Tag! You're it!

A. Post the rules.
B. Answer all the questions about yourself.
C. After you are done, tag 5 people.

1. What were you doing 10 years ago? 10 years ago?! This is really going to make me seem super young. Haha. 10 years ago I was getting ready to graduate from Primary into Young Womens, and I was getting ready to move from elementary school to junior high. 10 years ago, Darwin was graduating from High School and getting ready to attend his first year of college :)

2. Five things on your to-do list today: I honestly wish I had 5 better things on my to do list...my life is a little boring right now. 1) Drop a load off at DI 2) Go make our car loan payment 3) Think of something to make for dinner tonight, and then make it 4) E-mail my potential new boss to see if he's made a decision yet 5) Watch "So You Think You Can Dance"

3. 5 snacks you enjoy: 1) French bread dipped in olive oil, definitely my #1 2) Popcorn 3) Pizza...does that count as a snack? 4) Apples in peanut butter 5) Pico de gallo (chunky salsa) & tortilla chips (I should share my recipe--it's soo yummy!)

4. What would you do you you suddenly became a millionnaire? First I'd pay off our car & student loans, buy a house, and put the rest in savings. Oh yeah! And buy a new wardrobe :)

5. 3 bad habits: 1) I bite my nails 2) I honk at people if they sit at a light, just after it's turned green, longer than I think they should. Especially on a turn arrow. 3) I eat too much sugar

6. 5 places I have lived: 1) Layton, UT 2) Millbrook, NY 3) Springville, UT 4) Provo, UT 5) Orem, UT (where I currently live)

7. 5 jobs I've had: 1) Babysitter 2) Mowing lawns over the summers while I was in high school 3) Deckhand/Lifeguard at Lagoon-A-Beach for 2 summers 4) Receptionist at a law firm 5) Secretary at a law firm (I'm impressed I dug up 5!!)

8. 5 things people don't know about me: 1) I'm obsessive compulsive about number patterns 2) I'm somewhat terrified to have kids 3) I lived in chronic pain for 2 years (some of you know that already) 4) I barely graduated from high school because of my chronic pain 5) Darwin and I got engaged after a week of "hanging out". We hadn't even gone on an official date yet :)

Okay, now for the tags:
Jennie Olsen
Jenny Martin
Cristin
Carolyn
Marci

We're going to grad school!!

Darwin & I are super stoked because we just got the acceptance letter in the mail yesterday! Darwin was just accepted to graduate school at Mississippi State University for his masters degree emphasis in Teaching in Geoscience. Yay! He'll begin classes in the fall, and will continue teaching junior high full time as well. No worries for those of you who might be nervous that we're moving to Mississippi....we'll be staying right where we are. Phew! We're fortunate enough that Darwin is able to do his masters degree online, which is also the reason he'll be able to continue teaching full time while working on his own education. Another stepping stone to our life's journey is well on its way. Life is so wonderful right now...what more could we ask for?

Congratulations, Courtney & Wayne!!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the sealing of a very good friend of mine, Courtney Ruttenbur, to her sweetheart, Wayne Bulsiewicz (I actually spelled his last name right without looking!). While I was at the temple waiting for Courtney & Wayne to come out, I saw another friend from high school come out of the temple...turns out she got married as well. Small world! I was completely honored to be at Courtney's wedding and I am so proud of her for her amazing example to her friends, but most especially to her family. Unfortunately, for as warm as the weather was at the beginning of this week, it was REALLY cold yesterday, but I shouldn't complain because at least I had a jacket...Courtney was just in her wedding dress (and we were all extremely relieved it didn't rain at the reception because it was outside at the Gallivan Center in SLC)! Courtney was absolutely the most beautiful bride at the Salt Lake Temple yesterday, and her dress was gorgeous! I am so glad I was able to spend their special day with them, and for Darwin to be able to come up and spend a few hours with us, helping to set up for the reception and then being able to celebrate their marriage with all the fun things that happen at wedding receptions :). The day was wonderful, and despite Satan's attempts to make it so they wouldn't get married, I'm so glad everything worked out. Courtney & Wayne, you two are such a perfect couple, and we are so proud to be your friends! Congratulations!

Disneyland Memorabilia

About this time last year Darwin & I were in Disneyland with our good friends, Jared & Tracee McSweeney. We had such a wonderful time, despite Tracee being 7 months pregnant, she was a great sport and I completely admire her strength. It would take forever and a day for me to talk about our entire trip, but mostly for myself I wanted to remember our fantastic vacation to California. Kind of off the subject, Darwin & I have a goal to visit all other 49 states (seeing we live in 1 of the 50 :) and 2 foreign countries in our lifetime together--and our Disneyland trip last May was our first time to California together. We will be able to cross a few more states off our list this summer as we travel from coast to coast; visiting New York in July, then traveling out to Oregon in August. We'll keep you updated on our summer adventures!

So mean

Sweet shades

Liam's reaction...he hated them!

Priceless!!

