Pro's and Con's

I've found that I have this internal dialogue where I keep a running tally of pro's and con's of living in San Francisco. Now, when I say "con" I truly mean it in the most positive and optimistic way. It's more of a small dislike. I find myself daily in a situation where I think to myself "wow, this is super cool! Totally a pro of living in SF." But I also have the opposing side where I think to myself "I could do without seeing/smelling/having that happen to me again."
This brings me to my running tally of pro's and con's.

Pro: This is entire city is a photographer's dream. There is always something to take a picture of because everywhere you look it's awesome. I wish I was more talented in taking photo's because I really love what I get to see everyday.

Con: This city smells of pee. In some places the smell is so intense I find myself not inhaling. Which brings me to the reason it smells of pee... Having to watch people do their business on the street is definitely not my favorite. I know you're thinking; "Courtney look away!" I can't it's too absurd and interesting.

Pro: People here in the city are so nice and usually very generous! I've purchased many household items off Craigslist and my experience with these complete strangers has been pleasant. It's nice to feel so welcome in a huge strange city.

Con: People are nice until they become a driver of a vehicle. Something happens when they strap the seatbelt and put their foot on that peddle. DO NOT get in their way. Cross them, and you will be cursed at for a solid 60 seconds.

Pro: As strange as it sounds, I rather enjoy taking public transportation. I hop on a bus and it takes me to my destination. I don't have to worry about finding a parking spot or dealing with those crazy psycho drivers. I know it doesn't work for everyone but for me I prefer it.

Con: Parking. I purposefully do not drive in this city as much as possible because I do not enjoy the nightmare of parking. I have found that most of the time I could have walked to my destination quicker than driving and circling streets for an eternity before I find a spot in which I have to parallel park. Now is a good time to admit that I have yet to successfully parallel park a car. This may attribute to my frustration. But I'd rather not wreck my vehicle so give me a break.

Pro: Google Express. Why? I need toilet paper. I order it. And it's there before I get home from work. Enough said.

Con: Everything here is expensive. Granted it's California and a large city. But it still gets me when my grocery bill is sometimes double what we used to spend.

Pro: The weather is awesome. As I write this in the middle of July I am comfortably wearing a sweater and pants. It's great. I sometimes forget that summer weather exists. But having a constant state comfort weather is something I think I'm going to get used to. Our utility bill is excellent too because we have yet to turn on the heat. (AC doesn't exist here).

Con: Those days of getting anywhere in 15 minutes or less are over. Even if you drive somewhere you have to plan an extra 15 minutes to find parking. It's just what you do.. hence why I never drive. It just worth walking or taking the bus.

Zip code 94123

Joe and I are here in San Francisco now. What a journey it has been to get here but boy are we excited to finally be here. We were very lucky to have a smooth and safe move out of Dallas. We rented a little 4x8 trailer to pull with our car. We sold all of our furniture and only brought boxes of the essentials leaving quite a bit at my parents because we didn't think there would be very much room to store extras in SFWe spent about a month in Utah and it was wonderful. We were pretty busy with Cassidy's graduation, Chris and Dayana's wedding, lake Powell and just trying to spend time with everyone before we left. Dad even gave everyone a scare by having a massive heart attack! Luckily, Dad is ok and we had a wonderful time being in Utah. We left for SF with the trailer again and arrived after spending the night at Joe's Grandma (who fed us the most delicious meal of taco's and green chili's and rice that I have honestly ever had in my life.) We spent about a week and a half with the Muir family who are family friends of Joe's parents. They live in the east bay and were very nice to let us stay with them while we found our apartment. Nailing down our place was no easy task. We spent a lot of time and money applying for apartments and attending open houses and then one day we were told someone had accepted us! We now live in a cute 500sq ft studio apartment in The Marina. It's a great neighborhood on the north end of the city. I love it so far. We are 4 blocks from the water and the Golden Gate is always peeking through houses. It's also surprisingly quiet which I was not expecting. We've been able to furnish most of our apartment from craigslist with the exception of our couch and mattress.. those we bought new. We're going to get creative with organizing and furnishing our space but that will come with due time. We love our ward and have met so many other couples in our same situation already. It's like an instant family of friends.
I was able to get a job pretty quickly which I am very grateful for. I work front desk/admissioins support at Bay Area Medical Academy which is a career training school. I enjoy what I'm doing so far and really like all the people I work with. I take about a 25 minute bus ride and sometimes Joe might be able to ride with me! Speaking of, Joe starts school tomorrow! It's so crazy. He is more nervous than anything I think. Joe is wonderful and has found all the in and outs to help us out. He has gotten everything set up from internet to bus passes. I am so lucky. Dental school is not going to be easy for him but I am grateful that he is so dedicated and determined.

