Sunday school madness

Sunday School was really weird today. I left with an uneasy feeling. It’s the fifth Sunday, so we had combined classes for Relief Society/Priesthood.  The bishop was in charge of the lesson and he talked about marriage, specifically how to handle arguments and disagreements with our spouses.   Not too many of the couples in the ward have been married for a few years, and there are a lot of people having serious marriage problems already and I think it’s so sad. I was just amazed sitting in class at how many issues were being brought up. What hit me hard was how common it is for couples to have “meetings” where they get together and tell each other what bugs them about each other. Apparently there are so many instances in the week where their spouse gets on their nerves that they just let everything build up and then let it all come out on a certain day of the week. How horrible. We kept looking at our friends from the ward thinking, “do these people not like each other?!” I don’t mean to sound braggy or superficially positive, but Gabe and I have a happy marriage. We got married because we want to be together. We like each other and we don’t bug one another. We don’t have problems in our marriage because we knew that each other was the right person to be with and why not enjoy life together? We make fun of each other, we let each other know when something bugs us, we have fun and we work things out when something comes up.  Our marriage is filled with happy moments, not constant battles with one another.  I have a testimony of temple marriage and I know that our family is sealed for eternity. I know that marriage is ordained of God and I know that he has blessed our marriage.  Be grateful for your spouses.

Itchy Itchy Scratch Scratch

I have an itch.  Its taking all my patience to not post pictures of our home. I don’t think we ever updated you all on what happened with our housing situation..? Maybe, maybe not. But we were trying to get into a condo and ended up not getting into it and so we are currently just renting out an apartment. Which is totally fine since we have some awesome friends in the ward.. even though they serve us meatless ribs :) ha ha love you guys! Anyways. So since we didn’t get into the condo that we were so hoping for, we were bummed and decided to put some money towards the apartment we're in so we redecorated the place. We redecorated quite a while ago, like a couple months ago, but I haven’t been able to post pictures because there are just a couple things I want to finish before I take the final pictures. And its driving me INSANE! I want to just finish it already. All the big furniture pieces are taken care of but I just have the little details to finish, which personally, I think make all the difference. For example, I want to sew some pillow covers (but don’t have a sewing machine), put another frame on the wall (too lazy to drive out to IKEA), make our headboard (don’t own a saw or a truck), and I want to paint a canvas picture for our bedroom wall. I realized that I LOVE to paint. We have had several intense games of Liars Dice played at our house the last few weeks and it has taken its toll on our coffee table. I had to repaint it and I realized how much I like to paint. I think I could probably paint our coffee table every week and be happy. Here's a few pictures of my current design inspiration:

 Okay, take a guess as to what those squares in that last picture are made out of. 

They look like iron right?

Nope, they are made out of toilet paper rolls!! crazy huh? My jaw literally dropped to the floor when I read that. The designer in me wants to make some but I don't think we have any wall space for them to take up.

Welp, stay tuned for pictures posted.. hopefully sooner rather than later!

Oh happy day!!

Do you ever have moments that are so perfect that you want to freeze time just so that you can enjoy it some more? I am having one of those moments. In fact my whole day has been that way. I don’t want anything to change, I don’t want to go anywhere, I just want to be here with my husband, listening to Coldplay and I don’t want any time to pass.

On another note, can I just say, thank goodness for Kool-Aid in a can? My sweet husband asked me to make him some of the Kool-Aid we bought at the store last night, so I went to the kitchen and washed out the pitcher and got out the  Kool-Aid to find out that we were out of sugar. Last week I got a text at work from my husband saying that he had dropped the sugar canister on the kitchen floor and it was everywhere. It’s true.. sugar doesn’t sweep up very well either. I tried to think of the best way to tell my husband that I wouldn’t be able to make the Kool-Aid, when he looked at me and smiled and told me that the Kool-Aid has sugar in it already. Even the simplest of things are making me happy today. Love it.

Weekly fun

After long days at work and school, its nice to hang out as husband and wife. Here’s a few things we did for fun this week: Thursday we had a sleepover on our living room floor. We got out all of our pillows and blankets and watched “The Worlds Fastest Indian,” (yes, we recommend this movie.. it had some pretty funny parts) which we rented off of Netflix, ate some candy from our Christmas stockings, and slept on the floor. Woke up with a few kinks in our necks, but it was worth it. 

Friday night was date night and we went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner, a favorite of ours. Outback has THE best steak in town and we highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t been. Plus, they have really awesome service and we always seem to walk away with tons of extra food. Gabe had our usual: steak, baked potato and salad, and I decided to try something new. I had their new flatbread entrée with spinach, artichokes, parmesan and chicken along with a coconut berry smoothie. It was mmm mmm good! After our stomachs had all the goodness they could take, we laughed at all the people still waiting in line to get a table and we took off to Best Buy to check out all the cool technology.  Im pretty sure we walked on every inch of that stores floor, but hey, we only get dressed up nice once a week, we had to take advantage of our getting out of the house. We came home and snuggled on our comfy couch and watched some episodes of “Arrested Development” until we got super sleepy.

