New Blog

Well, I'm not sure how many readers I have on here, but if any of you would like to keep reading about my life (and my husband's now, I guess), you can visit our new blog. Happy New Year!

17 Days till the 17th!

So, I got a few comments on the last picture that I posted saying that it looked like an engagement picture. Since last posting I have become engaged for reals and taken real engagement pictures (and bridals, but we're still waiting to get those back, so those will be in a future posting), so I thought I would post some of them on my blog interspersed in the telling of the requisite engagement story, so here I go.

Okay, so Jason and I talked about marriage back in June I think it was, but neither of us was ready for that yet, so we kept just dating and having fun getting to know each other better. Then things were just getting better and better and we were falling more and more in love, so in August/September we talked about it again seriously and went to the temple together on Friday, September 9. We both felt really good about moving forward and we basically decided to get married the next night on Saturday, September 10.

You may be tempted to ask what has taken so long, but the answer is actually pretty obvious. I am a major procrastinator, so it took me a few weeks to go look at rings with a friend. Once I had picked out three, I gave Jason the information and then he took his time as well going to buy it with his friend. After that he had to wait a little longer to get the ring as well, but he got it by the end of September. He told me when he got it and showed pictures of it to other people in my presence which was pretty frustrating since I just wanted to see it. :)

He finally decided to propose at the busiest time of the year for my job. After putting in a full day of work (skipping my classes) we attended BYU's Homecoming Spectacular together during which he texted his mom and told her to watch BYU TV thus making me think he was going to propose during the show which kind of made me nervous since I get easily embarrassed in front of other people. His mom ended up watching a BYU Volleyball game since the Spectacular was not even on BYU TV thinking that her son was going to propose during the game or something. :)

Anyway, after the show ended, we went and got yogurt which has sort of been a tradition all throughout our months of dating (we did that on our first date together and I accidentally got 1.1 lbs which he is happy to tell everyone much to my embarrassment, but that's another story). We then drove up to the base of Y Mountain to overlook the valley (another tradition of ours. I know what you're thinking, but no, we actually would talk and look at the lights).

Jason decided to blow my hair
like a shampoo commercial

After finishing our yogurt he said, "Well, you have a big day tomorrow, so I'd better get you home" (my craziness at work was continuing that weekend), so he put the car in reverse and starting pulling out of the parking spot. He stopped all of the sudden, leaned over the steering wheel squinting his eyes at the ground in front of the car, and said, "what is that?" I being the naive person I am wondered what the heck he was looking at and asked him what he was looking at. He just said incredulously, "what is that?" and got out of the car and said, "Come here." I was starting to think something was up, but I got out of the car and walked over to the spot on the ground that he was looking at so intently. Nothing was there, but when I got there he turned around and got down on one knee and pulled out the ring box, said something goofy (totally Jason to be goofy at a time like this), and asked me to marry him. I said yes, we kissed, and then got back in the car, and drove off honking the horn and we lived happily ever after. Oh wait, I forgot to mention all the craziness of planning a wedding while working two jobs and trying to keep up with school work and spend some time with your fiancé.

So, life is crazy busy, but so good. Time is ticking with the count at 2.5 weeks right now and we are getting so excited. We'll be getting married in the Mount Timpanogos Temple on December 17th and we'll have a reception here in Orem that night and then an open house in CA come January. Yay for marriage! :)

Trip to California

So, one of the vacations I had this summer was going with my boyfriend Jason to visit his family in California. I had never been to southern California before and the one other time I have been to California was visiting San Francisco for a weekend in high school, so it was a completely new experience for me. We had a lot of fun going to the beach, going to a Dodger's game, going shopping, and spending time with Jason's family (his brother had just gotten home from his mission). Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, we didn't take many pictures, but I've attached one that we did take while we were there.

Summer is almost over

So, it seems that the trend in my blogging is to write a blog post about every 4 months, so 3 a year. Not too great numbers, I guess. I should probably update it more often. This sounds very similar to what I write in my journal entries. :)

Archery at the Andelin Reunion

Summer has been great. I did attend Spring Term and that was enjoyable, but I was very excited to not have classes during Summer Term. It has been nice. Several vacations including some reunions, etc. have been a lot of fun. Other than that I have just been working, reading, and having fun in the evenings hanging out with family and friends.

