Bless My Beautiful Hide

Well, last Friday we got to go see a production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers with my manager and one of her friends. It was a lot of fun and brought back a lot of memories for W and me. We also had a Greek dinner before hand that was quite yummy.

We also now have callings in our new ward. W gets to teach Sunday School for the 14-15 year-old class and I get to teach Primary for the 9-10 year-old class. I really like W's class but am feeling a bit overwhelmed with mine (half of the class members are trouble makers). I've been thinking about it a lot lately and realizing that I like interacting with kids that are younger than this age and kids that are older, but kids that are right around this age just get under my skin. I find this especially interesting because I've been reading Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood and in it she talks about being this age, and being the mother of two daughters this age, and what a horrible age it is to be a girl (did I mention that my trouble makers are all girls?). I'm just not sure how to connect. Perhaps I'm just over-thinking, maybe I just need to give them more time.

My manager has, somewhat jokingly, mentioned the idea of making me her assistant manager. I think she's been doing this because she wants to get a noncommittal reaction from me. I don't know that it's necessarily going to happen, but it's a slightly new development in my life. W continues to work on his novel and hopes to be done with his first draft by Thanksgiving.

We both are doing well and living life. We're looking forward to the time when our life will reach a higher level of normalcy, but for the mean time we're trying to do what we think is best and what we think He would have us do.

I got a part-time job!

Well the biggest news for us is that I've been able to find a part-time job to work while we're down here. Man, I really don't have much else to say but I enjoy it. My manager is really cool and I get tips which are always welcome!

We've Moved!

We're finally all done with school and have moved out of the apartment that we lived in for five years! For the immediate future we are living with my in-laws and hoping to hear back from some jobs I have applied for. W is happy to go with me wherever I am hired! I'm really hoping that I can get a real job and do something that I love doing, and I'm happy that W is going to be with me.

We also celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary recently. I'm hoping to write more about our celebration later. Mostly life is good, but it is slightly frustrating to wait to hear about jobs. :( We hope you all are doing well. Drop us an email if you get the chance, take care!

Independence Day

I LOVE going to Independence Day festivities here where we live! It's probably one of my main favorite holidays in this community, people go all out. W and I woke up early and donned our "Revolt like it's 1776" t-shirts. Then we walked down to the field where they fill hot air balloons and watched them fill and lift off. Then we went to McDonald's for breakfast, I got a bacon, egg and cheese McMuffin and it was very enjoyable. After that we walked up to the place where the parade starts and followed the path the parade would take until we found and spot where we would be happy watching the parade. Then of course we watched the parade, we even got rained on for part of it which was really fun and cooling. After the parade we went over the the festival and looked around. We sat for a while and watched some Irish folk dancing it was kind of fun to watch. Then we visited Colonial Days for a short time, it changed a lot from last year and we thought that it ended up getting worse instead of better.

After such a full morning and afternoon W and I decided to go back home because we were both pretty tired with all of the walking that we ended up doing. Once home we ended up napping and then when we woke up I made us the Independence Day dinner of our dreams: Beefkey burgers (ground turkey and ground beef mixed together into patties), polish sausages, pork and beans, and some really good potato chips from Costco. Of course we had all the toppings and additions we could want for the beefkey burgers and sausages. We topped it all off with cherry pie and sundaes for dessert. It was a wonderful day and I'm grateful that I got to celebrate it with my favorite person!

I'm happy that the United States or at least the original thirteen colonies created such a beautiful Declaration of Independence and that they all, after a lot of debate and disagreement, agreed to proclaiming themselves free and independent states. The United States has come a long way since then, not always in the best direction in my opinion, but I'm happy that in those very early days of this Nation's conception some very beloved men signed what would become a very beloved document and would create a precedent and example for the world to see and consider. God bless America! Happy Independence Day!

24!

No, not the TV show. I turned 24 recently and I must say that I am really enjoying myself. For my birthday W and I went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and then went to Outback for dinner. We went there for my 21st birthday and I had their "Melbourne" meal: a 20oz T-bone steak and two sides. I had been hoping for a 21oz steak for my 21st, but settled for the 20 since that's the biggest one they have. For this birthday I wanted to prove to myself that I was just as cool and beefy as I had been when I turned 21, the only problem was that they no longer served what they called the "Melbourne." But, not to worry, because after I reviewed the menu again I found that they still served a 20oz T-bone steak and that they just called it "The T-bone." I ordered that, plus two sides and got a free birthday dessert and was able to eat it all!!! (W and my cousin helped me eat my dessert, but I'm still counting it!) So I am still as cool and beefy as I was when I was 21, getting older doesn't seem to be all that bad . . . I do fear the day that I can't handle eating a 20oz steak plus sides all in one sitting, but thankfully that day hasn't come yet.
On another note W is all done with his thesis and will be officially graduating in August. I will leave out more details so that he can post about it if he wants. We still don't know where we will end up, but I'm applying for jobs and we'll see what we can get. If I'm able to get a job in Archeology we might even decide that we need to get a pick-up truck for me to use for travel, which sounds really fun to me! Life is good, uncertain for the future, but we are both certainly happy here in the present. We're looking forward to posting more action in the future! Love you guys!

