Mixed tapes

I already boasted about my husband once on facebook today, but I couldn't resist another. 

I was cleaning out my car this afternoon and I found an old mix cd Jonathan made for me when we were dating.  I LOVE it.  It has all these songs that remind me of old jokes we had or dates we went on, even the name of the cd references an old inside joke.  When he made it cds were already on their way out, but I'm so glad I have it because our kids are never going to know the joy of receiving a mix cd (or tape), or the nervousness that accompanies giving one to someone important to you.  It's a whole part of our life they are never going to know about.  It's just so special to me!

Today is just one of those days where I fell in love with my husband all over again. He's seriously the greatest. 

Graduation (and some other updates)

First, check this out:

You saw that right, it's a PONYTAIL! Never mind that all my hairs are pinned back in order to make it work, it's a big step!

Moving on, I am all done with school (my undergrad anyway)!! I don't know what to do with myself now that I don't have any more papers to write. 

This is me making my last set of flashcards. I think I, personally, have kept the note card industry in business for the last 4 years.  Not being in school might put a lot of people out of work..




And this is what I did with all of my notes when I finished my last final.  I was pretty stoked!






On Saturday I finally graduated!!  My Parents, Kadi, Dane & Deena, Gabe, Leslie & Kobe, and Robin & Chris and their 6 kids all came to celebrate with me.  It was so nice to have so much support.  However, mom still has all those pictures so I don't have pictures with them.

This next picture is me with all the Art History majors.  Yeah, there are only 3 of us!

And here are the rest of the pictures from the ceremony:

My family had to leave Saturday afternoon but that evening we had a little BBQ with a bunch of our friends.  I LOVE summer and hanging out at the park with good friends.  It was fun!

Later that evening we started another episode of Downton Abbey, Jonathan finally agreed to watch it (I've already seen all the episodes) and now he's addicted.  We ate strawberry shortcake and cuddled, after a crazy weekend, it was perfect.

Sunday we went and took some pictures on campus with the art building and my work (the special collections library) etc.

And here I am with my diploma (in the new frame my man bought me!)

On another note, this was our view of the eclipse:

Oh, and check out this BEAUTY! My parents bought me this fantastic watch for my graduation and it arrived yesterday and I am soooo excited about it!

Mother's Day

I love Mother's Day because everyone is so nice to their moms.  It's very much deserved. 

I, for one, have an awesome mom.  I would love to post a picture of the two of us, but I don't have one readily available.  I can think of lots of great pictures.  When I was a kid I used to wonder why anyone in the world would have 8 kids.  (I still wonder that a lot)  Lots of times I even would question whether a person could love 8 loud, obnoxious, and often annoying (I'm speaking of my siblings here, not myself obviously) kids, and I would think maybe she loved the first couple because they were cute but I was number 7.. she'd already had 6 other kids so how could she love another set of grimy hands?  Well, there's one particular picture I remember from my scrapbook where I am sitting on a table wearing a tie (must've been my brother's) and my mom is holding me and laughing with me and when I'd look at the picture I could see that she still loved me, even if I was number 7, I could tell she still loved having me around.  There's another picture I have from when I was on the swim team in high school.  I had just knocked a bunch of time off of my 200 and my mom was at the finish line yelling for me.  She was right there as I got out of the water telling me I did such a great job as someone snapped the picture.  I can think of lots of pictures of us at my wedding where she pretty much planned the whole thing with her sisters.  I don't think I would have had a reception at all if it hadn't have been for her.  I have a great mom.  I don't know many other people that could love, and care for, and raise 8 kids as well as she did.  Thanks Mom!

I am also grateful for my mother-in-law who must've done something awesome in raising her kids because her son turned out pretty perfect, and who now loves me like one of her own daughters.  Thanks Karen!


Happy Mother's Day!

The Bludorns came to visit!

On Friday morning Jonathan and I drove up to Dallas.  We hung out with my mom for a little bit before heading to the airport to pick up Jonathan's parents, Rich and Karen.  They came to hang out with us for the weekend (and also to pick up Rich's new car).

We went from the airport strait to the Sixth Floor Museum, this was Rich's one request for our time in Dallas.  The Sixth Floor Museum is all about JFK's shooting (from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository).  We walked through the museum, and the grassy knoll, and dealey plaza and thought about whether it could have been done by a lone shooter and whatnot.  Rich and Jonathan are now more convinced than ever that Oswald couldn't have acted alone. 

Then we went by to my parents house and ate pizza and played a game called Logos.  Rich and Karen went to their hotel for the night and Jonathan and I slept at my parents house. In the morning (after a delicious breakfast by my mom, and a quick game of acquire) we drove back to Lubbock with Rich and Karen! We got here just in time to show Karen the town (Rich has been before).  I had to head off to a TAHS party for a little bit and then I met up with everyone again for dinner at Zio's followed by a must do in Lubbock: The Pie Bar! I love that place!

