I just want to take a minute (or several) and tell you all how great my weekend was! First, Friday morning I got to sleep in until 8:00, and it was magical. Brandon and I got up and took our time getting ready and packing for the weekend, and finally hit the road around 11:00 after picking up our Christmas cards at Walmart. The drive was long, but we made it there by watching/listening to Santa Clause 2. We got to Boise around 4:00 and hung out with the fam all night! I helped my mom make a tasty dinner, then went to Target with her to pick up Anthony's pictures. Let me tell you, my brothers are pretty dang good looking. It's incredible how much they have grown up. When we were at Target, we bought Christmas Vacation 2. What. A. Ripper. I talked my mom into letting my brothers open their gifts from me and Brandon! We got Adrian a hammock, and Anthony opened his birthday present, which was a wallet. Then they made us each open up a present! Brandon got the newest Maroon 5 cd and the movie The Dark Knight Rises, and I got the Elvis Christmas cd. Let me tell you: best gift ever!!!!
Saturday morning we woke up early, and my mom and I took Adrian to his wrestling match. We dropped him off around 7:45, then we went to Walmart for some shopping. Afterwards we went to McDonalds for some breakfast beverages. We both commented on how we wish we were the kind of ladies that went to Starbucks, but we're cheap, and Starbucks is not, so McDonalds it was. Then it was back to the high school for some wrestling. Adrian had a by his first match, so he didn't end up wrestling until after 12:30. Brandon's parents got to the school at 12:30 to pick him up and take him to the game, so he didn't get to even see Adrian wrestle. It was fun but scary to see Adrian wrestle. Most of the time I wanted to jump over the railing and punch the kids my little bro was wrestling. It made me so nervous! But not the girl, he conquered the girl real quick.
After wrestling, we went home and ordered some pizza. Brandon's family came over after the game and had dinner with us before they headed back to Logan. It was nice to have both families together! After dinner we six went to look at the coolest lights in Boise. A video of it can be seen here. We went home and watched Dark Knight Rises, except only Brandon and dad made it through the whole movie. The rest of us are old people and went to bed early.
Sunday we woke up early again and drove to Twin Falls to meet family and exchange gifts. Adrian rode with me and Brandon on the way there, and we listened to some music from our past. It was pretty great, that kid is a hoot. We got to Sizzler, ate some tasty food, then went back to the cars to exchange gifts. We blasted the Elvis cd from our car, and got to watch my dad and grandma bust a few moves in the parking lot. It would have been embarrassing if it hadn't been so dang funny.
I got to spend some quality time with my mom, watch Adrian wrestle for the first time, dance with him in the car, watch my dad dance (sorta), and laugh with my entire family all weekend. It was so much fun!! Hopefully I get to see them again soon.
Brandon and I came home and put the presents under the tree and made milkshakes and nachos for dinner, then laid down to watch more Revenge. I fell asleep pretty early, but we got to sleep until 6:30 this morning, so we were pretty happy!
I want to gloat about Brandon's grades!! He got his first 4.0 ever in college!! The finance final that he was most nervous about ended up being his best grade out of any of his finals. He got 100%!!! How great is that? He is such a hard worker, I am so proud of him!!
It started snowing here around 1:00 and hasn't stopped yet! I was going to maybe leave early because I woke up sick today, but I am hoping that the snow will slow down sometime before 5:00. Unfortunately it doesn't look like that is going to happen. Tonight is sushi night, and maybe some ice cream from Coldstone. Hope you all have a good week!
Monday, December 17, 2012
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Finishing the semester off right.
Maybe I am jumping the gun here. I don't even have 2 of my final grades yet, but who cares. I am going to tell you anyways. This is mostly for those of you who don't have Facebook, and for those of you who do, you are just going to have to hear about it again!
This semester, after taking 18 credits and working 33 or more hours a week, I ended with a GPA of 3.94. This takes me from an overall GPA of 3.6 to 3.7. That is a ton!! I took my one and only final this morning and feel pretty good about it, plus I had a high A in the class beforehand.Brandon knows for sure that he has 3 A's, and we are just waiting on his last two classes to post the final grades. We are pretty proud of ourselves!
It is kind of incredible to look back on how far we have come since before we started even dating each other. The semester that we started dating, Brandon hardly went to his classes, and I got a C for the first time ever in my entire life. We both had a lot going on that semester, and it reflected in our grades. It's crazy how much a healthy relationship can do for other aspects of your life!
This semester, after taking 18 credits and working 33 or more hours a week, I ended with a GPA of 3.94. This takes me from an overall GPA of 3.6 to 3.7. That is a ton!! I took my one and only final this morning and feel pretty good about it, plus I had a high A in the class beforehand.Brandon knows for sure that he has 3 A's, and we are just waiting on his last two classes to post the final grades. We are pretty proud of ourselves!
It is kind of incredible to look back on how far we have come since before we started even dating each other. The semester that we started dating, Brandon hardly went to his classes, and I got a C for the first time ever in my entire life. We both had a lot going on that semester, and it reflected in our grades. It's crazy how much a healthy relationship can do for other aspects of your life!
Monday, December 10, 2012
Finals week. Finally.
Guys. Where did this semester even go? Seriously, we just got back from Florida like 3 weeks ago, I'm pretty sure of it. Now Christmas is in 25 days? Brandon and I are so confused about where all of our time went. I didn't work nights, neither of us worked weekends, and we really did spend a lot of time at home together, so why did it go so fast? Not that we are complaining, because now we have a three week break, but if time keeps moving faster and faster then that means eventually (soon) we will be grown ups. And that does not sound fun.
This semester finals won't be too bad really. Brandon has one final this afternoon, and only one tomorrow at 11:30. He was supposed to have a final at 7:30 tomorrow morning but his professor cancelled it! I have one final on Wednesday at 9:30, and then an easy paper due Wednesday night by midnight. I had a 5 page Spanish paper due today, but I worked extra hard on it last week and turned it in Friday so I wouldn't have to worry about it over the weekend. The best part of this whole week is the fact that we don't have anywhere to be on Tuesday and Thursday until 9:15, so we get to sleep in!!! Friday neither of us are working because we are getting up early and heading to Boise!!
Let me tell you about the past two weekends. Since it is now December, I have been in full on Christmas-spirit mode. The first weekend in December we decorated for Christmas and made cookies. That Saturday we had Brandon's family over for hot chocolate and cookies and we watched Christmas With the Kranks! That was a pretty good weekend, but honestly nothing can compare to this past weekend!
Friday night we babysat Brandon's four little cousins. I absolutely adore them, and they pretty much worship me too, so we have a really good relationship. While we were waiting for Brandon to get off work we started watching Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas. When Brandon got there we made Christmas shaped sugar cookies and let them decorate them. It was messy!! Ruby is 4, the youngest, and her cookies were just a mess of frosting and sprinkles. They didn't look very tasty, but at least it was fun! After the kids went to bed Brandon and I sat in front of the fireplace, and I fell asleep for a little bit, until their parents got home. We didn't get home until after midnight and ended up sleeping in until 10:30 Saturday morning. It was super nice though, since I got kinda sick again last week. When we finally crawled out of bed, we had a tasty breakfast, then went to buy a tree skirt and a Christmas tree!! We didn't ever buy a tree skirt last year, so I was pretty excited to finally buy one. Last year we also bought our tree from Walmart and it died real quick, so this year we went to a tree lot and it made me a happy girl! Granted, it was freezing outside, but I do love going to the lots. Except this place didn't give us mini candy canes, so that was a bummer. We went home and set up our tree, had some hot chocolate, then took the truck back up to Brandon's parents. They lent us the truck to go get the tree, and they also are letting us borrow their tree stand. Brandon and I bought one of the metal kind that are a huge pain to set up (mom you know exactly what I am talking about) but his parents had one of the bigger plastic kind and that was way easier to use! After we dropped off the truck, we came home and put on Elf and started to put lights on the tree. We decided that two strands of lights wasn't enough, so we paused the movie and ran to Shopko to get some more lights.
Sidenote: we love Shopko. Like we go there at least once a week just to walk around. It was so busy on Saturday!! And their Christmas aisles were cleaned out. All their Christmas stuff was half off, and there were maybe fifteen boxes of lights left, so we got lucky.
Anyways, we got back home and finished decorating our tree, and finished watching Elf. It had started to snow when we got home, so it was perfect tree decorating weather! Luckily the snow held off until after we got out tree picked out. So we finished watching Elf, and around 5:00 decided that we should maybe get our butts off the couch and go do something. We went to Costa Vida for dinner, which was my second time that week. I guess I can go without it for so long but once I get back to it, I can't stop! After dinner we decided to go back to Shopko (told you we love it). Brandon and I have been talking a lot since Thanksgiving about how to do Christmas for each other this year. We feel like when we need or want something, we just buy it, and that last year for Christmas we bought each other things just to buy them. This year we decided to take the money we would have spent and put it towards gifts for children in need. At Shopko they have an Angel Tree, like sub for Santa, so we went and chose an Angel off the tree and shopped for a little 4 year old girl. It was so fun to be able to buy things and know that this girl is going to have a better Christmas because of it. It made me really grateful for my parents and how hard they have worked my whole life to be able to provide a good life for me and my brothers. Brandon's brother James only tells us that he wants world peace for Christmas, so we decided to do another angel but in his name. And I had so much fun doing the first one that I didn't want to put off doing the second one. This round we chose an 8 year old boy. He needed underwear and wanted anything Hulk, so we looked for Hulk underwear, but couldn't find any. That was sad for us. Anyway, what started out as just dinner to get out of the house turned into a 4 and a half hour trip out of the house. It was really nice though. Those of you who know me well know that I cry at the drop of a hat, but I had a mini cryfest because I was so happy. Christmas is my favorite time of the year because of all the happiness, and I feel like every few weeks or so lately I realize how much I have to be grateful for, and how nice it is to actually be happy.
But enough cheezyness!! After our shopping venture we went home and made brownies and watched Santa Clause, my second favorite Christmas movie! Then we fell asleep around 11. Yesterday morning we got up at the crack of dawn (7:30) to go to a missionary homecoming. We got home around 10:30, made muffins, finished Santa Clause, then took a 3 hour nap. I love naps. I can't tell you the last time I had a good, solid, nap. Man. What a good weekend!
So Brandon has his final today and I am working from 7:00 to 5:00, then I have a study session at 5:30. My professor offered to come to the study session if people provided him with pizza, so it's going to be a party! After that I have to wrap Christmas presents. It really needs to be done. Thursday we are going to a Christmas play with Brandon's family, then Friday morning we will be on our way to Boise! Brandon is going to the Potato Bowl with his family, and I get to watch Adrian wrestle for the first time in ever! I am really excited actually. Except not about the spandex. I can never get over how awkward that is.
I am going to try and post some pictures on here. I just got a new phone (smartphone!) so now I am cool and can take really good pictures. I just need to try and figure out how to get them from my phone to the computer....
