like my birthday with cards, money, eating out, presents, etc. I loved every second of it!

A big thank you to my parents, P and other members of my family who supported me through college. I could not have done it without you!

I also want to quickly say how thankful I am to have an education. When I spent some time in Africa one of the things that kept coming into my mind was how lucky I was to be getting an education. It was there I learned the importance of education and the difference it can make in a person's life. At that time, I was definitely taking my education at BYU for granted. I feel very grateful to have gone to college and to a college with such high standards and values. I will always cherish the memories and experiences that I had there.

Go Cougars!

I want to list the 10 points that Elder Scott shared in his talk.

Ten specific points to help individuals to successfully develop their character and find joy in life:

1. Establish a set of principles to guide every aspect of life- home, church service, profession, and community. "Many people try to compartmentalize their lives and have a standard for Church, another standard for what they do in business, and in other aspects of their life," Elder Scott said. "I very strongly counsel you not to do that. There really is only one set of standards that make sense. Those are the teachings of Jesus Christ which signal to us the importance of faith, service, obedience and integrity."

2. Don't make exceptions to your standards.

3. Be loyal. "Success comes when your actions are consistent with the teachings of the Lord," he said. "When you seek work find someone who challenges you, who raises you to higher levels of performance."

4. Live so that the Lord can guide you to where He wants you to serve.

5. Serve others. "Sharing what you know with others will bring you happiness and bless their lives."

6. Smile.

7. Don't complain. "Life isn't always fair. That's a fact. But it's always charged with marvelous opportunities if you know how to find them."

8. Always have a church assignment.

9. Go to the temple.

10. Use the Savior, Jesus Christ as your example for life. "Use His teachings as your handbook for life. Never make exceptions to them. "

It's Dinner Time

2011-07-15T13:25:00.000-07:00

I've made some really yummy dinners lately and I wanted to share the recipes on here because if you're like me, you're always looking for EASY and yummy recipes to make for dinner. Well these recipes did not disappoint!! Both P and I loved them all. Click on the name of the recipe and it will take you to the recipe.

Panko Crusted Chicken stuffed with Ricotta, Spinach, Tomatoes, and Basil

Source: fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com via Jessica on Pinterest

Shrimp Tacos

Source: howsweeteats.com via Jessica on Pinterest

Spicy Black Bean Burgers (just as good as a hamburger, and I love a good hamburger)

Source: keepitsimplefoods.com via Jessica on Pinterest

And this french bread was pretty great too!

Source: blogs.babble.com via Jessica on Pinterest

I found all of these recipes on Pinterest, do you pin? It's amazing and so addicting. If you want an invite let me know. And if you have an account, comment so that I can follow you!

Speaking of food, my awesome friend Kasee (we lived in California together when our husbands were interns at J&J) just revamped her food blog. She is a wonderful cook, I've tasted many of her creations and they have all been superb! Check out her blog, the apron gal, and enter her giveaway to win a pretty apron. Love her, love her new blog, check it out.

St. Louis for the 4th

2011-07-13T14:52:00.000-07:00

We decided to head up to St. Louis for the 4th of July. P had two days off and St. Louis is only 5 hours from us so it seemed like a great idea. We really enjoyed our time there and really loved the city. Although it's a lot smaller city, compared to Chicago which we had been to the week earlier, there was something about it we really liked.

The only bad part of our short little trip was the rain that lasted all night on our first day there. Because of the rain the free Maroon 5 concert and firework show was canceled, such a disappointment :( We were both really looking forward to hearing them!

I'm not really in a blogging mood so I'm just going to list some of the things we did while there, in no particular order...

-went to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, famous for having the most mosaics, in one place, in the world. The mosaics took nearly 80 years to complete using 41 million pieces of clay. It was amazing!!

-Forest Park (America's 2nd largest urban park, it was huge! Also the site of the 1904 World's Fair-whatever that was!). We spent almost a whole day there visiting the zoo (which was free...awesome!), the art museum, and walking around the beautiful grounds

-ate some great Indian food, yummy pastries, famous custard, and Pho

-enjoyed fireworks under the famous Gateway Arch

It was a fun and quick getaway and I'm so glad we went.

This orangutan was so hilarious, he sat like this looking at us forever.

This is a music book from forever ago, it was huge! Apparently is was this big so that a large group of people (40) could read it while singing. Can you imagine carrying that thing around?

The biggest pastry we've ever seen!

I love the colors in the mosaics on this ceiling.

Happy 4th of July! We are so grateful for our county, how lucky we are to belong to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave! Thanks to all those who serve our country, we pray for you every night!

Chicago

2011-06-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

Day 1

Went to Lou Malnati's Pizza, it was delicious! We ordered the traditional deep dish Chicago pizza and loved it. I thought the crust was fabulous but that's always my favorite part.

Then we headed to this festival going on called Taste of Chicago. It just so happened to be right across from our hotel which was convenient. We walked around there for a bit and then we walked around Millenium Park and visited the famous Bean.

We ended the night in our hotel room because apparently we're already an old married couple who likes to go to bed at 10:30 at night, wait, maybe that's just me. All in all it was a fun day exploring the city.

Day 2- Our 2nd Wedding Anniversary!!

We started the day out by visiting Taste of Chicago again, this time we bought 12 tickets so that we could purchase food. I got a mini pulled pork sandwich, it was alright. P got a Loukaneko (a Greek sausage wrapped in a pita) and that's all the 12 tickets ($8) would buy us!

We walked along the waterfront to Navy Pier.

There we enjoyed some ice cream and live music. Lucky for us it was an absolutely beautiful day, warm with a slight breeze, we especially enjoyed the lack of humidity (in comparison to AR) in Chicago!

We (Kit and Laudi with us, they are now our BFF's) then walked to the John Hancock Building and found out that unfortunately it's not free (like I thought) to go up to the top and get a great view of the city. We decided we didn't want to spend $30 to go up to the top (it was a easy decision since I could see H&M right across the street-yeah I'd much rather spend my $30 there)!

We decided to get the real city experience and take public transportation back to our hotel. P and I took the bus to Union Station where we caught the train to Niles. In Niles we met up with P's cousin Eric and his wife Minja. P and Eric haven't seen each other in 8 or so years and I was happy to meet more of P's relatives! Here we are on the train...

Eric and Minja were so nice and fun to be with, we really enjoyed having dinner with them. They treated us to an all you can eat Korean BBQ-yum! And they let us try a bunch of their yummy cupcakes! They own a bakery in Niles called Le Sucre. Minja is a baker/chef and makes all of the cakes and cupcakes from scratch. Eric also works at the bakery doing whatever Minja tells him to do, ha ha. Anyway, their cupcakes are delicious!! We loooved the Red Velvet cupcake and of course the Carrot Cake cupcake was delightful as well (carrot cake was our wedding cake).

They made a special cupcake for our anniversary, it was so pretty with the handmade flowers on top.

If you're ever in Niles check out their bakery, it's to die for! Seriously I wish I could eat their cupcakes everyday!! Eric was kind enough to drive us back to our hotel that night. I was so glad to meet Eric and Minja, who were both so kind and fun to hang with. We hope it's not another 8 years before we see them again!!

Overall this day was spent walking...and walking...eating tons of meat and cupcakes...and catching up with sweet family....all while celebrating 2 years together!! Yay for us, we've made it 2 years with many more to come.

Day 3

We went hotel hopping today. Well we just switched hotels and moved north down Michigan Ave. We are now staying in the hotel that General Mills set up for the interns and it's definitely a step up from where we were, it's very nice.

I enjoyed lunch with the boys (P, Kit and Laudi) at some Burrito place and then parted ways with them.

They headed off to meetings and fun activities that were planned for them. I headed straight to the Magnificent Mile, which happened to be just outside our hotel, a blessing! I hit up a lot of stores today and thoroughly enjoyed my time alone shopping. Sometimes it's nice to shop alone because you can take your sweet time browsing the store and trying on clothes in the dressing room. And you can buy whatever you want cause no one is there to stop you! It was awesome.

After P's meetings the company took them on a boat ride tour of the city just as the sun was setting-sounded so nice! I stayed in the hotel room at night and watched T.V./blogged until P came home.

Day 4

I was on my own again for this day because P had meetings and activities all day. I did a little more shopping and walked a ton. I made sure to visit Portillo's a place we fell in love with in California. I walked there and it was suppose to be a 10 minute walk from our hotel but I ended up going the wrong way..twice..and it took me over an hour! I guess it was good because I walked off my lunch before I even ate!

After meetings in the morning P went to his "Blissage" (a blissful massage) with the guys from work, they'd been looking forward to this for a while. It was the activity that they chose to do (the company gave them a couple different activities to choose from and they chose that). I got to spend about an hour with him after he was done with the massage. I also met up with Brittany (another intern) and did a little shopping with her. We stumbled upon Sprinkles Cupcakes and decided we must get one, I'd never had one before. It was a pretty good cupcake, but I think Le Sucre is WAY better :)

That night P headed off to the Cubs Baseball game for work, they rented a private house above the stadium and they enjoyed lots of yummy food there. I hit the streets again, found me some dinner and went back to the hotel to blog and watch "The Voice."

We stayed in the same hotel room, for two nights, with Kit and Laudi, we were one big happy family. When we moved to the hotel that General Mills had set up for us, P and I had our own room.

Day 5

P had meetings in the morning and then we had to leave to catch our flight. We had a really great time in Chicago and I'm so happy that I got to tag along!

A few more pics

These two pictures are from the photo booth outside the Chicago Tribune building. You can take pictures of yourself and then they email it to you.

This picture wasn't suppose to be blurry but I kind of like it that way.

I think Chicago is a beautiful city, one of my favorites.

Weekend Fun

2011-06-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we were invited to go to Beaver Lake out here in Arkansas, it was so beautiful. We got to wakeboard and tube (just P) and spend time riding in the boat. It was like heaven, we both love being on the lake and this lake was surrounded by the thick, green luscious Arkansas trees. The only downside to the day was frying my legs..ouch..i hate sunburns.

Yesterday was my birthday, I'm 24. I feel old but young at the same time. P made me breakfast...pancakes from scratch (some regular and some choc. chip-he knows my love for all things chocolate!) and homemade blueberry syrup. That boy of mine is a chef, really he's so creative and smart in the kitchen, I love it.

