Well, we made it to Grand Haven yesterday! On Tuesday night we finished our packing, some cleaning, went to the library for our books on CD, and did some shopping for snacks and food for our drive. We did our best to get to bed early, and woke up at 5:30 on Wednesday. After quick showers and loading up the car, we were on the road! We were shooting to leave the house at 6:00 (I think it was about 6:10 when we left the driveway -- not too bad) and make it to Omaha, Nebraska that night. We drove right on through, just stopping to get gas, use the potty, and switch places every 3 or 4 hours. We made it to Omaha around 7 or 8pm so we decided to keep going and eventually stopped in Des Moines, Iowa for the night. We found a Motel 6, which was cheap and reasonably clean, but they don't give you shampoo and conditioner for your shower. I asked at the front desk and they said you could buy it in the vending machine if you wanted. I didn't, and when we went to look at the vending machine in the morning to see how much they were charging for it they didn't have any in it anyway!
We hit the road at about 7 Thursday morning and ate breakfast and lunch in the car, and around 4:00 we pulled into Grand Haven! The drive wasn't that bad, actually. On Wednesday we listened to the entire unabridged version of the Hobbit on CD, which is about 11 hours, and I think we drove for about 14 or 15 hours. Thursday we listed to part of Angels and Demons after trying a couple different books and not liking them or not being able to understand the reader very well. The only semi-eventful thing that happened on the road was me almost hitting a deer in Iowa. Luckily, Spencer yelled at me when he saw them (there were two standing together) and I swerved in time and stayed on the road. Honestly, him yelling all of a sudden scared me more than the deer did.
Once we got into Grand Haven we visited with everyone and had some really yummy dinner. All we'd eaten on our drive was like pringles, apples, ham sandwiches, muffins, and gardettos. We didn't have to buy anything on the road, which was good, but I was ready for a real meal. After dinner we went to Brigham's 6th grade band concert and went to the marina to get the boat so we can clean it up and get it in the water this weekend! It was a really fun evening, and we are so happy to be here finally!
Friday, May 25, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Ramblings
Well, we leave tomorrow morning. Last night we went to a a birthday party for a guy in our ward. They made homemade ice cream and played reverse charades as a group. I hate charades. And reverse charades isn't much better, but the group had fun. :-) The ice cream was super good. After that we went home and folded laundry for a while until I left to go work on my dress with Sabrina. It took us until 12:30 last night, but we got it done!! Almost. I just have to do some hand stitching. Luckily, I have 25 hours in a car over the next two days, so it will be all done by the time we get to Michigan. My sewing nights with Sabrina have been really fun. I think we'll still get together to work on projects when we get back. The next thing I want to do is make a baby quilt for Josh and Katy's little girl.
Tonight we just have to pack, clean out the fridge, clean up the apartment a little, and get to bed early! we're making fried rice for dinner to use up all of our eggs and produce in the fridge. I can't believe we're leaving tomorrow! I'm so excited to visit everyone! Oh, and we have to go to the library tonight to pick up our books on CD. It would be very sad if we forgot about that. If anyone is bored tomorrow or Thursday give me a call.
Tonight we just have to pack, clean out the fridge, clean up the apartment a little, and get to bed early! we're making fried rice for dinner to use up all of our eggs and produce in the fridge. I can't believe we're leaving tomorrow! I'm so excited to visit everyone! Oh, and we have to go to the library tonight to pick up our books on CD. It would be very sad if we forgot about that. If anyone is bored tomorrow or Thursday give me a call.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Eclipse
We've been really blessed lately for being in this ward. At first we wanted to be in the married student ward, but we lived one block too far south. This ward has a lot of young families in it with like 3 or more kids so we felt like we didn't fit in for a while. We are the only couple who doesn't have kids or is expecting. And there is a new baby born at least once a month. It's crazy. This week they announced two births. Anyway, my visiting teachers, Amber and Sister Carter are wonderful, and people in this ward can teach us things. Sabrina volunteered to teach me how to sew, an older couple we went to visit a couple weeks ago do woodworking and said we could use their shop if we wanted to, and the Carter's have a beautiful garden! Seriously, it was an awesome garden, and they do canning in the fall with a lot of their garden stuff. It sounded like they grow everything they use to make their salsa. Anyway, so many of the members here are willing to teach us things. And we're finally finding our place in the ward.