Figured it out!! Okay here you go!
This semester finals won't be too bad really. Brandon has one final this afternoon, and only one tomorrow at 11:30. He was supposed to have a final at 7:30 tomorrow morning but his professor cancelled it! I have one final on Wednesday at 9:30, and then an easy paper due Wednesday night by midnight. I had a 5 page Spanish paper due today, but I worked extra hard on it last week and turned it in Friday so I wouldn't have to worry about it over the weekend. The best part of this whole week is the fact that we don't have anywhere to be on Tuesday and Thursday until 9:15, so we get to sleep in!!! Friday neither of us are working because we are getting up early and heading to Boise!!
Let me tell you about the past two weekends. Since it is now December, I have been in full on Christmas-spirit mode. The first weekend in December we decorated for Christmas and made cookies. That Saturday we had Brandon's family over for hot chocolate and cookies and we watched Christmas With the Kranks! That was a pretty good weekend, but honestly nothing can compare to this past weekend!
Friday night we babysat Brandon's four little cousins. I absolutely adore them, and they pretty much worship me too, so we have a really good relationship. While we were waiting for Brandon to get off work we started watching Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas. When Brandon got there we made Christmas shaped sugar cookies and let them decorate them. It was messy!! Ruby is 4, the youngest, and her cookies were just a mess of frosting and sprinkles. They didn't look very tasty, but at least it was fun! After the kids went to bed Brandon and I sat in front of the fireplace, and I fell asleep for a little bit, until their parents got home. We didn't get home until after midnight and ended up sleeping in until 10:30 Saturday morning. It was super nice though, since I got kinda sick again last week. When we finally crawled out of bed, we had a tasty breakfast, then went to buy a tree skirt and a Christmas tree!! We didn't ever buy a tree skirt last year, so I was pretty excited to finally buy one. Last year we also bought our tree from Walmart and it died real quick, so this year we went to a tree lot and it made me a happy girl! Granted, it was freezing outside, but I do love going to the lots. Except this place didn't give us mini candy canes, so that was a bummer. We went home and set up our tree, had some hot chocolate, then took the truck back up to Brandon's parents. They lent us the truck to go get the tree, and they also are letting us borrow their tree stand. Brandon and I bought one of the metal kind that are a huge pain to set up (mom you know exactly what I am talking about) but his parents had one of the bigger plastic kind and that was way easier to use! After we dropped off the truck, we came home and put on Elf and started to put lights on the tree. We decided that two strands of lights wasn't enough, so we paused the movie and ran to Shopko to get some more lights.
Sidenote: we love Shopko. Like we go there at least once a week just to walk around. It was so busy on Saturday!! And their Christmas aisles were cleaned out. All their Christmas stuff was half off, and there were maybe fifteen boxes of lights left, so we got lucky.
Anyways, we got back home and finished decorating our tree, and finished watching Elf. It had started to snow when we got home, so it was perfect tree decorating weather! Luckily the snow held off until after we got out tree picked out. So we finished watching Elf, and around 5:00 decided that we should maybe get our butts off the couch and go do something. We went to Costa Vida for dinner, which was my second time that week. I guess I can go without it for so long but once I get back to it, I can't stop! After dinner we decided to go back to Shopko (told you we love it). Brandon and I have been talking a lot since Thanksgiving about how to do Christmas for each other this year. We feel like when we need or want something, we just buy it, and that last year for Christmas we bought each other things just to buy them. This year we decided to take the money we would have spent and put it towards gifts for children in need. At Shopko they have an Angel Tree, like sub for Santa, so we went and chose an Angel off the tree and shopped for a little 4 year old girl. It was so fun to be able to buy things and know that this girl is going to have a better Christmas because of it. It made me really grateful for my parents and how hard they have worked my whole life to be able to provide a good life for me and my brothers. Brandon's brother James only tells us that he wants world peace for Christmas, so we decided to do another angel but in his name. And I had so much fun doing the first one that I didn't want to put off doing the second one. This round we chose an 8 year old boy. He needed underwear and wanted anything Hulk, so we looked for Hulk underwear, but couldn't find any. That was sad for us. Anyway, what started out as just dinner to get out of the house turned into a 4 and a half hour trip out of the house. It was really nice though. Those of you who know me well know that I cry at the drop of a hat, but I had a mini cryfest because I was so happy. Christmas is my favorite time of the year because of all the happiness, and I feel like every few weeks or so lately I realize how much I have to be grateful for, and how nice it is to actually be happy.
But enough cheezyness!! After our shopping venture we went home and made brownies and watched Santa Clause, my second favorite Christmas movie! Then we fell asleep around 11. Yesterday morning we got up at the crack of dawn (7:30) to go to a missionary homecoming. We got home around 10:30, made muffins, finished Santa Clause, then took a 3 hour nap. I love naps. I can't tell you the last time I had a good, solid, nap. Man. What a good weekend!
So Brandon has his final today and I am working from 7:00 to 5:00, then I have a study session at 5:30. My professor offered to come to the study session if people provided him with pizza, so it's going to be a party! After that I have to wrap Christmas presents. It really needs to be done. Thursday we are going to a Christmas play with Brandon's family, then Friday morning we will be on our way to Boise! Brandon is going to the Potato Bowl with his family, and I get to watch Adrian wrestle for the first time in ever! I am really excited actually. Except not about the spandex. I can never get over how awkward that is.
I am going to try and post some pictures on here. I just got a new phone (smartphone!) so now I am cool and can take really good pictures. I just need to try and figure out how to get them from my phone to the computer....
Figured it out!! Okay here you go!
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| First night of playing with my smart phone! |
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| The two cookies covered in brown sprinkles are Ruby's |
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| Our tree skirt! |
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| Our treeeee!!! |
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| Some of our cute decorations. We got that snowman cookie jar for $3 at the DI! |
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| We made these cookies the morning we decorated for Christmas and gave them to our neighbor! |
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| Favorite people in the whole world. |
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| My cute kitty. |
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| Okay just look how little she used to be!!!! |
Friday, October 26, 2012
Long time no blog
Well, I am still a lazy blogger. But you know what? That's okay, because I am taking 18 credits so I feel like its okay to be lazy every now and then. This week has been the busiest, most stressful week I probably will have all year. Looking back at everything, there really was no reason to stress, but I stressed so much that I got sick again, and I was just sick last week. I had two tests, two quizzes, a paper, a presentation, and two group project meetings to attend. Plus on top of that, I offered to model for my friend and that lasted three hours last night! However, that ended up being lots of fun. Here is a picture of my face from last night.
Kinda weird, but it looked really neat. Also I loved my eighties hair. My week is pretty much over though. I have one more group project left tonight right after work, and I told my group that we should only be there for like 40 minutes. I am way anti-school after 5:00 on Fridays.
Brandon finished one of his classes last week and ended with an A in the class! I am pretty proud, he is such a hard worker! Also, the nice thing is that before this class he had 88 credits, and once this class posts he will have 90 and that lets him register the same night as me! Its way great because now we only have to wake up at midnight to register once instead of twice. He is doing really well in all of his other classes too; he has a 407% in one of them! Bet you thought grades like that didn't exist huh? Well they do, for awesome people.
This weekend we are planning on just taking it easy. Pad Thai, Disney's The Haunted Mansion, and milkshakes tonight, Oil changes and corn maze tomorrow, then absolutely nothing on Sunday. I just want to sleep lots so I can not be sick anymore.
Last weekend was a pretty great one!! It was fall break for us which meant no classes on Friday, so Thursday at noon we busted out of this town and headed to Boise. We got there around 5:00 and went straight to Adrian's football game. It was so fun to see him playing for my old school; we even made him a sign! I tried to let only him see it so it wouldn't embarrass him, but his friend Tyson saw it and kept trying to point it out to every single kid on their team. We had dinner that night after the game and just hung out before we all went to bed. Friday everybody had school and work, so Brandon and I ran some errands, went and visited my uncle Matt, then went and toured BSU! I love their campus so much! They have lounge/cafe space in every single building that I feel really caters to the students. It gives you so many options of where to sit and hang out/study in between classes. Plus, who doesn't love the Smurf Turf right? That night we watched Rock of Ages and hung out more with the fam. Saturday, my dad, Adrian, and Brandon went hunting early in the morning, so my mom and I got up and went shopping and had a mini girls day. Anthony was taking the PSAT. When everybody got home, my dad, Brandon and I made SUPER tasty eclairs, then we all went out for Thai food for dinner! Sunday we went to Target with my parents, then hit the road. I always hate coming back to Logan, but it has to be done.
Here is a test to see if you are still/actually reading this:
Brandon asked that I insert a poll. Please leave your answer as a comment.
Where should Brandon and Caitlin attend grad school?
-Boise State University
-University of Georgia
-North Carolina State University
-University of North Carolina at Charlotte
-Utah State University
(Just a side note: if you vote for Utah State, your vote won't actually be counted)
Next week is a pretty tame week for both of us, which will be way nice. Then we are going to Idaho Falls and doing things Thanksgiving style minus the food. We always go to Idaho Falls for Thanksgiving and go to the mini bazaar and a movie, and since we are doing Thanksgiving in Boise this year, I still wanted to go to Idaho Falls and do those same things. I like tradition, what can I say.
Sophie is doing well; I'm sure you all were wondering. Since it is getting colder at night she is starting to sleep under the covers with us again. It is my absolute favorite thing. Brandon was borrowing this backpack, and Sophie loved it. One time, she crawled in it and Brandon carried her around on his back for like a good five or ten minutes. So dang cute.
There is a couple that moved into our same apartments that are getting married next month. They are both 22, and we love them! We have had them over for Wednesday night pancakes, played games, and the girl and I talk quite a bit during the week! It is nice to have some friends that live so close!
Well, today is my day of relaxation, so I am going to go read! I found the book The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel today, and my mom said my Grandma loved the movie, so I am starting on that! Have a great weekend!
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Just another Thursday...
I can't seem to focus on studying for my Spanish test, so rather than waste time on Facebook, I figured I should blog a bit. Everything is all the same around here, work and school. This week it was Brandon's turn to be suffocated by test papers, but he is still alive, so no worries. I had one test this morning and did pretty well. I asked Brandon to look at my score first, so he tricked me and told me I did poorly, but I got the 8th highest score in a class of 55, so I felt way good about it! I have a Spanish quiz tomorrow and then a Spanish test next week that I am dreading, but it should turn out okay.
