Fact.

My stomach is growing, obviously, since I'm officially into my 3rd trimester. There's no denying it, I haven't just gained some weight in my stomach, I am definitely pregnant.

My four year old brother Nathan has been so hilarious about the fact that I'm pregnant. Several times a day he points at or pats my stomach and says "wow your stomach is getting big!" or "your tummy is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and then its going to explode everywhere!" My favorite was when he said "whoa look at that body!" bahaha.

Christmas Cheer

Merry Christmas! We have been having a grand ole time in Kansas AND Minnesota with our families. It has been nothing but good times. How could life not be fun and exciting when your sister-in-law is Santa's Helper?

Oh December

Like everyone else in the world, we love the Christmas season. And although I'm not gonna lie, I've been enjoying the balmy 40 and 50 degree weather in Utah lately, its just not Christmas time without snow, and lots of it.

Exhibit A: Minnesota snow from their recent blizzard:

 (These aren't my house or my siblings)

Exhibit B: Coordinated music and house lights. I love these. How can you not be happy watching something like this?

There's a bump

So the past week or two I've finally started to get a little belly, and when I'm walking around or lying down or whatever I'm all like "holy smokes I'm huge!!! I feel like I'm big enough to pop out a baby any day now..." However, when we finally took a picture today, I realized that you can still hardly tell. I dunno it just feels like I've been pregnant forever (I'm at 5 months now) so it seems like I should have more to show for it. Well, either way, here's what I have:

An obvious question?

At Smiths (I can't vouch for other stores... I shop almost exclusively at Smiths these days. Sorry Macey's), when you check out and are ready to pay, you slide your credit card, and then a screen pops up on the credit card sliding machine that says:

$20.08
Is this ok?
Yes       No

And you're supposed to hit Yes to continue. But every single time it does I look at what I bought and then look at the amount and think "you know, actually, if you really are asking, $20.08 seems a little high. How about $12.83?? That seems much more reasonable."

But of course they really do want the full $20.08 for my fruits, vegetables, yogurts and meat and sugar and chocolate and two containers of ice cream.

Why are they asking if they don't even care??!!!

The overstatement of the season

Utah was supposed to get the winter blizzard of all blizzards yesterday... but all we got was a dusting of snow and a big letdown. What a kick in the pants eh? The best part was how serious BYU got about it, and I guess if we had actually gotten a legendary blizzard it would have made sense. Better safe than sorry I suppose, but...

1. they closed down campus early, at 3pm (not that I'm really complaining about that) and
2. sent out numerous text messages and emails and calls through their emergency alert system. This wouldn't have been so bad, but the texts that I got came in random, non-coherent pieces. For example, Matthew got this message:

S: Extreme Weather Emergency alert from BYU Police: The National Weather Service is warning of a winter snow today that will far surpass anything that we've seen, probably for the last several years. The combination of snow, extreme cold and possibly damaging winds will make travel extremely hazardous. The storm will begin in the north and move south., hitting SLC later this afternoon. Please watch the weather reports and be prudent in your travels.

So that was the message he got, all in one text. I got what was supposed to be the same message, however it came to me in 11 different texts as follows:
Text  #1: S: Extreme Weather Emergency a
        #2: Police:
        #3: warning of
        #4: surpass a
        #5: for the la
        #6: of snow, e
        #7 winds will
        #8: The storm
        #9: south, h
        #10: afternoon
        #11: and

What the...???

Anyway, I guess Salt Lake valley did get a fair amount of snow, and I'm sure other places in Utah got more than we did too, but for us, we were super excited for tons of snow, but all we got was a little bit of white stuff on cars and the grass. Lame sauce.

We're having...

A GIRL!!!!

Its totally legit... 'nuff said.

3 Reasons Why Harry Potter isn't Epic

Matthew and I did end up seeing this last Harry Potter on the opening day. And I have to say that although we enjoyed the movie and thought it was overall pretty good, we are both of the opinion that Harry Potter movies (not the books, but the movies) are just not what they could be. They're good, but just not epic. Feel free to disagree, and we're sure many people do, but this is our personal opinion. Here are the reasons why:

1. Acting. Neither of us feel that many of the lead roles have very good actors, with Harry, Ron and Malfoy being the biggest culprits (Seriously, does Ron have any other facial expressions other than "ugh, I'm scared and I think I'm going to be sick"?) To their credit, they have gotten better throughout the series, but still the acting leaves much to be desired. And actually, now that I think about it, many of the minor or supporting characters aren't that good either. Albus Dumbledore is an exception. He's wonderful of course.

2. Soundtrack. While the main tune is good (you know which one I'm talking about), I noticed that the  general soundtrack just isn't that memorable. I can't think of a single other tune in it, and even though the main song is catchy, its just not epic. For example, I can only think of one song from Pirates of the Caribbean, but hello it is fantastic.