Latest and Greatest Sum-up

The latest and greatest news in our life is that we finally have our little car back in the family. W and I feel really really good about that. I'm still working part-time but as close to full-time as they'll schedule me. W is still working on his thesis and will hopefully be officially graduating in August. We hope to move sometime in June or July. We still don't know where we will be moving to, or where we will be working. Anyone know of anyone hiring people with degrees in Anthropology, English, Spanish, or Linguistics in the Western United States?

Our Car

For those who don't know why our car being fixed is such a big deal let me tell you a little bit more about it. Our car is an oldie but goodie car, it belonged to W's Grandpa so it has sentimental value for him, and it is the car that made it possible for our first date to become something where we both wanted a second and third (no we didn't have a really good make-out session, we drove around for a while and talked) so it has sentimental value for me as well. We both don't ever plan to get rid of it and we hope to use it as long as we can, and once it actually won't run anymore maybe we'll make it into some sort of shrine or something but we pretty much consider it to be part of the family even with it being three years younger than me. In July of 2007 we were making a pretty good weekend trip and it stopped working while I was driving on the freeway, in the fast lane. We had it towed to our apartment and didn't really have the time or money to deal with it so we just let it sit in our spot. In December of 2007 my parents came out for a visit and my dad spent time with W and one of our neighbors trying to figure out why it died and why it wouldn't start. They found out that fuel wasn't getting to the engine and that the fuel pump didn't seem to be working. W and I weren't able to do anything about it until October 2008 when one of our best friends let us use their AAA membership to tow it to the mechanic. We chose to tow it to that particular mechanic because we still didn't have enough money to fix it and we knew this mechanic to take a really long time fixing cars. So, yesterday our car was finally fixed and we had been able to save up enough money to pay for all the work done on it in cash, boy that feels good!

St. Patrick's Day

Well, admittedly this last St. Patrick's Day wasn't as cool as last year's St. Patrick's Day when I got to go to a lecture by Barry Cunliffe, but it was still a pretty eventful day. W and I started the day off right with green pancakes and green milk to wash them down. Then we got a lucky phone call that we weren't expecting for another month or two, telling us that our car was fixed! So a very nice friend of mine let me borrow her car so that W and I could go to all of the places that we needed to get to before 5 pm! We had to go to the mechanic and get the certificates for the safety and emissions tests that needed to be done to register our car, the bank so that we could get the money that we'd been saving for the car, the DMV so that we could register the car, back the the mechanic to get the car, and then to school to get a parking permit. After that we put gas in our car and in my friend's car and came back home. We had bubble and squeak for dinner, it's an Irish dish that has cabbage, onions and potatoes in it. We also had lime jello, pistachio pudding, o'douls, and mint chocolate chip ice cream. We finished up our night with the "Lucky Charmed" episode of the series "Charmed" and one of our favorite movies, The Quiet Man. Overall it was a good day, even if I didn't wash clothes or dishes and W didn't get more work on his thesis done.

Happy Candlemas/Groundhog Day!

Tonight W and I are going over to a friend's house that always celebrates Groundhog day. We're both really excited and we're building up our Groundhog Team spirit! January just seemed to whiz right by me. It's amazing to realize that a twelfth of 2009 is already gone. One wonderful thing that we enjoyed in January was W's 30th Birthday!! It's sooo cool being married to a thirty year old, he's such a wonderful man and he gets more wonderful each year. I'm looking forward to how wonderful he'll be when he's sixty!

Good Yule!!!

It's after midnight on January 5th and W just brought it to my attention that our yule celebration is now over. We celebrate Christmas and Yule over a twelve day period starting on the 24th of December. I have had such a wonderful Christmas and Yule this year, and even though it's over for this time of the year, I wanted to wish all of our friends and family a good Yule, merry Christmas, and a happy new year! Thank you all for being such an enjoyable part of our lives. I hope that this last Christmas season brought you all peace and joy that you will be able to carry with you until the end of the year!