Last weekend my family came down to visit and it was so much fun! They got here Friday night at about ten, and by that time we were all pretty tired. So we gave them a tour of our new apartment, and then we all hit the hay. Saturday morning we woke up and had breakfast, then headed up to Brandon's family's cabin at Bear Lake. It was his parents' weekend for the cabin, but they couldn't make it so we had the cabin all to ourselves! We were seriously only three minutes away from the cabin when Sophie POOPED IN HER CRATE. It was not a fun experience. Luckily she didn't even step in it, or else the situation really would have been a disaster. We dropped off Sophie and all of our stuff at the cabin, then headed in town to Le Beau's to get a shake and go to the beach! My dad was so funny; I am pretty sure he didn't stop talking about how good his shake was all weekend. We hung out at the beach for about an hour, skipping rocks and playing in the kind of sand, just until the boys got bored. Once we got back to the cabin, we played a round of Monopoly Deal and had some lunch. After lunch, Adrian, Dad, and Brandon went shooting while Mom, Grandma, Anthony and I watched a movie and basically did nothing. It was so nice to just have time to relax! The boys got back and we watched the Utah State-Colorado State game for a while until we got hungry for dinner. After pizza, we sat in the hot tub for a while, played a round of 5 Crowns, had dessert and went to bed. Oh, I forgot about how much wildlife we saw that day! We saw a ton of deer, and also a turkey! Just a hen, but still. The only turkeys I have ever seen are the ones I end up eating....
Sunday morning Brandon and I accidentally slept in (oops) and woke up to a nice pancake breakfast being prepared by Mom and Grandma. Isn't it incredible how much better food always tastes when your mom is the one making it? My family wanted to be home around 5:00, so we left the cabin around 11:00 to make the drive back to Logan. Pretty much we got to the apartment and then my family left. It is always hard to leave them, or to see them go. Logan is only 4 hours away, but it is definitely not close enough for me!! Luckily, Adrian is coming down this weekend for the homecoming game, and then Brandon and I are going to Boise in about three weeks over fall break!
Other than Adrian coming down this weekend, more people are coming that I am excited to see! My old roommate Alycia, like me, loves dance parties. So Friday night, I am making Brandon go camping with James (okay, not really making, but I kinda told him that I wanted to have a sleepover so he should have an adventure), and Alycia is going to come up and go to the homecoming dance with me and Chelsea!! Brandon is not really one for dance parties, so I am excited to finally get to dance my little toosh off! Then back to our apartment for a good old fashioned sleepover! The next day, we have a nice reunion lunch planned for those of us that lived on the third floor of building D in the LLC. A couple of our good friends recently got back from their missions, so it will be really fun to see them! I am especially excited to see Sam! He is from Twin Falls and just got back like two weeks ago. I have been waiting to see this kid again since the day he left!
Saturday night Brandon will be home again, thankfully, and we are going to the homecoming game! Guys, we have more school spirit this year than ever before...what the heck. We have been to one game, watched two on tv, and today, we even bought special shirts for the homecoming game. We are so proud of ourselves! After the game we are planning on taking Adrian and his two friends to clean the sink at Angie's. Hopefully Adrian will actually be in the picture this time! I will try and post again next week or something....
To Alycia and my mom: If you just finished reading this, you probably have some time on your hands. I would appreciate it very much if you would go blog about something. Anything really would do.
Also, Brandon and I are buying an ice cream maker today. Remember how I have lost like 12 pounds? Yep, it's all about to go right out the window. And by out the window I mean back to my butt and hips. YAY!
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
Quick little update.
It has been a crazy past few weeks, that is one thing I am sure of! In my last post I mentioned that I had added another class, but a few days after that post I added yet another class. That puts me at 18 credit hours (six classes), and about 32 hours of work. People think I'm crazy when I tell them how much I work, but really, working more is better for me because I get to do homework! This semester will probably kill me though. Today I am at school/work from 7-5, then I have a group project meeting from 6:30 until whenever we finish. Tomorrow school/work from 7:30 to 5:00, then I have to go to the Logan City Council meeting at 5:30, then hopefully have a study session for a test at 7:00. Wednesday I have school/work from 7:00 to 7:45. These first three days will be killer! Plus I have three tests this week. Boo school.
Luckily over the weekend Brandon and I both had some time to relax a bit. Friday night we went over to our friends Keaton and Cassidy's house and made homemade pizzas, then we went to Hastings and rented Akeelah and the Bee because I had to watch it for class. Saturday morning we were up bright and early because Brandon went biking with his dad and James for James' birthday celebration. I studied for a bit that morning, went to lunch with a friend, decorated our bookshelf, and hung out with Sophie for a bit. I couldn't quite figure out how to decorate the bookshelf, but somehow it ended up with an Autumn theme, and I bought a pumpkin spice candle that day too, so I guess you could say I am ready for October.
School is going well for Brandon. He is halfway done with one of his classes already! I think he is really enjoying his business classes this semester. He is finally in his major and so all of the classes are applicable to what he does at Campsaver.
My family is coming to Logan on Friday and I am so excited! We are going to Brandon's parents cabin with just my family and my grandma. I haven't actually been to the cabin in probably a year, so it will be nice to get out of town for a little bit and do a whole lot of nothing.
I thought I had more to write about, but it turns out that I don't. I have my first Spanish test today and I am just a little bit nervous for it, so I probably should go study. Other than my tests and my crazy nights, this week should be pretty tame, so maybe I will have more time to blog this week. Happy Monday!
Luckily over the weekend Brandon and I both had some time to relax a bit. Friday night we went over to our friends Keaton and Cassidy's house and made homemade pizzas, then we went to Hastings and rented Akeelah and the Bee because I had to watch it for class. Saturday morning we were up bright and early because Brandon went biking with his dad and James for James' birthday celebration. I studied for a bit that morning, went to lunch with a friend, decorated our bookshelf, and hung out with Sophie for a bit. I couldn't quite figure out how to decorate the bookshelf, but somehow it ended up with an Autumn theme, and I bought a pumpkin spice candle that day too, so I guess you could say I am ready for October.
School is going well for Brandon. He is halfway done with one of his classes already! I think he is really enjoying his business classes this semester. He is finally in his major and so all of the classes are applicable to what he does at Campsaver.
My family is coming to Logan on Friday and I am so excited! We are going to Brandon's parents cabin with just my family and my grandma. I haven't actually been to the cabin in probably a year, so it will be nice to get out of town for a little bit and do a whole lot of nothing.
I thought I had more to write about, but it turns out that I don't. I have my first Spanish test today and I am just a little bit nervous for it, so I probably should go study. Other than my tests and my crazy nights, this week should be pretty tame, so maybe I will have more time to blog this week. Happy Monday!
Friday, August 31, 2012
First Week.
All I can really say is thank goodness it's finally over. Has this week been incredibly long for anyone else?
Nevertheless, it has been a productive one. School, work, work, school, cleaning, watching Boy Meets World for countless hours...Okay that last one might not actually count, but speeding through 22 episodes of Boy Meets World in four days seems like an accomplishment to me!
Brandon is busy with 14 credits of school, and I just added another class today to put me at 15 credits. Brandon is taking International Business, Labor Relations, Finance, Operations Management, and Fundamentals of Marketing. Mondays he only has one class so it is super nice for him. He goes to class at 7:30 and then goes to work for the rest of the day! Tuesdays and Thursdays are his awful days. He has class at 7:30, then a class at 10:30, then he has a three hour break and comes back for one more class at 3:00. It's a pain for him to have to drive out to work and back, but he is done by 4:15 those days so it is really nice! Wednesdays he has a 7:30 class, then a class at 4:00, and then he is done by about 5:30, and Fridays he doesn't have any classes! His plan is to go to work at 7:00 every Friday which is fine, except its going to cause some early Friday nights for us. Let's get real though, we would go to bed early regardless of when we wake up.
Because Brandon has class at 7:30 everyday and I had to work at 7:00 twice this week, I got up early with him every day. It was kind of nice to get up and go for a run on the days that I didn't have class until 8:30, but those days are over, sadly enough. I made the decision yesterday to finish a psychology minor, so I had to add another class to my load this semester to not fall too far behind.
Some of you may have known, but my original plan was to teach Spanish at a high school level. Even though I no longer have a strong desire to teach, I still really want to work with adolescents. I though about doing clinical therapy with adolescents with depression/anxiety, but I'm not sure I would be strong enough to do it. I am currently in a class called Pre-Practicum, which is supposed to help us prepare for the internship that is part of my department's requirements. In this class, we were given a powerpoint on what is required for certain licensing after graduation and also for graduate programs. One of the graduate programs that was included in the powerpoint was high school counseling. I have decided that I am going to pursue that, because I would get to work with high school students, and will most likely be able to do a bit of therapy. Well, in order to apply to the grad program here at Utah State, there are two psychology classes that are required as prereqs. If I were to take those two classes now, I would only need two more classes to fulfill the requirements for a Psychology minor. Because I am not entirely concrete in my plans after graduation, I decided that it is better to be prepared now than have to go back and take courses later.
So, I added a class this semester, putting me at just five classes, will be taking five classes next semester, two classes in the summer, and two classes next fall along with my practicum that requires 300 hours in the 14 week period. Cool, right? This semester I am taking Family Crises and Intervention, Spanish Literature (did I mention I am finishing my Spanish minor too? Only one more class after this one!), Research Methods, Pre-Practicum, and Families and Social Policy. I actually think I am going to love my classes! Yesterday and today have been super stressful though trying to figure out what I wanted to do about grad school. Lucky for me, we are leaving in about an hour to head to Boise!
I am so excited to see my parents new house! We were there about a month ago and it was mostly done, but I am ready to see the finished product! I am happy that this weekend is a long one and that we get two full days with my family, because they are the best.
Not much else has happened this week. We showed some school spirit and went to the football game last night, Sophie caught a dragonfly in midair a few nights ago, and I made Brandon watch the movie Serendipity with me last night. He loved it, but don't tell him I told you :)
Here are some pictures, since the last two posts haven't really had any.
Nevertheless, it has been a productive one. School, work, work, school, cleaning, watching Boy Meets World for countless hours...Okay that last one might not actually count, but speeding through 22 episodes of Boy Meets World in four days seems like an accomplishment to me!
Brandon is busy with 14 credits of school, and I just added another class today to put me at 15 credits. Brandon is taking International Business, Labor Relations, Finance, Operations Management, and Fundamentals of Marketing. Mondays he only has one class so it is super nice for him. He goes to class at 7:30 and then goes to work for the rest of the day! Tuesdays and Thursdays are his awful days. He has class at 7:30, then a class at 10:30, then he has a three hour break and comes back for one more class at 3:00. It's a pain for him to have to drive out to work and back, but he is done by 4:15 those days so it is really nice! Wednesdays he has a 7:30 class, then a class at 4:00, and then he is done by about 5:30, and Fridays he doesn't have any classes! His plan is to go to work at 7:00 every Friday which is fine, except its going to cause some early Friday nights for us. Let's get real though, we would go to bed early regardless of when we wake up.
Because Brandon has class at 7:30 everyday and I had to work at 7:00 twice this week, I got up early with him every day. It was kind of nice to get up and go for a run on the days that I didn't have class until 8:30, but those days are over, sadly enough. I made the decision yesterday to finish a psychology minor, so I had to add another class to my load this semester to not fall too far behind.