Saturday we focused a lot on getting ready for our trip. Right away in the morning we borrowed our neighbor's extension cord and got our car all vacuumed out and cleaned. We went to Walmart and bought new windshield wipers and replaced our old ones, and today we're taking it in for an oil change and a tire rotation. Woohoo! Oh! I also worked on my dress and it's looking pretty good. We attached the skirt and all we have left is the zipper and the hem on the skirt! :-)
Birthday Party at Ben and Sydney's
On Friday night after work Spencer and I went over to Ben and Sydney's place for a birthday dinner. Nate came too, but Laura wasn't feeling well. Sydney ( and Ben?) made this awesome dinner for us. There was a chicken dish over rice, yummy baked cauliflower, super good melon balls, and some rolls Nate brought. For dessert she made triple berry muffins. It was way better than whatever we would have made for dinner. :-)
Nate was so thoughtful and brought me a couple presents. He gave me a book on CD to borrow for our trip. And he made us promise we'd listen to it. Haha. It's called Born to Run. He says it's the best book ever written, but he also said Real Steel was the best movie ever made. And he got me a model car to build and paint with Spencer as a bonding activity. Haha. I think it was sitting around in his apartment. I do plan on building it someday though. Maybe I'll give the finished car to him in his birthday.
Nate left after dinner to go check on Laura, and we had a fun time hanging out with Ben and Sydney for a whole. I really hope Ben and Spencer end up at the same med school. It would be fun for Sydney and I.
Nate was so thoughtful and brought me a couple presents. He gave me a book on CD to borrow for our trip. And he made us promise we'd listen to it. Haha. It's called Born to Run. He says it's the best book ever written, but he also said Real Steel was the best movie ever made. And he got me a model car to build and paint with Spencer as a bonding activity. Haha. I think it was sitting around in his apartment. I do plan on building it someday though. Maybe I'll give the finished car to him in his birthday.
Nate left after dinner to go check on Laura, and we had a fun time hanging out with Ben and Sydney for a whole. I really hope Ben and Spencer end up at the same med school. It would be fun for Sydney and I.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
20 Years Old
I feel like I'm not very good at being 20. Starting a little on my birthday, and then getting worse until Wednesday I've been a little bit sick. Mostly just a runny/stuffy nose and sneezing a lot and being kind of achey, but yesterday it was awful. I got almost a full 8 hours of sleep Tuesday night (plus a two hour nap I took after dinner!) and I woke up super tired and achey and sick. So I emailed my boss to tell him I wouldn't be in that morning. I slept for another 4 hours until Spencer came back the lab on campus, and made myself get up and take a hot shower. I went into work for the afternoon, but I just felt tired all day. By the end of the night I was starting to feel a little better, and today I feel almost back to normal, so that's good. I've felt pretty useless and not fun. Hopefully I'll have more energy now so we can get everything ready to leave on our trip.
Spencer's been awesome this week. I haven't made dinner all week! On Monday it was my birthday so he made me tacos. Then on Tuesday neither of us felt like making dinner so we went out to eat at a Chinese place we like. Yesterday I took a snooze while Spencer made some really good chicken and beans for us. He's a better cook than I am. I can follow a recipe and make a good meal, but he's better at making stuff up in the kitchen. He says it's just because he's not as worried about messing something up. That might be true, but it almost always turns out really good! ;-) Besides making dinner, Spencer's done lots of stuff around our apartment when I'm at work or at Sabrina's working on my dress. He's the best.
Speaking of the dress project, it's going really well. We're still hopeful that we'll get it done by next Wednesday. I worked on it Tuesday and Wednesday nights. We finished the bodice and put the sleeves on! They look pretty good, in my opinion. I'm going to work on it some more this Saturday then hopefully we'll just have the skirt and zipper left.
On Monday for my birthday we didn't to a whole lot. Spencer made me dinner, like I said, and then we went to Lowes to buy some things for a little garden. We got a watermelon plant, a cherry tomato plant, and some bean seeds. The watermelon might not get enough sun where it's at, but we'll see what happens with it. I'll just be happy if nothing dies. :-) After we planted our garden we watched Real Steel together. It was a really fun evening.
