The First One

Early this morning, Ronnie was awakened by a phone call. We are happy to announce that he is accepted to University of Akron Law School! I don’t think we will end up going there, unless we get a wicked-sweet scholarship, but it’s nice to know that we have at least one option.

Happy Birthday Ray!

I know it is incredibly late, but I needed to get this posted before the day was over. Happy Birthday to my wonderful father-in-law! Whenever I see Ray he always has a humongous hug ready to engulf me! I love that! He is very thoughtful and always makes sure I have a cold Dr. Pepper when I am in the house. He is very generous and I love to see him tease Ronnie. I hope you had a wonderful day! Enjoy a night filled with EnemyMine!

Happy Birthday Grammy!

Tomorrow is my wonderful Grammy’s birthday! I won’t have the internet and wanted to get this up ahead of time. The picture is one I stole from my cousin’s blog so you also get to see Amber!

Grammy is the sweetest grandma anyone could ask for and is a true friend. A fanatic Jazz fan, she has been known to cancel other plans to stay home with “her” Jazz. I love going to her house to watch the games, mainly so I can hear her swear at the television! Grammy always has a million projects going on; she does porcelain work, crochets and knits, dips chocolates and makes delicious cookies! She also creates beautiful dolls—especially my wedding doll (if I do say so myself) which I will always cherish. She may have a small frame, but she is a ball of fire.

I love you Grammy! Have a wonderful day!

I'm Anne of Green Gables

You're Anne of Green Gables!

by L.M. Montgomery

Bright, chipper, vivid, but with the emotional fortitude of cottage
cheese, you make quite an impression on everyone you meet. You're impulsive, rash,
honest, and probably don't have a great relationship with your parents. People hurt
your feelings constantly, but your brazen honestly doesn't exactly treat others with
kid gloves. Ultimately, though, you win the hearts and minds of everyone that matters.
You spell your name with an E and you want everyone to know about it.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Who Paints the Floor?

Warning: this post contains LDS-specific words and references—if you don’t understand, I apologize.

Seminary. It all starts with Seminary. Most LDS youth attend an early-morning class during their high school years where they learn more about the scriptures (except those lucky dogs in Utah who do it during school). I loved seminary. Except for the 30 minutes right after my alarm went off. I also loved the catchy slogans and pictures that would be hung up to remind us to CTR (Choose the Right). In my day they were called MormonAds. They are now called New Era Posters.

There is a comedy group at BYU called Divine Comedy. They do shows several times a semester and most of their material is based off of LDS and BYU-specific situations. On their website they have redone quite a few of the old MormonAds and I find them HILARIOUS. I have included a few of them below, but encourage you to check out their website (there does seem to be some errors, so you can’t make the pictures bigger). Enjoy!

In my spare time...

Since I have graduated from college, I have found that I am a little antsy. I am not running around trying to get everything done, and as such my down time is not as treasured as it once was. I have several activities that I like to do to release some of my energy.

Sewing. This one is not done as often as I would like, but with my new machine and new space, I believe I will be able to get a little more done. Here you can see my efforts at making a Halloween costume for Cheryl.

Crocheting. Another that may seem a surprise to some. I am not hard core, in that I can make you a sweater, but I like crocheting around the edge of baby blankets for friends. This is actually a great hobby for people traveling, etc since you can take the blanket, yarn and hook anywhere (a sewing machine is significantly harder to tote).

Stamping. Most of this hobby is evidenced in cards. I have a hard time creating an entire scrapbook page, but a small 4”x5” card is easy for me to handle. I post most of my cards in a gallery at Splitcoast Stampers, which you can view here. I’ll put a shameless plug here—I do sell my cards for $1.50 to $2 each depending on the level of work involved. Email me if you ever need anything.

Ronnie also enjoys these crafts. (I wish I could say it is because he joins in because that would be a pretty entertaining post in and of itself.) But, it is actually mostly due to the fact that they allow him to watch whatever his heart desires, since I do not do as much watching and we don’t have to negotiate.

Wherein he WILL become a lawyer

Ronnie finished the LSAT in December and since that time we have been working on applications. As with most things, the actual application is relatively easy, fill out personal information over and over and hit submit, but the additional essays that you have to write are another story.

Ronnie worked on five completely different essays before he finally came up with one that he was satisfied with. Then we sent that out to seven people to proofread and edit. When all was said and done, we had written ten drafts over a period of four weeks to finally come to THE “personal statement.”

Now that all of that is out of the way, we have finally completed applications. Many people have asked where we are applying, so I will provide a list.

Places we originally planned on applying to: (in no particular order)

• BYU
• Utah
• UNLV
• Whittier (CA)
• Wyoming
• Texas Tech.
• Buffalo
• George Mason (VA)
• Tennessee
• ASU
• Ol’ Miss

Places that we have now applied to because we received fee waivers and figured what the heck?

• University of Akron (OH)
• Campbell University (NC)
• Yeshiva University (NY)
• University of Houston (TX)
• Marquette University (WI)
• University of the Pacific (CA)
• Santa Clara (CA)
• Temple University (PA)
• Washington and Lee (VA)
• University of Connecticut (CT)

As you can see, we really could be headed anywhere. A scary thought, but I’m starting to get more used to it. There are so many pros and cons to each school that I try not to think about it (at least until we start getting in places.) We will probably start receiving letters the end of February through the end of March, so stay tuned!