Some of you may have known, but my original plan was to teach Spanish at a high school level. Even though I no longer have a strong desire to teach, I still really want to work with adolescents. I though about doing clinical therapy with adolescents with depression/anxiety, but I'm not sure I would be strong enough to do it. I am currently in a class called Pre-Practicum, which is supposed to help us prepare for the internship that is part of my department's requirements. In this class, we were given a powerpoint on what is required for certain licensing after graduation and also for graduate programs. One of the graduate programs that was included in the powerpoint was high school counseling. I have decided that I am going to pursue that, because I would get to work with high school students, and will most likely be able to do a bit of therapy. Well, in order to apply to the grad program here at Utah State, there are two psychology classes that are required as prereqs. If I were to take those two classes now, I would only need two more classes to fulfill the requirements for a Psychology minor. Because I am not entirely concrete in my plans after graduation, I decided that it is better to be prepared now than have to go back and take courses later.
So, I added a class this semester, putting me at just five classes, will be taking five classes next semester, two classes in the summer, and two classes next fall along with my practicum that requires 300 hours in the 14 week period. Cool, right? This semester I am taking Family Crises and Intervention, Spanish Literature (did I mention I am finishing my Spanish minor too? Only one more class after this one!), Research Methods, Pre-Practicum, and Families and Social Policy. I actually think I am going to love my classes! Yesterday and today have been super stressful though trying to figure out what I wanted to do about grad school. Lucky for me, we are leaving in about an hour to head to Boise!
I am so excited to see my parents new house! We were there about a month ago and it was mostly done, but I am ready to see the finished product! I am happy that this weekend is a long one and that we get two full days with my family, because they are the best.
Not much else has happened this week. We showed some school spirit and went to the football game last night, Sophie caught a dragonfly in midair a few nights ago, and I made Brandon watch the movie Serendipity with me last night. He loved it, but don't tell him I told you :)
Here are some pictures, since the last two posts haven't really had any.
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| We made caramel-chocolate-butterscotch covered pretzels for a Harry Potter Party! Magic Wand Pretzels! |
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| So pretty! |
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Best Ten Days of my Entire Life!
I know you all are dying to hear about our vacation, and quite frankly, I am dying to tell you about it!! We'll start at the very beginning...
Travel day 1.
We left our apartment at 11:30 to drive to Salt Lake. Brandon's mom drove us down there so we didn't have to leave our car, which was super nice! We stood in a nice long line to get our boarding passes, and ran into our one and only hiccup of the trip. Brandon's license is expired. The guy checking us in made a huge deal about how the TSA probably wouldn't accept it, but he would because he is nice. So we were all nervous about actually getting on the airplane, but when it came time to go through security, the TSA attendant said that they will accept a license up to a year after it has expired, so the issue was then gone!
We were so excited about how grown up we felt even at this point, but that excitement only lasted through the first leg of our flight. We had an hour flight to Denver, got some dinner at the airport, then had a four hour flight to Orlando. Longest flight of my life. I couldn't sleep, Brandon couldn't sleep, and we were antsy to get to the fun part of the vacation. But we finally got there, got on the shuttle to the hotel, checked into the hotel with no issues, even got upgraded to a KING bed, snagged a midnight snack and hit the hay to prepare for our first real day of vacation!
Vacation day 1.
The alarm goes off and I seriously cannot contain my excitement. Our first day was going to be spent at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, which is where Harry Potter World is! We got to the park about 45 minutes after it opened but it wasn't super packed then, or even all day really! We got a park map and just decided to do everything in a circle. We went to Seuss Landing first, which had mostly kid rides like Cat in the Hat, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, but they were still fun! Next was an old mythical land that had one attraction called Poseidon's Fury. It was a walk through stunt show kind of thing, and we waited for about an hour for it. Guess what, it was a real let down.We got through the first two worlds in about two hours. Then came the best part of the entire day.
HARRY POTTER WORLD!!! Words cannot even describe how happy I was to be there. I really was almost crying because I was so happy. The entrance to the world is a walk through Hogsmeade where they have Zonko's joke shop, Ollivander's, Honeyduke's, and more! Past Hogsmeade and up on a hill you can see Hogwarts, and it is beautiful, people. We wound our way through some of the shops, then headed towards the rides. They have three rides there. We rode the Dragon Challenge first. It is a big roller coaster that mimics the flight of the dragon in the fourth movie/book during the Triwizard tournament. So awesome. I didn't even feel sick after. Then we rode the Flight of the Hippogriff! It is a quick small coaster. It was good, but its one of those rides where you round the corners so fast that you slam into the person sitting next to you and both of your hips break. The third ride is called the Forbidden Journey. To get to the ride, then line winds through Hogwarts. We got to see the greenhouse, Dumbledore's office, and the Defense of the Dark Arts Classroom. It was a super long wait, but it was so worth it. The ride itself is Harry leading us to the Quidditch pitch, but it passes through scenes of some of the older movies. It was kinda freaky to be honest. There were huge spiders and dementors and they were really scary. The dementors actually scared me the most. But it was so great! After the rides we were starving so we went to the Three Broomsticks. It was everything I ever imagined. It was completely packed with wizards/muggles and had TASTY food. We each had a salad and then we also split an order of cornish pasties! They are small meat pies kind of. That makes them sound gross, but they were so good! And we had Butterbeer. I can't stop talking about how good it was! Brandon said it reminded him of cream soda, but I don't even like cream soda but I loved this stuff! We are going to make some and once we perfect the recipe I will share it :)
The rest of the day was decent in comparison, but still fun! We rode the Jurassic Park ride, a few water rides, and then made our way to the Superhero area of the park. The Spiderman ride was really cool. It was a 4D ride, but it was just way neat. Then we rode a roller coaster called The Hulk. Most roller coasters go up on the track and then you drop to gain speed, but as we were going up the track I realized that there was no drop, and all of a sudden the ride took off up the rest of the hill. It was insane, but I loved it!
Our hotel shuttle bus left the park at 7:30, so we went to dinner outside of the park last night. We ate at Buffalo Wild Wings in Boise a few weeks ago and found one near our hotel, so we went there! We went back and got in bed for a good nights sleep for day 2!
Vacation day 2.
After an awesome first day, we were so excited for day 2! We spent the day at the other half of Universal Studios. They had a Termintor 3D show/stunt show, a Simpsons ride, a huge roller coaster that we didn't do, and a few other stunt shows. They also had a Despicable Me ride that I was way excited for. We waited in line for an hour only to be semi disappointed. It was just a 3D ride with a motion simulator. It was sad for us. We took our time that day and made sure to watch all the shows we could. Compared to the first day, this day wasn't as good, but it was fun nonetheless!
We left the park at 7:30 again and walked to a Mexican restaurant near our hotel for dinner. We split a tasty burrito and got some fried ice cream to go, but because it was so hot, it was mostly melted by the time we got back to the hotel :(
Vacation day 3.
First day at Disney! Our bus schedule said there was a 7:30 bus and an 8:10 bus to the Magic Kingdom which opened at 9:00. We didn't want to not have a seat on the later bus, so we got up at 7:00 and made it to the bus stop by 7:25. And guess what. The bus didn't come until 7:45 because there was no 7:30 bus since the park didn't open until 9:00. Luckily, we got a seat on the bus. Mostly because we were the only ones there until 8:00, but still. We got to Magic Kingdom right as it opened and headed over to Adventureland! We had breakfast reservations at ten so we didn't want to stray too far. We went to the treehouse, rode the magic carpet ride, and the jungle cruise, then went back for breakfast! We ate at the Crystal Palace, which is a character breakfast buffet. We got to see Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore! After breakfast we continued to make our way around the park. We did everything that very first day except like four rides, the parades, and the fireworks. We were at the park from 9 to 9 that day! We went back and crashed.
Vacation day 4.
Epcot! We got to Epcot as soon as it opened. Last year when we went to Epcot with my family, we only had a few hours there, so we didn't get to see the Worlds half of the park. Brandon and I gave ourselves two days at Epcot because we weren't sure if we could do the entire park in one day, but we sure did. It was really rainy and kind of chilly that day so the park wasn't too busy. We did just the attractions side in about three hours. Most of that time was spent just wasting time waiting for the rain to go away. We even bought mickey ponchos! Test Track, our favorite ride at Epcot, is closed for remodeling, so that was side. But we had tons of time to hang out in all the different countries at Epcot! We watched the show in Canada, walked around Great Britain, and rode the rides in Norway and Mexico. We were in France about mid afternoon and were too hungry to just hold out for our dinner reservation, so we shared a crepe and got our own eclairs in France. They were so dang good. Seriously. Mom, if you are reading this, tell dad Brandon wants to make eclairs this weekend. We ate dinner at the Nine Dragons Chinese restaurant. Again, super good. I don't even remember what we ate. Tsao's Chicken or something? Delish. That night we snagged a great spot for the IllumiNations light show and watched each of the countries light up. It was definitely a good day.
Vacation day 5.
The next day we went to Hollywood Studios which is my personal favorite. We got to the park as soon as it opened and were able to ride Tower of Terror twice, and the Rockin' Roller Coaster once all within the first 45 minutes! We made sure to watch all the shows, Beauty and the Beast, Indiana Jones, and an animation show. We had started to watch the Little Mermaid show, but two minutes into it it got cancelled for no apparent reason. But no fear! We watched it a little bit later. They have a tour that takes you through some of the props from Disney movies, the costume area, and they also do a little show that shows you how water special effects work. Brandon and I were chosen to be the deckhands for the scene. In the pictures you can see us in our special blue water attire :)
Our dinner that night was at the Sci-Fi diner, and restaurant where you eat in convertible cars and watch old previews and clips on a drive-in screen. We even got a free sundae for our anniversary! That night we were SO excited to watch Fantasmic. This was my fourth time at Disney World and I had never seen it, and neither had Brandon. We waited 45 minutes and right as the show was supposed to start, it started pouring rain. We didn't want to stick around and wait for the later show, so we left.
Vacation day 6.
ANNIVERSARY DAY!!! We chose to spend our anniversary at Animal Kingdom. We got to the park as soon as it opened and headed straight for Expedition Everest. On our way there, two guys stopped us and asked if we wanted their fast passes to Expedition Everest, because they were leaving the park. It was like 9:07, so I felt bad for them. But to make their day better, we took the fast passes. We did seriously everything in the park that day. The morning started out a little hectic running from one place to another, but after we watched the Finding Nemo musical (which I had also never seen), the day seemed to smooth out. When we stopped to buy some wings for lunch, the guy that helped us was so happy that it was our anniversary, and he gave us free drinks! Best day ever right? It didn't look like rain at all that day, and it was so dang hot. We had finished about everything when we headed to the Lion King show. We had talked about possibly leaving the park early and seeing if we could get into the restaurant where our reservations were at early, but decided to wait until after the show to decide. Well, the Lion King show started at 4:30, and when the doors opened at 5:00 for us to leave, guess what. Rain. And lots of it. So we put on our ponchos, braved the weather, and ran to the bus to go to our reservation.
