Jonathan and Casi Bludorn

Martin Sexton

2012-01-21T14:58:00.000-06:00

I just bought tickets to see THIS! live! I could not be more excited!

This is not a paid advertisment

2012-01-15T18:39:00.000-06:00

I recently found this site: memeoirs.com. It extracts your emails and turns them into a book. When I was in Paris Jonathan and I emailed every day and I used it as my journal. I figured I'd have to print out the pages when I got home and make a book (like my mom did with my brother's mission emails).

But then I found this.

It's incredible! I was so pleased with the results. I don't think I've ever been more satisfied with a purchase. I was a little hesitant to use the site at first because I couldn't find very many reviews and I had never heard of it, but I took the risk and I'm so glad that I did. The book came out exactly like I wanted it to. It looks very professional, looks great on a book case, and is so easy to flip through. It was like reading a book about my trip, it was awesome. I'm so glad I did it. I could see so many great uses for this: love letters, mission emails, I've heard of people who create email addresses for their children and email them all growing up, this would be great for that, or even journaling. I really love my new book!

On that note, reading back through my time in Paris made me miss it so much! I had forgotten about so many feelings and experiences that I was reminded about and I am so glad I got the chance to go. I miss all the people I was with and especially the city. Lubbock really pales in comparison. I am excited though because I'm going to go to Utah for spring break so I will get to see all my favorite people from my trip, and all the other people I love who live in Utah! Can't wait!

"It's Worth It" and other fun stuff.

2012-01-09T16:09:00.001-06:00

I love love love New Years. It's my favorite time of year. One time a year everyone resolves to better themselves. and it's awesome.

Jonathan and I made lots of resolutions. The biggest change in our life though, is our resolution to save money. We have a saving goal we'd like to reach by the end of the year (hopefully we'll be looking at buying a house then.. we'll see.). I love this kind of goal because it really gives me something to work on. Neither of us are big spenders anyway, but we're spending even less. We made a stricter budget than normal, and although we're only 9 days into it.. we're doing pretty well, I'd say.

This kind of saving brings up lots of questions about worth though. I can't tell you the number of times people tell me things are "worth it." It's worth it to see a certain movie in theaters because of the experience that won't be the same at home. It's worth it to have this cool new gadget because it makes your life that much easier. It's worth it to take a trip to here because you might never have this chance again. Etc. Etc.

Budgeting so closely really makes you decide what is worth it. The idea of a future home is worth it to us! Hopefully we'll be able to save up the money we need and make a good purchase.

Anyway, that's my thought for the day, here are some updates on our life:

My little sister Kadi came to visit the week after Christmas. She drove back to Lubbock with me since Jonathan flew home and she was a great car companion. Kept me wide awake and having fun the whole time! Then, we hung out for a few days. We didn't do much, but that was kind of the point, to have a relaxing week together. We did try out a couple of new recipes, mostly from Pinterest. This Rosemary Olive Oil Bread was so delicious. I think I'll make it again this week.

Kadi left, New Years came, we had a little party, it was fun. Then back to work for a couple of days, but I'm only allowed to put in 20 hours a week, so I've had lots of time at home. I should be doing research for my thesis, but that's not near as fun as making new dresses. Like this one I made on Saturday:

It the first thing I've made without a pattern that actually turned out alright. I got the idea from here, but I didn't have a pleated skirt to start with, so I found some extra fabric in my closet and decided to pleat it myself. I even started to take pictures so I could make a cool blog how-to.

Then I realized, after it was all pleated, that it would never fit around me in a million years as a skirt. This is when I quit taking pictures because it was not going according to plan. I pushed on though, sewed a seam up the back and called it a skirt. Since it only really needed to fit around my neck, and not my waist, I figured maybe all hope wasn't lost. I took another picture:

Then I cut it up like the directions on that site, but I didn't want the sleeves to be so wide so I decided to cut up higher and just sew the sleeve together. Bad idea. I could barely fit my forearm in the sleeve. So.. I cut the sleeve short, mostly because that was all I could do, having already made the other cuts.

I was no longer taking pictures because everything I was doing was guessing. Luck was on my side though, because somehow it worked out. I sewed up all the edges and put it on and it fit, and was cute! (Full disclosure: it pulls funny and the sleeves are less than perfect, but I still like it) So, I took some more pictures. Here's the close up at the neck, which is the only place you can see evidence of my pleating.

Anyway, I thought that was my crafty fill for the week until we were sitting at church and saw on the program that it was January 8th! That's Jonathan's half birthday! So we told our friends and decided to do an impromptu half birthday party!

Once in my life a long time ago I heard a story that my grandma (I think) used to make half a birthday cake, and do other half activities for my dad (I think) on his half birthday (I have no idea if there are any accuracies in that story). So, I decided to make Jonathan half a birthday cake, and I think it turned out pretty awesome. (Don't tell, but I made a whole cake, and cut it in half, put one half on top of the other, and decorated every side but the one side that would have been the middle, then wrote on the top to make it look like half a cake)

Awesome, right?

That's about it, you may have noticed I deleted my facebook, but I plan on continuing to update here, probably less often than I usually do, but often enough for you to remember that I'm alive!

Christmas celebrations

2011-12-29T18:25:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas! Jonathan and I had an excellent Christmas. We are so blessed to have so many great friends and such great family. We started a little early with present opening at our house on the 23rd, so we wouldn't have to bring them with us to my parents. We even changed into our pajamas so it would look like Christmas morning.

We have a lot of awesome family and we got a lot of great gifts. Thanks to everyone!

Then, on the 24th we drove to Arlington for Christmas with the Eyerlys! We thought we wouldn't get in until about 11 because we didn't think Jonathan would be able to get out of work early, but they let him out at noon so we were in Arlington by 6! We bought "his and hers" burritos for the trip.

Christmas Eve was great, we had a family fireside and learned some cool family history stories, then we all opened our Christmas Eve presents: Snuggies!

Christmas morning was filled with flying wrapping paper and lots of "just what I wanted"s and plenty of Thank Yous. Here are Jonathan and I with our stocking booty:

This is what the rest of the morning looked like:

That evening we played a rousing game of minute-to-win-it: Christmas Edition. It's a lot of fun watching people be ridiculous. The games were all fun and Christmas themed. I'm considering doing some for our New Year's party as well. Here's a couple of highlights:

More fun ensued the next day, when, after a day of shopping and game playing, the adults got all dressed up and left for the evening. First was dinner at Zio's (seriously love that place)

Next came Les Miserable! My parents gift to the kids was tickets to the showing at the Windspear Opera House, it was incredible!

The whole evening was really amazing and a great time spent with family. It was the perfect gift!

And I spent the rest of the weekend with my favorite baby boy.

Christmas Cookies

2011-12-20T20:43:00.001-06:00

On Sunday Jonathan and I made Christmas cookies to bring to some friends. It might have also been because Jonathan thinks it's not Christmas without Karen's sugar cookies. Either way, we had a lot of fun making them and decorating and delivering. Everyone loves receiving sugar cookies!

Aren't they pretty?

On another note, I wish I was spending Christmas in Paris. I am seriously missing that place, so, this week I not only attempted baguettes (they turned out okay, but totally not real.) but also bought Bueno Bars at World Market. I love that place. and I love Paris.

*Update: the very night I posted this I made Jonathan watch Midnight in Paris avec moi. I spent the whole movie saying "oh please take me back there!" I love Paris. Also, watch that movie.

4th Annual

2011-12-11T17:49:00.002-06:00

That's right ladies and gents, last night we had the fourth annual Bludorn Gingerbread Extravaganza. It was awesome, like always. Here are some highlights:

The tables before the madness began. Decorations included pull-n-peel twizzlers, gummy bears, life savers, gum drops, candy canes, m&ms, marshmallows, and hersey kisses.

And for eating: hot chocolate with chocolate stirring spoons, s'more marshmallows, and brownies

And then the decorating began:

And here are the final products:

Neils and Laura with their bridge (Travis snuck in the picture)

Jonathan with his big bridge

Joleen and Sheldon with their hobbit house

Me and my "classic" gingerbread house

Sydney, Travis, and baby Wesley with their Gingerbread nativity

Morgan with his classic gingerbread house (the first one he's ever made!)

And Dave and Emily with their classic house

And the winner was: drumroll.........

The Moore's nativity:

Here's the lineup of everyone's houses:

And here's what happened to the houses that were left at the end of the night:

(Jonathan and I had some fun)

And that was the Gingerbread party. I love doing this, I hope we always live close enough to good friends that we can always keep up the tradition!

In other news:

On the evening of the 5th of December we laid out our shoes like good German kids and St. Nick came!!

Also on the 6th (which just so happened to be exactly 4 years after the day Jonathan proposed to me) my new wedding band came in! Check out that bling! My husband is awesome.

Another reason you know my husband is awesome is that after we cleaned up the gingerbread party mess yesterday he let me open a Christmas present early (in return I let him open one, which I think was the reason he let me open one in the first place). Either way, presents were opened! Check it out:

You can't see it up close, but it's the same set of diamond studs and matching necklace that he got me before, I lost one of the earrings down the drain and I've been really sad about it and he found the exact same set! Yay!

And Jonathan got a lego storm trooper alarm clock. He loves it, mostly because its a giant sized lego man. I just love Christmas!

Iphone picture clean out

2011-12-05T11:05:00.000-06:00

I don't even use my real camera anymore. I'm pretty sure the camera on my iphone is better than my 5 year old camera. So, here is updates on our life based on pictures from my iphone.

On this night Jonathan and I walked to Mcdonalds to get Hot Fudge Sundaes. We walked so we wouldn't get fat. We ate ice cream to celebrate my being sworn in as a senator for the College of Visual and Performing Arts! That's right, you now must call me Senator Bludorn. (And I get to wear a suit!!)

On this day as I was driving Jonathan to work I saw the greatest news ever! The Candy Cane Chill Blizzard is back! This is the best Blizzard ever created. It came out two years ago and I ate as many as I could and I impatiently waited for the next December to come around so I could eat more and then disaster struck.. they discontinued it because (dumb) people complained about the candy cane bits cutting their tongues. I was not happy but I found some substitutes (Sheridan's Candy Cane Pothole is my 2nd fav). Then this year they brought it back!! I don't know what changed their minds but I am THRILLED!

On this day Leslie and baby Kobe came to visit! Check out how big that kid has gotten! Can't wait to see him again at Christmas!

On this day (which was today!) Jonathan woke me up and beckoned me to the window to discover IT SNOWED! So pretty. I love it. I don't love so much walking around in the cold, but I love the snow.

That is my life. Hope you enjoyed. The semester is aaaaaalmost over and then I will have a whole month of Christmas break with which to pursue any fun ideas that you have. I'm thinking of sewing something, reading something, (probably cleaning something, sadly) baking something, and maybe learning something. Sounds amazing, right? Feel free to give me any ideas you have.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-26T13:50:00.000-06:00

We had a great Thanksgiving! I was most thankful for a break from school (you wouldn't believe how excited I am for Christmas break to be here!) Seriously though, we have a whole lot to be thankful for in our lives!

We went to Tyson and Marcie Meredith's house, the Grovers and the Iversons were there too! We had an excellent time. So much delicious food!

Then, that night, we headed out for Black Friday shopping! Have I told you how much I love Black Friday shopping? As a teenager I would go with my friends, and I loved it then. And as an adult I've convinced my husband to go too! Usually we have something of value we're looking to purchase (a tv one year, a laptop another year) but this year we didn't really have anything so we joined Marcie and Tyson on their quest for an itouch. The line was so long at Toys R Us on Thanksgiving evening (they opened at 9pm) that the Meredith's gave up, and we all headed home.

I hadn't got the itch out of me yet though so I woke Jonathan up at 5 to go wait outside of Ashley Furniture to try and get 1 of 2 $1300 mattresses that were on sale for $200! We waited for 2 hours in the cold in line with people who had been there all night with tents and sleeping bags and everything. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the door they were out, next year we're bringing our tent! So, we headed to the mall where Jonathan bought me an awesome Christmas present!

We went home and Jonathan got ready for work, I dropped him off and went shopping on my own! The mall, Kohls, Walmart, and Kmart. Surprisingly, Kmart was the only crazy place. I had so much trouble finding an employee to help me that I googled the phone number for the store on my phone, from inside the store, and called and got someone to help me. Ridiculous. But I came home from all my shopping with lots of exciting things (mostly groceries and Christmas decorations, but shhh, I like to pretend I bought all the cool stuff that was on sale!)

Then.. I turned on "R&B Christmas Music" on pandora and cleaned then decorated for Christmas. Here's a peak:

I LOVE Christmas decorations! It just makes the house seem so much more exciting. Jonathan loved it when he came home. We are officially ready for Santa!

Family Pictures

2011-11-19T13:24:00.000-06:00

It's that time of year again. The time of year where I force my husband to have his picture taken because he's too hot not to! And for your viewing pleasure, a few of our favorite family pictures from our session with Mariah Evanson Photography (love her!):

Also a new picture on our banner at the top of the page, it might be my very favorite.

Marathon 2011

2011-11-13T19:53:00.000-06:00

So, I ran another marathon! This time I had a bunch more family there, and more runners too. Jonathan didn't get to run because he had to work but Dana (my sister-in-law) ran the full, and Robin and Chris, and my cousin Beth Herring all ran the half! I forgot how exciting race day was, I loved it!

The run was not easy. We were running against 30 mph winds for a large portion of the race. And, I got sick at about mile 5 and didn't feel better until the several days later. Pas bon. Here I am pretty early in the race (I'm the girl on the edge of the picture, not the one in the middle)

I still somehow managed to keep a pretty decent pace. We were lucky to have tons of family cheering for us. Every time I started to get down, my brother Dave would drive past me and park just ahead of me, then he and Dana's grandparents would get out and cheer for me as I ran past. I was really great, I know the spectators don't always believe that they make a difference, but they really do. Once Robin, Chris, and Beth finished their half they came to cheer too. Robin ran with me for a little bit. It was nice to have someone to talk to! Later Jonathan's sister, Sarah, ran with me for a little while too!

The last three miles were the hardest. I walked several times, I was just counting down. I had to get to the next lamp, the next water station, the next corner, the next mile marker, etc, until I could get to the end. But, eventually, I arrived! (See my whole family there cheering?!! How awesome are they!)

I crossed the line at 4:04:49! Beating my goal of 4:15, but just barely missing my other goal of 4 hours (oh well, guess I'll have to do another one)! I got across the line and just sat down. My legs didn't want to move ever again.

I came in 12th overall and 2nd in my class! So happy!

We had a tons of support there, and it was awesome! Sarah, My parents and my sister Kadi, my brother Dane and his wife Deena, my brother Dave and his wife Dana's grandparents, and 2 neices and 2 nephews all came just to watch, and that's not to mention the other runners!

Here's everyone!

And here are the runners in our matching gear:

After the race we headed out to Carino's to eat, then Beth and I drove back to Lubbock where we wallowed in pain for several hours, Beth left and I continued wallowing for days.

It's hard to believe it when you're in pain the next day, but I really think it's worth it. Race day is just so exciting and crossing the finish line is an awesome feeling. I have a sneaky suspicion this won't be my last post about racing.