We then went to church, it was wonderful. Heard lots of talks in sacrament about fathers, and I was reminded of how awesome it is that we all have a Father in Heaven who loves us, I'm so thankful for that knowledge! We had a really awesome lesson in Sunday school, the teacher (who is out here doing his internship at Walmart) shared two of his favorite Mormon Messages. If you haven't seen any of them you should watch some-they're the bomb. And he talked about faith. Then in Relief Society we also had a great lesson and I felt the Spirit so strong. I'm so thankful for my church, I love that the Spirit is the same anywhere you go.

We also met this cute couple, Eric and Kimmi-we actually ran into them at Walmart on Sat night-they are in our ward and they are out here for the summer doing an internship with Walmart. They're living in the apartments we lived in last summer-lucky them! Anyway, they are awesome and I can't wait to hang out with Kimmi cause she is so sweet and we totally clicked.

After church I read while P studied for an interview that he has tomorrow, with Microsoft! P made me dinner, marinated chicken and pepper lemon shrimp with corn on the cob. It was delicious! I ate 1 and a 1/2 corn on the cobs-I LOVE corn on the cob in the summertime! Then I offered to make my own b-day cake since P needed to study some more and it was just Funfetti out of the box so I thought I could manage :)

We had our intern friends (Brittany, Laudi and Kit) over for cake and ice cream again. I was so happy they came over to spend my birthday night with us! We watched part of Miss America, that was funny, some of those girls' interests were making us laugh...zip lining, racing cars, doughnuts....yeah right! Then we played Taboo, one of our favorite games.

Although I did miss being with family, especially since my whole extended family came over to my house last night to celebrate Father's Day, I was thankful to spend my day at church, with friends and of course, with the man I love. Thanks P for making me feel so loved and special on my birthday!

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful dad. He's the most patient, hard working, loving, giving, determined, positive, easy-going, forgiving, supportive, dad ever! Both P and I are so thankful for him in our life.

I also want to thank P's mom for playing the role of both mother and father in their household. Momma Phyllis you are one amazing woman -loving, hard working, kind, supportive, such a great example to me, and I love you!

Birthday Boy!!

2011-06-12T19:48:00.000-07:00

Happy 26th Birthday my love!

We celebrated tonight by eating cake and ice cream with the other interns who are here interning with General Mills- Kit, Laudi, and Brittany. They are all really nice and fun to be with so we like hanging with them.

It's Brittany's b-day tomorrow so we sang to both of them!

The boys-- Kit, P, and Laudi

We're ending the night by watching the NBA finals, well the guys are watching and I'm blogging.

I love you babe xoxoxo

Arriving in Arkansas

2011-06-09T17:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've updated this blog. Things have been so busy. Moving out of provo, moving to C-ville for 2 weeks, a quick trip to Vegas to welcome Justin (our cousin) home, taking care of a mom who had surgery, and both of my grandmas who went into the hospital within a week from each other, packing up again and moving across the country to Arkansas, just to name a few things!

We are now in Arkansas and things are well. It took us two days to get to Arkansas and when we arrived we were a little disappointed in our apartment. If you remember last summer, in Arkansas, we had an amazing fully furnished, fully decorated two bedroom, two bathroom apartment, complete with a maid who came once a week! We were definitely spoiled, and we learned that even more as we moved into our apartment this time around.

We're staying in the same town but in a different (better) location of town, therefore we are not in the same apartment complex as last time. First of all, when we arrived it was a blazing 91 degrees with what felt like 100% humidity. We arrived just after the office, for our apartment complex, had closed. This would have been okay had we known our apartment number and address. P had called a day earlier to get the address but because of a strong southern drawl the woman on the phone had, he didn't write down the address correctly, he also didn't really know our apartment number. So here we are at a huge apartment complex with sketchy directions to our apartment and without our apartment number.

I did my best to keep my mouth shut, although I wanted to say some choice words (not swear words, but words that would be rude) to my sweet husband who failed to write down our apartment number and get correct directions! Why do men always think they can just wing it?? In his defense he did try calling the apt. complex earlier that day and no one answered even though they should have since he called during office hours, so he did try to get the correct address and apt. number, good effort babe ;) We started knocking doors, then trying to open doors if no one answered. P did arrange to have our door open so we could get in after office hours.

Eventually we found our apartment and managed to do it without fighting, which is a miracle cause I could feel one coming on! J/K on that last part but seriously we were both stressed, tired, hot, and sweaty which is not a good combo.

Unfortunately we walked into our apartment and found it a lot less appealing than what we had expected and what we lived in last summer. It was bare, no kitchen table, no chairs, no lamps, no decorations, nothing. We did have a couch, coffee table, t.v. (but with no cable plug or DVD player), bed and dresser (which was scuffed up and dirty). We were really quite shocked and taken back by what we were seeing.

All of this wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but we had been told that our apt. would be fully furnished and we assumed that meant decorations and at least a kitchen table. The apt. was missing lots of kitchen supplies, an iron and iron board which I was mad about since I almost brought ours but was told that we wouldn't need it! GRRRR sufficient to say, we were not happy.

Anyway, I'm sure this post makes us sound very dramatic and high maintenance, but we expected General Mills to meet the expectations that Walmart had set last year! Big let down for us as it seemed like someone had literally thrown the place together an hour before we arrived. Oh and on top of that the place smelled funny and the bedspread (which they had just purchased b/c the JC Penny's bag was still sitting on the floor) was so ugly; I wish they would have just given me the money and let me go pick it out once I got here! But at least we had linens, even if they were ugly.

Well we had nothing to do, since we didn't have a cable cord or internet and P didn't want to unpack the car because he was certain he would be able to talk the management into giving us a different apartment the next day. So we decided to treat ourselves to dinner (Taco Bell, classy) and then to a movie (X-men). At least it took our mind off of the situation.

When we got in our bed that night I just laughed because it was so noisy, it had springs in it, I didn't think mattresses were made with springs anymore! And it was shaped like an upside down U. So if you laid in the middle of it you were laying flat, but if you moved to the right or left side you sloped down and felt like you were going to fall off.

Well to wrap this long story up...we tried talking to the apt. complex about our issues and they weren't very helpful and told us to call the relocation company. They did inform us that we have a kitchen table it just hasn't arrived yet and they're not sure when it will come, great :)

We spoke to a woman who works for the relocation company and she felt really bad about the situation. She informed us that yes, we should have a decorated apt. and yes we should have more furnishings than we do. So far nothing has changed, it's been two days, but I'm hopeful that the relocation team will come in here and do a home makeover like on that t.v. show Extreme Home Makeover, I'll just sit and watch them hang all these lovely decorations and furnish my kitchen so I can actually cook, it'll be a great day.

Well that is our moving in saga. Congratulations if you read all of that and sorry for any grammar errors that might have made you cringe. If you know me well, spelling and grammar are not my strong points, P should be writing our posts because he's so much better at that stuff than me!

Here are some things that are making me happy since I've been here in Arkansas, oh and I'm no photographer, I feel like I must preface these pictures with that...

Update: I wrote this post on Monday and now it's Thursday. We now have a table, lamps, an iron/ironing board, some more kitchen supplies and a new mattress! We still don't have decorations but at this point I doubt we're getting those and that's okay, at least we have the basics. Things are looking up!

China

2011-05-15T16:31:00.000-07:00

The other day my brother Matt sent me an email with a slide show of some really awkward/funny photos. Some of these photos had some awesome poses; this reminded my brother of the awesome photos we took in China. You see, while we were in China we saw some unique poses for photos. People come up with the darnedest things to do in a photo so we started copying some of their poses and then came up with some of our own. I spent some time looking through some of our pics and had a good laugh. Here are some of my favorites:

We saw someone do the hands over the head pose, like I'm doing here in this photo.

Here's Matt trying it out in this photo

We took these fun ones on our little cruise

We also enjoyed taking pictures with silly statues like these

This was a photo shoot we did by the river.

Our jumping picture that took us many tries. Clearly I can't jump very high.

And I saved the best for last, I love this photo shoot we did in our hotel, late at night, after a long sweaty day (the humidity and heat there are killer!). We're wearing our hotel robes and slippers. I'm sure these aren't funny to anyone except for those who were there (at least that's what P said to me last night when I was laughing so hard), but I'm posting them for my benefit :)

I think we were trying to get into character in this photo above, or maybe we were just tired. I love Matt's face.

Aaron's face kills me in this one, so funny.

What a fun trip (almost 3 years ago!), thanks Kris and Aaron for having us! And thanks to my big brother Matt letting me tag along with him on this trip. Love you Matty!

Finals

2011-04-16T07:40:00.000-07:00

P had a final this morning, at 7AM. I woke up at 6:40 and I couldn't remember if his final was at 8 or 7. I contemplated if I should wake him to ask him, but because I heard him tossing and turning all night I decided to wait for a minute. Five minutes later, he checks his phone and literally jumps/runs out of bed. Yep, it starts at 7, his alarm didn't go off. He was a little upset since he wanted to get up earlier than 6:45 so that he could study. I hopped out of bed and warmed up a tortilla for him and then rushed him to the Tanner Building. He said a quick prayer in the car (although I don't think he was in the praying mood). And I said a prayer when I got home in hopes that good vibes would be sent his way so that he could do well and not stress.

Thanks baby for studying all day for us and for taking finals at 7AM in the morning. I sure do love you.

And because I don't like to have a post without a picture....

These pis are from last weekend at Jason and Kasee's Texas party! They're graduating and moving to Texas, sad, but so happy for them! We first met them in CA and we've been great friends since. While P and Jason were both busy interning away at J&J, Kasee and I would occupy our days with trips to the 99 cent store, baking things together, shopping, etc. I was so grateful to have her so that I didn't go insane out there without a job or anything to do. We're going to miss you guys and thanks for throwing awesome parties Kasee, she seriously is the best party planner/thrower/cooker/baker.

Inspired

2011-04-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

About 3 weeks ago I had the chance to hear Kitty de Ruyter-Bons speak.

