Sunday, December 28

Merry Christmas to us!

We had quite the successful Christmas. We made it home with lots more stuff that we have to find places to put now! It was great for my whole family to be at my parent's house this year.

Here's some pictures from Christmas morning...

My older sister helping my nephew, Michael open his presents... he liked the wrapping paper better.

My brother wearing the hat we gave him.

Chase looking soo excited to be awake.

Waiting for Michael to eat so we could open presents.

Waiting in Brian's room for my parents to wake up!

This is what my mom made for us, and I love it!

Mom and Dad


Hope everyone had a great Christmas; we sure did! :)

Wednesday, December 17

Tagged!

I really kinda like these tags! Thanks Holly!

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago...

1. Probably helping my mom make cookies/candy/good food.
2. Saving up to help Santa buy me a new bike.
3. Wishing I could be in Junior High so I had a longer holiday break.
4. Making snow caves in our driveway.
5. Trying to figure out which 'Tennis Shoes' volume my parents got me for Christmas.

5 Things on Today's 'To-Do' list...

1. Help with a sewing project.
2. Figure out presents for my in-laws.
3. Buy textbooks.
4. Make M&M cookies.
5. Go to work.

5 Things I would do if I Was a Millionaire...

1. Go to Europe
2. Buy a house
3. Pay for school
4. Buy 2 new cars
5. Buy endless amounts of fabric and books!

5 Places I Have Lived...

1. Kaysville, UT
2. Logan, UT
3. Rancho Cucamonga, CA
4. Phoenix, AZ
5. umm... that's it!

5 Places I Have Worked...

1. Dan's Deli
2. Logan City School District
3. Utah State University
4. Teachers Without Borders
5. Adam's Elementary

I tag anyone who loves tagging!

Sunday, December 14

Yay for Christmas!

Lots has been happening these last few weeks...so just to catch up a little for starters....

We made it back from Arizona where we spent Thanksgiving with Chase's Dad's side of the family. Lots of fun. I experienced my first Black Friday shopping frenzy. It will TOTALLY be worth getting up at 3:30 to see the look on Chase's face when he see's what I got him! And really, I think there are some deals worth getting up that early for!

I found another job that will be great for us! I will be working in the CIL lab on campus, helping in the lab and developing new tests. My boss is great to work with, I don't have to work weekends, I don't have to be on-call all the time, I get all school holidays off if I want, they are paying me what I asked, and they practically let me work when I want to. I couldn't have gotten much better!

Me and Chase decided that we wanted to have our own Thanksgiving dinner last Sunday, so we had our sisters and Ben come over to help us eat it. It was my first experience cooking a turkey all by myself. It wasn't too bad. But the saddest part was when my pyrex pan with my FAVORITE dish (the yams) EXPLODED! Yes, it just fell apart. I took it out of the oven and it broke into a million pieces just sitting there on the counter. I am thinking thick glass pans like that are NOT supposed to do that. Weird.




We made it through finals! Yippee. I was kind of stressed out with these ones because I needed to do well to get the GPA I needed to get into the Secondary Ed program... but then... I changed my major! So then they didn't matter all that much.

So yes, after thinking for over a year that I wanted to do something other than teach biology, I found Public Health Education with a minor in biology. My classes transfer almost seamlessly over and I'll be able to graduate a year earlier than expected! QUITE happy about this! Kind of popped out of the blue, but when it was the right thing and what I had been looking for, I couldn't hesitate more than a few days.

We traveled down to my parent's house this week for our annual Adair family Christmas party, only to be snowed in so we couldn't go, followed by a white-knuckle drive home today.

And we put up our cute LITTLE Christmas tree. I quite like it, but will be happy when we can upgrade to a real one or at least a bigger one.



This is the angel Chase gave me for Christmas last year. I love it!



My favorite part is the polka-dotted ribbon!

So that should just about wrap up what we've been up to!

Monday, December 1

Yes, that's a REAL Olympic medal that he's wearing...




For Thanksgiving we headed down to Tucson with Chase's parents to spend the weekend with the ENTIRE Christensen clan. It was a blast!