I had to add another post, related, but separate to the one just below. Being at Build-A-Bear, the clothes and accessories were just Liam’s size! The poor kid. He’s going to hate us when he’s big enough to appreciate the humiliation. At least we didn’t dress him in the princess outfits! Liam, I apologize in advance, sort of :)

Fun day at Build-A-Bear-Workshop

Omie wanted to take the girls to do something fun while she was here, so we took an extremely fun trip to Build-A-Bear-Workshop at the Gateway mall. We had a blast and it was great to see the girls so excited about it.

Giving the bears a little stuffin'

Making sure the bears (and bunny) have lots of love in their hearts

Gotta make sure they're nice & clean before they go home!!

The finished products, minus 2 of them.

And at the end of the day, you can never forget the little things!

Thanks for such a wonderful day out with the girls, Omie! I'm sure this an event they will always look back on and remember the great time they had, then they won't be able to help but smile.

May Showers

Because my nephew, Liam, came early we ended up having a be-lated shower for my sister, Shannon, while my Omie (a.k.a. grandma, my mom's mom) is here visiting from New York. It was great because my grandma from Idaho was able to come down for the shower as well. It was so nice to have both of my grandma's together at the same time with all of us. The shower went well, and was the first one I was pretty much in charge of. We had a great time. Below are some photos from the event :)

My sister, Shannon, & my mom

My nieces, Amaia, Hannah, & Jaisy

Omie, me & G-ma Koon

My younger sister, Bri w/ our g-ma's

My older sister, Shannon w/ our g-ma's

Thanks to everyone that came!! I'm sure Shannon is very appreciative of all the gifts she was given. We all know how expensive babies can be, and every little bit of outside help is definitely beneficial!!

Fingers Crossed

It really is amazing how things in life fall into place sometimes, isn't it? For example, me and Darwin meeting, getting engaged so quickly without knowing each other and amazingly have things work out perfectly. Well, something happened today that seems like it's another one of those things that just happens to fall into place...a cute friend from our ward called me this afternoon and said, "I have a random question: are you doing anything for work, and if not, do you want something?" Well, I am currently not working and I wasn't going to look for anything over the summer because Darwin and I have the opportunity to party for a good amount of the summer (Yay!) and I figured no one would want to hire me and then have me ask for 5 weeks of the summer off :) Either way, she said she works for a dentist who needs a new receptionist (which is right down my alley) and that he'd work with my insanely crazy schedule, so I have an interview set up for tomorrow morning! Wish me luck!!

"Now I know my ZYX's"

I have to tell you that I have accomplished the task of memorizing the alphabet backwards. I'm sure most of you are wondering why I would even do such a thing, or why it's even important. Here's the thing...Darwin learned it backwards before he went on his mission, and I've heard him recite it several times with great speed, so I was determined to learn it backwards as well. I started learning it by going over it in my head while laying down trying to go to sleep, and it worked (plus it's much more fun than counting sheep)!! I was reciting it to Darwin last night to prove to him I had learned it backwards, and because I was tired while doing so, I kept accidentally saying "XYZPDQ," which for those who don't know what that abbreviation means: examine your zipper pretty darn quick. He just kept laughing at me, but I really do have the alphabet memorized backwards now :) I can't say it as fast as Darwin can, but at least I can do it!! Yay! If you want proof for yourself, you'll just have to ask me!

Bushed!!

Darwin and I have the opportunity at our apartment complex to help out with maintenance and getting vacant apartments ready for new people to move in; and as an exchange we get money taken off our rent, which is super nice (especially because I'm currently not working it's a way for me to pitch in financially). This is the first month we've helped out and I can honestly tell you...it's hard work! I'm starting to feel the pain :) I'm learning all kinds of new things about fix-up jobs, things that I've never done before. Yesterday I learned how to change the pads in a swamp cooler and the maintenance that goes along with it. I've learned how to properly fill the holes in a wall, and how to rip out the caulking in a bathtub and how to re-caulk it, along with other things. It's partly nice that I've been able to put in so many hours since the semester ended, but my body is definitely letting me know how much I have been working. I'm used to sitting at a keyboard, doing secretarial kind of work and homework type jobs. Physical labor is a new thing for me, but I'm totally enjoying it! It's soo much better than sitting at home doing nothing. Watch out! Because before you know it, I'll be starting my own maintenance company! Haha...Just kidding!

Well learned, well educated.

I'm not trying to be cocky, I'm just totally excited that I was able to pull off my 4.0 gpa this semester! Yay!! This is a huge achievement for me, especially with my high school history and barely graduating because of being so sick. I've always tried to do my best though and my grades were posted this morning as proof. Hooray! I called Darwin on his way to work to tell him the good news and told him we should celebrate. His reply was, "Okay, let's buy some couches!" And I totally agreed, so we did:

Actually, we bought the couches last Thursday and they came on Tuesday. We absolutely love them already! Super comfy and MUCH better than the last set we had, which were given to us from Dar's parents because they didn't want them anymore, and we needed some...who knows how old they were but they were great to have while we had them, especially because they were free. Dar was actually a little attached to the old ones and a little sad to give them up, until he came home from work on Tuesday and sat down on our new couch. When I asked him if he still missed the old ones he said, "What old couches?" :). It was time for us to get new ones. So, that is my reward for doing so well in school. My overall gpa is a 3.67 now, and if I can get another 4.0 in the fall it should go up to a 3.8 gpa which would be AWESOME!!