Our New to us Bed!

Jacob and I had been putting off buying a bed. It just wasn't something on our priority list since we'll be moving out of Rexburg someday and it'd just be another thing to pack up. But I had a change of heart once winter came and the air in our mattress was FREEZING! It seriously would not warm up. We put blankets under us and slept with a pile of blankets on top of us, but it just wasn't keeping us warm enough. So I had this itching feeling to check the schools bulletin board where all sorts of things are sold. (I've been trying to listen to those itching feelings ever since I missed a unit deadline for philosophy.) I found a bed for 150 first which I would have been okay with because I was that cold and desperate. But I kept going down the list and there it was. A queen size mattress with a wooden frame for 40 dollars. I called the person selling the bed right away because I did not want one more night freezing in bed. We picked it up the next day with the help of our friend Joe. The wooden frame was obviously home made and the mattress was used but it isn't gross at all. No weird stains, thankfully. Its still very firm and comfortable. Plus, we've found that we can store all sorts of things under the bed. We already put some suit cases under there and I plan on buying a bed skirt so we don't have to see them.

Here is our bed in all of its warm glory.I realize one of the bed posts is crooked. We had to take those off and screw them back on when while they were being taken across town. We'll fix that sometime.

We've slept so well the last few nights with our new mattress and flannel sheets. I forgot how good it felt to sleep on a real mattress with flannel sheets. I am so thankful we have this new bed. I never thought I'd love a cheap bed so much.

Its Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Jacob and I gave in to Christmas this week. I usually try to hold off until after Thanksgiving to start listening to Christmas music and decorating, but the bug bit us early this year. Actually it got Jacob first. He was listening to Christmas music when I got home from class one day and then it got me too. So while Jacob was at work today I cleaned our apartment and took down all of our fall decorations. Tonight we went out and bought a Christmas tree from K-Mart. It was only $20 which we were very excited about. Its a pretty good looking tree if you ask me, although I do miss the Christmas tree smell. We did not find a star that we liked. They were all disgustingly huge and not very pretty, so we stuck a bow on top.

Jacob did a good job with the lights. That is my least favorite part of decorating the tree.

Main Street in Rexburg is all lit up now too. The trees are wrapped with lights all the way up the branches. I wish I had a picture to share. That is my favorite part about Christmas here. All the lights add to the Christmas atmosphere and make the cold just a little bit more tolerable.

And here is a story for everyone who may be getting behind on filing important papers. On Sunday I decided get to the mess of papers that were waiting to be filed. Jacob keeps his check stubs for a while and so I decided to date the outside of the envelope in case he was looking for a particular one. I don't know why he would want to go back and look at check stubs, but I decided to do it anyways. Well, I was going through all of them and I found a check with out the voided stamp on it that he got it way back in April. Jacob just wasn't paying attention to the bonus check for $104 that he got for selling Melaleuca credit cards. So we ran out of the house in our pajamas to go to Wells Fargo with high hopes that the check wouldn't be voided after the normal 180 days. And sure enough, it went through! We are needless to say, very excited. Lesson learned. Keep up with the filing and double check your check stubs.

Friday the Thirteenth

I have always been a little weary of this day. I am not superstitious. I like black cats and while I probably wouldn't walk under ladder, I don't believe I'd have bad luck if I did. However Friday the thirteenth has given me a reason to be superstitious.

In elementary school we had a spirit day called 50's day. On the 50th day of school we'd dress up as if it were the 1950's and have an afternoon out on the play yard doing cake walks, rollerblading, hula hooping, eating hot dogs and dancing. I was in kindergarten. It was my first 50's day and I was so excited. I dressed up in blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt with the sleeves cuffed. (I was very much against skirts back then and there was no way I was going to put on a poodle skirt.) While I was eating breakfast my mom started examining my arms. She told me I had the chicken pox which I refused to believe. I cried while my mom called the school and told them I would be absent.

The next year in first grade I got slap cheek. Who knew there was actually something called slap cheek? It mostly happens to kids. One of or both of your cheeks get really pink accompanied with a fever. Thankfully nothing fun was going on that day. But it was Friday the thirteenth which only made me more superstitious of this day.

My Friday the thirteenth came one day early this year. Let me tell you, this is nothing that I am proud of but there is a lesson for myself and others to be learned here. I knew I had a deadline for a class coming up. The dead line included an exam, quizzes and an essay. So, I had gotten started with the quizzes and had it in my mind that I was totally on the ball. On the 11th, I had this pestering idea to check my outline for the class, but I kept thinking no, I'll check when I get around to it, the deadline isn't until next week. Nope! When I checked my email on the 12th there was a note from my teacher saying the deadline was up. So, I missed an exam, an essay and two quizzes. I couldn't believe what I had done! I sat there for ten minutes with tears welling up in my eyes saying, "How irresponsible! I've never done anything like this before!" I'll stick out the class to see what I get. But here is the lesson. Don't ignore those pestering thoughts! They are there for a reason, even if they seem ridiculous, just listen. You'll be a lot better off in the end if you do.

Hour Long Blonde Moment

Yesterday was the last day of mid-terms so I'm on the down hill slope for the rest of the semester. You could say I am pretty relaxed right now. So relaxed that my head just is not thinking at all anymore.

This morning when I woke up it was awfully bright considering my alarm hadn't gone off yet and I usually wake up in the dark. So after a few minutes I checked my cell phone to see what time it was. Sure enough it was 7:15 and my class started at 7:45. I could have sworn that I set my alarm last night, but apparently I did not. Needless to say I didn't make it on time. This was only a foreshadow for the rest of the morning.