3. Book-turned movie plight. We felt that instead of striving to form a coherent and compelling plot with good character development, the writers chose instead to pick and choose exciting events from the book and throw them together. We understand that you can't include everything (especially all the conversations) from a book in the movie, but we feel that more could have been done to create a storyline that could stand on its own, without having to rely on your knowledge of the books to put things together. For example, Lord of the Rings (an epic trilogy if there ever was one) does a fantastic job of combining sweet action scenes with good character growth and a developed storyline.

Something I wanted to get off my chest

Sometimes I feel so lame being pregnant. Clarification: I"m excited to have a baby, but sometime I feel so lame being pregnant, oh and unemployed, in Utah. Especially in Provo, Utah, where it seems like seriously every other girl is preggo. I'm a blog stalker, I admit, and more lately because I get bored, but if you have a list thing on your blog of other people you follow, likely I've at least read at least some of them. I know its kinda silly. And anyone who is around Provo is, I swear, pregnant.

It just makes me feel so dumb, especially because I didn't get an internship and I'm not working now (not my choice but that's just what life is right now). I feel like some ditzy stereotypical girl who went to BYU just to get married and start popping out babies as soon as possible. [Even though I know that most, if not all, of the girls who are pregnant (including myself) aren't ditzy and care about education and are just doing what they feel is right about baby timing.]

I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't feel this way (or at least a lot less so) if I was pregnant in any other state or, hint hint, any other country, but for some reason being pregnant in Provo just makes me think like this. Can anyone else relate to this feeling?

Celestial Food

So, my mom came into town for several days this past week. It was so fun! We bought and made lots of good food and had lots of girl time. One day we seriously made one of the most flavorful, delicious meals I've had. We tried out a recipe for teriyaki beef with pineapple salsa and holy smokes it was an explosion of flavor in your mouth!

We marinated strip steaks in the homemade teriyaki sauce, then pan-fried it in some of the sauce. The sauce thickened and carmelized a bit (or something like that) onto the steak and coated it in a layer of deliciousness. Then we made a salsa with diced fresh pineapple chunks, red pepper, green onion and cilantro. You serve the beef with the salsa, and we also rounded out the meal with sauteed sweet potato, raspberries,  and the rest of the pineapple. I wish I had taken a picture--the plate was so colorful! Like I mentioned earlier, the steak combined with the pineapple salsa really was just a burst of delicious citrus and tender flavorful beef that worked amazingly together. Am I talking this meal up too much? I hope not... it was unique and scrumptious. Sorry again I don't have a picture to help convince you, but I'll include the recipe below. It really is worth a shot!

Teriyaki Beef with Pineapple Salsa

2 2-pound beef triangles (I have no idea what this means... we just bought 3 strip steaks. I'm sure whatever you use is fine.)

Teriyaki Sauce (We made just half of this, because our steaks weren't huge...it was definitely enough).

2 cups soy sauce

1 cup pineapple juice

½ cup brown sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

1 Tbsp chopped garlic 

Pineapple Salsa: (we ended up omitting the red onion and green pepper. Just saying... Also, a lot of these measurements we just eyeballed what looked good. If you're making a smaller amount of beef like we were, you probably won't need to use the whole pineapple for the salsa.)

1 pineapple, diced small

¼ cup chopped red onion

¼ cup chopped green onion

¼ cup chopped green pepper

¼ cup chopped red pepper

2 Tbsp sugar

2 Tbsp chopped cilantro

(Mix well and let sit at least 3-4 hours) 

Place beef triangles in sealable plastic bag or glass dish.  Combine teriyaki sauce ingredients with whisk and pour over beef triangles.  Place in refrigerator.  Marinate for 3-4 hours or overnight.  Broil or grill to desired doneness.  Serve with pineapple salsa.

One last thing... sweet potatoes, holy cow, how did I not know they were so good? We cut them into strips and fried them in a little oil with cajun seasoning and salt. I went from dubious to a believer.

The learning curve

If being married has taught me one thing, it has taught me that insurance companies are just not your friend. The other day I was talking on the phone to my mom about my woes trying to get insurance to cover stuff, and my dad walks by and says, "Oh, insurance companies? Let me talk to her...Stephanie, at the second coming, the wicked and proud will be burned. I am convinced that certain companies and certain people in those companies, like insurance company people who enjoy denying claims and watching you squirm and suffer, are included in that category." I thought that was hilarious. bahaha.

