The Smeds

Bitter

2012-01-30T21:23:00.000-08:00

I hesitate to write this post because I don't normally share my feelings on this blog, but I feel like I just want everyone to know what is going on so they can understand why I get snappy or try to change the subject when they start talking about how EVERYONE I know is pregnant.

A couple weeks from now will mark a year since Jared and I have started trying to have a baby. That first month after getting off birth control was so exciting. I started a "baby box" with random baby things I find on sale or would want to have when I have a baby. (Like blankets, bottles, baby thermometers, etc.) Then, month after month of no period but negative pregnancy tests and frustration, I started to wonder what was wrong with me. It didn't take more than a month or two for any of my sisters or my mom to get pregnant. Why am I such a freak? So in June, I finally called my doctor, who after blood tests and ultrasounds, diagnosed me with polycystic ovary syndrome. He started me on Glucophage (also for diabetic patients), which was supposed to stimulate ovulation, and also scheduled an appointment with a fertility specialist ob. I had to schedule an appointment with her 3 months in advance. So in September, after no success with the glucophage, the fertility specialist started me on Femara (also for breast cancer patients) (while continuing on the Glucophage because they work "synergistically") which is also supposed to stimulate ovulation, which up to this point I still haven't done at all. She gave me a 3 month supply and set up another appointment after 3 months. In December, at my next appointment, she just increased my dose of Femara, and said if I'm not pregnant by March, I will have to start real fertility drugs. Over the Christmas holiday, the time which is supposed to be centered around Christ and loving others, I found myself becoming very bitter. Bitter at everyone who is currently pregnant and/or who already has kids. Bitter at the 16 year old girls who try having sex once and become pregnant and don't even want the baby. Bitter at the teenage patient I had a few months ago who has had 4 abortions and finally decided to put in an IUD after having a full-term baby. Bitterness is not fun, nor is it healthy. I knew I needed to change my attitude. Over the past few weeks I feel like I've been blessed with the comfort that I am loved and that everything will work out the way Heavenly Father has planned for me. I don't know what He has in store for me in the future as far as kids go, but I am putting my trust in Him that He knows what is best for me at this time in my life. I know that He loves me and will bless me in my life if I have faith and strive to be a better person. I'm so grateful that Jared and I have this time in our lives to still be spontaneous (ie: this Valentine's day we are going to a Red Wings game and staying in a fancy hotel that night in Detroit) and have time to grow stronger together as a couple. I know that we will be blessed as long as we strive to do our best in following the commandments of the Lord. I have a lot to work on...

99 bottles of be---soda on the wall....

2012-01-28T09:02:00.000-08:00

We've had all of these cans sitting in our basement forever because Jared wanted to take a picture of them. These are {most of} the cans of Monster energy drinks that got Jared through his first year of med school. I'm pretty sure there were way more that got thrown away though. He doesn't really drink these any more, because since he's learned all about kidney function and how bad these REALLY are for you, he decided there are probably better alternatives. Like going to bed at a "decent" time most nights during the week so he's not always struggling to stay awake. Gotta love med school!

Christmas 2011

2011-12-30T16:37:00.000-08:00

Jared and I just got back a couple hours ago from Utah. We were very blessed to be able to spend 10 days in Utah celebrating Christmas with our families. It's never nearly enough time to split between family and friends, but I'm just grateful we even had the time off and the money to be able to come out and visit. I had my camera in my purse the entire time and only took like 5 pictures. So I stole a lot of them from my mom's blog.

My mom, sisters and I did our annual "baking day". The beginning of the "Christmas crap" eating.

We did our annual Christmas Eve Eve party, complete with the nativity with my cute nieces and nephews. Man I wish I could play with them more often than twice a year!

How can you not love this face?!

My cute Grand-parents.

The only "Christmas" picture Jared and I have together this year.

We took Jared's sister Kendra's kids ice skating one day.

Jared was teaching Isaac how to skate. It was really cute. Jared is a great teacher and is very patient.