Rich and Karen left this morning, so it was a pretty short visit but we had a lot of fun!   Thanks for coming to visit Rich and Karen!

Life in Lubbock

...isn't always exciting.  Now that my thesis is over I'm catching up in all my other classes, but I also have a lot more free time.  Last week I made a new dress, it was the easiest dress I've ever made:

 There's a stray dog that lives on the mattresses that our trashy neighbor put out by the dumpsters.  Jonathan loves him.. he sits at the window like a cute like kid watching him and always asks if he can feed him.  I always say no.

 We went to a rally race the other night.  It was about as exciting as you might imagine.  The crowd was like a nascar crowd only these people couldn't afford to get into a nascar race.  So yeah, classy.  It was fun though.  Jonathan's company has the Daytona 500 pacecar for a little while so he got to do a couple of laps on the track between races. 

Easter and Thesis

We had a great Easter.  I made stripey jello and it was delicious!

Jonathan made a turkey, and we had some couples from our ward over.  We ate good food and played a couple games. 

Then when everyone left I went back to work on my thesis.  Like always. 

But then came Friday.  On Friday I presented my thesis in front of all my professors (and my parents!), and you know what? They liked it! I got second place, and some really good feedback. 

I feel so relieved that that is over! I can have my life back! yay!

(I'm presenting again in the Undergraduate Research Conference this week, but at least that's not for a grade!)

TAHS trip to Dallas

 Last weekend I went with the Tech Art History Society on a little trip to Dallas to visit the museums there.  We were supposed to have a bunch of people with us, but it ended up only being 4 people, and one girl stayed with her own family so most of the time it was just three of us!

It was a fun trip anyway, and I got to see a lot of Dallas that I hadn't seen before.  We drove up Friday night (and got to have dinner with my parents, and visit Robin and all her kids!), and we stayed at Lisette's house.  Then on Saturday we toured the Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher.  Both were great! I loved them! Then we hung around a bit, we even stopped at a cupcake shop! It was delicious.

 That night we went out for a nice dinner at The Old Warsaw.  The food was delicious!

 Then on Sunday we went to the Kimball to see their Impressionism exhibit, which was awesome, and I toured the rest of the museum too because I'd never been there.  I found a Caillebotte:

We went pretty quickly through the Fort Worth Modern afterward then headed home.  It was short trip but I loved it.  I'm glad I got to see all of this before I move away, I can't believe it's taken me this long!

Hunger Games

Jonathan and I went to see The Hunger Games at midnight on Thursday night/Friday morning.  I've never gone to a midnight premeire before because rarely do I care about a movie enough to skip out on sleep (I really love sleep!).  The Hunger Games was an exception though.  Jonathan read the first book a while ago and loved it.   He told me about it and I wasn't really interested but I gave in one day out of boredom and I was hooked. 

We quickly checked out the second, and then waited, very impatiently, for sooooooo long for the third book to come out (not worth the wait, as it turns out, but that's a discussion for a different day).  Anyway, we love The Hunger Games and were stoked to see the movie. 

Here we are in line at 11pm, the line was ridiculously long!

It was too cold to really show them but we made shirts too:

(Mine says "Cinna told me to wear this" because I would wear anything Cinna told me to wear!)

(Jonathan's says "Everybody, calm the h@ym!tc# down" and includes a picture of the calm down lemur, that we find particularly hilarious)

It was a fun night and the movie was good, like any book turned movie we love the book more, but the casting was spot-on for the movie and the acting was great and everything, there are just so many details you want to see included, but it was already a 2.5 hour movie so I guess they couldn't include everything.  I still loved it!

Utah or bust

 We love road trips.  I hope we always go on road trips. They're so fun! For Spring Break we decided to road trip up to Utah to visit the abundance of family and friends we have up there.  We had one of the best vacations we've ever had.  It was relaxing/fun/awesome. 

This is proof we drove there, it's the Eisenhower tunnel:

 And this is proof we made it to Provo.. because only in Provo would there be a large balloon missionary.

 We stayed at Jonathan's sister Jenny's house, and we got to spend a lot of time with her, her husband Jed, and their 6 kids.  On Sunday we got to Jenny's just in time for a quick dinner before heading up to Salt Lake for Amaria's birthday (Jonathan's cousin) and the monthly Brown family Ice Cream Social.  It was the perfect chance to catch up with some of Jonathan's extended family! 

Monday we spent the day with Jenny and the kids.  We got to walk the kids home from school and everything.  Then we headed to Provo for a visit with my Grandma, Aunt and Cousins, before headed back to Lehi to go to Traflaga with Jed, Jenny and the kids.  We played mini-golf and laser tag before eating pizza and burgers for dinner. 

