Happy holidays

On the first day of christmas my true love gave to me
- 1 cute charlie brown christmas tree (that we cut down ourselves... with a permit :) )

on the second day of christmas
-2 purple nike shoes

on the third day of christmas
- 3 popcorn tins

on the fourth day of christmas
- 4 hours (so far) of watching my new gilmore girls movies

on the fifth day of christmas
- 5 cool lights on corbins new headlamp his wonderful wife gave him

on the sixth day of christmas
-6 surprised excited faces after opening gifts from my family

on the seventh day of christmas
-7 gifts under our tree

on the eighth day of christmas
- 8 candy canes

on the ninth day of christmas
-9 times i've wished i had a yard to lay on my new hammock

on the tenth day of christmas
-10 ( ok the high numbers get me so 1 cute brown sweater)

on the eleventh day of christmas
-11 plus 1 jerseys on corbins new quilt i made

on the twelth day of christmas
-12 days left of winter break

Fun Times

We have had a lot of fun this past week. After a very fun and yummy Thanksgiving with my family, we had a Christmas adventure with our good friends. 4-wheeling, spending time at the cabin, snow shoeing, and cutting down our very first Christmas tree! Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

The guys pulling each other on the 4-wheelers. We also jammed 3 people on the sled and pulled them around - yup! So much fun !

Us on the 4-wheeler

Our cute tree

Hubby and the Conner's

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year! I was a pirate and hubby was a prospector... but everyone at the party said he looked like bob the builder haha. It was a good time hanging with friends, eating munchies, and carving pumpkins. Ours was supposed to be a representation of Utah (hair is the mountains, nose is a tree, and mouth is a river). Aren't we creative? We even got 2 trick or treaters! I love holidays :)

Fall Break Fun

So let me explain this picture... it was on hubby's camera so i forgot to post in when i talked about our Virginia adventures but it is one of my favorites! It was taken in old town Williamsburg. Haha it makes me laugh

So on to my blog post...

We had a lot of fun this last week. Hanging with fun friends, relaxing, hitting up dollar movies, screaming our heads off at the Alpine Coaster, car rides to see the beautiful changing leaves, catching a fish on the provo river (and eating it), seeing my parents home remodel, and best of all spending time together! What a great way to welcome Fall.

33 days apart for an internship

Waking up at 6:30am every day for Skype

(or for one of us inparticular skyping right before he hit the hay at 6:30 am)

Emails twice or three times a day

No phone and limited internet time

Scripture reading and discussion emails

Love notes left / sent in bags

Learning a lot

Missing a lot

Loving growing fonder

This has been our life for the past 2 months. Hubby had the opportunity to go on a geology internship and gain a lot of experience. It was one of those bitter sweet moments for us. We are both glad to be together once again.

We thank thee oh God for a Prophet

I love general conference. I always feel direction and guidance after listening to the words of the Prophet and apostles. I remember when i was little, my favorite part of conference was playing cereal bingo with the names of the speakers (when a person spoke you got to put a cheerio on their name square). Now i find myself practically absorbing things being said and immediately trying to apply them to my life. I will be the first to admit that i am not perfect :) and i have a lot to work on. Even so, its nice to be reminded that we have a loving savior who has been through all the trials and tribulations that we go through. I always have a friend who "has been there".
It seems like our first year of marriage has been a bit chaotic. We have learned a lot of life lessons in the six months we have been married. Each has strengthened our relationship, but i used to wonder why we were having so many trials so fast. Conference was a great reminder that the Lord has a plan for us, and in these times of trial we must build our testimony and stay strong in the gospel. The Lord loves us and will not leave us comfortless. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and i love it!

Addicted

My mom introduced me to that pinterest site and i'm pretty sure i'm addicted. It has so many good ideas on it but with it changing all the time i find myself wanting to look at it non-stop! I have to have so much self control to turn the computer off and go to bed. I found this cute quote on it yesterday that said:

This is so true! I find myself working so hard at everything right now... school, work, laundry, everything. That i forget to stop and take a moment out of my day to just be happy and look at the beautiful mountains with the leaves changing colors. Fall is one of my favorite times of the year!

BE HAPPY

Random Blogging

I am thankful for a lot of things today:

1. Fall leaves and bright colors make even the worst day better. How can you not just stop for a few minutes and look at the leaves?

2. My Hubby is home for the weekend!! I just love him :)

3 Date nights with our fun friends made this weekend even more fun than it usually is!

4. Peanut M&Ms. Need i say more?

5. Noni berry snapple is the best drink i've had in a long time... too bad it is impossible to find

6. People are starting to say hi to us at church

Home at last

After about three weeks of settling in, we are finally home and unpacked. It feels good to get back to the west coast among family and friends. I love knowing how to get places without a GPS for the most part. We live among the most spectacular mountains that i personally have ever seen and i've been in 12 states off the top of my head so that's saying something.