Currently I've been trying to get my insurance to pay their normal covered rate for some pump supplies. In the past it wasn't an issue, but now they are saying they will only pay a much lower rate, and if I want the higher rate, I have to buy from a different supplier. You with me? The problem is that the supplier's prices are so much higher that either place I buy from, I'm going to be paying at least 2.5 times as much as I was for pump supplies. So my goal has been to try to convince the insurance company that it actually is in their best interest to cover me for the original, lower cost manufacturer--they save a bunch of money as well. Doesn't make any sense, but of course they don't really care eh? So my initial call to the insurance did not yield any good results. However, my mom and dad had this brilliant idea to call the manufacturer who I normally buy the lower price supplies from, and see if they could help me out on their end. Turns out in one relatively short call I was able to get my needed supplies for a very good price. Relatively speaking.

The thing I realized during all of this is that I am paying for... wait for it... plastic tubes and plastic plungers. What?! Very possibly the most overpriced plastic there is. When I was on my parent's insurance (before marriage), diabetes supplies just magically appeared in the the cupboard. Too bad that doesn't work anymore eh?

Is it sad...

that matthew and I decided that the hospital cafe is a good place to eat on a somewhat regular-ish basis?

A couple of days ago there was an article in the Daily Universe about an upcoming omelet night at utah valley hospital. Matthew and I were all like "sweet, omelets!" but when we went it seemed that the wrong date was provided in the newspaper. that was unfortunate, but as we walked by the cafe where the omelets were supposed to happen, we noticed someone with a shake that matthew thought looked really tasty... so we got a shake. and some fries. and then we were all like "wow, this is dang good food for a really good price."

And I guess we're not the only ones. While we were there eating, one of Matthew's friends came in with some of his pals to just order some food as well.

...and then I found twenty dollars.

(I guess this wasn't as riveting as I thought)

Anyway, that's our story!

These are all over one area in Provo

What the....??

baby saga

Today we had a doctor's appointment. Have I mentioned that I have appointments almost every week now, between the OB, the specialists at Maternal Fetal Medicine, and the diabetes educator? Thank you diabetes. One fun perk of all of these appointments is that I get an ultrasound every month (...and get to pay for an ultrasound every month...hmmm) Today was another ultrasound day. I'm just about 17 weeks, and so we could have found out the gender of our baby, if he/she hadn't been so stinkin' shy! The baby was sitting cross-legged, behind the placenta, at a weird angle. Thanks baby :) We did get to see it bop itself on the head with its hand though, which was pretty funny.

So I've mentioned that I'm hoping that our baby is a girl. I think this desire is rooted in many years of tragic heartbreak when my mom was pregnant. I remember being so upset after finding out that the last three of my brothers were going to be boys. Of course, being my turn, I am really hoping that this baby is a girl. So much so that I've been having weird baby dreams, all on variations of I find out its a boy and being sad/upset/mad and want to give the baby back/figure out a way to change it. I've had this dream maybe three or four times? Does this mean I'm a bad person? Honestly, if it was a boy, I really would be ok with that. And I definitely do want to have some boys... just preferably not this one.

Anyway, stay tuned in three weeks for an update on the baby gender saga. Peace!

Little man

Holy smokes my little brother is adorable.

one fine day

Hey all! About a week ago Matthew skived off school a little early and we hiked up to Squaw Peak via Rock Canyon. There are exactly three things I would like to say about this hike:

1. Can I blame that I felt significantly more out of shape hiking compared to several months ago on the fact that I'm pregnant? Never mind the fact that I'm not really showing or anything. Or maybe it has more to do with how I haven't legitimately exercised consistently in a few months. What a gong show.
2. I was surprised at what a beautiful hike the Squaw Peak trail was. For some reason I thought it would all be rocky and gravely the whole way up. False. Once you turn off of rock canyon, you go from a wide, rocky trail to a much narrower dirt trail in the woods among color changing trees. Gorgeous.

Never mind the fact that there is a leaf in my hair. Matthew thought it would be hilarious to make me like Daisy-head Maisy or whatever it is. Also ignore how I look like I'm stoned.. or something.

 3. Turns out the summit of Squaw Peak trail is not the same place as the infamous makeout spot (if you ever say you're going to squaw peak with someone of the opposite gender in Provo, be prepared for some comments about your extracurricular activities.) But seriously, the summit was right at the precipice of the mountain. You kinda felt like if you sneezed at the right spot, you might just blow yourself down the side.

That's all for now!

It's a Christmas miracle!

We finally have TV. Our landlords provide Dish... we've been living here for two months now and finally last night we figured out how it was supposed to work. I know that's a long time... don't judge.

We're mostly excited to be able to watch football and (soon enough) basketball games live. BYU and KU games in our living room--what a thought!

Maybe this seems like a bit too much excitement for something like TV but hey it seriously was so frustrating knowing that somehow we could be watching ______ on the TV instead of a gamecast or online, but not being able to figure out how in the world to make everything work! What a relief eh?

Another query solved by science

At the risk of sounding too excited about physics-y stuff by writing on the topic in two of the last four posts, Matthew and I have answered one of the world's most perplexing questions:
How do such dopey and unattractive guys like these marry such attractive women like these?