So, it's been one of those weeks that feel like they'll never end, but somehow it's already Thursday. Sydney found out it was my birthday from Facebook and then insisted that we have a birthday party for me this Friday. :-) That should be fun. I always like hanging out with Ben and Sydney and Nate and Laura. And maybe my present from Spencer will arrive by then. Haha. I don't mind that it's a little late.
Someday I'll take more pictures and actually add the ones I have taken to a couple other posts. Thanks for reading my ramblings.
Spencer's been awesome this week. I haven't made dinner all week! On Monday it was my birthday so he made me tacos. Then on Tuesday neither of us felt like making dinner so we went out to eat at a Chinese place we like. Yesterday I took a snooze while Spencer made some really good chicken and beans for us. He's a better cook than I am. I can follow a recipe and make a good meal, but he's better at making stuff up in the kitchen. He says it's just because he's not as worried about messing something up. That might be true, but it almost always turns out really good! ;-) Besides making dinner, Spencer's done lots of stuff around our apartment when I'm at work or at Sabrina's working on my dress. He's the best.
Speaking of the dress project, it's going really well. We're still hopeful that we'll get it done by next Wednesday. I worked on it Tuesday and Wednesday nights. We finished the bodice and put the sleeves on! They look pretty good, in my opinion. I'm going to work on it some more this Saturday then hopefully we'll just have the skirt and zipper left.
On Monday for my birthday we didn't to a whole lot. Spencer made me dinner, like I said, and then we went to Lowes to buy some things for a little garden. We got a watermelon plant, a cherry tomato plant, and some bean seeds. The watermelon might not get enough sun where it's at, but we'll see what happens with it. I'll just be happy if nothing dies. :-) After we planted our garden we watched Real Steel together. It was a really fun evening.
So, it's been one of those weeks that feel like they'll never end, but somehow it's already Thursday. Sydney found out it was my birthday from Facebook and then insisted that we have a birthday party for me this Friday. :-) That should be fun. I always like hanging out with Ben and Sydney and Nate and Laura. And maybe my present from Spencer will arrive by then. Haha. I don't mind that it's a little late.
Someday I'll take more pictures and actually add the ones I have taken to a couple other posts. Thanks for reading my ramblings.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Fun Facts
Did you know that pineapple plants look stupid? You plant the top of a pineapple and eventually grows another pineapple out of itself.
Most green peppers are actually colored peppers (red, orange, or yellow) that haven't ripened yet. Who knew?!
Birthday Dinner and Mother's Day
Sometimes I feel like I live for the weekends. I look forward to them all week long and then they are over so quickly! On Saturday I went and got a much-needed haircut with a gift certificate I won at a raffle for the hunger-games movie we went to with the Waltons. WooHoo! After we got back from that and all the other driving around we had to do I went over to Sabrina's to work on my dress for a few hours. We are almost done with the bodice now. Oh, we also went to do some shopping and I found a pair of jeans at JC Penney's for $8!! And a fun summer hat.
Sundays are always nice and relaxing days. We were invited over for lunch by Amber and Matt, the other childless couple in our ward (they're expecting though), and it was really fun. They made spaghetti and some rosemary bread and we brought some apples and caramel dip for a snacky dessert. We played a game of Killer Bunnies with them, which I remember Marianne bringing home for Christmas one year, but I didn't understand it then. It's a pretty fun game, now that I understood how to play. But maybe it helps that I've actually gotten into playing games since I've met Spencer. I didn't really like them before, but now that I've accepted that I'll almost always lose they're fun. ;-) Spencer says it's next on his list of games we need to get.
We went back home, and I cleaned the bathroom while Spencer made dinner for me. Then I went to pick up James, who made me a pretty awesome cake. We had sweet and sour chicken with rice for dinner, and then I opened the presents James got me. He got me a thermos and this cool stacking food container for camping. I don't know what it's called, but I like it. His cake was super good, and we even had some caramel "frozen dessert" to go with it! After the candles were lit James and Spencer both just kinda looked at me for a while, until I asked if they were going to sing to me. haha. Spencer said no, because it wasn't my birthday, and then asked me if I was going to sing to him. I refused to blow out the candles until they sang. They did a lovely job.
