These are a Few of My Favorite Things

A blog post dedicated to some of the loves of my life. Although these are in no particular order, some are....just pretend like that makes sense and you might see what I mean. Funny that I had this idea, and then looked at a friend's blog and she did the same thing. :) Share the love.

1. First and foremost, {my husband}. I love him lots. I love the way he is super dedicated to

everything he does. He never does anything halfway. I love his creativity.

He pretty much made the wreath hanging on the front door. I love it when he visits me at work. :) It just makes my day because I probably don't want to be there in the first place. :)

2. {blueberry bagels} ohhh man. I don't know why, but they are just my favorite thing to eat right now. Mmm. Usually just the ones from WinCo.

I don't know why. They just taste better.

3. {Weddings} Oh, how i love a good wedding. I loved planning mine and i love being involved in anyone else's.. I think i just love the pure happiness that comes from

weddings. Nothing in the world is wrong at a wedding.

4. {My family} I really love my family. I don't know where i would be

without them. They are always there for me no matter what i need. They love my husband. They always make me laugh.

5. {My In-Laws} They are just awesome. No matter where in the world they are.

They let me do laundry at their house and use their internet amongst other things.

6. {Burger King} mmmm... i love me a whopper every once in a while. Here's one word about why i love burger king over McDonalds: FRESH. The end.

7. {Taco Bell's $2 Meal Deals} Love to grab one of these before work. Fills me right up. And they're cheap.

8.{Subsidized Housing} because they make our rent cheap! Ya baby.

9. {Tax returns and FAFSA} because they give us lots of money :) that we can spend on the dentist and stuff! YA!

10. {Jamba's Sweet Street Waffles} mmm. divinity. If you hadn't noticed, i love food a lot.

11. {Going on a date with my husband} it's nice to just get out and see a movie or something together.

12. {Summer} it's almost here!! I love being tan.

13. {My car} although it's starting to fall apart, i love having two vehicles. It makes life so much easier!

March Madness

So it's march. You know what that means. Time to redo the blog. HA. I was needing a little more color. What do you think? Well, not a lot has been going on with us. Week after next is finals week and we're just busy trying to get all our projects and assignments done. We'll have a good break though. Going to utah for Melissa's wedding and then our 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY! It's coming!! and Basketball. Ya. I've never been interested in watching the NCAA Championships, but I've been watching with Brennen lately. It gets pretty intense. We were sad when BYU lost, but oh well, what can you do? And of course we gotta throw in a plug for JIMMER. enough said.

We're really loving the government right now. BIG tax returns and by the end of the month we have to deposit all our FAFSA by tomorrow. Plus the insurance check from my car. all in all, we're getting about 6 grand this month! :) Love it.

Stuff

If you have time to read a short novel, go to the "Our Story" page to read about our dating and engagement. Mostly it's on here because i'm beginning to forget. Oops. :|

Skiing, Birthday, and Fish

So here is a post dedicated to things that i have been meaning to put on here for a while.

1. My birthday. Complete with 21 candles. Brennen made the cake and Meaghan decorated it. It was yummy. :)

2. This is my fish. His name is Fiyero. Yes. Like the Scarecrow from Wicked. His Birthday was sometime last year. Happy belated birthday Fiyero.

3. Brennen took me skiing for the first time. I didn't take to it very well.

"A room without books is like a body without a soul"

I don’t remember who this quote is by, but it’s in the David O. McKay Library on the second floor by one of the group study rooms.

I love reading books. And lately I’ve been reading a lot of them. One of the classes I’m taking is Children’s Literature and I’ve read a lot of books for this class and they’ve all been pretty good. SO if you like to read, take this class. Here are some of the books I have read and some that I want to read.

Beauty

by Robin McKinley

This is a take on the classic Beauty and the Beast story…and it’s so good! I really enjoyed this one. It’s told through the main character, Beauty’s, perspective. But beware, it has a VERY abrupt ending. This was hard for me, but it was a good book anyways. After you read this book visit SurLaLune.com. This lady has put together this website with all the original (or as original as she could get) fairy tales. McKinley’s version follows the original exquisitely. You’ll be impressed

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

By Brian Selznick

Ok, I’m not gonna lie, when I first started this book, I was so uninterested. I finished it and thought, ok that was kinda dumb. But then. In class we visited the site for the book, and HOLY COW. It’s like the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life. You HAVE to own this book and read it to your kids and show them the videos and everything, they will LOVE it!

