FREEDOM!

We bit the bullet. A big bullet. On Monday we bought a car!!! A 2011 Kia Sorento.

Free at last, Free at last! Until now I've been confined to where my two legs and a stroller can take us on a cold day so I've had my eye on cars for quite some time now and finally felt like this was the one for us. On Saturday I test drove the car and really liked the sales man who reminded me of dwarf version of Cam from Modern Family. We didn't have the time and we just needed an extra day to think, so I told dwarf Cam to throw some dirt on the car and park it in a corner until we made up our mind. After lots of talk I called the him back and told him we'd like to come in again. Darwf Cam told me while we were signing papers that the dealership was ready to ship the car somewhere else THAT DAY so I called right on time.

While I liked the salesman, the finance guy on the other hand was not as awesome. He reminded me of a geometry teacher I had in highschool and his fly was down. He tried to sell us extra insurance. We had said no four or five times before he stopped talking about it, and then of course he had to mention it at least three more times before we left. He'd say, "Either you have it or you don't, you know..." over and over again. He didn't even explain what it really was he was trying to sell. It got to the point where I was exaggerating my eye rolls every time he mentioned the extra insurance. Not only that, we told him that we preapproved for a loan at one bank for an awesome interest rate, and come to find out when we're half way through signing papers, he did not use that bank we picked out. The bank he used gave us an interest rate almost TWICE the amount we were preapproved for, which made a huge difference in the monthly payment. I kept thinking something wasn't right and I'm glad I caught that. Finance guys should be better than that. And check their flies. Besides being annoyed at him, and our paperwork seeming off, that's all I could think about.

We've had our car a couple days now and I am still in love with it. It drives beautifully and for a larger car, can go from 0-60 pretty nicely. Yes, I've tested that a couple times. I love being able to run errands with Zach or just knowing that I have the freedom to go anywhere. I love my Kia!

Home Improvement

We are still slowly getting our empty house filled in and looking like our own. We started with a project that was no so fun, but completely necessary. Our dishwasher started making this funny grinding noise and it just got worse and worse. In fact I stopped it in the middle of the cycle and hand washed everything because I thought it might explode. It was 9:00 at night but we decided right then and there that we were going to solve this problem. Jacob got out his tool box and looked up a you tube video. (We would be completely handicapped with out you tube videos...) The video we found was a lady with her toddler in the background making all sorts of noises I'd expect to hear in a zoo. She seemed kind of ditzy and didn't really build our confidence in taking apart the dishwasher, but I got brave and decided if this lady and her zoo child could do it, so could we. Then Jacob started taking apart the dishwasher like a seasoned handyman and this is all the goop we found...

I could not believe we were washing our dishes in THAT. I mean, there was worm looking scum stuff in there. We also found a screw that didn't look anything like the screws holding the dishwasher together. Probably a contributing factor to the scary noises. We still don't know where it came from but we're pretty sure it doesn't belong in the dishwasher. We scrubbed and scrubbed... and scrubbed some more and had a beautiful clean dishwasher afterwards.

Now our dishes look cleaner and our dishwasher sounds so much quieter. Jacob told me he gets jealous when I run the dishwasher during the day and he's not home to hear how quiet it is now.

We also recently replaced a chandelier with a ceiling fan. We just did not enjoy the old chandelier that came with the house. It belongs in a haunted castle. (It looks semi cute to me in this picture, but trust me, up close and personal, its an ugly mess.)

 Putting up this ceiling fan was probably the worst three hours of my life. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong and we even had to use you tube videos again. There were all sorts of wires everywhere that didn't match the colors we had, parts screwed in wrong, horrible directions, dropping important screws in the motor... it was awful. In the summer when the afternoon sun is beating into our family room and we have a nice breeze to keep us cool, the worst three hours of my life will all be worth it.

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.

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.

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!!)

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.

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.

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.

I, Kate Larsen, am engaged!!

Who would have thought?! I am getting married to Jacob M. Curtis! He asked on Sunday, our 8 month anniversary. The day started with Jacob picking me up late for church because he had stayed up so late getting ready to pop the question. There was a present on passenger seat in the car. Then I kept getting small gifts and notes through out the day. When we went back to his apartment, there were flower pedals everywhere and candles and the table was nicely set. Then we went to Nature Park where we feed the ducks and go on walks. Then, he gave me another present to open. It was a small box and it was empty. I thought it was a mean joke, but then he pulled the ring out of his pocket and asked me to marry him. Of coarse I said no. Just Kidding. I said yes. The big day is April 18th in the Oakland LDS Temple. Then I will be Kate Curtis.