Wow- Massive Catch-Up

So I haven't updated on this blog in a long time. And I mean a LONG time! Life has been pretty crazy. I don't know when I updated last, so here is a snapshot of life in the past year:
I graduated from college with my BS in Communication Disorders.
I started grad school for speech therapy last April.
I got pregnant in March ( we were trying since January)
Did one term and one semester of grad school pregnant
We had a baby girl, Elsie, in December
Went back to grad school in January
Had the hardest semester of my life
My husband got laid off, and got a better job all in the same week.

So that's the gist of life thus far in the past year. Whew! What a whirlwind year! I promise that I will try to post more often, especially since I've got a little one that does so many cute things!

Waiting for the World to Change

Well it is officially past the deadline for my BYU and Utah graduate school applications. Don't worry they are done. But I am now in the waiting phase, waiting to hear back from them. Those who know me know that I am absolutely terrible with waiting for things like this. Or losing things like stamps or my phone charger. I think that once I find out about grad school, other things in life will be set in motion. For instance, we are looking into getting a small truck, but we can't make a final decision until we know about grad school, and where we are going to live.
In other news, Ryan has taken up woodcarving/whittling. He is really good at it. He has so much more patience than I do. So far, he has made a horse, a soldier with moving arms, and a "ball in a cage-" see pics on facebook. I am so glad that he has found a hobby that he can do in our apartment with minimal mess :P
So that is my ranting and raving about my impatience. I am just waiting for that domino effect that starts with finding out about graduate school.

Escuela

Hey so school is in session...hooray! I am loving my classes, especially my sign language class! I wish that I had started sooner, I could have minored in it. But that's okay, I will still get two classes. Ryan's school has started too, but there's been some management issues/confusion at the school, and so his classes aren't quite as hard-core as they will be.
But in other news.... we bought a laptop! We got a Pell grant, and decided to use the leftover money to buy one. I have been renting a desktop from BYU for the past 3 years, and we decided that it was time to have my own, especially since I might change schools for grad school. But it's so nice! It's a Dell 15" Studio I think. It had 4GB memory and 500GB memory. Plus we got the warranty plan and everything, so if something goes wrong, it's their problem, not mine. But it's so exciting! I can now work on the computer with Ryan in the living room, instead of us having to be in separate rooms.
So Ryan and I got tix for the home opener football game... it was so fun! Pix on facebook. Lol to top it off, Cosmo slapped Ryan's butt after we took a pic with him. Haha Ryan was kinda weirded out for a little while, until I pointed out that Cosmo can't talk, it's his way of saying "no problem."

Back to School Fever

so i realize that I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I would. After the excitement of the first half of summer, our life has quieted down. Yes, we have had fun, but just around here, no big travel plans. That being said, we have had some interesting things happen lately. First, we started the process of getting Ryan's car ready to go. The BYU job is almost done, and soon we will need both cars. But I had no idea how difficult it would be!! We had to get safety and emissions done, but since Ryan's car hadn't been driven in about a year, we got stuck on the emissions. We had to take it to the shop three times!! It wasn't that anything was wrong with the car, it just needed to run for longer. Talk about frustrating! But don't even get me started on the DMV-- that was a nightmare in itself. Although I must admit, Utah DMV definitely has a much more efficient DMV-- we didn't wait for more than 5 minutes for our number to be called. But Ryan's car is officially legal and registered, yipee!!
Our next adventure is not so lovely. Over the course of the summer I have gotten gradually more lazy, especially with dishes. Well, I finally paid for it. About a week ago, I saw a little cockroach skitter across the counter. I have never seen a cockroach before this, and while it wasn't the ugliest species of cockroaches, I still freaked!! You know those ladies in movies and cartoons where when they see a mouse they jump up on the table and scream and hold up their skirts? That's how I felt. I started crying. well, bawling to be more exact. I felt like a little kid when they get scared. Good thing I have such a hero for a husband though. We went to Wal-Mart and got roach motels, and Ryan spent the entire evening taking out everything under the sink and spraying every nook and cranny around the sink with Raid. I helped from a distance, only moving things when I could see completely around and under them before I moved it. However, we have not seen a roach since ( we didn't even come across any while Ryan was clearing out under the sink) so we are hoping and praying that they are gone for good. However, there is one benefit of this whole experience: it has completely cured me of my household-chores laziness. I now wash dishes as soon as I am done with them, and wipe down the stove and counters with a Lysol at least once a day. I hope I never, ever see a cockroach again in my life.
But in happier news, school is starting!!! Ryan is actually at his first day of school this very minute ( dang it, i should have taken a picture before he left). My school starts on Monday. And let me tell you, I am so stinkin' happy. My mom can attest as well. I have had so much time on my hands that I have moved back and forth on obsessions: from exercise to GRE studying to home-buying to having babies. But now that school is starting, I hope I just will not have time to worry about these future things, lol mostly the home-buying and babies.
However, I have one final story before I leave. Ryan and I were called to be Primary teachers about a month ago, for the 5-turning-6 year olds. And we have absolutely fallen in love with them. They are so funny, and personalities are already blithe (GRE word!!) and fancy-free!Some weeks have been more trying than others, especially when we seriously misjudged the time requirements and ended up with 15 minutes of class and we just bore our testimony about being kind. But we have gotten better, and learned how to work with all our children's personalities and attention spans. Lol last week, we had nine kids in our class- NINE!! As you can imagine, nine five-year olds were a handful, although better than these children. Luckily we were armed with coloring activities and interactive games to teach about keeping the laws of the land. We actually went over! O well, at least the kids were excited about it.
Well, with school starting, and graduate applications in the works, I suppose I will be posting a lot more. Please forgive me if parts are mostly my lunatic ravings about how hard this all is. I will try to keep them positive :)