Baptism and a Date

2011-10-31T12:15:00.000-05:00

This weekend I got to go to Dallas and do lots of cool things. Friday, when I got into town, I went strait to the Kimball Art Museum where I met up with my sister, Robin, and we saw the Caravaggio exhibit. Lots of people here at Tech have been talking about how great it is, and I was excited to see it. They were right, it was really great. There were a surprising number of Caravaggio's, it was really neat to see. In March the Kimball is having an impressionism exhibit and because that is a favorite of both me and Robin, we're going to go to that one too! To end our little sister-date, we went for a sammie at Sweet Sammie's.

They make ice cream sandwiches with two cookies and a scoop of ice cream in the middle. Delicious! And I loved getting a little sister time. I've got some pretty great siblings.

Then, Saturday was the event we'd all come into town for which was Isabelle's baptism(/birthday)! I cannot believe this little girl is 8! She's turning into an awesome little girl, and her love for art gives her a special spot in my heart. I just love her! I don't have any pictures of her in her pretty white dress, but I do have a couple pictures of her on her new pogo stick from Dane and Deena.

Who doesn't love jumping on a pogo stick! Happy Birthday Isabelle!

I hung around long enough to make a delicious pumpkin treat with the ladies (because our men don't like delicious pumpkin treats), then drove home.

I was glad to be home to my husband, even though he promptly made me watch Captain America. He did make me breakfast in bed the next morning though. I definitely have the best husband in the world.

Two side notes: First, my marathon is in a week. Make your posters now to cheer on number 102!

And second, have you ever seen two cats stare at each other for extended lengths of time and meow loud and long so it sounds like they're crying but they're really just taking turns meowing? I have. And it's annoying. Especially when I'm trying to sleep.

We hear this noise all the time, and I never know what it is. I finally figured it out. It's cats. I am not a fan.

Weddings and Babies!

2011-10-24T15:04:00.000-05:00

Last week was a little bit crazy with everything that was going on, and I might not have gotten very much studying done, but it was fun! So here are the highlights.

Wednesday we went to an awesome housewarming/dinner party. It was a whole fancy table set with four courses and all that. The food was delicious, and the company was perfect! We loved it.

Thursday was another baby shower! So many babies in my life! I made this cute hooded towel and these little burp clothes for Alexis and baby XJ. I'm trying to perfect my go to baby shower gift. Everyone has gotten some different version of the hooded bath towel. I think this design is the winner.. maybe with a little more decoration or something. Two more showers this year, I should have it perfected by then.

Friday was full of planning and errand running for Saturday's wedding! My friend Ashley got married Saturday morning (at 8am!) and we put on a little brunch for her. Then she got baptized that afternoon. Big day for her! Here are some pictures of the whole event:

I love weddings! So happy!

And lastly, we got to go visit our friend's new baby Hollie today and tomorrow baby Wesley is supposed to be here! Babies, babies, babies! Love it!

Procrastination

2011-10-17T12:34:00.001-05:00

It's a serious problem. I'm doing it now. I only have 12 hours this semester, and I only go to school 3 days a week. And yet, I turn in all assignments at the minute they are due always knowing I could have done a better job. and I NEVER study for tests, failed a test for the first time the other day. I'm probably a worse student this semester than I ever have been.

I'm also president of the Tech Art History Society.

I'm also planning a wedding (with one weeks warning).

I'm also studying for the graduate school entrance exam I'm taking in December.

I'm also filling out graduate school applications and writing personal statements and fixing my CV and everything else.

I'm also training for a marathon. a quick one.

I also work 15-20 hours a week

I'm also married to someone who is not in school, and while this may not seem like a big deal, you try to tell your husband "no, we can't hang out with people again tonight because I still have homework" every single night. No fun.

I also whine a lot. I just need to do the work. I just don't want to. Back to paper writing I go..

Baby Shower and Adventures in Cooking

2011-10-10T19:16:00.000-05:00

Saturday I threw a baby shower for my friend Sydney. It was fun, I've decided I might actually love throwing parties. Who knew? Except I end up over stressing over minor details that aren't important at all. It's the only time in my life I've been a perfectionist, but when you're throwing something for someone else you just want it to be perfect! Anyway, we used a milk-a-holic theme, and I think everything turned out pretty cute, I stole pretty much every idea off of pinterest or from varying blogs. What would I do without the internet? I only managed to snap a picture of the food table (it actually changed a little before the party started, but you get the gist).

Everything else was pretty simple, black and white and cow printed. We played some games, and had fun and talked about baby Wesley! Can't wait to meet him and can't believe I'm old enough to have friends who are having kids! Everyone we know is having kids. I love it because it means I can play with their kids and don't have to have my own! Yay!

And, on a completely different note, because I found this one my phone when I was uploading the other picture, I made this great pasta the other night (I really love pinterest) and it was the easiest meal I've ever made. Spaghetti noodles, tossed with sauteed garlic and evoo, basil, and Parmesan cheese, with a couple lemons squeezed over the top. Love it. We added it to our list of go to meals. and as a bonus: it even looks pretty!

And finally, on one more unrelated note (if I kept up this blog more often I wouldn't have to string together so many unrelated notes, desole). Today I have been very productive. It's fall break so I have no school until Wednesday. Instead of catching up on school work like I ought to be doing (2 papers, one of which is in French, one annotated bibliography, and a pile of french homework, not to mention readings for all my classes will be due), I deep cleaned our bedroom. It desperately needed it. We have been so busy around here lately that we end up only cleaning when people are coming over, and then only cleaning the front rooms of the house. Our poor bedroom and the poor office looked terrible. But now the bedroom is perfect, and I've done (and even put away, which is a huge step!) 3 loads of laundry, the last load is in the dryer now. And I got in 3 hours at work today. Parfait. Tomorrow I tackle the office, and eventually.. my homework.

September Catch Up

2011-09-26T11:04:00.001-05:00

It's hard for me to blog because nothing is as exciting as being in Paris, so I keep waiting for something great to happen so I can blog, today I decided to get all these pictures off my camera and I decided I did actually have things to blog about, so, now you're going to get lots of updates. Let's start with school:

I'm almost done! I still can't believe I almost have my degree, and at the same time I can't believe it's taking so long! I actually really like school. Especially the beginning of the school year: new supplies, new friends, new classes (but mostly new supplies). I love it. Because he knew I loved it so much, Jonathan got me a first day of September present:

full of school supplies and yummy treats, and the longest lasting flowers ever. (seriously, they lasted almost 3 weeks)

I'm only taking 4 classes this semester, which is less than normal for me, but they are pretty difficult classes, so I still feel overloaded. I've got 1 french class and 3 art histories: Paris and Berlin during the Interwar period (my favorite), Mesoamerican arts (it's combined with an anthropology class which makes it pretty interesting), and a Early Italian art class (It's a graduate seminar, so.. a lot of work). I'm still working at the Library about 20 hours a week, it's the perfect job, I set my hours and get to watch tv while I work. Evidence that I work:

I only have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday classes, which means I get a 4 day weekend every weekend. I love it, I just wish I was better at being productive (in all honesty, I'm updating the blog now because I don't want to write a paper). All in all, school is going well and I can't complain too much.

Moving right along.. last weekend we went to OHIO! I'm going to be pretty honest, I really love Cincinnati. I love the family there, but I also really really love the city. It's probably one of my favorites. We got to spend Friday afternoon to Monday evening there, and we had a blast.

The real reason we went was to participate in the Air Force half marathon in Dayton. Jonathan's brother Andrew and his sister Sarah were running their first full marathons so several of the family members decided to run half marathons and cheer those two on. Jonathan, Jenny, and I all ran the half and had a really good time.

Jonathan stayed with Jenny so she'd have a running partner for her first half marathon, but I ran ahead because I was timing for my full in November. I got in at 1:52, which I am pretty excited about, I just hope and I can keep up a good pace for the full. Jonathan and Jenny came in at 2:12, I think, which is awesome for Jenny's first one!

As I was waiting for the others to come across the line I watched this guy propose to his girlfriend as she crossed the line, she said yes, although I think she was more interested in getting some water than getting the ring.

The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying the family. All of Jonathan's siblings were there, and all but one spouse and kids. Jonathan and I are not accustomed to sleeping through the noise of kids, so we ended up waking up at the same time the kids did, which is way too early. Here is Jonathan entertaining the kids one morning:

Lucy and baby Henry:

Karen and Henry (he was a big hit, how could you not like that sweet face:)

On Monday before we left the Bludorn's helped me celebrate my birthday. Sarah and I actually have the same birthday, but she was going to be around on the actual day so she saved her celebration for then. Karen took us out for mani-pedis, which were perfect. I've decided they are a must after a race like this, my feet loved it.

Then Karen made me my very first Ziggy cake! It's kind of a big deal! I'm told I can now call myself a real Bludorn.

We stopped at Montgomery Inn for lunch on the way to the airport. Jonathan loved every minute of it. I did too, it was delicious. Why are all the best restaurants in Cincinnati?

This picture is fuzzy, but this is everyone at Montgomery Inn. (Matt and Emmy and the kids had to leave the day before, they missed out!)

And here's my cake! We ate it at the restaurant.

It was an excellent weekend and the perfect way to escape Lubbock for a couple of days.

Also, as a side note, I really kind of love when I get to board, or get off, a plane from the ground. It makes me feel famous.

This is Jonathan in the Memphis airport. He was born here (in the city, not the airport), and he feels like it gives him some street cred.

And finally, my birthday! Jonathan is always so good to me. In the morning he brought me a Bordeaux cake, which was actually just a piece of See's Bordeaux with a candle in it. But it was perfect. I love milk Bordeaux.

Then, after a full day of working/school for both of us, I came home to this:

A girl at his work offered to make it for me, and she did a great job! It was delicious!

And then he got me:

Legos! Don't laugh though, I actually love it. It's a lego Guggenheim museum, and it's really cool. We built it yesterday and I love it.

Then, we went to Clay cafe and decorated some clay pieces. Jonathan decorated a serving platter (the kind with the bowl in the middle), and I made a plaque with one of my favorite scriptures on it. They just called yesterday to say our pieces were done, so I'm excited to get them!

Oh, and here's the finished Lego Guggenheim.

Anyway, that's my wrap up of September, only the best month of any year. October should be full of babies (friend's, not mine), candy, paper writing, lots of running, and a couple parties. Can't wait.

Dinner Party

2011-08-30T22:09:00.000-05:00

After gathering a million ideas on Pinterest, I finally had a fancy dinner party this weekend! We invited 5 couples, the Moores, the Grovers, the Iversons, the Evansons, and the Merediths, and we had so much fun! It was a liiiiitle stressful getting everything ready, especially since Jonathan was at work so it was all up to me, but I somehow managed and I think it turned out pretty great.

We borrowed tables and chairs from the church, I bought a bunch of fabric and made the runner and the napkins. My centerpiece crafty thing from pinterest did not work out so I went with the standard lemons in glass container center piece.

I actually think the table turned out pretty well. I was happy with it. The papers you see are seating assignments and menus. Here's a single place setting:

(nevermind the lack of silverware, it came later (thanks to the Moores and the Grovers!)) And here's the menu:

I finally found the perfect strawberry soup recipe, it turned out really well. But of course the prettiest part was dessert:

All in all it was a lot of fun, we had a really good time and I like the think our guests did too! I only managed to snap one picture, while everyone was there.

After this is got pretty dark. We lit the candles, and brought out more candles and enjoyed ourselves. I had fun putting the whole thing together and I'm already making plans for the next one!

We forgot about date night!

2011-08-14T12:14:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I think date nights are for people who need to get away from their kids, and with no little ones around, we often forget about date night. We spend all our spare time together anyway. Problem is, it's at home, in front of the tv, or computer and not really giving each other much attention. We decided we needed to fix that so last week we finally got to go on a date. My husband is awesome.

First we grabbed some food, and then Jonathan took me to Mackenzie park. I'd never been there, but it's the best park I've ever seen in Lubbock, and honestly, probably the prettiest part of Lubbock. Jonathan had packed some of our old bread and we fed the ducks on the lake there.

Then the geese came, and we didn't like them, they were pretty mean to the other ducks. Then we ran out of bread and they were pretty mean to us. One of them bit Jonathan's foot. Geese can be rude.

They started coming after us and we ran away. Turns out, I'm scared of geese.

We spent the rest of the night wandering around the park, "horsing" around on some sculptures and attempting to carve our names into a tree (much harder than it looks).

Basically we just spent time out of the house enjoying each others company. It was fun.

Oh, and that morning Sarah came to visit. How fun.

I got your back

2011-08-07T22:53:00.000-05:00

I love this song, even if it is on Best Buy commercials.

Also, I'm addicted to Pinterest. If you haven't tried it do. Except all the ideas will make you want to redo your wedding a thousand ways. Seriously.

Samantha's Wedding

2011-07-17T12:34:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I got the amazing chance to go to Tyler for one of my very best friend's weddings! Sam is an amazing girl and we clicked from the minute we met. I'm so glad she gets to be married to her best friend. Tyler is a lucky guy!

She looked beautiful and the whole wedding was so pretty. They did a great job and I'm thrilled that I got to go (although Jonathan has now told me that I'm not allowed to go anywhere else without him for the rest of the year, I can't blame him!).

And as a comparison, here is a picture of Sam and I when she flew all the way out to Salt Lake for my wedding three years ago. What kind of a friend does that? An amazing friend!

Congratulations Sam and Tyler!

Jonathan's birthday

2011-07-14T22:10:00.000-05:00

Jonathan turned 26 last week and we had a whole day of celebration. I don't know anyone that loves birthday's as much as my husband. So, he decided to spend whole day going places that would celebrate his birthday.

It was his day off work so we started with a trip to Denny's for his birthday Grand Slam. No complaints from me because I love breakfast food! After Denny's we went golfing! He got a free game for his birthday!

I had never been to a real golf course, only mini golfing, and more importantly, I'd never been in a golf cart. I was pretty shocked when I learned they just let you use one. I assumed it would be an extra 40 bucks or something. Nope. I loved it. I also loved golfing. I think I'm going to have to go more often. I golfed left handed because I was using Jonathan's clubs, but I didn't do too bad for a first timer. Watch out, Tiger!

After golfing we went to a Mongolian grill for lunch then headed to the leisure pool to relax for a bit. Then we went for Jonathan's birthday scoop of ice cream at Baskin Robbins, and headed home.

We ended the night with a little party in the park with some friends. We grilled some food and had cake. In fact, Jonathan wouldn't tell me what kind of cake he wanted, so when it came time for cake I brought out 3 cakes! No decision needs to be made, you can have a piece of each!

I love celebrating his birthday because it makes him so happy! I just love him! Happy Birthday Jonathan!

Paris with my love

2011-07-10T15:53:00.002-05:00

It's my last post about my trip! I can't believe it!

Jonathan and I had a great time in Paris together. I was so glad to get to show him around where I spent my last six weeks. The whole time I was in Paris I kept wishing he was there and now I finally had him! Sadly, though, we only had 1 full day there. We got in Thursday night and I didn't want to miss a minute to we dropped off our luggage and headed out to enjoy the town.

I took him, first, to the Latin quarter where I showed him Notre Dame, Shakespeare and company bookstore, and some of the old Roman ruins before we stopped for dinner. We ate at a little place on one of the busiest streets in the Latin quarter. The food was good, and afterward we grabbed crepes! Delicious as always!