She spoke at my mom's Stake Relief Society activity and it was amazing. I was so happy that I was able to be there. If you haven't heard of her, she is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and she grew up in what is now Indonesia. Her family lived a wonderful, comfortable life until World War II. It was then that her family was torn apart and put in concentration camps by the Japanese. Her story is absolutely amazing. She spoke a lot about her mother and her courage, faith and love for others. Her mother was amazing! She never gave up hope and she always stood up for what's right even if it meant she would suffer being whipped, put in a pit for 2 weeks (it was so small she couldn't lie down), and having her hands slit open. I can't even begin to tell you how her story has inspired me to be a better person. But here are a few of my thoughts while listening to her story...

Judge not that ye be not judged
Never compromise your standards
Always be prepared (her mother was inspired to build a shelter and fill it with food, clothes, medicine, etc. Two months later they were held as prisoners in their home and they happened to be held in the one room that had the secret passage to this food storage. This kept them alive and healthy)
Never give up your virtue
Be educated about other cultures
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
You have to taste the bitter in order to appreciate the good
Hate gets us no where and takes us far from God
Use this time on Earth to prepare to meet our Maker
The Lord does keep His promises
Our life on Earth is a test and I am here to prove myself worthy of exaltation
The Lord loves and cares for us. He performs miracles in our behalf
We are so lucky to live in America. She spoke about the American soldiers parachuting down into their concentration camp and literally saving their lives. She has such a love for our country and our soldiers. As do I!

Although her life in the concentration camp was filled with incredibly tough experiences, miracles also occurred. It was clear that the Lord was with them through their trials. Her mother was also amazing at following the promptings of the Spirit and continuing to be faithful in horrible situations. Her mother had them get up early (so they wouldn't get caught by the guards) every morning to say their prayers and they did this faithfully every morning and night. Her mother was not a member of the church and Kitty didn't join until later in her life after she came to America.

I think over all, her message reminded me that this life is my time to prove that I'm worthy of exaltation, and what am I doing each and everyday to prove that?! Not enough, that is for sure. I believe it's in the little things, reading scriptures everyday, saying prayers morning and night, attending the temple, and serving others daily. I'm vowing to do better.

If you ever have the chance to hear Kitty speak, GO! She also has a book called As I Have Loved You, which I believe tells her story. So you could read that and be inspired too!

Loving this song

2011-03-23T16:40:00.000-07:00

I love it when I find a song that I want to listen to over and over again. (I found this song through this blog). I also love the music video. Favorite parts: "Uncharted rhymes with farted" makes me laugh every time I hear it. Also take a look at minute 1:00 and 2:03, it's Adam Levine from Maroon 5, yeah never really thought he was attractive but I think I might have a slight crush on him now.

It was also fun seeing how many people I recognized from the video (she has musicians and random people lip syncing her song in this video). How many do you recognize?

P.S. Thanks to those of you who commented on my previous post and offered to hang out with me so I'm not so lonely, I'll be calling you soon!

The Lonely Wife

2011-03-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

Dear BYU's Marriott School (more specifically the Finance Core),

I want my husband back! He comes home late each night (10 PM tonight) and after a quick kiss, he's studying at his desk. WHAT?! You still have more homework, tests, quizzes, studying to do? You want (edit: have, he reminds me all the time the he doesn't want to study) to sit at your desk all day on Saturday and study?! Wow, I need a friend (or a baby) so I won't be so lonely. And after holding my friend Jami's adorable baby tonight, I'm leaning towards a baby :) She was so cute and so tiny! I told P it's only fair for me to have one (a baby that is) because he's never around!

Is this semester over yet?! Cause I really want to spend some quality time with my lover.

Love,
Jess

P.S. I don't want a baby just so I'll have something to do :) I think I've just got babies on the mind since I held a precious newborn tonight.

the good old carefree days in sunny CA, sure miss those.

Weekend

2011-03-11T17:54:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited for this weekend! I get to spend time with some of my favorite people, Ty and Melis!!

4th of July

Tim McGraw Concert

Cousin's Cruise!

All while this handsome boy studies for his upcoming accounting test :(

hopefully he'll find some time to party with us!

Megan

2011-02-15T21:21:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe I forgot to include this beautiful girl in my post about graduating college.

She is one of the reasons why I'm so grateful that I chose to come to BYU. I didn't really ever want to go to BYU, but felt like I should apply. So I did. I really doubted I would get accepted, I had pretty average grades and an average ACT score, and I'd always heard how hard it was to get in. But I applied anyway. I still remember the day I came home from school and my mom greeted me with a big smile. She said I had gotten a letter from BYU and I was accepted! I was shocked but still didn't think I would attend BYU.

I was planning on attending Dixie with my cousin Ty, we both had scholarships, and planned we would go together. But I just didn't feel right about it, even when Ty and I visited Dixie together it just didn't seem right. Then I visited Utah State with Synth, one of my best friends, we stayed with her cousin, and that didn't feel right at all. So of course I prayed and looked for an answer of where I should go. But I still wasn't sure.

Then my cousin Megan found out I had been accepted to BYU. Meg and I were close when we were little, playing at Nana and Papa's on Sunday nights, writing each other notes and leaving them in the cabinet for each other to find and read. But then I moved away and then she moved away, and things were never the same. I was always a little bitter towards her because I believed that she stopped wanting to be my friend. I know this wasn't true but I just thought that she no longer cared about our relationship and it really hurt me.

Anyway, when she asked me if I wanted to be her roommate at BYU I was surprised. Why would she want to be roommates with me? We weren't close friends, I felt as though I barely knew her.

Well it's obvious what happened, I came to BYU, was roommates with Meg and it changed my life. I will forever be grateful for the one semester that I had to really become friends with her again. We talked late at night in our beds before we went to sleep, we studied at the library together (with Clark, of course, they were engaged), we ate ice cream together (we both love ice cream (it's a Wall thing!), although I never understood why vanilla was her favorite, chocolate is so much better!), we suffered through Music 201 together, we hung out together, we shared our struggles together, we held each other when we cried, I saw her and Clark's relationship up close and I truly came to know her and love her.

Sadly, we don't have very many pictures of us together at college, I can only find one (which is probably why I forgot to put her in my other post). We were only together for one semester. And even though that semester was challenging (adjusting to college was brutal for me, no one ever warned me that it would turn me into an emotional train wreck!) I think I cried every week-it was rough. It is a semester that I feel privileged to have experienced with Meg. I learned so much from her. She was a great example to me of living the gospel and sharing the gospel with others.

If you're reading this and you don't know, Megan passed away after our semester together. We were roommates in Fall of 2005 and she passed away January 14, 2006 in a tragic car accident. I feel so blessed to have lived with Megan for four months. In those short four months I had the chance to get to know her and to become close friends again. I only wish that we could have shared more of our college experience at BYU together.

Love this picture of her, she loved lemons, just like her mom and sisters do!

The only picture I have of us and our roommates

I had the chance to go to her reception in California. It was absolutely perfect!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from her wedding day. She was only married for four short weeks before she past away.

Love you Meg! I can't wait to see you again.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T18:29:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

I am so grateful for my family and friends. I feel so blessed to have a loving family. Thanks mom for having us over for dinner on Saturday night. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures, but she had a wonderful meal, a beautiful table and handmade cards for each of us! So special and so sweet. And my mom is not usually a card-making/scrap-booking kind of gal so these cards were really something special! My sweet brother Matt also had cards for each one of us and they were so thoughtful, thanks Matt!

P and I celebrated Valentine's on Friday since Mondays are busy for him. I made dinner for us at home and he had flowers and a card for me. P's NOT a gift person, so this was big for him. I have to admit that I told him ahead of time he better have flowers and a card. Yes I realize it's kind of demanding of me and not really romantic to tell him he better provide me with flowers and a card, but a girls got to be happy and gifts make me happy! Obviously we're not the same love language :) But that is a whole other story, ha! Just trying to keep it real here on this blog!

our little V-day set up

I do love this boy though! And I'm grateful he's my Valentine forever!

Side Note:yesterday (Feb. 13th) marked two years since P proposed, time flies!

October 2008 at Spencer and Jenny's wedding reception

Anyway, I'm off to babysit two adorable twins, so their parents can enjoy a night out on the town.

Going Back

2011-01-19T18:30:00.000-08:00

This summer we will be going back to ARKANSAS! P will be doing an internship with General Mills! Who would have thought we would be so lucky to spend another summer there?! (just kidding, it's not that bad out there in Arkansas, just far from family, and not much to do)

Combined with P's hard work, intelligence and charm (mostly hard work and intelligence), he received eight offers for internships this summer! I am very proud of his determination to succeed and to provide for our family. It was a hard decision to make because this will most likely be his last chance to do an internship before he graduates. Therefore, we wanted to choose a company we could see P working for after graduation. He will be doing strategy and consulting, something that he's wanted to experience in an internship so that's another reason why we wanted to take this one.

We both felt best about General Mills, well beside the fact that it means we will be back in Arkansas. I'm not too thrilled to go back, but it could be worse :) We will be living in a city about 15 minutes north of where we lived last summer. We're actually living in a better city this time so I'm excited about that.

Megan, if you're reading this, can we be friends again this summer? And this time around I'll be living closer to you, plus I'll have a car so we can hang out more than once!

We will leave in June and come back in August.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-19T16:17:00.000-08:00

A lot of really great things have already happened this year, such as....
finding out I can go back on my parent's insurance (thank you President Obama), saving us a bunch of money!
I've made dinner every night this week, yeah!
P working only one day a week. This could be considered a bad thing, but it will be okay because I have a job (thankfully) and he can better focus on school with this extra time.
Finding out that I can (most likely), continue to work at my job this summer even while I'm in Arkansas. A huge blessing and something to do while I'm home by myself in the days!
Scoring a pair of boots, nice ones, at Target for $12!
Winning a cute scarf from the little red house blog, I swear I never win anything, this was super awesome! I can't wait to get it in the mail!

Um that's all I can think about for now, but this year, so far, is proving to be a great one!

Christmas 2010

2011-01-19T15:56:00.000-08:00

Side Note: This post took me forever to get up on the blog cause I was playing around with Picasa's new editing program called Picnik, it's really cool and fun to play around with but I've spent way to much time, I don't know how people can edit all the pics they put up on their blog, it's super time consuming!! Basically I think I'll be back to posting my plain, unedited photos in future posts :)

Anyway, back to Christmas of 2010...
This was our third Christmas together, our second Christmas as a married couple.

