Another Giveaway!!

Here's another giveaway that's being hosted on the Grosgrain blog. It's such a cute dress!

In other news, Dave and I had a great weekend. First of all, on Friday we went and stayed at a friend's cabin up Provo Canyon. Then on Saturday we stayed in Provo and worked on schoolwork. We stayed in Provo so that I could go watch my brother-in-law's basketball game. Mark's team won! Way to go, Mark!

Then on Sunday we celebrated Valentine's Day. This year, it was my turn to plan our Valentine's day. So I cooked a little bit and we went for a little walk/adventure to find a hidden treasure. It was a very relaxing day in between our two work days (We worked a lot on Monday again, with just a little bit of play).

And I think that this weekend I fell in love with my husband!

Relationships with Lawyers

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, some tips (courtesy of www.avvo.com) on how to get into/survive a relationship with a lawyer. The sad thing is, I actually agreed a little bit with some of the tips...

I'm Thankful for Road Trips!

Dave and I are going on a road trip to AZ for Thanksgiving. And it's going to ROCK!! We've decided that we're going to get a book on tape to listen to, probably an Agatha Christie mystery. We love reading to each other, and this way we'll both get the chance to listen and drive/do homework/do work during the drive.


Can I just say how much I love spending time with this man? Our first road trip was to Preston, ID, on Valentine's Day when we'd only been dating for a few weeks. Dave was worried that we might hate spending that much time in the car together and that that would be the end of the relationship. Needless to say, we enjoyed our time together and didn't have to break up!


And I still anticipate loving my time in the car with him. I don't think that I could ever get tired of being around Dave.

Bad Date Stories

I recently read a blog that told about bad date stories. And I thought it was hilarious! So, let's open up and talk about bad dates!

I've got a couple of stories to share. First, my very worst date ever was a blind date. My co-worker set us up because she wanted another couple to come with her to a latin dance. She set me up with her Brazilian friend (she's Brazilian), and we went...and I don't know how to latin dance! Needless to say, I was an awful date because I couldn't dance. And he was an awful date because he spent most of the time dancing with my co-worker! I've had some other lame dates, but this one takes the cake.

Second, I also want to you about an almost-bad-date that I had with Dave. We'd been going out or spending time together a couple times a week for about three weeks. Dave lived in Salt Lake, and I didn't have a car, so he was making a big effort to come and spend time with me. And he had almost convinced himself that I wasn't interested in him. He had some friends telling him that I didn't seem interested, but he also had some friends encouraging him. So just couldn't make up his mind.

Well, this date almost made up his mind for him that I didn't like him! This is what happened. We went to watch a movie. I REALLY liked him. I was having so much fun with him. But I also didn't know how he felt, and I didn't know if he was going to keep coming down from SLC to see me, especially since he was starting another semester of law school and really busy. Let's just say that I was really confused, so I was kind of limiting my show of affection for him. Okay, I sat on my hands at the movie!!! I'm an idiot! But I wasn't trying to get rid of him, I just needed to be made a little more comfortable with the situation.

So, on the way home from the movie, Dave is sitting in the drivers seat, fuming! He is getting himself ready to drop me off and tell me that we probably won't go out again. There was a lot of silence in the car. I am oblivious to the tension there, though. I am sitting there, thinking away about how much I ADORE this man next to me. Dave chose that moment to ask, "What are you thinking about?" AWKWARD! I couldn't just casually say, "I was just thinking about how much I like you."

It took some quick thinking. There was a funny story about my biology class at BYU that I had alluded to but not told him, because it was embarassing. I decided that as my cover at that moment, I would break down and tell him this embarassing story. So I said, "I was just thinking that it was time I told you what happened in biology." And I proceeded with the story. Lucky for me, Dave took that as a sign of good faith, that I really was interested in him, and several hours later that night we both ended up telling each other that we liked each other. I didn't find out until a while later that I almost blew it that night!


Okay, now it's your turn! I'd like to hear some bad/embarassing date stories from all of you. And I'm contemplating giving a prize to whoever has the best story. I'm not sure what it will be yet, but Dave made some fabulous whoopie cakes tonight that I think would be worth the public embarassment!