Holiday update

Joe's 24 Birthday - Joe got to spend the majority of his birthday at the airport because he was in San Francisco interviewing at UoP the day before. He woke up really early because his flight home left around noon and he wanted to see the sights. He made it to Fisherman's Warf and Ghiradelli Square for breakfast where he had a bowl of clam chowder and a chocolate milkshake. (the best birthday breakfast ever right?) He didn't arrive in Dallas until 6 that night so we had time for dinner and presents! Joe's birthday dinner has been at Texas Roadhouse since we've been married so of course I thought it was only fitting to take him there. It was wonderful! I spoiled Joe with a handmade Teipi Teranishi indigo leater wallet. He was in love. Teranishi is a member Thrice and he has been eyeing his handmade leather goods for ever. I also got him a volcom hat, a season of scrubs. We went out to dinner with Kathryn and the Hatch's the following day and spent the evening bowling! 

Thanksgiving- The whole Phillips gang made it out to Dallas for Thanksgiving this year! It was a really fun couple of days to spend with everyone. Luckily the Hatch's have a giant home and everyone was able to be together. We had a delicious meal that the women prepared hard for. With the family have so many dietary restrictions it got a little difficult to accommodate everyone. But everyone was full after the night was over! Throughout the week we spent a lot of time playing games, entertaining the little ones and just having a good time being with loved ones. We even had a family "lip-sync off". Joe, Kathryn and myself totally dominated this competition. We choreographed a number to Larger than Life by The Backstreet Boys. It was award winning. 

Christmas- My family decided to have a little reunion this year for Christmas. We have not all been together since Clint graduated from BYU... so probably 4-5 years. My parents helped pay for flights which was the best Christmas gift ever. Going back to Cedar was quite enjoyable actually. After moving to the flat lands of Texas I sure do miss those beautiful mountains Utah has to offer. It wasn't too cold while we were there so that nice.  Everyone was able to have a room and bed at my parents house. Joe met Clint for the first time during a quick meetup in November so this was the first Joe really got to be a part of my whole family. He fits in so well with us, it sweet really. I think its crazy that I have 3 nieces and nephews on my side already. It was so much fun playing with little Lexi and Nora for the week. They are adorable little baby girls and so different from each other. Skyler is also my best bud and I love that kid to death. I think the adults played the card game Bohnanza every night! We also got to spend a couple days at Janet's cabin in Brian Head. That was so much fun! Joe and I even got a morning in of boarding which was seriously the best. I loved being able to be with my family for an extended period of time. We are all so spread out that I really cherished Christmas. 

My Birthday- I turned 23 this year! Joe took me to Maggiano's for dinner and to the movies. He surprised me at home with a Kitchenaide! HE IS SO COOL! I now get to make delicious treats straight from my kitchen. He also picked out some very cute shoes for me too! The other part of my Birhday present was tickets to see Pixar in Concert with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. This was the BEST concert that I have ever been to. No joke. I loved being able to hear and recognize tunes from our favorite Pixar movies. 

