12:50 PM


It's official...Ryan got into UCF!! 
I could not be more proud of him.  It's totally blowing my mind to think that we will be living in Florida!  For those of you who don't know, UCF stands for University of Central Florida.  It is located in Orlando, about 45 minutes away from our home town and was Ryan's top choice of school for mainly location purposes, but also because they are big on research, have great connections with the local engineering firms and a high job placement after graduation.  Ryan submitted his application and within one week they had accepted him!  (I was never worried since Ryan is such an academic stud.)  We honestly feel so blessed to be able to live so closely to our families...and the beach!  It's been 8 years for me since I've officially lived in Florida and I am so excited to be going home.  I am so looking forward to our crazy move across the country and our new adventures in O-town.  More updates to come!    

2:26 PM

So far I have had a slow start to my 2011 blogging.  Normally I am busting at the seems with info and pictures for the blog, but Ryan and I have our heads down just furiously working away at school, work, the Branbury, our calling, grad school and, well, just life I guess.  Nothing fabulously spectacular has happened to us so I will give you a quick update.

The Dinner Group
Ryan and I joined a dinner group.  What is a dinner group, you ask?  A dinner group consists of 5 couples who each choose one night a week to cook for the whole group.  Dinner is served every night of the week, Monday-Friday, and you only have to cook once!  Yes, you will be cooking for 10, but if you are smart about what and how you make things, this is not only convenient for you time-wise but also very budget friendly.  We love your group and are excited to see how this all works out.  We cooked last night and so far no terrible complains so I think we are in :)

Prison Break/Reading
I'm pretty sure you can guess who is doing what, but Ryan and I have really enjoyed our evenings when we are not over planned.  These nights consist of food and then an episode of Prison Break for Ryan with his headphones on with me laying next to him reading some sort of pregnancy book.  (No I'm not pregnant, just overly prepared.  Thanks for asking.)  Ryan has been on a roll with this show.  I didn't know if it would spur on his criminal tendencies or not, but thankfully is has actually squashed his desire to go to prison "just to see what it's like".  For this I thank you Prison Break.  And it makes me happy to know Ryan still wants to hang out together even though we have different interests.

Waiting
We will probably be waiting for a little while now to hear back from schools.  For some reason I'm not even worried about where we will be in 4 months.  It feels very natural for us to be moving on, whether it's graduate school or working and doing an MBA or just winging it!  Maybe my frame of mind has changed a little since I'm trying to have more "joy in the journey" but I feel really at peace right now.  Whether we wait a few weeks or a few months, I am happy knowing I'm hanging with my best friend just waiting to see where life takes us.    

Skype
I am so not technologically advanced.  I don't have an iPhone or an iPad or a smartphone.  I still calendar my life with a million sticky notes and google stuff on our desktop PC.  Oddly enough my Mom, the other week, asked if I would skype with her.  I told her I didn't have a webcam and her and my dad were shocked.  "You don't have a webcam?"  They basically implied I was living in a cave for not having one.  So they were nice enough to pitch in and now we are skyping machines.  Emily and I live 5 minutes away from each other but we skyped for like a hour last night about random stuff.  I even skyped with mom to show her how cute the baby I was babysitting was!  Skype is wonderful.  I'm glad we are finally catching up with the rest of the technology world. 

Hopefully we will do something exciting soon so I my posts can be a little more interesting! 

2:15 PM

As some of you know, my resolution for 2010 was to begin a blog, learn how to use it and start recording our memories.  I have to say this is one of the first years I can remember that I actually followed through on my resolution.  Happy Blogiversary to me!  Blogging has become a sort of journal for Ryan and I's adventures and I have loved every minute of it.  Our life is nothing out of the ordinary, but looking back at 2010 has given me wonderful perspective to appreciate the little things. 
Our life hasn't changed drastically since last year...we are still in Provo, Ryan is still in school, I am still working...but 2011 is going to be a big year for us, I can just feel it.  Ryan will be graduating, I will be going back to school (fingers crossed!), Ryan will most likely start grad school, we will hopefully make the move back to the sunshine state...the list seems endless.  All of these changes can make a control freak lose her mind.  So I am resolving to have a little more joy in my journey in 2011.  That's right.  I'm going to enjoy the crazy, uncertainty of life and not sweat the dishes in the sink or that we are running late to a friend's house.  I am going to take the proverbial chill-pill and try to actually enjoy whatever comes our way.  So that means little-to-no complaining on the blog.  I say little-to-no because I'm a realist, but I promise I will do my best.  There is no use complaining when we have been so blessed with so many things and I am going to try to focus on the good before I open my mouth to complain about the bad.  
You can ask Ryan in a week how this is going :)    

6:30 PM

Ryan's birthday was Tuesday and we jumped at the chance to go to Salt Lake to look at guitars.  Ryan has been playing his guitar pretty regularly and is in dire need for a new guitar so we went on the hunt for some brands that he may like to purchase in the future when we are actually making money.