Sadly, I don't have a picture of our first Christmas together. I bet my mom does, I'll have to check into that.

We spent our time with both of our families and it was wonderful. Here are some activities that we enjoyed over the break:

Eating lots of yummy tangerines
playing at Flip's gym
Spending Christmas Eve and part of Christmas day with P's mom and sister
Playing Blockus and Scrabble Slap with Momma Phyllis and Jen
Enjoying Christmas day with extended family, acting out the nativity, eating tons of yummy food
hanging out in our sweats till sometimes 4pm in the afternoon
sleeping in, working out in the mornings
watching Temple Grandin, a true story about an amazing autistic woman. If you haven't seen it RENT IT! It will not disappoint and it can be found at Redbox. Oh and it's PG so it's super clean and great to watch with the fam
Receiving a wedding band for my wedding ring for Christmas!
Not doing any homework!
Reading Mockingjay and finally finishing up that series
Reading The Help, I loved this book
Making Indian food for our family
Finding our camera that we lost over a year ago, it's debatable who is responsible for losing it, but P found it in his jacket pocket, so you do the math :)
Starting new traditions--Christmas book and Christmas tree ornament
Celebrating the birth of our Savior

It was such a great break and it was really needed for P. He's worked really hard this last semester, taking 15 credits, working and doing an internship!

The only downside to the break was towards the end when I came down with a sore throat and then the flu. I haven't had the flu since forever but man, it is terrible. Ugh, hopefully it won't come again anytime soon.

We had our annual Taco Bash for New Years and ended the night with games and karaoke. We spent New Years day eating yummy Korean food that Momma Phyllis prepared.

All in all it was a relaxing and wonderful break.

My cute dad. Turns out that he is also super strong, I guess his 5:30 AM (yikes, I don't know how he does it!) weight lifting sessions are really paying off!

Although it looks like Grandma is wearing a snuggie, she actually not. She showing off our Christmas present to her, a new house coat.

We hope that you had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks for your friendship, it means so much to us. Love you all!

A few more random pics that I'm too lazy to edit.

The wonderful and amazing cook, Mamma Phyllis!

enjoying delicious Korean food

Opening my ring on Christmas Day

Last day of College

2010-12-13T22:28:00.000-08:00

Today was my last day of college! I took my last final at 2:30p.m. and walked off BYU campus forever....just kidding, I'm sure our paths will cross again soon, like tomorrow when I go to my job on campus.

It was a bittersweet day, I'm going to miss attending BYU, it is a wonderful school and it was the right choice for me- for many different reasons. I feel blessed to have spent 6 years here (yes it took me six years to graduate, that's 10 semesters, I started here in 2005!).

It will be weird just working next semester and not going to school. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to not worry about papers, tests, grades, etc, but I think there are some things I will miss.

And let's be honest, I will still be living a, "college lifestyle" (i.e. living in a college town, living in a tiny apartment, living on a tight budget, not being able to spend quality time with your husband because he has to study every night!) because P will be in school until next December.

The day that he graduates, gets a full-time job and we move from Provo, for good, will be a REALLY weird day. Until then I will be P's sugar momma and provide him with all of his material wants and needs (his words, not mine). I'm just glad that I have a job! And a job that I love! I will be working at UVU, in their Wellness Programs, this is where I completed my internship.

A walk down memory lane...or a picture overload of all the college pictures I could find:

Wow! That was a lot!

Be excited for my next post when I reveal where we will be going this summer for P's internship.....I bet you can't wait!

Dinner

2010-12-06T19:50:00.000-08:00

Do you ever make dinner and then totally lose your appetite for it, or find that it tastes disgusting to you? Sounds weird but this happens to me frequently and it happened again tonight. Could this be one of the reasons that I don't enjoy cooking? Yes, I think so!

Tonight I made shepherds pie (not the most tasty meal to begin with), and it turned out okay. I didn't ruin it, but it was kind of way too juicy and the cheese tasted nasty to me. So after a couple of bites, mainly eating the green beans (trying to get my veggies!), I decided to eat this for dinner instead

popcorn and milk duds, a perfect combination

and it tasted much better!

Hopefully P is in the mood for shepherd's pie when he gets home cause there's a whole pan of it just waiting for him!

And now I'm off to do a sink full of these

another reason why I just don't love cooking.

Reminiscing

2010-12-02T21:11:00.000-08:00

Whenever I have a "blah" day, I like to go through photo albums (on the computer) and reminisce. It always makes me happy to see people that I love and remember the good times, and remind myself how blessed I am! While we were at my parent's house for Thanksgiving, I was looking at some of my mom's pictures that she finally put on the computer. I came across these photos that were taken in California. I can't believe it's almost been a year since we moved to Diamond Bar. Crazy how time flies.

This is right before we left to drive out there.

Zach and Ty who so kindly helped us drive both of our cars out there.

Pics from when my mom came to visit!

The infamous cat and dog that we babysat. I believe this pic was taken after that darn cat finally decided to come home! I never told the story on my blog, but let's just say I will NEVER babysit a cat again.

Now dogs on the other hand, I can handle them, except this one insisted that he sleep with us every night, ew. I don't like my pets sleeping with me, that's just too much for me.

A Weekend With Friends

2010-12-02T20:59:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we had the chance to head up to Heber with some of our friends for a little getaway. Long story short, we were planning to stay at my family's cabin for two nights but we ended up having to spend one of the nights in a different cabin...sad. And unfortunately, the cabin that we stayed at the first night did not have heat! I'm not really sure if it was broken or what but the huge thermometer on the wall said it was 50 degrees and it never changed while we were there. Thanks to our friends for being great sports about the whole situation, you guys are the best!!! We had to literally sit by the fire, the entire night because it was freezing everywhere else in the cabin. We ate dinner next to the fire, pushed the couches right up to the fire so that we could play games there and P and I actually pulled our mattress out next to the fire and slept by it! I wish we had pictures of us in our coats, shoes, and sweats all huddled around the fire. But I was too cold to go get my camera and take any pictures-ha!

Anyway, we survived the night and headed off to Park City to get out of the freezing cabin. After a short trip to the Outlets, we ate lunch at Dairy Keen in Heber and I ran into one of my best friends Bethie! So fun to see her. Thankfully, we were able to move over to my cabin for our last night. It felt so good to be in a warm cabin!

P and I made Thai curry and a Thai soup (Tom Ka Gai, I believe it's called) for everyone. We watched a movie that night and just hung out. Oh and we Tim Tam Slammed it, with the famous cheer and all! Proof below...

The next day we went to church, and came home to eat Kasee's delicious tacos-yum! All in all it was a fun and memorable weekend. And we were just happy to share it with awesome friends who we are so grateful for!

P took a trip out to Arkansas last week to interview with General Mills for an internship this summer. He got the internship (he's the first intern that they have ever taken from BYU!) and now we're just trying to decided between this offer and some of his other offers. But it looks like we'll be back in Arkansas this summer, oh joy!

Happy Halloween

2010-10-31T18:46:00.000-07:00

We had such a fun Halloween Weekend. It was filled with two awesome parties, which two of our favorite couples hosted. It took us forever to decide on a costume. Thanks to my brother Matt for coming up with some great ideas for us, even though we didn't end up using them, I plan on using them in future years! And thanks to Mom for helping us decide to be Salt and Pepper shakers! It was an easy and cheap costume which was great because this week we were not only busy with the usual stuff, but we also had to write talks. We spoke in sacrament meeting today!! Oh joy! Just kidding, it actually wasn't too bad and for the first time I wasn't really that nervous. My voice didn't even shake, it's a miracle! P never gets nervous and he's a natural in front of an audience so it was a breeze for him, although he did struggle with the actual writing of the talk. We're glad it's over but it's never really over right? Cause we got called to be Sunday School teachers! It's our second time with this calling, and I'm not particularly thrilled to be doing it again but hopefully it will increase my knowledge of the Old Testament.

Today I made... Dinner in a Pumpkin!

This is a little tradition that my mom does every Halloween and I have carried it on in my little family. This is my third year doing it. In the past two years we ate it with the Crockett fam, but they're living in Cali now so unfortunately we were on our own this year. You pre-make the rice and chicken mixture and then cook it in a pumpkin. It's fun and quite delicious! Thanks Mom for the festive tradition!!

Hope you all had a fun Halloween!! And I think you all should post pics on your blog of your Halloween costumes because I love seeing what others dressed up as.

Catch-Up

2010-10-19T20:22:00.000-07:00

It's been forever since I've blogged. I guess I'm the kind of blogger that only blogs when we do exciting things! Or when we have pictures to show that we've been doing exciting things. But I'm going to try and get better at this since we're now back in Provo and our life isn't too exciting.
We made it back to Utah at the end of August. We made it from Arkansas to Utah in one LONG day, but we made it safely and we saved money since we didn't have to pay to stay in a hotel so it was great!

Now that we're back, P is staying busy with school, work and an internship this semester. He's interning for an investment banking company up in SLC and really enjoying it. His favorite past time seems to be applying for jobs and hanging out on e-recruiting. I think P is having a hard time getting back into the groove of school. He's been working an 8-5 job for the past 8 months and so it's been a little tough getting back into the school/studying every night schedule. He's always studying at night and I'm missing hanging out with him. I got used to spending time with him after work and now he always has to study when he gets home from school, but I am very grateful that he's such a good student!

I'm taking my last class (finally!), doing my internship 4 days a week and working part-time (as a secretary) on campus. I'm loving being back at my internship and I'm really looking forward to being done with school in December!

Here's a little recap of what we've been up to since we moved back.

Moving into our little apartment, thanks mom for picking out a good one! We're enjoying having our first couch (thanks G-ma), our first table (thanks mom), and all of our stuff back! We also love our neighbors and our ward so that is a plus.

My brother Matt took me to the John Mayer concert as a late birthday present. Thanks Matt!

Conference Weekend up at the Cabin and family pictures. We took them ourselves (well with the help of the tripod or ipod as mom would say), so it was a really comical experience.

Hanging out with the Coons, so fun! We got to see the crazy dare devils from Nitro Circus and free j-dawgs was included, yum!

Eating delicious authentic Korean food with P's mom and sister, sorry no pics, but the food was awesome!

The annual Vegas trip with the family. Lots of boating and shopping! Sadly P couldn't come :(

Sushi Night

my dad wakeboarding

takes a lot of concentration for me

Zach dancing on the boat

the birthday boy!