Fall 2013

Since Summer 2013 so much has happened! Joe still works with Pacific Dental Services as an ortho assistant. Sometimes he even gets to assist other specialties throughout DFW. It’s really been a blessing and fantastic opportunity for Joe because he is able to get experience in a lot of different dental areas. His job also offers benefits! That’s right, we are abiding American citizens with health insurance! It’s a great feeling and now we are able to begin trying to start our family. We also snagged vision, dental and auto.. It’s awesome. The only downside of his job is the travel time. Dallas is a huge city and Joe basically travels to the four corners of this huge city throughout a week. He leaves around 8:00am and gets home anytime around 7:00pm and spends most of his time in traffic. He loves it! (not) I on the other hand travel about 10 minutes for my job. I got a job working as an optometric technician with an optometrist here in Frisco. I really enjoy by position and get paid quite decent. Decent enough that Joe and I were able to get an apartment for ourselves while we finish out our time here in Frisco.  We found a cute little one bedroom place in a brand new apartment complex. It just so happened to be in the same ward boundaries as well. Joe and I are both in Primary and we really didn’t want to leave our classes.
In our spare time (which is pretty minimal with the both of us working full-time) we are usually finding something new and awesome about this area we’re in. We shop a lot and eat out a lot too! It’s just so fun to be at this point in our life where we can afford to provide things for ourselves.
And finally with the best news of all… After months of interviews and lots of moolah exiting our bank account Joe was accepted in to dental school. University of the Pacific in San Francisco, CA is going to be home for these two in about 6 months. We are pretty excited and terrified for this step in our life. It’s going to be a crazy three years coming up but we (especially myself) are definitely ready for a new adventure! 

Fall '12 - Spring/Summer '13

Can you believe that for the past nine months I have not had one chance to update? It has been busy, busy for us. I know that I won’t remember everything that we’ve done in the past little while but I feel that something is better than nothing. At the beginning of November Joe and I moved out of his parents basement and into our first apartment. We found a little one bedroom place about two blocks from the school. It’s a hidden little gem above the office building that Joe works in with Dr. Wilson. We paid $425/month which for the location close to the university is a steal. I’m not sure why, but we moved in on a Monday. We split the moving up into big and small and I took the small after school before going to work and Joe and the boys brought in all the big stuff. This was our first time on our own since being married so we needed a quick midnight trip to Walmart to get some home necessities like toilet paper, trash cans and groceries! We really enjoyed living in that apartment. It was nice to finally be on our own and be a married couple. The location was perfect for us. We were both able to walk to classes and it was close enough that we could come home for lunch. Since I often worked at Winger’s most nights I didn’t get the chance to cook for Joe as much as I liked. He was a sweetheart and made do with what we had. He’s the better cook than me by far so he was probably better off anyway. 
For Joe’s birthday he really wanted to do run a 5k. The Color Me Rad run was held in St. George a few days after his Birthday. Kyle ran with us too. It was surprisingly a really cold day in St. George and being up on the old airport made it very windy too. Running down the old airport strips was awesome, I thought the location was perfect. I’m not much of  a runner but I tried to run most of it. Joe was sweet and walked with me whenever I needed too. Fiona also came down to support us and take pictures! It was a fun, fun time. Afterwards to celebrate we headed over to Red Robin and downed some delicious burgers for lunch! It was a really fun present for Joe.
We spent Thanksgiving with my family at the Clarks Cabin. Grandpa and Uncle Ray also came and it was a great time to spend with family. Janet made a delicious corn chowder that I dream about daily and Gary made a lionhouse baked apple recipe that was to die for! You know the food was good if 9 months later you can still remember it ;)
Finals week started off normal for us fall semester but I caught some stomach bug and ended up missing two finals while stuck puking my guts out. I was able to make-up one final easy but it took nearly the end of the next semester before I was able to pull a C out of a track and field class. Seriously. The lesson to be learned here is to not get sick during finals.
Christmas was spent doing a halfsies with both families. It’s both a blessing and a curse to have our families living in the same city. My parents took us for the weekend to Salt Lake City for some Christmas festivities. We stayed two nights in downtown SLC. The hotel was in walking distance to the Gateway and City Creek so we did our fair share of shopping!  We also spent time at temple square seeing the lights. Dad got everyone tickets to see The Savior of the World which was a beautiful play of Christ. It really hit home to what Christmas is all about. Before leaving on Sunday we went to the Music and Spoken Word. This is my dad’s favorite thing in the world. It’s very sweet how much he enjoys it.
For New Year’s we flew out with Doug and Fiona to visit the Hatches in Dallas for about a week. We got to meet Briggs for the first time and just spend time with family.

