I like to photograph things

Hey blog world!  It's been a little while. I've pretty much given up on consistently blogging while I'm going to school.  There really is just no time for it.  So why am I on right now you ask?  Because I've had just about all the structuring of molecules I can take tonight and I've hit a brain block with my English paper.  Therefore I'm blogging!  Some of you may know, and some of you may not know, that over the last couple months my passion for photography has been growing immensely.  I'd have to say my dream job is to be a photographer but I still have leaps and bounds to go.  Right now I just pretend.  None the less, here's just a little sample of my favorites.

Alright... So there's more than a few here... But any who.  Here they are.

Sad husband...

I'm currently sitting in the waiting room at TOSH. Why are we here? Poor Stephen is getting surgery today. Sad face.  He has 2 cysts in his knee and they aren't going away with steroid treatments, therefore, they're coming out. Hopefully they won't grow back.

*update* the doctor said they got everything and they hopefully will not grow back. Now I'm on my way to the recovery waiting room.

*update* I'm officially a bad wife. I got distracted on my way to the waiting room and stopped at the gift store. The whole reason the gift shop exists is so that you can buy a GIFT for the patient you're visiting. Is that what I did? Nope. Instead I bought decorations. :S  At least the house will look prettier while he's stuck in it..... wait.... I think we actually can consider this a present for Steve.. He does always say he likes a decorated house... ah I found a loophole. :)
But no, in all seriousness I originally went into the gift shop with the intention of buying something for him. There's just one little problem. He's impossible to buy for. He doesn't like candy, he wouldn't read a magazine, and he wouldn't appreciate flowers... My Steve is a simple man.  Give him a book a dog and a meal and he's happy.  Plus there's not a whole lot of guy stuff to choose from in the gift shop... Hopefully he'll like the decorations...

Stephen and Katie's week of fun!

As I said in my last post, it was our anniversary last Sunday.  Since we're both in school we decided we were going to have a staycation rather than go out of town. It was simply delightful.  We took a whole week off work. Saturday-Sunday we went camping.  I haven't been camping in a really long time and it was really fun to go again. We took our sweet Maggee with us and she got to play in the lake. She loves the water.  She's such a cute dog. She got to sleep between us during the night.
At one point she even stole my pillow and sleeping bag.




I don't know why it's sideways.  Sorry...



Monday we went to Park City and shopped in the outlets.  Side story.  I love J-Crew so much.  I want all their clothes in my closet.  What I do not love however, is their prices.  Not one bit.  In case you didn't know, they have an outlet in Park City :)  I was thrilled.  I only ended up buying one item there because it was the first place we went and I didn't want to spend all the money we had budgeted for shopping in one store.  I got a Navy pencil skirt with white polka dots.  It is now my favorite.

We also hit up the Banana Republic store and I got a pair of sweat pants there that have back AND side pockets and are sooooo soft.  I want to wear them every second of everyday.  Oh, they also roll into capri sweats... They're the whole package.
After we went shopping we went to the Waldorf Astoria.  Oh. My. Goodness.  That is the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in.  I just wanted to stay there in my sweat pants for the rest of my life.  We had one of the resident rooms.  We had 2 bathrooms, a balcony, a kitchen, and a living room.

 

 We spent a bit more than we planned on shopping (that always seems to be the case doesn't it) so we decided we'd make up the difference on dinner.  We ended up going to the coolest little Japanese house.  You get to cook all your food in a little pot right in front of you.  It was WAY more food than I could eat and so so much fun.  It was also very well priced.  Might I add that it was incredibly tasty?

We came back to the hotel and spent some time in the Lobby.  We felt out of place there because we didn't think we were fancy enough. (After all I was in sweat pants.)  We played a mean game of chess, which I won, then went out back and roasted some marshmallows :)

They had a spa there that offered aerobic classes.  I got up at 6 the next morning and went and worked out. (I get up at 5:30 every morning for work so it wasn't too bad.)  Afterwards I went back to the room and fell back asleep.
Before we came back from Park City I told myself that I needed to use this week and spend a lot of time on homework.  I think I spent one day on homework... fail.  Oh well.  I was in vacation mode.
We started a Harry Potter marathon.  I say started because we both suck at watching movies... It took us 2 and a half weeks to watch all 8 movies.  :)  I also worked on some crafts.  I made this cute door hanger.

(please excuse our unmade bed and really random cord...)
The highlight of my week however was getting a new mattress. Yes, it was even better than Park City.  If you don't know I have some fairly serious back problems.  They're very annoying but I won't complain to you about it.  Well our old mattress just made my back feel worse than it was.  It slanted down on one side (Steve and I switched off on sleeping on that side) and it was way too soft.  There were so many nights that Steve and I didn't get very much sleep.  Even if we did get 8 hours of sleep we'd wake up feeling exhausted. This sucks when you're working full time and going to school.  You really can't afford to not be getting adequate sleep.  So we went mattress hunting.  We went to this little furniture store around 33rd South called Bradley's Furniture.  We laid on just about every mattress they had and ended up getting a memory foam mattress.  I am in love.  I don't think I will ever go back to a spring mattress.  It's firm, yet soft.  It's supportive in all the right places and cushy in all the others.  It's like this mattress knows me.  It knows just how to caress me to make me love it.  *love sigh*  It was the perfect ending to a perfect week.