The 7:45 class gets out at 9:45 and my next class is at 11:00. So I went to the library thinking, "Great! Two hours till my next class." Wrong. Very wrong. I did some homework and checked my emails, browsed the Internet, bought a granola bar because my stomach was rumbly, thought I'd walk to class early and read the school newspaper before class started. Well, I did end up there around 11:00. Usually there are always culinary students around waiting for class to start so there is always quite a bit of socializing going on. Well, no one was there! Go figure! Class had started! But me being me, knowing that class started at 11:00, just sat there thinking I got there earlier than I had thought. So I sprawled out on a soft bench, got my flipped through the newspaper and started doing a Sudoku puzzle. Well, I guess what would have been about 45 minutes later I started thinking to myself, I've been here a really long time. I must be earlier than I thought. But a few minutes after that people started walking out of my class room asking me why I wasn't in class. I was SO confused!! I sat there for an hour with no idea what time it was and no idea how much time had passed.

I left the building very embarrassed.

Welcoming Fall and Presidents Club

I love when the leaves change colors. Its my favorite part of fall. And being able to wear all of my sweaters again. Jacob and I have been decorating our apartment to welcome the new season. We bought leaves at the Family Dollar and put them above our living room window. We also got a fall wreath for the door and a pumpkin napkin holder.






We aren't allowed to put anything outside of our doors because its a fire hazard so we decided not to carve a pumpkin. Whats the point if you can't put it outside? So we made a haunted gingerbread house instead.









Here is Jacob blowing a bubble inside of a bubble. Impressive.









And whats a blog post with out mentioning a cooking adventure? This weekend all of the people who donate a lot of money to the school came for what is called Presidents day club weekend. The culinary program was assigned to put together some hors d'oeuvres while President Clark greeted people through a reception line. So, we were put into partners and assigned to come up with a hors d'oeuvres to be served. Everything was so delicious! There were dates and cheese wrapped in bacon and baked, skewers with tortelinni and cherry tomatoes marinated in a dill vinagiarette, open face egg rolls with shrimp, mini pastry puff sandwhiches with chicken and spinach dip inside. I cant remember the rest but it was all really good. Here is a picture of some of the other things we served. I am so happy I got to take some left overs home!The boat looking thing is a cookie with chocolate mousse with a vanilla wafer. Next to boat are mini apple turnovers. In the next row on the right there are pumpkin rolls and next to those on the left are yellow cakes with a vanilla glaze. The pumkin rolls and the cakes were my favorite. Then there are chocolate covered brownies. Those aren't very good. I must say I was a little annoyed when students who were asked to mingle came to eat our food! There were no left overs of the savory items we had made. People came up to us wanting the recipes and the flattering thing is that Sister Clark (the "first lady" of BYU-I) said she had no idea that these hors d'oeuvres were made by students until someone told her.

People have been asking Jacob if I make him big delicious meals all the time. The truth is what I make at home is quick and easy or on Sundays it is something I can throw in the crock pot and forget about because it takes a lot of time to prepare the food we make in class. Not that the crock pot doesn't make delicious meals. The are really good! But he does get fresh french bread, bagels, doughnuts and soon he will get a pie and blueberry muffins! Yum!

Mid-terms...

are rough. This is mostly just for my memory book, but if you actually read the whole thing then kudos to you.

I just finished one of the most stressful tests of my life. The disappointing thing is, its not going to matter a year from now. Or even 2 months. It wasn't the bar exam or anything of the sort. It was a mid term test for a cooking class. We had to be prepared for anything everything we learned in the class so far and ANYTHING from the pre-requisite class. You had to prepare a vegetable with a type of cut (small dice, medium dice large dice and believe it or not there are actual dimensions all the different dices and there are a lot more cuts than just the dices), a starch, a cooking method for meat and a type of sauce to prepare in 1 hour and a 1/2. Sounds easy right? Wrong. We didn't know what kind of meat or vegetables or sauce we'd be making before hand, so we had to study EVERYTHING. We also weren't allowed to talk to anyone except for safety reasons.

I just kept praying please no fish, please let this not be so bad, please no fish, please let this not be so bad, please no Asian sauces, please no fish. So when I got my assignment, I didn't have any fish or Asian sauces and it wasn't so bad. I had to make pan fried chicken, roasted potatoes, parsnips with a batonnet cut (1/4 x 1/4 x 2 inches see the picture of the carrots) spinach and a puree. I definitely wasn't expecting a puree. So I found the easiest one that would go with a potato. Two ingredients, garlic and olive oil. Didn't really turn out. The garlic was burned and it needed more olive oil. But its okay, some people didn't even present their sauce because it just didn't turn out right at all.

I sauteed the chicken instead of pan frying it. Sautee... pan fry? Who can really tell the difference? Well, the teacher did. I didn't even know that I had sauteed it until afterwards when he told me I did it wrong. Whoops.

The potatoes on the other hand were perfect. 10 out of 10. I had to roast them. So I did it like my mom does! (THANKS MOM! The best thing I made wasn't even learned in class!) I put some olive oil in a pan, cut red potatoes into fourths and sprinkled them with salt and pepper and cooked them in the oven for 45 minutes. They were delicious and people even stayed after class to try some. Extra virgin olive oil can make such a nice flavor on the skins of the red potatoes.

