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.