Michelle's Adventures

Some of you will remember, or know my friend Michelle. Earlier this month, she and her husband, Matthew, set out on an eight month (or possibly longer) adventure. They start with Hawaii for a month or so and then fly to Mexico. They will then spend the next six months backpacking across Central America. You can follow their journey here, although I hope that they do some more updates soon.

I admire them for starting out on this journey. I would love to not work for almost a year, but my “planner” nature doesn’t lend itself to this kind of travel.

Good luck Michelle and Matthew! I hope you have a great time!

Blind Dates

I am going to assume that most of us have been on a blind date. I’m even going to assume that some of those blind dates have worked out for the best. (i.e. my aunt and uncle). While I was not blessed with good blind date experiences, I also haven’t had the worst.

As I have mentioned before, I grew up in Wyoming. I really enjoyed living there, and would even like to go back—someday—for a predetermined amount of time. Both of my parents grew up in Pleasant Grove and came from largish families. Most of their siblings (read: all of my dad’s and half of my mom’s) have stayed in the vicinity.

Naturally when I decided to come to BYU for school, they all began to scope out boys that would be “acceptable” for me to date. I’m still not convinced that there wasn’t a contest between my mom’s sisters on who could get me married the fastest. This resulted in a blind date every weekend for the first two months of my freshman year.

Most of them were run of the mill, not too horrible, but definitely not people I would care to spend any more time with. There is one that exceeded my every expectation, and not in a good way.

Blind date #1 (BD1): This particular aunt was extra excited and set this date up before school had even started. My mom was in town to help me move all my stuff in, but we couldn’t get into the dorms until the next morning. He picked me up at my Grammy’s house and when I opened the door I was nearly floored by the strength of his cologne. I’m pretty sure my head even did that backwards-movement-with-a-slight-eyes-closing thing. We said our pleasantries and were on our way.

He opened the car door for me (point BD1) and made his way around the car. I took this opportunity to take a look at my surroundings. I was in a lime-green Honda Civic with leather seats, lime metal interior accents, manual transmission and what I could only assume were speakers taking up the entire back seat. BD1 got in the car and turned on the radio, causing me to jump from the sheer force of the sound.

We drove to a restaurant, ate, and then he decided that the best thing we could possibly do to get to know each other would be to drag State Street. Every red light was a race, and every race resulted in my head slamming into the leather seat. After an hour or so of this, he answered the tenth call that had come through on his cell phone to talk to his mother. We met the whole fam-damily for shakes and awkwardly talked about me. The night ended with a drive back to my Grammy’s that consisted of talking about his recent ex-girlfriend and music too loud to even think. I finally got out of the car and feebly waved as my head and ears continued to pound. He gave me a peace-sign (no—really!) and drove off in a cloud of music-filled smoke.

I invite you all to share an experience that may have helped you to love/hate blind dates. I’m sure mine pales in comparison with some.

Our New Ward (Church congregation)

Ronnie and I attended church with my grandparents yesterday. This is our first experience with a family ward. (We have been spoiled and going to BYU Student Wards for our entire marriage, so everyone was our age and in basically the same situation.) I thought church went really well, I met a lot of new people, and now have to remember all of those people’s names. AHHHH!

Two things happened of note:

1. An elderly woman told me I was beautiful. I LOVE when they do that. Especially when this is the first time they have met you and you have a larger-than-normal zit on your face.

2. Ronnie was told that he has an accent.

Not just any accent, but a Southern UTAH accent.

I laughed for several minutes when he told me the story. I thought that his family might enjoy that, since they have claimed that he has a Utah accent for over six months and he always denies it. Proof girls! You have proof!

Moving....and Sharing

Ronnie and I are officially moved into the basement of my Grandparent’s house. I learned a lot of things…things that can only be learned when you move.

Things like:
1. The sound of packing tape can be grating to the ears after several hours.
2. No matter how organized you pack in the beginning, you will always have boxes at the end that can’t be categorized simply (I have one with a list of 8 different things on the side).
3. Everyone should move every two years in order to clean out all of the crap you accumulate.
4. The very last thing that should be carried out the door as you are doing your final lock-up is a bottle of lotion. My hands were so dry that Ronnie would not touch them, and I was in serious pain as we quickly drove to their rescue.

Now that we are “settled,” we are also learning a few things about living in the same house as someone else for longer than a vacation.

1. We are constantly whispering to each other, not about important things, but for some reason it just feels appropriate.
2. I find myself literally tip-toeing around, something I am pretty sure I haven’t done since I was about seven.
3. Each morning I dig for instead of select clothes appropriate for work.
4. Food is hard to share, especially when you have double the condiments available.

The hardest thing about all of this is not that we have to share a space, because my grandparents are pretty much the coolest people ever and have bent over backwards to ensure that we feel at home, but that I can’t truly unpack anything since we are moving into a different bed, bedroom, closet, and even floor of the house once they leave on their mission and I don’t have the energy to organize everything twice. If anyone has any quick-fix suggestions for me to keep my sanity, let me know.

What I have learned from living with a MAN

It is sometimes necessary to drive in complete silence so that you can listen to each and every creak, bump and rattle the car might be making.

Complete happiness = warm food and clean laundry.

People playing sports on the television really can hear your cheers. (If you believe hard enough).

Anytime is a good time to talk about guns.

The estimated time of completion on any car project should be multiplied by 2.5 for accuracy.

SportsCenter is on 10-11 times DAILY and needs to be watched at least twice.

Silence is golden.

Making the bed has no purpose….in 16 hours you will just be getting in it again. (This is the argument I hear, most of the time my upbringing wins and the bed does get made).

Paper cups and plates should be used as often as possible.

Pepsi is a food group.