2009 Highlights

Not all of these happenings are going to be that interesting to read about, but here are some of the things that Dave and I experienced during 2009:

January: Dave and I met on January 3rd at Jason (a mutual friend)'s party. We were both smitten pretty quickly with each other. Dave had 1 extra week of vacation before he started school, a lot of which he spent hanging out with me. Then he kept commuting down to Provo to see me during the next two weeks. We started dating exclusively at the end of the month. Dave was starting his 2nd semester of law school. I was still working for an office on BYU campus where I had worked as a student, but I started new responsibilities because I was no longer in school and could take on extra work.

February: Dave and I went on a road trip to Preston, Idaho. We saw some of the places where the movie "Napoleon Dynamite" was filmed. And we discovered that we liked to spend even long amounts of time with each other! Dave started living at his parents' house in Provo during the weekends, and I bought a car from my grandma so that I could drive up and see Dave in Salt Lake during the week.

March: Dave and I experienced our first real trauma. My mother had a heart attack and I drove to Arizona to see her. I was there for a week, waiting to see how she would recover. Dave called and texted me every day, and we came out of the experience much more attached to each other. I found out that I was admitted into the TESOL certificate program at BYU.

April: Dave and I talked a lot about marriage this month. We discussed what it would mean for us to be attending different schools 40 miles apart. And we continued our courtship. I moved into a house in Provo and continued to enjoy work. And I replaced the alternator in my car.

May: Dave took his finals. Then he proposed! And he had appendicitis. This was a busy month for him. I took care of him, had to replace the fuel pump on my car, and continued working.

June: Dave and I kept preparing for our marriage. Dave took classes during the summer time and worked. And I drove to New York with my friend Emily. Also, Dave and I floated the Provo River and did all kinds of summery things. I'm looking forward to doing that again next year!

July: Dave and I celebrated the 4th of July, hiked, swam, and generally had fun. We sent out our wedding invitations. We read a lot of "Dandelion Wine" together (I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for an easy, pleasant read). And we started moving some of our belongings into our new home.

August: Dave and I got married! We spent about 4 days in Arizona before we got married, then spent our honeymoon in the White Mountains in eastern Arizona. The last night of our honeymoon we camped at Goblin Valley in Utah (I can't believe that no one commented on my post about Goblin Valley, since Dave and I were trying to trick people into thinking that we'd spent our whole honeymoon there). And then at the end of the month I started school!

September: Dave and I started our commuting life style, Dave taking the train to school and me taking the bus to school. And we started to get more settled into married life.

October: I set some goals for the school year. Dave and I babysat my niece and nephews, and decided that it's going to be several years before we have any kids. We fell more in love!

November: Dave and I continued on with school and work. Dave got hired to work at the attorney general's office. And we went to Arizona for our first Thanksgiving together. It was a fun trip.

December: I finished my first semester of grad school! I have one semester left in my certificate program, and I am applying in January to BYU's MA program. Dave and I celebrated our first Christmas together! And we are excited to celebrate our first year of knowing each other on January 3rd, 2010!

Our Christmas Cactus Bloomed!

I didn't take any pictures, though, because I was trying not to take too much time blogging during finals. And now all of the blossoms are gone.

However, I really enjoyed the blossoms while we had them. I've had the plant for 3 years, and this was the first time it bloomed. They were gorgeous flowers. I've taken the liberty to lift a few pictures from this blog post because I want you to see how pretty the plant was.

Each blossom was attached to the end of a little "leaf" on the cactus, like this.


It was amazing to see how beautiful these blossoms were! The petals of the flower would turn up while the flower hung down from the cactus leaf. So this blossom is actually upside down, and you can see the petals turning up (down in this picture).


I didn't have this many blossoms. I had about 12 little buds come on at the beginning of November, but because I kept picking up the pot to have a closer look and fiddling with the plant, I caused most of those to fall off before they could bloom! Only about 4 or 5 of them actually bloomed.