I steamed the parsnips and spinach. I wasn't sure how to go about cutting the parsnips and the teacher is really picky about cutting. He'll pick up the vegetable and look and the ends to make sure they're exactly square. There was definitely some divine guidance because I kind of just kept cutting and all of sudden I caught the vision and before I knew it I was cutting batonnet parsnips. They turned out okay. I've never even eaten parsnips before so I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with them. I figured steaming was my best bet for any vegetable.

So we had to have two matching plates with all of the assigned food on it and they had to look pretty. No three point landing type of presentations. (You know the plates that kids eat off of with the little dividers in them?)If you were missing one thing, you'd loose a lot of points. I was so grateful to be done early because a couple of people who had taken the test before had not even finished. They had nothing on their plates when the teacher called times up. Everyone had something wrong with their plate so I don't feel too bad about my very dry, extremely strong, burned garlic puree.

AND! This is the best part. Guess who was there to grade with the teacher. The cooking teachers new best friend, the French pastry chef. He gave me a nod of a approval on the roasted potatoes.

A Run in and Chocolate Chip Cookies

This evening I took my friend Annalise to the grocery store. When I was parking back at home in our parking lot I gave the fence that divides the property a good nudge. The fence is no longer standing straight up where it was hit and the car has nice scratches on the passenger side corner of the front bumper. I sheepishly told Jacob what happened when he came home from work and I made it sound really bad so when he saw the scratches he wouldn't think they were so bad. And it worked!

Thankfully Jacob is a good sport and just laughed it off. He was more concerned about getting spider guts off his shoe after he stepped on a hobo spider in the parking lot.

And while I fully support Jacob in his P90x workouts, I do think it would be easier to watch if Tony, the instructor, had a tan and the girl in the ab video needs longer shorts.

Now for the cookies! In my nutrition class we made low fat cookies and these are the best low fat cookies I have ever had. EVER. I personally can't tell the difference. I shared them with the other secretary at work and she asked for the recipe. So, if you ever get the urge to make cookies with out the guilt, make these ones. (Well maybe a little guilt, no matter how healthy you try to make a cookie, it still wont be all that great for you.) I promise they are amazing and stay soft for days! I cut the recipe in half. You'd have cookies for a year with the original recipe.

Cream Together:
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup apple sauce

Add:
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups flour
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup ground flax
6 ounces mini chocolate chips

Bake on an ungreased baking sheet for 9 minutes at 350 degrees.

Photo Shoots and the Gem State

My roommates/best friends and I have taken pictures just about every semester. So, even though we aren't roommates anymore, we decided to keep up the tradition. They are just about the best friends a person could ask for. Annalise isn't afraid to put me in my place and she is always ready to listen to any problem. Amy is always full of smiles no matter what is happening. Plus, we laugh a lot. I just love them!
Here is one of me and Jacob.
With the recent weather changes from Summer to Fall, I have really been down on eastern Idaho. Considering I am stuck here for a while, I decided to make a list of eastern Idaho gems that I can come back to and look at when its negative 10 and windy to remind myself of the good things that are here.

1. Florence's Exquisite Candy and Sarah's Candy Cottage. I love candy and I have a great appreciation for any fine confection. It's not easy! Plus Sarah's Candy Cottage has the best gelato I've found in eastern Idaho.

2. Five Guys Burgers and Fries. This reminded me a lot of In-N-Out. It has a really simple menu and a GREAT hamburger and the french fries were really good too. Jacob and I went for the first time yesterday and I do plan on going back. The burger wasn't too messy and tasted fresh.

3. Sand dunes. Whats so good about huge piles of sand? Not much. But if you're out there at night and look up, you can see the milky way and every inch of the sky is filled with stars. Really beautiful. Plus, there have been many roasted marshmallows and smores made there. You just have to watch out for the four wheelers.

4. Taco Bus. It is a school bus that has been pitted and half of it is a kitchen and the other half is for sitting and eating. This is hands down the most authentic Mexican food you'll find around here and it is amazing. The best part is that it is right around the corner from our house so on our way home from school we can get a nice big whiff of it and it makes our mouths water every time.

5. Yellowstone. Not exactly in eastern Idaho, but we are close. It is just so relaxing there and spotting all the animals is fun too.

6. Lava Hot Springs. A nice place to warm up in the winter. The town is so cute and quaint too. Jacob and I plan on going down there for a weekend during the winter to really find out the value of this gem.

7. Rigby Lake. The closest thing you'll get to a beach during the hot summer.

8. Rutabagas. This restaurant gave me hope for Idaho Falls. This is fine American dining that could have came straight out of San Francisco. Its way too expensive for me and Jacob, but I am pretty sure we'll be there any time my parents come to town. The desserts are to die for too.

9. Good ol' redneck demolition derby's. Cars crashing into each other until their radiators explode. Need I say more?

And when I'll all else fails I'll always have my best friends with me!

The French

A real live french pastry chef came to my baking class today. Don't ask me how you find one of those in Rexburg, Idaho. Apparently he and his wife moved from France a year ago so his wife could teach French at BYU-Idaho. Who does that? Couldn't she have taught English is France. I would never, ever, move to Rexburg from France. Apparently, he can't get a work permit, but someone in the baking class knew him and brought him in as part of a presentation she had to give.

I'll be honest, the presentation was not interesting. His attitude towards Americans was what most people would guess. It seemed as if he took a whole half hour of class to vent about Americans eat and cook. Maybe this was bottled up inside for a while and it was time to tell us how he felt. Now put on your best french accent while you read my favorite quotes from him.

1. "You Americans, you drink your sugar soda, your tacos, your cookies... I don't know how you do it."