Later, we skyped with Mom and Mikayla (and Dad and Brigham, but mostly Mom and Mikayla) to wish Mom a happy Mother's Day. That was really fun and it was nice to have someone to call on Mother's Day. Mother's Day has always been one of the harder days of the year. I remember in grade school we'd do Mother's Day projects as a class. I would make them for Dad and hide them in my room until Father's Day, or sometimes I would make them for Grandma instead. At church there are always great talks about Mothers and I am reminded of how blessed I am to have the Mom I have. Lots of my memories of her are a little of vague and unspecific, but her example still shines in my life and I have often thought that if I can be as good of a Mom as she is, then I'd be successful. This Mother's Day I also felt blessed to have such a good Mom-in-law to help me learn some of the things Mom didn't quite get to teach me.
Sundays are always nice and relaxing days. We were invited over for lunch by Amber and Matt, the other childless couple in our ward (they're expecting though), and it was really fun. They made spaghetti and some rosemary bread and we brought some apples and caramel dip for a snacky dessert. We played a game of Killer Bunnies with them, which I remember Marianne bringing home for Christmas one year, but I didn't understand it then. It's a pretty fun game, now that I understood how to play. But maybe it helps that I've actually gotten into playing games since I've met Spencer. I didn't really like them before, but now that I've accepted that I'll almost always lose they're fun. ;-) Spencer says it's next on his list of games we need to get.
We went back home, and I cleaned the bathroom while Spencer made dinner for me. Then I went to pick up James, who made me a pretty awesome cake. We had sweet and sour chicken with rice for dinner, and then I opened the presents James got me. He got me a thermos and this cool stacking food container for camping. I don't know what it's called, but I like it. His cake was super good, and we even had some caramel "frozen dessert" to go with it! After the candles were lit James and Spencer both just kinda looked at me for a while, until I asked if they were going to sing to me. haha. Spencer said no, because it wasn't my birthday, and then asked me if I was going to sing to him. I refused to blow out the candles until they sang. They did a lovely job.
Later, we skyped with Mom and Mikayla (and Dad and Brigham, but mostly Mom and Mikayla) to wish Mom a happy Mother's Day. That was really fun and it was nice to have someone to call on Mother's Day. Mother's Day has always been one of the harder days of the year. I remember in grade school we'd do Mother's Day projects as a class. I would make them for Dad and hide them in my room until Father's Day, or sometimes I would make them for Grandma instead. At church there are always great talks about Mothers and I am reminded of how blessed I am to have the Mom I have. Lots of my memories of her are a little of vague and unspecific, but her example still shines in my life and I have often thought that if I can be as good of a Mom as she is, then I'd be successful. This Mother's Day I also felt blessed to have such a good Mom-in-law to help me learn some of the things Mom didn't quite get to teach me.
Friday, May 11, 2012
This Week
This week has been a pretty fun week for us. I work every day from 8 to 5ish. Spencer works either mornings or afternoons and either hangs out at home or goes into the lab when he's not working. On days when he works in the afternoon I go home during my lunch break to pick him up and he has a nice lunch waiting for me. That's really nice. I don't eat very good lunches some days that I'm on campus all day.
On Monday after work we did some baby-sitting for a couple in our ward, Sabrina and Jacob. Sabrina has been helping me sew a dress and they said we could have their 4 tickets for a Saturday showing of the Avengers if we watched their three kids on Monday so they could go see it. Sounds like a great deal to me! Their kids were pretty easy, and it was fun for me to see Spencer playing with their 1 year old boy. Plus they gave us pizza since it was dinnertime when we got there!
On Tuesday we went for a run after work, made dinner, and then I went over to Sabrina's to work on my dress. The only sewing I've ever done was making a pair of pajama pants like 6 years ago, but it's something I've always wanted to learn. Sabrina volunteered to help me in exchange for some baby-sitting. It's really fun, and the dress is coming along. Hopefully it turns out...