 

Science has the answer yet again! Turns out anything that has mass has a gravitational pull. Bigger things, with bigger mass, have a larger gravitational pull. Coincidentally, all of these guys who get pretty girls are also on the large side. Larger man=larger mass=larger gravitational pull towards the woman of their choice.  Case solved!

chocolate! candy!

Today I am really excited for Christmas...just for these babies:

Tragically they're only around for Christmas and Easter...

 

Although, all things considered, that is probably for my own good.

exhausting but fabulous

Seriously who did not love General Conference? The talks were fantastic, and I loved all the funnies that the GA's made during the sessions. My dad got several tickets, and so we got to go to the Conference Center for 2 sessions with him and Aaron [brother] (and the boys also got to go to Priesthood session). What made this even more exciting was that dad got some tickets for my brother Jonathan, who you may remember is serving a mission in the Salt Lake City mission. His mission president said it was ok if we sat with him and took him to lunch on Saturday (actually what he said was "we are in a unique position being in Salt Lake and having families coming into town all the time, so you can see him and sit with him on conference weekend... and we figure if we can contain it to that we are doing pretty good." pretty funny).

So yes, we saw my missionary brother. It was so surreal watching him walk come down the aisle towards us. We got to chat with him, saw him for a big portion of the day on Saturday, and again on Sunday, and just hang out with him (and his companion of course) for quite a while. It was just fantastic. My mom, who didn't get to come out this time, was sooooo jealous. Sorry mom!

Also, you may (or may not) have noticed that Matthew and I were on TV during the intermediate hymn of the Sunday afternoon session. We're a big deal like that.

Clarification

Just in case anyone was wondering, the last post wasn't a joke and I really am pregnant. Surprise!

A few interesting tidbits:
I am currently 12 weeks along.

My due date is April 7, 2011.

I promise this blog won't focus solely on pregnancy/baby.

As far as sickness goes, I've been nauseaus, picky about eating, way fatigued, my face has broken out, and I'm more sensitive to smells. But I haven't thrown up, so I definitely consider myself lucky.

I'm really hoping for a girl.

Isn't Technology Amazing?

    If there's one thing that Matthew has helped me realize in the past year of marriage, it's that space and technology are really amazing things.  The way that the laws of physics help explain all the phenomena we see is pretty cool, and by using these laws we can produce some incredible technology. (This might sound boring... I promise it'll get interesting. Keep reading.)
    One area of technology that really seems to be taking off lately is photography.  I mean, if you think about where it is from derogotypes, to color film, to digital, that's really quite the change.  There is also another branch of photographic development that is perhaps less well known, but even more spectacular. 
   This photo is actually an example of how we have recently been able to bend space and take photographs not only of objects hundreds of light years away, but from hundreds of light years away.  This is a picture of our own Milky Way Galaxy.  How did they get the camera there?

I promise, this was labeled as "milkyway_4".  It must be a true picture.

   But, there are even greater advances.  Not only can we capture events as they happen, scientists have now helped us go back in time and capture events that happened thousands of years ago.  Don't believe me?  Look at this photo.

 

   This is an actual photograph of Saul on the road to Damascus.  Now, I know it isn't the best quality (it sort of looks like a painting), but you have to remember the amount of time this photo is crossing.  Plus it was an earlier attempt at "back-in-time" photography.  But, the FHE manual where I got this assures me that it is copyrighted by Globe Photos Inc., so there you go.

    Now this photo is a prime example of the advances in this particular field.  Scientists were able to get an actual photo of the First Vision!  In fact, I think they're even planning to release a video of the event they have captured from over almost 200 years ago.  Absolutely astounding. 

    And now, for perhaps the greatest advancement of all.  Scientists have developed a way to take photos of... THE FUTURE!!  Now, thanks to Matthew being a physics major, we were able to help in the testing of this, and we have a picture to share.

    This is a photograph of Stephanie from about March of next year:

Pretty amazing, eh?  Well, we thought you would all be interested in this fantastic development. Just so you know, we're absolutely thrilled about it.

a shopping (mis)adventure

Back in July I bought a shirt for about $10 at Forever 21. As an aside, I have to say that that store has really gone downhill the past few years. I remember it having some fantastic clothes back in high school... now its just all kinda skanky.

But in July I did see a shirt that I liked, and so I bought it, but I am my mother's daughter and a couple of days later decided that I really didn't want to keep it after all. Unfortunately, Forever 21 has an exchange only policy. Matthew ended up returning  it for me, but called me from the store and said he found some guys jeans that looked good and also happened to be $10. The guys dressing room was closed, but we figured if they didn't work we would just return them again.

Later that day, I asked him to model the jeans for me. You can imagine his surprise/embarrassment and my amusement when it turns out that Matthew had just bought some tight skinny boy jeans. Bahahahaha. I really really wish that Matthew had let me take a picture, but there was no way he was letting me near a camera with those jeans on. Too bad.

