Lily Pug!

We got a puppy!! Her name is Lily and she is the sweetest most lovable baby pug! We love her so much! Aunt Lori made it all possible; we love you Lori!!!

Peectures

Pictures of our house (post decoration):

Shpooky Party, Twilight, Thanksgiving, and a HOUSE!!!

Well, well, well! It’s me again! Did you miss me terribly? I am a very naughty girl...I haven't posted anything in so long, and as a result, you get a title like THAT. I prefer this method of blogging, really. It’s easier to hold everything in for months and then just dump it all on you at once!


First thing's first: Shpooky Party!

What can I say? It was awesome. I spent over a month planning this thing, and it was worth all of the work! I guess I should have taken some pictures of how our apartment looked...the ones I have are using the flash, so the apartment doesn't look the least bit Shpooky. But it was! It really was! I replaced all of the light bulbs with black lights; those, combined with black votives and candlesticks EVERYWHERE were the only source of light. We ordered pizza, and I made everyone shpooky shpritzahs (which were a huge hit!). We played Halloween pictionary, watched Psycho, and voted for best costume. It was so much fun! By the time the night was over, I wished I could do it all over again! It was a Shpooky Shuccess!!









Okay, next thing on the list: TWILIGHT.


Oh, Twilight.


I just need to ask you all one thing...

WHY?


Seriously. I mean it...WHY?

WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THESE BOOKS????


In response to the pleading of nearly every female I am acquainted with, I read the first Twilight book, and hated it. It was vapid, poorly written, repetitive, predictable, and monotonous. If you're thinking about reading it, I can save you the time and the $12 by summing it up in just a few sentences:

She looked into his intense, honey-colored (or red, depending on his mood) eyes
She cooks dinner for her dad
Sarcastic banter
He gets protective over something
Intense conversation
She gets into trouble
He saves her
She cooks dinner for her dad again
More sarcastic banter
More intense conversations
She looked into his fiery golden eyes again, so intense
She gets into more trouble
He saves her again


Rinse and repeat.


Then, over a year later, I watched the movie at my sister in law's house. It was indeed much better than the book, although still not anything to get overly excited about. I didn't bother reading the second book (New Moon), because the Twilight saga simply didn't hold my interest.

Fast forward to last Saturday; everyone is freaking out about New Moon coming out, and Thomas and I want to see a movie, but nothing really sounds good. So we decide to go watch New Moon just for silly fun. I couldn't believe it...I liked it! It had action, romance, an actual plot...you know, all of the things you look for in an actually good story line.

Immediately after the movie, I made Thomas take me to Barnes and Noble so that I could buy Eclipse. I figured that the books must have vastly improved since the first, and was willing to give them a second chance. After all, if tens of thousands of members of my sex were going gaga over this stuff, perhaps I had overlooked something?

I was content with Eclipse...until I was about a third of the way through. Can you guess what happened next?

She gets into trouble
He saves her
Intense conversation
Oh lordy lordy, his golden fiery eyes and rock hard chest
She cooks dinner for her dad
Sarcastic banter
More intense conversation
She gets into more trouble


So disappointing.


I'm not going to totally diss Twilight. It obviously captures the interest of females because it depicts a kind of perfect intense forbidden love, served to them on a shiny fictional platter by a perfectly sculpted, intelligent, protective, unconditionally loving, 100%-of-his-attention-giving VAMPIRE....who for some reason doesn't want to eat them.


And if that's what they like, who am I to judge? Heck, I like the story as well...but apparently, only after Hollywood takes over and cuts out all of the repetitive crap.


Oh...I'm sorry. Did you read all the way through that to find out what the point was? There is none, really. I just like to rant.





THANKSGIVING!!


Thomas and I drove to Idaho Falls on Wednesday right after I got off work, had dinner the next day, and then drove home after. It was a little tiring, but definitely worth it. Who wants to spend Thanksgiving sans family? Not me! I think I really hit the jackpot with Thomas's family; they're all awesome. And I got to see some of my own family too, whom I hadn't seen in a long time! All in all, a very successful holiday indeed.











And noooowwwwwww


THE HOUSE!!!!


I decided to do you all a favor and move into a house so that you don't have to listen to me gripe and moan and complain 24/7 about how LOUD and OBNOXIOUS and INCONSIDERATE my neighbors are. Wasn't that nice of me?

You're welcome.


We're moving into a HOUSE!!!! I can't contain my excitement!! We got the keys today and we're going to go over and paint tomorrow and then we'll start moving stuff in! We'll be officially moved in by this time next week!!!

Horrah!!!


And it's not just any old house, either. It's a CUTE house. So so cute. It's got a big bay window in the living room, archways, hardwood floors, glass doorknobs, and old charming everything! And the best part: NO UPSTAIRS OR NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS!!! Well, you know. We'll have next door neighbors, but no one we actually have to share a wall with!!! Aww yeah!!


I don't think I have made this very clear through my writing, so I'm just going to go ahead and spell it out for you: I'm excited about the new house.