Call It Courage

by Armstrong Sperry

Ok, this is a REALLY old book, but still good. It won the Newberry award in 1940. The reason I like this book is because it’s about a boy who goes out on his own to make a name for himself and prove himself to his community. I was really impressed with how much the author knew about the animals and plants and gods and stuff. It’s only like 70-90 pages (depending on which edition you get) and a really easy read.

Married for Better, Not Worse: The Fourteen Secrets to a Happy Marriage

by Gary and Joy Lundberg

Ok, I didn’t read this for a class, but in hopes to become a better person and improve my marriage (not that it’s bad; every marriage could use a little TLC right?). THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK and I recommend that whether you are newlyweds or celebrating your 25^th wedding anniversary, you read it. I’m not done yet, but so far I’ve learned a whole lot. The best thing about this book is that you start reading it looking for things you could say “man, my husband/wife could stand to read a little of this,” and come out of it with so many things you need to change about yourself. It’s a real eye-opener and I’ve been self-reprimanded several times. Read it. I mean that. We also have the seminar on CD called Building Forever: Making Your Marriage More Fulfilling One Day at a Time. It’s really good too. I need to listen to it again.

Hold Me Tight: Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

By Sue Johnson

I have been waiting so long to get this book from the library. I expected it to be this little like 8X6 inch book maybe 150 pages. Nope. It’s HUGE. And I’m excited to read it. I haven’t started it yet because I’m waiting to finish Married for Better, Not Worse

I love books. Again. Still. Forever and for always. Especially when I’m off track and have nothing to do but work. It’s nice to just curl up in a big blanket and just read all day. I think this time though, I’m not going to read only Anita Stansfield. Though I will read some. I want to read all the Newberry winner books. There’s a lot of them. But I can do it! J Who’s with me?

Perseverance

I am on a roll with homework today! I've gotten a lot done. I'm really behind in a lot of my subjects so i've got to buckle down and do some catch-up. Only right now i'm taking a break from writing a fifth grade lesson plan on "setting." Can you really teach a whole lesson on setting? I'm having a hard time coming up with ideas, so i opted for a break. Brennen's studying biochemistry,

he studies more for that class than any of his others, he'll probably get a B- and still want to retake it next semester. Heck. A B- would be pretty good for me! I admire his dedication and perseverance. I told him the other night that i didn't care what he was when he grew up, just as long as he was a peace with it. Luckily he's still able to go to school despite all his credits. They almost kicked him out. That was a big blessing. Now he's planning on retaking the GRE at the end of next semester and maybe applying to P.A. schools next month. I always say that i hate school and i dislike writing lesson plans...I guess i better change my major, huh? haha.

Ugh. I got sick on my birthday and yesterday i was pretty sure i was getting an ear infection. but my ears feel better today and i'm starting to get some drainage in my sinuses so that's a good sign that this won't last much longer. I'm sniffling and coughing a lot and it's annoying.

So, interesting fact about me (or not so much) is that i find grammatical error HILARIOUS. I know i'm a nerd. I don't know why but they just crack me up. My educational psychology teacher, Brother Bryan, read us this paper the other day and i was just dying!! i was crying because I was laughing so hard!! This is by a guy named Richard Lederer. he says, "One of the fringe benefits of being an English or History teacher is receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay. I have pasted together the following "history" of the world from certifiably genuine student bloopers collected by teachers throughout the United States, from eight grade through college level. Read carefully, and you will learn a lot." here's the jist of the paper:

"The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cul- tivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.

The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper

The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the "Vir- gin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself be- fore her troops, they all shouted "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo"

Oh when i read these i was just in tears!! I still am. ALSO!! I just watched this video on youtube and you will be rolling on the floor!

Happy laughing! :)

Why do recipes hate me?