 After the Trafalga excitement we headed to my nephew's birthday party.  Ammon turned two!  He had an adorable Cars themed birthday party and said lots of Oh-my-gosh's while he opened presents! So cute!

 On Tuesday we jumped in the car with Jonathan's best friend from childhood, Dan, and his wife Cassie, and headed to Dan's Uncle's house in Park City.  It was amazing.  The house was gorgeous, and Rick was so nice to let us stay! Jonathan and Dan played a lot of basketball on this little machine and loved every minute of it. 

 After the games we headed into the city and shopped for a while, then came home and hung out.  We went into Park City again that night and had some amazing Thai food at Bangkok Thai.  Great food and great company. 

 Neither Jonathan nor I had ever been to Park City and we really loved it there, we're crossing our fingers that we'll be able to go back soon.

The whole day was really amazing, we came home and soaked in the hot tub for a bit before watching a movie in the theatre room.  It was the best day! 

 We had breakfast at "The Original Pancake House" in Sugar House.  I've never had such chocolatey pancakes in my life. Delicious. 

We enjoyed some more time at Jenny's house that day before heading to Provo to say hi to some of my friends from my Study Abroad last summer.  (I forgot to take pictures with a lot of people, so just trust me when I say I saw them!)  We brought Pizza and ate with Carly and Sarah and caught up and it was great! Then Jonathan and I wandered BYU campus and drove past our old house, and talked about how it doesn't seem like 4 years ago!

Thursday we woke up early and took Jenny with us to go to the Salt Lake Temple.  The only other time I'd ever been was our wedding.  We had the best time! I love the temple! Afterward we went shopping for a bit, picked up some See's candy, then headed to Jonathan's grandparent's house for lunch!

Joyce had surprised us with this beautiful quilt on Sunday so we made sure to get a picture of it! She is so sweet!  It was great to catch up with them, and they even fed us Razzleberry pie, my favorite!

 We spent the rest of the afternoon playing hide-and-go-seek, or ghost in the graveyard, or tunnel tag, or sardines with the kids.  I don't know how kids have so much energy.  They were so fun.  Later that night I braided Grace and Rose's hair so it would be curly the next morning. 

 That night we drove into Provo to hang out with some of my best friends Emma (and her husband Tony) and Adrianne.  It was so much fun to catch up! I love those girls! We played games and snacked and had fun! I forgot to get pictures.. but it was fun, I promise!

Friday morning we met up with Craig and his wife.  Craig did pest control sales with us in Seattle, and is a good friend.  We loved reminiscing about Seattle, and meeting his wife!

Friday afternoon we went back to Jenny's.  Their family left for St. George and Jonathan and I crashed on their couches for several hours.  We were so tired!

Eventually, though, we woke up and got hungry so we went to Costa Vida, then caught a movie at the Dollar Theater.  MI 4. It was good, I think Jonathan liked it more than me.  All I could think about was doing the Tom Cruise Run like in Cougar Town (If you're not watching that show you should be!)

 We left the movie and headed to a pub in Spanish Fork to watch Jonathan's uncle Chris perform in his Classic Rock Band "One." 

 They were SO good! Really, we had so much fun! I don't know any music from before 1990, so I didn't know any of their songs, but Jonathan knew them all, and I enjoyed them all.  We even got up and danced to one of them! 

That night we stayed at Dan and Cassie's house in Provo, then got up early Saturday morning for the drive home. 

On the way we passed Arches National Park, and I'd never been so we drove on in and toured a couple of the arches. 

Then we drove and drove and drove.  We did the whole drive in one day this time, as opposed to the two days we did on the way up there.  The drive was long but the trip was fun! I'm so glad we got to catch up with everyone, and relax a little before finishing up this crazy semester!

Life is good

Last night we went to a birthday party and ate pizza and cake. 

Then we came home and chatted.  We talked about our future, and morality, and how to make decisions for yourself while leaving yourself open to the Lord's direction, and things we love, and how fun our trip to Utah next week is going to be, and how to move across the country. 

We didn't go to bed until midnight.

I didn't set the alarm because today is Jonathan's day off, so he didn't have to be anywhere early, and I knew he'd naturally wake up early enough to get me up for my class.  And you know what? He did.  He always does.  Then I laid in bed extra long because it's overcast outside and staying in bed is perfect.  As I was laying there I, fortunately, remembered that my only Thursday class had been canceled.  Then I went back to sleep!

By 10 o'clock when I woke up, due to the 50mph winds in Lubbock, and walked out of the bedroom to find my husband he had cleaned the entire kitchen (so quietly, mind you, that it didn't wake me.. that's a miracle in and of itself.)  AND he was in the middle of making crepes for breakfast.

There may not be a lot of excitement in our life.  We may just go to work and or school all the time.  Writing a thesis might not be any fun.  But, our little life is pretty perfect, and we wouldn't want it any other way.