2. "Americans, they just think it is a recipe, they just mix it all together, not thinking about it and whal-la, you put it in the oven and eat. BUT ITS NOT JUST A RECIPE! Its chemistry. Its art."

3. "Quantity does not equal quality! You fill up our plate but you do not need all that! You have to think about what is good for your body. Why are you eating so much? It is not even good."

Well, us Americans did live up to the french pastry's chefs bias against us. We joked with the our teacher while he did a presentation on cinnamon rolls and were definitely not paying attention to the beauty and art of the whole process. We just wanted to eat them, as most Americans would. The French chef said Americans touch their food too much when they are baking it. "Less touch is more better and sanitary." At least we are building super immune systems! We can wipe out a whole race with all the disease we carry and not even know it! The chef brought in some version of a croissant/cinnamon roll. I hadn't had anything like it before and probably wouldn't have another one if I had the opportunity. (I don't really like pastries anyways though. Some people thought they were really good.)

The other presenters brought in burnt cookies, Oreos and muffins, once again, living up to our name as American culinary students, especially with the Oreos. But I have decided that I probably would not want to study with a French teacher. My biased against them is that they suck the fun out of it. The french man was way to serious about cooking.

Karma

Do you believe that what goes around comes around? Jacob is doing P90 x at 8:00 in the morning. The neighbors are loving us.

A Pen and 7.75

So, a little bit about my work. I am the secretary for Student Living. www.byui.edu/studentliving/ Its kind of a big deal this semester. The whole model was taken to Salt Lake and approved by President Monson, his first councilors and the rest of the people on the board. So it is official. Room assistants out, Student Living in. That's not what I was going to talk about though. People often ask me about what exactly Student Living is, and the link will give you a brief description of what it is all about.

Today, the other secretary that works next to me and I were told to write down some office supplies that we needed. All we had were sharpies to write with, so we asked for pens, post it notes, a mini fridge and candy. The fact that we were even asked to write what we wanted down is huge. After our bosses reviewed our list, we each got one pen, which just doesn't happen in that office so I had a feeling that this might be a very good day.

Anyways, I have been working there for a year now. A whole year! My boss, Brother Dougherty and I realized that today when we were talking in his office. (He is the one in the back laughing and pointing at the guy who just got hit with water.) (And thank you to Jenni Woodmansee who put a good word in for me a year ago. He even said today, you are the reason I have this job. Thank you Jenni! I hope your rash is getting better!) Today Brother Doughterty asked me to water and prune his ivy. Then he joked about Jacob chapter 5 in the Book of Mormon and asked if I would dung the ivy too. I said, water and pruning I could do, but I might have some problems finding dung, to which he responded, "You know, pray for things and they will come."

Before brother Dougherty left today, I got a message in my inbox from him with the subject line "thank you," and this is what the e-mail said:

Kate, you are now making $7.75/hour. You deserve it. Thank you for all of your great work! Brother Dougherty

I wrote back and promised to dung his plant.

I am pretty sure a raise just doesn't happen for student employees. A 25 cent raise after a year is great. But its really not about the 25 cents. I was just fine with 7.50. Its just that.... this really doesn't happen! So a year later I have 7.75 and a pen. A lot to be happy about and a very good day indeed.

No Pack, No Sack, Big Lunch Mondays!

The new semester is off to a running start! I am enjoying school a lot more than last semester. Last semester was awful. This will mostly be for my parents because I don't like to talk about school on the weekends when we talk, but its Monday now, so I suppose I can take some time to fill them in.

Today, Jacob was so kind. He packed me a lunch and dropped it off at my work this morning before I started classes. My first class this morning was nutrition. Well, turns out, every Monday when we are in the lab, the class will end with a big buffet of samples of nutritious food! Today we sampled different chicken, potatoes, and spinach recipes. There was some food I definitely liked more than others, not to the fault of the students because we had recipes to follow. All this nutritious food must have done me some good, by the way, because I ran 5.5 miles today and I feel great.

The second class is Baking. Not so nutritious. My teacher is Neal Ricks. He's the one that taught the candy class. Next semester I'll be taking a pastry making class from Brother Ricks too. We like him. I'll be making french bread, cookies, donuts, pie, cake, you name it! I know what my dad is thinking, "Better run another lap." Well, I found out today that I could play for my bosses 4th - 5th football team that he coaches. And they do have a weight limit. He's ready to suit me up! I would be a bit tall though. Anyways, I am really looking forward to learning new skills this semester, especially on Monday.

A Whole New World!

Labor day weekend feels like a really long time ago and I haven't written about our adventures yet, so here we go. We got to Boise past mid-night as usual. On the way we talked about the ideas of nature vs. nurture, if people are inherently good or bad (kind of a Hobbes vs. Locke debate), and a a lot of other different philosophical ideas to prep me for my upcoming philosophy class and all the talking made the drive feel 1/2 as long.

On Saturday we went zip lining. Jacob and I had both never been before. The best zip line was 1700 feet long and it felt like you were flying! Everything was just whooshing by and all the trees blurred into one big green mass until you finally slowed down at the end. We had a lot of fun, but I don't think it was worth as much as they were asking for. Thankfully, we didn't have to because Jacob won this trip from Melaleuca. I can't find our camera stuff right now, so I will have to add pictures later. I thought the harness made my butt look big anyways. So here is a picture of a tree house, so the blog doesn't look so plain.That is quite the engineering accomplishment.