To make this story even better, it turns out that Forever 21 enforces a 3 week exchange window--after 3 weeks there's no going back. I guess in the midst of moving and the end of classes and such we forgot to go back and exchange them... which means that we still have Matthew's skinny boy jeans in the closet of our spare room. *Giggle* The funny reminder every time I see the bag is very much worth the $10 of clothing that won't be worn. Maybe I can convince him for Halloween...??

A better deal than $4 generics

Most of the time I, like I'm sure pretty much everyone else in the country, do not have particularly fond feelings towards prescription drug companies. Sure we all really appreciate the meds because we need them, but who likes paying an arm and a leg, and maybe even selling your firstborn child in order to pay for it? Yeah, me neither.

However, lately I think I have to admit I admire drug companies in one particular case. The BYU student health plan does not cover any prescription drugs. Zero. I know, its crazy good coverage right?? Anyway, for people like me, who needs insulin to live, or Matthew, who has his meds every day, that could get really expensive really fast.

Thankfully BYU has the Student Assistance Program. If you don't make much money, you can get all of your prescription drugs... for FREE. Well, actually we pay $25 a year for the application to the drug companies, but then we get all the insulin we need for the next year. Can you say lifesaver?

I take my hat off to you, drug companies.

Reruns

Well adding and dropping three or so classes later, the add/drop deadline has passed us and Matthew is signed up, of all things, for Nutrition 100. I know. He could've been taking French, but nutrition is my other one love and so I'm very pleased. Again, this was not even something that I tried to cajole him into doing. Nothing but good times here.

Speaking of good times, Matthew ordered me a belated birthday present that arrived a couple days ago. Apparently he was getting fed up with my chapstick crises... as in I run out of chapstick and we HAVE to go to the store RIGHT AWAY and get some more... or I can't find my chapstick and everything else goes on hold until we find it. And heaven forbid if there was some sort of disaster or chapstick factory explosion and there was a run on chapsticks at the store...

So, Matthew's solution was to buy me 45 packages of chapstick! Now we can put one in every room in the house, in the car, in my blood checker and in my purse. I'll never be more than 10 feet away from a chapstick again in my life!

Jobs and flowers

Greetings from the world of unemployment! In case you didn't know, turns out the economy isn't exactly producing a multiplicity of jobs... so this college grad is writing this post at 11:30am on a Thursday, from the comfort of her couch, sans job. And its not even because I'm not trying. Oh I've tried. And I will continue to try. Tomorrow.

The good news is that I am looking at 2 gorgeous bouquets of roses that my dad and my husband got me for my birthday. Sometimes you get a bouquet of flowers and they don't really open up very well, or they just die right away. Lucky for me, both of these bouquets have been fabulous and opened up just beautifully. It makes me excited for next semester when Matthew is going to take Floral Design (and he's doing it of his own free will and choice!) That's right folks, not even something that I'm secretly signing him up for. Can I just say I'm stoked for gorgeous arrangements of flowers each week? Cuz I totally am.

Speaking of secretly signing Matthew up for classes that I want him to take (read: French), I again signed him up for French 101 this semester. And he even went to a day of it! Yup, my husband has taken exactly one day of French class. And then yesterday he decided to drop it and add another smarty-pants Physics class. Electrostatics and Magnetism or something like that. And it makes sense in the grand scheme of things... so I guess I'm ok with it.

But it puts a damper on all of my plans. My big plan is to have Matthew realize that there is nothing he would love more than to get a job or do an internship in France for a year or two. And there are plenty of physic-y things to do--working at the Large Hadron Collider is one of them.  But I realize that its hard to take the leap from his current mindset to the "it would be a great idea to live in France" mindset. So... to help facilitate the change of heart, I figure that taking several French classes could help. *Sigh* Oh well. We'll try again next semester. And, for the record, Matthew did tell me that he would be willing to take a French class or two, but it just didn't work out very well overall this semester.

One last thing. My job up until last Friday has been working as a secretary in the Nutrition department office. Up until a month ago, I just came in for 2-3 hours in the afternoon and would work on random stuff after the regular secretary went home. Well, she got a different job at the end of July, and so I became the only secretary for many weeks. It was great--I got more hours, and got to learn and do a lot more stuff. In fact, that was going to be my "full-time" job when I graduated, except there is a hiring freeze at BYU, so they couldn't hire me as a regular staff person. Which made my job a bit of a two-edged sword in the sense that I was learning how to do a lot more stuff and was feeling fulfilled with my time at work...but I knew that in a few weeks everything that I was learning would become irrelevant (because it would no longer be my job). Oh well. It was still a good experience. On my last day, I came into the office to find this cute thing on my desk:

Flower shaped measuring spoons! How happy is that?! The dietetics faculty gave them to me, as a thank you for helping out a lot more the last month (and its true, there were a lot of things to do to get ready for the beginning of school). Anyway, I appreciated their thoughtfulness. And they're so cute! I just can't quite get over it. :)

Mind over matter

Hey! So we're living in a new place now. We like it. I just have to smile to myself when Matthew tells some of his guy buddies that his favorite thing about the new place is that there is a garbage disposal. :)

The first few days moving in, though, we were having some doubts about the apartment we chose. Let's just say... the ceilings are low. We're talking only a few inches above our heads, and when you're just suddenly exposed to low ceilings, its a bit of an adjustment. Luckily we found a good solution: take a shower! The ceiling in the bathroom is the same height as everywhere else, but the tub is a few inches higher than the floor. What I'm trying to say is that my head grazes the ceiling when taking a shower. And, since the shower head isn't adjustable in the least, the water hits me below the shoulder blades. Hmm....

The good news is that when you get out of the showers, the rest of the house feels positively roomy. It's like we're living with vaulted ceilings! It's all mind over matter. And don't worry, we are again satisfied with the apartment. Nothing but good times here!

Remember when Rabbit tried to teach Tigger a lesson?...

  I think what he should have done is gotten Tigger to jump around inside, especially beneath a light fixture.  That would've made him more reticent to bounce around.  At least, that's the effect it had on Matthew.  Yesterday at our old apartment, Matthew sprung up from the floor and right into a light.  It left this fantastic gash.

Looks good, eh?

Wanted: Camping terrain

Within the past several days/week or so of blogstalking, I've become aware that everyone and their dog is going camping this summer. I want to go camping! Here's the thing, though. Raised in Minnesota, I have some expectations for camping that don't necessarily have to be met during a Utah camping experience, but 'twould be nice. Here we go:
1. Camping someplace pretty (not saying that Utah isn't pretty... just laying some groundwork)
2. Camping near trees. I just can't quite wrap my mind around camping in the desert. Like, barren wasteland camping. At least not at the present. However, of all the requirements, this is probably the one I'm most lenient on.
3. Camping near water. Be it a stream or lake, I love water stuff. Since I'm from Minnesota, basically anywhere you go you're near a lake or stream.
4. The possibility of a shower. I know, I know, you're thinking "city girl" but there you go. I would love to not be nasty.
5. Camping somewhere where we can make a fire. Apparently sometimes you can't make fires in Utah. Of all the requirements, this is definitely the most important. A campfire is a MUST.

Anywhere in a 5 hour or so radius around Provo is an option. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Any excuse is a good one

Monday was a big day. First off, it was my LAST DAY OF CLASSES! woot. So happy about that one. I'm not sad to say that the undergraduate college chapter of my life is over. Well, maybe a little sad. It was a good time, but I am ready to be moving on.

So I bet you're thinking, what could possible make this day even bigger? Well, duh, it was Rollover Day. Don't know what Rollover Day is? It brings even more definition to my dad's philosophy of "any excuse for a party." A little bit over a year ago, my dad was digging through old pictures and memorabilia at his parent's house, and he came across his baby book. He found a picture of him with the entry: August 9th: Pat's first time rolling over. Well this is a big deal, people. We obviously have to celebrate! Last year marked the first Rollover Day Celebration. There was rolling down the hill races, stick-and-wheel races, bike races, and we ate everything round. This year for the festivities my family went bowling, and of course ate many round things.

Can you even imagine the significance of having my last day of classes on Rollover Day? The symbolism of rolling over a new page, or rolling forward in life was not lost on me and my dad. Suffice it to say...big deal.

I need to make a confession...

I have a problem. Over the past year or two (or maybe five) I've developed this slightly pathetic habit... I scream whenever I drop something. It's not like a prolonged, 5 second scream, but it is a brief shriek. Every single time, without fail, I do it. Recently, this trend has taken a new twist. Now, I scream when Matthew drops something. For example, today he dropped his razor into the sink while he was shaving. I was standing near him, talking to him, I screamed, and he was just like... oh boy.

I'm sure there has to be a name for this. Maybe Obsessive Compulsive Screamer ? OCS? Or maybe Unintentional Screamer Syndrome, USS for short. Perhaps something a little bit simpler, like Screamaholism would be more fitting. Should I be going to SA (Screamaholics Anonymous?) I definitely think I need therapy... and I bet that massage therapy would be just the thing!

I swallowed a marble and it went straight to my arm

I don't mean to brag but...

There's totally a bulge there.

Delightfully delicious

Yesterday I watched my brother-in-law cut up some juicy tomatoes and I was reminded of something I LOVE to eat during the summer. It's super simple.. cut up a juicy red tomato into chunks in a bowl or plate, leaving the tomato juice in the bowl and add some cut up some cheddar cheese chunks and avocado chunks. That's it! The tomato juice acts as a vinaigrette or dressing. Maybe its just me, but I think it is absolutely divine. It's basically just a combination of some of my favorite foods, but boy do I enjoy it.