Life has been crazy settling into school and having my hubby away on an internship. I really hope that the saying "The first year of your life together is the hardest" is true. We went from a hard summer, to an ugly welcome home situation by our neighbor, to new jobs away from each other. A whole lot of stress and loneliness. My heart goes out to the wifes of soldiers... how strong they must be!

I'm camping out with my wonderful family this month while he is gone. They are what holds me through, i can't imagine doing this in a completely different state. I have learned to have great faith through these hard times. The Lord works in mysterious ways, all i can do is

Trust

In

The

Lord.

Washington D.C

We had so much fun on our trip to Washington D.C! After parking at the Union Station (behind us), which is a real train station, we went on an adventure by foot with Corbins dad and sister.

This bell was at the train station. It is huge!
My cute hubby waiting at the train station

The architecture here is amazing! (statue at the station)

Next we went to the SPY museum! It was pretty cool, but pricy. We had to memorize a secret identity and go on a "mission" throughout the museum. We learned about the spy's throughout the years and all the neat gadgets they used (like a lipstick gun, shoe microphone, and a hollow coin for hiding secrets).It got me thinking about what today's technology is!

Next we went and saw: The Declaration of Independance, Constitution, and Bill of rights in this building (The national archives). Once again... amazing architecture!

This is just a side door (below)

THESE are the main doors! Once you really could go through them... now a small door.

Across the street was an art gallery in a park. Unique artistic views covered the park... this one happens to be my favorite. It is a tree made entirely out of metal!

Across from the park was the "mall" which is the famous patch of grass when you think of Martin Luther king. One side is the capital (below)...

... And the other side is the pencil

On the right side is the Smithsonian which is actually made of sandstone

(says my rock -savy hubby)

But my favorite museum by far was the Museum of Natural History (located across from the smithsonian on the left side of the mall). You walk in and see this!

We went to the ocean part first... This is the jaw bone of a HUGE prehistoric shark. I'm SOOOO glad they are extinct!!

We ended up getting so into the museum that we didn't take a lot of pictures. We got to see a mummy, a bunch of human/ caveman skulls, a giant squid, every rock in the world, and the biggest diamond in the world.

We walked back to our car exhausted and sticky with sweat, however, it was an incredibly fun day!!!

Colonial Williamsburg

We went to Colonial Williamsburg to celebrate our 4 month anniversary yesterday. It is such a cute little town! We decided to park the car and just explore on foot. With no map in hand, we stumbled across this first huge building

And after walking around the museum... we later found that this used to be an insane assylum! AHHH talk about creepy!

In the basement, however, it was a huge museum with a ton of civil war stuff. These are muskets (below)

We left the looney house and walked around the town. Even though it was 4 pm it was still so hot, but entirely worth it. So fun!

We turned a corner and stumbled across this area of town where the homes have been rebuilt and the people walk around in clothes from the civil war time period. It was a wierd site at first because we didn't know anything about it! haha

After finding a visitors center we finally found a map of this cute little town.

Not long into our tour a tree decided to crash down on one of the houses! One guy standing around us thought it was a "Disney effect" but my forest ranger knew better haha

While walking around the homes, we stumbled across a cute garden. I can't wait to have a yard! Hubby took my picture (oh this is my tie dye shirt BTW... turned out great!).

This is my favorite house that we saw. I'm going to paint it for sure!

It was a very fun day in Colonial Williamsburg :) I love my Hubby so much and i am glad that we can have these fun adventures together.

Bring It On

Its amazing how people are controlled by money in this world. This green paper can cause a person to feel happiness, greed, anger, fear, hatrid, and a whole bundle of other emotions. The saddest part is when it comes between loved ones. The one thing that money cannot control in my life is JOY. I say that because when i feel joy it comes from inside me. it starts like a tiny ball of energy from my core until the feeling consumes me and i am invincible. Joy cannot be tampered with, torn down, or taken from me unless i hand it over freely. We can, however, spread joy to others without giving it away from our lives.This reminder has helped me a lot this summer. Life has its hard lessons, and its unfortunate when we have to be a part of them. But we can never forget that we can choose to have joy!

I have a goal this summer to be happy no matter what life hits me in the face with. Joy and I ... we're gonna be tight :)

Ps. I did tie dye today with the wifes... good stress relief. I can't wait to see how my shirt turned out. I'll keep ya posted!

