I know, I know it's been a while...

So our life has been a little crazy, hence me not updated my blog in FOREVER! Basically, I live and breathe "student teaching" and all Mike does is work and school. Even on the weekends. Sunday's are the only reason we are still alive. That being said: we love life! Although life is crazy, we still have about an hour every night to enjoy each other a little bit before we need to go to bed and start over the next day. Mike always keeps me laughing and we love watching "our" shows and playing games.
Here are a few photo updates:
Our Valentines Dinner (we're not much for the super cheesy romantic thing so this was about the best we could do - ha ha!)

We barbecued with our good friends the Rafferty's on Presidents Day - this picture isn't the greatest, but it's better than nothing.

Here's the most recent Anderson family picture - we took this just the day before Mike and I had to go back to Arizona. It was very last minute, but I think it turned out quite well.

And here's the one with just the kids. The urgency of this picture was because Justin left for his mission to Chile in February and we wanted one last picture.

The Glorious Holiday's

I can't even begin to tell you how wonderful our holiday's were. We got to spend 3 weeks in Utah and it was pure bliss! We were able to see almost every family member that lives in Utah and got to enjoy tons of fun Christmas parties. It was so wonderful to get away from normal life and be with family! We were glad to see snow again, but equally, if not more glad, to say goodbye to it when it was time to come home. :)

Here's our cute little Christmas card picture... We liked the cactus theme so could rub it in our families face that we are in heat while they are in cold. :)



We're back to the grind here in Arizona now. I've started my student teaching which is keeping me very busy. Mike is doing school and working as a research assistant. We are both busy, but we're still trying to find time to have fun together! I'm already starting to get a little anxious for summer, but I'm trying to enjoy every day. :)

A recapitulation of events...

Ha Ha! Like my title - I didn't want to title yet another post "update" - so I used a thesaurus. :)

Anyway, life is so good! I just can't even express in writing how happy I am to be in the part of life that I am right now. We are poor, starving, have no idea where the money for next semester is going to come from college students and I love it! We just have each other and it is so much fun! Our marriage has grown so much since we've been in Arizona and had to completely rely on each other. It's been amazing.

And I really do love Arizona. I'm still wearing a jacket while all you Utahn's are freezing your buns off and praying you don't die on the roads. Pretty good life... Now if I could just talk all our family into moving down here with us... :) But I do love it and if we can't go back to Utah and I would definitely be happy staying here - however please note that I am saying this in December - not in July or August. :( Yuck!

I think one of the main reasons we love Arizona so much is because of our ward here. I truly feel that we were led to this ward; that through all the crazy stressing about where we were going to live here and hours of searching for apartments on the internet that the Spirit was just slowly nudging us so that we would end up in this ward. Not only do we feel like we are needed in this ward, but we feel like we needed this ward. It's really nice when it goes both ways. This past Sunday Mike was released from his calling as the Young Men's Priest quorum adviser/secretary and put in as the 1st councilor in the Young Men's. He does such a great job with these young men! I was put in as the Beehive's adviser!!!!!/ward choir pianist. And I already have the call to be the ward organist. Three callings...fun for me eh? But I can't even begin to explain how excited I am to be in Young Women's! It's kind of weird to me that just 3 1/2 years ago I was in young women's myself, but I am still thrilled! We have a really small group of youth so even though my title is beehive's advisor I am really with all the girls that are in middle school and then there is another leader that is with the girls in high school. The other women that just got called in to Young Women are AMAZING women! Literally every single one of them are incredible. I feel really overwhelmed about the privilege of getting to work with them - and especially giving lessons in front of them. :) But I am positively thrilled about this!

Anyway, here's an update just in case anyone was wondering. We are headed to Utah on Sunday or Monday and I CAN'T WAIT!!! We're spending 3 weeks there so come by and say hi!

Meet the new members of our family...

Our cute little turtles! We've had them for a couple months, but I haven't gotten around to posting about them. Rocky is the one on the left and Adrienne is the one on the right. They aren't exactly my favorite things in the world, but I love them because of how much Mike loved them. And he's awesome at taking care of them too. I don't do ANYTHING! It's great!


They are cute little babies! They have actually grown a lot! Here's a pic that kind of shows how small they are when you compare it with Mike's fingers:


And here they are in their cute little habitat. They are water turtles so they live in water, but they have to have the cute little dock that they can come up on and bask in the UVA and UVB rays.

The latest project :)

My name is Heidi, and I am addicted to cheap/cute crafts!

Ha-ha! So here's my latest project. I saw this on a blog - I can't remember which one, but I was dying to do it! My friend suggested to look at Goodwill for a cheap window shutter and I found this one at Goodwill for two bucks!!! Woohoo!

So yesterday I painted it and popped the bow on (I decided to put the bow on it so that I could kind of disguise the missing slat at the top.) and I was done! I totally love this because it's a cute decoration and a great way to organize my important papers that need to be taken care of!

"Our fun weekend"

This weekend was a complete party. This is what we did:

And when I say "we" I mean Mike. He did six of them - 3 pages front and back - for a final he has today. It literally took him ALL weekend! And he wouldn't let me help because he was afraid his professor would notice the random changes in handwriting, even though my handwriting sadly looks more boy than girl. I feel so bad for his poor back and hands! I think he actually has some small blisters starting on the tips of his fingers. Yuck! Hopefully he will do well on his test and this dreary weekend will have paid off!