He gets paid for this!

My husband has such a tough summer job...

 Here he is at work... reading. Working so hard. In fact, he's read quite a slough of books this summer, and many at work. All nine books in the Ender's Game series, two of the 39 Clues books, Dragon Flight, all five Fablehaven books, Maze Runner and is currently working on Our Sacred Honor. What a job eh?!

Matthew is requiring that I note that he does spend time at work helping kids with their homework (that's his job) and some days are busy, but a lot of the summer has been spent exactly like you see it. Hey, its not his fault if no one wants the help of his brilliant mind, right?

The tables are turned

In high school your parents and leaders were constantly reminding you that just because everyone else is doing is doesn't mean you should too. Well at BYU we sing to a little different tune. It's more like: everyone else is doing it, what's taking YOU so long? Or, more specifically, everyone else is A.getting married or B.having babies... and you're next! (And I mean this in the best sense. I love being married!) Interestingly, although I've realized for a long time how marriage-happy we BYUers are (especially some bishops, I've noticed. I think some of them think that their success as a bishop is determined by how many of their ward members get married) I've only recently realized how baby-happy we are. All I'm saying is... half my ward is pregnant. At least.

And just because I know someone is wondering, no, this doesn't mean I'm pregnant (Although the other night I did have a dream that I had a baby and he was stinkin' cute.)

Dream #37

Let's imagine I'm stinking rich and have gobs of money to spend on whatever I please. The first sort of "personal servant" I would get would not be a cook, or a butler, or a chauffeur, or even a maid. I would hire... a personal masseuse.

I can't wait until I'm stinking rich... oh wait Matthew is going to be a teacher...hm...

Hiking Timp

We started hiking at 5:30am...

The climb was absolutely beautiful!

 We also especially loved the waterfalls, and the cool mist they provided. Here we were actually behind the waterfall!

Mitch and Scott were a lot faster than we were...lets just say the hike up was fairly hard, and my legs got tired! Apparently they took these two pictures while waiting for us at a couple different spots. This last picture is really hard to see us, but we're totally there.

Matthew and I inadvertently both wore Kansas shirts on the hike. I cannot believe how many people we passed made some sort of comment like "go Jayhawks" or "I'm going to have to throw you off the cliff cuz you're from Kansas" or "are you from Kansas?" or "this is a long way to come to hike Timp" or "you're not from Kansas anymore eh?" It was pretty crazy.

It's crazy to me that there are actually permanent snow packs on the mountain... and we had to climb through them. It was so weird to be climbing through snow in shorts and a t-shirt, and be hot.

We finally made it to the top after 5 hours of hiking, and boy was it worth it! The view was amazing!

All in all, the hike took 5 hours up, 3 hours back down, to make 9 hours total and 14 miles. As hard as it was going up, the hike down was the worst! We were so sore when we got back home. It was so great though. We did it! With quite a bit of help from Matthew, I made it to the tippy-top! Sorry the post is so long, but for me this was quite an accomplishment. It was gorgeous and I loved it.

I laughed

Hey remember those Old Spice commercials?? The "look at your man, now back to me... I'm on a horse" commercials? The BYU library made a spoof off of that commercial to advertise the library (or something), and it is funny! Matthew and I decided to watch it today, after seeing it advertised on the BYU website, Overhead @ BYU, and an article about it in the Deseret News. It's pretty good, that's all I'm saying.

Ahem

A month or two ago Matthew and I started talking about whether or not we should stay in our current apartment or move to a different one, seeing that our contract will be up the middle of August. Matthew's opinion was hey I like our apartment well enough, and moving is a hassle, so I am 100% fine staying here, but if you want to move I'll be ok with that too.

I have a little different of an opinion. Not that I haven't liked our apartment or our ward, but I have this "the grass is always greener on the other side" perspective on housing, except for me, the grass usually is greener on the other side. I have to admit, I like change. When I was younger and living at home, I used to switch my room around all the time: move the furniture, rearrange, you know the whole nine yards. Every so often my brothers and I would even switch rooms (until I got the big bedroom with the adjoining bathroom in the basement...back off brothers its mine! :) ) I like change in my surroundings or something I guess. For me, there was nothing particularly special about our apartment that kept me wanting to live there, I wanted a change of scenery and I felt like we could probably find someplace better that also cost less money. Well we did find someplace better that cost less money and today we signed a contract for the place. (It's not far away, only about 6 blocks from where we are living now. At BYU that means we'll jump across the boundaries of about 15 wards. :) )

However now that we actually are going to move, I forget about how I like change, and my dad's genes (read: nostalgia) kick in. I have such fond memories of things we've done in our apartment. This is our first apartment, where we lived together right after we got married. This is where we came home to after a long day at school and work. This is where we watched countless movies and played countless games. I've cleaned it so many times! How can we leave?!?!?!

