Shock!

I know... I know... Everyone is shocked that I'm actually updating our blog! A LOT has happened since I updated our blog.

• MIKE GRADUATED!!!! It was so great to know that he is done! We had a party with our families instead of him walking (he didn't want to) and although initially I was really stressed about it, it ended up being a lot of fun! I definitely couldn't have done it without my wonderful mother-in-law and mom.
• We celebrated our 1st anniversary! We didn't do a whole lot because we're poor and we didn't have time to plan anything because of school. We did end up driving down to Salt Lake to go out for a dinner. We went to Happy Sumo and we were both brave and decided to try sushi for our first time. It was yummy!
• We've had more family parties and driven more miles in one month than we ever have before!
  

I have loads of pictures to share, but I don't have any of them with me here at work. Except for these "sister pictures." The same weekend of Mike's party we had a get together with my Dad's sisters family. My cousin was about to leave on his mission and Mike & I wanted to go with him to the Salt Lake Temple before he left so I cooked up a get together. While my aunt at my parents I asked her to cut my hair. And it ended up being a big hair cutting party because all of my sisters got their hair cut. We all got bangs (except for Melissa - she already had them) and so we decided to take some pictures.

We tried to do a cute little pyramid pictures and as soon as Whit got on we toppled over. Mike was an awesome photographer and snapped a picture right as we were tipping over.

I love my sisters a whole lot if you can't tell.

Birthday and Easter

Last week was a great week! It was spring break for the practicum school I am in, so I got it off! I hung out with Mike for the first couple of days. And then headed to Blanding with my mom, siblings, aunts, and cousins! It was so fun! But first birthday fun:
Sweet Leah came over on Tuesday night and brought dinner and a yummy ice cream cake from coldstone! She made the cake herself! And it was beautiful and delicious!

Then, Thursday I hopped in the car and headed to Blanding. We had tons of fun! We celebrated four of the family April birthday's that night.

The next day we got to go to the sand dunes and for a fun picnic. We also had an Easter egg hunt and an Easter egg treasure hunt. And yes, they are different things. :) It was so great to get to spend time with family! Especially now that I know that I probably won't get to do quite as many family thing for the next few year as I have in the past. However, I was SO ready to get back home to my sweet husband after being away for four days! Overall, things are wonderful! We can hardly wait to move and start a new exciting adventure!

He Got In!!!!!!!!

Mike got into graduate school... and not just any graduate school! His top choice - ASU! We've been waiting to hear back from this particular school for 4 months and 3 days, so the acceptance email that came at 8:30 last night was a VERY welcome sight! This means that as of August15th or so we will be moving to Tempe, AZ for approximately a two year Computer Security Masters Program. We are so excited! Now to just survive the last 4 weeks of this semester...

Pluggin through the semester...

Well it's been a while...yet again...I apparently struggle with blogging. :) So we are more than halfway through the semester! Yay! Which also means that Mike has a little less than 6 weeks before he graduates! Yay again! We are still waiting to hear on graduate school, but we're learning to be patient. As for me, I just started a practicum in a 1st grade classroom. (I was supposed to start last week and got stuck with a toothache that transferred smoothly into the flu.) My practicum may kill me, but at least it is only for a few weeks. Twenty 7 year-olds in a confined space for 7 hours is not exactly my forte. I pray I can land a teaching job in a grade a little older than first grade.
Here are the favorites from Cancun I said I would put up.... The first one is favorite - I don't care if it makes people gag - I think the huge wave behind us is awesome!!!! Oh and I must give credit to my dearest bff Leah for that pic. :) Thanks Leah!


Cenote! The weird pool that is 150 feet below ground level.


Chichen Itza! Such a cool place!


Yum, green celery juice stuff... :)

After Mike hurt his foot really bad in the ocean. :(

Cancun!!!!!

For those of you who don't know, we are in Cancun right now. We decided to take the plunge and go with the USU choirs on a trip to Cancun. Today was our first full day in Cancun and it's been so much fun and such an adventure.
Yesterday we spent over six hours on an airplane, plus a layover and all that jazz. It was actually quite fun for me because it was my first time in an airplane. (Well unless you count when I was 5 weeks old!) But I don't think it was quite as much fun for everyone else, especially Mike. We better be rich so that we can fly first class for the rest of our lives so he can actually fit. :)
Today we went and performed for a preparatory high school. The teachers were saying that an hour before the concert 12 teachers couldn't control the approx. 150 kids and they were so quiet and good during our concert. The guy that is arranging stuff for us said he leaned over the ask a few kids to stop talking and realized that they were talking about the music. It was a really fun experience. Of course, we had the kids that were trying to sneak pictures of Mike and then others that would just walk up to him and ask for his picture, but he handled it well.
I think Mike has loved getting to use his Spanish a little more and I sure have enjoyed it. I feel more comfortable knowing I have somebody that can communicate with everyone.
The sad part is that today when we got to the beach Mike jumped in and hit a rock really hard. It's a long story, but basically he couldn't put pressure on it at all so we had some people help him to the car and we got him back to the hotel. He's been sitting here with ice on it. It's way swollen and bruised. We are all just praying that it will be better on Saturday because we're spending the whole day at Chichen Itza.
Well, that's the most recent update. I'll maybe update one more time before we leave and then I'll put up all the pictures once we are back in frigid Logan.