It's Finally Happened!

Several of you have alluded to this post (or the lack of it) in your comments. I have been kind of slow to get to this, but I'm really busy right now. And I promised myself at the beginning of my blogging career that I would never feel guilty or apologize for not doing something (blogging) that I was only doing for fun in the first place.

That having been said, I'm REALLY excited for this post! I've been thinking about it for a long time. Let me tell you how long:

In January, I discovered a blog. December and January were big blogging months for me, because I had just graduated from BYU and I was single, and I had a ton of time to read. I read on the 100 Hour Board quite frequently, and I would explore links to other blogs from blogs I already subscribed to. It was a very carefree time.

As I was saying, in January I discovered a specific blog: The Single Mormon Girl's Guide to Life. I thought it was fun. There was commentary on being single, on dealing with relatives and friends who make awkward/tactless comments about you being single, etc. I don't have a problem with being 25 and single, but it was still fun to read. I went back and read all the archived posts. And I found one post that I could really identify with. The author talks about a candy drawer in her family's house, and how everyone would leave the same old things in it, eating them only when they were desperate for sugar. She compared this to dating:

"I want someone new to come into my candy drawer ecosystem, open the drawer and see that banana flavored Laffy Taffy and say to themselves… ‘WOW. These are my FAVORITE! How did this get left in here? What dummy would leave a banana Laffy Taffy in the candy drawer? I’m so glad my favorite candy is in this candy drawer…what a lucky guy I am!’"

It's true! I really wanted someone to truly appreciate me while I was truly appreciating them. I wanted to find a guy (a piece of candy) that was my favorite, and think that I was the luckiest person in the world to get him before he was snatched up by someone else. And I wanted him to feel the same about me.

And it's finally happened! It started out when Dave and I had been dating not very long. I had read the Candy Drawer post, and I was going to write about it on my blog and comment about it. But something funny happened. Dave said to me one time, "You're my favorite!" I was shocked. This was exactly what I wanted someone to say to me! And it continued. We still say that to each other. So I decided to wait to comment on this post until things had progressed more with me and Dave.



Dave and I got engaged on Saturday! We're going to be married on August 15th, 2009, in the Snowflake Arizona Temple! And I can say that we are indeed each other's favorites. I'm so happy!

Guest post from Dave anyone???

It's about time I post something on my blog about my car.

That's right, I have a car. I bought my grandma's white Olsmobile Cutlass back in mid-February, and it's been wonderful to have some transportation! Especially since Dave was always coming down to see me in Provo and I could never go up to Salt Lake to see him. So now I've been able to make a few trips up there, and get around Provo easier. And it's great!

Here are a few pictures.

I wanted to call her Phlegm because of her license plate, but it was changed when I registered it.



So now I call her Eunice.



There's a car named Eunice?



Yeah...



So, the other day I went to put some gas into Eunice, and when she was full she wouldn't start. After several jump starts, and an embarrassing situation with my car stalled in the middle of University Parkway, I found out that Eunice needed the alternator replaced. And the battery. Fortunately, the battery could be replaced for free because it was still under warranty.

I'd really like to start calling her Burnsy, but I'll have to wait to do that until she does something really cool, like demonstrate her superb evasion skills. Oh wait! She did that a few Saturdays ago! This is a fun story. I was driving home from Emily's house, and Dave was following me because we had driven down to pick up his car, which I had left at Emily's that morning. As I was driving, I noticed a car ahead of me that looked just like mine turn right onto a side street. It was also a white Oldsmobile Cutlass. And as soon as I saw it turn, I knew that Dave would think that I had turned. Dave followed the decoy and we went by undetected! Until I blew our cover by calling Dave, that is. But you see now why she is worthy of being called Burnsy?