My Cheap-o Fall Decor

So last week I was doing an awesome job of procrastinating studying for a test and decided to find a fall craft that I could do with just the things I had in my house. I found this. I thought it was a pretty cute idea. I didn't have any ribbon, so I improvised and I still really like how mine turned out. I also used rolled up paper for the stems and the big one looked really empty so I made a small one and put it inside of the big one. I had a lot of fun making them! And I definitely enjoyed procrastinating. :)

Leah came to visit!

October has been great! I got to spend a weekend with my family in Blanding and then the next weekend Leah came to visit! It was so great! It was a complete bummer because I was really sick the whole time she was here, but we tried to make the best of it. We spent a little time with James and Amy:


We went to a session at the Mesa Temple. It was a blast! Even though I was snuffling and (quietly) coughing through the whole thing. It was only the second time Leah had gone through a session so that was really fun.

We, of course, had to make a quick stop at one of the Nielsen's in Arizona since Leah worked at the Nielsen's in Bountiful through high school. It was so yummy and fun!

And we did what we do best...play Dr. Mario!!! It's always nice to play together because it actually gives us both some good competition. :)

We were so glad that she was able to come visit! She's leaving for a mission in January, so it was great to spend some good time together. Thanks for coming Leah!

San Diego!!

One of the perks of living in Arizona is that we are FIVE hours from the beach! This is pretty awesome for us because from Utah it's more like a 10-13 hour drive. We decided to visit San Diego over Labor Day weekend with the Rafferty's. It was such a blast! I went to high school with James and Amy and they actually live in our same apartment complex! It's been great having them around and we had a blast together in San Diego. We packed SO much into 2 and a half days! Here's a few of the things we did:
We attended a session at the San Diego temple. It was so beautiful!

We took a complete gamble on the food places we tried out, but it worked out very well! Saturday night we went and tried out a pizza place in Little Italy. And it was AMAZING! Definitely the best pizza I have ever had. Mike said it was the first time since his mission that he had pizza that tasted like that.

Sunday morning we went to an amazing ward! I have never been to such a touching and spiritual testimony meeting. After church we went to La Jolla where there were sea caves and beautiful beach.

We also got to see a cute family of sea lions. There was two babies, a mom, and a dad. The dad was GINORMOUS!!! But I didn't get a picture of them all together.

We spent a little time playing at the beach:

Later we went over to Point Loma to go to Cabrillo National Monument where we got to go inside a Lighthouse and get a quick look at tide pools.

Amy and I tried really hard to get a cool jumping picture, but we didn't do so hot...

That night we found another awesome place to eat called Rockin' Baja. It was a bunch of fun and way yummy!

Monday we drive over to Coronado. We chilled at a beach/park for just a little bit. Then we grabbed some yummy frozen yogurt and headed over to Old Town. We were way excited to see the Mormon Battalion Monument there, but it's closed for renovation so we'll just have to see it next time. We did get to see a grape stomp like in I Love Lucy, so that was awesome!

On our way to San Diego we passed this hilarious hotel in Gila Bend, AZ called the Space Age Lodge. We thought it was so funny that we decided to make awesome tin foil alien hats and take a picture on our way back. (James' idea) We were trying to beat the sunset, but we didn't do a very good job.

Moving!!! - Finally...

Ok here's the actual moving update. We spent about a week and a half packing up - mixed with spending time with family.
Here's some of our junk stacked up:

And here's how we slept for three days because we had put our bed up to have more room for boxes: (Notice the little lantern next to the bed - Mike wanted to pull it out because we were "camping" haha He cracks me up!)

We spent a very long hot day (at least it wasn't in Arizona) packing up the Uhual. My parents and 3 siblings were wonderful to come and help. Plus we had a few friends and family come by to say goodbye which was very sweet. My dad was amazing! He spent the whole day standing in the Uhaul and he packed that thing like sardines! It was awesome! We were able to not only fit all of our stuff, but also all of our good friend the Rafferty's stuff. They just got married and didn't have a way to get things to Arizona.
Here's us in front of the Uhual:

We got here safely and are now settled. We both really like it here. The only thing that is missing is family.

Pincock Reunion 2009

We had such a perfect ending to our Utah life by having the Pincock Reunion up until literally the day we packed up the Uhaul.
We did an paper airplane flying contest:

And the winner got to put the Mentos in the Diet Coke. This was such a cool thing! Everyone should try it out - in a place where they won't have to clean like an field.

We did lots of other fun things like volleyball, card games, and of course Settlers of Catan. It was also very fun to get to hear my grandpa tell us that he was just called to be the 1st counselor in the Monticello Temple Presidency! We were also able to get group pictures. This made me really happy since the group pictures that they took during Thanksgiving had everyone except for Mike and I. Here's just a few:

Holy Cow - It's Been a while.

Wow! Sorry everyone! It's been a crazy couple of months, but we're finally settled and I feel like I have tons of stuff to add to my blog! I will get to the move in a post later, but it'll make me crazy if I don't put up events chrologically! So here you go:
The weekend before we moved we went up to Leah's cabin! It was SO much fun and such a great way to end the whole "Heidi and Leah" phase of my life. :( I know it's sad...but we're still way close - it's just lame that we live to far away from each other!

This is everyone that went. It was great to hang out with old friends and new ones!

Later that week Leah made us a yummy vegetable pizza for dinner:


After we had dinner we decided to go to Willow Park Zoo because Mike and I had never been there. It was a lot of fun, but kind of a lame park. I definitely wouldn't call it a zoo. (Mike says "Whatever, it is too a zoo.") But it was fun to see the cool things they had and even more fun to walk around with Leah and talk.

Anyway there's a little update. I will try and slowly get caught up throughout the next few days.

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: