Saturday Favorites?

1) Getting to sleep in until 8:15 this morning. 

2) Waking Pippen up and having him cuddle with you for at least 3 minutes before he goes crazy.

3) That bloomin' onion we had last night at Texas Roadhouse.

4) Taking TWO midterms this week and getting an 89 and 91 on them. Holler.

It's always nice to see when hard work pays off. Lets hope it happens again this week, when I have two more midterms.

5) Finishing all of my Halloween decorations with good friends last weekend. I will have to post pictures of them. that will require me cleaning the apartment first...

6) Diet Dr. Pepper and for its ability to keep me awake and sane all at the same time!

Until next time!

A Very Long Week

Last week was a week straight from hell I tell ya. 

It was long and just exhausting.

All last week end was spent studying my butt off for the three tests that I had last week.

I studied and studied some more for head and neck anatomy. 

That test was on Tuesday and wasn't too bad.

I am sure I did okay.

Then as soon I finished that test, I had to start studying for my tests on Thursday.

Thursday rolls around and I have a quick 10 question quiz in tooth morphology.

I thought this quiz was going to be intense and really hard so I studied for hours. 

However it was really easy I would have been okay studying for like 30 minutes.

Then I went to my tooth morphology lab where we were carving the crown of tooth # nine (think the big teeth in the front on the top).

This is much harder than one thinks. 

We only had 1 hour and 45 minutes to carve it perfectly, grade ourselves and take a tooth identification quiz.

So I start carving that the time goes way too fast and at the end my tooth looks not so good.

So I only got a 79% on it. BOOOOO.

Then I have my oral histology test. 

And that fricker was HARD. Just ridiculous.

I don't really enjoy my professor for that class and he didn't test on the stuff he emphasized in lecture like he said he was.

At this point I am exhausted and want to cry. 

Then Sam and I find out that a good family friend passed away on Wednesday.

Very sad but for the best.

Last year he got in a mule accident and was paralyzed from the neck down.

Then Friday we learn that the funeral was on Saturday. 

So we drove up to Rigby to be able to attend. 

It was a really nice service.

The man that passed away is named Clyde.

And he was really good friends with Sam's dad, Alan.

And Clyde requested that Alan drive him to the cemetery with his horses and wagon. It was very nice. 

It is so sad that he is no longer here but I know that he his no longer in pain and that he is in a better place.

On Saturday after the funeral we went to Rexburg to see Jill and Kegan. 

It's always nice just to get away and not worry about school.

Especially after a terrible week.

Here's to hoping this week is better!

Until next time! 

Saturday Edition of Friday Favorites

1) I passed my first qualifying assessment for clinic. A qualifying assessment or QA is like a test. Now I can point out all sorts of oral landmarks in your mouth.

2) Did a practice tooth carving and told if I turned it in for a real grade I would have gotten around a B+ or A-. Which is fine by me!

3) Chuck and I started a running program. It's called Couch to 5K. We decided on this one because neither one of us are runners and it seemed like nice easy pace to keep up with. So far it feels great!

4) I have been making lots of friends in my program. It's so nice to actually know people in my classes.

5) After a very long time of thinking and debating, Chuck and I finally decided to get a ferret. And we LOVE him. We picked him up last night. He is so fun!

Expect a whole post on him when I can get some pictures of the little bugger. We named him Pip.

Until next time!

How about a non-Friday favorite post??

I told you all that I went to Mayra's baby shower almost two weeks ago.

Well I have pictures to prove it!

Enjoy!!

Mayra, the cutest little pregnant lady! Seriously I think her belly looks to cute to be real!!

Food! Mayra made the cake pops by herself! So cute and delicious!!! 

The whole picture taking thing was kind of an after thought, so they are all pretty much of Mayra opening gifts.

Sad news, we didn't even take ONE photo together. : (

Just another reason to go visit. 

And to meet my pseudo-niece : )

Want to see what I made the little munchkin? 

Two little dresses. I was going to make another, but considering that I made one the hour before I left, I didn't have time.

Another reason to visit!!! 

Until next time!

Friday Favorites

One week left of classes!

1) I only have one week left of classes!!!

2) I finished both my anatomy lab and microbiology lab this week! I never have to think about them again.

3) I finished lots and lots of stuff on my to do before end of semester list!

4) Today I am headed to Boise for Mayra's baby shower!!!! Can't even tell you how excited I am!

5) I made the cutest little gift for Mayra's baby. Now I just need to hem the bottom. HAH. I like to live on the edge. (pictures to come)

6) I have made serious progress for my group project in one of my classes and almost have nothing else to do for it! It will be the best thing when that puppy is done.

7) I only missed three of the allowed six classes in English thus far, so I haven't gone all week. Well I went Monday to turn in a draft of my paper, but I'm never going again!!!!! I hate English and am thrilled that it is OVER!

8) Chuck and I got fudge Popsicles  this week and they were super duper delicious!

Hope you all had a great week!

Until next time!

Friday Favorites

Finally!

1) Today is my last of classes for like 9 days (including weekends)! Holler

2) I don't have any homework over break.

3) In less than one month I am going to Boise for Mayra's baby shower.

4) I got to talk to my dad and sister this week.

5) For my political science class I finally found a decent group for the project we need to do.

6) The weather has been beautiful this week and the forecast looks good for the rest of the weekend. Yay.

7) I think that we are getting a new oven in our apartment because the one we have now is ghetto. Think take and bake size.

8) Did I mention I have spring break next week. : )

Until next time!

Frank

Let me be frank with you.

Marriage is one of the hardest things I have ever done.

It is also the most rewarding.

I can't see my life without my husband in it.

But with that being said there are times when things are rough 

and I just have to cry.

It's hard being married at 21. It was even harder being married at 19.

There are times when I mourn for the days of being single and carefree with my friends.

There are times when I just want to be back in New York living with my family.

But then I realize there was no Sam in those moments. 

There was no man that loved me to the deepest levels of my soul.

And whom I love just the same.

Sometimes I think people, especially younger married people in the Mormon community, make marriage out to be a walk in the park.

And honestly sometimes it is. But sometimes there are moments when I just want to scream at my husband.

Sometimes there are moments when I wonder was I truly ready for this. 

Sometimes I am one of those people that make marriage out to be a walk in the park. 

My go to response when people ask me how married life is treating me is to tell them that it is fun.

Sometimes it's so fun to get to spend every day with Sam.

But sometimes it's not so fun.

Some days I just need my own friends and time away from Sam.

I think the biggest difficulty that Sam and I have had in our marriage, apart from living with his parents the first four months (which I would not recommend to anyone), is not having our own friends.

Our own things to do and time away from each other.

Sometimes all I need is just time away from Sam. 

Since we have moved schools and came to ISU, 

we have both had difficulty coming into our own.

It's great to have Sam to go through all of this with, 

but to be frank, I just need some girlfriends! to chat about anything and everything with.

Sometimes I get that with my friends that are at BYU-I. 

And I thirst for more of those moments.

And sometimes I need my family.

The ones that have seen me at my weakest moments and been there for me always.

It is a very hard thing to be the one in a marriage where it's your family that lives far away.

It's incredibly difficult for me at times to only see my family once a year.

I grew up with my ENTIRE family a thirty drive from me.

Now they are all 2000+ miles away.

I'm not saying that I don't like/love my in-laws.

I couldn't have married into a better family.

I constantly laugh because of them and they bring serious joy to my life.

But since I am being frank, Alan is not my dad.

And I love my dad more than words could describe. 

I miss him more than I could ever write.

Alan is an amazing father-in-law and I get to do things with him that I would never do with my own father, which is just awesome.

And Sydney is seriously the best mother-in-law ever.

She is my Momma Syd.

I love her.

I don't have a relationship with my own mother, so she is my mom.

She fills a void in my life. as cheesy as that sounds.

But back to this marriage thing.

It is hard.

It requires a lot of work.

I have cried more times than I would like to admit.

But my marriage is the best thing that I ever happened to me.

Sam was the best decision I ever made.

I love him more than anything in the entire world.

I wouldn't trade this life for anything.

It isn't always an easy life, but sometimes it is the best life ever.

Until next time!

Weekend Plans

So glad it's finally the weekend.

I love every single weekend. (Who doesn't)

This weekend will be kind of busy. I'm torn between a few things.

It's Sam's nephews birthday party tomorrow, 

but it is also ski demo days at Grand Targhee. 

We really really want to go to both. 

Sam probably wants to go skiing more than take the three and a half hour drive down to Utah and back for a birthday party. 

But we already agreed to go to the party. 

Maybe we will ski on Sunday. Maybe not.

But the one thing that I do know is that today we are going up to Rigby, then going to pick up my BFF Julie and hang out.

It's always super fun hanging out with Julie and her sister Jill, but Jill is working tonight so we won't be hanging out with Jill.

Sad day.

What are your weekend plans?

Are you celebrating Valentine's Day a little early?

Not us.

We will save our hot date for the actual day.

Until next time!

My Day.

Today was one of those lazy days that was beautiful. 

Sam and I originally planned on going skiing.

But we woke up at 8:00, checked the weather and the high was going to be like 25 degrees, which isn't bad, but the wind

was going to be around 29 MPH up to 44 MPH. 

So we nixed that plan and fell back asleep.

We woke up for the second time at 11. Sam went downstairs, while I stayed in bed and watched Sex and the City. 