That's all for now!

Winding Down

2010-08-20T17:21:00.000-07:00

The summer is winding down, and we're excited only because it means we're finally headed home! We haven't been home (minus one week for me in June) since December! We've missed Utah and family but we've felt blessed for these two adventures (as P calls them) that we've experienced in California and Arkansas.

Our Arkansas friends: David and Caytlin, Shane and Jessica, Anthony and Allison

Arkansas has been lonely as of late; all of our friends have finished their internships and gone home. In fact, it seems like everyone who lives in our apartment building has moved out and we're the only ones left! P's carpool buddy left so I've been without a car this week and let's just say it's been b-o-r-i-n-g. Even when I had the car I didn't really go anywhere exciting, but it's still nice to have a car and know that you can escape from the apartment if needs be. I'm really looking forward to getting back to school and having responsibilities such as an internship and a job. It will be great because for the past 8 months I've basically been "hanging out" all day, everyday. Although I can't say it hasn't been nice to have a break from real life, I'm so ready to have a life back!

I'm sad that I'll be missing one of my very best friend's wedding.

Us at the John Mayer concert 3 summers ago

us at my brother's wedding

Hiking the Y

graduation!

It was hard enough not having her at my wedding and now I can't make it to hers :( Really bummed about this! Love you Candace!

We went to the Five and Dime Store, Sam Walton's very first store, opened in 1950.

It's still located in the same spot on Main Street, across from The Square.

They've turned his original store into a museum where you can learn all about the Walton family and the evolution of Walmart. It's hard to believe that this little 5 and 10 cent store turned into the empire we call Walmart.

We're looking forward to our road trip home and to moving into our apartment in Provo. See you all soon!

Food

2010-08-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

Have you seen this movie?

I finally watched it the other night with P and here are my thoughts:
1-I no longer want to eat meat
2-I want to buy organic (mostly because I want to support farmers who are trying to keep our food natural)
3-The people who are suppose to be regulating our food and making sure its safe stink at their job, they should be fired! The systems are so corrupt, it's sickening.
4-I want to know where my food is coming from and buy local, when possible.

Okay, so the first one I can't really see us doing. I love hamburgers too much and we eat chicken just about every night. I think we both would suffer if I started to cut meat completely out of our diet. And the second one (buying organic food) we just can't afford, even though I tried to tell P that it's important to invest in our health. P and I definitely see differently when it comes to the topic of organic. I certainly don't believe that everything you buy must be organic, but I do believe that there are some foods (those with the most pesticides and antibiotics added to them) that should be bought organic, if the budget permits.

But, after a little discussion, P said we could compromise so I'm going to try and use meat sparingly in our meals; I'll have to get more creative in my cooking. And I'm going to start buying a few things organic (i.e. milk, eggs, some fruits and veggies).
I did some research to see what foods are best bought organic and which foods you don't need to worry about. Here's my findings-

Foods that are okay to NOT buy organic
-Asparagus
-Avocados
-Bananas
-Broccoli
-Cabbage
-Kiwi
-Mango
-Onions
-Papaya
-Pineapple

Foods that you should buy organic
-Meat
-Dairy Products
-Eggs
-Peaches, Strawberries, Apples
-Bell Peppers, Lettuce/Spinach, Celery
-Potatoes

Have you seen this film? Do any of you buy organic, or do you think it's a waste of money?

Randomness

2010-07-20T14:16:00.000-07:00

Here's what we've been up to.

My highlight of the summer (so far): picking blueberries. I was so excited to pick our own blueberries. I have fond memories of doing this (once) when I was younger, in Missouri. We brought some friends along, which only made it more enjoyable.

We watched fireworks over the 4th of July weekend at a church with 3 huge crosses. I had to take a picture because they're the biggest crosses we've ever seen. This was also one of the best fireworks show I've ever seen. Well done, church with the 3 crosses, well done! I told P to pose and this is what he came up with ?

Us and some of the other interns

I went with Caytlin and Aubrey, from the ward, to the only Safari in Arkansas. Yes, a safari in Arkansas. It was fun and surprisingly they had a lot of animals, such as zebras, monkeys, camels, tigers, and these cute kangaroos.

As for myself, I've been keeping busy with reading and cooking. Here are some of the books I've read lately, I recommend them all.

The first two books of the Hunger Games-loved them.

The Glass Castle-this is a true story, it's fascinating.

The Peacegiver- a wonderful church book that taught me a lot about the Atonement.

These is my Words-I'm currently reading this one, having a hard time getting into it, but I've heard good things about it.

Stones Into Schools-this is the sequel to Three Cups of Tea, both books are wonderful.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society- an easy read and such a cute story.

Have you read any good books lately? Do share!

If you're wanting to make a delicious, and somewhat healthy treat you should make this, it's called Creamy Grape Dessert. Click here for the recipe. (Side note: I used plain yogurt instead of Greek yogurt) I made it last night and I've just about finished the whole dish off by myself. Yes, it's true, I have no self control. It's just too tempting.

Oh and one more thing...we're looking for a place to live in Provo. Does anyone have any suggestions or know of anything that's available? Ugh, I hate looking for apartments!

Goodbye California, Hello Arkansas

2010-07-08T18:15:00.000-07:00

Seeing how we've now been in Arkansas for 3 weeks, (4 weeks for P), and California seems like forever ago, I guess it's about time I post about our move. We left California on a Friday and hurried as fast as we could to Las Vegas. We made it just in time to see the end of Audrey and Tim's wedding reception, which was the bomb. That night we stayed at Aunt Corinne and Uncle Keith's house. Shout out to my Aunt Corinne who recently told me she reads my blog, thanks for reading Aunt Corinne and thanks for letting us stay at your house!!!
Here are some pictures of us saying goodbye to G-ma Jeanne.

In front of her house

I do miss her!

This is our last time with the Kilburns, we were in their ward and they were so nice to us while we were in California, they were like our Grandparents. He makes the best chocolate pancakes ever!

Saying goodbye to Aunt Marge, who we absolutely love and miss!

Saturday we were lucky enough to see Audrey and Tim get sealed in the Vegas temple. Right after the sealing we headed on our way home. It was a long drive, especially since we were in separate cars. Oh and Saturday was P's birthday, he enjoyed a fun birthday in the car :) We made it safely to Centerville and it was SO great to be home. That night we hung out with family, ate a delicious home cooked meal (thanks mom!) and celebrated P's birthday.

P left the next day on a plan headed for Bentonville Arkansas. I stayed in Utah for a week, taking care of some expensive car repairs and seeing some friends. On Sunday my mom and I began our 20+ hour drive to Arkansas. It was so fun to have that time with my mom, and it was so nice of her to leave all her responsibilities(she has many!) behind and drive with me. THANKS MOM! I SURE LOVE YOU! We finally arrived and I was happy to see that our apartment was clean and very nice. Mom stayed a week with us and we loved it. It was so nice to have her here to hang out with me all day (most days I don't have a car so I'm just chilling at home by myself). We went to the clubhouse gym, laid out at the pool and read our books, and visited a few hot spots near us (i.e. the Peel Mansion and the Five and Dime Store).

So far, we are both liking Arkansas. It's a big change coming from California, but we really like the small town feel. Some of the towns here really aren't that small, but they are when compared to California. It's so green and gorgeous here with all the trees. I love driving around, especially in the backwoods, because it just feels so nice to be out in the open. Unfortunately, P has about a 40 minute commute (one way!) to work :( huge bummer but oh well. I'm getting used to not having a car all day (I've been reading a lot of books), but I don't mind it too much. We are really enjoying our apartment. It's fully furnished and decorated and it has 2 bedroom and 2 bathrooms. We don't know what to do with ourselves! We've been living in a bedroom for 6 months and having our own space has been SO MUCH FUN! Having a T.V. again is kind of nice too! We also have awesome neighbors, David and Caytlin. Caytlin is sharing her wonderful baking recipes with me and I'm loving it. Here are some pictures of our place

Our bedroom

The bathroom

The living room

The kitchen, behind that door is a pantry/laundry room.
The 2nd bedroom and bathroom look just like ours so I didn't take pictures of them. That's all for now!

Reunited

2010-07-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

In the last couple of weeks I've reunited with some great friends. The first is Kristen. Kristen was one of my best friends in Wisconsin, some 12 years ago (wow, we're getting old!). I always loved going over to her house after school because her mom would always have cookies or some yummy treat waiting for us when we got there! And we loved to collect beanie babies and play with our American Girl Dolls together. Her and I did a pretty good job of staying in touch through letters and then when Facebook came along we used that to keep in touch.

When P and I moved to California, Kristen contacted me and told me that she was living in California so we should meet up when I get there. Unfortunately, we didn't make it happen until one week before P and I left Cali. I wish we would have done it earlier, because I had so much fun catching up and just being with her.
We met up halfway and brought along our significant others, for her that meant her boyfriend Alex, who I was so happy to meet! We ate dinner and talked about what's been happening in our lives since we last saw each other.

I told Kristen that I would post a picture of us when we were little, but I couldn't find the one with both of us in it! Argh, I'm so sad, so Kristen if you have it email it to me! I'm determined to find it when I go back to Utah. If I do, I'll have to post it because it's so fun to see how much we've changed. And in the picture, we're both holding our American Girl dolls, which is classic. We loved those dolls! But in the meantime, here are the pictures of us at our meet up!

All four of us

My second meet up was with Synthia and Candace. Two of my very best friends from high school. They have both been serving missions for the last year and a half. Synthia served in Uruguay and Candace served in Chile. I missed them both so much, especially since they weren't able to be at my wedding! How sad it was to not have two of my very best friends at my wedding...I'm still not over it! Just kidding, I was happy that they were serving the Lord.

I absolutely love them!

My mom loves them too!

And the third reunion was with more of my best friends from high school. We got together and enjoyed tin foil dinner and dutch oven upside down pineapple cake..yum!

All of us plus some husbands and babies that we've added since high school

Just us girls

I'm so grateful for the wonderful friends that I've been blessed with. My life has definitely been changed for the better because of them. I love you all!!