The last day we were in Utah I went shopping with my sisters and mom in the morning, then we went to Salt Lake and ate lunch at Caputo's with my dad and all of Jared's family.

Then we went to temple square where Jared's grandparents serve a part-time mission. His grandma gave us a tour of the Joseph Smith Memorial building. We got a really cool "ancestor" picture taken there.

Then we looked at the lights for a few minutes before we had to make the train back home. Temple square truly is beautiful, especially at Christmas.

This morning our plane was on the runway right as the sun was rising over the mountains. The colors were so beautiful and I started getting a little teary-eyed as I realized it would be at least another 6 months until we're back in Utah.

As we were driving on the bus back home to East Lansing, this was our view:

Welcome back to gray cloudy Michigan. It's nice to be home again....

It doesn't get any manlier than this!

2011-11-27T20:37:00.000-08:00

This season is the first time Jared has ever been deer hunting. This week his tree stand got stolen, then his scope busted. He had been out a few times and hadn't seen anything. Yesterday was the last day he could go and he was pretty bummed that he might not shoot anything this year. Then he saw this buck, and shot it:

(Sorry all you Bambi lovers.... but we have a whole freezer full of meat now!)

Not only did he go out by himself and shoot it without a scope, but he gutted it and then dragged it over a mile by himself back to his truck. Does it get any manlier than that? I think not!

I'm so proud of my hot, manly husband!

Cali

2011-10-23T19:58:00.000-07:00

Warning: Picture overload

I was very blessed to be able to spend a whole week with my family in California a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately Jared wasn't able to come because apparently he had better things to do.... something about training to become a doctor or something...? Psh. Whatev. Anyway, he surely missed out. It was such a blast. I flew into Las Vegas and my parents and brother Alex picked me up and we drove about 5 hours to Palm Springs. Along the way we stopped at a Greek food restaurant.

My parents have had this time share in Palm Springs for 12 years or so and this is the first time we've ever stayed there. It was pretty nice.

The first day we were there we walked around the town and shopped a little.

The next day we spent the majority of our time in the pool and just hanging out and playing games.

Isn't my cute niece so adorable?!

We also did a little shopping with just the girls!

This view of the moon out as the sun was setting was even better in person!

There was also a really weird alien house that we drove by and gawked at. Who would ever live in something like this?!

One of the nights we had to eat at Rubio's to get the famous fish tacos! I love Michigan, but there is nothing even close to Rubio's or any good Mexican restaurants around for that matter. At least not in Lansing.

We drove to Disneyland the next day. I hadn't been there since I was probably 10 or 11. It was so much fun, probably mostly because we went with little kids. I think they said it got up to 102 degrees that day though.... yikes!

The haunted mansion ride was decorated like the Nightmare Before Christmas. It was super cute.

My parents, my brother Alex and I also got park hopper passes to California Adventure. I had never been to that one so it was pretty cool. Here is us on the Tower of Terror ride. It was fun, but I had a headache after from screaming so much.

We went on the Monsters Inc ride and it broke down right in the middle of it, so I took pictures when they turned the lights on. I thought it was pretty funny.

We watched the little kids while my sisters and their husbands went on some "big kid" rides. We took them to the Tiki Room.

We also went to Seaworld in San Diego the next day. It was in the 90's, which is pretty rare for San Diego. At times I could feel the sweat dripping down my back. Awesome.

Luckily some of the aquariums and things were inside where it was nice and cool.

Tide pools.

They had a few fun little kid rides at Seaworld too.

We stayed in San Diego that night after Seaworld and spent the next day hanging out there. We went to the tide pools, but the tide was too high.

We went to Point Loma, which is where I was left one time when I was 10 when we lived in San Diego. What a traumatic experience, I'll never be the same because of it. (jk, it was only like 10 minutes or so before they realized they left me and turned back around... but still.)

We drove over the bridge to Coronado island and rode surrey bikes with Ash and her family. It was probably one of my favorite highlights throughout the trip.

Then we of course had to go to Oceanside and eat at Ruby's on the pier.