Finishing off the last semester of school was tough for the both of us. I (more often than not) worked every night. I wasn’t able to work lunches with my school schedule so dinner shifts became the usual for me. It was hard for Joe and I, we didn’t get to see each other as often as we would’ve liked. We did have our hour lunch breaks with each other which usually consisted of a quick sandwich. We became really good at taking advantage of the time with each other when we did have it. Usually it meant a date night. Going to get some dinner and fro-yo from Krave or something along those lines. We also would hit up Doug and Fiona’s for some delicious free dinner and a movie often too. We spent a lot of time with them and it was actually really fun and something we really miss now that we are away.
About a week or two before our anniversary we decided that we were going to Disneyland. After a few weeks of trying to book hotels in different cities or trying to go certain places it just ended up being just as much money to go to Disney. So why not choose Disney? And of course it wouldn’t be a Disney trip without Kyle so he and Weston came along for our 4 day trip spring break trip to Anaheim. (drive day, Disney day, Disney day, drive day) We were able to afford a 2-day park hopper so we spent Monday at California Adventure and Tuesday at Disneyland. The highlights of that trip were. 1) The new Carsland at California Adventure 2) Watching Joe and Kyle eat a dozen churros a day 3) Watching Weston only eat Z-Bars the entire trip to cut on cost 3) Eating at the Blue Bayou (the ride inside Pirates of the Caribbean) as an anniversary present from the Tophams 4) Packing four PB&J’s each to eat throughout the day—to again cut on cost. We really had so much fun on that trip. Going with good friends who are equally as passionate about Disney makes a difference. We opened and closed the parks each day and maximized fast passes. It was and still is one of my favorite Disney trips we have been on. Having Cush’s home so close to Disney makes the Disney trip even more fun because we have somewhere close to stay. We left CA on Wednesday to get back in time for everyone to work for the rest of spring break.
For our actual anniversary Joe surprised me big time! He had been working for his parents and selling crochet hats to friends to earn some secret money. He bought me an Ipad!! He was so super sweet about it and gave me a card with pictures of people wearing the hats he had sold. I couldn't believe he had done so much for me! One of the most thoughtful and best gifts ever! I gave him the biggest waffle iron ever which he loved but his present was definitely the best :)
Over Easter break Doug and Fiona took us with them to Frisco for Brigg’s sealing. We spent the weekend with them and really took the time to see Frisco. After talking with Brian we had decided that after graduation we would move-in with them and Joe could work with Brian’s company. This trip was also an opportunity for Joe to interview and see if this was something he would be interested in.
While looking back through my agenda it seems that April was completely packed of school, work and about nothing else. We did go to the temple on a date night ( we usually tried to make it to the temple at least once a month if not twice.) Those last couple weeks of school were pretty brutal for Joe. He was scheduled to take the DAT less than a week after graduation which meant that he not only had finals to study for but also the biggest test of his life so far. Joe put in hours every day studying. He really is such a dedicated person and it something that I truly admire about him. We graduated on May 4, 2013. Joe received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and I received mine in Physical Education. We were able to walk together which was pretty special. It was a pretty fun day for us. Both our parents were able to attend and even Grandma Thomas was there for the event. We went to breakfast after with Doug and Fiona and then my parents hosted a BBQ for everyone at their place. It was just a fun day spent with family.
The day finally came for Joe to take the Dat. It was scheduled in St. George and we headed down there early so that we could get a good power breakfast in beforehand. While Joe took the test I shopped around in St. George eagerly waiting for his phone call saying he was done. When he did the first thing he said when he got in the car was “I literally felt like I was cheating!” We bought a DAT study book about 3 weeks before the test and Joe studied that book religiously! And his score definitely showed all his hard work. He scored a 23- in the 90%. He rocked it that’s all there is to say. That day has meant so much to him because his opportunities for dental school are great needless to say. We quickly drove back to cedar and literally packed our bags in about 2 hours and headed up north to catch some flights. Joe was headed to the Dominican Republic for a whole week for a medical service trip. This would be the first time we would be apart for so long. Joe was so nice and sent me to North Carolina for the week to spend with Clint and Chad while he was gone. I don’t think I would have been able to handle being home in Cedar by myself for a whole week! It was a fun week for the both of us. Joe was able to receive some valuable hands on experience working with two dentists and getting to know some finer things