1st Anniversary

2010-06-26T14:18:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's already been one year since this day

It was such a great day because it started in the temple and the rest of the day was spent with our family and friends who were so kind to be with us and support us on our wedding day. I tell everyone that I wish I could relive this day over and over. It was just so perfect and I loved every minute of it.

Even though our first year of marriage has been full of its ups and downs, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I'm so thankful for my husband and I'm so glad that we have many more years to come! I know they'll only get better!

While we were in Utah, we ate our wedding cake. It has been in my parent's freezer and surprisingly it wasn't too bad.

I didn't get to do this on our wedding day :)

The Big Two Five!

2010-06-15T22:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to this stud muffin!

I can't believe that you're 25!

Here's a break down of his birthday weekend-
Friday was P's last day at J&J. Me and Liz surprised our husbands at work with b-day balloons and a little treat.

I had to take a picture of P in his cubicle, he spent a lot of time here! Notice his name on the cubical, he's so official!

We celebrated P's birthday on Saturday by spending the morning in the Las Vegas temple so that we could attend Audrey and Tim's sealing. It was great and we felt so privileged to be a part of it!

This picture is actually of us at their reception (which was held the night before) it was beautiful and they both looked great! Audrey was such a stunning bride, but I knew she would be! Their reception was amazing, I mean seriously, it was one of the, if not the, most unique receptions that I have ever been to before! And even despite the crazy wind, it still looked beautiful and the food was to die for! Congrats you two!! We love ya!

The next 7 hours were spent in the car, as we were driving home to Salt Lake so that P could fly out the next day for Arkansas. I felt bad that we had to spend his birthday in the car :( and we weren't even in the same car! Since we have two cars, and we were moving back from Cali, we both had to drive a car. It was a long day of driving but we arrived safe and sound.

Side note: this is actually the 2nd time that P and I have spent his birthday in the car. Two years ago, when we were just friends, we drove down to Arizona (for Bri's wedding) on his birthday.

Once we arrived, we enjoyed a delicious dinner (thanks mom!) with family and then ice cream and cake. yum! We also played Malarky till wee hours of the morning with cousins, it was a lot of fun to see family that we haven't seen in months!

Since I knew we would be traveling on his b-day, I took P to Six Flags a week before we left Cali. P has been dying to go there and so I finally caved and said we could go for his birthday. We spent a ~~miserable~~, I mean fun day there! It was so hot and so crowded that we didn't really enjoy ourselves. And when I say "we" I mean "I". I just don't love roller coasters like I used to and P's the opposite, the scarier the better for him. Waiting in line for 2 hours to go on a ride that I hated (ie-X2) did not make me a happy camper. Sorry that you had to endure me all day, babe! I'm sure I was a joy to be around :) At least you can say you got to go! And as for me, I'm just relieved that I never have to go there again..

We also celebrated my b-day too since it's one week after his. And I'll be in the car on my b-day driving to Arkansas.

I was reunited with these babies, I just love 'em!

even if they never smile for me

They love their Grandma!

Melissa made him this awesome sign

I love you babe and I hope you had a great birthday. I can't wait to see you this weekend! XOXOXO

San Francisco!

2010-06-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

P and I had the chance to visit San Francisco over Memorial Weekend and we had a blast. My cousin Kristyn and her husband Aaron live right in San Fran and they were so kind to let us stay in their beautiful home. Kristyn ended up not being there for the weekend so it was just us, Aaron, and for part of the time Aaron's friend David. I'm not a huge planner when it comes to vacations so I didn't have anything planned for us to do but I had some ideas in my head. I have been there before, with my family, so I knew some places that I wanted to show P, but they were just the touristy stuff like Fisherman's Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, etc. We ended up only doing a few touristy things. For the most part, Aaron show us around, which was really fun because he took us to some places that we wouldn't have gone to on our own because we just wouldn't have known about them! We enjoyed having Aaron show us around and we especially enjoyed that most of our days were planned around food! Just how I like it :) Aaron knows some great places to eat so we'd basically plan out where we were going each day around what restaurant we were going to be eating at.

Day 1- Friday, after P got off work, we drove to San Fran. It took about 6 1/2 hours, we hit some traffic. We got to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge on our way in, that was fun! But also expensive since it's a toll road.

Day 2- We ate breakfast at a delicious place, they had the best fruit and very yummy pancakes. We don't even care for pancakes that much, but these were awesome! We walked around the Botanical Gardens at the Golden Gate Park. We watched Aaron communicate with the squirrels.

We drove around some super expensive neighborhoods and saw some awesome houses and walked along this beautiful path

Aaron also convinced us to eat some poison berries. Well google claimed that they weren't poison (which is why we ate them) because apparently there are no poison berries that look like raspberries and these one looked like raspberries. We didn't die though, or get sick, so google must have been right.

Us taking pictures of ourselves while Aaron was down picking his raspberries.

Then we stopped by the Golden Gate Bridge for a photo op. see above pics

Then we went to Sausalito, which was such a quaint town with shops and art galleries. Here we ate the best hamburgers! Later that night we picked up David from the airport and after taking a nap we headed to dinner.

We had tacos and the best corn that I've ever had in my life! I cannot rave about it enough!! It was corn on the cob, covered in a lime sauce then rolled in this Mexican cheese (it's called cotija cheese, it looks kind of like Parmasean cheese) and then lightly sprinkled with cayenne pepper. Seriously it was the best thing that I've ever eaten. It is SOOOOO good. I would visit San Fran again just for this corn. I'm going to try and recreate it but I doubt I'll be able to :(

Day 3- Went to church. Then we went to get ice cream at another famous place which I can't remember the name of. They had really interesting flavors like salted caramel and balsamic vinegar. Surprisingly, very yummy. P liked it because it was thick and that's how he likes his.
Then we ventured downtown to Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square. It was so packed though! So we didn't spend a whole lot of time there.
That night we ate at a very fancy restaurant called The House. It was delicious and we were stuffed.

On the Pier

Chinatown

Day 4- Left to come home. We decided to drive down Highway 1, which runs along the coast. It was absolutely beautiful but it took forever! We're both glad that we did it but we left San Fran at 10:30am and we didn't get home until 8:30. The view was breathtaking though. I just love the ocean, especially when it's paired with sand and huge rocks. We ended up coming upon Hurst's Castle but we decided not to take a tour since it was already so late in the day.

I wish we would have stopped and taken more pictures because I didn't really get any spectacular ones. Oh well.

It was pretty foggy in the morning.
The End!

Grand Opening!

2010-06-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

Have you heard? Can you believe it?! Utah FINALLY has a Sephora!! Sephora is my favorite store and I'm not even in town to enjoy the Grand Opening. That's why I'm sharing this with all you Utah people.
When: Tomorrow June 4th
Time: 10 AM
Where: Fashion Place (Murray)
Why? Sephora is an awesome store filled with makeup (lots of it!), nail polish, skincare products, perfume/cologne, etc....And they will give you samples of anything, if you ask.

I'm sure many of you work but if you can go, the first 100 people in line are given a gift card, one of the gift cards is worth $500! I so wish I was there! Go! And if you win the $500 share some with me!

Family Comes to Town

2010-06-02T18:16:00.000-07:00

We had so much fun when my family came into town. We only wish that Phyllis (P's mom) could have come too!
We picked up my mom, brother Josh and sister-in-law Cris on Sunday and we basically went straight to Newport Beach to look around. It was cold and windy but we had a great time walking around and dreaming of the day when we will own beach front property! A girl can dream!

the girls

Monday was Josh's birthday and we celebrated by going shopping, eating at In-N-Out Burger for lunch and at BJ's for dinner. It was all delicious and we had a great time.

Tuesday we went to lunch with Uncle Bob, Janelle, and Cathy. Then we ventured to Laguna Beach to look around. It is so pretty there, I love the ocean with the rocks and cliffs. I decided that I want to live there.

Wednesday we went to LA to see Chinatown and Olvera Street. My mom remembers going to Olvera Street with her dad, when she was younger, so she wanted to check it out. Chinatown was fun, but basically shops selling all of the same stuff.

We did find a great home store that had wonderful dishes. I found these bowls there that I've been wanting! And they were a steal of a deal, love that! They also had Pocky Sticks, which we all love, so we bought some of those. Olvera Street was fun. Lots of the same shops selling the same stuff. Sometimes I wonder how these places stay in business, I mean who buys this stuff? We did have some world famous taquitos and a huge churro. Sidenote: why are churros so yummy? I think I could eat one everyday, I wish I was eating one right now instead of these dry corn flakes.

Thursday we headed to the happiest place on earth, Disneyland! It was a lot of fun. Thankfully P was able to take the day off so that he could come.

he might have won (by a lot!), but look at my accuracy, a full 12 points better than his!

A Bug's Life

An F for caliFornia

Getting excited for Space Mtn.

All worn out at the end of the day!

Favorite rides: Soarin' over California (a family favorite), Tower of Terror, and Space Mountain.

P convinced Cris to come on the ride that shoots you straight up into the air (it's like the Rocket Ride at Lagoon). Her face was priceless when we took off, and her hands went straight up in the air to grab onto the plastic thingy in front of our faces, it was so funny. This was after he convinced me to go on it, I've gotten to be such a baby about roller coasters and scary rides, I don't know why. Seems like the older I get the more courage I lose or maybe it's that I'm just not a thrill seeker anymore, I guess you could say I'm boring :)

The Indiana Jones ride broke down..again (it did this last time I was here) this time we were waiting in line. It was annoying, but we stuck it out and we were able to ride it. I'm glad we stuck it out because once we got on the rideP was in the " "driver's seat" and he was acting like he was really driving the jeep the whole time. It was hilarious, and my mom was laughing her head off the whole time. So between those two, it was one entertaining ride!

Here he is driving

That night my dad flew into town and on Friday morning we sailed out to Catalina Island.

We had a blast there. Relaxed, napped in the sun, walked around, took a tour of the island, drove around on the golf cart, ate dinner overlooking the waterfront, ate yummy ice cream, had wonderful company. It was lots of fun!

I love me some ice cream!

we walked out onto the rocks with my dad

my dad walking back on the rocks

having fun in a store with their silly glasses

riding on the back of the golf cart

my mom started calling P Nep, short for Neptune

self timer pic of the fam

another picture of all of us, right before we left

P thinks it's amusing to take photos of me like the ones above. He thinks they're awesome. The red one is just creepy and sick. I kind of like the green one cause I look like a frog or Elpheba from Wicked..