                     (Interesting looking game, right? We thought so. Wouldn't want to be in a room with that teddy bear)

 I love date nights. When we were preparing to get married, our bishop suggested that we always make time to have a date night every week and I think it was excellent advice. I had good examples of it from my parents growing up and am happy to carry on the tradition. It definitely makes the week end on a happy note.

Happy Holidays!!!

So.. Life has been crazy busy these last few months. To say the least. We had lots of fun times with the families during the holidays. Thanksgiving we spent at my Grandmas house for the most part. She makes these a-ma-zing rolls that I look foward to every year. They are actually just frozen rhodes rolls, but somehow she makes them extra super scrumptious. My main dish is always her rolls and the turkey and potatoes are just my side dishes - thats how delicious they are. After going to grandmas, me and Gabe went with my parents and my sister and brother-in-law bowling at All Star Lanes. It was pretty great. The idea of going bowling on Thanksgiving seemed a little odd to me, but it ended up being really fun. And me and Gabe kicked butt :) Just kidding. But really. 

December was filled with lots of tiring work. December is of course the busiest month at The UPS Store so I came home ready for a nap more than once. I swear, I could wake up, go to work then come home and go right back to sleep til the next day. But I didn't. Instead we stayed up late watching seasons of Prison Break until our eyes couldn't take it anymore. Well atleast mine couldn't take it. Gabe can stay up so much later than I can. And he doesn't have the problem of falling asleep everytime the tv gets turned on. Lucky lucky man. 

We went out the day after Thanksgiving and got a good deal on a christmas tree and got started on the decorating. It was fun to have our own christmas tree and to start our own traditions this year. Its interesting to see how different sides of the families celebrate the holidays and deciding what traditions we want to start for our family. On December 22nd we celebrated our one year anniversary! Yay for us! We went out to dinner to PF Changs and at some yummy food and then went home and did some more anniversary celebrating, sparkling cider included.

           CHRISTMAS was really nice this year, I think it may have topped the best Christmases ever list. Christmas Eve we did a little last minute shopping. Yes, we were one of "them." But we only went to Maceys grocery store so it wasn't too bad. Later that night we went up to my parents and had the traditional Christmas Eve dinner, Brocolli cheese soup and candy cane shaped bread sticks. Notice I said shaped, not flavored. :) Gabe thought it sounded gross when I told him we were having candy cane breadsticks. It was mmm mmm good. We watched the 2 minute moview, The Nativity and then opened Christmas Eve presents, had fondue, and played games. 

          We had Christmas morning at our apartment and had sticky buns and candy for breakfast :) That's definately going on the "new traditions" list. I got lots of clothes and some shoes and Gabe got some workout stuff and a few games. The rest of the day was filled with both grandmas delicious food, not enough sweets, lots of game playing and hanging out with the family and cute nephews, with their new nerf guns. 

Gabe has had school off for a couple weeks and has been bored out of his mind. I would take work off to hang out with him, but, that's not really an option unfortunately. I take the car to work so that he can sleep in but then he is stuck inside the house all day and when I get home from work all he wants to do is have people over and all I want to do is take a nap. Its sad. So I think he's pretty happy that school is starting next week and he'll have something to do. Can't wait to see what this new year will bring. Happy holidays to you all!!

Guy Fawkes Celebration

So I realize that last weekend is pretty much long gone, but I wanted to tell you about it anyways.  We have a friend that lives in our complex that is British and she wanted to celebrate a British holiday that occurrs on November 5^th. Its called Guy Fawkes day. For those of you that don’t know the story, I’ll give you the low down. Apparently, sometime in British history, there was a guy who tried to blow up parliament. Unfortunately for him, the plan failed and he was brutally tortured and executed. That’s the story in a teeny tiny nutshell.  So November 5^th became a holiday for the British to have big bonfires and burn a wooden man. (Sorry Heather, I realize that is a really lame explanation of the festivities, but that’s about as detailed as it gets for this non-British girl.) To celebrate we got our group of friends together and went up the canyon to celebrate and it was tons of fun.

Here’s the group before the celebration began:

This is our own Guy Fawkes. Heather sneaked all the free newspapers from the BYU creamery and we stuffed her old pajamas with newspaper and made him a head out of plastic bags. Aint he cute? Quite stylish too I think..

Me and my other half.. 

Us girls. Heather(on left) and Ali(on right): 

We roasted s’mores and starbursts before we burned our man. Mmmm mmmm good! 

Gabe proving that yes, he really can fit 4 of the extra large marshmallows into his mouth. That’s my man! Just another reason I love him. He provides great entertainment.

Burning our Guy Fawkes. He made a great bonfire. 

We have such awesome friends and Im glad we get to see them so often. It will definitely be a night to remember!

I Love...

oh my goodness, I LOVE this quote:

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk's lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someones garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived." -Marjorie Hinckley

I love Marjorie Hinckley. I read this quote today and couldn't stop smiling. She has always been such a huge example to me of what I want to be. What a sweet lady. Her and President Hinckley had such a beautiful marriage and I strive every day to follow their example of a happy marriage.