10 Things About a Guy That Turn Me Off

This was our prompt for TGT tonight. Here's what I came up with:

1. Only opening my door on the first date and thinking he can get away with not opening it again after that.
2. Not listening when I'm talking (I can tell by the dumb questions he asks later).
3. Not adding to the conversation - We'll be sitting in dull silence if I'm not doing the talking.
4. A mustache.
5. Ending a phone conversation without saying "good-bye" or some other form of conversation ender.
6. B.O.
7. Too much attention early on in the relationship.
8. An annoying lip-smacking tick.
9. Not wanting to make decisions about the date (restaurant, activity, etc.)
10. Too feminine. (Enough said)

We had some new girls (I don't know why I call them girls; everyone's married but me) come tonight, and it was fun to have some new blood in the group. I hope Alisha and Jenny come again, and maybe some more new people. Does anyone who reads my blog live in this area and want to join Two Good Things? It's only for women who are interested in getting together to write, listen, talk, laugh, and eat dessert.

A New Sport... Endurance Dating?

I have thought about a couple of things I wanted to write about in the last couple of days, but I haven't sat down to write about them. (I've sat down plenty of times to READ other people's blogs though!) So now I'm trying to figure out how to mesh all of these ideas together. This is a disclamor in case this post just doesn't flow right.

I have decided to train for a marathon...or a half marathon at least. I have always liked running, although I've never been very consistent about my practicing. I run for the fun of it when I have time and I'm not doing something funner. So, in recent years, because of how fun my life is normally, this means I haven't been running much at all. But in the last couple of weeks I've been trying to find a goal that I could throw myself into and work hard at. I like the feeling of achieving, and in order to get that high I have to devise goals to achieve! A desire to exercise more and witnessing several running events pushed me toward the running goal. I am not a fast runner, but I have a lot of endurance. I ran cross country in high school. At first I couldn't keep running the entire race. But I soon realized that I controlled my endurance. If I couldn't keep running because of the pace I was going at, I would slow down so that I could keep running. This has made it so that I hardly even like to stop for breaks when I'm running or hiking. I prefer going at a slow and steady pace that I can maintain for extended periods of time.

On Tuesday of this week, I had to use this endurance in normal life. I moved all of my stuff out of my apartment on Monday night, slept at my new place (I love Lorie's and my apartment!), then came back to my old apartment on Tuesday to make sure all the cleaning was done and move out a few things I had left behind. Then I waited to be checked out by the complex management. After that I went home to put a few things away at the new place, and then I went BACK to Alta to get my car towed away (it's been dead for a few months). Then I waited around to help my roommate Jolena move her stuff from our apartment to her new apartment, in the other ward in Alta. While I was waiting to help her, I helped the gals that were moving into our old apartment. They lived in an apartment down on the first floor, so I helped them move stuff up to the third floor. At first it wasn't that hard, but as I kept going upstairs with armloads of heavy stuff I started getting very tired. So I started drinking water when I was on my way into the apartment to get another armload. And I started to walk slower. And I kept going. Every time I walked up the stairs I had a view of a couple sitting by the pool with their legs hanging over the side into the water. They looked so comfortable, and I wanted to be there in the pool. But I knew that there would be time for that later. I finished helping everyone, then I changed and got in the pool for a refreshing swim. What a nice reward!

For more than a month I've been planning on hiking Timp. And today, when it was supposed to happen, I didn't get to go. This is a pretty big disappointment. I hiked the mountain twice last summer, loving it, and I was looking forward to going with my friends and enjoying it again. For one reason or another, all of the people that I knew that were planning on going had to cancel. There were still plenty of people that were planning according to the event on facebook, but some of them were planning on meeting at the trail head, and some of them were supposed to meet me at the lounge in my old complex. Well, no one showed up at the lounge. I've been really bummed. This isn't just about having no one to go to Timp with. I feel like things just haven't been going as I want them to in the last few weeks, and this is the culmination of those feelings.

Of course, one of the biggest frustrations of those weeks is in dating. Looking back at all of my dating experiences, I can see some things I've learned and gained from each relationship and friendship. But it's hard to see those things while you're marathoning through. I can definitely see the rewards that I'll have at the end of the trip; I am living with an engaged woman after all! I know that dating is worth it in order to get married. But I've definitely lost a lot of my zeal for dating just to date. I want to feel like it's worth it. To carry the running analogy further, I guess my next step should be to slow down, to pace myself, so that I can maintain my pace to the end. The problem is that I don't know how long this journey is going to be. I guess I just have to have faith that I can keep running until the end...