On Saturday night we watched the BYU game vs. Oklahoma. Now I am hooked on BYU football for the rest of the season. On Sunday we had a thanksgiving dinner with the Smith's. The only thing that was missing was the sauerkraut :). On Monday, we went shopping at the outlet mall. Remember the gross feet pictures? The Curtis' took pitty on me and bought me some new shoes. Cheryl had a great deal to a store at the outlet mall so she got a new pair too, and after all was said and done, it ended up being almost 2 shoes for the price of one! Thank you Harold and Cheryl. I have ran everyday this week and my feet have never felt better! Its like having a new pair of feet and my blisters are slowly going away. Jacob got a new button down shirt from Eddie Bauer and I got a new skirt and sweater. I also got a new oven mit. We watched Forever Strong that night and took off early Tuesday morning. Jacob and I both had to go back to work that afternoon, but we both had a fabulous time, and a relaxing weekend.

Pillow Talk

Jacob and I have had some interesting conversations while he's asleep and some funny things to laugh about when we wake up. The first one happened right after we got married. Sometimes Jacob sleeps on his back with his hands behind his head and his elbows out to the side. He was moving into this position one night and he hit my nose pretty hard. It sent stinging tears to my eyes. (Not that I was actually going to cry. It just happened. You know the feeling?) Anyways, I woke him up and told him he hit my nose really hard. He said, "What?" and I told him again that he hit my nose really hard with his elbow. Once he figured out what he had done after a couple more explanations he wouldn't stop apologizing and petting my head. I now stay on my side of the bed with my nose facing away from him.

Conversation #2. Jacob never snores and thank goodness because I can't sleep with noise, unless I fall asleep watching TV. One night he must have had his head in a funny position because he started snoring, and it wasn't just a little snore, he could have woken up the people above and below us. I poked him and asked him to change positions so he would stop snoring. His response, "Oh... Hmm... Anything else?" I hope this wasn't some kind of Freudian slip while he was half asleep, but ever since then I have been careful not to sound too bossy. He claims he doesn't remember this.

Conversation #3. This one happened more recently. Before we went to bed Jacob was saying that he had a headache. In the middle of the night he starting poking me and telling me that he didn't want to get up yet because he felt "blah." I started looking around the room and out the window. It was still very dark out so I looked at my clock. I told him he had plenty of time to sleep because it was only 2:43 am. He asked me what in the world I was talking about and I had to tell him about our conversation. He said, "I don't remember any of this," like I was absolutely out of my mind and rolled over.

Needless to say, I like Jacob during the day a lot more than at night. But we always have a good laugh in the morning when I tell him what we talked about while he was asleep.

The Destroyer

One Sunday morning a couple of months back, I noticed a hornet buzzing around our living room. Let me just say... I hate bugs. So while I yelled at the bug to get out Jacob killed it. The next Saturday Jacob was at work and there was another hornet perched on the window. I smashed it with a DVD player box and ran out outside to the car. Thankfully, there were a lot of errands to run that day.

Where were all these hornets coming from?? Well, I got brave enough to go outside and look. There were HUGE hornets nests built into the top of our windows. So, being brave, I bought some hornet spray and went crazy. I used a whole can on one nest. Those hornets didn't stand a chance.

Later that night Jacob took off the window screens and knocked the nests out. All those hornets were definitely dead after went to town spraying the nests. These are all the hornet nests he knocked down.
Now these silly hornets are coming back again. Jacob doesn't believe me when I tell him that you have to spray the area every couple of weeks to keep them from coming back. It would be nice if maybe someone else could try to convince him, because these hornets are definitely trying to rebuild their home in our window again.

Time for new shoes.

WARNING: Gross feet pictures.

I know anyone who has lived with me thinks that I have too many shoes. I wouldn't dare ask my dad for a pair of shoes. His response would be a hour long lecture about my how I have too many shoes. Then he would tell the next ten people he sees about all of my shoes. During my freshman year at BYU-I, my roommates gave me my own shoe tub by the front door so they wouldn't be all over the place. When Jacob and I got married he told me it was time to part with some of my shoes and he helped me go through them and dropped the discarded shoes off at D.I. He also said I could not buy another pair of shoes unless I got rid of one pair I already had. (I have broken this rule more than once.)

I do have one pair that I wear almost daily, shoes that I would never give away with out a replacement, and this pair actually does need to be replaced. My Nike running shoes. I have had these shoes since I was in high school. It must have been senior year when I got them and now I am starting my senior year of college. I wouldn't mind keeping my old running shoes but my feet are getting torn up. I have tried different socks, band aids, tape, you name it, to see if my feet would feel better. Well, here are my pictures taken after I got back from the gym last night, and this is after a shower and lots of lotion. Lucky for you these pictures are a bit blurry.
This is my left foot. There is a big blister turned into a callus all the way up from pad under my big foot to the middle of my big toe. There is also a little blister forming half way up the big toe. Under my second toe, there is a blister that broke. (Its a little hard to see. Its easier to see in the second picture. It looks like a big white bump.) There is usually one there that comes and goes, and if you want to know something gross, I can always feel the loose dead skin flapping around when I go swimming. If I go swimming at a lake or a beach, sand gets stuck in there and I can feel the sand squish from one side to another when I walk for the next day or two.

This is my right foot. My right foot has always been better off than my left. That is a freshly popped blister on the side of my toe and a few calluses and healing blisters. Jacob's mom, Cheryl asked me if I wanted a foot rub one time when I had a bad migraine during one of our visits. I actually would have liked a foot rub, but told her no thank you. Would you want to touch these?