Biking with Kathy, Karen & Nate at the Andelin Reunion

Anyway, school is going to start next week and I have mixed feelings as always. Excitement for new classes, new stuff to learn, new people to meet, etc. Dread for the busyness of homework. I have started ordering my books and am actually very impressed with the BYU Bookstore. On your book list they actually give you the ISBN number, so you don't have to go there to look it up if you want to buy your books elsewhere. In addition, the online book list shows alternate places to buy your books including half.com and amazon. This makes me very happy as I always buy my books online to save some money. Thank you, BYU Bookstore. I'm still trying to find a place to live with my sister. I'm sure we'll find one eventually, but it would be nice to get it done sooner than later. So, there you go. A short update on my life. Maybe I'll find something exciting to post about and get some pictures on here as well.

I'm back!!!

Well, after a leave of two years, I have decided to post on my blog again. I had an amazing mission experience in the Switzerland Geneva Mission which is unfortunately being split to be combined with the France Paris Mission and the France Toulouse Mission (which will be renamed the France Lyon Mission). But, it really is not that tragic. The same people will still be there and the work will continue. My mission president, Kent Murdock, and his wife will continue to serve, but will move to the new mission headquarters in Lyon, France. I loved my mission and still continue to miss it a lot.

It is good to be home though. I arrived home just before Christmas after a delay of four days due to crazy snow storms in Europe. It was good to be home for Christmas and be able to see all my family members but David. I started school two weeks later and had a fun semester living with Bekah. It was a crazy busy semester, but it was good--especially now that it is over. :) But, now, it's back to school tomorrow with Spring Term classes and back to work today. No rest for the weary (Yes, I prefer that version instead of "no rest for the wicked" :)). But life is good. I'm living at home for this next week until I can move into my new apartment, so that will be fun to hang out with the fam for a few days. Well, that's pretty much it. I am still alive and back in the blogosphere.

Here's a random picture of me after the twins helped do my hair and makeup for the "Bishop's Ball" in our ward a few months ago. Sorry for the weird face. :)

Lament of Forgetfulness

So, I have realized through the years that I am a very forgetful person. Not that I am too terribly absent-minded per se, but I forget things in the past. I guess that would be long-term memory impairment.

Anyway, I have always been jealous of my brother Nate for his awesome memory of things that have happened in the past. He can seriously remember things from when he was like 3 years old. At least, he says he can and I'm inclined to believe him.

I, on the other hand, forget things very easily. A particular sense of frustration is that I forget books that I have read. I really like to read and I read a lot, but it is frustrating because I forget the books, especially if I read them quickly. I can usually remember a few scenes very clearly (usually rather unimportant ones, sadly), but the rest of the book is gone. I'm sure it's all in there somewhere, but I can never seem to dig it up.

I suppose this would be a good characteristic if was a poor child back in the day who only owned about 5 books and could get renewed delight out of them every time she read them, but since I live now and have tons of resources at hand (e.g. BYU library, internet) it would be so much nicer to be able to remember everything I read and be able to keep reading new books and remember everything in them too.

My one consolation in having to read books more than once if I want to remember them are the following quotes by C. S. Lewis that Elder Callister quoted in his devotional talk, "Your Refined Heavenly Home":

An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only.

I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.

Clearly one must read every good book at least once every ten years.

The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers “I’ve read it already” to be a conclusive argument against reading a work. . . . Those who read great works, on the other hand, will read the same work ten, twenty or thirty times during the course of their life.

Anyway, it's an awesome talk and you all should read it.

So, I guess it is good to read the books again, but what am I to do about all the other things I forget? You can't relive life. Alas and alack. I guess journal writing helps. Then I can just reread that. :)

Haircuts!

So, my sister Elise being in town and all, we decided to go get haircuts. Kathryn decided to come with and get hers cut as well, so I took an afternoon off work and spent it at Paul Mitchell. Lise got highlights and a few more layers, Kathy got all her hair cut off (well, most of it. She got shoulder length hair instead of shoulder blade length), and I got “lingerie layers” (funny name, eh?) and bangs. The girl styled mine curly as well, which was fun because I never do it curly. It took a lot longer than just doing it straight though, so I don’t know how often that will happen. However long mine took, Kathryn and I were finished long before Lise, so we drove up to the Wilk and got Jambas and brought one back to Lise. Finally she was done and I dropped them off at home before heading back to work. Here are the finished products.