of dentistry. I hate speaking for him but I think he really enjoyed playing with the kids and getting to see a beautiful country. I heard they played a lot of Jenga and ate tons of fresh fruits which he loved. He did have a little scare. He was pricked by a needle but after a series of tests he was clear of any diseases. Thank goodness! After that blew over I think he really enjoyed his trip. For me, North Carolina was a real good time. I was able to meet Nora and Lexington and they were as adorable as could be. I enjoyed playing and handing out with Skyler cause that kid is just too fun. Being able to spend time with my brothers was also a highlight of my trip because lets be honest I missed them! Joe and I met back up in Salt Lake and we drove straight to Cedar so we could pack and then hitch a ride with Doug and Fiona to Las Vegas. And just guess where we were going this time? Disneyworld!! Oh, yeah! Joe and I had been saving our FAFSA refund from after we got married for this trip! It was kinda a graduation gift to ourselves. The Hatches, Joes parents, Brian’s parents, and Brain’s sister and brother in law were all going too. We all rented a house in Kissimmee and split the cost of the rooms used. Geo (Brian’s brother in law) is a US Marine so he was able to score us discount tickets to Disney and our flights were paid for with our airline credit card miles. So, just for the record this trip ended up costing us less than probably 1,500. We were going to make this happen can you tell we were really excited? Being back in Florida was so hot! We were all dying of the heat and humidity. It was pretty fierce for those of us used to the dry heat. The water tasted like sewer water and I had a really hard time chugging it down. We usually bought about 10 bottles in the park plus a soda. It was definitely necessary. Everyone decided on a park a day and we would go together. Unfortunately, not everyone is as passionate about Disney as Joe and I and it was pretty hard to get people out of the house in the morning to get there for park opening. We were always ready to go and not so patiently waiting at the door for people. Since our group was rather big we tried to stay together but that was a near impossible feat. Joe and I are very quick moving so we definitely had to change our pace to be with everyone. Almost every day it rained around 3-4 and usually everyone else went home. This helped the weather cool down so we stuck through the rain and would either change parks or go ride more rides. We of course maximized our fast passes! We rode all the classics and enjoyed riding a few more. My favorite is always Animal Kingdom. I just love seeing exotic animals that I can’t see anywhere else! We did spend one day at Universal Studios so we could visit the new Harry Potter land! Boy, was that an experience. I honestly felt like I was in the movie! The castle was epic, the butterbeer was as tasty as can be and riding the most epic ride made this such an experience! Harry Potter land was Joe’s favorite part of the trip I think ;)
And since we were in Florida we of course had to squeeze in a beach day! Doug was so nice and was completely on board driving two hours to go the best beach in the entire world. Siesta Key! Man, I felt like I was in paradise being back home at Siesta Key. It was fantastic. The water was clear and the sand was as white as I remember. It was a great that we squeezed in the beach day in the middle of our park days to help rejuvenate and relax. Mmmm, I loved being there. We had such a fun time in Florida. It was fun to just play with Joe and see so many fun things and eat even more delicious foods. It was seriously a great trip! I’m already to go back.
When we finally got back to Cedar we packed up our apartment and spent one final weekend with family before heading to Texas. We towed our car behind a 20 footer uhaul and headed to Texas on June 5. Joe ended up driving the entire time because well I didn’t feel super confident driving that truck with the car and I also wasn’t insured on the truck. We drove for three days… we didn’t want to push it too much. We made a detour and visited the Grand Canyon which Joe had never seen! Crazy right? We would decide which city to make it to by about 3 and I would book a hotel. It was such a fun adventure for the both of us. I loved being able to be with Joe all day talking and laughing. Moments like those three days don’t come very often and I really cherished that drive. We got to Texas and unloaded the truck in a night. Ali and Brian had a room for us that luckily had an attic closet attached because most of our stuff won’t get used while staying here in Texas. We put up our bed, dressers, and bookcase and made our room up. Being back in one room is a little bit of a bummer but we are so grateful that Ali and Brian have opened up their home to us to help us save money and prepare for Dental School.
Joe was able to land a job as a ortho assistant with Pacific Dental. He travels quite a bit but he gets paid really well and even has benefits. I have a super part-time job working at a frozen yogurt stand. It works because it is close to our home and I can ride my bike since we have one car. We are excited for our many adventures in Texas and even more excited to see where we will be in a year when Joe heads off to dental school.
This was a choppy update I understand, but some information is better than none right?
Loves!