Wednesday was really fun. After work we went for a run, then had our friends Ben and Sydney over to make shish kabobs on the grill for dinner. We don't have a grill, but our church building has a nice pavilion and grills out back. We had chicken wrapped in bacon, green peppers, red peppers, pineapples, onions, and mushrooms. They were so good! And of course we finished it off with s'mores! When we got back to the house we realized that neither of us had the key, so we went back to the church to look for it (in the dark) and couldn't find it anywhere. It turns out I'd dropped it in Ben and Sydney's car, so we waited outside for them to come back and get it to us. We realized that if we ever really did lose our keys it would be almost impossible for us to get in. We live in a basement so our windows are too small to go through if we could even get them open and our landlord doesn't have an extra key. We'd have to go through the upstairs and take out the insulation blocking the stairs into the basement. Anyway, I felt pretty bad about losing the key, but it was a warm night so it wasn't a big deal waiting outside for a bit.
Last night was busy, too. Spencer's lab had a barbecue, so we went. It was at his professor's house. We brought some pasta salad and had a good time eating and talking with people. Sometimes I feel like we have "our" friends and "Spencer's" friends. I don't have just "my" friends. Probably because I work with one other person, where Spencer works with like 7 and there are about 20 other students that work in the lab he's in.
Tonight we wanted to go camping, but we have quite a few things going on tomorrow, so driving out of town and camping wouldn't really be worth it. Why pay 15 dollars for a campsite if you can't even stay to hike or something the next day? So we're camping in our yard tonight! :-) Mostly, I really wanted to use the really nice tent Mom and Dad Thornock got us, and we haven't had a chance to yet. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!) It'll be fun.
So, we stay busy. We try to do things in the evenings, but some weeks are more exciting than others. I've been going to Sabrina's to work on that dress about twice a week, and we're hoping to finish it before we go to Michigan. After our trip summer term classes will be starting up, so we'll be busy with studying and this blog will be even less interesting to read. Let's be real. Blogs about kids are a lot more fun than blogs about students, but this is our life right now. We're really enjoying our time here at BYU, even if all we seem to do is study and work.
On Monday after work we did some baby-sitting for a couple in our ward, Sabrina and Jacob. Sabrina has been helping me sew a dress and they said we could have their 4 tickets for a Saturday showing of the Avengers if we watched their three kids on Monday so they could go see it. Sounds like a great deal to me! Their kids were pretty easy, and it was fun for me to see Spencer playing with their 1 year old boy. Plus they gave us pizza since it was dinnertime when we got there!
On Tuesday we went for a run after work, made dinner, and then I went over to Sabrina's to work on my dress. The only sewing I've ever done was making a pair of pajama pants like 6 years ago, but it's something I've always wanted to learn. Sabrina volunteered to help me in exchange for some baby-sitting. It's really fun, and the dress is coming along. Hopefully it turns out...
Wednesday was really fun. After work we went for a run, then had our friends Ben and Sydney over to make shish kabobs on the grill for dinner. We don't have a grill, but our church building has a nice pavilion and grills out back. We had chicken wrapped in bacon, green peppers, red peppers, pineapples, onions, and mushrooms. They were so good! And of course we finished it off with s'mores! When we got back to the house we realized that neither of us had the key, so we went back to the church to look for it (in the dark) and couldn't find it anywhere. It turns out I'd dropped it in Ben and Sydney's car, so we waited outside for them to come back and get it to us. We realized that if we ever really did lose our keys it would be almost impossible for us to get in. We live in a basement so our windows are too small to go through if we could even get them open and our landlord doesn't have an extra key. We'd have to go through the upstairs and take out the insulation blocking the stairs into the basement. Anyway, I felt pretty bad about losing the key, but it was a warm night so it wasn't a big deal waiting outside for a bit.
Last night was busy, too. Spencer's lab had a barbecue, so we went. It was at his professor's house. We brought some pasta salad and had a good time eating and talking with people. Sometimes I feel like we have "our" friends and "Spencer's" friends. I don't have just "my" friends. Probably because I work with one other person, where Spencer works with like 7 and there are about 20 other students that work in the lab he's in.
Tonight we wanted to go camping, but we have quite a few things going on tomorrow, so driving out of town and camping wouldn't really be worth it. Why pay 15 dollars for a campsite if you can't even stay to hike or something the next day? So we're camping in our yard tonight! :-) Mostly, I really wanted to use the really nice tent Mom and Dad Thornock got us, and we haven't had a chance to yet. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!) It'll be fun.