In all seriousness it does hurt to walk for the rest of the night after my gym trip, so I put all the weight on the outside of my feet which doesn't feel good on the ankles. So, its official. I am going to purchase new running shoes after I start my job again in September. That may mean Jacob and I will only eat oatmeal and bananas for a while, but I'd rather sacrifice almost anything than my feet. I need them for a while. I'm only 21!

The dog chase and the apartment tour

Yesterday when I was leaving the gym I decided to take a round about way home, partly because there was nothing to do at home and secondly I didn't feel like I had ran enough on the treadmill. So I was walking down the street and I saw this dog running from yard to yard and not and no one was around the dog at all. I decided to help the dog because many people have brought Ariel, my families dog, back after she found her way out. So, I followed this dog for several blocks. It was a black dog with a scary looking face so I didn't want to just reach out and grab its collar, and every time I got close it would run away. So this dog was running back and forth across the street and people were scowling at me as if I was the owner, just letting my dog run free. We ended up at Porter Park where the dog decided to lay down in a big puddle and I finally caught up to it, but he was off once again, but he didn't go very far. He found an old truck with an open window, and before I could do anything, it had jumped in, laid down and looked very happy in the shade and to be away from me. So that was that. I wonder how the person reacted when they came back to their car to find a big black wet dog sprawled out across the seat.

People have been asking to see pictures of our apartment, so here it is. There is still some decorating to be done.

This is how our apartment looks from the front door. I can't move Jacob's weights by myself so they stayed in the picture.

Here is the living room from the other side. Yes, that is two TVs you see. Our DVD player broke so now when we watch movies we watch them from the little TV that came with a built in DVD player. The fan usually isn't in the middle of the room but it is in the 90's today. Yuck.

This is where we eat. Jacob kept talking about how he wanted a bamboo plant so I bought him one. They are said to be lucky and bring you wealth, so we try to treat our bamboo plant well. The plants in the living room are dying. This is because no one told us they were lucky. The metal shelf you see at the side is our "office" where we print and find all the important papers that I have lost.

Here is our kitchen. If you noticed the tub in the bottom left hand corner, I emptied my friends storage unit and shipped all her stuff to her. It has been a long project that will be over with very soon. We just have to figure out what to do with these tubs.By the way, the kitchen is always this clean.

Here is our bedroom. We're still sleeping on an air mattress and we are okay with that. It'd just be another thing to pack when we get out of Rexburg. Jacob was very excited to use the cooler as his bed side stand. I'm glad to know that a bed side stand made out of a ten dollar cooler from K-Mart can make him happy. If only everything in life was that easy!

I don't know what happened to the bathroom picture. It's not that exciting.

That is our apartment. I am hoping that one day we will have a big kitchen and neighbors far enough away so I wont hear their loogie hocking. But I am happy to pay my dues now. (COME ON BAMBOO PLANT!!)

California

This week Jacob and I went to California to visit my family and see my cousin Justin get married. The trip was NOT long enough! There were 100 more things I wanted to do. We took off on Tuesday night and stopped in Jackpot, NV, just south of Twin Falls, ID. That was a rough night. We were both tired and I was especially grouchy for whatever reason and it was really hot. The trip from there on out was fine. We stopped for gas in Wells, NV and some guy tried to hustle us into buying new tires. That is the second time someone has tried to get us to buy new tires and I said, thanks but no thanks sir. He stuck a screw driver in the tire! I was about ready to kick him in his head after that and decided never to stop at a gas station that sells tires again. Anyways, the trip was really smooth, but there was miles and miles of road work that slowed us down quite a bit.

When we got there my parents took us to Fentons. It is just not a trip home with out some Fentons.

On Thursday we drove to Santa Cruz. I got really excited about the Sea Horse painting. The beach was so windy that day and sand was blowing everywhere. In fact, it was so windy tons of sand got into our bag and broke the camera, so there were no more pictures for the rest of the day. My brother took the camera apart later that night and semi-fixed it. The camera will take pictures but you can't zoom and you have to take the batteries out to turn it off. Its probably time for a new one.

Friday morning we walked the Golden Gate. Jacob and never been over it before. We were a little wind blown. Friday night we went to a Giants game. I thought it was a great game but my dad said it had no rhythm. I was disappointed because both teams were all set up for a grand slam multiple times but it never happened. It's not everyday you see a grand slam. We all had a great time at the game though and the park proved that there isn't a bad seat in the house. We were in the last row at the very top and we all thought they were pretty good seats.
Saturday was the wedding. They sure aren't as exciting when they are not your own. (Thank you to everyone who was patient through the pictures and all the confusion in April.) The reception was in my grandparents backyard and it was really pretty! A perfect evening for an outdoor reception.

It was a great weekend and I miss my family and California very much. It's nice to wake up and actually BE somewhere. I try not to complain about Rexburg, but its a hard, bitter adjustment every time I come back. No sparkling beaches, no sky scrappers etched in the rolling fog, no family.

The Neighborhood

So far I only have two complaints about the apartment Jacob and I live in and they are both very minor.

1. The kitchen is too dang small. Imagine doing your dishes and cooking in an airplane bathroom. If you leave one dish or box of crackers on the counter it feels like the whole place is a mess.

It's a bit of an exaggeration, but it is small.