Well...

okay, so my blog for some reason, won't let me load pics. So i'm sorry; temporarily use your imaginations.

Fourth of July Weekend

So, as you all know, this weekend was the 4th of July. And we had so much fun! Apparently, Provo goes all-out for 4th of the July. We had gone for a walk on Sunday night (accidentally walked 6 miles!) and came back down University Avenue, and there were people camping out along the street so they could watch the parade! Thanks goodness we only live a couple blocks away. The next morning, our ward had a crepe breakfast before the parade ( yummy!) We enjoyed the parade, played with other people's babies, etc.
It was during this parade that we tried to take pictures with Ryan's mission camera. However, it was not to be. It was broken beyond repair, so we decided to go and get a new camera. We love it! It's a Canon Powershot, so now we can fully document our lives.
There was also a street fair down Center Street, so we meandered that. So good! Tucanos ( a brazilian steakhouse buffet... can any 3 words go together MORE perfectly?) had a booth, and I bought a Brazilian lemonade cuz I was dying. If you have never had one before, I feel so sorry for you. Here's the recipe:

3/4 cup sugar, 1 lime cut into wedges, 1 tsp coconut milk, and 4 cups of water.
You mix the sugar, lime (peel and all), coconut, and 1 cup of the water in the blender. Strain out the lime peels, and then add the last 3 cups of water.
It's like heaven in a glass. But when we were trying to find all the ingredients, we couldn't find coconut milk ANYWHERE... not even the health food store! Finally, we came to our senses, and just bought a coconut. Haha here are some pics of us trying to get the milk out of it. I am willing to bet it is harder than milking a cow. O and by the way, taking a bite out of a coconut is AWFUL. Don't try it. Just shave it into pies and such.

We also stumbled across a "snakes and tails" booth at the fair. It was this guy showing kids all sorts of reptiles. I immediately thought of my mother, who would most likely have passed out cold had she been there. Anyways, to give her a taste, here's a pic of like 1/4 of his biggest snake.
Also... surprise! Raechel and Kenny are here this week! So we are playing with them as much as we can... and they may be moving out here soon we're so excited!!
Finally, today, Ryan and I lost our J-Dawg virginity. I have been here for 3 years, and have not had one. Now, I am not a big hot dog fan, but I loved this dog. It had a "special sauce" which apparently, is a huge mixture of many different flavors, cuz Ryan and I each got something different out of it.
We have a fly in our house. It's driving me up a wall. I think it's attracted to the myriad of products in my hair. And my fly killer tennis racket needs new batteries.
And finally... I have some exciting news! I have lost 10 pounds since the beginning of May. I know that seems like a long time, but it's a big accomplishment for me! I hope to lose 20 pounds before school starts, but we'll see how it goes. I need a jumpstart. As obvious by the J-Dawg excursion described above, my willpower has waned a bit.