And a couple pictures of all the fun times we've been having

Joe looking terrified after
getting the keys to our first apartment!

Black Friday '12 - Kyle and Joe waited ALL night long

to score a TV for our new apartment! 

 

Date night at the rodeo!

Our first Christmas tree!

Christmas 2012

Our first anniversary!
Our cake tasted really good actually!
March 9, 2013

My anniversary present from Joe!

He's so sneaky!

             Disneyland Spring Break March 2013

Working hard or hardly working at Wingers! 

Briggs' sealing

March 30 2013

An unofficial picture from Graduation.

The excitement is uncontrollable!

May 2013 - Carolina trip to see my family!

Soft serve and snow cones with
good friends before we move to Texas

Siesta Key Beach

Oh, how I missed that powder soft white sand!

Dinner at The Roof - The best view of the temple with a delicious buffet too!

                                                            Joe's Dominican Republic Trip

Hogwarts and Butterbeer! Pure happiness comes in regular or frosty.

Did I mention it was Star Wars Days while we were at Disney??

We ate these glorious cupcakes for dinner twice.

A $5 cupcake and dietcoke was all we needed! 

Playing the fun pirates game. We did all 5 maps!

Bye Bye Utah! We're ready to get driving!

Grand Canyon

June 2013

Goodbye September....Hello October!!

Where did September go?? Seriously, I can't believe I haven't blogged in a month. Bad. Courtney. Ah.. let's get started! School has been the majority of our life this past month. Joe literally spends anywhere from 4-9 hours a day just on homework! He studies while I'm in class in the morning, then he goes to class and then usually spends the rest of the day studying or doing homework. Poor thing right? He gets a little frustrated some days because he's really not even interested in Chemistry but he's so close and so dedicated... I love him a lot for that.
For my adaptive PE class we have to do 24 hours of service learning so twice a week I have been going out to 3 Peaks Elementary school and I watch/help/play with two students with two handicapped students. They are two really sweet kids and it's been really fun to get out into the school system and see how things work again. I also get to observe the PE class which has been interesting to see the things I like and don't like about how the class is run. I really think that one day I can be a great PE teacher. I'm not a super athlete in any sport but I feel like I am comfortable playing almost all sports especially lifetime sports. I feel that it is more important to be well rounded.
Joe has recently decided that he is probably going to apply to dental school again. The other options of trying to open a business were just not working out. He's so talented I feel that he can be a great dentist. The hard part will be getting through a couple more years of school but at least there is an end in sight, right? We're still just waiting to see what's in store for the rest of our life. It's a fun thought :)
We went to see Hairspray with my family at Tuachan a couple weeks ago. It was such a fantastic show!! I was really, really impressed with the whole thing. My parents are awesome and got us all tickets so we could spend some time with them,

The Big Sky Ultimate Frisbee at Utah State tournament was the weekend before last. We drove up with Kyle, Dallin and Cassidy Tait. They had one game on Friday night so we had to leave pretty early in the afternoon to get up to Logan in time. There was a fire somewhere up toward Oregon but the smoke had been blowing in the Logan valley so it was super smokey and windy that Friday night. Luckily, our team is pretty comfortable playing in the wind so they did great! Our friends Justin & Stephanie and Tanner & Anjalie have recently moved up to Logan so they all wanted to hang out on Friday night. The games got over pretty late so the only place that was open was IHOP... so the whole team headed over to IHOP for some after game fuel. That place is open all night! (I would seriously hate to be a waitress there...) Our car spend the night at Tanner's house and then we were up the next morning by 7 for a long day of games. The biggest game definitely being against Justin's USU game. So much trash talk about how they were going to win that our team definitely went into that game playing their best... and they won! It was a pretty intense game to say the least and of course the win came down to universe point. The team pulled out their best beat em' 15-14. MMmmmm victory. They still had two games after the throw down and boy was everyone tired!! Injuries started and even fatigue began to set in. Needless to say they put everything into the USU game that they were just completely wasted for the rest of the day. Kyle even got smacked in the head and I'm pretty sure had a mild concussion. After the tournament we drove down to the Orem area. We ate ice cream at Mckay and Ashley's place and then hit the sack at Cassidy's grandma's house. The next morning church was cancelled because of the Brigham City Temple Dedication. We went to a session with McKay and Ashley and then hit up Cafe Rio before heading home. (not the best Sunday meal but we didn't have any food to eat..) We switched up drivers and eventually made it home!
Joe and I had a date night last week. We had a Chili's gift card that still needed to be used and then we had a fun game to play at home! Oh we also went to a surplus sale earlier that day and got a ginormous whiteboard for 5 bucks... awesome. Last weekend was also SUU's homecoming so there was a lot of fun stuff going on on campus. We went to an outdoor concert Friday night where they served disgusting pretzel bites and we even saw a person get resuscitated... Saturday was a busy but super fun day. I opened that morning then got off in time to go to the football game and then worked again that night. WHew! My parents even got tickets to the game so I sat with them and Cassi. It was a great game... we lost... but still a great game.
This week Joe made a challenge for us to not spend ANY money. Goodness, I didn't think it would be quite so difficult but it was! It helped me realize that we need to be a little more conscious of how and where we spend our money. But I think today might be our last day because, well, we have no food... we packed cheese sandwiches for lunch today and we need cinnamon rolls for this weekend because it's Conference! Oh this weekend should be good! I'm an adult now and I am going to stay awake!
The end. Whew!
Oh and I got an Iphone. The Iphone 5 came out a few weeks ago and so the Iphone4 was free! hahaha. 