We woke up the next morning and headed out early. We went to the Invalides cafe and I showed Jonathan the best hot chocolate in all the world. So thick and delicious. He loved sitting at the cafe people watching with me. We could get used to this.

We went and sat on the grass after that and enjoyed hanging out together. We talked and people watched and it was perfectly Parisian.

Then we headed down the Champs-Elysees. We stopped by Laduree and picked up some delicious macaroons! It was my first time in there and I loved it. They are so efficient. I spoke my best french and Jonathan had no idea how terrible it was :) Their macaroons really are great and I 'm glad Jonathan's first taste of a macaroon was from Laduree. He loved them too!

We left there and walked to the Louvre so Jonathan could see it. We didn't actually go in, but he enjoyed the outside. Then we walked down the Seine and window shopped at the little shops all up and down the river as we made our way over to the church building. I showed him the cool building (it's a 16th century building, so cool.) and the institute then we headed over to the Jewish quarter for some amazing felafels! I love felafels, and this is the best felafel spot around. It was Jonathan's first one so I wanted it to be good. This shop has even been written about in the New York Times. Everyone knows it's good.

We ate our food, and headed to the grass in front of the invalides to rest a little. I loved it. We got up eventually and walked over to the Eiffel Tower. We hung out and enjoyed it and snapped some pictures. Then we walked to Cafe du Marche for dinner. On our way we picked up some pastries from Lenotre for dessert. Dinner was delicious, I had the salmon I've had every time I've been there and I loved it just as much as I've always loved it. Best Salmon ever. After dinner we went back to the tower and ate our pastries while we waited for the Eiffel Tower to light up. I could tell I had officially converted Jonathan to the love of pastries even if they cost a little more when he dug into his millefuile and said "This is the best thing I have EVER tasted!" and I enjoyed my raspberry eclair just as much!

The next morning we woke up early and headed out to the flea markets for a bit before we left for Brussels where we stayed one night before catching our flight home. The whole trip was amazing but I think my one day in Paris with my love was my very favorite. What a great city, I'm really going to miss it (I already do!)

The rest of our time in Germany

2011-07-03T11:15:00.000-05:00

After leaving Celle we took a train to Dortmund where we spent the day with the Ziehl family that Jonathan knew on his mission. Jonathan, and the family, showed me around Dortmund, we visited an Art Museum and had lunch, it was a fun.

Mission apartment in Hamm

We then jumped on the train again and headed to Hamm. In Hamm we stayed with the Uppmeier family. They were so nice to let us stay and I got a great taste of German life. We had German breakfast and German dinner and Jonathan spoke in German the whole time we were there (I had pretty much no idea what was going on). During the one full day we had in Hamm we went into the city and Jonathan showed me where his old mission apartment was and the church building and everything. That night the Uppmeiers had a little party with other people from the ward that Jonathan knew. He loved getting to talk to everyone. I talked to the one man that spoke a little English (he told me that he knew 20 English words and with those words he could occupy my time for one or two hours). It was fun and we are really grateful to the Uppmeiers for letting us stay and being to hospitable to us.

When we left Hamm we headed to Paris but we had a layover at the train station so we got a few more hours in Cologne so we got to work a little bit more Germany into our trip. We walked out of the train station to find the famous Cologne Dome and we didn't have to search far, it was right there as you walk out. It's huge!

Then we wandered the city a bit more, I tired a Berliner and a Kinder egg. Yummy!

It was a really fun trip and I was so glad to get to see this place my husband loves so much. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Bergen-Belsen

2011-07-01T11:34:00.001-05:00

Although it was certainly the saddest part of the trip, we felt like we ought to go to one of the concentration camps while we were in Germany. The Bergen-Belsen camp is just outside of Celle.

We planned to take a bus that would drop us off right at the camp but had some trouble and ended up walking about 7 kilometers after we got off one bus to get there. It was rainy and cold. The path we walked down, once we got close to the camp, had quotes from people who had lived or died at this camp, it was really sad and mad me think that those people had walked this very path. I was complaining about the rain, but they had a lot more to complain about. This is probably the path most of them walked down before arriving at the camp where they would die.

The camp was just as sad as you would expect. First we walked through a museum that had images and footage from when the British troops first arrived, it was really horrifying. Bergen-Belsen was one of the biggest camps and also one of the camps that they moved a lot of the people to when they were backing out of camps like Auschwitz as the allied forces were closing in.

All of the building were burned down to get rid of the disease, so all that is left is the graves. Mass graves.

This graves stone reads: Here lay 2500 dead. There were several of these. Others with 1000 or 800, or worst of all 5000. They're just these big mounds all over the place, it's awful.

Every mound that looks like a mound of dirt in these pictures is another mass grave. I kept thinking "that's got to be it, there can't be anymore" and then we'd find another.

There were a couple places that had grave markers, but they were just symbolic markers of people who died here, not actual individual graves, no one got individual graves when this many people were being killed.

One of those markers, though, was Anne Frank's. This is where she was when she died. It is journals like hers that let us know exactly what was happening here, I'm glad we have that evidence.

I think it was an important thing to see, but I wouldn't ever go back. It's one of those things you should probably see once, but there is no reason to ever go again, it's too heartbreaking.

The rocks covering her grave (and all the other graves and headstones here) area Jewish symbol of remembrance. From what I've read the tradition probably originates as a way to participate in building gravestones. It's now the equivalent to putting flowers on a grave, except they like it because it's more permanent, and every stone there tells the mourner that there was one other person mourning this death as well. I think it's sweet.

Going to the market in Celle

2011-06-29T23:09:00.000-05:00

Finally, finally, finally I got to see my man again after 7 weeks apart! Whoever thought of being apart that long must be crazy. We met up in Frankfurt, Germany and headed to a little town he served his mission in called Celle. It was a really neat little town. We couch surfed a place there and stayed for several days.

Saturday morning we got up early and headed into the cutest little German town ever for the market. It was so neat. I wish America had more markets like this, I would never need a grocery store, you can get everything from fruits to cheeses to meats to breads here. What else do you need?! I loved it.

The little town we were in was really cute too; exactly what I would imagine an old little German town to look like.

We bought some strawberries at the market and walked over to a CASTLE to eat them. Only in Europe can you leave a farmer's market and leisurely walk over to sit on the grass outside of a castle. It was beautiful, and after eating our strawberries we went inside and toured around. I could get used to a place like that.

We left there and went on a little bike ride through the French Gardens and around the city. We were so glad that the people we were staying with had bike's for us to use, it was really fun to bike the city together. The gardens were really neat and then we went through the city and Jonathan took me to where his old apartment was and everything. I'm glad to finally know about all these things he talks about.

I also tried my first Uludag avec a Doner. It was just as delicious as I imagined and Jonathan was thrilled to be eating it again. The guy at the shop even remembered him. Uludag tasted like bubble gum just like he told me it would, "bubble gum soda" try it. It's delicious. And my Doner was yummy too, way better in Germany than the ones I tried in Paris.

We also walked up to the top of the church there in Celle where we could see a great view of the entire town, and the castle, it was perfect. A little windy, but mostly perfect.

The whole town we great. I loved the time we spent there. We even got to go to church while we were there in one of Jonathan's old wards. Everyone remembered him and loved him and was so glad to see him. We got to spend some time with one of the families he always tells me about and I was glad to get to know them (even if I didn't understand anything they ever said because it was all in German).

Lyon, my love.

2011-06-27T17:21:00.000-05:00

These blogs are coming in a little late, desole.

We had a great weekend in Lyon. The city is so full of history, it was really neat. It's also full of great food. The "Gastronomical Capitol of Europe" we're told. That being the case, we were treated to an excellent dinner our first night there (I think it was the first night..).

I ate a great salad, and excellent steak, and an amazing tart citron! So so so yummy! I have to say, this trip has really taught me to love food (as if that was a problem before...).

The next couple days were spent having class as we walked through the city and visiting museums and having a good time. Dr. Hudson knows so much about Lyon that his tours through the city were full of fun facts! I loved it. The city has this awesome Italianate architecture all over and is considered one of the best preserved renaissance towns, which is pretty evident. It's really cool to see these building that are mostly left in tact from the sixteenth century. There were also these cool tunnels from building to building with neat courtyards in between and everything. Really neat.

I especially loved the tour through the printing museum. Lyon was a huge city for printing during the reformation. It's hard to believe this one machine could make such a huge effect on the world, but it did. To think that now I can just stick a piece of paper in a machine and get an exact copy. Crazy.

One of the nights we were there the whole group of us climbed to the top of the city. It's a whoooole lot of steps, but you get to this basilica and from there you can see the entire city. It's a beautiful view. The whole group was there and we enjoyed the view and played some silly games and had a good time.

We got out Saturday morning early enough to see the flea market there, it was neat. European flea markets are so much better than American ones because they have actual antiques and it's not a garage sale. Lyon was no exception.

We also got to try famous Lyonnaise candies at Voisin. They were delicious.

The whole trip was awesome. Lyon was clean, and beautiful and I loved that it was so much less touristy than Paris. Every one didn't speak english which was a little harder to deal with but I also loved. I needed the practice.

We never did figure out one thing though.... why the costumes?! Anyone? anyone?

After Lyon we went to Geneva, you can read about that over here.

Auverse-sur-oise and Giverny

2011-06-21T01:18:00.000-05:00

I went to Paris to learn (er.. improve?.. no, learn.) french, but that language wasn't my only draw. As an art history student Paris holds more than a little excitement for me, and this trip to auverse sur oise and Giverny fed the Art History part of me.

Auverse-sur-oise is a little town outside of Paris where many impressionists artist flocked to (along with Croissy, where I lived!). It is particularly famous for the time Van Gogh spent here. This is where he spent the end of his life. This is where he painted his famous 81 canvases in 80 days and this is where he died. I can see why he chose this place, it was beautiful. I wanted to paint these fields too.

All over the town are these little signs indicating that this is the likely location of Van Gogh's easel as he painted one of his 80 canvases. It's amazing to me to see the canvas alongside the actual inspiration.

My love for Van Gogh has skyrocked in my time in Paris. I feel like in the past I've looked over his because of his fame. Sometimes those are the artists that we assume everyone knows enough about and we only skim through. Van Gogh also gets a lot of his attention because of his obvious psychological distress. The man was crazy, there is no denying that. But, there was a lot more to him. Seeing his paintings up close assures me that as crazy as he was, he was also an amazing artist.

It was here in auverse sur oise that he shot himself. His grave is here next to his brother's.

After our stop there we headed to Giverny, Monet's estate. Monet was one of the few artists I can think of who actually experienced success while he was alive. He used his wealth to purchase and create this beautiful garden area that we see in so many of his paintings. Now they try to keep it looking just like he had it.

You can see the water lillys and the Japanese Bridge in these pictures. Doesn't it look just like his paintings? I was amazed at how exact it is. Turns out he did paint exactly what he saw.

The gardens were beautiful and it was really neat to see where he worked. I think it was one of my favorite places that I've been so far.

A nice time in Nice

2011-06-16T23:15:00.000-05:00

I had an excellent weekend adventure in Nice. I just really love the beach. It was beautiful.

I bought a big hat and wore it every day. It did not save me from getting Sunburned though. I got the worst sunburn of my life. I've never had a burn blister before!

There were 8 of us girls there, sharing a room. And Paul.. in his own hostel. We spent the whole first day relaxing on the beach, and sleeping since we'd all spent the night before in the airport and that is not so comfortable.

Then we spent the next day in Monaco, because it was rainy and the bus to Monaco is only 1 euro! There isn't much to do in a country that small, but it was fun to say we were there.

It was back to the beach the next day, and the day after that. The beach was so pretty and check out this sunset!

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. It was an excellent weekend!

La journee parfaite.

2011-06-08T17:28:00.001-05:00

Have you ever had the perfect day? Well I have, and it was perfectly Parisian. Friday was my last full day in Paris and I wanted it to be great, but I didn't know it would be perfect.

The day before Carly, Sarah, and I had attempted to do the Invalides walk. I'm sure it would have been interesting, but we were entirely too distracted doing nothing. We started the walk with good intentions. We stopped in front of the grand and petite palais (I wish I had known where these were sooner, I've been looking for the grand palais the whole time I was here. It had a Redon exhibit I wanted to see but by the time I discovered it the exhibit was over). We enjoyed it, though, the buildings were beautiful.

We then followed the directions of the walk and crossed the Pont Alexandre III. The bridge was beautiful, but even more beautiful and entirely too distracting was the water. We stood there and watched it sparkle for at least 20 minutes. It was so beautiful. I suddenly understood why so many impressionist painters devoted their lives to catching the instant reflections of water. Beautiful. We stayed, we watched, we enjoyed, and eventually, sadly, we moved on. We headed to the famous invalides museum we'd heard so much about. You can see it in this pictures, we were getting really close, but then.. we found the roller skaters.

I don't know why I don't have any pictures of that, but there was this huge area set up with little cones and some people with some amazing skills were rollerskating around them, weaving in and out, spinning in circles, it was cool. Evidently rollerblading is still cool here.

After all that sitting and watching we got to the next stop on the walk and realized it was closed. I had to be home soon, it was getting late-ish, so we called it a night and made plans for the morning. Those plans were perfect.

We started the day with the trip to Musee Rodin that we had missed out on the night before. I loved the museum. It was all outside and it had Rodin's Thinker, Gates of Hell, Balzac, and lots of others. I loved them all!

We wandered and enjoyed. It was great. The gates of hell were my favorite part. It's just one of those pieces that really proves the creators talent and skill and Rodin had plenty of talent and skill. We left that museum and Carly and I headed to the Louvre to join the BYU Art History study abroad that is in Paris at the moment. We got to join in on one of their many tours. They went over 18th century art and it was really great. The instructor who gave the tour really knew her stuff. There was a lot of quick walking from one location to another, very distant, location. But, c'est la vie. It was definitely worth the trip.

We caught up with Sarah and Kara and after a little too much time spent searching for food, a trip to chatlet because we knew where to find food there, and a walk to school because we were really sure we knew where to find food there, we had our lunch in hand and we headed to the grass in front of the invalides to enjoy it.

If you want to feel like you're Parisian, or have the best day of your life, grab your lunch, and peut-etre a book, and sit on a lawn. Fall asleep if you want, we did. It was splendid.

Beautiful, sunny, not too hot, just right. Eventually the clouds came in and covered the sky. The temperature was just right though. It was that prestorm cool that meant it wasn't raining, and it was still warm out, but rain could be coming soon. Exactly the perfect weather for..

Hot Chocolate. We had heard about this cafe from some friends and we were told it had some of the best hot chocolate ever. It's the cafe invalides and very near where we already were so we gave it a try.

It lived up to every thing we'd heard. The hot chocolate was sweet, and thick and served alongside a croissant. We sat outside, enjoyed the weather, and chatted. We sipped slowly and took our time the french do. It was amazing.

When we finally decided we were done we headed off to another great location:

Some people pretend they are too cool to find the Eiffel Tower so great. It's just a tourist attraction.. yadda yadda.. I have to tell you guys: I love this tower. It's my regular reminder that I am in PARIS! I've always wanted to come here and my dreams came true, I'm really here. I'm really sitting in front of the real Eiffel Tower. I love it. So here we sat and enjoyed the sun a bit longer. I don't think I'd ever get tired of this view. The only reason we got up is because we decided we should probably eat. Off to Cafe du Marche.