*Sigh* What's a change-embracing nostalgic girl to do?

Boats and floats

Also in Minnesota, we went boating! Loved it. Matthew hit some crazy sauce waves in the tube, and even the puppy came with.

I just think this picture with Sparky and Andrew is super funny.

Mawage

'Bout a week and a half ago Matthew and I took a trip to Minnesota to go to the wedding of Dave and Jessica Passal. Dave is a really cool guy that Matthew taught and baptized on his mission. In fact, it was while he was in North St. Paul, which is my home ward, so I know the Passals too! Matthew's companion also came back for the wedding , and we hung out with him a lot. It was really a cool thing to be at. Temple weddings are just bomb. There's nothing that compares. It was also really cool because Matthew and Scott (the companion) were the witnesses at the wedding. It was nothing but good times!

Notice the happy groom on the right.

Old companions

Er... this was the only picture we have of the bride and groom. I know its not very close up, but boy were they happy! And Jessica had a fantastic dress.

On the phone again

Big news! After about 2 months, I have a working phone again!

During March and April I knew my old phone was on the decline. The battery would last for about half an hour, the charger wasn't fitting into the phone, and eventually, my phone just decided it wasn't going to take a charge any longer.

It took us two more months to get a new phone cuz my parents were trying to decide if they wanted to switch providers (I'm still on a family plan with them).

I apologize if anyone's tried to call me recently and I've never returned the call...

So here it is! Nothing fancy but it works! Although I do have to say, I feel like it has the face that only a mother could love.

Oh boy

There is the very real possibility that Matthew and I will be going skydiving in a few weeks. Part of me is excited and really wants to do it, and part of me is scared spitless at the thought of it.

My dad is the best!

Remember the post a while back about how our apartment has been HOT?! Like 95 degrees hot? Yeah...

Well, my dad was here last weekend for Father's Day! He had to present at a conference in LA early Monday morning, and couldn't get a flight from Minnesota to LA early enough to get there on time. That meant that he would have had to go to LA on Saturday and spent Sunday (and Father's Day) all alone by himself. That wouldn't be fun for anyone, but for my dad, who breathes and lives nostalgia, it would be like finding coal in your stocking at Christmas: "What did I do wrong?!!"

So instead, he flew out to Utah on Saturday, spent Father's day with us, and then got a (super) early flight to LA.

Back to the heat... we were telling dad all about our predicament. More background: we have a little tiny air conditioning unit in our bedroom that keeps it fairly cool. We also have a swamp cooler in our kitchen that is meant to cool the kitchen and the living room. In the fall, it did pretty well, but since we've turned it back on after the winter, its just blown around hot air.

So, dad is here, we're telling him about this, and he brilliantly looks out the window, sees a water pipeline, Matthew and him go outside and fiddle with some stuff (I was holding down the fort; a very important job) they get the water turned on and voila we have cool air blowing through our swamp cooler! Success...for an hour.This actually was only part of the problem... we called our landlord a little bit later and they came and changed the filter and the pump, and now we are enjoying cooler air in our apartment.

Besides helping us fix the swamp cooler, we had a rockin' awesome time climbing Ensign Peak in the Salt Lake area and Rock Canyon in Provo, picnicing, and eating the best steaks and pork money can buy, as well as fresh picked strawberries mom sent with dad from Minnesota.

 I was standing on a rock or something, that's why I look a little taller than dad. Also, it was really windy.

Did I mention it was really windy up there?

One of the best meals I've eaten in months

It was so much fun having him out here for Father's Day. We're so glad you came Dad!

If only I was seven

These past two weeks Matthew and I have been volunteering at the Princess Festival. Its designed for little girls to come dressed up as princesses, go on an adventure and treasure hunt, meet all of the different Disney princes and princesses--and all of the proceeds are for a charity that helps people in Africa. Its been really fun. Matthew has been a prince most days, he's been part of the treasure hunt where girls get "fitted" for a shoe and if it fits then they are a true princess. Cute right? I've been making balloons, I'm the Balloon Fairy. Everyone who volunteers or is a vendor has to be dressed up in princess or fairy tale stuff, so you come into the place and its like you are in princess land. It all takes place at someone's private property in Lindon, and the place is amazing! Seriously its crazy awesome cool. When I first showed up there it blew me away. So I thought I would share some pictures:

Notice the little girls dressed up as princesses

You can sort of see the castle behind the playground. We didn't get an awesome picture of it.

A tower of the castle (and Rapunzel...)

This is "the ballroom." Crazy animal statues in front, can you see the gorilla on top of the house?

The inside of the ballroom. Seriously so awesome.

Sweet gazebo thingy

And of course, your favorite prince and balloon fairy