Good Sirs and Ladies!

This weekend has been a lot of fun! Jason has had Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and today off so we've been able to enjoy each other's company. Thursday we went to the temple and out for ice cream afterwards. Friday we went to see Robin Hood in the theater. And the crowning glory was our day Saturday, we decided we wanted to go to a Renaissance Fair. We got a late start because we were up late playing a computer game that Jason found on the internet. So we headed out around 11:00..ish and planned on stopping off to get something for lunch, well Jason ended up wearing a little bit of it on his shorts so we had to stop off at Target to pick up some Tide-to-go and new shorts and a belt. And then we realized we were almost out of gas so we had to stop off and get that too. It's amazing what happens when you don't follow your wife's directions, I like to think I have a pretty good internal compass but I've come to find out it doesn't really work if you tell someone to turn after it's too late. We got lost, we lost sight of the freeway and instead of turning around to get on the freeway Jason wanted to keep going straight to follow the freeway on side streets, but we we eventually realized it wasn't the freeway. We ended up on Legacy Parkway but we didn't know that at the time, we thought we had passes our exit but alas we came across a sign that told us which way to I-15. We finally made it to our destination at Millcreek Hollow and I was glad that I wore my tennis shoes and that it was warm enough you didn't need a jacket. We got into the Renaissance Fair and started walking around, I was amazed how many people that weren't a part of it dressed up in full garb none the less. We saw Robin Hood, Three Musketeers, the Royal Family, Friars, Pirates, Italian Renaissance ladies, Gypsies, Peasants, Knights, Fairies (the pointy eared ones) and Elves...yes, I thought that one was odd too. They had a lot of shops for you to browse through with clever names, puppet shows, bands that played music from the time, magicians, pirate ships and shows, fire dancers, a food court (Yes, they did have turkey legs, $8 a leg) gypsy dancing, and best of all...jousting. And as usual Jason and I thought that there would be more shade than they offered and we hadn't even gotten our sunscreen out of the closet yet, so now we are suffering from our first burn of the year, I think Jason got it worst than I did. The one souvenir we decided to pick up were...foam swords, I won't let Jason have any real ones. After we saw the jousting tournament we decided it was time to leave and eat Mexican food. Today will just be a day to relax and hope the redness on these burns go away before tomorrow.

Jason in a fetching new hat, he wanted the silver shirt behind him too.

I realize now that this is the King and Queen coming towards us.

I ran into Captain Jack Sparrow.

My hoodlum...he looks too happy to be in there.

A pirate juggling swords

And jousting...

We're Very Much Alive

To all those who are wondering, we are still alive. The past couple of months haven't been too exciting with Jason in school and both of us working full times jobs. It's amazing that we are able to see each other during my lunch break almost every day and after he gets home from work. His classes are done for now but he has a summer class that will start May 17th, but it is only for a month. We paid off my car with our tax return, since mine had the least amount left. Now all of our leftover money will go towards Jason's car and then we will be debt free.

We've been debating with moving to a different apartment, one that has washer and dryer hook ups and a little bit more space. We looked at one called The Springs of Country Woods. It looks like it would fit our needs, especially if Jason might be transferred to the Midvale Famous Footwear store, it's right across the street. We'll see how the next couple of months go, we renewed our lease for three months which will keep us in this apartment at least until the end of July, it will be easier to move when Jason isn't in school. We'll keep you all posted!

In other news, tomorrow is Mother's Day so I just wanted to say Thank You to our Mom's, Grandma's, Aunts, Sisters, and Sisters-in-law and Friends (who are mothers) and we hope that you have a great day!

Super Bowl and the Sundance Kids

The past couple of weeks have been pretty exciting to say the least. We had the opportunity to attend the Sundance Film Festival, stand in lines at the DMV, make goodies for THE Super Bowl party, and spend lots of time together.

My boss at Express decided that she would give everyone a ticket to see a movie at Sundance and she’d also give us the day off as long as we didn’t take the same day off. We got tickets to see a movie called “The Dry Land” and so I got Thursday off, trying to match it up with Jason’s school schedule. We decided that we would try that morning to go to the DMV to finally get my name changed on my drivers license. It has taken so long because I work the same hours as the DMV and it’s impossible to get everything done before I start work at 8am. So we got down to the DMV on my day off at about 8am, license. So we had to turn around and head back to the apartment, after waiting in traffic for 15 minutes we made it back and luckily I knew where my passport was.. And we promptly turned back around and headed back to the DMV. This time they let me through and I figured that was a good sign. Since we were there to change my name I didn’t think that I would need to wait that long but no, we were sitting down waiting for our number to be called and finally after about an hour we got to talk to someone. During this time I was worried because our address had changed from the time before and I didn’t think I had anything valid in my wallet to say what our new address was. Luckily, the girl behind the counter took pity on me and accepted a letter I had from the Social Security office and the envelope mom sent our marriage certificate in as proof of address. We finally got out of there by about 10:20.