There's No Place Like Home

I'm baaaaaack!! Yes my friends, I have officially returned home, and have been back for over a week now. It feels so nice to be in my own home, with my own bed, my own furniture, my own kitchen, my CAR, etcettera. Now all I'm waiting for is my own husband to make it all perfect! Thomas will be home Friday night, and I am SO excited to see him again; I miss him so much! So far, I have accomplished everything on my "to do" list, except finish my Kinkade knockoff. I have worked on it, mind you, but paintings take time to complete. I will reveal the finished product all in good time my pretties, all in good time! These things must be handled deeeellllicatelyyyyy!!! Also, in case you were wondering about the previously mentioned "stank", there was none! I came home and my apartment smelled very strongly of apples, with no stank to report. The freezer didn't smell like a bed of roses, but a box of baking soda has fixed that problem quite nicely. Reports on my stay in Virginia and my new job to follow!!

Before I went home, I spent a couple of days in Idaho Falls with my grandparents; it was awesome to see them and the rest of the family too!












One of the first things I did after returning home was ride my pink cruiser over to the Boise rose garden and take some photographs...of flowers. What else? :

All the Stuff I'm Gonna Do When I'm Finally HOME!

I'm coming home!!! Woo wee!! My flight leaves at 8:30am on Tuesday, August 4th, and I will be in Idaho Falls by 1:00pm. I get to see my seester and brother in law and Gramma and Crapa! I am one happy girl! Now, in the meantime, I need to make a list of all of the things I simply must do when I arrive home. Not only does it help the time until I'm actually home to go by more quickly, but because I like to obsess over making everything perfect, creating lists helps me to feel all nice and happy inside. Don't hate.


THE LIST


1) Assess the stank. Confused? Allow me to elaborate: Before Thomas and I left for Virginia in May, I forgot to pay our power bill. Can you see where this is going? No power + Stank?? eh?? Yes. I left food in our freezer and refrigerator, and because I didn't pay the bill, the power was shut off and the food went bad and as a result, my entire apartment became one giant stank. By the time the power company got the message that our address had changed for the summer and sent us a bill, the power had already been shut off. They never bothered to call me to tell me I had a payment that was late. They just shut it off. How lovely of them. So, when I received a rather large bill in the mail, I was positively cornfuzed because I didn't think we would have a power bill while in Virginia, because everything but our REFRIGERATOR was unplugged and the air and lights were turned off. So for the first couple of months we were out here, I didn't think anything of the fact that we weren't getting a power bill. So when I finally DID get a bill, I called the power company because I was confused about the amount due, and sure enough, it turns out that I am just a ditz and forgot to pay the bill amongst all of the hullabaloo of finals and packing to leave for the summer. SO I then proceeded to call the apartment office and asked the office girl if she would mind moseying over to my apartment and assessing the damage. She called back with bad news: My apartment stunk. Really stunk. Stunk BADLY. All I had in the fridge were condiments, but the freezer had frozen vegetables, berries, and if I remember correctly, it contained chicken as well....I know. I had to call a cleaning service to go over there and throw everything away and clean out the fridge. Then I mailed Jennifer (she's the office girl) about 5 Bath and Body Works Scent Ports (autumn apple, mmm!) which she proceeded to plug in throughout my stanky apartment. She was also sweet enough to leave my windows open during the day for a few days, and scrubbed down my kitchen counters with Pine Sol. I called the office a few days ago for an update, and Jennifer reported that not only was our refrigerator not damaged, but the stank was almost completely gone and in its place was an overwhelming apple scent which one could smell even in the airway outside of our apartment. I'm not really sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing...it would be good if the fridge stink was completely gone and in it's PLACE was an overwhelming apple scent. But if it ends up smelling like rotted food stank merely covered up by autumn apple, I think I just may vomit. We shall see. I must assess. Ergo, number one: Assess the stank.


Don't you just love how I can turn one item on a list into an entire novel? MOVING ON...


2) Wash the sheets on my bed. Yes, I washed them right before we left, but what if there is a creepy crawler in there? What if the stank permeated the sheets? What if a homeless guy broke into my apartment and decided to take a nap?? You never know.

3) Sleep in my wonderful, glorious, heavenly, beautiful, king size, cushy, soft, comfy bed. You would describe it in the same way if you had been sharing a too-firm-for-your-taste queen with your 6'4" husband all summer long. That man flops around in bed like a salmon swimming upstream, which causes me to bounce and shimmy and shake! In our bed at home I never had this problem because it is a cushy pillow top, but here, no such luck.

4) Clean out our entry way closet. We've got it all in there: Christmas decorations, my old bed frame, headboard and foot board, an old vacuum, an electric blanket, board games, and who knows what else....know anyone that needs a vacuum??

5) Clean out the trunk of my car. What can I say? It's embarrassing for me to open my trunk in a parking lot. I just know all of those complete strangers are simply dying to get a look at the inside of my trunk, and when they see how stuffed full of junk it is, they snigger and scoff at me, and then proceed to go home and tell all of their friends what a loser I am for having such a junky trunk. I am ashamed. But that's all going to change as soon as I get home! You'll see!!