An excellent little cafe near the tour. I enjoyed the salmon for the second time and it was every bit as delicious. We sat, we chatted, we took our time. Are you noticing a theme?

After dinner we decided to head back to the Eiffel Tower to see it light up for the last time here in Paris, on our way we passed Paris's most famous gelato Amorino. Some one jokingly (?) suggested that gelato could only make a perfect day better and in the end we all agreed. Gelato it was. Yum.

We finished the night together in front of the Eiffel Tower watching it sparkle (they light it up at the top of every hour after dark and it's magnificent). It was the perfect day, and my perfect goodbye to this perfect city. I'm really going to miss it here.

I think this is supposed to be my home. I love the culture. I love the language (even if I don't speak it very well). I'll be back.

Place de la Concorde

2011-06-08T15:04:00.000-05:00

Last week I did the Place de la Concorde walk, along with the Latin Quarter walk. Place de la Concorde is the area where all the french federal government buildings are. It was neat to see. I get caught up in the dreamy historic France sometimes and I forget that Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV don't make the rules anymore, they have a fully functioning democracy, and this walk gave me a needed reminder of that.

The government cars around here are all parked facing the street, prepared for quick departure, too bad Louis and Marie hadn't thought of that.

This is the best view I got of the Palais de l'Eysee, which is where the president of France (currently Sarkozy) lives, so, it's their version of the white house. This is actually the part of the walk I was most looking forward to, and was most disappointed in. In D.C. we can stand in front of the gates of the white house and see the whole beautiful building, here we can only see the gates. I got to see the speedy maneuver where a motorcycle cop leads the cars the front car blocks the entrance and the back car quickly slides into the palias, though. It was a pretty swift maneuver that I have to assume was for someone importance. Most likely a low level government official, but I like to tell myself it was Sarkozy. This picture shows the front car blocking the entrance. They did not seem happy with my picture taking so I moved on.

See that American flag waving, 'tis the home of the American Ambassador to France, it's on a row of homes of ambassadors. That bald eagle engraving is on the same building.

It was neat to see the US government buildings in France. I was a little disappointed again though because this next pictures was the closest I could get to the US embassy. You can only get closer with clearance. Lame. You can barely even see the building through the trees. Still though, it was cool. I love Paris, but I also do love America.

The following pictures are of the Place de la Concorde itself. It's a courtyard kind of area with some historical significance. and by "some" I mean it was called Place de la Revolution for a bit, during which they chopped of Louis XIV's head here (right near where the US embassy now sits), before moving the guillotine to the other side of the courtyard and taking Marie Antoinette's life (along with more than a thousand others). So yeah.. some significance.

Normandy and Loire Valley Excursion

2011-05-29T14:06:00.000-05:00

France is full of history, everywhere you turn. I wrote a little about the history inside the city of Paris over here at my class blog. This weekend, though, I got to discover some history outside of the city. On Thursday morning, bright and early, we left for an amazing trip through Normandy and Loire Valley. It was great!

We started with a stop in the small town of Bayeux where the famous 1000 year old Bayeux tapestry can be found. The tapestry was really interesting and told the story of a military victory. No pictures though. There's a funny story about a door handle that I could put in here, but it's long, and funnier in person when I can show you the motion and the face that go together, so ask me about it later.

We left Bayeux for Normandy! This was one of my favorite places. I wish the weather would have cooperated for the day, but I guess the rainy cloudy cold added a little bit to the somberness of the whole place.

We first visited the American Cemetery, which is technically American soil and where our flag is flying high. It was nice to see. I felt like the graves went on forever, which was really sad. The amount of people who died here is ridiculous. It was very humbling.

Right outside of the grave yard is a little path that leads down to Omaha beach. This pictures is me with the beach behind me. What amazes me is that you can really see so far. As much as we tried to surprise the Germans, they had to see us coming from a certain distance, and some how we were still able to be successful.

After our stop there we headed to Pointe du Hoc which was one of the most important battles, it lies right inbetween Utah beach and Omaha beach and consists of a huge cliff where the Germans had massive amounts of weapons that they could use to protect both beaches we were trying to invade. Knocking out that weapon equipment was vital for our success on those beaches.

Looking off that cliff, I couldn't help but thing there is no way any human was able to win that battle without divine intervention. Vraiment.

Do you see all the holes in the ground? Those are all bomb droppings. Can you image standing in that?!

It really is amazing that we won. It seems like an impossible feat, but somehow we did it.

On a lighter note, we left there and stayed in a hotel for the night then headed to Mont Sainte-Michel the next day. This place is awesome!

It's a small island just off the coast. When the tide is in it's surrounded by water, when the tide is out it's surrounded by quicksand! I may have played a bit in the quicksand.

The whole place can only be a couple of kilometers wide, it's just built up so tall. I read somewhere that there is a population of like 41 people on the island. Mostly though, it's tourist shops, a hotel, and the huge abbey you see at the top. Unfortunately for us, the abbey (probably the coolest part of the whole place) was closed for a strike (anyone surprised that the french are on strike?.. Anyone.. No...me either.)

We ate some crepes (the most expensive crepes I've ever eaten because they trap you on the island and there is no where else to go for food..), walked around a bit, enjoyed the view and the quicksand. It was a good day.

We had another hotel that night then headed off to two more chateaux in the morning. First we hit the Blois chateaux. It's really neat because it has 4 different facades from four distinctly different architectural periods. You can stand in the center of the courtyard and turn four directions to see four different styles, it's really neat. Can you name the four styles?

Our last stop was Chambord. This was my favorite chateau so far. It's the first one that actually looks like a castle.

It has a lot of really neat architectural features but one of the most entertaining was the Da Vinci "inspired" (maybe designed) double-helix staircase. It was supposedly used to rush the mistress out of the room and down the staircase without having to worry about anyone running into her. Basically there are two staircases that lead to the same places but you never run into each other. It's really cool.

The rest of the castle was cool too. It had a lot of really neat features, I'd certainly be willing to live there.

I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the grass and enjoying this view:

Beautiful!

La Defense

2011-05-23T13:02:00.000-05:00

The la defense walk was really interesting for me because it took me to a part of Paris I never knew, or expected, to exist. La defense is the Manhatten of Paris. Not only is it full of skyscrapers that scream modernity but there are modern art sculptures throughout the entire area. C'est tres interessant.

Paris is so full of history that we often forget that it still has to function in the present. We get stuck dreaming about how Paris was in whatever our favorite era is (the twenties for me: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dali, Picasso, Matisse, etc.). For a great commentary on this see "Midnight in Paris," when it comes out in the states. I find myself visiting old taverns where my favorite artists used to hang out, or graves of my favorite writers (we saw Oscar Wilde's tombstone today) instead of enjoying what Paris is today.

I worry that what Paris is today is a tourist attraction. The city itself plays on it's history to keep people coming. I love it here, but is that because I would have loved it here 100 years ago, or because I love it here now?

La Defense was a great reminder that the city still functions as a city. People still live here and work here and enjoy the city of today. There are still citizens of Paris, contrary to what you see on the street, not everyone is a tourist. The city does what it can to keep up with the world, they just keep their history in tact while they do it. Here, they did that by moving this new and modern business district out of the city center. They don't want a skyscraper built in the courtyard of Nortre Dame, but they will deal with it being built on the other end of the Champs-Elysee. I can appreciate that.

In fact I'm glad they do it. It means I don't have to lose that old Paris that I love so much, but the city can keep on living.

I loved that even though the Parisian were sucumbing to modern buildings they did it in their own Parisian way. There is a courtyard in the middle of all these buildings. A huge area created to be beautiful. The space might have made more money if they'd added another skyscraper or two, but having this park is worth it to them. Acknowledging the modernity, though, they added fitting art works. I loved these.

Modern art is a difficult thing to get people to accept. It's there for it's aesthetic appeal. The colors, the shapes, and the feeling it brings. It doesn't matter that "my baby sister could draw that," it matters that it's beautiful. I love these sculptures and they covered the courtyard at La Defense.

There were bright colors and bold shapes. I loved the large striped cone, and "the sleepwalker" who appeared to be tumbling off a building. I also kind of loved "Le Pouce" or The Thumb (you'll know it when you see it).

The Grande Arche

This is the kind of art I think I would have in my home, much to my husband's chagrin.

The courtyard ends at the Grande Arche, which is another large skyscraper. It mirrors almost perfectly the Arc de triumph which can be seen when you look from the Grande Arche strait down the Champs-Elysee. It's a pretty spectacular view and I love to see the old and the new mirroring each other and showing that they do have something in common. Both parts represent their own time for the same city.

Paris is amazing, I really do love it here. New and Old. Honestly being in the "Manhattan of Paris" made me feel a little more at home. Paris has been welcoming since day one, but being here felt like I was back in America. I get lost in the history here sometimes, and that's something that rarely happens to me in America. La defense gave me a view of Paris that I'm sure a lot of tourists never get to see. It also gave me an opportunity to reflect on what the city is now: still beautiful.

The view from the Grande Arche, look closely and you can see the Arc de Triomphe.

Marché aux Puces

2011-05-23T03:52:00.000-05:00

In our study on commerce this week we walked through several important locations of business and many of the famous french markets. I wrote about my walk past the Bourse (the french version of Wall Street) and some street markets here. There was another walk, however, entirely dedicated to flea markets.

The flea markets here are amazing to me. I'm not generally one for antiques because they just seem like extra stuff. But these flea markets actually had some neat things. One difference between flea markets here and flea markets in the states is that the things being sold here are actual antiques. Things that are hundreds of years old. Flea markets in the states sometimes just amount to neighborhood garage sales.

I considered buying this statue for my house...

Well okay I actually would never buy it, but it was fun to think about what Jonathan would say if I came home with it and told him I loved it and we had to put it somewhere in our house. (Also I had to put Sarah in the picture because they really don't like when you take pictures of their things. We tried to make it look like I was just taking a picture of Sarah. I'm sure they knew what was happening, but at least we tried.)

Before going to the flea markets we were coached on how to barter. In America sometimes in order to get a lower price you might say things like "well it has a scratch over here," or "it looks like it's not that great of quality," or "the paint is peeling off, it's not worth that much." But in France if you said those things the shop keepers are likely to say "fine, then don't buy it."

They take pride in the products they are selling, and they seem much more interested in making sure that their antiques go to a good home then they are in making a buck. It's very different from what I'm used it. We were told that entering someone's shop is like entering their home. Don't touch everything you see, only touch when you're ready to buy. It's hard to try and shop like a french person.

The way to barter, M. Olivier told us, was to tell them how great their product was, how badly you wanted it, and how you only wished you could afford such a magnificent item. They need to know you love their item. Throw in some sighs and some sad looks to let them know how much owning this would mean to you and they're more likely to make you a deal.

I tried my hand at bartering twice. Once for some neat bookends, and once for some printing press stamps with the letters B-L-U-D-O-R-N. I sighed, I told them how great their products were and I got them both to lower their prices. However, I think I'm just cheap. I couldn't get either of them low enough, so I left empty handed.

The experience was worth the trip though. It's nice to see people that care about their products and the flea market actually had some really interesting things. The bartering was pretty good language practice too. If I was a decorator I think I'd use the french flea markets to find all sorts of things to decorate with. I'm really bad at decorating though, so I don't trust myself to buy very many things for my house. Maybe I'll bring Jonathan when he gets here and we'll find something great for our home. Maybe not. Either way it was a memorable experience and I'm thankful that these shopkeepers let me into their homes.

On the Metro

2011-05-16T01:52:00.001-05:00

One of our assignments this week (I blogged about the other assignment here ) was to take a metro line from beginning to end, getting out at different stations along the way and seeing what they had to offer.

I picked line 2, before I realized it was the line that went right through montmartre (the sketchy part of town). But the beginning of the line was beautiful. We walked past Lenotre, one of the best chocolate and pastry shops in town (later that week I got to try an eclair from there and I about burst from deliciousness). The store looks like a jewelry shop inside, and everything they sell looks like the most delicious thing you could ever eat.

It's hard to go from something so beautiful back down into the dungeon that is the metro station, but we did. I love the metro, really, but for a city that is so beautiful above ground, it isn't very pretty below.

We rode a little longer then got off at another stop where we were greeted with yet another beautiful Parisian park. I love that not only are there parks everywhere but the parks are in use. From young couples making out on park benches, to old ladies tanning in the leaned back chairs. People are having picnics and children and pushing sailboats through the water in the fountains. It's really wonderful.

As we continued on our journey down line 2 we got into a less nice area. While we did try not to get off at the stops we've been warned about, the stops near those were not excellent places to be either. We didn't spend too long outside of the metro in those areas, but these are some of the things we found:

There are protests and demonstrations going on everywhere in Paris. We ran into two of them on our walk.

We continued our walk through the end of Line 2 at the la defense stop. Although I've passed by there plenty of times and even changed trains a couple of times I'd never left the station, so out the doors we went. It was a decent part of town and I found a beautiful sculpture commemorating one of the many revolutions that happened in France (it was also the first grafitti-ed sculpture I have seen here.)

We couldn't get too close because this was also where we saw our second demonstration of some sort and we didn't fit in with the people demonstrating at all, so we jumped back on the metro to head home.

It was then that we experienced another joy of metros. You see we waited and waited and our train never came. We finally jumped another metro and picked up a train home at a different location. The train we wanted was out of service because of a sad but seemingly regular occurrence: suicide. It was the second time our plans have been delayed because of that. What an awful way to go.

All in all I appreciated the variance in the different stations: some were underground, some were above ground, some were crowded, some were empty, some were dirty, some were less dirty, some were full of homeless beggers, some only had 1 or 2 homeless beggers. The metro is a useful but occasionally difficult thing to deal with. I'm glad we have it.

Museums, Castles, and Picnics

2011-05-15T00:42:00.000-05:00

I've been on a museum kick lately and I'm loving it. The Musee d'Orsay (which is famous for it's impressionism collection) is being remodeled and they are lending out a lot of their pieces so I went to Hotel de Ville to see a temparary exhibition on Paris during the impressionism period and I loved it. I saw my first real Monet! It was amazing and it was one of the paintings I've written about in papers so I knew a lot about it and that made it cool. Of course there is no picture taking inside, but I was able to snag a picture with the sign, proof that I was there!

I started making this blog the other day and since that time I have been to Musee d'Orsay to see the pieces that aren't being lent out including Van Gogh, Gaugain, Renoir, Degas, Monet, Manet, Cezanne, and pretty much anyone else you can imagine. It's amazing. I also went back to the Louvre, and I went to Musee de l'Orangerie. It famously houses the panoramic paintings by Monet, you know the ones that span the entire wall. It was amazing.

Thursday afternoon we had the pleasure of a picnic by the Eiffel tower. We had bread, cheeses, fruit, meat, some delicious juices, and finally the best pastries in Paris. I ate an amazing raspberry eclair with creamy raspberry goodness inside. So yummy! I think eclairs are my favorite thing here. It was so nice to just sit and enjoy good food, especially on the lawn of the Eiffel Tower!

This is me eating another delicious eclair. It's a chocolate one from a different pastry shop, I just thought you should see how much I really do love eclairs. They're nothing like the Sam's Club eclairs you get back home. These are deeeelicious!

