A weekend of giving

And receiving. Mostly receiving on my end.
My husband had a camp out this weekend, so we spent our first night apart since getting married. It almost killed me.
To keep from thinking about it too much, I invited myself over for a sleepover at Kristi's - I figured, it would make things more bearable for me, and I think Jenny had a blast :)
As I was heading out to go to Kerry's baby shower, Kristi says to me, "Oh, by the way, there's a grill in the garage if you want. It's our old George Forman one, we upgraded recently, but it still works great. Has detachable plates for washing and everything."
I just looked over at her and said, "Really?"
What she didn't know was that I had been planning on asking for one for my birthday. I think my stunned reaction made her think I didn't want it, because she kind of excused herself, saying "you don't have to take it if you don't want it."
Needless to say, I took it, with much gratitude. :) I've been aching for a home-grilled hamburger for months.
So, trying to think of something else to pad my birthday list...
Justin and I have been talking about how when we move to a bigger apartment it would be really nice to get a desk. Then just this past week, we've been thinking maybe we should get one sooner than that. We have a wall in our bedroom that would fit a small desk, and it would be really useful.
So we were talking to Justin's mom about how we were looking for a desk, and I was planning on maybe asking for one for my birthday, she says, "well, if it would fit, the one in Justin's old room doesn't get used very often." Justin's sister and brother still living at home both have desks in their rooms, so the only one really using it was Travis when he would come home from the dorms. Yeah, it didn't get used very often.
So we all troop into the room to take a look at it, and it definitely is small enough. Justin leans over to me and says "You know, I bet that would fit in the Explorer right now."
So, ta da! We now have a desk. Family rocks.

Justin setting everything up

Hard at work

So, it's been a pretty good weekend. Other than the whole camping trip thing. But all the free stuff is awesome. Thanks everyone! The desk fits perfectly, and I can't wait to use the grill.

New Years Celebrations

What did I do for New Years?
I slept.
Justin and I went over to my parents and played wii games and made yummy hot chocolate things and then watched tv with Ashley and Zach, and Ashley fell asleep first, then I did, then Zach did. Somehow Justin stayed awake. Probably has to do with the fact that all growing up he rarely went to bed before midnight. That was an adjustment for him when we got married, me going to bed at nine :)
Justin woke us up (well, he tried to wake up Ashley but she was too disinterested and tired to actually wake up), and we did the countdown thing. Then I went back to sleep.
We're finally getting over the sickness that has been lurking in our home for the past week. It's been nice to have the energy to do things outside. I was getting really stir crazy.
I used to get really into making new years resolutions, and every now and then would actually keep some.
This year, my main goal is to make dinners that actually have nutritional value instead of just fast and easy (not every night, but get some fruits and veggies in there several times a week), and to keep my house in a state that is, if not up to my standards of clean, at least not embarrassing if someone stops by. Wish me luck, neither will be easy with as sparse as time can be at my house.

Hope everyone had a great new year!

6 Wonderful Months

Today marks six months that I have been married to the man of my dreams.

We celebrated by having a nice dinner - turkey potato casserole, goat cheese with crackers, rolls with honey-butter, and some cheesecake for dessert. (we're poor and couldn't afford a $20 meal at Chili's - this meal cost a total of $2 for the Goat's cheese, everything else was leftovers or we bought on sale a while ago)
It's been a really amazing six months. Very stressful, but definitely worth it. Justin makes me happier than I ever imagined I could be. The past few days have been tough as we've been looking at our diminishing budget, and I've been looking at my not-so-diminishing load of homework. But somehow everyday Justin makes it better. He sends me a text telling me how beautiful I am, he washed my car while I'm out shopping with his mother and sister, he buys me goat's cheese, he cleans the kitchen. He's so selfless, and sometimes I wish I knew how he does it. He has such an amazing testimony, and works so hard to provide for our little family and make sure we are comfortable.

I don't know what I'd do without him. He is exactly everything I've ever hoped for, and knows how to make me feel happier than ever before. I'm so happy that I get to spend eternity with him - these six months seem to have flown by, and I'm glad I don't have to worry about running out of time with him. Yay for temple marriage :)

Wreath!

So, I decorated a wreath tonight. I have never done anything like that before, I had no idea what I was doing. I mostly just stuck stuff where it looked good and then glued it in place :)

I think it turned out pretty cute! I am especially proud of the bow :)

Also, I got a hair cut!

Special thanks to Ashley, my hair stylist.

Christmas is in the air!

I love the holiday season. Justin and I went shopping on Monday to Michaels and bought a tree! We're going to have a fake one while we're in a tiny apartment, so it's waiting for Thanksgiving to come and go so that it can come out of the storage closet! We also got some cute candy dishes, a wreath to decorate, and some other fun stuff. Today we went shopping again for birthdays, and we looked around Michaels again (I'm weak, what can I say? Plus when my husband enjoys looking at all the Christmas stuff as much as me, it's impossible to resist!), and got some cute ribbon and a cornucopia. I'm really getting excited to decorate our apartment! I'll take pictures when everything is up and post them :)

Pictures!

So, I had about 125 pictures on my camera, so I'm going to share some with you all. :)

All Quiet on the Blogging Front

Hello world of blogging. I'm still alive, my husband is still alive, no need to worry about us.

So I just looked and my last blog was over a month ago... oops! Life gets crazy, and I expect November to be equally or more crazy. So if you don't hear from me until December, it's just because of all the craziness.

One exciting thing that happened recently - the young women's leadership in my ward is full! Until two weeks ago, there was a President, 1st Counselor, 2nd Counselor, and Laurel advisor. So the 2nd counselor and I were both teaching every week and doing all the counselor stuff. But we now have a miamaid and beehive advisor, so I won't have to teach very often! I enjoy teaching, don't get me wrong, but with as busy as I am at school and work and home, it will be nice to be able to enjoy Sunday mornings, and get to church early instead of pushing it to be on time. I'm very excited for this.

Also - National Novel Writing Month quickly approaches. For the past two Novembers, I dedicated my spare time to working toward the goal of writing a 50,000 + novel in 30 days. Failed the first time, but got in the 60,000's last year. This year, I'm taking a slightly different approach. I'm going to attempt it, but I know that it would be quite a feat to succeed. So, with that in mind, I'm going to write a crazy super silly story, that will just be my way of escaping into writing, and I won't worry about the 50,000 word goal. If I get it, awesome. If not, well, I'm not expecting to, so there you go.

Life at home is awesome. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful husband. A week or so ago I got whatever Ashley had, and I got it bad. I could barely go to the effort of showering without being exhausted, for four days. And my amazing man kept the house from falling apart, cooked me meals (well, mostly just heated up meals or made sandwiches, but it was still appreciated), helped cool me down when I had a fever, and was just overall a wonderful guy.

His mother was also incredible. Any time one of us gets sick, we joke that we should call Mom C to see if she just happens to be making her minestrone soup. Justin called the first day I was sick, and she wasn't making any for that night, but while the kids were at mutual, she put it together, along with a salad, bread, and peach cobbler, and brought it over. I'm so lucky to have found a wonderful, selfless husband, but to have a wonderful family of in-laws, what did I do to get so lucky?

Anyway, not much has been going on in our lives except for school, work, laundry, the usual. We're going to carve a pumpkin on saturday, so I'll try to get pictures up. Thanks for reading, and I'll try to not go so long between blogs!