I am excited to keep my cactus growing, and maybe I'll post some blossom pictures next year!

When I'm a teacher...

I'm going to give my students review sheets with some direction for their finals preparation. I'm studying for my last final, and I feel so lost! I'm wondering if it's just too much effort to try to organize my notes and figure out what's important and what's REALLY important (i.e. on the final). But life goes on. By this time tomorrow, I'll have at least started my final, and maybe even finished it. So I guess I just need to get back to studying!

Feeling Stupid

Last week I helped host a Graduate Student Society meeting for grad students in the Linguistics/English Language department on BYU campus. We asked some professors to participate, and requested that they tell us what they wished someone would tell their graduate students. This could have anything to do with their thesis/project work; their interactions with their advisor and committee, teachers, and other faculty members; or anything else they thought was important.

One teacher said, "Don't let yourself feel so stupid that you decide to quit." She said that she had felt stupid when she started her program, and that some students feel like they're the only ones and that they don't belong there. I thought that this was an interesting insight, and one that I think will be beneficial for me, as I hope to start my master's next year.

Today, for our assigned reading, my syntax teacher had us read an article which didn't have to do with syntax. It was about feeling stupid. I thought it was a well-written article, and I would recommend anyone to read it. I don't think that it only applies to graduate students. It applies to anyone who is trying to grow to become something beyond what they are.

The concept is that, if we didn't feel stupid, we wouldn't feel pushed to discover. If we felt smart all of the time, that would mean that we hadn't even approached our limits, and that we would never push or expand them. So go out and feel stupid today!! But don't let that feeling make you quit. Let it make you work harder!

Thoughts on Golf

So apparently Tiger Woods's wife tried to bludgeon him with a golf club. This brings two thoughts to mind: 1) he got married? huh, who knew, and 2) I really doubt that all those light weight titanium/carbon fiber alloy clubs are actually heavy enough to do any damage. It's not like Tiger's swinging a $1.50 DI special 5 iron.

The real issue for me however is how all the pundits are saying, "He may be the greatest athlete ever, but that's no reason to expect him to be perfect." It's a sad day when the worlds' greatest athlete is a golfer. I mean, it's cool that some guy can put a little ball in a little hole 500 yards away, but I'm not sure he should be called the greatest athlete ever. What's next, Pierre Zimmerman (world bridge champion) or Nigel Richards (former world Scrabble champion) as the world's greatest athlete? The world's greatest athlete should at least break a sweat while being said greatest athlete.

The pundits are also saying that they love watching Tiger play golf, but that doesn't mean he has to have a perfect family life. Really, who actually watches golf except for little kids looking for more Saturday morning cartoons? The real athlete is the person who can sit through watching the entire 18 holes of a golf tournament. I tried once, but didn't quite have enough endurance.

Nigel Richards, 2008 world Scrabble Champion and future world's greatest athlete. Nike is already working out the ad campaign, "I am Nigel Richards" has nice ring to it.

Thanksgiving

We had a WONDERFUL time in Arizona for Thanksgiving. There was lots of food, lots of playing games, and lots of kids! All of my siblings were there, with their spouses and kids. At one point we were all there, except for one of my brothers-in-law. I think that's the first time we've all been together like that in a LONG time.

I loved eating all of the Thanksgiving food! Dave and I both felt like we ate too much, but it was so good! Especially the green olives! :D

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving with family or friends, and that you're getting into the Christmas spirit!

Honeymoon

Okay, so this isn't a thankful post. But I finally got our honeymoon pictures off of Dave's camera, so I'm going to post them.

Here we are, driving to our honeymoon:



We headed from eastern Arizona to the southeast corner of Utah:



That's right! We camped at Goblin Valley! It was great. Here's our campsight:


We were really close to the goblins. I'd never been here before, so I didn't know what to expect. I certainly didn't expect this sign:


So, apparently the park was concerned about bicyclists causing damage to the goblins. However, Dave and I found that they were pretty sturdy:




A lot of these formations looked like smurfs, I thought:





What a crazy place to have a honeymoon! It was a lot of fun!