On Monday some of my classmates and I headed off to Fountaineblue. It's a beautiful chateau used by several famous kings and queens. It has a beautifully sculpted lawn and the inside is extravagantly decorated. It was really amazing.

The library (below) was my favorite room. It was also the only room we couldn't go into. Not only was it beautiful but it was full of the same books that have always been in there. I was wondering if those books have been cataloged or if they just try not to mess with them. I'd bet there are books in there that can't be found elsewhere.

Again since I started this post several days ago I've actually been to an even cooler palace since then: Versailles! I don't have time to put the pictures up so you'll have to look at them on facebook but it was beautiful. It was a lot more crowded and touristy than Fountaineblue but still beautiful. Everything at Versailles was gold trimmed. It was amazing and no wonder the common folk who couldn't afford bread hated those who lived there. My favorite part at Versailles was the village of cottages Marie Antoninette had built so she could see what it was like to be a peasant. Of course the buildings are actually way better than any peasant had. It's crazy to me that she was playing house, almost laughing, at what little those people had. But the area with the cottages is actually really pretty. The lawn is manicured and there are ponds and stuff. It's really kind of cute

I feel like time is flying by. I miss my husband so much but I'm also sad that if feels like I'll be leaving so soon! I love it here!

Luxembourg gardens, french cafes, and Impressionism.

2011-05-07T03:03:00.001-05:00

Paris is amazing. The other day we went on a walk to the Luxembourg gardens (we're going back today to have a picnic and play petanque (aka botchi ball)). It was beautiful. Paris is full of so many beautiful gardens. I feel like everywhere I turn there is another beautiful place to sit and relax for a while. and the french really do. They just grab a bench and sit for hours, it's wonderful.

I finally made it to the Louvre as well. It costs 10 euro for 1 visit, but it's only 15 euro for a year long pass so now I am officially a "friend of the louvre!" and I have a little card with my picture on it and everything. I'm pretty excited about it.

Since I've been here I've mostly been eating at my host families house, or picking up a baguette or a falaffel or something from a street cart, so when it was one of the student's birthdays the other day we decided to go sit down at a french cafe and I'm so glad we did. I ate the best salmon I've ever had and I loved sitting there pretending to be french. I'm getting much better at ordering food, and I'm starting to understand more and more of what people are saying. This is the cafe we ate at:

I also feel like I know my way around the city pretty well now too. I can get to most anywhere on the metro and even when I'm walking and can usually find my way around. You can see my post here about trying to get lost in Paris. I feel really good about my knowledge of the city. When we ate we were right near the eiffel tower so we walked down to see them light it. For about 10 minutes every hour they light it up all sparkly, it's really pretty.

I'm loving where I live. It's about 15 minutes outside of the city and the town in beautiful. In fact, I recently discovered that the trail I run along which is right next to the bank of the Seine river is the exact spot where Monet and Renoir sat side by side to paint their "La Grenouillere" paintings.

I've studied these paintings a lot and I think it's amazing that I live right where those paintings were done! It's so beautiful here that it's not wonder the impressionists chose to paint here!

J'adore Paris!

2011-05-01T12:07:00.000-05:00

The Louvre! I love it. My heart was pounding when I saw the pyramid, I still can't believe I'm actually here.

Roommates at the Louvre! We didn't get to go inside because it's closed for their labor day (which is extra sad because the first Sunday of the month, today) is free. I'm sure I'll be spending plenty more time here though!

Me and the Eiffel. Every time I see it I think "Am I really in PARIS?!"

And the Patisserie I bought a croissant at today. Cute, right? I managed to order in French and not get a crazy look. She knew what I was saying! I was very proud!

First Paris Post!

2011-04-30T03:43:00.000-05:00

I'm here, and I love it.

I arrived Thursday morning with several other girls in the program who were on my flight. We had a little hold up at the airport finding another girl that was supposed to be on our shuttle to the hotel. We eventually found her though, 2 hour later, and headed for the hotel. If you ever want to think your life is going to end get in a car with a french driver. Seriously, it was crazy. Motorcycles (and sometimes cars) drive in between the lanes, no keeps any distance for other cars, they all yell rude french things out the window at each other, it was kind of scary. But,we made it to the hotel, checked in, and headed out to find some food. I ate a croque-monsieur which was delicious.

Once the whole gang had arrived we got our host family information, and I'm pretty excited to meet them. Then we headed out to enjoy Paris. We walked to the institute building where we have our classes and where the ward meets. It's this really awesome, really old building the church bought. I love it. and it's right near the heart of Paris. We left there and walked past Notre Dame, down to the Siene where we took a touristy boat ride and they pointed out all the cool things like the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. I can't wait to get out and see everything.

After the boat ride we went out for some dinner where I ordered in french for the first time. The lady looked at me like I was crazy, and gave me something that was definitely not what I ordered but I was so embarrassed that I just ate it :) I'm still getting the hang of things.

Anyway, we're getting up and ready for the day. Today includes more sightseeing and meeting the host family! I can't wait.

The Smell

2011-04-08T09:41:00.001-05:00

I have been hunting down this smell all morning. My house smells terrible and I can't figure out where it's coming from. I cleaned up every where, behind couches, under the bed, everywhere thinking maybe there was a plate of food that had been left somewhere. Nope. I took out the trash, and put a lemon down the garbage disposal. Nope.

Meanwhile I have been waiting for the repairman to show up to work on our washer. It's been broken for a week. There is standing water in it. The repairman said he'd be here last night or this morning before 10. (It's 9:38 and he still isn't here....)

Anyway, I went to open the lid so I could fiddle around with it a little more and before I had the lid all the way up I slammed it back down, turned around..

and puked.

I found the smell. The repair man better be here asap.

As of late

2011-04-05T19:13:00.000-05:00

I'm kind of behind on blogging. We haven't done anything too exciting but I thought I'd give you an update anyway.

A couple of weeks ago I got so tired of Lubbock that I thought I just had to go somewhere different.. even if that place was Amarillo. So.. off to Amarillo we went for the weekend. It was nice to be somewhere that at least had different stores, and to be away from home and with my man.

We drove up Friday night, grabbed some dinner, and went to our hotel. We did not go to The Big Texan, but we did take this picture in the sign at our hotel.

I can rarely finish a 6 oz steak.. 72 ounces seems excessive. Later that night we snuck into a different hotel's swimming pool because ours wasn't working.

In the morning we went to the mall, which to my great surprise has a Charlotte Russe. I love Charlotte Russe, and I bought two very cute pairs of shoes there! We also searched for some ties for Jonathan to no avail.

Then we hit up Great Harvest Bread Company. We used to get our bread from there all the time when we lived in D.C. and I've missed it. It is so yummy! We picked up a loaf of Cinnamon Chip and it was delicious!

Finally, before heading home we stopped at the Cadillac Ranch to spray paint some cars! Fun!

We planned on going hiking at Palo Duro Canyon but it was too cold and rainy so we just drove on home. It was nice to get out of town.

So nice that we did it again the next weekend! We drove to Dallas to go to the temple (ours was closed for cleaning) and got to hang out with my fam. It's always nice to see them, and my sweet momma bought me two more pairs of shoes! A girl can never have too many shoes! We got to sleep at Dave's house and hang out with him, Dana, and baby Cage. Then we got to have a BBQ and play some games at Robin's house with her family. The trip was short, but fun!

And now we are home, and I'm 3 weeks from leaving for Paris! I have a bunch of studying to do and papers to write (which I'm actively avoiding by updating my blog) but I find it difficult to think about anything but Paris. I think about what I'm going to pack, and what I'm going to see, and where I'm going to go, and how much I should spend, and how I should dress, and how bad my french is, and what my host family will be like, and how easy or difficult my classes will be and on and on and on. You can see how it would take up a lot of my time.

Anyways, there is your Bludorn update. Hope you enjoyed it.

The Perfect Saturday

2011-03-13T12:10:00.000-05:00

We had the perfect Saturday. For once, neither of us had any thing we just had to do. No appointments for anything, nothing swallowing up our day. We spent the day hanging out with each other and having fun. Sometimes I don't blog because nothing exciting is happening in our lives (which is most of the time) but I think those few exciting weekends we have are not the only things worth blogging about. Our day-to-day regular, non-exciting, activities are some of my favorites. I love running together, I love making dinner together, I love eating dinner together, I love talking about our days, I even love grocery shopping together. So today, you get a post about the regular stuff we did on a non-exciting Saturday.

First and foremost, I slept in. That is my very favorite part of any Saturday. Then, I woke up and got ready for the day.

After that, we cleaned our house. It needed it. We make a good team though, so cleaning the house didn't take too long, and it feels so good to sit down and enjoy a nice clean house.

Then, we finished Star Wars episode IV, which we started Friday night. We plan on watching them all. Jonathan is thrilled.

When that was over we returned the movie to the Library, and went grocery shopping. All of the students have left town because it's spring break so Walmart was surprisingly empty. It was really nice.

After putting the groceries in our car we realized what a mess our car was, so once we got home and unloaded the groceries we cleaned the car out. I love having a clean car!

Next.. we went on an egg hunt. This might have been the highlight of my day. You see, Walmart hasn't been carrying Cadbury mini eggs, much to my dismay. So, determined to find them, we left on our mini-egg hunt. We were going to stop at K-mart, Target, Walgreens, United Supermarket, CVS, and the Dollar General. We were prepared to put some time into this. Then we found them at K-mart, our very first stop. So.. it wasn't actually that much of a hunt, they were pretty easy to find. But, we have them now, and that's what's important.

I was prepared to take pictures all along the way.. again, I thought it was going to be a more exciting adventure. Oh well..

Once we had our mini-eggs we came home and did nothing for a while. Played some Mastermind, probably some Set, watched an episode or 2 of our favorite tv shows, you know, had a lazy afternoon.

Finally we started dinner. Did I mention that making dinner together is one of my favorite things? I love being in the kitchen working together. We made our new favorite recipe Asian Pork Noodle Salad. It is seriously soooo yummy, let me know if you want to recipe.

I'm a slow eater, so Jonathan is always done eating before me, but I hate when he leaves me at the table still eating (it makes me feel like a 6 year old who's in trouble and not allowed to leave the table until they eat all their vegetables..). He has remedied this situation by getting up and making dessert while I'm still at the table. This way he is still in the kitchen and we can still talk, and we get to have dessert. It's almost always a s'more, ever since we got our awesome s'more maker for Christmas

And to end the day we went to the Drive-in with some friends and enjoyed good movies, good company, and a bag of cadbury mini-eggs.

It was the perfect end to the perfect, average, normal, Saturday. I loved it.

Poster Presentation

2011-03-04T20:34:00.000-06:00

The school of art had it's open house today and my professor asked me to present a poster of a research paper I did to represent the Art History department. Here I am with my poster on Visual Representations of Miscegenation in the 19th century.

Oh yeah, and I got a hair cut :)

Anniversary/Valentine's gift

2011-02-07T20:39:00.000-06:00

Because our anniversary and Valentine's day fall so close together around here, we usually just kind of combine them as far as gifts and such are concerned. and because our anniversary comes first, that's usually when the big celebrations happen, Valentine's day doesn't get much attention.

Anyway, this year for anniversary/v-day my husband got me the cutest pillowcases ever. I know, you're thinking "pillowcases? really?" but check these out!

How cute is that? He said it's so we can still talk in bed at night when I'm in Paris. So sweet! He ordered them a while ago but they just came in and I'm so excited about them!

Cute, right? My husband is pretty awesome!

The anniversary update

2011-02-03T21:04:00.000-06:00

Jonathan and I have now been married for 3 years! That sounds like a really long time to me, but also, that's nothing compared to the rest of our lives! We've loved (almost) every minute of it!

To celebrate we took a weekend trip to Dallas and headed to a place called Zero Gravity. They have 5 heart-stopping "rides" designed to pretty much scare the crap out of you. We did all 5. It worked

One ride looked like a wind turbine with just one blade, or like a ferris wheel sort of except it went way faster and there is only one seat on it. It spins you around and around and because it's going so fast your seat spins too so you're upside down and right side up and every where. It made me a little sick (actually really sick, it was the 4th ride we did and I almost didn't do the last one I was so sick, the ride home was not a good one!).

Another one had the two of us in a kind of capsule thing with bungee sort of cords attached to both sides of it and their other ends attached to two tall towers. It flung us into the sky and rubberbanded us back down and back up and down and all around. It was scary.

Then there was the ripcord. Neither of us had ever done a ripcord before, so it was a lot of fun. For some reason it was also the least scary, I guess I felt securely strapped in to that one.

This is the view from the bottom of "Nothin' But Net"

"Nothin' but Net"

These next two are serious heart stoppers. This is a video of Jonathan on the ride they call "Nothin' but Net." It was the first one we did and for sure the scariest. They take you on an elevator like thing up more than a hundred feet in the air and then.. they drop you. That's right, they just drop you. You aren't attached to any cords, or wires or anything, they just drop you. You're looking up and your life is flashing before your eyes. There is a net there to catch you, but I swear, you get about half way down and your brain tells you the net should have already caught you and it hasn't and you're dead. Watch Jonathan as he lays in the net frozen because he's pretty sure he's dead.

And the last one we did was bungee jumping. We have a video of me jumping, but it won't upload, so maybe I'll get it on facebook or something, you'll have to check there. We were both pretty brave headed up there. Then we got to the edge and we both had similar experiences. It kind of went like this:
Me: I can do this
Worker: Alright, walk up to the edge
Me: Sure.. AHH! I CAN'T DO THIS!
Worker: You can do it!
Me: No I can't! Get me down from here!

Eventually I decided I could go backwards, only to discover I couldn't do it backwards either. Both Jonathan and I ended up going backwards and having the worker push us! I know, you're saying to yourself "I could jump, I know I could" but I thought that too until I was on the edge. It was impossible to tell my body to jump off. I just couldn't do it. It was fun once the guy pushed me off though. I think next time I could do it :)

I told the guy I could stand for exactly ten seconds before puking on him, he said he'd let me sit while he took my gear off after bungee jumping.

After that our nerves were fried. We stopped for some lunch at Boston market (Did anyone else know they have the BEST cornbread I've ever had in my life?! I didn't even know I liked cornbread!), then headed back to Robin and Chris's house to play games with the family.

It was a good weekend, we had fun and we were glad to hang out with family.

On Wednesday, our real anniversary, we said I love you and went to dinner. It was pretty chill, which was nice after such a crazy weekend!

I really do love my husband way more than I ever knew possible. He's perfect for me and I couldn't imagine my life with anyone else.

I remember on the day of our wedding, my parents picked me up from my house, then we drove to Jonathan's apartment to pick him up and drive from Provo to Salt Lake for the wedding. (I, obviously, didn't believe seeing him before the wedding was bad luck) I called him to tell him we were almost there and he said he'd walk outside and meet us there. As we were turning the corner onto his street he stepped off the sidewalk to wave us down. He was standing in the street in an all white tux smiling his perfect smile right at me and I knew, without a doubt, that that was the smile I wanted to look at for the rest of forever. I made the best decision of my life that day. I love you, Jonathan!

Dreaming of April 28th

2011-01-24T08:29:00.000-06:00

This is my first full week of school. Classes started a week and a half ago but we started on a Wednesday, then had the next Monday off for MLK day. So here I am, ready for my first full week of classes. I can't say I'm thrilled, although I can say I do actually enjoy what I'm learning. I'm glad I found something I love.