2. The walls are thin and the neighbors are close.

On the side of our apartment is an assisted living center. I am pretty sure there is an old guy in there with bronchitis. About every 15 minutes or so you'll hear some horrible sneezing followed by him coughing up a lung. More often than not the coughing is followed by lugie hocking and nose blowing. This whole process usually lasts about 2 minutes or so. I am pretty sure this old man has a grandson that visits pretty often and plays Grand Theft Auto extremely loud. Every once in a while you'll hear screams and gun shots with the sound of screeching tires from the TV and the boy will shout a profanity loud enough for the whole senior home to hear... without their hearing aides.

Across the street there is a trailer park with all sorts of interesting people. One trailer has a confederate flag hanging in front. Something I thought I would never see in Idaho. A couple times a week you'll see a women going for a walk in short shorts, a loose tank top with nothing holding her in, and hair with a perm gone wild. I should also mention that those short shorts should be a bit longer. Not just for modesty's sake, but also because it looks as if there is a three dimensional map of the United States from her thighs to her ankles. Anyways, the noises from the trailer park usually consists of loud cars, old people bickering about which road to take to Wal-Mart or the Family Dollar and mothers yelling at their children phrases like, "BOY, Quit picking yer gosh dang nose." I swear one day I heard one of these mothers yelling, "Emma lou, come back in here or I'll pull of one of yer pigtails off yer pea-sized head."

I don't have many complaints about the people upstairs. It just sounds like they run when ever they move from one room to the other and they drop heavy objects on their way.

As for the people down stairs, and on a more serious note, I don't think they realize I hear everything. And I mean, EVERYTHING. I don't know who they are, thankfully. The husband can be so rude to his wife. He says very derogatory things about her body. Not that she is ugly or fat, but definitely things I don't want to write on my blog. You can just about bet on an argument once a day and tears a least once a week. Today really got me. She had made enchiladas for lunch (I told you I hear everything) while her husband was gone. When he got home and heard they were having enchiladas he just about hit the roof. He just started yelling at his wife like crazy. Here is how the conversation went. This isn't very descriptive, it's just what I heard.

Husband:"ITS WAY TOO HOT TO HAVE ENCHILADAS! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" (he was seriously screaming at her.)
Wife: "I am sorry, I have just been wanting them for a while and I had all the ingredients..." Husband: "I don't care. I don't want this. Go make me something else."

At that point the conversation became muffled and I couldn't hear everything, but it sounded like he was being a complete jerk for next ten minutes until he finally apologized. I felt horrible for that girl. No one deserves to be treated like that at all, especially when she made her husband a nice lunch.

Someone once said at a BYU-Idaho devotional (unfortunately I can't remember who it was), "The golden rule is old, but not outdated." I know the golden rule sounds really simple, but for what it's worth, it's important that we remember that, especially with the people we care about most.

Demolition Derby

On Saturday Jacob and I had a day full of adventures. We got all our homework done on Friday so we could spend the whole day together with out any worries. Our first stop was Melaleuca to buy some crackers and mouth wash and then we decided just to walk to run the rest of our errands. We ended up about a mile and a 1/2 away at D.I. I found the movie Little Manhattan there (cute, Sunday movie) for three dollars. It was a steal. When we got back home we decided to cool off from our walk at Rigby lake which did more than cool us off, it froze us to the bone! But we manned up and took a lap around the lake.

Anyways, we had been hearing about a demolition derby going on in town and I was just about dying to go. Turns out demolition derbys are the most entertaining events. If you ever get the chance to go, I highly suggest you take advantage of the opportunity. 12 cars in an arena crashing into eachother until the last car running wins. It's real life bumber cars. Even Glenn Beck joined in on the fun! He's in the passanger seat of the police car.

Post 4th of July

The 4th in Boise was great fun. Jacob and I had such a relaxing time and we definitely do not want to be back in Rexburg. Not one bit.

Jacob got off of work early on Wednesday and surprised me at our front door. He had called my cell phone a couple of times but I missed it, so he walked home from work and there I was cat-napping on the couch. So we took off early, and thank goodness or else we would have been driving well into the early morning hours.

Thursday we returned a few gifts and relaxed at Jacob's house. Then we went to Tucano's! It was absolutely amazing and my mouth is watering thinking about it. They bring you turkey wrapped in bacon, mango fish, steak, and GRILLED PINEAPPLE! There were actually 15 different types of meat they brought by but I can't remember them all. They were just so yummy. There was also the biggest salad bar I had ever seen. Which was more than just a salad bar. You could have had your full meal from the salad bar. Anyways, it was a great treat.

On the 4th we had donuts for breakfast and I forgot how GOOD they were! For dinner we went to Jacob's sisters house for a barbecue and some fun with fireworks.

Now Jacob and I are counting down to the 7 week break and could not be more excited to spend more time together. And we need to be much better about taking pictures!

Forth of July

I love traditions and at my house, we have plenty of 4th of July traditions. Some have died down in the past few years as cousins have gotten older and grown apart, but I still love the memories of the 4th of July. Every year we would go to my grandparents house and have a barbecue. The cousins would always swim all afternoon in the pool and best of all we would eat homemade ice cream! My grandparents had the really old kind of ice cream maker where you'd have to actually crank the ice cream around and around with a handle. Each grand kid youngest to oldest would have to take 50 cranks on the ice cream maker and then an adult would finish it off. The ice cream was absolutely delicious.

There were also A's games that we'd go to around the 4th of July to watch the fireworks. Fireworks games were always packed and everyone was excited. The wave would go around the stadium 8 or 9 times and everyone would get up during the 7th inning stretch and sing "Take me out to the ball game." When I was younger I used to think fireworks were way too loud and I would sit there with my hands over my ears. But I remember my favorite part was when the Journey song "Lights" would come on and the lights would go out and the stadium and everyone would cheer and then get really quiet. A few fireworks would go off during "Lights" and then the real show would start. The stadium would shake as fireworks went off and crowds would ooh and awweee when the smiley face fireworks would shoot off.