Our reservation was originally at 7:45, since we planned on staying at the park until 7:00, but we got right into a table at 5:30! This was a fancier restaurant than the others we ate at, because it was our actual anniversary day. The restaurant is called Sanaa, which means work of art in Swahili. The food is African/Indian food. Our waiter gave us a whole shpeel about the Africans gave the Indians (from India) beads, and the Indians gave the Africans food and spices. We had butter cream chicken, and spicy durban chicken, with a side of naan bread. I can't even begin to describe to you how tasty this food was. Brandon and I have already decided that our next cooking venture will be trying to replicate this dinner. Best part was the food. Second best part? Free drinks again, and a free dessert!
We topped the night off with some shopping at Downtown Disney, and playing the Amazing Race back to our hotel. Turns out there is no direct bus from Downtown Disney to any of the parks, we take the bus back to our hotel. We left Downtown Disney at 9:00 to try and get to Epcot by 9:45. However, we had to take a Disney bus to a Disney hotel, and then take a bus from there to the park. Needless to say we missed the Epcot bus. A bus finally came to take us to Magic Kingdom, but we didn't get there until 10:30, and still needed to get to the parking lot where our shuttle was, which was a ferry or monorail away. Since the park had just closed, the monorail and the ferry were jam packed. We ran to a hotel right next to the park, and took the monorail from that hotel to the parking lot, and got to our bus stall at 10:47, two minutes after it had left. Luckily we found another bus going near our hotel that said he would drive past our hotel and open the door so we could jump. But guess what! He even stopped the bus and let us off nicely. It was a long last few hours of the night to say the least, but what a great first anniversary! Even running around like a crazy person was fun, just because of who I got to spend the day with.
Vacation day 7.
Luckily we had given ourselves two extra days at the parks. Since we had done most everything, we let ourselves sleep in. This was awesome after the night we had had before. We went to Denny's for brunch, then went back to Hollywood Studios! We rode more rides, watch some of the street performers, ate at Pizza Planet, and went back to try and watch Fantasmic. Only guess what! More rain. It sprinkled from like 7:30 until we left the park. At 8:30, when Fantasmic was supposed to start, they told us that it was cancelled, but that they had a small preview for us. We got to see some fireworks and flames, only without the characters. So I still have yet to see Fantasmic. If anybody wants to take me back to see it, I won't complain.
Vacation day 8.
Worst best day ever: the last day of vacation :( We slept in again, later this time, then went back to Magic Kingdom. I was looking for a shirt for Anthony that I had found at Downtown Disney, and after looking in the park for thirty minutes, I found out that that specific shirt is only at Downtown Disney. Guess what we did for the next four hours? That's right! We played the stupid Downtown Disney transportation game again, all only to shop for twenty minutes. Once we finally got back to the park, we got a chili dog and watched the parade, then made our way to finish all the attractions. We made sure to ride Thunder Mountain, Pirates,and the Jungle Cruise one more time. For dinner we split a mickey pretzel, because who doesn't love soft pretzel in the shape of a famous mouse? Then right before the show we got an ice cream sundae.
Okay people, I am putting up a link to this show we watched because I cannot even describe how awesome it is. It is called the Magic, The Memories, and You. They project onto the castle and it is AMAZING. Seriously, watch the link below. There will be a quiz at the end of the blog post. Do it now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JUgeE1skTE
After the light show, we watched the fireworks. We had some dang good seats too! It was a late night after we finally got back to the hotel and packed, but it was well worth it.
Travel day 2.
The shuttle to take us back to the airport came at 6:30 in the morning. We got up at six and were ready to go early! By the time we got to the airport, got our boarding passes, and went through security, it was only 7:10, not even joking. Our flight didn't leave until 9:40, people. It was a long two and a half hours to wait. When we got back to the Salt Lake airport, I really felt like we had just been there. I was so so so sad.
It was the most wonderful vacation I could ever ask for. I'm sorry that the last few days of the trip seemed quickly summarized, but the first four days were blogged about on Friday and then stupid school started, and I just want you all to hear about how amazing it was! I had so much fun with Brandon being on vacation just the two of us for ten days straight. Neither of us had a care in the world the entire time we were there, and I am just so dang happy that we went through with booking the vacation when we did. It made me love him and our marriage that much more. Could I have asked for a better man to marry??
You can look at all of our pictures at the following site: brandonandcaitlin.shutterfly.com
Even if you looked at them on facebook, the pictures at that site have captions, so that way you know what is going on. I'll post again soon, hopefully, if school doesn't make my brain explode!
Travel day 1.
We left our apartment at 11:30 to drive to Salt Lake. Brandon's mom drove us down there so we didn't have to leave our car, which was super nice! We stood in a nice long line to get our boarding passes, and ran into our one and only hiccup of the trip. Brandon's license is expired. The guy checking us in made a huge deal about how the TSA probably wouldn't accept it, but he would because he is nice. So we were all nervous about actually getting on the airplane, but when it came time to go through security, the TSA attendant said that they will accept a license up to a year after it has expired, so the issue was then gone!
We were so excited about how grown up we felt even at this point, but that excitement only lasted through the first leg of our flight. We had an hour flight to Denver, got some dinner at the airport, then had a four hour flight to Orlando. Longest flight of my life. I couldn't sleep, Brandon couldn't sleep, and we were antsy to get to the fun part of the vacation. But we finally got there, got on the shuttle to the hotel, checked into the hotel with no issues, even got upgraded to a KING bed, snagged a midnight snack and hit the hay to prepare for our first real day of vacation!
Vacation day 1.
The alarm goes off and I seriously cannot contain my excitement. Our first day was going to be spent at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, which is where Harry Potter World is! We got to the park about 45 minutes after it opened but it wasn't super packed then, or even all day really! We got a park map and just decided to do everything in a circle. We went to Seuss Landing first, which had mostly kid rides like Cat in the Hat, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, but they were still fun! Next was an old mythical land that had one attraction called Poseidon's Fury. It was a walk through stunt show kind of thing, and we waited for about an hour for it. Guess what, it was a real let down.We got through the first two worlds in about two hours. Then came the best part of the entire day.
HARRY POTTER WORLD!!! Words cannot even describe how happy I was to be there. I really was almost crying because I was so happy. The entrance to the world is a walk through Hogsmeade where they have Zonko's joke shop, Ollivander's, Honeyduke's, and more! Past Hogsmeade and up on a hill you can see Hogwarts, and it is beautiful, people. We wound our way through some of the shops, then headed towards the rides. They have three rides there. We rode the Dragon Challenge first. It is a big roller coaster that mimics the flight of the dragon in the fourth movie/book during the Triwizard tournament. So awesome. I didn't even feel sick after. Then we rode the Flight of the Hippogriff! It is a quick small coaster. It was good, but its one of those rides where you round the corners so fast that you slam into the person sitting next to you and both of your hips break. The third ride is called the Forbidden Journey. To get to the ride, then line winds through Hogwarts. We got to see the greenhouse, Dumbledore's office, and the Defense of the Dark Arts Classroom. It was a super long wait, but it was so worth it. The ride itself is Harry leading us to the Quidditch pitch, but it passes through scenes of some of the older movies. It was kinda freaky to be honest. There were huge spiders and dementors and they were really scary. The dementors actually scared me the most. But it was so great! After the rides we were starving so we went to the Three Broomsticks. It was everything I ever imagined. It was completely packed with wizards/muggles and had TASTY food. We each had a salad and then we also split an order of cornish pasties! They are small meat pies kind of. That makes them sound gross, but they were so good! And we had Butterbeer. I can't stop talking about how good it was! Brandon said it reminded him of cream soda, but I don't even like cream soda but I loved this stuff! We are going to make some and once we perfect the recipe I will share it :)
The rest of the day was decent in comparison, but still fun! We rode the Jurassic Park ride, a few water rides, and then made our way to the Superhero area of the park. The Spiderman ride was really cool. It was a 4D ride, but it was just way neat. Then we rode a roller coaster called The Hulk. Most roller coasters go up on the track and then you drop to gain speed, but as we were going up the track I realized that there was no drop, and all of a sudden the ride took off up the rest of the hill. It was insane, but I loved it!
Our hotel shuttle bus left the park at 7:30, so we went to dinner outside of the park last night. We ate at Buffalo Wild Wings in Boise a few weeks ago and found one near our hotel, so we went there! We went back and got in bed for a good nights sleep for day 2!
Vacation day 2.
After an awesome first day, we were so excited for day 2! We spent the day at the other half of Universal Studios. They had a Termintor 3D show/stunt show, a Simpsons ride, a huge roller coaster that we didn't do, and a few other stunt shows. They also had a Despicable Me ride that I was way excited for. We waited in line for an hour only to be semi disappointed. It was just a 3D ride with a motion simulator. It was sad for us. We took our time that day and made sure to watch all the shows we could. Compared to the first day, this day wasn't as good, but it was fun nonetheless!
We left the park at 7:30 again and walked to a Mexican restaurant near our hotel for dinner. We split a tasty burrito and got some fried ice cream to go, but because it was so hot, it was mostly melted by the time we got back to the hotel :(
Vacation day 3.
First day at Disney! Our bus schedule said there was a 7:30 bus and an 8:10 bus to the Magic Kingdom which opened at 9:00. We didn't want to not have a seat on the later bus, so we got up at 7:00 and made it to the bus stop by 7:25. And guess what. The bus didn't come until 7:45 because there was no 7:30 bus since the park didn't open until 9:00. Luckily, we got a seat on the bus. Mostly because we were the only ones there until 8:00, but still. We got to Magic Kingdom right as it opened and headed over to Adventureland! We had breakfast reservations at ten so we didn't want to stray too far. We went to the treehouse, rode the magic carpet ride, and the jungle cruise, then went back for breakfast! We ate at the Crystal Palace, which is a character breakfast buffet. We got to see Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore! After breakfast we continued to make our way around the park. We did everything that very first day except like four rides, the parades, and the fireworks. We were at the park from 9 to 9 that day! We went back and crashed.
Vacation day 4.
Epcot! We got to Epcot as soon as it opened. Last year when we went to Epcot with my family, we only had a few hours there, so we didn't get to see the Worlds half of the park. Brandon and I gave ourselves two days at Epcot because we weren't sure if we could do the entire park in one day, but we sure did. It was really rainy and kind of chilly that day so the park wasn't too busy. We did just the attractions side in about three hours. Most of that time was spent just wasting time waiting for the rain to go away. We even bought mickey ponchos! Test Track, our favorite ride at Epcot, is closed for remodeling, so that was side. But we had tons of time to hang out in all the different countries at Epcot! We watched the show in Canada, walked around Great Britain, and rode the rides in Norway and Mexico. We were in France about mid afternoon and were too hungry to just hold out for our dinner reservation, so we shared a crepe and got our own eclairs in France. They were so dang good. Seriously. Mom, if you are reading this, tell dad Brandon wants to make eclairs this weekend. We ate dinner at the Nine Dragons Chinese restaurant. Again, super good. I don't even remember what we ate. Tsao's Chicken or something? Delish. That night we snagged a great spot for the IllumiNations light show and watched each of the countries light up. It was definitely a good day.