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.

I'm thankful for family.

Instance #1: Dave's sister Anita and her husband Dean came over to our basement last night. We ate dinner and played games. It was so much fun. They got married 6 months before Dave and I did, so they're newly weds like us.

Instance #2: Dave and I went to eat dinner at Jenny and Craig's house on Sunday night. When we were done eating, we just sat for a while and chatted. We laughed and had fun. Their kids are constantly saying, "Dave!" and trying to show him something or do something with him. He's definitely been adopted into the family by them!

Instance #3: Dave and I are driving down to Arizona in about a week for Thanksgiving!! All of my family are going to be there! I'm going to get a break from school! And I can't wait!

And also

I'm thankful for a warm house to live and good food to eat! This is such a blessing that Dave and I enjoy. We aren't literally starving college students, and that is mostly because my aunt has been kind enough to let us rent her basement very cheaply. With the rent that we save, Dave and I are able to live comfortably. We don't have to worry about making ends meet every month, although we are frugal. And there aren't a whole lot of things that we are pining away to have. We are content to just be comfortable, poor college students. We're not getting ourselves into debt so that we can go on crazy expensive vacations or go out to eat every night. And we're happy!

So, take home point: I'm glad that we are so happy with our lives that sometimes we don't realize how poor we are!

I am thankful for buses!

I was able to get so much work done this morning on the bus ride to BYU campus. I didn't have to pay attention to the road. I didn't have to think about merging into lanes to get around a huge accident on the freeway (there was a car on fire, and everyone had to exit the freeway). I didn't have to find a parking spot for my car. And I didn't have to pay for gas! Granted, the bus ride took me about 1.5 hours instead of .5 hours. But I was working that whole time. I am becoming a bus lover!

I am thankful for

my job. I like it, and I am gaining a lot of professional experience. I feel very blessed to be involved in teaching English!

The Spirit of Thanksgiving!!

For you faithful blog followers (Hi Mom!), you'll remember that last year I tried to make all of my November posts about things that I'm thankful for. And I'm going to do that again this November! Feel free to play along!

I'm thankful for the upcoming winter. Several weeks ago, I told Dave that I thought winter had arrived. There was snow on the mountains and a chill in the air. And of course Dave made fun of me, because it was only the beginning of October. We've joked about that frequently since then, when it's been especially warm. One of us (usually Dave) will say, "It must be winter!"

Well, this last week we did get our first snow down in South Jordan, and it was lovely! Dave and I were snug in our home and watched it fall past the windows. Then, when we were ready for a break from homework, we went for a barefoot run in the new snow. It's a family tradition of mine. It was so fun, and it was even funner to go back inside and snuggle up to get warm again.

So, I'm thankful for winter, because it is a new season in the never-ending cycle of seasons. And I'm thankful for the opportunities it gives me to snuggle up with my honey!

What I've been up to

Dave has been posting a lot frequently. And I like that!

But, to prevent this blog from becoming "Just Life by Dave" I'm going to start posting again!

Life has been a little busy lately. I'm still working and going to school, which really is enough to fill up almost all of my time. I occasionally do things with my husband! :D

And I've also been spending two hours a week watching this cute little guy!


This is Emily's cute little babe, Joshua. They're in Provo for a few weeks so that Emily can finish up her work for her master's, and I get to spend a couple hours a week with him while Emily works with her clients. Here we are together. Joshua looks like he's looking away from the camera in disgust. But actually, he's just waking up, and trying to resist.


And I actually think that Joshua likes me quite well. I just rocked him to sleep!

Meet BYU's Newest Librarian...