I spent the first several days of classes arranging and rearranging my schedule after talking with professors, but I have finally accomplished my goal, and as a bonus in all that rearranging, I have no Friday classes! Woot woot!

I'm taking 3 art history classes: Baroque, 19th Century French, and Pre-Columbian Americas. I'm taking one drawing class (26 class periods left, I'm counting down..), and Solar System Astronomy, which should be easy and is surprisingly interesting. I already learned an answer to one of life's burning questions: what the heck do AM and PM stand for? I have the answer, just ask!

And all 5 of my professors have agreed to let me take my final early, which means....

I'm going to PARIS!!

I plan on buying my ticket this afternoon. I'm doing a BYU study abroad and I leave April 28th. I'm going to be in Paris for 4 weeks, then I'm going to travel through France and Switzerland a bit for 2 weeks, then my husband is going to join me and we're going to retrace some of his mission steps in Germany for a week! I could not be more excited!

Kansas City and the Olsens!

2011-01-09T21:13:00.001-06:00

I spent this last week in Kansas City (Independence really...) with one of my closest friends! It was a lot of fun and quite the week.

Andrea and Bo have 2 kids, Maggie and Jasper. Maggie is almost 2 and Jasper is only 3 months old. Bo is away at the police academy during the week so I went to help Andrea out with the 2 kids. It was a good week to go because both the kids were sick and so was Andrea, she needed the help and I was glad to be there for her!

I had fun learning how to be a mom, and I learned a lot. For instance: don't expect a shower everyday. Also: it takes approximately an hour to get two kids ready to go and into the car. And Also: if the kid is quiet, they are up to something.

This is Andrea cleaning up the mess we found after we thought Maggie had gone to sleep. To make a long story short.. it had a lot to do with poop. And the next picture is Maggie in her drawer, where we found her more than once. She decided this was the right week to climb on, in, over, or around everything!

Mostly, though, the kids were sweet. Maggie brought out her pillow and blanket one night to try and sleep in the living room, even though she kept saying she wasn't tired. and Jasper showed me his sweet smile. Cute cute kids!

Andrea and I got to escape one night for a little "woman-date." We went to Zio's and enjoyed catching up without the children around.

I also got to see other fun people while I was there. I went over to Nancy and Damon's house (my aunt and uncle) and visited with Nancy, Adam, Jane and Byron for a while. I wish I could have spent more time with them, but I was playing mom by myself while Andrea was a work and I was definitely not prepared for 2 kids on my own! I also got to visit Julianne, an old friend, and Ellen, another old friend! It was so great to catch up with everybody, I really miss Kansas City and everyone there.

Oh and Andrea also drove me past the construction site for the new LDS temple in Kansas City. I snapped these pictures, it's going to be beautiful!

I really had a lot of fun and I loved reminiscing and spending time with old friends. It was a great week!

Ringing in the New Year

2011-01-02T19:26:00.003-06:00

New Years is my favorite time of year for lots of reasons. First, we get to party!

This year we had some of our favorite couples over for a little new years celebration! We played games and talked and ate good food, then put on our party hats:we counted down, and shot off some fireworks, but my camera died before I got any pictures of the fireworks. It was way fun! Thanks to everyone that came!

Second, in keeping with tradition, we get to do a little bowling the next day. This year we went with my brother Gabe. Here are some fantastic action shots:

The third reason I love this time of year is because I love resolutions. I try to make them all through the year, but this is an especially good time for them. This year I have lots of resolutions, but my main one is to create better relationships with people in my life, and especially people in my family, so if we haven't talked in a while, expect a call! Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas

2010-12-27T22:24:00.004-06:00

We had an excellent Christmas! One of the best so far, for sure. We really enjoyed spending time in Dallas with my family and Santa was really good to us!

Jonathan got a bunch of Legos, and a new xbox with Kinect which we are both really excited about, from Santa. and I got a stocking full of my favorite sugary treats, a paper shredder (I LOVE IT!) and the cutest picnic basket in the world. Here are some pictures:

We also received some clothes, some games, some nice cookie trays, a really cool s'more maker, new web cameras (skype: Casibludorn) a breakfast tray (for breakfast in bed!) and lots of other excellent stuff. We are so lucky to have so many people who love us.

The very best part of this Holiday though, had nothing to do with the presents. We got to see so many great blessings come to people we love and we couldn't be happier for them.

This was a perfect holiday, the only thing that could have made it better would have been a longer vacation!

Also.. in case any of you don't believe that I grown man can be excited to find Legos in his stocking Christmas morning, here's a cheesy video!

The Ice Cream Tour

2010-12-22T10:02:00.001-06:00

My Brother, Dane, and his fiance, Deena, came in for a visit last weekend. Lubbock isn't a very exciting town, but I didn't want them to be bored so I thought of the perfect day-long activity: An Ice Cream Tour of Lubbock.

I never realized how many ice cream shops Lubbock had, but we stopped at most of them on Monday. We also rated each shop and decided what our favorite was. Here's a picture tour of our ice cream tour.

First stop: Spoonfuls
It was the first time I'd ever tried frozen yogurt, and it was yummy! We gave it a 3.5

Next stop: Cowamongus
Not our favorite. The ice cream tasted like it had been sitting there for a long time. I don't know if we even finished our one scoop. Gave it a 1.5.

Next: Angela's Cafe

It was okay, they serve Blue Bell, so that was good, except that it also tasted like it had been out for a while. They got a 3

Next: El Tropica (Not sure if that's right...)
This was delicious! We really liked it, it's a Hispanic ice cream place and they make their ice cream with a different kind of cream or something, we really liked it. and it was definatly the most for your money. I'll go back, for sure! They got a 4

Next: Kalidascoops

Loved them. Their ice cream was the best quality of all the ice creams we tasted, also, the most expensive. They got a 4.5

And finally: The Holly Hop Ice Cream Shoppe
This place was a cute little 50's style diner, they served everything in real glasses with real flatware. Had a cute little jukebox and everything. They got a 4.4 in ice cream, but the atmosphere made it a 5.

We also went to Sheradin's later that night. We didn't go to any of the major chains though like Baskin Robins, Cold Stone, or Marble Slab.

Oh, we also missed out on The Arrogant Texan, which I hear is really good, they're closed until January.

It was a fun tour. We were a little sick by the end, but I think it was worth it. I still love ice cream!

Gingerbread par-tay!

2010-12-12T12:48:00.000-06:00

We had our annual gingerbread party this weekend, and it was a lot of fun. We had 5 couples over (I'm still not sure how we fit everyone into our house) and we all competed for the best gingerbread house!

Here's everyone at work:
and here are the finished products (it's not a very good picture, but maybe you can get the idea):
Here are all the couples with their masterpieces:

Eric and Megan

Taylor and Amanda

Sari and Joseph

Me and Jonathan

and the winner....

The Caputos... who I somehow forgot to get a picture of.. But, they had a great little gingerbread house! Sorry I forgot the picture guys!

Anyway, we had a lot of fun with some good friends. All in all it was a good night!

Turkey day without Turkey

2010-11-26T11:06:00.000-06:00

We had a great Thanksgiving and we have a lot to be thankful for. Instead of the turkey and trimmings, we went to a Japanese Steak House with Gabe and Leslie. Less hassle, no clean up, free dessert.

Neither of us felt like cooking and it seemed like the perfect solution.

Afterward we went and saw "Tangled" then ate some Jello salad (I had to have that.) and played some games. It was fun!

Then I woke up at 4:45, bought 2 laptops, and now I'm deciding which one I want to keep.

A couple of things I don't have pictures of

2010-11-20T22:38:00.000-06:00

I prefer blogs with pictures, but I felt the need to update, and I don't have any pictures.

Here are some recent developments in the Bludorn house:

On Monday I cut a pretty decent length off my hair. I haven't had it this short in a long time, so it's taking some getting used to.

On Tuesday Lubbock got it's very first Chipotle. My husband is overjoyed.

On Thursday I ran our car into the back of someone's SUV. It's at the shop. Thank heaven for good insurance and a husband who works at a car dealership.

On Friday we discovered that Lubbock has a Christmas See's Candy kiosk. Again, my husband is overjoyed.

On Saturday I picked up my new glasses, while I'll still probably only wear them at night, it's nice to at least have the right prescription. And if I did wear them during the day with my new haircut, I'm pretty sure no one would recognize me.

Update: Found a picture.. Here we are waiting in line, for 1.5 hours, at Chipotle on the day it opened.

We did it!

2010-11-07T20:46:00.001-06:00

We successfully completed our first Marathon! We trained for a long time and we were so glad to finally be done with it. I'm pretty certain it won't be our last.

Friday night we drove to Abilene, about 2.5 hours from Lubbock. We ate at the "Carb up Chow down" sponsored by the marathon and got our fill of all sorts of carbs and pasta!

Then we checked into our hotel and got some last minute tips from Rich and Karen (Jonathan's parents, and seasoned marathon runners). Here's Jonathan listening intently to Rich's slogan "Keep Moving Forward"
We tried to get to bed early so we'd be well rested, but it was a bit like Christmas morning, and that made it hard to sleep. We were waking up every hour either excited about it, or worried we'd sleep in too late. We did finally get to sleep though.

We woke up Saturday morning, pinned our numbers on, and headed to the race!

Our real goal was to finish, our sorta goal was to finish under 5 hours. We ran the whole race together, and mostly only walked through waterstops. We met a friend who ran most of the race within 100 yards of us. It was her 4th marathon and she was very prepared! Around mile 12 Jonathan's hip started to hurt pretty bad, and she gave him some Advil which pretty much saved his life. She ended up finishing about 20 minutes behind us because of an injury in her leg that no amount of Advil could help. But we're proud of her for finishing and very thankful for her help in the race!

We crossed the finish line at 4:55:54!

My parents, grandma, little sister, big sister, brother-in-law, and 2 nieces and a nephew all came to watch us finish! We were so glad to see them there, cheering for us as we were crossing the line. Thanks for coming guys!

We went to lunch with the family, said goodbye, then napped for the rest of the day. We could hardly move on Sunday, and it took a while to get back to normal, but we're glad we did it and we plan on keeping it up!

Oh yeah, and when we got home we immediately ordered our 26.2 sticker. We're proud to be finishers!

Side note: Remember that "Nike+" system I was so excited about? It reads from a chip in my shoe and tells me through my ipod how far I've run and how long and my pace and everything. It was wrong. We never calibrated it, which is probably our fault, but it's supposed to be 90% accurate without calibration, and it was way off. After running 26.2 miles, it told me I'd run 30. It was off before we even got to 3 miles, which means all of our training runs weren't as long as we thought they had been. Before the marathon you are supposed to have run at least a 20 mile run, we thought we had, but as it turns out we had probably only ever run about 17 miles. Ugh, no good! Lesson learned: take the time to calibrate the silly thing and you won't regret it. Next time we'll be more prepared!

Pictures

2010-10-31T19:58:00.000-05:00

We had some "family" pictures taken recently. I say "family" because we don't have any kids so it looks more like engagement pictures or something, but anyway, it's our family, and we love it. So, here are a couple of our favorites.

I think this next one would be my favorite pictures except for a couple of little things. I can decide if it's OK to put up because there are just too many little things.

My hand is sticking out funny, my shirt is pulled up under Jonathan's leg, so you see my white tank top, and my foot is bent really funny. If it were just one thing, it would be fine, but it's just too many, what do you think?

*The pictures are by Susan Moore Photography.

Family Love

2010-10-19T18:01:00.001-05:00

We had a great weekend in Dallas. For the first time since... probably Angie's wedding (10 years ago)... all 8 of us kids were together, and most of the spouses and grandkids even made it!

We were mostly there for Dave's baby's blessing, but I didn't manage to snap any pictures of cute little Cage. Trust me though, he was adorable. I also met Wade's sweet baby Ammon for the first time. Cute babies everywhere!

We spent the weekend mostly playing board games, eating well, cheering on the Chiefs and mostly enjoying each others company!

I love my family! Hopefully we'll get together again soon!

Things I haven't posted

2010-10-19T17:57:00.000-05:00

So I found some pictures on my camera and remembered things I haven't updated on. I had a great birthday. Jonathan was great to me. As always.

I think I already mentioned the "gift every Sunday" bit. It was awesome. It made it a 6 week long birthday! LOVE IT! PS. the cake has 2 and 2 candles, instead of 22. He does know how old I am, he just couldn't find enough candles! I must be getting old.

At the beginning of October I got to go on a trip with the Tech Art History Society to Santa Fe, NM. I don't have a lot of pictures of the trip, but I snapped some pictures of my favorite art pieces.

Santa Fe is actually a pretty neat little city. It's full of art. We walked miles of the famous Canyon road, where it's just art gallery after art gallery. I was pretending Jonathan had given me a $15,000 budget to spend on art and I had to decide what pieces I loved most and how many I could get and stuff. It was fun. Then we went downtown and Santa Fe has a cute little down town too. Lots of shops and walking and stuff. I want to go back sometime with my love. If we had to live in a small town with no large towns around it, I'd be OK with Santa Fe.

All Business to Tokyo

2010-10-11T12:11:00.000-05:00

We've been all business for the last couple of weeks. Let me just tell you about 3 days this week.

Tuesday:
6:40 Jonathan leaves for work
7:20 I wake up
8:40 leave for work
9:00 start work
12:00 leave work
12:05 start other job
3:00 leave other job
3:05 get to class late
5:50 class lets out
6:20 finally leave class after finishing my project
6:30 begin thawing meat for dinner
6:40 Jonathan gets home
7:00 shove down dinner
7:30 grocery shop
8:30 get home and change quick
8:45 leave for 5 mile run
9:45 home, shower
10:00 bed

Wed:
6:40 Jonathan leaves for work
7:20 I wake up
8:40 leave for work
9:00 start work
12:00 leave work, get to class
1:00 class over, speed to Jonathan's work to trade car with him
2:00 back to class
3:00 on to next class
6:00 class is out speed home on bike
6:20 start dinner
6:30 Jonathan home
7:00 dinner
7:30 visit Pam and new baby Brett at hospital
8:00 speed home
8:10 start 10 mile run
9:50 home, shower
10:00 bed

Thur:
6:40 Jonathan leaves for work
7:20 I wake up
8:40 leave for work
9:00 start work
12:00 leave work
12:05 start other job
3:00 leave other job
3:05 get to class late
3:10 realize I have to complete 2 more of these big projects by next thursday, wish I had known sooner
5:50 class is out, should stay late. can't.
6:10 home, start dinner, attempt to clean house
6:40 Jonathan home, scarf dinner down
7:00 institute
8:30 speed home, change quick
8:40 start 5 mile run
9:40 home, shower
10:00 bed

Why no, I did not getting any homework, much less reading, done this week. No, I did not clean my house this week, no the laundry did no get done, no, I do not have a lot of time.

I can tell this marathon training has been good for me, but I cannot wait to have my time back! It is taking up so much more time than I had realized it would! 3 weeks! Can't wait.

Right now I'm on fall break, which is really just 2 days off school, but I'm not complaining. I wish I could do something fun but I will be cleaning my house, doing that laundry, writing a paper, and finishing those 2 surprise projects for my design class.