Vacation day 5.
The next day we went to Hollywood Studios which is my personal favorite. We got to the park as soon as it opened and were able to ride Tower of Terror twice, and the Rockin' Roller Coaster once all within the first 45 minutes! We made sure to watch all the shows, Beauty and the Beast, Indiana Jones, and an animation show. We had started to watch the Little Mermaid show, but two minutes into it it got cancelled for no apparent reason. But no fear! We watched it a little bit later. They have a tour that takes you through some of the props from Disney movies, the costume area, and they also do a little show that shows you how water special effects work. Brandon and I were chosen to be the deckhands for the scene. In the pictures you can see us in our special blue water attire :)
Our dinner that night was at the Sci-Fi diner, and restaurant where you eat in convertible cars and watch old previews and clips on a drive-in screen. We even got a free sundae for our anniversary! That night we were SO excited to watch Fantasmic. This was my fourth time at Disney World and I had never seen it, and neither had Brandon. We waited 45 minutes and right as the show was supposed to start, it started pouring rain. We didn't want to stick around and wait for the later show, so we left.
Vacation day 6.
ANNIVERSARY DAY!!! We chose to spend our anniversary at Animal Kingdom. We got to the park as soon as it opened and headed straight for Expedition Everest. On our way there, two guys stopped us and asked if we wanted their fast passes to Expedition Everest, because they were leaving the park. It was like 9:07, so I felt bad for them. But to make their day better, we took the fast passes. We did seriously everything in the park that day. The morning started out a little hectic running from one place to another, but after we watched the Finding Nemo musical (which I had also never seen), the day seemed to smooth out. When we stopped to buy some wings for lunch, the guy that helped us was so happy that it was our anniversary, and he gave us free drinks! Best day ever right? It didn't look like rain at all that day, and it was so dang hot. We had finished about everything when we headed to the Lion King show. We had talked about possibly leaving the park early and seeing if we could get into the restaurant where our reservations were at early, but decided to wait until after the show to decide. Well, the Lion King show started at 4:30, and when the doors opened at 5:00 for us to leave, guess what. Rain. And lots of it. So we put on our ponchos, braved the weather, and ran to the bus to go to our reservation.
Our reservation was originally at 7:45, since we planned on staying at the park until 7:00, but we got right into a table at 5:30! This was a fancier restaurant than the others we ate at, because it was our actual anniversary day. The restaurant is called Sanaa, which means work of art in Swahili. The food is African/Indian food. Our waiter gave us a whole shpeel about the Africans gave the Indians (from India) beads, and the Indians gave the Africans food and spices. We had butter cream chicken, and spicy durban chicken, with a side of naan bread. I can't even begin to describe to you how tasty this food was. Brandon and I have already decided that our next cooking venture will be trying to replicate this dinner. Best part was the food. Second best part? Free drinks again, and a free dessert!
We topped the night off with some shopping at Downtown Disney, and playing the Amazing Race back to our hotel. Turns out there is no direct bus from Downtown Disney to any of the parks, we take the bus back to our hotel. We left Downtown Disney at 9:00 to try and get to Epcot by 9:45. However, we had to take a Disney bus to a Disney hotel, and then take a bus from there to the park. Needless to say we missed the Epcot bus. A bus finally came to take us to Magic Kingdom, but we didn't get there until 10:30, and still needed to get to the parking lot where our shuttle was, which was a ferry or monorail away. Since the park had just closed, the monorail and the ferry were jam packed. We ran to a hotel right next to the park, and took the monorail from that hotel to the parking lot, and got to our bus stall at 10:47, two minutes after it had left. Luckily we found another bus going near our hotel that said he would drive past our hotel and open the door so we could jump. But guess what! He even stopped the bus and let us off nicely. It was a long last few hours of the night to say the least, but what a great first anniversary! Even running around like a crazy person was fun, just because of who I got to spend the day with.
Vacation day 7.
Luckily we had given ourselves two extra days at the parks. Since we had done most everything, we let ourselves sleep in. This was awesome after the night we had had before. We went to Denny's for brunch, then went back to Hollywood Studios! We rode more rides, watch some of the street performers, ate at Pizza Planet, and went back to try and watch Fantasmic. Only guess what! More rain. It sprinkled from like 7:30 until we left the park. At 8:30, when Fantasmic was supposed to start, they told us that it was cancelled, but that they had a small preview for us. We got to see some fireworks and flames, only without the characters. So I still have yet to see Fantasmic. If anybody wants to take me back to see it, I won't complain.
Vacation day 8.
Worst best day ever: the last day of vacation :( We slept in again, later this time, then went back to Magic Kingdom. I was looking for a shirt for Anthony that I had found at Downtown Disney, and after looking in the park for thirty minutes, I found out that that specific shirt is only at Downtown Disney. Guess what we did for the next four hours? That's right! We played the stupid Downtown Disney transportation game again, all only to shop for twenty minutes. Once we finally got back to the park, we got a chili dog and watched the parade, then made our way to finish all the attractions. We made sure to ride Thunder Mountain, Pirates,and the Jungle Cruise one more time. For dinner we split a mickey pretzel, because who doesn't love soft pretzel in the shape of a famous mouse? Then right before the show we got an ice cream sundae.
Okay people, I am putting up a link to this show we watched because I cannot even describe how awesome it is. It is called the Magic, The Memories, and You. They project onto the castle and it is AMAZING. Seriously, watch the link below. There will be a quiz at the end of the blog post. Do it now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JUgeE1skTE
After the light show, we watched the fireworks. We had some dang good seats too! It was a late night after we finally got back to the hotel and packed, but it was well worth it.
Travel day 2.
The shuttle to take us back to the airport came at 6:30 in the morning. We got up at six and were ready to go early! By the time we got to the airport, got our boarding passes, and went through security, it was only 7:10, not even joking. Our flight didn't leave until 9:40, people. It was a long two and a half hours to wait. When we got back to the Salt Lake airport, I really felt like we had just been there. I was so so so sad.
It was the most wonderful vacation I could ever ask for. I'm sorry that the last few days of the trip seemed quickly summarized, but the first four days were blogged about on Friday and then stupid school started, and I just want you all to hear about how amazing it was! I had so much fun with Brandon being on vacation just the two of us for ten days straight. Neither of us had a care in the world the entire time we were there, and I am just so dang happy that we went through with booking the vacation when we did. It made me love him and our marriage that much more. Could I have asked for a better man to marry??
You can look at all of our pictures at the following site: brandonandcaitlin.shutterfly.com
Even if you looked at them on facebook, the pictures at that site have captions, so that way you know what is going on. I'll post again soon, hopefully, if school doesn't make my brain explode!
Monday, August 13, 2012
Hello world.
I need a vacation. Work is long and hard, I just spent all weekend moving, and I seriously just placed a textbook order of a not small amount of money that is making my heart and wallet cry in despair. Why in the world are textbooks so expensive? Seriously though. And what happened to the days when the school provided the books and if you needed to do extra reading you just had to check it out from your teacher? I didn't even buy books for myself! I don't want to think about what my wallet would do if I had bought books for myself and Brandon. Just because I can mostly afford to go to college doesn't mean I want to pay for the other things too. Sigh. Take a vacation? Is that what you are all telling me to do? Deal. I will go to Florida tomorrow.
But really, I am going to Florida tomorrow. Can I even believe it? No. Am I nervous to fly without my parents or some other qualified adult? Yes. Sometimes Brandon and I get lost places, but you know what, he did a really good job of making pictures in our new apartment look good, so I should probably just trust him on this too. Two days from now I will be living it up at Hogwarts. Our first day will be spent at Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios, which is where Harry Potter World is. I am probably going to cry of excitement. The next day will be spent at the other half of Universal Studios, and the following six days will be spent at Walt Disney World. It doesn't feel like we are even going, and I probably won't feel that way until we actually get to the parks. All I know is that I thought today was going to be the longest day of my entire life, but it is already 2:00!!!! Six hours down, three to go, and then I get to go spend some quality time with my kitty and pack for a vacation that I don't think I am actually taking.
Onto the real meat of the post. We spent the past five days packing, moving, unpacking and arranging our brand new little home. And by little home I mean larger-than-our-last-home apartment. But seriously, this place is a huge step up from our last apartment. The living room is smaller and has no cable hook up, but we love it so so much. Friday night we moved the last of our belongings. Brandon's dad and brother helped us move our huge washer and dryer, which was super nice of them! We had everything moved over to the new apartment by 9:30 that night! We stayed up until about 12:30 unpacking stuff and setting up beds and furniture and what not. We both woke up around seven and couldn't really sleep anymore, so we unpacked so hard until like 3:00. I was nervous about how our kitchen would work out, but I love it tons!
At 4:00, we went shopping for a few things for the new apartment, and some clothes and shoes for vacation. It was a nice break from moving, but we never really slowed down. We shopped from four to seven, then went to the fair for some tasty fair food! We had barbecue pork sandwiches for dinner with some beans that were to die for, then we walked around until we met up with our friends Keaton and Cassidy. We walked around to all the booths, saw the animals, and then ended the night with a sweet treat. Brandon and I were still so full from dinner so we got cherry limeades! They are definitely my favorite treat of the summer! After the fair, we were so exhausted that we went home and got in bed and were asleep before eleven!
Yesterday morning I woke up at 6:15 and couldn't sleep anymore. I got up and unpacked a bunch more stuff and tried to get our house more in order. Brandon and I spent the morning organizing and cleaning, then went out again so I could find some shoes. When we got home we did laundry, hung pictures, and Brandon made our entertainment center/wires look fancy and clean.
Here is a story for you. We had dinner at Brandon's parents house last night like we do every weekend, but this weekend was far more entertaining than any other Sunday. I learned about the games that Brandon and his brothers played on the trampoline. One of them was called Buttcheese. Who comes up with that? Seriously. All you do is bounce and try and hit people with your hip or your bum. Weird kids. They also like to bounce things on the trampoline. Tomatoes, fruit, frozen turkeys....who are these people? Weirdies. That's who they are, but I like them anyways :)
We spent the rest of the night trying to get our apartment to look clean and closed the night with some ice cream and an episode of The Office. Did I mention we don't have cable? How am I supposed to watch Glee or Gossip Girl or the Bachelor?????????? Maybe I will get over it.
Anyways, right before bed I took some pictures for you nice people. Please pardon the mess and the bare walls, we are working on it!