And it just so happened that one of these Christensen cousins is also an Olympic Silver Medalist! I know we posted another thing about her on our other blog, but just FYI, this is Chase's cousin, Lacey Nymeyer, who won a silver medal in the 4x100 freestyle swimming relay in Beijing.

Chase just HAD to get a picture wearing it. It was really neat to see a real medal! And he's wearing the free Speedo shirt that we all got because Speedo sponsored her.

Pretty cool huh?!

Tuesday, November 25

Yay! We made it to Thanksgiving!

This means only two more weeks in the semester! Whoopee! It feels like it's been a long time in coming. Now I can start putting up Christmas decorations and finding presents, start my new job, and have almost a month of no homework. Is anyone else excited too? :)

Monday, November 17

Taking Time for Gratitude

Reading everyone's blogs and seeing what they are thankful for made me want to tell of you some things I am thankful for. And it's something I need to do, because I don't do it often enough! And I feel like I need to take the time to be thankful for something when we've been so caught up with work, school, and just life in general; all things that can just get you down if you don't take the time to count your blessings.


1. Chase-I don't know what I ever did to deserve someone like him. Rain, shine, snow or hail, he is there to take care of me. He will bend over backwards to do anything for me. I haven't been feeling very good the last few days, but he drove me all the way to Kaysville so I could be at my best friend's reception, and he stayed with me the whole time! He made breakfast, offered to lead for me in church, did the dishes, made the bed, did some Christmas shopping, and did laundry, and all so I could sit on the couch and work while I tried to feel better.

He is my best friend. I was talking to some friends at said reception above, and one unmarried friend mentioned how scary it would be to have to stay with one person for forever. It made me think how happy I was at being able to be with Chase for eternity. And it's because we are best friends.

He makes me laugh. He makes me laugh when I need to the most. He puts everything in a brighter and more practical light and makes it all better.He also has a very cute and sentimental side that not a lot of people ever get to see. He always takes the time to make sure I have what I need/want, and he brings me roses on occasion when it's been a hard day and ice cream when it has been a really hard day. He's the best ever and just what I need!


2. Friends- I have the most amazing friends in the world. I love it when I just need to talk to someone and one of them will call to see how I am, just because they felt like I needed a phone call. It happens all the time! I love friends who are going through the same things with life and are there to offer suggestions and empathy.

3. A great apartment- Granted, I would still like another room, but the apartment that we have is so nice! All utilities are included in the rent and that is such a blessing! We can do laundry whenever we want and not worry about a water bill! It is also two houses down from the bus-stop which will be very convenient when the snow starts to fly. It is also in the basement, which drives me nuts sometimes, because I can't people-watch and I feel like we're cut off from civilization, but this makes it so we have to make more of an effort to talk to people and friends, which has created better friendships in the long-run. It also has fun green walls and cute apple wallpaper in the kitchen; no cinder-blocks for us! And it has a ginormous closet! Never before have I realized the luxury of having closet space; it's wonderful.


4. That cavities are less expensive that root-canals- I know this one is weird. But it is a fact that I am truly thankful for this week. I've also had a really bad toothache all week. (It's been a bad week as far as physical ailments go!) I finally called the dentist to get it checked out. I figured by the way it was hurting I would have to get a root-canal. Thank goodness it was only a really annoyingly painful cavity!


5. The gospel- Even when life gives you really sour lemons and cavities, Heavenly Father is there to keep telling you he loves you. That's all we really need. Despite everything... He still loves us!

Monday, November 10

Ahh Weddings!

One of my best friends got married on Saturday and it was so fun to be there! Our group of friends from high school got to be there. It's fun to see one more of our group get married.

Most Awesome Park Ever!

I love parks, they are one of my simple pleasures in life. And we went to the most amazing one this last weekend! When we were down in St. George for the wedding, our really good friend Ambree took us to this park which is essentially for adults. All the 'toys' were adult sized and a whole lot more entertaining than a typical park! We had a blast. Unfortunately, we couldn't appreciate the full effect of the park because all us girls were in skirts, but that didn't stop the guys from having a grand 'ol time!I made Chase promise me that he would build me a swing like these ones. Swings are by far the best part of going to the park!
Most of the contraptions were made to use your momentum to spin you around... super fast! Like this one below that Chase is in.