Over Fall Break (Def. for those of you who don't attend a state school: a week off from school for no particular reason) I spent a couple of days at BYU, my alma mater, composing a brief and doing other school work. One morning as I sat poring over cases Merry called me and asked if I wanted a dounut. I obviously said yes so she brought the dounut to me at the front door of the library. We chatted for a few minutes while I munched on the superbly delicious dounut.As I walked back into the library I heard someone say, "excuse me sir," but since they said sir I assumed they weren't talking to me. As I continued walking I heard again, this time in a voice loud enough to rouse all sirs, dead, living, young, or old (and probably some ma'ams as well), "EXCUSE ME SIR!!!" At this point there were at least a hundred people going in or out of the library and we all stopped, mainly to see who had a gun and where we should run.

Much to my shock the voice belonged to the BYU library hall monitor guy and he was pointing at me! I realized that he thought my half eaten doughnut was a gun!





I very slowly started to back up, not making any sudden movements lest he beat me with...okay I am not really sure if those guys have anything with which they could beat a person, but I wasn't taking any chances. I decided to take a slow bite to let him know that I had a pastry in my hand and not a dangerous weapon. "Sir," he said with a voice less likely to engage panic circuits in citizenry across three continents, "you can't have food in the library."

That was it!?! Fifteen years frightened off my life for that!? The crowd, obviously relieved that nuclear holocaust was apparently not imminent moved back to life while I shakily took the last bite of my dounut. At the time I was shocked at the trouble the poor kid took over two bites of pastry; however, I soon realized that he was really...

CONAN THE LIBRARIAN disguised as a puny BYU hall montior lest the students be frightened away.

From now on we're making sure not to return any books late because one never knows what might happen.

Restful Doorway Syndrome

A neuro-physiological condition affecting the ability of affected persons to walk through doorways without slowing down, or in extreme cases, stopping movement all together. The syndrome is most pronounced in situations involving an exit from crowded rooms although exits from warm rooms into the cold outdoors also bring out symptoms of the syndrome. Although Restful Doorway Syndrome can express itself in solitary infected persons, it is much more likely to express itself in groups.

This image exhibits some of the manifestations of Solitary Restful Doorway Syndrome

There is no known cure for restful doorway syndrome. Among attempted therapies is repeated applications of "excuse me." Studies universally indicate that this therapy is completely ineffective. Another attempted intervention is for those standing behind individuals suffering from Restful Doorway Syndrome to push against them from behind. Results from this therapy are mixed because it causes potentially unwanted side effects such as: resentment and frustration from sufferers.

The long term prognosis for individuals suffering from Restful Doorway Syndrome is not good. Over time sufferers lose the ability to walk through hallways, lobbies, and down sidewalks without stopping. Additionally, long-term sufferers increasingly walk and stop shoulder to shoulder in groups. Eventually Terminal Sufferers begin to engage in what is commonly referred to as the "cell-phone walk" where they compulsively manipulate their cell phone, Black Berry Device, or iPhone while simultaneously slowing their locomotion until they move slightly slower than frozen snail snot.

Right now I should be doing homework.

But instead, I am looking at past posts on my blog, and thinking about how much I LOVE having a blog!

The other day I attended a conference session that was talking about how blogging can be used by writing teachers. A blog allows students and the teacher to comment on different writing assignments, and gives the students another forum for writing. I think that if I ever teach another writing class, on my own, I might incorporate a class blog into it. I think it would be fun and rewarding.

Having a blog has been a really great experience. I've used it to get to know myself better, write about my frustrations and joys, publish my writing from Two Good Things, and tell jokes. And now I get to share it with Dave. It's just so fun!

A Perplexing Conundrum

As many of you know, Merry is gluten-intolerant. I knew this when we started dating and it didn't really bother me too much because there are some great gluten-free foods and even if there weren't I would give up gluten for Merry any day of the week. However, we have discovered since our marriage than I am allergic to xantham gum. Normal foods containing xantham gum have very small amounts and don't bother me; gluten free foods of necessity often contain quite a bit more (relatively) because the xantham gum takes the place of gluten and binds everything together.

The upshot of all of this is that Merry can't eat glutonous pizza and I can't eat gluten-free pizza; since we're still poor college students we certainly can't afford to make/buy one of each every time we want pizza so for now we are just doing without and mourning the loss of one of our favorite comfort foods.