Saturday night we headed back to the mainland and over to Aunt Marge's house for dinner. A bunch of the fam was there and we ate the best tri-tip we've ever had, it was so great. Here's a picture of all of us girls squished in the kitchen.

I'm so happy that my family could come into town, it was so fun to have them here. And I feel so blessed that P loves my family and vise versa, it truly is a blessing. We sure missed you Momma Phyllis!!

Santa Barbara

2010-05-24T15:21:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago we had the chance to travel to Santa Barbara and visit our friends, Weston and Kath. It was so much fun to see them and to catch up. They let us stay in their apartment, eat their yummy food and they also showed us around town. Weston is one of P's best friends from way back in Jr. High and he's helped P out a lot with the business school and other things. He's married to Kath, who I adore and admire so much, and they have 2 darling kids. We love their company and we all get along so great, they are one of my most favorite couples to hang out with, we're going to miss them SO much in Provo! (we used to live right by them in Provo, and we enjoyed eating Sunday dinners with them, helping them out with the kids, watching movies together and staying up late chatting about life. Provo will not be the same without them!). Here are some photos of our weekend together.

They took us to the beach and to the pier, it was chilly but we still had a great time watching Tal run around and P practice his jumps!

such a cute little guy

He's pretty cute too!

Cartwheels, P's idea, of course

Taking a break, only for a few seconds though, this kid goes non-stop

P's always a ball of fun!

He LOVES jumping off things!

Little boy, little log. Big boy, big log.

Adorable family!

Highlights of the weekend:
-having the chance to see them, we haven't seen them since we left Provo and we don't know the next time we'll see them.
-chatting till wee hours of the morning
-eating those yummy bars from Costco (I've got to get me some of those pronto!)
-eating hot cookies straight from the oven and P eating lots of cookie dough
-eating yummy tacos at the Mexican place
-walking around downtown
-playing on the beach
-feeding the missionaries pizza for dinner
-driving home (along the coast) and seeing dolphins? or some kind of animal in the water, we weren't quite sure what.
-P and I got a great look into what it's like to be parents of two little ones. Can you say A LOT of work and patience?!! We decided we're not ready for kids yet :) But when we do have them we hope they're as cute as these ones! And hopefully we'll be great parents like Weston and Kath!
If you read this Kath or Weston, thanks again for the awesome weekend. We love you guys!

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous!

2010-05-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

Ever since I've moved to California I've wanted to see at least one famous person! Well my dream came true on Friday night! Our friend Kasee has been interning with the Nancy Davis Multiple Sclerosis Foundation in LA. Every year they put on a "Race to Erase MS" Gala where lots of famous and rich people come and they raise lots of money for their foundation. Kasee has been helping them prepare for their 2010 Gala. A couple weeks before the big event she text me and asked if P and I would want to come to the event and help. I was shocked that we would even be invited (tickets to the event were $1000+ a person!) but of course I said yes! So on Friday I picked up P and Jason from work and we headed to LA to mingle with the stars.

The event was held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza. Once we got there we went up to our hotel room and changed and then met Kasee downstairs to get our credentials. We got a sweet pass that basically let us get in anywhere at the event (minus the red carpet, I guess you have to be a celebrity to walk that :) and made us look super official. Although we didn't really wear them because they said staff on them and we didn't want the stars to think that we were just staffers, haha, jk.

From 6:30-8:00 was the red carpet and cocktail hour. We watched celebrities walk down the red carpet (the carpet was actually orange because orange is the foundations signature color) and we also browsed the silent auction room where they had thousands of items to bid on. Most of the items were signed memorabilia, gift bags, or jewelry. We enjoyed watching famous people like Tom Arnold, Paris Hilton, Nicky Hilton, Melissa Rycroft (from the Bachelor), Robert Knepper (from Prison Break), Tommy Hilfiger, Buzz Aldrin, Sophia Bush, Brody Jenner, Brooke Burke, Avril Lavigne, Nancy O'Dell, Apolo Anton Ohno, Lindsey Vonn, Mark Dacascos (Iron Chef), Louis Van Amstel, Chelsie Hightower, Aiden Turner, Damian Whitewood, Kym Johnson (the last 5 people I listed are all people from Dancing with the Stars) walk down the carpet. The red carpet was lined with paparazzi and lots of camera flashing going on. It was crazy.

a very sweaty Tom Arnold, just off the red carpet

Melissa Rycroft, she totally posed for me in this pic and her teeth are SO white

Sofia Bush, she's the one in the middle

Avril and some guy

the best picture we could get of Paris. She ran off the red carpet, while talking on her phone, and went straight to the ladies room.

Apolo, he was very nice

Around 8:30 everyone went into the Ballroom for dinner and entertainment. First up was a fashion show put on by Tommy Hilfiger. Most of the models were celebrities that attended the event. I realized I really like Tommy Hilfger's style, or at least the styles that he was featuring that night. Then we ate our delicious asparagus/spinach/cheese first course. Followed by mini grilled cheese sandwiches, which were grilled to perfection and oh so good! Then the group Heart performed. We only knew one of their songs but they are some pretty good rockers for how old they are.

Then came the live auction, this is where we had to help. We were spotters, meaning we stood between two tables and flashed a light stick above a person's head if they bid on an item. Brooke Burke happened to be at one of my tables, I watched her eat her meal, she finished her whole pot pie, this was impressive for how teeny tiny she was. I didn't think she would even be able to fit this pot pie in her tiny belly but she did! She is SOOOO small and I think she has like 5 kids, I don't know how she still has a rockin body after all those kiddos. I also had a super rich man at my table, he wasn't famous but he was bidding on the lamborghini (sold for $214,000) and a trip to Bora Bora (minimum bid 10,000!). Paris and her sister and mom were at the table in front of me, I also tried to watch her eat her dinner but I had to focus on the people at my table who were bidding. Paris walked right past me though and on her way out she asked P(who was in charge of the tables right behind me) where the bathroom was! Other stars that walked past me during this time, Melissa Rycroft, she is also tiny and so cute, just about all the dancing with the stars people who were there, and Nancy Davis, the one who who started the foundation.

After we were done helping we went back to our table and ate our dinner while Avril performed. She did a good job.

Tom and Lindsey Vonn presenting

Some ladies singing "Lean on Me" the closing song. You can see Brody Jenner in the background.

Nancy Davis is the one in the orange dress with her mouth wide open

By this time celebrities were leaving and the night was winding down. We ended up in our room around midnight and didn't get to sleep until 2 AM but it was well worth it. We had so much fun!

Kasee and Jason lookin' hot on the red carpet

P failed to inform me that he was doing his modeling pose in this picture

All four of us!

Jumping on hotel beds, with, what is that P? oh it's water, good cause I thought it was beer from the hotel room refrigerator that we are getting charged for!

This is us on our way up to check out the penthouse suite. We got the keys to the suite and the okay to stay in it for the night but it was kind of trashed because the band members had been using it to store all of their stuff/hang out in it before they performed. Lots of empty beer bottles and half eaten food. We decided to stay in our other "regular" room.

Overall thoughts on the night:
1) It was really cool being so close to so many stars but I realized they are just people. Normal people who happen to have a lot of money. I wasn't as star struck as I thought I might be. And yes, most of the people at this event aren't super famous people, more like B or C list people, except for Paris and a few others. So maybe if I had the chance to get up close with say Sandra Bullock, Brad Pit, Julia Roberts, or Oprah I might be more star struck?
2) Surprisingly, P and I freaked out most when we saw Robert Knepper aka T-Bag from Prison Break; we love that show and he is such a great actor in it! We didn't even get a picture of him though, big bummer.
3) Wishing that I would have hung out in the girls bathroom more, Paris seemed to be spending a lot of time in there, maybe I could have gotten a picture with her.
4) Wished that P and I had more guts to just go up to these people and ask to take a picture with them. I didn't want to bug them, especially since we were at an event where technically you weren't suppose to even take any pictures with your own camera.
5) Celebrity gift bags are awesome. We were lucky enough to get one, and getting free stuff (esp *nice* free stuff) is amazing.
5) THANK YOU Kasee for hooking us up with tickets to the event and a free hotel room!

*FYI, I read on the their website that they raised over $2 million at the event. All funds that were raised go to doctors and researchers who are trying to find a cure for MS.

Lately, and an Announcement

2010-05-06T15:41:00.000-07:00

Lately, we haven't been up to much around here, just the usual. Making lots of homemade pizza.

Yum!

Last weekend we went to an LA Galaxy soccer game.

Drew and Erika were nice enough to invite us and provide the tickets, thanks guys!

It was a really fun game and Galaxy won 3-1. During halftime we went a took some pictures with David Beckham. He's actually in Italy right now training for the World Cup so unfortunately he wasn't playing in the game, but that didn't stop us from getting some great photos with him!

The boys

I'm not sure what P is doing here, I guess he really likes David? Who doesn't?

Now on to our announcement.....

last week, we found out....

we are moving to....

Yes Arkansas! A very random state. But we're so excited for this little adventure. Instead of going back to Utah at the end of this internship that P is doing now, we decided to take another internship which happens to be in Arkansas. It will only be until the end of August and then we'll move back to Provo just in time to start school. I must admit, I was looking forward to going back to Utah and spending the summer with family, but it will be great for P to get more experience and to get another company on his resume. Poor P though, he won't get a break at all! His last day at work in Cali is on a Friday and then he has to be to work in Arkansas on that following Monday. Thankfully, I get to come home to Utah to take care of some business and more importantly, visit family and friends! I'm so excited! Then I'll join P out in Arkansas. So far we've hear two things about Arkansas. 1-it's really hot and terribly humid. 2-it's green and gorgeous, lots of trees. I can't wait for number 2, not so much for number 1. Ugh, I hate what humidity does to my hair!

We're not moving until the beginning of June so we still have some time in California. We're looking forward to the following things: family coming to visit, a day at Disneyland and a weekend at Catalina Island. That's all for now!

Buttons and Lizards

2010-04-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

WARNING: This is yet another lengthy post, compiled of random stories, so read at your own risk and sorry if you're getting tired of my wordy posts. I can't seem to cut them down, I guess I just get carried away and want to remember every detail!

Missionaries are strange, I've come to know this since I live with them. We've had a couple of them rotate through while we've been living here and all of them have had such different personalities. Some of them are quiet, some (well most) are polite, some are noisy, some like to sing...all the time, everywhere, some like to play Gma Jeanne's piano, some like to eat ALL of Gma Jeanne's Reece's Peanut Butter Cups that she puts out in a jar on the counter, some eat weird looking food, some eat Top Ramen for every meal, some are lazy, some like to clean. It's been an interesting experience living with them, I've learned a few things about missionaries that I didn't know. Most of the time we don't interact with them too much because they're out preaching the gospel like they're suppose to. Sometimes though, like today, I experience some random encounters with them and it makes me laugh or want to punch them. Okay, so there's only been one time when I wanted to punch them, it was today and I'll explain myself but first I'll try to preface it a little.

For the first 2 months that we were here, the elders that were living here were super quiet and hardly spoke to us at all. We occasionally saw each other but barely spoke. They were nice, but they just kept to themselves, which is how it should be. Well the new elders that we got are more friendly. They like to talk and they're more, "in our space" so to speak. For instance...

We have this elder, he's been living here for a while now. He's very open, likes to talk, kind of a little weird, very nice but just almost too friendly. For instance, sometimes he knocks on our door at night wanting to give us random stuff like a Walkman from the 90's or headphones. I guess he doesn't understand that when our door is closed that usually means we're getting ready for bed, already in bed, etc. I don't mind if he knocks on our door in the daytime but late at night? I mean come on, that's pretty risky. I'm usually in bed, not dressed in the proper attire to see missionaries, so I go and hide in the closet until P can see what he wants.

Anyway, onto my story about what happened today.....

So I was sleeping, P had already left for work, it was approximately 8:40 a.m. and someone knocks on our bedroom door. I thought about not answering it but then I was afraid it was Gma Jeanne and she needed something, so I get up and put on sweats and a jacket, grab my glasses and stumble to the door. I open it, probably with my face looking confused like this, but with a lot more messy hair

and there is the elder!

Elder: Oh, sorry, did I wake you up?

Me: Ha ha, yeah but it's fine, do you need something?

Elder: Well I was just wondering if this was your purple button (he holds out a purple button)

Me: (thinking in my head): Is he serious? Did he really just wake me up to ask me if I had lost a purple button?!?!?!

Me: Um no I don't think this is my button

Elder: Oh, okay, well it's not mine because I don't have purple buttons, maybe it's Gma Jeanne's

Me: Um yeah you should check with Gma Jeanne.

Elder: Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up.

Me: It's okay (as I shut the door)

Wow, was this whole button mystery really that pressing that you had to knock on my door at 8:40 in the morning and ask me?! I mean I see the elders in the late morning and every night so couldn't he have waited until then? I guess he was just dying to find the owner of the purple button! Anyone who knows me well, knows that I'm not too happy when someone wakes me up, so at that moment I wanted to punch him. I love my sleep, can you blame me?

An hour later, after I had fully gotten up and left my room a couples times, the other elder knocked on my door. He asked me if I could download the pictures off of his camera and transfer them onto his jump drive, since he can't use the computer. I did it and as I was transferring the pics to his jump drive I noticed a folder called girls. Now this was just too tempting. I opened it, and along with 3 pictures of 3 different girls there was a picture collage of girls! About 8 different girls that he had arranged in a beautiful collage. HAHAHA this was hilarious.

Now onto the lizard story....

A couple days ago I walked into Gma Jeanne's kitchen and saw a lizard scurry across the floor. I freaked and thought hmm...how am I going to get this thing out of the house! But before I could come up with some genius plan it ran under the counter, and disappeared. I've never really though that lizards were that scary, in fact, when I was in Africa I wasn't scared of them. We had a lizard in our shower and on the wall. I was fine with it there. I was even able to fall asleep knowing that it was on the wall next to me. I even showered once while it was in the shower, so I don't know why it bothered me so much to see one in our kitchen, but it did.

Then today I saw a lizard, (hopefully it's the same one?!) when I was leaving. I pulled open the door and it shot toward me. I shrieked and thought, not again! I tried to get it to go out the door but instead it ran into the living room and under the couch. AH! So I left the house and tried not to imagine the lizard crawling up the stairs and into our bedroom. sick.

Well luckily, I just went downstairs to cut up some cantaloupe and I saw the lizard again! It was by the front door so I ran upstairs and asked the elders if they would catch it for me. It's their p-day so they're home. Thankfully they did catch it for me and put it outside. Please, please, stay outside where you belong lizard!!!!

In other news, we had a great weekend. On friday night P and I rented New Moon, it was cheezy and really I'm just not a Twilight fan but we saw the first one so we felt like we had to see this one. We ate at Rubios, it was delicious. Saturday we went to our cities birthday party, it was quite the event with food, entertainment, booths, a car show. Here's a picture of us and my favorite car

Later that night we had a BBQ over at Kasee and Jason's apartment- thank goodness for them being our friends because we love to hang out over at their apartment and we love their company. We had steak, grilled corn and chips and P made freshly squeezed strawberry lemonade. It was all very yummy! P's friends, Brad and Nikki, stopped by to visit us on their way home from San Diego, they live in the Bay area. We all hung out and then got Pinkberry.

Love this one of Kasee and Jason

Brad and Nikki stayed the night with us and went to sacrament meeting with us the next day before they left for home. It was fun to see them, P loves Brad, they are old buddies from high school and they roomed together at Snow College. Another great weekend! They go way too fast!

Never be as young as I was then

2010-04-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

the weekend we spent in AZ, the weekend that I first realized I liked him more than a friend :)

we brushed our teeth together that weekend

A couple weeks ago P and I were having FHE and I decided that we should play a little get to know you game-the kind where you answer questions about each other. We had a fun time and I wanted to record some things that we wrote down because someday I'm sure our kids will read this blog and want to know what we were like when we were at the age of 24 and 22. Ha, probably not, but I think that when I'm older I'll want to look back and remember what I was like at 22 and what my husband was like at 24. So to our future selves...how much have we changed?

List your 3 favorite things to do:

I wrote this about myself: Read, travel and spend time with P and family.

I wrote this about P: Exercise, eat and spend time with me and family.

P wrote this about himself: Exercise, watch movies and eat

P wrote this about me: Sleep, read, watch movies.He also added make headbands/flowers.

What are the 3 things you are most grateful for:

I wrote: Husband, gospel and a loving family

P wrote: Gospel, baby Jess and family

What is your favorite food:

I said my favorite food is desserts and P's favorite food is Mexican or Pastrami/meat.

P said that his favorite food is chicken and my favorite food is ice cream.

What is your favorite thing to spend your money on:

I said clothes and I said P's favorite thing to spend money on was a tie between food and nothing-or in other words, he doesn't like to spend money.

P said that his favorite thing to spend money on was nothing and that my favorite thing to spend money on was food.

That's all! It's always fun to see what your husband will say and what he thinks you like. On some of the questions we were pretty spot on, but others we were far off.

The other day I got a letter in the mail. It was a letter that I had written to myself 5 years ago, right before I graduated High School. My teacher (it was wither Mrs. Krum or Mrs. Horsley, I can't remember which) saved them and sent them to us. I always wondered if teachers actually would remember to send those letters! It was so fun to read what my goals were then and where I envisioned myself to be in 5 years. I've pretty much accomplished what I wanted to and I'm right where I thought I would be except for a few things. Here are the things (which I wrote in the letter) that I haven't accomplished:

I don't have kids--yet

I don't have a steady job that makes money--ha ha, P was laughing at that one, he wishes that I had a steady job that makes money, I sort of wish this too.

I haven't graduated from college--yet, but I would be graduating next week, if we hadn't moved to California, so I think I can say that I've accomplished this, it will just be happening a little late due to the husband and his internship.

Graduated from dental hygiene school---changed my mind on that one a long time ago.

Teaching a high school history class---also changed my mind on that career a long time ago.

Here are the things (which I wrote in the letter) that I have accomplished:

Attended college (BYU) and achieved good grades there--the good grades part is debatable, generals were a killer at BYU, but once I got into my courses for Public Health I did great!

Met many new people--I've met a lot of awesome people at BYU and I've become friends with people from high school or from Centerville who I didn't even know during high school.

Grown closer to Megan--I definitely did this and I'm SO grateful I had the chance to room with her at King Henry.

Continue to exercise-- this one is also debatable :), but I think it's funny that I put this in my letter.

A temple marriage--check!

Staying close to family--check!

Happy and doing well--check!

Never forget fun high school memories--check!

Stayed in touch with Synthia, Candace and Jake--I wrote their last names in my letter, which I think is funny because did I really think that I would forget who they were in 5 short years?! Jake was my high school boyfriend (and I thought we had broken up by this time) so it's also funny that I included him in the letter. But surprisingly we have stayed in contact, we're both happily married now but we're facebook friends so that should count as something! And of course I'm still in touch with Synth and Candace!

Synth, Candace and Me, Graduation 2005

After P read my letter he said, "don't you wish you would have written more?" And yes I do, I didn't even write a full page. We also talked about how fun it is to remember yourself from the old days and to read things that you once wrote. Then he said this, "I guess that's why we should just keep a journal, then you could always look back and see how far you've come." Great Idea!! This blog has sort of become a journal for us (although we try to keep a more personal, hand-written journal), it will be fun to eventually print out this blog and keep it as a journal.

This was one of the last sentences that I wrote, and it's something that I hope to work on for the next five years of my life as well as for the rest of my life "I hope that I am a better person in five years, more caring, charitable, fun, loving, patient, honest and giving." Here is to five more years of life and love! Hmm.. I wonder where I'll be in the year 2015?

p.s.

The title of this post comes from a Kenny Chesney song that my mom and I both love. I listened to this song a lot around the time that I was graduating so it will always remind me of my life then. The song always made me kind of sad because it talks about chapters of our life closing, but I love the last verse because it reminds me that when a chapter of my life closes, another one opens and that I better grab each moment that I can! Here's the last verse:

It's my life and it's sure fun
Another season of my life's begun
Another race I'm glad I get to run
Another chapter of my life I'm writin'
No I'm never gonna feel like this again
Time's rushin' by me like the wind
Gotta grab each moment that I can
Cause I'm never gonna feel like this again