6) Finish my Kinkade knockoff. Why on earth would I spend $1100 on an image that was printed onto a canvas and then dabbed with paint in a few spots (by some dude who is not even Mr. Kinkade, mind you) when I could have a mediocre reproduction of the same image that was 100% oil??? Oh yeah. I'm painting my own Megan Whittington original of Thomas Kinkade's Rainy Dusk, Paris. And it will be...adequate. But it will have only cost about $25! Top that!


I am really going to miss Thomas for the two and a half weeks we're going to be separated, and I will probably cry and whine and complain and wish I had never left his side. But honestly, I need to get out of this place. The oven shuts itself off when you try to use it so it only halfway bakes stuff, and only one of the big burners works. The washing machine also shuts itself off mid-cycle, in addition to not spinning the clothes dry at the end of the cycle half the time. The person who lived here before us was a chain smoker, and despite my best efforts, it STILL reeks of cigarette smoke. The couches are the color of cat poo, and there's carpet in the bathroom for Pete's sake!!! It really isn't that bad of a place, and I am really grateful that we were able to come out here so Thomas could make some money this summer. But that old saying really is true: there's no place like home! And I am so excited that HOME is where I'm going to be so soon!!!

4th of July in Washington DC

Keepin' it short and sweet: We spent our Fourth of July in our nation's capital, Washington DC! It was a lot of fun! There were tons of people there and so much do see and do! We met up with our friends Jon and Lindsay Leask and Jon's brother Jordan. The fireworks were absolutely stunning, and it was perfect to watch them going off behind the Washington Monument. It was a fabulous Independence Day, daahling!!

Happy Anniversary, Babykins!

Yaaaa know....sometimes, no matter how well you plan something, it blows up in your face. Our one year anniversary plans are a perfect example of this. We had originally planned to spend the day at the ZOO in Washington, D.C., and then later return home for a nice dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (where we went on our first date, and where Thomas took me on the night he proposed). We went to church, and then went out to lunch with Todd and Julie (Thomas' brother and his wife). It was about two o' clock before we left for our ZOO adventure!!!.....and before our plans went awry. It took us about half an hour to drive into D.C., and then we missed the ZOO entrance. So we had to drive around in the traffic in downtown D.C. to get BACK to the ZOO entrance, after which we found it impossible to find a parking spot. So, we drove around for about 25 minutes in downtown D.C., hoping to find a parking spot so we could walk to the ZOO. No dice. It was the sloowwwwest bumper to bumper traffic ever, and there were no parking spots to be had. Soooo then we decided that we would just drive back to the metro and take the train back into DC. We drove back, parked our car, walked to the metro station, figured out which lines we needed to take and how much it would cost, and then we went to purchase our tickets at the machines (that's the only way you can buy a ticket). They were out of order for debit and credit. So, we spent $2.50 to get some cash out of the ATM, and attempted to purchase our tickets that way. But alas, the machine wouldn't let us pay for our tickets with a twenty dollar bill, because we would be getting more than five dollars in change. The man at the booth (the only employee for miles around) didn't give out change. On the way back to the car, Thomas's flip flop broke. He couldn't keep it on his foot, so he threw them away in a trash can and scorched his feet on the black pavement all the way back to the car.



It is sufficient to say that we gave up on the whole ZOO thing.



We ended up having a really fantastic time despite our initial troubles. In all honesty, with all of the trouble we had getting into that blasted ZOO, I'd have to assume that a higher power was keeping us out for a reason. Who knows? Perhaps we would have fallen into the lion's exhibit or been eaten by a rhino??? ;) So thank you Lord for keeping us away! ha!


We went home so Thomas could put on some shoes, went to Safeway to get a loaf of bread, and went to a park we'd never been to before called Royal Lakes Park, where we fed the terrifying geese! There were about fifty of them running at us all at once!! Then we took a hiking path into the wooded area around the lake. It was really beautiful and romantic; like an enchanted forest! The perfect place for an anniversary walk :)

After our nature excursion, we drove back into town and went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. We were seated right away, and the food was delicious. Afterward we shared a piece of Snickers Cheesecake!

After dinner, we went to see the new Disney Pixar film UP. It was the sweetest, most adorable movie I've seen in a long time, and we both really loved it. The storyline is so sweet and sad, and without giving away too much, I'll just say that it is a perfect movie for married couples to watch together.

After the movie, we decided to drive up to the temple in D.C. and take a gander. It's located in a fairly heavily wooded area, and it was pitch black outside. The only light came from the temple, which was MASSIVE, pure white, and brightly illuminated against its black surroundings. The gates were closed, so we couldn't see the entire thing, and it still gave me shivers. The only situation I could equate it to would be seeing a Blue Whale while scuba diving. Breathtakingly beautiful, and terrifyingly huge.

This picture doesn't even come close to giving justice to what I saw last night.

Also, on the way back from the temple, we saw a deer on the road! He was kind enough to allow me to take his photograph:

All in all, I'd say this was a spectacular anniversary. It wasn't the romantic walk through the forest, the lovely dinner, the cute movie, or the breathtaking temple that made it special. It was experiencing those thing with the man I love more than anything that made the day so great. We could have spent our anniversary in a dumpster and I'm sure I would have had an equally fantastic time! Stinky....but fantastic!

I love you so much Thomas!!! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!!!