Ah pizza, how we mourn your fall
and weep your early demise
To be cheesy was delicious
But put that on crust? divine.
Alas, the crust was the end
And in it we see only hunger's pall
And though we cross Rubicon and Rhine
Never again your name we will call.

School Year Goals

If you remember this post, you'll know that I decided to set some goals for this school year. Here they are:

Work Goals:
1. I will work hard! Next semester, I will possibly be looking for another job, because one of my current jobs conflicts with my class schedule. So I think that I will try to get individual tutoring jobs that I can schedule flexibly around my classes.

School Goals:
2. I will get all As. This is going to be hard. Graduate school has been harder than I thought it would be. But I'm glad that it's hard. I have wanted to go back to school, and I'm willing to put the effort into it. So, all As - that's three this semester and three next semester.
3. I will apply to BYU's MA TESOL program, and be accepted. In order to accomplish this, I'm going to need to do a couple sub-goals:
a. I will find a project that I can do for my masters (They give the option between a thesis and a project.), This will involve talking to a few people down at the ELC to see what needs to be done.
b. I will start writing my letter of intent now, so I can have it looked at and edited by a few people.

Personal Goals:
4. I will journal at least once a week. I blog now, but I can't really say a lot of things on this blog. And blogging on my blog makes me want to read all of the blogs I subscribe to, and that can be a real time-waster during the week.
5. I will run for 20 minutes, three times a week. That is only the commitment of 1 hour per week. I can do that. I need to do that.

Marriage Goals:
6. Dave and I teach the 13-year-olds at church. My goal is that we will prepare good lessons for them that are involving and meaningful.

What the Heck is a Whoopie Cake?

Some of you may have been wondering as you read Merry's last post, "what the heck is a whoopie cake?" well, whoopie cakes, or more accurately, whoopie pies are an Amish pastry concoction consisting mainly of sugar, chocolate, and marshmallow cream. Why are they called whoopie pies you may ask? Well, legend has it that when the amish farm workers would open their lunches after a hard morning on the farm, they'd see the treat their wives put in and say, "whoopie!"

I don't really believe this account of the name's origins because it's far more likely that the amish guys opened their lunches, saw that treat, and said, "Hey, Brother Obadiah, I've got a tasty cookie/cake thing that I will trade with thee for half of thine vanilla pudding." I think they're called whoopie pies because they were first popularized by Whoopi Goldberg in her lesser known film: Ghost II, Pastries Past.

In Ghost II: Pastries Past Whoopi plays a chef's assistant who can put the chef in touch with his long lost love. There was also a rat who would stand on the Chef's head and controlled his cooking; needless to say, the chef was a pretty messed up guy. Anyway, they (Chef, Whoopi, and rat) invent whoopie pies as a way to bring back the chef's long lost love. It doesn't work but they discover that the little cakes are quite popular and start a highly successful franchise selling whoopie pies all over the country.

"I love these Whoopie Pies, they're worth way more than half a vanilla pudding" -Whoopi Goldberg

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!

My hand felt naked yesterday!

I accidentally went to school without my ring on, and it felt very weird all day long. When Dave and I were dating and getting close to being engaged, I thought that it would take a long time to get used to wearing my ring, and I thought it would be uncomfortable with it on at first. But I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly it became a part of my hand. And I definitely missed it yesterday!

In other news, I love being married! I love all of the "firsts" that Dave and I get to experience. Today was our first frost as a married couple! It is getting nice and cool here this week, and it feels so comfortable to wear a coat. I don't think this cold spell is the start of winter yet. It'll get warm again, at least for a little while. But we're starting our first fall together. And it's lovely.