Some chocolate chip cookies Joe and I made... this is to show the difference a 1/2 c of flour will make!

School time

Nothing too exciting has happened since our last post. As I was sitting in class dosing off today I realized that  I haven't blogged in some time and since tonight is a slow night I will try to get this done! Joe and I wanted to do one last fun thing before summer ended so we were finally able to do an overnight camping trip up at Yankee Meadow. We packed up really quick and got a couple necessities at the grocery store and headed up the mountain. We set up camp and then we started cooking dinner. We cooked hot dogs over an open fire with some delicious buns from Lin's. That is my kind of camp-out meal! We roasted some marshmallows and then got ready for bed before the rain storm got bad.  Our power converter ended up not working so we weren't able to blow up the air mattresses... It was a long, long night. We both tossed and turned from the hard ground and somehow we managed to stay dry during a pretty intense thunder storm. We woke up pretty early and headed to the lake to do some fishing. After about an hour with not even a bite we left. We were both so tired and so we just headed home. I took a nap for another 3 hours because I was closing that night and needed to get some actual rest. Overall, it was a super fun trip and I loved being able to get away just me and Joe.
I've just been working a lot lately. I was able to have a couple good weekends which was much needed after purchasing textbooks for both Joe and I. We spend about $500 for the both of us this semester and we even rented ALL of our books! Boy, it's turning out to be harder and harder for us to make it on our own. Hopefully one day...
One of Joe's really good friends returned from his mission a few weeks back.. oh by the way it was Mack. It made for a super fun weekend with McKay and his wife Ashley coming down and we all just hung out. We really had a fun time. On the other hand Justin and Stephanie moved up north to go to school. I especially miss Steph... I'm working on being a little more social and outgoing with the girls at work, school, and church. I need some girl friends sometimes ;)
After meeting with my professor last Friday I found out some super news! I am going to graduate next semester (of course if I pass all classes) I decided to not complete the education portion of the physical education degree for a couple of reasons. 1. Since Joe and I will probably be moving next summer there would be reason to certify here in Utah because I would have to redo it anyway. 2. Getting the BA in PE will transfer much easier if I just finish the core options and then go back to school to certify to teach. All-in-all? Awesome. Both Joe and I will be graduating next semester... finger's crossed!!
School started on Monday. Joe's semester is absolutely ridiculous. His books alone would make a grown man cry at the sight! I just want to cry after spending 4 straight hours in same classroom for 4 different classes on MWF. It stinks... mucho. But heck, if I'm going to graduate I think I'll manage!
Joe has been training for his triathlon since summer started and has been researching road bikes for months. Today, he got an early birthday/Christmas present. We went 50/50 with his parents he had a band new bike waiting at home for him today. He's super excited to finally have his own bike!!

Joe's new bike! 

This is the aftermath of a volunteer event Joe attended with his work. All of that is chalk!

A family feast at Sonny Boy's with the gang!

This is cowboy AJ. He was Weston's toy that I found on my driveway.

I held him captive for Oreo's, pencil's and a water-gun.

Then Weston moved away. hahaha!

Don't those look tasty?

Mmmmm... He's tasty lookin' too!