366 Days of Bliss

Hi blog world.  It's been a while.  I'm not great at this whole blogging thing.  Sorry.

September 16th is today's date.  It also happens to be our one year anniversary.  (seriously, where did the time go?)  This last years was awesome.  By far my favorite year in my short 21 years.  Lets review it shall we?

I was sealed to my beloved.

We got to go play in Jamaica! (take me back there!)

We celebrated our first holidays together as a married couple.

We got some furniture for our house. (which still isn't decorated...)

I met the guy from 17 Miracles

 We made pretty cheesy little valentines

Maggee became a member of our household.

We ran in the Color Me Rad 5k.

Discovered we have a pet squirrel... who is actually a girl and had little squirrel babies :)

Went on a road trip to Vegas

Got to walk through the house I grew up in. (I'll write a blog post on this.)

spent cloudy days laying in the grass at the park listening to rainy day music.

Had several Disney movie nights :)

(are you still reading?)
We had a birthday party for Maggee (this also deserves a whole post)

And last but not least for the picture reel, we got to go camping with Steve's side of the family last night.  It was really fun. (besides the fact that I was absolutely freezing all night and didn't sleep)

All of those things were incredibly fun, but they were only fun because I was with my Steve. (queue the cheese)  I feel like I have grown so much in the last year.  Steve really is the perfect husband.  He's patient and loving.  He even cleans ;)  I'm so excited to see what life holds for us.

Our B.O.M. challenge

This is a post my sweet husband wrote about a challenge we recently did.  I feel that he's better than I am with words, so I stole his blog post :)

I recently heard a story of a woman who had been estranged from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a significant period of her life. This woman’s relatives often encouraged her to return to the faith she had left, but were regularly met with resistance. Years passed and the distance between this woman and the church to which she previously belonged gradually increased. Meanwhile, this woman’s nephew had been called to serve as a missionary for the church she had long forgotten. When this young missionary arrived in his field of service he was challenged by his mission president to read The Book of Mormon in a single week. The missionary accepted this 531 page invitation and faithfully completed the book in 7 days. Excited to share his experience, the young missionary wrote home to his family (which included his aunt) and encouraged them all to accept this challenge to read The Book of Mormon in one week. As the story goes, the challenge was accepted by the young missionary’s aunt who read the entire Book of Mormon in one short week. As a result, this woman’s life changed. She found a happiness she had long forgot, returned to a forsaken religion, and now actively participates in her own ward where she teaches a Gospel Doctrine class. 

That story has been told in thousands of different ways by thousands of different people (perhaps millions). It is a story unique to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When my wife and I heard that inspiring story we decided ourselves that we would accept that challenge and attempt to read The Book of Mormon in one week. This post is about our experience reading the book, and hopefully may be taken as an invitation for you to do the same. 

          

The Book of Mormon may be one of the most polarizing books in existence. Millions throughout the world proclaim its divine authorship and validity while many others simultaneously castigate the book as a fraudulent work of fiction. I have listened to many people share personal experiences of how they have come to know the book is true, and have studied many articles and academic works seeking to prove its falsehood. I’m fairly conversant with both sides of the story, and as someone who has read the book myself I can tell you this, it is a book worth reading. 

For Katie and I, reading the book in a week seemed like a difficult task as we both work full-time jobs and have other activities throughout the week, but in an odd way this sort of became a great blessing that brought both of us closer together. All of our free time was spent together quietly sitting next to each other reading our books. We would share with each other what we read, what we thought about it, what we learned, and why it mattered. As we moved through the week reading each day we found ourselves planning our days a little differently to make more time to read The Book of Mormon. We discovered we could listen to the book on our phones or other devices as we drove to work or did chores around the house. We spent less time on the internet or watching television and more time with each other. We eliminated the distractions in our lives and focused our attention on one simple task, and as a result, Katie and I enjoyed a little more peace in our lives. 

But what meant the most to us wasn’t simply that we read, it was what we read. The Book of Mormon, at its core, is a book about a family, a family not unlike ours. This family is warned of the evils that exist in the world and is given instruction on how to live in peace and happiness. Throughout the week Katie and I read read about fidelity in marriage, service in the community, humility and sacrifice towards those around you, love and understanding for those with differences, patience and faith during hard times, the power of unity, and the terrible consequences of pride. We read about who we are and how much we matter to the Lord. We read about God’s plan for us and the purpose of our lives. Most of all, we learned of Jesus Christ, what He has done for us, and how we can be close to Him. 

As the book comes to an end it asks you to do something. Find out if the book is true. It doesn’t tell you to listen to someone’s personal experience about The Book of Mormon. It doesn’t tell you to read an academic journal. It simply tells you to ask God himself if it’s true. Read the book, pray to God, ask Him if it’s true. That’s it.

Some say The Book of Mormon isn’t true, some say it is. Either way, I think you should find out. I know I did.