Photo Update

I haven't updated this in forever! And really there isn't a whole lot to tell. So I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Thanksgiving fun with some of our neices and nephews. (We had all just eaten different flavored Now & Later's)


Ah...the joy of the acting out the Nativity scene on Christmas Eve. Whitney wussed out on being Mary, so I took over. Mike was Joseph. And when my dad read the donkey part Melissa hopped up and said "I'll be the donkey!" Ha-Ha! Needless to say, it was the most spiritual part of our Christmas Eve.



Dance-Dance Revolution (DDR) with the pops. :)



Ha ha Mike looks so happy in this one... After an hour and a half of trying to get the DVD player to work in the family room we finally gave up and all crammed in my parents room to watch it on their T.V. Good times...



He's such a good big brother-in-law! I love that Whit's hat is only half way on her head in this picture. :)



I love this picture!



Two very crazy people. :)



Last, but not least: My Uncle made a beanie for each of us for Christmas! It was so cool! So, we took a picture with all of us wearing them. Our dog Jack looks possessed.

Snow Day!!!

So a few Saturday's ago we technically got snowed into our apartment, but luckily we live right across the street from Old Main Hill! So we decided to brave the weather and go sledding with our good friends' the Wayne's! We had both saved the big plastic bags that our bed's came in when we bought them (we both got married this past summer) so that we could go sledding with them! It was so much fun! Here's a cute picture of my sweet snowman:

And here's another picture of him in our cool "sled."

Update on our School Info...

So I realize that I always write about things we do, but never really give information on what is actually going on in our life. So here you go:

Mike has his application into Arizona State University and we are hoping and praying that he gets in. He's planning on applying to other schools, but this is our #1 choice. So, as far as graduate school goes, we are just waiting and hoping. We just finished the semester. It's kind of exciting because now we just have one more semester up here in Logan. After this coming semester Mike will graduate and I will still have my student teaching (done wherever we are at) and another semester, but I will just do that online from wherever we end up for graduate school.
We are very glad to have this semester over! It's been quite intense for the both of us. My semester was very time intensive and Mike's was very homework intensive. My days went from either 7-6 or 8-7 depending on the day and usually I wouldn't even get a lunch break. Mike's class and work schedule wasn't quite that intense, but he spend SO much time doing homework! It was insane! However, our hard work really paid off because I got a 4.0 and Mike got really good grades! (I don't know if he's appreciate me announcing them on here though.) We both really enjoyed our classes, but we are sure glad to have a break and get to actually spend real time with each other!

Our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

Don't ya think they look about the same? Ha Ha! We love our Christmas tree! Our awesome friends cut it down for us when they got their normal sized tree. It's particularly exciting for me because it's my first real Christmas tree! Here's some step by step shots of us putting up our first Christmas tree. Putting rocks (that we "borrowed" from campus) into the can to hold the tree up.

Lights:

Ok I forgot to take pictures of putting on the ornaments, but here's our cute (aka ghetto) star that I made:

And here's the finished product with us:

My sister's faces rock in this one!

Whitney has a marshmallow in her mouth. :)

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Thanksgiving.

We have a fabulous time this Thanksgiving. We spent the time with the Mabey's and it was so great to spend time with family and especially cute nieces and nephews! This is my favorite picture from the weekend...

We had just finished playing a few rounds of Pit and realized that after all eating a Now & Later our tongues were all colored. I love the faces on some of the kids. :)

Reminiscence...

I was looking through some of my old pictures tonight and found some fun ones that I thought I'd share. I love seeing that even though we have our differences:

We have a whole lot in common:

This is my personal favorite:

He is my favorite person in the world.
The End. :)

Nothing new...

It's been over a month since I last posted... that's sad. In all honesty there really isn't anything exciting to write about. Out life consists of school, homework, practicum (me), programming (Mike), eating (while watching an episode of Pretender:), sleeping and that's pretty much it. Our social life has become nonexistent, but we are actually getting to go home and see family this weekend! Maybe something exciting will happen when we are down south that I can post about next week? Here's to hoping! :)

The reason I'm happy it rained today...

Yesterday was one of those marriage bonding moments that you look back in 40 years and say "Hey, honey...do you remember that time in our first apartment that you knocked off 3 glasses onto your foot and had my uncle (whose a vet) give you stitches?"

So yesterday morning we were having a peaceful Sunday morning when I heard this huge crash! I hadn't done the dishes in a while and so they were piled on the counter and Mike knocked over the glasses and one landed right on his foot and slashed it pretty good.

After getting it cleaned up he decided to go to his meetings (late) and when he got home we got some bandages to pull it together and headed off to church. He barely made it through sacrament meeting, so we headed home.

We decided the best alternative to going to the E.R. was to call my uncle and see what he would suggest. He kindly offered his services, so off we went. Mike got 4 stitches in the ball of his left foot. :) We were very fortunate to have my uncle around and also very fortunate that it wasn't worse - three glasses is a lot of glass.