We love our new apartment tons! I have some other pictures from the past few weeks that I will now share with you :)
Now I get to talk about Sophie for a minute! The move has been hard on her, I am not even kidding. When we started packing at our last apartment everything would scare her. She couldn't walk into a room without poofing up to protect herself. And then this whole weekend we would get spooked at the tiniest things. She has had a lot of fun exploring, but I think she has been nervous that we are going to leave her. She really won't leave our sides, and hasn't since the beginning of last week. Sometimes we lose her in this apartment. That sounds weird, but it really is so much bigger than our last one. This apartment stays a lot cooler than our last one because it is two levels. The bottom floor stays super cool all day usually, and we think that Sophie doesn't love how cool it is. Whenever she gets tired she always goes upstairs to take a nap.
We took her up to Brandon's aunt and uncle's house last week because they got a new six week old kitten. We hoped that Sophie would love her immediately and love having someone to play with, but she definitely hated it. I don't really know about getting a second cat now :(
That's about it for today! Actually that will be it for about two weeks! We get home on Thursday the 23 and start school the following Monday. Boo school. I will try and be quick about posting pictures from our vacation!
But really, I am going to Florida tomorrow. Can I even believe it? No. Am I nervous to fly without my parents or some other qualified adult? Yes. Sometimes Brandon and I get lost places, but you know what, he did a really good job of making pictures in our new apartment look good, so I should probably just trust him on this too. Two days from now I will be living it up at Hogwarts. Our first day will be spent at Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios, which is where Harry Potter World is. I am probably going to cry of excitement. The next day will be spent at the other half of Universal Studios, and the following six days will be spent at Walt Disney World. It doesn't feel like we are even going, and I probably won't feel that way until we actually get to the parks. All I know is that I thought today was going to be the longest day of my entire life, but it is already 2:00!!!! Six hours down, three to go, and then I get to go spend some quality time with my kitty and pack for a vacation that I don't think I am actually taking.
Onto the real meat of the post. We spent the past five days packing, moving, unpacking and arranging our brand new little home. And by little home I mean larger-than-our-last-home apartment. But seriously, this place is a huge step up from our last apartment. The living room is smaller and has no cable hook up, but we love it so so much. Friday night we moved the last of our belongings. Brandon's dad and brother helped us move our huge washer and dryer, which was super nice of them! We had everything moved over to the new apartment by 9:30 that night! We stayed up until about 12:30 unpacking stuff and setting up beds and furniture and what not. We both woke up around seven and couldn't really sleep anymore, so we unpacked so hard until like 3:00. I was nervous about how our kitchen would work out, but I love it tons!
At 4:00, we went shopping for a few things for the new apartment, and some clothes and shoes for vacation. It was a nice break from moving, but we never really slowed down. We shopped from four to seven, then went to the fair for some tasty fair food! We had barbecue pork sandwiches for dinner with some beans that were to die for, then we walked around until we met up with our friends Keaton and Cassidy. We walked around to all the booths, saw the animals, and then ended the night with a sweet treat. Brandon and I were still so full from dinner so we got cherry limeades! They are definitely my favorite treat of the summer! After the fair, we were so exhausted that we went home and got in bed and were asleep before eleven!
Yesterday morning I woke up at 6:15 and couldn't sleep anymore. I got up and unpacked a bunch more stuff and tried to get our house more in order. Brandon and I spent the morning organizing and cleaning, then went out again so I could find some shoes. When we got home we did laundry, hung pictures, and Brandon made our entertainment center/wires look fancy and clean.
Here is a story for you. We had dinner at Brandon's parents house last night like we do every weekend, but this weekend was far more entertaining than any other Sunday. I learned about the games that Brandon and his brothers played on the trampoline. One of them was called Buttcheese. Who comes up with that? Seriously. All you do is bounce and try and hit people with your hip or your bum. Weird kids. They also like to bounce things on the trampoline. Tomatoes, fruit, frozen turkeys....who are these people? Weirdies. That's who they are, but I like them anyways :)
We spent the rest of the night trying to get our apartment to look clean and closed the night with some ice cream and an episode of The Office. Did I mention we don't have cable? How am I supposed to watch Glee or Gossip Girl or the Bachelor?????????? Maybe I will get over it.
Anyways, right before bed I took some pictures for you nice people. Please pardon the mess and the bare walls, we are working on it!
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| This is the view as you walk in. |
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| Having our entire sectional set up took up too much room in the living room, so we made the sectional into a sofa! |
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| These two pictures are of the guest bathroom. It is right off the living room. |
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| We decided on gray and yellow for the colors in this bathroom. I am excited to decorate! |
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| The laundry closet is just off the kitchen, right after the bathroom. I love having my washer and dryer enclosed. P.s. Mom and dad, we are still loving them! |
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| The kitchen!! We have a lazy susan, which I usually don't love, but I love it right now! |
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| Our HUGE dining area. Notice the patio door isn't sliding, I love it! And our patio is bigger! |
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| The bar in this apartment is so long we can fit five stools pretty comfortably! |
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| This is just a little nook off the dining room. You can see the section of the couch, we didn't know where else to put it! |
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| Our pantry/coat closet! I cannot tell you how happy I am that we have a coat closet. It is a dream come true! |
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| These are our stairs. Sophie loves them! |
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| There is a bathroom sink outside of the bathroom right as you walk up the stairs. Its kind of weird, but I actually love it. I can get ready after I shower without getting hot from all the steam still in the room! And I love that we have a linen closet! It's the best. |
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| The innards of the bathroom. |
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| The shower. Its just a normal shower, nothing special. Our bedroom is to the right as you walk out of the bathroom, and the guest room is to the left. |
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| This is the guest room! It is so much bigger than the one at our last apartment! Everything is going in here until it has a place. |
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| This is our bedroom. We haven't quite gotten around to hanging anything up yet though! |
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| I love how much closet space we have. The regular closet is so big that we fit all of our clothes and a dresser inside! The smaller closet has shelves, so we bought canvas bins and gave our second dresser back to Brandon's parents! |
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| This is us in all our glory after a hard weekend of unpacking. |
We love our new apartment tons! I have some other pictures from the past few weeks that I will now share with you :)
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| Sophie was trying to help Dad fill the hole in the wall. |
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| She took to sleeping like this for a few days, I'm not really sure why though. |
We took her up to Brandon's aunt and uncle's house last week because they got a new six week old kitten. We hoped that Sophie would love her immediately and love having someone to play with, but she definitely hated it. I don't really know about getting a second cat now :(
That's about it for today! Actually that will be it for about two weeks! We get home on Thursday the 23 and start school the following Monday. Boo school. I will try and be quick about posting pictures from our vacation!
Monday, July 30, 2012
Yet Another Monday
Is anyone as tired of Mondays as I am? I swear, every Monday when the alarm goes off I want to throw it out the window and just sleep all day. This weekend was a good one though, and I am getting pretty anxious for these next few weeks to speed by! Friday night Brandon and I went and saw the new Batman movie with his family. It was really good, but super long. I wanted to go to the show at 6:30, but his brother put up a fight so they could watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics, so against my better judgement we went at 8:15. Okay, I am an old woman alright? No offense, grandmas, I think you party harder than I do anyways. But it hit about 10:30 during the movie and I could hardly keep my eyes open. Its pathetic really. But Brandon loved it and already wants to see it again; he was telling me that as soon as we got home from the movie actually, so it was a success!
Saturday morning we woke up around nine and went for a run. We came home and Brandon cut his hair while I worked out some more, then we had eggs and asparagus for breakfast! Mmmm...it was such a good way to start the day. Last week I borrowed all seven seasons of Boy Meets World from the library, so we watched that for probably about an hour Saturday morning during and after breakfast. Finally around 1:00 we decided we should actually go do something, so we went to the zoo! The Logan Zoo isn't too terribly exciting, but it was fun to get out and see the animals anyways. Afterwards we got sno cones and went and walked around the mall. Nobody punch me for this, but I bought a new pair of shorts and they are size 3. I am pretty sure they are a bit mis-sized, because I haven't been a size 3 since I was like 5, but I am pretty excited about it regardless. Brandon's friend and his wife from Salt Lake were driving home from Bear Lake, so on their way they stopped at our apartment. We were going to go to dinner, but they weren't ever hungry. We sat around and talked for about two hours and it was a lot of fun! Brandon and I stayed with them when we went to St. George for spring break last March before we were married. They are both from Idaho Falls actually, and the wife is just a year older than I am. The best part of the whole time we talked was that she loves cats just as much as I do, and her husband is like Brandon in the fact that he loves their cat, but doesn't like to admit it. So we seriously probably spent a good 45 minutes total talking about our cats. After they left, we met Brandon's dad to look at some tires for Brandon's car. Since we didn't go to dinner with Nate and Casey, we were both starving after we met with his dad. It was like 9:00 by this time. I never like to eat this late, but I was so starving and pizza sounded amazing, so we went to Pizza Pie Cafe. It is like Primo's, but definitely not as good. For those of you who know how much my dad loves Primo's, I am sure you can understand why going to Pizza Pie Cafe made me excited to see my family this weekend! After pizza, we went home to watch more Boy Meets World, but I fell into a food coma like 45 minutes into the shows. WHY AM I SO PATHETIC? I miss the days when I could stay up until 3:00 in the morning and be ready to go the next day.
Sunday we watched a lot of Boy Meets World. We had more eggs and asparagus, and then watched more Boy Meets World. I think we have finished like 20 of the 22 episodes of the first season. Its really not that bad though, because they are only 20 minutes episodes. We went to dinner at Brandon's parents' house, then went home to finish the laundry. We have a hole in our bathroom wall currently because the towel rod anchors had come loose in the drywall (even before we moved in) and we basically got tired of it and pulled the anchors out. So last night we ran to Walmart, like, we literally ran there, bought some stuff to fix it up, and did what we could last night. So that is our fun little project for this week! We need to finish spackling, then sand it, paint it, and more than likely just buy a whole new towel rod.
People, I only have one more month until school starts. It seems like a long time, but I realized last night how much I have to do before then. Brandon and I found a new apartment. It is one that his mom manages, and I had only ever seen it in the dark until last night and I absolutely fell in love with it. The living room is smaller, the kitchen is bigger, there is a half bath downstairs, the bedrooms are about the same size, there is a coat closet, a sink outside the bathroom as well as in which is weird but whatever, and there is a closet just outside the bathroom. Oh and did I mention that there is a CHAIR RAIL throughout the entire living room and kitchen??? TWO TONE PAINT IN BOTH ROOMS PEOPLE. I love it so much because its not just the blah blah boring white or brown that every apartment seems to be. Plus, because his mom manages them, she will let us upgrade little things, like sink fixtures and curtain rods. And we are getting a killer deal. We are hoping that the utilities at this apartment will be less expensive than what we are currently paying, but we are mostly excited that our hot water probably won't run out after showering for five minutes.