So, we stay busy. We try to do things in the evenings, but some weeks are more exciting than others. I've been going to Sabrina's to work on that dress about twice a week, and we're hoping to finish it before we go to Michigan. After our trip summer term classes will be starting up, so we'll be busy with studying and this blog will be even less interesting to read. Let's be real. Blogs about kids are a lot more fun than blogs about students, but this is our life right now. We're really enjoying our time here at BYU, even if all we seem to do is study and work.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
The Top of the Hill... Finally
This Spring one of our goals has been to get back into shape. Preferably the kind of shape I was in back in high school, but I'd settle for being able to just run a 5k without stopping. Anyway, we live on this hill over toward the mountains. It's a long hill, and it's fairly steep. This week we got to the top of it. Without stopping. The first day that we ran I made maybe halfway up the hill, and each time we ran I made myself go at least one streetlight further. Yeah, I measure the distance in streetlights because looking at the actual distance would probably be depressing and besides, it's uphill so the actual distance doesn't really count. Right? One day we just finished walking to the top before we ran back down to see how far it went and I thought I'd never be able to make it all the way, but we did! We made it all the way to the top and I almost died on Tuesday, and then yesterday we made it all the way to the top and ran back down the other side and finished the loop to our house with out stopping! I was so proud of myself. As you might have guessed, I've been the one setting the pace and distance on these runs. I'm sure Spencer would have gone longer if he ran by himself, but that's okay. Also, Spencer said that it's about .6 miles to the top of the hill. Now we just have to keep working up to that 5k distance. We pay ourselves 25 cents each time we run just to keep the motivation up. It's our movie and date money. :-)
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Welcome to our blog!
First thing's first. Disclaimer: I'm not a very consistent blogger, which is why I gave up on my last one. I'll try to do better at it this time, but no promises.
Spencer and I met almost two years ago at new student orientation at BYU. Little did I know that 18 months later we'd be getting married. On December 21, 2011 we were married in the Chicago LDS temple for time and eternity, and we are as happy as can be! I've heard people say that the first year of marriage is the hardest, and if that's true, we've got it made. ;-)
We both have two years left here at BYU, after which the plan is medical school for Spencer and physical therapy (PT) school for me. Spencer's studying microbiology and I'm studying physiology and developmental biology. Our majors are fairly similar, which means we get to take a lot of classes together. Over the last two years I think we've had 15 classes together, and a few more where we've been enrolled in the same class with different professors. We're study buddies. I'm pretty sure that if we weren't in chemistry together freshman year we wouldn't have gotten married because all we ever did was study together. It was great. This spring we are taking a break from school. I'm working full time, and Spencer is working part time and volunteering in a research lab on campus.
In two weeks we'll be taking a road trip back to Michigan and I am so excited! We'll be spending about a week in Grand Haven and a week in Ironwood, and have 60 hours of driving along the way. I'm getting into my planning and checklist-making mode now. Time to start writing packing lists, book-on-CD lists (that one's done), snacks-for-in-the-car lists, and lists of things to do while we're there!
That's pretty much our life right now. We'll try to keep you up to date.
Spencer and I met almost two years ago at new student orientation at BYU. Little did I know that 18 months later we'd be getting married. On December 21, 2011 we were married in the Chicago LDS temple for time and eternity, and we are as happy as can be! I've heard people say that the first year of marriage is the hardest, and if that's true, we've got it made. ;-)
We both have two years left here at BYU, after which the plan is medical school for Spencer and physical therapy (PT) school for me. Spencer's studying microbiology and I'm studying physiology and developmental biology. Our majors are fairly similar, which means we get to take a lot of classes together. Over the last two years I think we've had 15 classes together, and a few more where we've been enrolled in the same class with different professors. We're study buddies. I'm pretty sure that if we weren't in chemistry together freshman year we wouldn't have gotten married because all we ever did was study together. It was great. This spring we are taking a break from school. I'm working full time, and Spencer is working part time and volunteering in a research lab on campus.
In two weeks we'll be taking a road trip back to Michigan and I am so excited! We'll be spending about a week in Grand Haven and a week in Ironwood, and have 60 hours of driving along the way. I'm getting into my planning and checklist-making mode now. Time to start writing packing lists, book-on-CD lists (that one's done), snacks-for-in-the-car lists, and lists of things to do while we're there!
That's pretty much our life right now. We'll try to keep you up to date.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)