Just a smidge out of our price range.

I think we found a winner!  It was a Taylor.  Jack Johnson sometimes plays with a Taylor so i think that made Ryan pretty happy about this choice.


Jamming on the electric.

On his actual birthday we woke up and actually went to the gym. I know.  It's a miracle.  but it was a great way to start the day!  Ryan opened his presents when we got back.

A little technical difficulty getting it out of the package.


Happy day!  A new skateboard!  Thanks Mom and Dad!



All the loot.  I tried to butter him up with a lot of surfing stuff to get his mind determined to get us back to warmer weather. I think it's working! 

The birthday muffin and stud muffin.  Happy 25th handsome!

Action shot of blowing out the candle.

We decided to use our day off to go to the temple.  Provo is closed so we headed over to Timp.  It was so beautiful!  Reminded me of the Sacramento Temple.  Unfortunately with Provo closed everyone and their dog was at Timp and the line for the session was out the chapel doors!  And of course there is no turning back, but we stuck with it and even made if out in time for dinner.

Thank you Tucanos for your birthday buy one get one free deal! 
I am so glad that Ryan and I have gotten to spend the last 4 of his birthdays together.  I am still so amazed by the man that he is and am so proud to be his wife.  Hopefully I don't embarrass him too badly but I can't say enough wonderful things about him.  I look forward to spending a million more birthdays together!

6:16 PM

Merry Christmas!!  Christmas morning was wonderful.  We opened gifts, ate a breakfast casserole and even opened some of our gifts.


Grandma accidentally mixed up our aprons.  I think Ryan rocks the pink though.


We also went to a local nrusing home to visit with some of the residents there.  It was so fun to meet with them and to hear of their lives and accomplishments.  One lady I met is a published author!  She showed me her book and was so proud.  They invited us to eat with them, but we were still pretty full from the casserole so we just talked and played games with them. 

Ryan picked these boots out himself!  Merry Christmas to me!

We celebrated Christmas dinner with Janneke and Danny and Janneke's Dad with a yummy honey baked ham.  Num num num.  It was so nice to have such wonderful friends to spend such a special day with.  I couldn't help but post this great picture of Carson.  Santa's little helper :)

4:59 PM

Christmas Eve was a little different this year.  We decided to hunker down in Utah and brave Christmas alone.  We were a little hesitant about the idea but we were confident in our choice and had a wonderful holiday.  Christmas Eve is my Dad's birthday so in honor of him we went to go see a movie.  It really didn't feel like Christmas Eve until I stepped into the movie theater...weird I know, but true. 

After the movie I cooked some yummy steak and potatoes. 


We had to distract ourselves with more movies or we both would've ripped open our presents before Christmas.


This is one of Ryan's classic childhood Christmas memories, watching Mickey Mouses' Christmas Special so we sat and watched a few of the short cartoons.  Ryan was so excited! 
Ryan got me bundled up and we went out looking at Christmas lights and then read the story of the birth of the Savior.  It was a nice, humble Christmas Eve without any hustle and I could really appreciate the reason for the season.  It was a great day and we promise we will be there next year for your birthday Dad :)

1:40 PM

This is by far the scariest picture I've ever seen.  Our snowman looks a little upset, but it's all good.

This week we woke up to a lot of snow.  I was happy that we would be having a white Christmas but surprisingly a lot of this snow has already melted!  Don't get me wrong it's still cold and dreary, just not as white out as I would like for our first Utah Christmas.  My Volvo is seriously covered.




Here is our snowman Frederick.  He's so cute!  He does have arms...it's just a little hard to see.  The snow was perfect for making snowmen.


Ryan looks so handsome in the snow.  Oh Utah...how I will not miss your blizzards when I'm at the beach sipping margaritas in Florida.  But for now I will take your winter wonderland and work with it.

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