The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays and I can not wait for the break from school and to visit Jacob's family in Boise. Maybe I'll get lucky and hear "Lights."

Time Article and Gross Dessert

An article in Time Magazine was recently published about Mormons. Unfortunately, the article was supposed to focus more on LDS families, but apparently the editor cut a third of the story out at the end despite a promise that Prop 8 would not be the focus. Still an interesting article, and the writer visited families in my home ward, Alameda Ward, to write the article. Here is the link.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1904146,00.html


Anyways, I thought I would try something new for dessert this weekend. It was called Banana Split Cake.

It ended up being a big pile of really gross mush. Nothing like the picture. Sometimes, a big pile of mush can end up being really good, but this was not the case. I read the recipe, but I did not think about 1. How unhealthy this is and 2. All the ingredients together just don't sound very good. The layers bottom to top are: graham cracker crust, cream cheese with sugar mixed in, pineapple, bananas vanilla pudding, whipped topping and another layer of bananas and pecans if you want, but I left them out. Thankfully, I cut the recipe in half so I didn't waste as many ingredients. Jacob decided he liked the vanilla, whipped topping and bananas so he ate them and then we door bell ditched the rest in paper bowls. I would have felt bad throwing it all away myself.

Only Getting Better

It has occurred to me that I have not posed about our wedding day. In short, it was absolutely perfect and the week before was perfect too! We had our reception in Boise which was absolutely beautiful!! It was a rustic theme with lanterns and candles, and gold-ish table cloths. It was really pretty. I found pictures on my moms facebook to post.

The actual wedding day went great. If anything went wrong I did not notice. It was perfect and my mom did a great job putting it all together. And I absolutely loved the cake. It was exactly what I wanted! All in all one of the best days of my life. Everything went as planned and everyone was happy. I was so excited that Jacobs family could be there and some of my relatives were able to fly in. That was really special.

Things are just getting better and better! It was such a tough adjustment but I think we are both getting used to married life. We have so much fun on the weekends and push through the long busy weeks. I am so happy to have Jacob as my best friend! Please excuse my poor picture layout. I think I need a tutorial.

Memorial Day Weekend

Jacob and I had a great four day weekend from school. I wish we had taken pictures! Neither of us did a lick of homework and it felt great. Jacob got the day off of work on Friday so we left for Boise when we were done with classes.

We made a pit stop in Idaho Falls to go to the Social Security office to change my last name from Larsen to Curtis. I had my forms filled out which needed my parents name filled in. The lady behind the counter told me my dads last name was not Larsen but Johnson. What the heck? When did that happen? And who would name a kid Jonathan Johnson? So one more trip to the lovely Social Security office is in store to have that fixed.

We made a couple other stops on the way to Boise too. One was Massacre Rock. Not much more to see there than what you already see on the road. The second stop we made was in Twin Falls to see the water falls... which I don't think were going because I did not see any waterfalls. But it was still a really pretty view. And hold on to your kids! No fences!

Saturday we went to the Boise Market which is a lot of fun, but be sure to have cash! We tried to by some huckleberry creme honey but they the man at the booth didn't want to take my out of state check. I was quite upset. But Cheryl let us have some huckle berry honey she had bought in Oregon. And it is EVEN BETTER than the stuff at the Boise Market. Take that honey man. After that we had a barbecue with some of Jacob's family and that was a lot of fun. I cant remember what we did after we ate.

On Monday we went to Roaring Springs, a water park in Meridian. It was so much fun!! There are only a few things that make me happier than being in the sun with water to play in.

All in all, it was a great weekend and I can not wait for another four day weekend for the 4th of July.

The first week of married life...

has been quite an adventure. At this time last week Jacob and I were in Boise getting our stuff loaded up into his car, getting ready to make the long treck across Idaho back to Rexburg and back to school. We werent sure if our power would be on or if the manager would remember to unlock our door and leave a key for us. Thankfully, Jacob's parents had rented us a hotel room in rexburg just in case we didnt have power.

We did the four and a 1/2 hour drive with no stops! We had power and our door was unlocked. Even though all was in order we decided to stay at the Best Western across the street anyways. Free breakfast!! We grabbed the extra trash bags from our hotel room and stuffed them with more muffins and bread for lunch.

The first day of school felt like any other school day until I went home to my very empty apartment. I thought I'd make a box of Pasta-Roni for dinner and was disappointed when i realized I did not have a sauce pan. But I did have a frying pan. It'll work! Nope. not at all. I guessed the amount of milk, water and butter to put in. I was wrong. Very wrong. and disspite the amount of extra water, it was still not enough to cover the noddles and cook them. So... I had left over, very aldente pasta for lunch the next day. Jacob decided he would be happier with a PB&J for dinner and I was not offended.

Jacob went back to work and I was left to unpack what little we had with us. We had the necessities. Toilet paper, blankets and some clothes... and laundry.

We spent the week eating PB&J's for lunch and whatever I could scrounge for dinner. We had fun turning our dinners into pic-nics on the floor. Thank goodness for Jacob's mom sending all this food with us and stocking us up with food every time we go home or else we would have had nothing.

This weekend we went shopping for more apartment furniture. Jacob's car was filled to the brim and we're are so excited to get everything in place so the apartment will feel like home.