Then Momma Syd did a little knock knock knock at the door and said that

we were going on a little pony ride. 

I got up took a quick shower and then hopped on my pony. 

I just about had a heart attack. Now folks I have ridden horses before, but sometimes the fact that there is a half ton animal between my legs and it could kill me or seriously harm me, gets to me and I get a bit more

freaked out. Now the horses that Sam's parents own aren't the typical horse that you are imagining. They are called Norwegian Fjords. (These are my in-laws actual horses. The link is to the actual horse I rode today. Pronounce like echo)

They are cute little buggers and generally very calm. 

But like I said I still get scared. The one I ride is pretty chunky. She is on a strict  diet and in what we call "The Fat Girl" pen. 

Ekko wouldn't exert anymore energy than required.

Anyways. After said pony ride. We loaded, more like I watched, a bunch of 

stuff in the truck to take to the D.I. 

Then we went out to eat. Were planning on going bowling, but it was league night, so here I am at home, with no other plans that to watch some more Sex and the City. 

Do you guys have any fun New Years plans??

I'm going to party with some friends from New York that are in Rexburg for school. I can't even wait!!

Until next time!

A Little Trip Back East

So as promised here are some pictures from my trip home to New York.



Me and my nephew Nathaniel on his 7th birthday. He is getting so big!



This is a sweet little "waterfall" that we hiked up to. It was really cool.




One of the things that I really wanted to do while in New York was go to Darien Lake, it is this amusement park that I grew up going to. It is 100x better than anything in Utah or Idaho. They have this ride called the Sky Coaster. Essentially you are harnessed up, and they pull you up 180 feet and pull a cord and then basically swing. It is a super adrenaline rush. I have done it twice before. This time I did it with my brother Nick. Here we are going. And the picture below is of us flying after we pulled the cord.



I didn't get a lot of pictures with my camera, most of them are of my nephew on his birthday. But my sister has some that I'll post. It was so nice to be in New York and get to spend time with family and friends. It was really nice to have longer than 3 days there, which was how long my last two trips home were.

Until Next Time!

Life as we know it...

These days life as we know it has gotten pretty hectic with school and all that jazz. We are both back in school now, even though I had to start 4 days before Sam. Curse you UVU. However I do have a "fall break" and I get done with finals before Sam. Yippee!! So we pretty much go to school, come home and do homework, eat, watch tv and then get up and do the same thing all over again. We try to spice up our weekends here. We have gotten to hang out with our one married friend couple. That has been nice. We usually watch a movie and eat together. Which is all we did when the four of us weren't yet married. Last Satuday, we ventured up to Murray to go to the "Sniagrab" at Sports Authority. Mindy and Dave, Sam's sister and her husband, decided that they want to start skiing and teach their kids how to ski. In order to do this they had to get some equipment and all that jazz. It was a long day. We left the house at 10 and didn't get back until like 4. I got to play with cute little Abbie the whole time. She is so fun. We did get treated to a nice lunch at this spectacular Indian restaurant. That's the second time I have had Indian and luckily both times were great. I guess it is usually hit or miss with Indian food. We knew it had to be good because we were the only white people there eating, everyone else was Indian.

I know that I said last time I would post some pictures of our apartment, but I haven't yet taken any. So you will have to forgive me.

Until next time!

Finally!

So Sam and I both finally back in Provo together. I got here around 3:30 on Friday and Sam made it here at about 1:00 on Monday. It seemed like the longest weekend in the world just waiting for him. It is so nice to finally have him here. And we finally unpacked all of our stuff. Pretty much everything for our apartment is all set up. We just have a few finishing touches and then it's all done. I can't believe how nice it is to have our own place and decorate everything the way we want it. But here is a recap of the weekend and events that have led up to this.

On Friday, I brought everything in from the car and just plopped it all down in the living room. I then proceeded to go SHOPPING!! I didn't get anything too crazy. Just some things that I would need to make it through the weekend. I got a dish strainer and garbage can from Bed Bath and Beyond. And then I went to Sam's Club to buy a membership and pick up some essentials. I met my step sister Jen there and we just perused the store. I picked up some things like milk and toilet paper, and little things like that. Then I went to my friend Mayra's to pick up her air mattress that she so graciously lent me. I went home and started the awful task of unpack things and washing some of the dishes. A little while later, I went to Jen and Edgar's, where they were nice enough to feed me dinner. Which was super yummy. Then we just chatted and played the wii. I finally went home and crashed.