We decided we would go to IHOP that morning and that made up for all the standing around (Thanks Mom and Dad Poetschlag). Since we had all of our marriage certificate stuff we decided to go to our banks and get that situation straightened out. I think the only thing left I need to switch over is my passport but who knows how often we’ll be going out of the country in the next 7 years, so until then I’ll keep it as is.

That afternoon we headed out to Park City for the Film Festival, it was cold but a lot of fun. We walked up and down Main Street hoping to see a celebrity or two but I think everyone was so bundled up you couldn’t tell who they were. The movie we were scheduled to watch was called “The Dry Land” and I heard from others at work that saw it that they liked it, the only bad part we were told about was they show a slaughtering of a cow, they actually show it and it’s quite gruesome. The movie was…umm…interesting. It’s about an Afghanistan Vet who comes home and it’s about the post traumatic stress he experiences. The movie also contains lots of “F” words, rape, sex, and female and male nudity. As you can tell according to Hollywood those make a great movie and apparently the audience we were with didn’t have any issues with it. Jason and I pretty much kept our focus on the people in front of us rather then on the movie at some parts. Oh well, the best part was the Q&A session at the end of the movie where the director and some of the actors get up on the stage and answer some of your questions. Overall, the experience was good the movie not so much.

We decided that we would hang out with Daniel and Kali and their family for the Super Bowl this year and with that we wanted to bring some treats. After debating for a bit we came up with Sugar Cookies (Football shaped) and potato skins. I’ve got to tell you that they turned out really well. Here are pictures of our creations…I was quite impressed with our capabilities.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve in my family was always a big deal; we’d have an amazing dinner by candlelight and have Mannheim Steamroller playing softly in the background. Once dinner was over we’d clean up and grab our scriptures and head out to the living room where we would read the story of Christ’s birth. And then when we were younger each of the kids opened one present most likely pajamas to sleep in that night or when we were older we would open a family game to play that night. Then we would top off the night with a Christmas movie. This has always been a cherished memory of mine.
This past Christmas when we visited with my family in Oregon, things were a little more exciting than usual simply because of the three nieces and one nephew, and having the whole family together after three long years. Our Christmas Eve sort of followed the same structure but this year we went to the Stephenson’s to play the chimes and then home for the amazing meal Mom had prepared. Once we were done with dinner we gathered in the living room for the Christmas story but this time there were some twists, the girls wanted to act it out. Here is a cast of characters

Mary...................Tia
Joseph & Donkey........Jordan
Baby Jesus.............Maeli
The Angel..............Hayley
Innkeeper..............Jason
King Herrod............Clay
Narrator...............Dad

And since these videos are too massive to post on blogger, here are some links.





There is one more but I'll have to add that when I get home from work tonight.

DI Drive

This past weekend our ward had a DI Drive, and we found it to be a perfect opportunity to make our apartment look like it was well taken care of. We went through our closets and drawers and found clothes that we haven’t worn in over a year, we also found some appliances that we had ruined but still kept in a drawer in the kitchen. I even have a dresser that we should have taken to the DI but I forgot about it until we had already dropped our stuff off. This one DI Drive caused us to go through almost the entire house and get rid of things we no longer use or need, we had hampers full of stuff from when we first moved in that we finally went through. Now our apartment looks clean…at least until tomorrow. Another reason why we wanted to clean up the apartment was to make room for our new piece of furniture. We decided that we had too many dvd's and they didn't all fit in the DVD case that we had so we purchased one of these stands and thought we calculated enough but no, we couldn't fit all of them in there so we had to go back for a second one. Now, after organizing here is the finished product.




And I think he's cute while doing his homework so here's a quick picture of Jason doing Math.

A Long Bout of Laziness

I admit it, I’m a lazy bum. After typing all day at work the last thing I want to do is type when I get home so that is why the blog has remained dormant for the past several months. It seems that as soon as Jason’s school started that’s when I decided to become more lazy. We’ve been crazy busy some weeks and doing absolutely nothing on other weeks. Isn’t it crazy how that happens? Our days are full of school, work, homework and fantasy football. Jason is liking his classes for the time being but he is feeling the pressure of having finals coming up in the next couple of weeks. I think that he has an A in all of his classes up to this point, even English which means that I didn’t mess his papers up too bad, we hope we can keep it that way.

We did go to visit with Jason’s family in California at the beginning of October, it was nice seeing everyone again. Jason wanted to take me to Knott’s Berry Farm for their haunted rides and some of the rides themselves, I have learned that I HATE Ghost Rider. It’s one of the old fashioned wooden roller coaster but it wasn’t too friendly on my stomach. We had fun going through the haunted houses with Robert and have many memorable memories of that night, especially getting lost trying to find the freeway to go back home to his parents home even though the freeway entrance wasn’t too far away from where we were, it was 2:30 in the AM, we were tired. Robert taught us a game, Munchkin, that Jason is now hooked on and I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do the first 2 times that we played it but I think I finally got the hang of it, Jason picked it up right away, smarty-pants.