Needless to say, I'm sure glad he's ok. I was a little nervous that he would want to wear flip flops (according to him it's flip flop weather unless it's rainy or snowy) and that his cut would get dirty. Hence the title...
Here he is eating so that he wouldn't pass out. :)

Oh and I don't usually feed my husband whole bottles of Sierra Mist, it was just the tail end of the bottle and I wasn't too keen on dirtying anymore glasses that might end up on the counter.

And here is his little set up: laptop, chips, soda, church calling material, and pillows for elevation. What more could he ask for?

p.s. Sorry there's no pictures of the actual cut - I didn't want to gross anyone out.

A quick picnic

The other day we got to take a quick break during one of our busy day's and go on a picnic up to 2nd dam. It was really fun to get away from the stress for an hour and enjoy some time together.
I was obsessed with wading in the water, but when I got in this happened...

It was SO cold! That's my "Please hurry and take the picture before I die" face.
This was as close as Mike got to wading...he took a picture to prove he did touch the freezing water.

:)

Only one chick digs him now...

p.s. Yes, I am wearing pearls with my P.J's. :)

Update #2

I keep putting off updating my blog because I want to put pictures up, but the only time I ever get to update my blog is when I'm at work where I don't have access to my pictures. :) So instead here's just another update.
School may kill me. I didn't think spending just 3 days out of the week in a classroom would wear me out, but apparently I'm just a wuss. However, to my credit it is a classroom of 25 second graders and I have spent the past few years mentally preparing for older grades. I'm a much bigger fan of dealing with attitude than dealing with running noses. However, I have loved finally being in a classroom for my school instead of sitting in a class listening to people tell us what to expect. It's awesome that I get all this hands on experience. On top of those three full days I am working 20+ hours a week and 11 hours (not credits), so needless to say I'm cutting it close.
Mike is doing great. He's working hard on his classes and should get some pretty great grades if he keeps up the good work. He's wonderful to help around the house, especially considering most of my days are 11-12 hour days. Yesterday I came home from school and all our laundry was on the bed and it was CLEAN! It made me extra happy. Another thing that he has picked up on is that it makes me really happy when he walks me to work because he knows how much I hate walking by myself up to campus at 6:30 A.M. He's gotten up and walked with me a few times and it definitely makes my day! What a sweet hubby!
That's pretty much all from us - I'm working 8 hours tomorrow so maybe I can bring a few pictures on my flash drive and get them up. I'll do my best.

Update

Ok, so it's been a while - sorry! Things have been crazy with trying to get all our summer fun crammed into two weeks and then starting school. But we've almost made it through the first two days of the semester so hopefully we can survive the rest.
So here's the update... we got two blissful weeks without any homework! We went to Bear Lake, spent time with family a few times, and just enjoyed being together without too much stress from school. Now we're back in the thick of things.
Yesterday (the first day of school) was a little intense because I went from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. without a break, but I better get used to it because it's definitely not going to be the last time. :) Mike's day went great yesterday until he started feeling a little under the weather, but he's getting back to normal today and hopefully will be fine tomorrow (we both still have no idea what caused this, but hope it leaves soon!)
Today I started my new second job working as a student office assistant in the administration dept. of the library that I've worked at for the past 2 years. My job basically entails running errands, answering the phone, and doing what people ask me to do. It's kind of cool though because the administration office is the Dean's office so I do work for him sometimes too. It's just an addition 5-6 hours on top of my regular library job, but I get paid better and get to do homework most of the time. We feel really blessed to have had this job, which basically fall into my lap. It was definitely an answer to prayers!
We now have family living very close by! Justin (my bro) and Cade (my cousin) are now living just five blocks away from us and it's fun to have them around! Cade even works at my same job in the library! It's great to see them often and feed them often.
More info to come soon... with pictures!

Best Cousins

Wow! It's been a while - sorry.
Well, we are off on our last big vacation for the summer - St. George! I can't wait, but first I wanted to share something about our previous vacation. We went to the tiny town of Monroe, UT, where my dad grew up, for the 24th of July. We had a blast visiting with friends and family, going to the parade, lighting fireworks, and sitting on the porch enjoying the small town life. Sadly, Mike spent the majority of time writing his paper for his online English class and everyone really missed not having him around as much as usual - especially me.
However, my favorite part of the whole weekend was watching my cute 5 year old sister Whitney and our cousin Keller, who is the same age, play. They spent every waking (and sleeping) moment together and never had one fight or disagreement!

On Saturday, my mom and I were sitting on the porch talking and watching them play. I heard Keller say "Whitney, we're best cousins huh? And I don't even know why?" How cute it that?

The best part of this cousin friendship is that one morning we woke up and found this...

And this...

and this...

Isn't that so cute? They had fallen asleep on my grandma's love-seat couch together and nobody knew until the next morning. We have a tradition that all the grand kids sleeping in the living room together during family get togethers, but I am pretty sure they started out the night in separate beds.
I hope they always stay just as good of friends as they are now, but I guess the sleeping together will probably have to end soon. :)