Catchin' Up

Wow.... it has been a really long time since I updated our blog. So pardon the potential lengthiness, but here's what's been going on..

Lindsay ( my sis-in-law) got married May 22nd, in the Boston Temple. Yeah!! So Ryan and I got the week off from work, and flew out there. While adventurous, I don't think our route was the best. When looking at tickets, out of sheer curiosity, I looked at flights from Denver to Boston instead of SLC to Boston. WAY cheaper!! Like, we're talking $300 bucks difference. It was only an 8-hour drive to Denver, and $6/day for parking. So we decided to road trip it to Denver. So we left after work, and drove through the night, through Wyoming and Colorado-- let me tell you how much fun that was. All around, it took us 10 hours and three states to get there-- a bad combo of Mountain Dew and starting a 48oz of water/day diet plan. Plus, that put us at the airport parking at 3am, to catch a 6:30 flight. We didn't even bother getting a hotel, we just slept for like an hour in the car. Hopefully no one thought we were two stupid teenagers fogging up the windows in a parking lot.
When we finally did get on the plane, it was nice. I sleep in planes, trains, and automobiles. I could probably sleep in a spaceship. I can't speak for Ryan though ( see above sentence). But we landed in Boston, and I love Boston! I wish we could have spent more time there than just the airport short-term parking, but some day we will. Probably when Ryan is 25 and there are no extra charges for using a rental car.
The wedding was beautiful!! So much fun! Lindsay had a Skittles-colored theme ( my interpretation) of pink, blue, yellow, orange, and green. And it all looked so fun and summery! Sandy (her mom) worked so hard transforming the cultural hall into a reception ballroom. There are pictures all over Facebook, so I won't post them here.
I wish we could have spent more time in New Hampshire, but alas, the grown-up world beckoned us back to Utah.
But before we even realized it, they had their reception in St. George ( Steve, Lindsay's hubby, is from there) and so we road-tripped down there a couple weeks later. That was so much fun too, and we got to see Ryan's parents again!! Once again, so much fun, but I was feelin' HOT HOT HOT!!Once again, the pics are on FB.
And hmm.... what else is new? O yeah, Ryan officially got hired on by Taylor Electric! He's been working with them for the past three months, but he is now officially a Taylor employee! He'll get a raise and benefits soon, but the best part is that he can now start counting hours towards his journeyman status.
Then (you'd think we live in the lap of luxury the way we've been traveling this summer) we went to California in June for Liz's graduation. Liz! My little sister! Graduated high school! Holy cow! And I got to see some friends from back home-- Jen and Tasha and Candy--- o it was so cool! It brought back so many memories. O and I took Ryan to the Kulture Shock Kar Show, where we ran into Justin from high school-- haha same kid, just huge muscles now ( he's a wrestler at his college). Ryan really liked the car show, except for the "tastefully" painted women on the cars (sheesh....I wish my eyes could pixelate certain things). Once again, our trip was too short. But I successfully left a pair of pants there, like I did last time. Nice to see some things don't change.
Finally... my poor baby got his wisdom teeth taken out today! I made him a big breakfast this morning, since he has to eat soft foods till they heal. I now know how mothers feel when they take their newborns into the pediatrician's office for their shots. I could hear the different tools going from Ryan's room, and my heart just ached for him. So I'm playing nurse right now, and I think I will need to make a mac-n-cheese run tomorrow.
Now, for some rants. I've been looking into grad programs, and I've started studying for the GRE. Let me tell you, this GRE is gonna be a challenge. I think it's something that will be a real obstacle for me. I get so excited when I'm looking at grad programs, at the classes and their practicum options and housing on craigslist, but then I take a practice test for the GRE and I feel deflated. I think that there are certain issues that I hold with the GRE. One, it has nothing to do with my major. It's english and math, with a writing portion. Second, the skills they are testing seem unrealistic.... I've been "learning to think" for the past 15 years-- how do you reflect that in a 30-question section?Ugh, I guess I just need to see it as the St.Vincent's or Cloverdale of my collegiate career, and get excited to take it rather than dreading it.
That's about all for now.... I think I want to look at cuter blog backgrounds, as I have seen so many cute ones lately.