Bubble girl?

virginia is starting to get more and more familiar, but at the same time there are aspects about it that are sooo foreign to me. I have this little bubble of town that i know... the library, walmart, sweet frog, and the ups store. Thanks to my trusty gps we are able to find the movie theater and nice malls but it isn't like Utah where things are in such close proximity. This is the country baby and it definately has "wide open spaces" - filled with trees and trees and more trees. It is such a bizar feeling to not be able to see what is on the other side of the block without driving or walking there. Businesses and homes are tucked away in the trees, only to be labeled or noticed by a driveway, business sign, or mail box. The speed limit is about 45 on the roads here (even in neighborhoods) but it feels like 60 partially because the trees are so thick and intensify the speed and also because no one here goes remotely close to the speed limit. If you go the speed limit you get tail gated or flipped off. crazy!!

I made meat loaf, cheesy potatoes, and caesar salad last night :) hubby loved it. I'm in the market for a nice camera ( the nikon / cannon kind) if anyone knows of one or wants to sell theirs at a good price let me know!

ta ta for now!

Joy

I borrowed a ballet conditioning video from my cousin and tried it out the other day. The girl on the video was smiling the entire time she was working out (as ballerina's do) and at first she was really on my nerves. I couldn't stand how she looked so perky doing her leg lifts. It was almost as she was mocking me as i was dying. But then i tried out her little method and made it a goal to smile the entire time i did the work out. To my surprise i actually ended up enjoying the workout! This reminded me to have joy... a word that starting meaning a lot to me when i was taking voice lessons. When singing, everything is better if you have an expression of joy on your face. Your posture, lift, tone, everything is better with joy. sometimes i forget to incorporate joy into normal things of my day like putting on make up or making dinner or grocery shopping! My goal of the weekend and rest of the week is to remember to wear an expression of joy.

You're never fully dressed without a SMILE :)

Dreams

I had a horrible dream last night. The kind where you wake up and think it was real, and when the time comes that you realize everything is normal, you are so thankful that its not real. I think that dreams are so interesting. Why do we dream? Is it our minds way of wandering, our curiosity, our fears? I find it so interesting. I took a psychology class once and loved every minute of it. I think the human mind is fascinating, science has always been fun and interesting to me. Where was i going with this.... oh, I'm thankful for dreams even though some are horrible. I think they are constant reminders of being different and thinking at new heights. For example, i have a dream that one day we will go to Italy. I have dreams where i can fly if i jump really high. I have a dream that my hubby will sell like no man has ever sold before. I have a dream... haha guess the possibility of watching fireworks on the 4Th of July at the national monument in D.C where Martin Luther King "had a dream" is inspiring this blog post. Hang with me people, cause apparently i have many dreams! :)

Attention Walmart Shoppers

So i went to walmart today (it is the closest grocery store - literally right across the street from the apartments) and i almost got trampled. Not to be racist (i have black cousins), but there were probably 2 million black booties in that store each with a shopping cart, crazy look on their face, and a yearning to be needing what ever i was standing in front of. It is hard to do my job AND grocery shop so when i have to schedule a tech i pull off to the side usually in front of like gross prunes or something that i know will not be touched or needed in the next little bit and do my thing, but today was crazy. Attention Walmart shoppers, what ever the blonde white girl is standing in front of is half off as long as she is standing in front of it!!! ya that's what it felt like haha. It was a good way to make me get in and get out though!

Ps. I know you were wondering... it is 6:00pm and 102 degrees outside. My poor hubby.

The hood

We had the chance to visit the neighborhood where hubby grew up a couple weeks ago. I wish i would have taken more pictures. This is the harbor area of the neighborhood... again are you sure there are no "gators" in there? It's beautiful though, so different from the west. They both have their distinct beauties that are polar opposites of each other.

The neighborhood is a gated area but huge inside with a harbor, pool, multiple parks, and even a historical site called governers island. We went on this walk and saw where rock was quarried to be used in washington DC. Pretty neat!

We had a lot of fun on our nature hike. We even swung from a real long vine like tarzan... i tried to upload the video but after 20 min of it saying upload... i gave up. I will have to show you later :)

A Great Birthday Weekend

I am now officially legal! Its funny to say that when you are mormon because turning 21 really isn't such a big deal. Sure you are one year older and wiser but that's it. I was talking to a mom here and she said that to celebrate her 21st she booked a hotel room under her name and a car and their family went on a trip (guess you can't do that till you are 21). haha But dispite that, i had a really good birthday.

My family sent me these beautiful flowers that brighten the apartment. i got cards from grandparents and friends. I also got cupcakes and a cute belt from my cuz, i love her style.

My wonderful hubby took me to this amazing seafood restaurant saturday night. We had crab, shrimp, potatoes, veggies, key lime pie, and ALIGATOR! yes real aligator... it looked like chic-fil-a and i will never think of those nuggets the same. EVER. We also went to the mall friday and hubby bought me this shirt.

Corbin got 12 of these babies and they stared at me all night. EEWww sick

Yep this is ALIGATOR!!! (above)

My new shirt that i love

Overall it was a fun day :) I'll blog about corbin's hood next time, stay tuned!!