The perfect date

2010-09-19T18:56:00.000-05:00

Jonathan and I like different things. I love to be fancy. I love to dress up, and go to fancy restaurants and have multiple courses and valet parking. Jonathan loves to be comfortable, and stay home, and park where he wants, and what not. Well, we're too poor to be as fancy as I'd like, but we're not poor enough for Jonathan to talk me into staying in ALL night.

So, last night, we found the perfect middle ground. First, we got all dressed up,
me in my new little black dress and this beautiful necklace and earring set Jonathan bought me for my birthday, and Jonathan in my favorite slacks, my favorite tie, and I even made him wear his french-cuffed shirt with his fancy cuff links.

(can you see the necklace? it's beautiful!)

We went out to a Japanese Steak House to celebrate my birthday. The food was delicious, and we pretty much had the place to ourselves (the rest of Lubbock was at the sad, sad Tech vs. UT game). It was great! Then, we went to Applebee's for our favorite dessert shooters. Love them! It was so much fun, and Jonathan was such a gentleman the whole time, opening my door and what-not. He's so great.

After the fancy portion of the date was over, we went home for the "comfy" portion. We changed into our pj's, popped in a red box, and grabbed some popcorn. We snuggled on the couch and watched "The Prince of Persia," which we both thought was cute! It was the perfect end to the perfect date. We both got to do exactly what we wanted. I love hanging out with my husband!

Fall semester is here

2010-09-07T21:32:00.001-05:00

It started! Although, I'm kind of glad, I love getting into a routine. I'm working a lot this semester and taking 12 credits (the lowest I've ever taken, but they're all pretty difficult..), on top of training for a marathon, which, as it turns out, is a huge time commitment. I never expected it to take up so much time, but I'm glad we're doing it. Jonathan is working hard, enjoying his job and training for the marathon with me. We run on October 30, can't wait!

A couple of exciting things from this last little while:

We have a new niece and a new nephew. Matt and Emmy (Jonathan's brother) had a new little girl, and David and Dana (my brother) had a little boy. Both adorable! We got to spend this last weekend in Dallas enjoying Dave and Dana's new baby, Cage (or McKay.. tbd) I never knew holding a new born who is just sleeping could be so much fun! We also liked seeing all our other family that was there, it's nice to only be 5 hours away, but I wish we were even closer.

Also, for the past several weeks my AMAZING husband has been giving me a birthday present every Sunday, even though my birthday isn't until the 22nd. A whole month of birthday! What could be better? First it was a beautiful necklace and earrings, and next it was a pair of running shoes, and this week he gave me the cool little chip that fits in the shoe (unbeknown to me the shoe has a little pocket just for this!) and a little thing that plugs into my ipod and then when I run my ipod will tell me how many miles I've run, what my pace is, how many calories I'm burning, and how long I've been running. I love it! It is so perfect, especially for this training we're doing. We tried it out today and found out the "4 miles" we thought we were running all this time is actually closer to 5.. I'm excited to use it on our even longer runs, we have 16 miles this Saturday!

The Pie Hole

2010-08-15T10:55:00.000-05:00

I've been watching "Pushing Daisies" lately, and I love it. It's two bad it only ran for 2 season. Anyway, in that show the main character owns a pie place called "The Pie Hole." So, naturally, I decided making pie's was my calling in life and I needed to open my own pie show ASAP. Jonathan later convinced me that that is not actually what I want to do with my life, so I decided not to go into the pie business.

I couldn't suppress the urge to make pies though. So, while Jonathan worked all day Saturday, I stayed home and baked pies.

I tried out several different crust recipes and I have decided on a my favorite. I bought a bunch of fruit and threw it together with some sugar and whatnot and made it the filling.

It was fun, but now I have four pies I don't know what to do with (3 now, I gave one to Jonathan's coworkers). I would have more but one of the crust recipes didn't turn out at all.

So, if anyone needs a pie crust recipe, let me know. And if anyone wants one of these pies, come get it!

Bear Lake

2010-08-04T19:31:00.000-05:00

We just returned from an excellent family reunion at Bear Lake in Utah. The drive was loooong, but the fun was worth it!

Jonathan won a couple tournaments, (and should have won a couple more..). Here he is playing Cornhole!
We went out on a boat and went tubing, then jumped on some jetskis for a while. So much fun! But all I have are pictures of the doc because I was too scared to bring my camera on board!

We participated in the family 5K! I came in 2nd in my age group!

And most importantly, we enjoyed being around so much family. It really was a great trip!
And here's a snapshot of the living room of the house we stayed in.. the place was beautiful!!

Celebrations

2010-07-10T13:43:00.000-05:00

It's birthday time of year again at the Bludorn house. Jonathan is 25!! We had a fun week of celebrations, because Jonathan thinks his birthday should last from the 4th of July (when everyone shoots of fireworks to celebrate his birth) until the 8th, the actual day his was born.

We were in Dallas for the fourth helping my parents move into their new place, and we didn't get to go watch any fireworks, but he did get to eat Chipotle twice that weekend, and we sang him happy birthday and made a German chocolate cake. It was fun to celebrate with family, but again, I forgot to take pictures.

On Monday he got his first present, the game "Set" which we have had a lot of fun playing together and we're excited to introduce to our friends!

Tuesday was present number 2, the game "Pit." We haven't had a chance to play it yet because we need more people, but we might bust it out with some friends tonight!

Wednesday he opened his gift number 3, which was a coupon for a 1 hour professional massage. Best gift ever. He loved it. And we also went over to our friend's house and sang and had cake while we were there! So much fun!

Thursday, his actual birthday, he got his big present "Settlers of Catan!" He's wanted it for a while but we kept thinking he had a copy at his parents house, when we finally decided that copy didn't exist, I bought him one for his bday. I'm sure it will get a lot of use! We also went out to dinner Thursday night, I love an excuse to go out!

He spent his whole birthday on the phone, but I didn't complain because I knew he loved the attention :)

Friday we went and enjoyed his free scoop of ice cream at Baskin Robbins! Yum Yum!

And Today, (he doesn't know this yet, but will find out before he reads this) his favorite chocolate See's Candies Milk Bourdeaux will be here! Yay for birthdays! I love making him happy!

Life

2010-06-19T09:53:00.000-05:00

Well... nothing exciting going on here at the Bludorn house. We're both working pretty hard and we don't have a lot of time.

Jonathan started his new job and he really seems to be enjoying it. He's certainly learning a lot and he's very excited to see where the next few years could take him!

I've been working at Barnes and Noble on campus, and just got another job in the Library. It's actually in a little building to the side of the library called the Special Collections Library. I pretty much just scan old books and maps and stuff, but the work is surprisingly interesting. For instance the map I scanned yesterday (worth 30,000 dollars), was carried in a saddle bag for 20 years (and still smelled like it) and it was several hundred years old. It was used to mark all the places the military unit had stopped on it's way out west. That's pretty cool to me. Also, I work right by the conservationist, so I get to see her do some pretty cool things in order to conserve the materials. I've thought about going into conservation work with art before so it's pretty interesting to me.

I'm also taking a french class and loving that it is almost over. Summer terms are the best! They are so short!

Visiting Family

2010-06-09T07:39:00.000-05:00

I just realized that I hadn't yet posted about our quick trip to Dallas, so this is a couple weeks late but here it is anyway.

A couple weeks ago before Jonathan started his job and before summer school started for me, we had been spending all our time at the pool or, in Jonathan's case, playing Xbox. It was killing me to not do anything all day, so when my sister posted something on facebook asking for a babysitter the next day I thought "why not?"

So we threw some bags into the car and drove to Dallas to enjoy the weekend with Robin and her family. We know that in the future, when we have kids and more commitments, it won't be easy for us to just throw our bags into the car and go wherever we want, so we like to take full advantage of this time.

We got to watch both Jack and Isabelle at their softball and baseball practices, we ate some Chipotle, we played a bunch of games, we watched Isabelle and Jack at the softball and baseball games. I even got to see Isabelle win the game ball for getting another girl out at first! Jonathan joined Chris's ward volleyball team and they did great, then he switched and played for the other wards team just in time to help them win the tournament! Then we had some pizza and played some more games. It was great to just hang out and relax with family, can't wait to do it again soon!

This is Isabelle when the coach told her to be "baseball ready" How cute is that?!

Cooking

2010-05-29T16:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I volunteered at a book fair and got a 40 dollar gift card to spend on books. So I bought 5 new cook books. And then I was so excited about cooking that I looked up some of my old favorite cookbooks, that had burned in our fire, on amazon and found one of them for $.01 and another for $1.49, I think I'm going to buy them today. Now, I'm dying to have a fancy dinner party with cute decorations and place mats and a menu and 4 courses, like this! Doesn't that sound fun? You're all invited!

Also, if you're looking for new cookbooks, after searching through all my new ones, this one is the most exciting to me:
And she has a "book 2" with all dessert recipes too! Can't wait to get my hands on that!

Garden

2010-05-19T22:13:00.000-05:00

This is my old patio/porch area (I don't really know what to call it, it's mostly just a slab of cement at my doorstep...)

It was drab, and boring, and never very welcoming. Well, I decided I wanted to spice it up a bit and add some color and I thought a garden was the best way to do that. However, we rent, so I couldn't just start digging into the ground around it. I went with potted plants. After a lot of hard work,

We got it to look like this:

I also decided that potted plants were a good idea because they are easier than real plants. So, this is my new little "garden," and I love it.

I think it looks even better when you put a good looking man in the middle of it.

Graduation

2010-05-16T10:57:00.000-05:00

Jonathan graduated yesterday and we had a whole day of celebration! Jonathan's Dad is in town, and my parents and little sister came out from Tyler, and Gabe and Leslie who are already here joined us and we all celebrated!

In the morning we went to the graduation, which was really nice. I am so proud of Jonathan, he worked really hard for this!

After the ceremony we had a little cook-out at the park where we were joined by my cousin Kelli and her husband Dana, who also had graduations this weekend, and my Aunt Tina and Uncle Pat who were in town for Kelli and Dana's graduations! It was a fun little party and we got to spend a lot of time enjoying each others company!

After that we rested a bit, watched a movie and then later that night we headed out to watch the West Texas Roller Dollz roller derby team! It was a lot of fun, I'm thinking I should join the team ;)

Then, at 11 o'clock that night we headed out to watch Gabe play a game with his indoor soccer team and we saw Gabe score, twice!

We loved getting to hang out with family, thanks to everyone that helped us celebrate!

All done

2010-05-09T10:34:00.001-05:00

Last night Jonathan had his very last choir concert, which was also his very last activity as an undergraduate! Graduation isn't until next week, but he is all done with everything now! I'm so proud of him (and I can't wait to be in his shoes)! His concert was a great way to finish off his college career. We got all dressed up, he got to perform, and then we got to attend a little reception thing for him, it was a great goodbye to college for him!

In other big news, the whole point of graduating is to get a job in the big kid world, and Jonathan has done just that! He was offered a job this week with a company here in Lubbock, which is perfect because it means we don't have to move, and I don't have to transfer! It's a really great opportunity and even better is that he gets to transfer in two years, right after I graduate! I couldn't have planned it better myself!

In honor of his job and the fact that we get to stay in our place for more than 9 months (which is the longest we've ever been in one place), and we get to make it a real home, we bought strawberry plants!! I'm excited to watch them grow and hopefully get to eat something I grew for myself! Can't wait!

So, here's to Jonathan. He really is the best, I couldn't ask for a better husband, or friend! Love you!

Almost there

2010-05-03T14:00:00.000-05:00

We are getting so close to being done with the semester from... a bad place.

I have one more paper to write (that I should be doing now, instead of updating the blog), and two tests to take. Jonathan has a couple of tests, and maybe a project or two. Both of us will be done by Saturday!

I started working at Barnes and Noble for buyback, hopefully I get a lot of hours there.

I also recently added a minor to my degree program. I am now officially minoring in both French (if I can survive the classes) and Classics. I'm really excited for classics. It is going to go perfectly with my major and is just super interesting on its own!

Anyway, that is what is going on with us, sorry about the lack of excitement. Maybe next week.

One crazy weekend

2010-04-25T17:36:00.000-05:00

We had quite the weekend. We were both busy and had to be in different places at the same time which is not easy with one car, but we survived and it was actually a really fun weekend.

On Friday Jonathan had a choir concert to be at, and I had an art show in a small town about 20 minutes away from here. I wish I had taken some pictures of this place. One of the art professors here at Tech bought an old warehouse on the little town square of Slaton and turned half of it into her house (I peeked in the windows, because I'm curious, and also because they were huge show room windows from when it used to be a store front so it wasn't hard to peek and the house was awesome! I loved it!), the other half of the warehouse she turned into her studio/gallery space. It's amazing. Any artist would love it. Anyway, the actual show that was going on was exhibiting the graduate painters and I really liked it. I'm impressed with the talent at Tech. We have a pretty great art department.

Then after the Art show and I drove as quick as I could while still being safe and not getting a ticket, so I could get back to Lubbock in time to see one of my old favorite bands: Mae! In high school I loved them but I haven't listened to them in a while. They were performing a free show on Tech campus so when I heard about it I knew I couldn't miss it! I got there just as the opening band was finishing and thanks to awesome Adam and Suzanne who got there early, I got to stand right up front. Here's some great pictures from the night:

Me with Suzanne, we both love the band, neither of our husbands, on the other hand, had ever heard of them.

When Jonathan got out of his choir concert he came to join me at the Mae show:

Here we are with the lead singer, guitarist, and drummer. We're pretty tight now.

After that we went to Ihop, ate way too much, then came home and went to bed.

Saturday was busy too! First I went to Zumba (which I seriously love, everyone should try it), then we headed up to the pool to get some color on our skin. The Rec center on Tech Campus has this amazing Leisure pool where I spend all my time, and it's free to Tech students (and by free I mean we pay a mandatory fee with our tuition). I love it.

After a couple hours there we got dressed and headed over to the "Spring Fling" carnival event that our on campus activities board was sponsoring. They had a bunch of those blow up carnival games, and gave us some lunch and a t-shirt. Overall it was pretty fun.

Then... we came home and changed again and I headed up to a fashion show on campus and Jonathan went to another choir performance. My fashion show was pretty fun, it was all the of the fashion design majors who are graduating this year. Most of the lines were pretty good, although there were only one or two I was really impressed with. It was a fun excuse for me to dress up though, and I got some ideas for some things I want to make, so that was good.

Then I headed down the hall to sneak in late to Jonathan's concert. His choir did a great job and I'm really glad I got to see him perform. He's really talented and I think he needs to let more people know (Cough - go to ward choir - cough).

And to wrap it up we went to Dairy queen and enjoyed 25 cent blizzards. Even though we have the worst dairy queen on earth, they were good.

Today we slept in forever. Our ward boundaries changed last week so now we go to a new ward and we meet at 2:30pm. It's kind of crazy to get out of church at 5:30, but I'm sure we'll get used to it.

Overall, it's been a fun weekend, and if you're still reading after such a long post, thanks!

Kids have some serious insight.

2010-04-20T21:16:00.000-05:00

I know I post enough cheesy love stuff on here to make you guys puke, but bear with me, I saw this and thought it was really cute so now you all get to read it. Enjoy!

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?"