November was a pretty good month, we did celebrate our first wedding anniversary and I have to say I’m surprised at how quickly that first year went by. We were thinking of keeping it low key and not spending a whole lot of money but we decided that our first anniversary is something to celebrate and you don’t get that first year back so we splurged. We decided to go out for breakfast and dinner and go through a temple sealing session. And just a plug for my husband, he is the sweetest most compassionate person ever and I love him more everyday (don‘t mean to get mushy). We received a CD from Daniel of our wedding pictures so I do plan on getting some of those printed and getting more picture frames to put around the house.

We are still working on getting our apartment decorated for Christmas, we both decided that we will put up our tree in a week or so I think…hmmm…I might have rethink that with how quickly Christmas is coming up. We already have our advent calendar up but we need more decorations, something to continue to look for over the next couple of weeks. We are still in our same apartment since we were unable to find anything that was cheaper and that had washer and dryer hook ups, it’s not too bad. We did make some new friends with people in the ward though. There is a couple that just got married a couple of months ago that came over the other day since she is my Visiting Teacher and they invited us over for a game night that evening so that was fun to get out of our apartment and meet new people after living here a year.

I’ll work on my laziness and make sure to update more often…

Oregon Vacation and School

I think it's safe to say that I have been slacking off for a few months on updating our blog. It's interesting that even though I often have time to type it out I just don't know what to type. Since the last time that I updated we have been doing A LOT of stuff. One of which includes going to Oregon to visit with my parents. It was so nice going home and as Brittany mentioned in her blog "walking around on the soft carpet." We had so much fun driving Jason around and showing him places that he didn't get a chance to see when we were in Oregon for our wedding. We got to go to Mill Creek Falls and Crater Lake, which are beautiful and it was so hot and exhausting after we got home from our trip that I think everyone passed out on the couch for awhile. On August 1 we had scheduled to go on a jet boat trip down the Rogue River and it was so awesome. Jason looked so happy sitting there on the boat, he always had a smile on his face with the wind blowing hard and the captain doing donuts in the water, we all had a blast!

We were sad when we had to leave on Sunday but we had to get back to work. Thanks for the fun times Mom and Dad!

Mill Creek Falls

Crater Lake, I have more pictures but for some reason blogger won't let me move things around

At the dinner on our Jetboat Excursion, ignore the shiny faces please, it was hot

Jason's excited to get back on the boat after dinner

I really don't know why we posed like that, I think we have about 4 or 5 pictures in other spots where we all had one leg up.

One of the jetboats, it fit about 50 people on each one.

We had great birthdays in the month of August, with Jason's being on the 9th and mine being on the 11th we decided to have family over to celebrate with cake and ice cream and a fun game of Jeopardy on the computer. I really think that Jeopardy was the highlight of the evening, just ask Brittany, Clay, Eden, Daniel and Kali. We also had a long game of Life on the computer but I think that Clay and Tiff had more fun with that than anyone else. We also celebrated our birthdays by signing up for free birthday meals. We went to Red Robin for our birthdays and they told us that they haven't had it happen very often when there are two people from the same family who turn those in. I think we went to Coldstone Creamery a few days later for the free ice cream.

Other than that we have been working and Jason started school so that has been taking up a lot of his time. He is taking an English class, Communications, two Computer classes, and a Political Science class. So far he is really enjoying his classes...ok, maybe not enjoying the English, but he's interested in Political Science and his Computers class, when he is on his way home he calls me up and tells me all about it. We found a system that seems to be working for him for typing up papers, he'll start talking and I'll type up what he says and then together we paste everything in order and grammatically correct (kind of, I'm not the best in grammar either).

Two weeks ago we dog sat for my boss Christine's two dogs while she was away in Vegas getting married, it was fun but it was rather time consuming. We'd stay the night at their house with the dogs and then we'd leave together in the mornings, Jason for school and I'd leave for work, and then we'd go back to Christine's for lunch together and then I'd go back to work and Jason would go back to our house to get change for work. And then we would meet back at our house for dinner and then drive separate cars over to Christine's to start all over again. It was fun though, we decided that we really want a dog but that we aren't quite ready for one...and only one.

I don't think that we have a whole lot of stuff planned for Labor Day since Jason has to work most of it but we have been starting to look at apartments again. Our lease for the apartment that we are living in now is up at the end of October so we're trying to see if we can find something that has two bedrooms, washer and dryer hook-ups and is cheaper than what we are paying now. It's not easy to find after everyone moved back here to start school but hopefully we will come across something, if not we'll probably be staying here for a little bit longer.

Also, I hope that everyone caught the amazing BYU game yesterday, it was simply amazing. Almost like the "Answered Prayer" video with John Beck and Johnny Harline. I like to think we have turned Jason into a BYU football fan, he kept screaming at the TV last night when something bad happened and would jump up and do a victory dance when something went right, it was great! I hope that everyone has a fantastic Labor day and I'll try and update more often.