On Saturday, people were supposed to come and clean the carpets, so I had to shove everything from the living room into the kitchen. And all of the things that were in the bedroom into our bathroom. I didn't want to be here when they came, so I left and went shopping again. I wanted to go to Seagull book for a new wonder tee, but they weren't open yet, so I went into Shopko to blow some time. It ended up being a pretty good idea. Practically the whole store was on sale. So I got a few little things we would need and a new pillow for me. Afterward I got my shirt and headed back to Sam's club to buy some more food, because I had bought so little the previous night. I went home and did some more unpacking and cleaning up. It was just pretty annoying stuff washing all of the new dishes and everything else we had received from our wedding. Later I went to Jen and Edgar's and we watched a movie and had some milkshakes. It was a lot of fun.

On Sunday I didn't go to church because I was so confused at what time it was. I had three different pieces of paper that said three different times. I went to dinner at Mayra and Logan's. We had this really good chicken for dinner. And then played Quiddler and had some smoothies. I went to bed and just was anticipation of Monday for when Sam was coming. I woke in the morning and went to UVU to look around the campus and get my books and id card. Finally Sam and his mom made it with all our stuff. We unloaded everything and then had to head up to Bountiful and Clearfield for even more of our stuff and our bed. We got everything loaded up in the truck and headed to lunch at Red Robbin. That was the first time both Sam and I had been there. We really liked it. We made it back to Provo, unloaded everything once again and then said a sad goodbye to Momma Syd.

I'll update about our first week of classes and some pictures of our apartment soon.

Until next time!

This place will be the death of me

I hate work. The end. Well I really wish that it were the end of work, but I still have a couple more hours. It's rather boring here. I literally just sit here and wait until a trek comes and then I fill out a ticket and then weigh them in by pressing a couple of buttons. And then once all the trucks have come I have to do a little bit of cleaning. It's not much cleaning so I don't mind it. But I can hardly wait until this summer is over just so I will be done with work for a little while. It will be a welcomed change. However, you just wait until about November and I will be crying about school the same way I am about work.

This weekend I travelled down to Provo all by my lonesome. It was a long drive, mainly because I have never driven that far by myself. But I survived it and made it there and back safely. it was a lot of fun to just hang out with Mayra and Logan. On Saturday, we just talked and went for a walk. It was so nice down there. But deathly hot. I hardly know if I could survive a summer down there without air conditioning. Thankfully our apartment will have central air. It was interesting to see Mayra and Logan as a married couple and how they have changed. It also gave me a slight taste of what it will be like to live with Sam by ourselves. Their apartment was super cute. You can see them in the style of it, if you know them well enough. It was nice to just get to look at it all and get some ideas for my apartment. The best part though was for some girl conversation. I have been deprived all summer. But I finally got to chat away to my hearts content. I love Sam and everything but certainly does not fill the womanly void. And I can't really talk about him to him. Being with them also really made me realize just how glad I am that I married Sam and not anyone else. He is such a blessing in my life.

On Sunday, Mayra and Logan don't have church until 2pm. Which is pretty crazy. So we just lounged around and ate food until then. Their ward has babies EVERYWHERE!!! It was so crazy. I can totally understand how a couple without children can feel like the black sheep and then get baby hungry. Part of me wants my ward to have babies so I can hold them, but then part of me doesn't want any because then I will want a baby. After church we watched a movie and talked some more and went on another walk. Mayra and I also played this card game called Quiddler. it was a lot of fun. In face it was so much fun, that I made Sam take me to the store so we could buy it, but sadly they didn't have it where we went. On Monday, Mayra and I ran some errands and went shopping. Also we met our good friend, Bobbie, for lunch. It was really nice to see her and catch up. I hadn't seen her since my wedding. Around 3:45 I left to make the trek back to Idaho. I would periodically take pictures and send them to Sam to see if he knew where I was. He thought I was almost 2 hours away when really I was 40 minutes. So I surprised him by getting home early. Unfortunately we didn't have the greatest night. I am not sure why but we just bickered with each other about really stupid things. We both got a little mean. That was probably the worst fight we have had. But things are great now. I just love him.

On Saturday before I left, I received flowers for my birthday from my dad. I thought that was really sweet of him to find a flower shop out here that would deliver me flowers for my birthday. That was the first time I hadn't been with all my family for my birthday, but it was pretty enjoyable. We did end up going on the horse ride with his parents. For the first 30 minutes I was petrified. But then I saw how badly Sam's dad's horse was behaving and I realized my horse was doing amazing. It was about a 10 mile ride. So my butt hurt so badly at the end.

Today is my sister's birthday. She turned 23. I ordered her a web cam from overstock.com. It will basically benefit me just as much as her. I can hardly wait for her to get it so we can video chat. It will be nice to see her face and talk to her at the same time. Fortunately both Sam and my computer have a built in web cam. Also I found out that if my computer takes a turn for the worse, I have a 15% discount to Dell through my work. That is a pretty good deal, just for working here.

Only like three weeks until we get to move into our apartment!!! I am so excited!!!

Until next time!