Thanksgiving

I love that quote.  Andrew and I have been so blessed this year and have so much to be thankful for!

I am so grateful for my devoted and loving husband Andrew.  I'm so extremely grateful we were married in the temple and sealed to each other for eternity! I'm grateful for both of our families.  We got so lucky marrying into such wonderful families! Other things we are thankful for:

-our education

-spacious apartment that we love

-my job 

-Andrew's job offer

-friends

-nieces and nephews

-church/temples

Since we spent a certain amount grocery shopping, we were able to get a 21 pound turkey for only 10 bucks! 21 pounds was waayyyyy too much turkey for just me, andrew, and jord, but it was still delicious!  Cooking our first turkey was a success :)

   Our little feast!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kinect fun!

Last weekend Andrew and I were sitting on the couch deciding what we should do for the night.  We decided to make a somewhat spontaneous buy and go to the store to get an Xbox Kinect.  It has provided us lots of fun and entertainment!  We pretty much played all weekend--passed off lots of levels and laughed at all the pictures it takes for us.

The pictures the kinect takes while you are playing throughout the games are hilarious.  Here are some for your viewing pleasure.

one of our favorite games!

and yes....I am in my PJ's! My favorite xmas long janes-- they are the best!

And of course I can't forget about seeing Breaking Dawn this weekend!!! Whenever Andrew and I go to a movie, we like to see two and make it a double feature.  So on Saturday we went to Breaking Dawn and then Moneyball.  I love love the twilight series.  I just wish they wouldn't have split the last movie into two.  It should have just been one in my opinion.

dark picture in the theatre :(

 Andrew is a wonderful hubby to come see these movies with me!  When I told him I wanted to go see it he didn't even object! That's one thing I have loved about him since we first started dating.  He always watches any movie with me because he says he'd rather be spending the time with me anyways.  :)
And...The first movie we ever watched together was Twilight so he has to like it! ha ha. It was a wonderful weekend!

Teacher, Teacher, Teacher!!!

Yes, the word "teacher" is what I hear all day, every day!! No matter how many times I tell the kids to just raise their hand if they have something to say...it still comes out! Lately, teaching has taken up most of my time. I have 26 little kids in my second grade classroom who are a handful, but so cute and make me feel like my job is so rewarding.  There isn't much better than getting constant hugs throughout the day, notes and letters telling me how much they love me and am the best teacher, and little gifts and candy every day!  I love these kids (even on my hard days...)

Here are some pictures of my garden themed classroom!  (I feel like just yesterday my mom and I were spending every minute of the day setting up my classroom for the first day of school and now it is already October and time to decorate it for Halloween...geeze!)

The kids desks are now in groups of 4 which works so much better in the classroom!  I have some really, and I mean really chatty kids who can't handle sitting in a group and unfortunately have to sit just by themselves!



As much as I have enjoyed these kids and teaching, I am looking forward to my fall break in two weeks for a much needed break!!! 

Our first apartment!

Our apartment finally feels like home for us, now that we got all our moving boxes and suitcases and everything put away.  Our apartment is so big so we still need to fill some wall space, but that will come later.  Right now we are just happy to have a nice and cozy place for the two of us!

living room!

so glad we have a nice fireplace for the winter :)

dining room table

kitchen

bedroom

Our bedroom is so huge!  There is just a huge open space, the size of another bedroom back by our dressers. 

This is our washer and dryer.  Haha, I have never even seen a 2-in-1 washer dryer before.  I used to not mind doing laundry, but I can't stand doing laundry in this machine.  It is SO tiny!! We can fit about 5 or 6 shirts in here at once.  When we wash towels, we can only wash 2 at a time!  It takes like 2 hours to dry our clothes too....so annoying!  I guess the only good thing about it is not having to switch the washed clothes to the dryer since its combined.

 office/guest bedroom.  Visitors are welcome anytime!!!

bathroom

We love our first apartment!!! Come visit us :)

month of craziness!

August has been such a crazy month!! 

I start teaching 2nd grade on the 22nd of August, which meant I had to leave Maryland early and come out to Utah to get everything in the classroom all set up and attend training and meetings.  That left us no choice but to have me drive out while Andrew finished his internship.... :(

Andrew's sweet grandma drove with me from MD to Colorado to make sure I would get there okay.  It was fun having her to talk with and keep me awake!  We listened to an exciting mystery book on tape which kept us wanting to be in the car to know what was going to happen next.  Luckily we had plenty of time to listen to the whole thing on our 25 hour road trip. Getting to Colorado was nice because we stayed there one night and got to rest up for the next big drive.  Grandma went to Montana to visit her brother, while my mom and cutie pie nephew packed up to go to Utah! 