Sunday, November 2

Fun Fall!



Last week we drove up the canyon with my sister and took some pictures of the leaves to commemorate fall. I love Logan in the fall!

Saturday, November 1

Job? What job?

This has been quite the interesting week. Really weird that I could lose BOTH of my jobs in a matter of a few days.

To start it off, I got a call from my boss at my data entry job to tell me that I should be expecting a call from the director of the COSL office, letting me know that I had been laid off due to a clerical error, therefore they ran out of money to pay me with. Not what I had been expecting since just the week before I had received an email from the organization I had been doing the work for that they loved what I had done and wanted to keep me on staff indefinitely with the possibility of a raise!

If nothing else, this has taught me NOT to trust this organization at all. But they said I should not be too concerned because I still could work directly through this organization for two more months. During these two months they expect me to train a new employee in their Seattle office to do what I have exclusively been doing. This kind of ticks me off. Why did they hire someone new that they will have to train when I am already here doing the work! This does NOT make any sense! So therefore I have lost motivation to keep working the next two months for this organization who has shown no appreciation for my work and is replacing me needlessly.
Next day starts the job search in order to relieve frustration towards said organization so that I can quit and start working somewhere else.

The next few days frustration mounts as I realize that it is the middle of the semester when practically no jobs are available. Applications are sent out to the few jobs found with no responses received.

Friday I get an email half an hour before I was supposed to start my Korean tutoring job for the day. I had been relying on this job to see me through possibly not being able to find another part-time job to replace the lost data-entry one by adding more students to my current work schedule, and because the worlkload for data-entry has been reduced in anticipation for me leaving, not giving me enough hours.

Just as I was getting ready to send in the request for more students, said email is read telling me that with current exchange rates between Korea and the United States being so high that they can't afford to pay me anymore effective immediately, with no prospect of any more students being able to pay for lessons. And I didn't even get to say goodbye to my adorable students who have progressed so much in the time I have been working with them!! (sob...)

Major frustration ensues as realization that all safety nets have been cut and dropped out from beneath in the matter of four days, whereas just the week before we thought we were set up with pretty good job security with prospect of these jobs lasting for the long-term.

BUT...... in an effort to maintain optimism.... we do realize that this must have happened for one of two reasons: 1. There has to be another AMAZING job out there that will be so much better for us; or: 2. This is meant to be a trial that will make us grow stronger somehow, probably in regards to faith that things are carefully planned out and will work out great, or patience. Neither of which I am very good at. AND... we have been able to save more lately, which has been a great blessing.

So really, I am fine now and things will work out. Hopefully sooner than later! :) Thanks for reading my venting!

Monday, October 27

Homecoming Dance

Last Monday I got home and found these roses on the table with a cute note from my handsome hubby inviting me to go to the Homecoming dance with him. I was quite excited about this after feeling somewhat sad about not being able to ever go to a formal dance with him. Of course, being the great guy that he is, was perceptive enough to realize my silly fantasy of having him come and pick me up in my princess dress and going to the ball.


My sister was nice enough to help me curl my hair, totally living up to old high-school stereotype pre-dance preparations. We had a blast! So here's us, being silly but loving it all at the same time, because I was finally able to go to a formal dance with Chase. Yay for good husbands and awesome sisters!

Thursday, October 23

Shower, Friends, and a Camera!

So this last weekend our group of friends from high school got together, (minus two in Peru and Missouri) for Mandy's bridal shower! It was great to see everyone again after going for almost a years without seeing anyone! I have amazing friends. We had a great time, complete with a TP wedding dress for the bride and......drumroll please.... PICTURES!

Yes! I am finally able to take pictures because we got a new camera! After not having one for almost a year now, we decided that we needed one to capture forever the events coming up in the next few months. I can also continue scrapbooking (no camera=no pictures to scrapbook)!






















Chase also had to experiment a little with the new camera, and decided to use himself and me as his subjects.

Wednesday, October 22

Ahhh!

So after much frustration with the other blog. We deleted the whole thing and started over! So it might take a few days to actually get it looking the way I want it again... and all the new pictures and fun things I have to add. More posts to come with more interesting stuff! :)