Anyways, the point I was trying to make with that, is that now I have a lot of packing to do. It would be way hard to start packing stuff now, because we use a lot of things that we own; most of them actually. But here is the rundown of our lives. Thursday night this week we are going to Salt Lake to watch The Odd Life of Timothy Green for free, which means we have to pack Wednesday night for our trip to Boise that takes place Friday-Sunday. Then we work full time next week, then the following Tuesday we leave for Florida until the Thursday before school starts. Seriously, we get back on Thursday, then have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to buy school supplies and mentally prepare ourselves for school. We will go to school that first week and then the first weekend in September is when we are planning to move. When on Earth am I going to have time to pack????? The answer is: I have no freaking idea. I guess I will just have to do a little here and a little there, and then when that weekend comes we will be moving our stuff all in one day from sun up to sundown. Luckily its a three day weekend so we will have that extra day to get every set up the way we like it.
So that is our life currently, and I love it. We all love it. Have I mentioned that I have the best little family ever? And I am so so SO excited to go see my family this weekend. It has only been like three weeks since I have seen them but that is long enough! Good luck with Monday everyone. Do something exciting!
Saturday morning we woke up around nine and went for a run. We came home and Brandon cut his hair while I worked out some more, then we had eggs and asparagus for breakfast! Mmmm...it was such a good way to start the day. Last week I borrowed all seven seasons of Boy Meets World from the library, so we watched that for probably about an hour Saturday morning during and after breakfast. Finally around 1:00 we decided we should actually go do something, so we went to the zoo! The Logan Zoo isn't too terribly exciting, but it was fun to get out and see the animals anyways. Afterwards we got sno cones and went and walked around the mall. Nobody punch me for this, but I bought a new pair of shorts and they are size 3. I am pretty sure they are a bit mis-sized, because I haven't been a size 3 since I was like 5, but I am pretty excited about it regardless. Brandon's friend and his wife from Salt Lake were driving home from Bear Lake, so on their way they stopped at our apartment. We were going to go to dinner, but they weren't ever hungry. We sat around and talked for about two hours and it was a lot of fun! Brandon and I stayed with them when we went to St. George for spring break last March before we were married. They are both from Idaho Falls actually, and the wife is just a year older than I am. The best part of the whole time we talked was that she loves cats just as much as I do, and her husband is like Brandon in the fact that he loves their cat, but doesn't like to admit it. So we seriously probably spent a good 45 minutes total talking about our cats. After they left, we met Brandon's dad to look at some tires for Brandon's car. Since we didn't go to dinner with Nate and Casey, we were both starving after we met with his dad. It was like 9:00 by this time. I never like to eat this late, but I was so starving and pizza sounded amazing, so we went to Pizza Pie Cafe. It is like Primo's, but definitely not as good. For those of you who know how much my dad loves Primo's, I am sure you can understand why going to Pizza Pie Cafe made me excited to see my family this weekend! After pizza, we went home to watch more Boy Meets World, but I fell into a food coma like 45 minutes into the shows. WHY AM I SO PATHETIC? I miss the days when I could stay up until 3:00 in the morning and be ready to go the next day.
Sunday we watched a lot of Boy Meets World. We had more eggs and asparagus, and then watched more Boy Meets World. I think we have finished like 20 of the 22 episodes of the first season. Its really not that bad though, because they are only 20 minutes episodes. We went to dinner at Brandon's parents' house, then went home to finish the laundry. We have a hole in our bathroom wall currently because the towel rod anchors had come loose in the drywall (even before we moved in) and we basically got tired of it and pulled the anchors out. So last night we ran to Walmart, like, we literally ran there, bought some stuff to fix it up, and did what we could last night. So that is our fun little project for this week! We need to finish spackling, then sand it, paint it, and more than likely just buy a whole new towel rod.
People, I only have one more month until school starts. It seems like a long time, but I realized last night how much I have to do before then. Brandon and I found a new apartment. It is one that his mom manages, and I had only ever seen it in the dark until last night and I absolutely fell in love with it. The living room is smaller, the kitchen is bigger, there is a half bath downstairs, the bedrooms are about the same size, there is a coat closet, a sink outside the bathroom as well as in which is weird but whatever, and there is a closet just outside the bathroom. Oh and did I mention that there is a CHAIR RAIL throughout the entire living room and kitchen??? TWO TONE PAINT IN BOTH ROOMS PEOPLE. I love it so much because its not just the blah blah boring white or brown that every apartment seems to be. Plus, because his mom manages them, she will let us upgrade little things, like sink fixtures and curtain rods. And we are getting a killer deal. We are hoping that the utilities at this apartment will be less expensive than what we are currently paying, but we are mostly excited that our hot water probably won't run out after showering for five minutes.
Anyways, the point I was trying to make with that, is that now I have a lot of packing to do. It would be way hard to start packing stuff now, because we use a lot of things that we own; most of them actually. But here is the rundown of our lives. Thursday night this week we are going to Salt Lake to watch The Odd Life of Timothy Green for free, which means we have to pack Wednesday night for our trip to Boise that takes place Friday-Sunday. Then we work full time next week, then the following Tuesday we leave for Florida until the Thursday before school starts. Seriously, we get back on Thursday, then have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to buy school supplies and mentally prepare ourselves for school. We will go to school that first week and then the first weekend in September is when we are planning to move. When on Earth am I going to have time to pack????? The answer is: I have no freaking idea. I guess I will just have to do a little here and a little there, and then when that weekend comes we will be moving our stuff all in one day from sun up to sundown. Luckily its a three day weekend so we will have that extra day to get every set up the way we like it.
So that is our life currently, and I love it. We all love it. Have I mentioned that I have the best little family ever? And I am so so SO excited to go see my family this weekend. It has only been like three weeks since I have seen them but that is long enough! Good luck with Monday everyone. Do something exciting!
Thursday, July 26, 2012
I am feeling pretty proud....
...so I want to share with you my pride. It's of myself, so sorry. But back in April I started trying to lose weight, and I have done a pretty good job if I say so myself. I lost four pounds in April, 2 in May, 1 in June, and 1 in July. It was so easy to lose the weight at first: I monitored what I ate, and started running a ton. May was a bit harder with finals and getting my wisdom teeth out. I lost three pounds in two days after my oral surgery because I couldn't eat, but quickly gained two back after I started eating again which is good. Because that was unhealthy. And then ever since I have been working forty hours a week this summer my weight loss abilities have quickly decreased. I think that maybe I haven't been eating enough food, given how much I have been exercising. I also don't exercise very regularly, because let's face it: when you live in an apartment with no air conditioning and its 94 degrees outside it's pretty hard to want to exercise.
One thing that has made me so happy and persistent through all of this has been Brandon. He has been so supportive and even accepting of all the healthy things I have been doing/pushing on him. I finally got him to start running with me after school got out and that has been so motivating for me. If I ever am not in the mood to run, he says "Well I'm going to go alone then." And what kind of wife would I be if I made my poor hubby go running alone? A bad one, that's what kind.
He also has been accepting of the health food I am trying to make and the junk food I won't let us buy. We haven't bought ice cream in ages, hardly ever buy soda, and haven't made brownies or cookies in a while. Going out for ice cream is a bit more costly, but I would rather splurge on tastier ice cream once a month than keep it in our house all the time, because let me tell you, I love ice cream.
We have worked harder at incorporating more color into our meals. More veggies, more fruits, whatever it takes. My new love is asparagus; I will put asparagus in anything. Same goes for broccoli, it's not much, but it is something right? We both grew up having muffins and rolls at most every meal, and I loved that. Rolls are seriously so good, but not so good for you. I still want to have my bread, so we have whole wheat bread with melted cheese on top and that works for me!
We also love eggs: boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, whatever! Recently we have taken to making breakfast burritos with eggs, veggies, and salsa. So good! And my new favorite love is almonds. I bring one serving of those bad boys with me to work and eat half in the morning and half in the afternoon and I am full all day long!
Everyone has already said it to me: "You don't need to lose weight." I know. Trust me, I know because I have come to a standstill with losing weight and losing more is going to be hard. But it has made me feel so much better about myself. Except for the fact that now all my clothes are too big; that part sucks. Whenever I talk to Brandon about how excited I am about how I have lost weight he always, seriously most every single time says, "You aren't doing this for me right? Because if you are, you should stop." There is never a reason to lose weight for anyone but yourself, but guess what everyone: you are beautiful no matter what. I like eating, and if I wanted to eat all I could and not exercise, I would.
It has been hard sometimes, I will say that. I love milk duds and haven't had any since The Hunger Games came out. I have had to do a lot of math in my head when I count calories; and math is hard too. But it has been worth it. And because I came back from vacation weighing less than I did before I left, I'm going to go celebrate at Costa Vida with my girlfriends.
Ps. If I can lose two more pounds by the time school starts, I will let one of you take me shopping. If you don't want that to happen....well I would probably accept treats.
One thing that has made me so happy and persistent through all of this has been Brandon. He has been so supportive and even accepting of all the healthy things I have been doing/pushing on him. I finally got him to start running with me after school got out and that has been so motivating for me. If I ever am not in the mood to run, he says "Well I'm going to go alone then." And what kind of wife would I be if I made my poor hubby go running alone? A bad one, that's what kind.
He also has been accepting of the health food I am trying to make and the junk food I won't let us buy. We haven't bought ice cream in ages, hardly ever buy soda, and haven't made brownies or cookies in a while. Going out for ice cream is a bit more costly, but I would rather splurge on tastier ice cream once a month than keep it in our house all the time, because let me tell you, I love ice cream.
We have worked harder at incorporating more color into our meals. More veggies, more fruits, whatever it takes. My new love is asparagus; I will put asparagus in anything. Same goes for broccoli, it's not much, but it is something right? We both grew up having muffins and rolls at most every meal, and I loved that. Rolls are seriously so good, but not so good for you. I still want to have my bread, so we have whole wheat bread with melted cheese on top and that works for me!
We also love eggs: boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, whatever! Recently we have taken to making breakfast burritos with eggs, veggies, and salsa. So good! And my new favorite love is almonds. I bring one serving of those bad boys with me to work and eat half in the morning and half in the afternoon and I am full all day long!
Everyone has already said it to me: "You don't need to lose weight." I know. Trust me, I know because I have come to a standstill with losing weight and losing more is going to be hard. But it has made me feel so much better about myself. Except for the fact that now all my clothes are too big; that part sucks. Whenever I talk to Brandon about how excited I am about how I have lost weight he always, seriously most every single time says, "You aren't doing this for me right? Because if you are, you should stop." There is never a reason to lose weight for anyone but yourself, but guess what everyone: you are beautiful no matter what. I like eating, and if I wanted to eat all I could and not exercise, I would.
It has been hard sometimes, I will say that. I love milk duds and haven't had any since The Hunger Games came out. I have had to do a lot of math in my head when I count calories; and math is hard too. But it has been worth it. And because I came back from vacation weighing less than I did before I left, I'm going to go celebrate at Costa Vida with my girlfriends.
Ps. If I can lose two more pounds by the time school starts, I will let one of you take me shopping. If you don't want that to happen....well I would probably accept treats.
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