Things didn't go exactly as I had planned in Colorado...my car was full of clothes and wedding presents from DC, so  we wanted to hook up a trailer to the back of my car in Colorado to drive out all the wedding presents from Colorado to Utah. Unfortunately, ford explorers are not compatible to hook up a trailer to for some reason, nor any other stinkin moving truck company. Our only option left was to rent a 14 foot moving truck and tow the explorer on the back of the truck.  Not only was it expensive, but it was SO long!  I was so nervous to drive it. Look at this thing!!!

 

We left CO springs at 7 in the morning and got to Utah at 7 at night.....it was the longest and maybe even in the worst 12 hours of my life.  I don't think I have done anything harder in my life!  It was pretty windy and all I could see in my side mirrors was the trailer kind of swaying back and forth!! Luckily we all made it alive :) 

I am SO thankful my mom came out with me.  I don't know how I could have done everything that needed to be done without her.  We woke up at 6 in the morning and went to bed at 1 in the morning usually every night.  Setting up an apartment is kind of hard with moving everything in, but on top of that I had to set up my classroom and go to meetings!  My mom did such a great job with my classroom, it looks amazing mostly because of her!  (pictures of the apartment and classroom to come soon!) My mom and Ethan left today, so it is so quiet in my apartment all by myself.  I've missed Andrew so much and can't wait for these next 10 days to go by so we get to be together again! It has definitely not been fun being away from eachother for 3 weeks, especially as newlyweds, but we are grateful he was able to stay and work and make more money for us and pay for all the expenses it took to get out here. I'm glad I have such a hard workin hubby!! With all the technology we have now, atleast we get to video chat and virtually see eachother! hoping the next 10 days go by fast!!!

Happy 23rd Birthday!

Our blog has been slacking because my life was taken over by independent study classes.  They are the worst!! 

Anyways, Last Saturday was Andrew's 23rd birthday!  The birthday boy was lucky enough to get some breakfast in bed :) I surprised him with a sausage and hard boiled egg mixture he's had and loved for his whole life served over an english muffin.  It is such a yummy breakfast.  We then met up with our brothers and sisters to raft the Potomac river!  It was such a hot day (118 degrees!) that the river felt like bath water.  It was very enjoyable to swim in.  We even were all brave enough to do some cliff jumping! 

                                                         Emma came too and loved it!
After a long day in the sun, we went back and took naps and got ready for a great night at Dave and Busters. 

                             Andrew would not take any serious pictures while we were waiting to eat!

                                                              Emma and Uncle Andrew

                                                 I'll let everyone know that I won! =] haha...even if it was only by a few seconds

our favorite game...the horse racing!

got so many tickets from this machine!

                                                              opening more presents!

We had a great day spent together and with our family.  I love you hubs and can't wait to spend many many many more years together!

golf, golf, golf!

This past weekend, we played lots of golf.  Andrew has always loved golfing, but lately he has REALLY loved golfing!  The other day we were driving and he said, "Babe, I love hanging out with you so much, but I really love golfing too.  It isn't very much fun playing golf with people who aren't very good.....so you need to get really good so I can spend time with you AND get to golf!"  haha. I've only played a round of real golf twice in my whole life.....so I have some work to do!

So we headed to the driving range Friday night.  Andrew was teaching me how to hold the club and swing correctly.  I'd have to say, I've made some progress and can now hit a ball a whole 120 yards! :) guess I'll have to keep working on that to hit the real course again.  Despite not being too great at it yet, it was a lot of fun....minus the 15 mosquito bites we both got! Andrew, on the other hand, was hitting atleast a good 385 yards.  He was hitting way past the range and into the trees!!

                                                                   my studly hubby!

Saturday we decided it would be fun to go mini golfing and work on our putting skills!  That's one thing I can hang right there with him, I'll admit, I'm a pretty good mini golfer! We decided to place a bet and whoever won got a whoppin $20 spending money.  (gotta love being newlyweds!)  We're both very competitive, so it was pretty intense.  Unfortunately for me, he won.....which I wasn't too happy about. However, he only won because there were so many stinkin gnats in my face the whole time!!! All in all, it was a great weekend and I can't wait to be back in Utah and golf with him and Jord! 

Lazy Sundays

After a long week of work and fun on the weekends, we love having the down time on Sundays to relax and be lazy.  Our church starts at 9 A.M., so we always have to get up early.  We are also teaching primary for the summer!  The 6 year old kids just wear us out! :) We love coming home and having lunch and then taking a nap.

Last Sunday was a special day because of Father's Day. My dad is in China, so I only got to talk to him via email, but I had to let him know how grateful I am for all he does for me and my family.  We're lucky to be living in DC this summer and be surrounded by our family members out here. I sure did get lucky to have amazing in laws! We went to Andrew's parents for a delicious dinner.  I'm grateful Andrew has such a wonderful dad who taught him well...he sure raised one heck of a boy!

                                        Our precious niece, Addie.  We love her so much!!

Even though Andrew and I don't have kids yet (and hopefully not for a little while) when the time comes, Andrew is going to be the most amazing father!  He loves kids and is so good with them.  I'm lucky to be with him forever.