The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."
Rebecca- age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."
Billy - age 4

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."
Karl - age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."
Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."
Terri - age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."
Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss"
Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."
Bobby - age 7

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,"
Nikka - age 6
(we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."
Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."
Tommy - age 6

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore."
Cindy - age 8

"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night."
Clare - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."
Elaine-age 5

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford."
Chris - age 7

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."
Mary Ann - age 4

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you."
Karen - age 7

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."
Jessica - age 8

Cute right? I love how little kids think!

Sincinnati Curprise

2010-04-14T17:13:00.000-05:00

Yea, best surprise ever. I flew to Cincinnati this last weekend; only Andrew knew I was coming. We arranged to meet my family at Skyline Chili for lunch before the Reds game, Andrew walked in first and sat down and I walked in a moment later. They weren't expecting me and when my mother turned around and saw me she HAD. A. COW. Good times.
Sarah, my sister, just got home from her mission, so it was my first time seeing her. Kudos on a mission-well-done.
Of course I made sure to get all the great things that come with Cincinnati like Graeters Ice Cream, Skyline Chili, Chipotle (2 days in a row!), Saturday morning donuts, Reds games, and Cornhole.
Oh, and I bought some dirt and dug some holes, cuz that's what I...love doing..., it's worth it to spend some quality time with me mommy.

Quick note on the reds game: Pretty slow game until.....8TH INNING CRAZYHOUSE. We were down 3 to 1 against the cubs and the game was going nowhere fast. We decide to watch the last inning from the lower decks before we head home, thinking it's all over, not much too see. Then we load the bases. Then there is a grand slam. Then crazy cubs fans go wild and get kicked out of the stadium. We're surrounded by drunk people and one of them decides that our family is his new best friend and he chats us up for a bit. Now we're ahead by two. Top of the ninth, Cubs hit a solo home run, but its ok, we had insurance and are still ahead. Until the cubbies load the bases...two "errors" by our short stop, right in a row almost threw the game, but we closed it out, 5 to 4. Yea, stupid cubs, our C is better than your C.

Sarah had a open-house party on Sunday night but I missed it...she drove me to the airport and we got to chat just the two of us. Very cool.

For Emma Brinkerhoff, er... Pipes.

2010-04-07T09:48:00.000-05:00

I forgot I was tagged, so this is a little late, but here you go.

Four shows I like to watch...
1. How I Met Your Mother
2. The Office
3. Modern Family
4. Glee (Can't wait for it to come back on!!)

Four things I'm passionate about...
1. My husband
2. The Gospel
3. Art
4. Not being fat...

Four phrases I say a lot...
1. I love you
2. You know
3. I'm STARVING!
4. rude!

Four things I have learned from the past...
1. Pick your battles
2. Husbands are usually right
3. Trust your heart
4. The church is true

Four places I want to go...
1. Italy
2. Australia
3. China
4. England

Four things I did yesterday...
1. Worked out
2. Studied for my art history test
3. Gave a speech
4. Watched the episode I missed of Flash Forward

Four things I'm looking forward to...
1. Moving
2. Summer
3. buying a house (someday)
4. The puppy Jonathan promised to get me!

Four things I love about spring
1. Thunder Storms
2. Brightly colored dresses
3. Getting out of school
4. Pools opening

Four things on my wish list...
1. A puppy
2. A sweet job when I graduate
3. A money tree
4. A never ending supply of chocolate that somehow doesn't make me fat.

Four people to tag...
1. Andrea
2. Adrianne
3. Suzanne
4. Anyone else who wants to do it!

You can find me

2010-04-05T21:17:00.000-05:00

here:

This is where I have spent my last couple weeks, and where I plan to spend my next several. There are something like 5 more weeks of school. I am done with 2 of my 5 classes, and have way too much spare time.

Bring on the sun!

Spring Break Part 2: Dallas

2010-03-26T10:01:00.000-05:00

After our fun campout we drove another 4 hours east the Dallas so we could hang out with my sister Robin, and her family. We had a lot of fun. All her kids and her husband, who is a school teacher, were on spring break too, so we got to hang out with everyone! We went on a walk to Chipotle (might have been the highlight of Jonathan's week...), we watched the Fort Worth cattle drive and wandered around Fort Worth for a while, we flew kites, and we played lots and lots of games. We planned on leaving Friday so I could get home to get some work done, but Jonathan wanted to go golfing with Chris on Friday so we stayed, which was nice because that meant we got to see my Mom and sister Kadi, who came in Friday night! It was a great week! Here's some pictures:

This is Jonathan and Chris "helping" Eva walk to Chipotle. She was not a fan.

I was braiding Isabelle's hair, then Eva decided she would braid my hair. And then Jack wanted to mess up whatever Eva was doing...

Eva and I waiting for the cattle to come around the corner

Jack and the longhorns

Jonathan and I hanging out in the stockyards

Camping with the Caputos

2010-03-21T14:10:00.001-05:00

For the first half of our Spring Break we went camping with Adam and Sue Caputo at Lake Altus in Oklahoma. It was pretty cold, but otherwise pretty fun! Here's some pictures of our fun weekend:

Here we are roasting hot dogs. We also learned about roasting Starburts. MMM MMM MMM! So good!

The first day there we hiked up this huge mountain. It's all boulders and not like a marked path so it was pretty difficult, but we still managed to get all the way to the top!

We went on another hike on the second day, this one had better trails and was through the woods instead of up a mountain. Although, the boys still managed to find their way off the trail and onto whatever cliff or into whatever cave was near…

After all our hiking we made cupcakes inside orange peels, (so good!) and celebrated Suzanne's birthday! Happy birthday!

We had a lot of fun and can't wait to do it again, hopefully it will be a little warmer next time!

Our House is Clean and We Are Not

2010-03-07T17:21:00.001-06:00

We have had a very productive weekend.

Friday we got to attend a special reception congratulating Jonathan for making the honor roll. Here he is shaking hands with the Dean:

He's so smart!

Next, we got to go to an open house for the School of Art. I really think I could walk through Art Museums forever. I love them!

Then, on Saturday after I got home from Zumba (which I am really starting to love!) we decided to get down and dirty and deep clean the kitchen. We pulled everything out of all the cabinets, cleaned and sanitized the shelves, then reorganized and restocked everything. It looks beautiful! We should do that more often. Although, it made us realize how little is actually in our refrigerator. Have no fear, though, we had a very successful grocery shopping trip later in the day (Side note: does anyone else find it hard use the canvas shopping bags? I'm all for saving the earth but I always feel like I'm in the cashier's way. Do you hand them the bags, do you fill it yourself while they sit and watch you giving you dirty looks because it takes so long? Especially when they just have that really little turn table of plastic bags and there isn't really a place for them to place the scanned groceries while you load them… It's nice that Wal-Mart uses canvas bags in all of their commercials now, but they aren't actually helping the matter because their stores are so not conducive to using them, and it isn't just Wal-Mart, we went to a real grocery store yesterday that had the same problem.)

Then… we went up to campus to celebrate Holi, the Hindu holiday celebrating the arrival of spring. Here we are before the start of the celebration:

We got to watch a little dancing, I would love to wear these outfits everyday! So colorful!

What comes next is the fun part, they hand out little packets of stuff that feels like colored flour, and you throw it at each other. What better way to celebrate the beautiful colors that come with the arrival of spring?!

So, we ran around and threw colors on everyone, and ended up looking like this:

We had a lot of fun! Here's to hoping the color will come out of my shoes!

Excuse me while I rant

2010-02-26T21:27:00.000-06:00

If you haven't heard this story, feel free to read about it here: http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/rebecca-reyes-speaks-estranged-husband-joseph-jail-taking/

In a Nutshell: Joseph and Rebecca Reyes fell in love. He was Catholic, She was Jewish. He converted, was circumcised, signed a Jewish marriage contract, had a Jewish wedding, and according to Rebecca "never went to Catholic church after that" (Joseph says he did go. "not as often as I would have liked to, but I did go"). Rebecca says they "had a Jewish home." They had a baby, Ela. They got divorced. Rebecca was granted custody, Joseph had weekends, and something like one week night a week.

So, what does bitter Joseph do? He took Ela to a Catholic church, had her baptized, and e-mailed pictures to Rebecca. Reasonably upset, Rebecca got a judge to issue a court order says something along the lines of "Joseph can't take Ela to any church that isn't Jewish"

Bitter Joseph makes his next move: CALL A FREAKING NEWS CREW, and has them follow him while he defies the court order and takes his daughter to Mass.

Rebecca is following the legal steps to punish him for not obeying the court order, this could include up to 6 months in jail.

You can already tell how I feel. He CONVERTED. He convinced his wife he was happy to be a Jew. What do you bet she wouldn't have had a kid with him if she thought otherwise? If he was a devout Catholic and they had agreed to disagree on Religion and decided their love was more important, well then there would be a decision to be made about how to raise their children. But he converted, he effectively told his wife they would be a Jewish family. He was willing to absolutely give up Catholicism, how dare he now come back and say it's important to him. He made an agreement and I'm sorry that their marriage didn't work out, but they agreed to raise that child Jewish and that is what should be done unless BOTH parents decide otherwise.

I feel for this poor woman. This is her child's eternal salvation. I don't agree with her religion, but I can understand how this is making her feel. I cannot imagine, as a Latter-Day Saint, finding out that, without out my permission, my child was, I don't know, ritually circumcised as a Jew, for instance.

I do not feel for him. None of this has to do with his, or his child's eternal salvation. If he was worried about that he wouldn't have converted or agreed to raise his children Jewish. What he is doing it out of spite. It's immature and inappropriate. Rebecca should be granted full custody, as a father he should be allowed to visit, but never outside Rebecca's home.

How dare he.

Busy Busy

2010-02-25T21:23:00.000-06:00

We live for the weekends. 10 more weeks of school.

10.
after that is 9. then 8.

You know how the rest goes.

Then my husband will have his Bachelors degree, and a great job.

and me? I will have a new swim suit that I will wear while laying next to a pool (whatever pool I can find).

I will think of nothing important or productive and do my best to forget the stress of this semester. That's my plan.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

2010-02-14T21:53:00.001-06:00

We don't do much for Valentine's Day around here because it's so close to our anniversary and we'd rather celebrate that. But, we felt like we should do something to acknowledge the holiday so:

We made cookies:

And they were (and still are) delicious! We search Wal-Mart forever yesterday trying to find heart shaped cookie cutters. You wouldn't think it would be so difficult. The only cookie cutters of any kind that we were able to find were in a box of 101 cookie cutters. That box has everything: Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, Sports, Letters, Animals, and Shapes... EVERYTHING! So, naturally, we bought it. There were like 12 different heart shapes, and we used all of them! I will forever be able to make whatever shape of cookie anyone wants. Can't wait!

So, anyway, we made a bunch of cookies and didn't want to get fat so we decided to bring some to our neighbors, which initially sounded like a good idea to me.

Jonathan arranged them beautifully:

Then we got ready to take them to the intended recipients. I get SO nervous doing this kind of thing. I don't know what it is, it's the same problem I have with calling people. I always fear they're busy, don't have time to talk, or don't care to talk, or whatever. I just hate doing it. And I forget that I hate it until times like this. I thought it was a good idea, I was all excited because what kind of neighbor wouldn't like cookies, then I started worrying that there were too many or too few cookies on the plate, they were going to think we're weirdos or whatever. Bah! I just hate it, and it didn't help that one of our neighbors is Russian and really did think we were crazy. She also didn't seem to understand that we were giving the cookies to her. Jonathan was like "Here, you can take them." She really didn't get the gesture at all.

Anyway, I'm glad it's over, and I hope they liked it. I know I shouldn't care so much, but I really just can't help it.

The Best TWO Years

2010-02-05T20:54:00.001-06:00

Warning: This post is going to be MUSHY and GUSHY and LOVEY and DOVEY and all about how great my husband is.

Tuesday was our 2 year anniversary! Two whole years! I must say, they have been pretty excellent.

In celebration, Jonathan treated me like a princess all day. Tuesday's are our long days, so we decided to celebrate on Monday night. Last year, I planned our celebrations, so this year the ball was in Jonathan's court and he was amazing. He went with a theme of two, everything was in twos.

To start he gave me TWO red roses, which were beautiful. Then, he gave me a plate of chocolate covered strawberries. D-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s!

Next, we got dressed up (because he knows I love to) and ready to go to dinner. First, though, he gave me my TWO presents: A framed picture of Christ that I've been wanting, and a framed picture of the temple!

On to dinner, we ate at TWO restaurants! At the first restaurant we had TWO courses, and then at the second restaurant we had TWO desserts!

After dinner we watched TWO movies. Our wedding video was first, and was really fun to watch, and Notting Hill (my all time favorite movie) was second and I loved every minute of it!

When the movie was over I assumed our celebration was too, but he still had a couple tricks up his sleeve.

I had to be at work at 5:45 the next morning. Usually when I have to be at work this early, Jonathan tries his hardest to stay asleep while I get ready, but not today! While I was getting ready Jonathan made me my SECOND strawberry treat: Crepes! He made me crepes for breakfast at 5 in the morning! Now that's love!

And then (yes, there is more!) when I got to work and walked into the place where we clock-in there was a SECOND vase of two red roses waiting for me! I'm still not sure how he pulled that one off!

Now I have four beautiful roses that make me smile every time I walk in the door. My husband is pretty perfect!

Seriously though, I am so lucky to be married to him. He is my best friend and I love him with all my heart. I am so glad we're had these two years to spend together, getting to know each other better and becoming even closer. I can't imagine my life any different, and I know this is how things were meant to work out. I know that we were put in each other's lives for a reason.

Today we went to the temple and unexpectedly ended up doing sealings. It was really special for us to be back where we were two years ago and hear the covenants we made and blessings we have been promised. "Time and all Eternity" sounds perfect to me!

Jonathan, I love you. Thanks for everything.

Our week in Numbers

2010-01-30T14:08:00.000-06:00

2. The number of things stolen out of our car this week. Yeah, we went out to the car to go to church on Sunday to find the car door open, our GPS missing, and our cup of change (which really only amounted to probably 10 dollars.. but still). I really don't understand why someone thought they deserved that GPS more than we did. We filed a police report and everything, but there's really nothing they can do.

9. Number of Pawn shops Jonathan has visited in hopes of recovering our poor Pheobe (the GPS). The cops told him that's what criminals usually do with their goods.

$34.00. The cost to have the last year of my blog printed into a book. Actually, it goes from when I started my blog in October of '08 to the end of '09. I'm pretty stoked about it and it should get here this week. Can't wait! I did it at Blog2Print.com. I hope I can do it every year!

3. number of inches of snow it takes to cause Lubbock to panic. Woot! No school for two days! The roads are awful, and the lack of any kind of drainage system means that even after the snow melts everything will flood. Great.

37. combined number of credits we're taking this semester.

4:30am. The time I have to wake up to get to work in the mornings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.

0. The number of ipod chargers I have. Turns out this charger is missing too. Last place I saw it? With my camera charger that I can't find either. I think they ran away together.

13760395. Number of pictures of dogs I've looked at and begged Jonathan to let me get. No luck yet, but I'm working on it. I've decided I want a yorkshire terrier. They are so cute!

So, our week hasn't really been that eventful, and the rest of this semester probably won't be either, but hey, at least we're giving you updates, right?>