So today Brennen had to go do clinicals at the hospital. From 6 to 6. So I went to Stake Conference by myself. It was pretty good. We got a nice lecture about doing our visiting and home teaching. That was great. So when I got home I didn’t know what to do. So I finished the second X-men movie that I started yesterday. I was supposed to wait to watch it with him, but I didn’t know how much longer that would take. I’m like really into the X-men movies now. Meaghan gave us the first one on Bluray and ever since…So I watched it. And I made some cookies. They turned out to be a disaster. So here’s what happened. I made them according to the recipe. I think to myself “This dough is really…sticky.” But I did what the recipe told me to do so I put them on cookie sheets and stuck them in the oven. When I go back to check on them about 3 minutes before I’m supposed to pull them out, they look like burnt pancakes.

Not cool. So in my frustration I pour about a cup and a half of flour into the remaining dough and mix it all up and bake it. It worked. I have cookies now instead of chocolate chip blech. Another reason they weren’t good. Shortening. No butter, only shortening. I probably won’t be doing that again. Or just sticking to snickerdoodles.

I feel old.

Well, my birthday is monday and, you guessed it, I'm turning 21! Well i decided that today is as good a time as any to reflect on the past 21 years and...ha. just kidding. Actually what happened is this. One day I was walking from the Hinckley to the Smith building on the BYU-I campus. I passed a guy giving a girl a new memory stick (like the ones for cameras) and I heard him say "It's only 8 gigs..." ONLY 8 gigs? Ha. Remember the days when we thought a 512 mb was amazing? We were like "oooomigosh, that's so much memory." Now it's like "Here's a new external hard drive. It's only a 1 terabyte though." Just to give you a mental picture:

512 mb holds: 2560 200kb pictures

or

160 songs

1 tb holds: 265000 High quality 6 Megapixel Photos in JPEG format

or

76 hours of "digital format"movies

or

440 hours of DVD movies

I remember my first iPod. It was the long white skinny shuffle. It had 512 mb.

I thought I was so cool. Now everyone had 32 mb iPod touches. Wow.

Saturday Night

Tonight had been....boring. First off, I got to go into work at 6 am this morning. Wopee! Then I came home and chilled for a while. I got dinner ready (at like noon). Here's the story. Large piece of beef rubbed in goodness with onions and carrots and 1/2 cup beef broth in the crockpot for 4 hours. On high. Mistake numbers 1 and 2. The carrots tasted like meat and the meat was chewy and hard. Mashed Potatoes. Didn't get cooked long enough so they wouldn't mash. We had lumpy potatoes. :( The gravy was lumpy too... The crescent rolls come out ok though!! So i ate about 4 of them. Note to self: next time cook on LOW the whole time, no beef broth, and cook the potatoes longer!! I'm a terrible cook, and Brennen's usually pretty good about eating the new things I try to make. We usually end up eating a desert or something afterwards though. :)

Rest in Peace

Yesterday marked the end of a long life for a couple of my belongings.

1. My belt.

I got this belt on my honeymoon haha..because i forgot to bring one with me. :) or maybe I didn't forget... ;)

2. My headphones.

these were attached to my

3. mp3 player that brennen got me for Christmas..

SAD DAY!!! :'( I put them both through the wash.

Rest in peace Grace's belongings. You will be missed.

30 Minutes

alright all. 30 minute blog post! haha, just kidding, that would be a MASSIVE post! I'll keep it short and simple. Went cross-country and downhill skiing on monday and saturday and can i just say

I. HURT.

Yesterday i could hardly move and sunday i was exhausted all day long. But sunday meant dinner with my family!!

I only get down there about every other week. I love going for dinner because

1. my padre is an excellent cook

2. i get to spend time with my fam

3. we can do laundry for free

4. i get to bring home lots of goodies

apple turnovers and banana bread, not to mention leftover hawaiian haystacks....mmm mmmm GOOD! :) we've been eating pretty darn good for the last few days :)

Back to skiing. We have a love/hate relationship.

I feel i was much better at cross country skiing...but even then i wasn't that good.

To tell you the truth, i REALLY didn't want to go downhill skiing. I knew i would be awful and sure enough..i was right. i burst into tears the first five minutes. poor brennen. I couldn't evven get up to the bunny hill :( i was so frustrated, that on top of the stress that i was feeling about the whole thing. UGH. I definitely crashed a few times, even took out a "fence" ha ha. it's probably a good thing we might not be able to go again this winter. I'm a danger to society on those things.

pictures to come.