Cool Autumnal Things

I stole the title for this blog from one of Josh's facebook album titles, but it just fit so well I couldn't help it.

I thought it seemed like a good time to give an update on what we have been up to this fall so far.

And I have some good pictures to include with the update! Yayyy!!

Here is a picture of Joshy on his bike! We went for a Sunday drive up the Alpine Loop and it was beautiful. My legs were quite cold by the time we got home, but it was very fun. Here is a picture of us at the top:

And me taking a picture of us while riding:

We also carved pumpkins with my sisters and niece and nephew. Here are Josh and Xavior working hard at their masterpieces-

For Halloween, Josh's department had a costume contest, so we decided to dress up as Josh's professor and a sack of potatoes (because his research is on potatoes). The final product turned out so well that we won a prize! It was a little ceramic pumpkin with candy inside. It was great- it's my first Halloween decoration and it satisfied my need for Halloween candy, without having to buy either one!

On Halloween, Josh had to leave to go to Long Beach, CA for a conference. He was presenting some of his research on greenhouse gas emissions from turfgrass.
I was very proud of him for going, but it was awful to have him gone. AWFUL! I think it gets worse and worse the longer we are married when he goes somewhere, because I just more and more used to having him around. So after the longest 4 days of my life, he got back on Thursday (my birthday)!!
He took me shopping at Anthropologie, and I actually felt like I could splurge and buy something since it was my birthday present from him. The best part was just having him home and being able to walk around Gateway, talk, catch up, and just be together. Then we went to dinner at The Pie, another of my favorite things. It turned out to be a really great birthday, thanks to wonderful Joshy.

Josh was also in charge of Date Night this week. We have started rotating who is in charge every week, and I think it will be really fun to do this way. I am much more of a planner than Josh, so I like to plan it out in advance what we will do. Josh is much more spontaneous than I am, so it is always more of a surprise when he is in charge. This week, he made dinner at home and it was delicious. I love when he cooks because it is always different than the ideas that I have, and it usually turns out great. We had lasagna, salad with pepperoni and olives, and garlic bread. Mmm, I want more of it all now!
Then we played Yahtzee, which is our favorite game of the moment. Then we walked over to Gloria's Little Italy and picked up this incredibly delicious delicacy!

It's cake with cream and strawberries. Italian cream is one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. I am not even a cake person, but I could eat this every day.

So what started out as a rough week has turned out to be just wonderful. It is amazing what a difference having the love of your life around makes!

Oh, and Xavior went home this week, too! So I went from having two other people around to having no one else around! It was great to have him here and we loved getting to know him better. It was also good to have our first experience as parents of a teenager.

Life is good, I love Josh, and I am so grateful for all I have been blessed with!

It's Been a Whole Year...almost

Today is October 9, which means tomorrow is October 10, which means Josh and I will have been married for one year tomorrow! I have been anticipating this for about the past month, and surprisingly, the anticipation has not made the actual event anti-climactic.

In celebration of this momentous event, we rented a room at the Hilton in SLC last night. It was pretty nice, but I probably wouldn't recommend it or stay there again. Oh well, it was still fun!

For dinner, we went out to the Rodizio Grill. I had never been there before, and it was great! There were about a million birthday celebrations happening while we were there, so we got to hear the brazilian drums almost the whole time.

My favorite was the cheddar bread balls. I know, it's known for it's meat, but what can I say? I'm a cheese lover.

We exchanged gifts...Josh got me this:

Perfume with a spritzer!!! I was so excited. I had oh-so-subtly mentioned it to him a few weeks ago, and being the incredible husband he is, he remembered and got it for me :)

Our minds work similarly because I got him cologne.

In other news, Josh is doing a motorcycle safety course today. Why, you might ask? Because we bought a motorcycle!

This is it:

Pretty close, anyway. We haven't taken any pictures of it, but it is a Kawasaki Vulcan.

We are so excited!

Other big news:

Josh's nephew, Xavior, who is 15, is staying with us for 5 weeks! He got here 2 weeks ago. He's attending an academy out here, going to a youth conference for the academy, going to a Boy Scout jamboree thing, visiting his long lost friend, and hanging out with us.

I always felt like 15 wasn't that long ago until he got here. It's made me realize that I really am getting older. It's somewhat depressing, but also good to know that I have grown wiser and maturer than I was 7 years ago.

It's great to have him out with us, though!

Those are the big updates for now. School continues to go on and on and on...

We are crazier than ever before with work and school.

This is the first time I have ever worked 20 hours/week while being in school full-time and it is insane. We are both gone from about 8am to 8pm every day, which leaves little time for necessities like laundry and grocery shopping. When I looked in the refrigerator this week, I realized that it was a miracle we were all still alive. The direness of the food situation means one thing-Costco trip today! I love Costco, it's like a treat every time I go. Maybe it is the free samples, maybe it is the delicious food I end up buying, or maybe it is because we usually order pizza while we are there, but I love it.

I always tell myself that someday, I will become more diligent in maintaining our blog. But I'm not promising anything.

Tuesday's Ride

Right Fork Hobble Creek by j.lemonte at Garmin Connect - Details

Me trying to get back into it ...

Lack of Productivity

One would think that during finals week, students should be the most productive. They have multiple exams crammed into a few days and still must maintain their normal life of eating and sleeping and talking to other people.
For me however, this seems not to be the case. Today was Day 1 of no classes and all I managed to do--for school at least-- was my finance review sheet.
I did many things un-related to school though...I took a 2 yr-old to go see the fishtanks in the bottom of the Widtsoe Building, I talked to my high school basketball coach for the first time in 4 years, I got my hair cut (pictures will follow shortly), and I looked at a lot of pictures on Facebook (and yes, those are listed in order of importance).
So, while I did not do too many things in the area of academia, I am okay with that. I just need to embrace the things I do get done.

It really is nice to not have class, though. Josh and I got to go to a movie for the first time in forever last night because we were feeling un-stressed enough. That's really saying something, for both of us to feel that way at the same time. We went to see Valentine's Day at the dollar theatre, starring every famous person ever.



The downside was that every love story involved sex (except for the elementary schooler). The upside was that the high schoolers didn't have sex. And I liked how it showed many different types of love. It reminded me a little of Love Actually (my favorite movie, which I lost and am still heartbroken about it). But mostly it was just fun to get out. With Josh.
And more than mostly, I love Josh!

We are coming up on our one year anniversary of meeting. The spring weather just reminds me of when we dated (for the long time that it was) and it is so wonderful to remember! I'm excited for another summer with him.

267,840

Is a rough estimate of how many minutes Sarah and I celebrated being married yesterday.

I love celebrations. If there is a reason to celebrate, people find reasons to disregard inhibition. Maybe inhibition is too harsh of a word - hesitance sounds a little more inviting. Whatever word you use to describe it, when people celebrate they do things they normally wouldn't, and that is the fun of celebrating, right?

Yesterday was no different for Sarah and I - I woke up early in the morning to meet with my Contaminant Hydrogeology group (not part of the celebration), and hurried our meeting as much as possible without seeming overly eager to not participate in our group project. I traveled the 7 blocks home to our mansion on Center St. Not long after we headed to Christie & Nikki's to pick up the kids and then headed to the mountains (really just Canyon Glen Park) for Sarah's 10 mile race (yeah, she's pretty intense).

"Terrible", "horrible", "awful", and "worst-race-ever" are some of the ways Sarah described the race. Sorry, babe. But great job.

Eventually we were able to leave Avery & Jaden with Nikki and head home to get ready for the big night of less-hesitance. On second thought, it was our night of inhibited inhibition (sounds much more intriguing, right).

... and what crazy things did this 267,840 day celebration filled with a lack of inhibition hold once it really got rolling?

pillow purchasing: king-size and body pillows, the only way to do pillows

sheet selecting: baby blue to compliment our brown duvet (brown and blue are good together, in case you weren't aware)

hiking the Himalayas: okay, we really just ate at the Himalyan Kitchen in SLC, but it was so authentic I felt like I was at least at the 18,000' base camp of Everest!

ending the day with the end-of-days thriller 2012: I fell asleep during it, crap.

Best part of the day: SARAH. Hands down.

New Camera!

We got a new camera! Josh has really nice camera, but my little point and shoot broke awhile ago which has made it hard to take pictures, for obvious reasons.

So we decided to splurge and get a new little camera to make it easier to take pictures more frequently!

We spent most of the weekend at my sister's house watching conference and eating way too much sugar (in the form of cinnamon rolls and strawberry crepes and donuts).

Then we decided to move our bed into our living room and turn out apartment into a studio and turn our bedroom into a storage room. Why? Because our bedroom has no AC, which would make living quite miserable in the summer months. So we stayed up late Saturday night moving furniture and clothes until we were satisfied with the product. I think it will be really great because we won't have to traipse across the hallway from our bedroom to the bathroom anymore.

In the midst of the turmoil...

The finished product!

It was great to be with kids for Easter because they get so excited about the candy, Easter Bunny, and treats they get (clearly focusing on what it's all about). My niece and nephew both got bunny ears and decided to hop around the rest of the day being bunnies. This is my nephew's favorite face when he realizes someone is taking a picture of him.

It's Been Awhile...

Ugh, I'm mad because I just wrote a nice little update on our lives since it's been forever since we've written, and there was some error and it got erased! It was probably because I had left the page open since last night and so it signed off or something.
Still annoying.
Anyway, I'm going to try and make a real effort to update our blog more! Because I think blogging is a great idea.
I'm in an english class where I have to write 150 words everyday. It is supposed to help us stay current on our assignments, and that is what I usually use it for, but sometimes it would be nice to just write a nice little note on the blog :)
I still have to figure all of this out, though. I think I can handle it.
I'm going to try and figure out how to do pictures...
Yay, I figured it out!
This is the first meal we cooked at our apartment after being married. It's this delicious recipe from a cookbook that Josh's sister, Jen, gave us.
I think it's so good because it has sugar in the crust and sauce...

This is when we got ambitious and wanted to send out Christmas cards, so we took pictures for it and stopped there. At least we got some cute pictures though! We'll aim for cards next year...










This is from a similar occasion. It's probably one of my favorites.










It is a constant struggle for Josh and I to keep living in our apartment. It is old, dirty (beyond what cleaning can fix), and we have to walk across a common hallway from our bedroom to our living area. What keeps us living here is how cheap it is.
So one day, we decided we would just make the best of it and do what we could to improve the appearance of our apartment. Where did we go? To Ikea, of course!
We ended up a photograph, some new picture frames, a couple of pillows, and some curtains.
The curtains had some extra fabric on the bottom, so obviously I thought to make a headwrap out of it. Here is the outcome.


That's the update. We'll see how often I can get on here, it's kind of relaxing, but also stressful at the same time because I know there are other things I should be doing...