A Fine Frenzy Radio

Right now I'm working on some writing prompts for my job at the English Language Center, and listening to A Fine Frenzy Radio on Pandora. If you've never used Pandora, it's a website that streams music that is related to music that you like. So, when the group A Fine Frenzy was recommended to me, I put it in and created a new station. This brings up songs from A Fine Frenzy, as well as similar artists like Regina Spektor, Natalie Walker, Kate Nash, Postal Service, Norah Jones, Holly Brooke, Missy Higgins, and lots more. One of my favorites on this station is Ingrid Michelson. Anyway, you should check it out. It's great work/study music!

Adventures

Dave and I have had quite a few adventures since getting married. One of the most recent ones was an "I'm going to miss the bus" kind of adventure! I was coming to campus yesterday to do some work and observe a reading class. I also had a lot of studying to do, and I needed the time on the bus to get that studying done. Well, Dave and I were late getting to the TRAX station, and I was running to the bus when it pulled away. Dave was determined that I would get on that bus, though, and he put himself into "race" mode. We chased after the bus in our car, got ahead of it, and Dave let me out at a stop ahead of the bus so I could get on. Isn't he a sweetheart!?

Thoughts on New Year's Resolutions From Dave

I personally think that New Year's Resolutions should be more like the fiscal year. Corporations and other entities can establish their fiscal year at any point they want to, and although I'm not sure, I think they can change it without a whole lot of trouble (cue all the CPA readers with correcting comments) as long as it consists of 365 days.

In the interest of my self-esteem I will now be making fiscal year resolutions instead of New Year's Resolutions: I will run at least once a week, and since the fiscal year starting last Saturday I am 100% in compliance with that goal. Whoo-hoo!

Resolutions no longer induce a cringe for me, it's all about Fiscal Year Resolutions from here on out

For those of you who cringe every time you think New Years, I recommend the new improved, fiscal year resolution. For the low price of $59.99 plus shipping I will send you a copy of my best selling book (really, it's the best selling book I've ever written) Fiscal Year Resolutions Done Right: How to Make the System work for You. Lest there be any doubt about the scholarly quality of my work, please take note of the colon in the book's title.

New Year's Check Up

I read a post by my friend Camille today checking back to her New Year's resolutions. In it, she had a status update on her goals, and whether some of them needed to be put off until 2010. I was impressed with her idea to go back and review, to make sure that she was accomplishing what she wanted. I decided to go back and read what I wrote for New Year's, so I could do the same. This is what I wrote.

As you can see, the only goal I talked about was my one new-ish goal, to exercise regularly. This was because I was just going to continue with some older goals for the year. Well, here's my update.

--I think I've gone running about twice this whole year. I haven't exercised in any other form, except for the various hiking, snow shoeing activities I've done with Dave.
--I don't remember any of my other goals! I must have been working on them last year, and probably kept working on them for a while after the new year started. But whatever they were, they are long gone now.

What I can take from this: Even if I'm not going to add any new goals for the year, maybe it would still be a good idea to write down what I am working on, as a reminder and a way to track progress.

In the spirit of this lesson, I'm going to write a post soon stating my goals for the new school year. Hopefully I'll be able to keep looking back at that, and accomplish what I want to by the end of April. That's 4 months less than a normal calendar year, but I think it'll be something fun for me to focus on outside of school and work.

Our Wedding Pictures

Okay, so this is kind of a picture overload! But here are quite a few of our favorite pictures, taken a couple days before we got married. Not all of them have captions, but keep scrolling down if you want to see what I had to say.


It was pretty amazing! My sister Erin took them. If you like her photography skills and would like to check out some of her other work, see her blog here. Not all of the photos are edited yet, so I will be updating them as she sends me more of the pictures edited! Yay!



Isn't he handsome?!? I just can't get enough of this man!












I love this playful one! Dave makes me smile and laugh everyday!







We tried so many winking pictures earlier, and none of them worked out, so I was so glad that this one did!






This is one of my FAVORITES!



I love the buttons down the back of this dress! So beautiful! I am so glad that I bought it!


This is Dave when we told him that he had to stand around in a tux for hours and hours on end over the course of several days.


But this is Dave when we told him that after he did all that standing in a tux, he could get married!


We're so happy to be married!!