Other Photos from our Vacation

We stopped at the Manti temple quick on our way to Arches. Mike had never seen it so we decided to stop quick and take a picture.

Arches! It is such an amazing place!

Mike being a good uncle and carrying Christopher during part of our hike.

We made it! This was a fun, but very hot hike. We had a blast though!

Anna, Thomas, Christopher and Mike's head by a Indian Hogan in Blanding. They had a hole in the top that was just right for Mike's head. :)

Melissa and Mike watching the 4th of July parade. They were having a blast...not really.

Mesa Verde, Tempe, Arches & Blanding twice!

We have had such a fun week! We left two Friday's ago for a week long trip through four different states in hopes to spend a lot of time with family and find an apartment in Tempe. And we accomplished both! We went to arches last Saturday. Sunday we spent the day hanging out with my Grandparents in Blanding. Monday and Tuesday were spent in Mesa Verde with Mike's family.

Wednesday we spent the day driving to Tempe. Thursday we decided on an apartment in Tempe. And Friday we drove back to Blanding for the 4th of July. We got back to Logan around noon today so we are a little shell shocked. It has been a whirl wind of a week. We put over just a little shy or 1800 miles on our car! Woah! I have more pictures from the other days of our trip, but I left my camera in Blanding so I'll post them next week.

THE SEWING MACHINE

So here's to story - one of my good friends from my work was talking to me one day and I told her how much I wanted to get a sewing machine one day. Then she asked me if I wanted hers. :) She said it's in bad shape outside, but as far as she knew it was in pretty good working condition. So, I came and took it from her.
It sat in my apartment for a few weeks and then at my mom's house for a few more. Finally one day my mom got sick of it being there and we pulled it out to see if it was worth salvaging. After working with it for a while we were both pretty impressed with it's capabilities. So I decided to take on the project of making it not smell like mold and making the outside look cute. :) Here's what it looked like at the beginning:


Pretty gross right? We let it sit for a while after we peeled off the old paper in hopes that the mold smell would dissipate. It did kind of did, but it still needed some help. My grandma suggested that we paint over it because that would cover the smell. So I put a few layers on it this weekend.
Paint:

Then over the past few days I have taken vinyl covering and covered the whole thing. We also had to cut a new cover for the bottom because it was completely ruined. Then we just bound some little feet thing for the bottom and we were done! I'm really excited to have a sewing machine and hoping to start some fun projects with it.
Finished project:

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! :)