After two days of super hot and sunny days where we couldn't really avoid the heat at two theme parks, we went to the beach to cool off.... and it was cold and cloudy the whole day. But I guess I can't complain, I love the beach either way.

Ok, are you sick of looking at pictures yet? I'm sick of being on the computer at posting them! But I seriously loved every minute of this trip because I've missed hanging out with my family. It was kind of a bitter sweet thing leaving, because I really missed Jared and wanted to go back and see him, but I knew I wouldn't see my family again for a little while. Ok I'm done. Thanks for reading!

Labor Day Weekend

2011-09-23T12:36:00.000-07:00

My parents were able to come visit us over Labor Day weekend, it was so wonderful to have them here! We tried to squeeze in as much as we could while they were here. We drove up to Frankenmuth, MI where they had the world's largest Christmas store.

Frankenmuth is a cute little Bavarian town with a lot of fun little shops. We ate at a famous chicken dinner place called Zehnder's.

We bought way too much homemade candy, pastries, and other fattening things. (I'm kind of a fan of anything taffy-like)

We really wanted to go over to Lake Michigan, but the weather forecast was awful for the weekend, so we stuck around town on Saturday and went to a couple farmer's markets and drove around and showed my parents where we spend the majority of our time. Then we played games that night. Sunday we went to church and just hung out enjoying each other's company. Monday I had to take them back to the airport, but we had a few hours so we went to the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn near the airport. It was pretty cool, and since it was labor day, it was free to get into the museum.

This is the car that President Kennedy was shot in. Kind of gave me the chills.

I'm so glad my parents were able to come visit, we get kind of lonely these days (especially me). Visitors are ALWAYS welcome! :)

Anniversary and Mackinac

2011-08-24T18:39:00.000-07:00

Jared and I celebrated our four year anniversary a couple weeks ago. I surprised him with tickets to a Tigers/Indians baseball game in Cleveland, and then a day at Cedar Point amusement park in Ohio the next day.

We were pretty close to the field, it was awesome.

Jared was a little nervous going to Cleveland and wearing Tiger's apparel, but there were actually a lot more Detroit fans there than we thought, so we were safe.

We stayed in a Cedar point hotel so we got discount tickets and were able to get in an hour early before the park opened to the public. It was really nice getting early into the park, there was hardly anyone there yet except for other people staying in the Cedar Point hotels.

We were able to ride the most popular rides without hardly any wait. This was one of our favorites, Millennium Force. It's in the top 10 of fastest and tallest roller coasters in the world.

This was another fun one, the Maverick. I love this picture with my hair flying straight back, we got it in a magnet form to put on our fridge.

We also rode another roller coaster that is in the world's top 10 fastest and tallest, I think the 2nd fastest (120 mph) and and 3rd tallest (420 feet) roller coaster in the world right now, it was called Top Thrill Dragster. It was pretty dang scary, but we both loved it and rode it a couple of times.

We also went to the water park for a few hours. It was so much fun feeling like a kid again. I think we've both been so busy that we've forgotten what it was like to relax and have a good time. I think this was our best anniversary so far if I do say so myself. :)

Last week we also bought a little pop-up trailer. We got it on Craig's list for really cheap, but it wasn't in the best shape. Jared spent hours and hours cleaning it out and fixing up nice. So last week we drove up north and stayed at a campground near Mackinaw City. This was actually the first time we'd been up north in Michigan, it was beautiful. Our campground was right next to the coast line, with a view of Mackinac bridge.

Here is our cute little trailer.

We drove over the Mackinac Bridge to the UP (upper peninsula) to see what all the fuss was about.

We stopped at a little place in the first town called Castle Rock (in St. Ignace). You could pay $1 to climb the 300 or so steps to the top of the rock. This is the view from the top.

You can see our shadows waving in the trees if you look close enough. (Right below the lightest tree in the middle of the picture.

Paul Bunion and his ox. Jared thought it was lame and told me not to take a picture but I couldn't resist. I thought it was funny.

We then took a ferry over to the famous Mackinac Island. This is a view of the bridge from the boat.

This was a cute little lighthouse on the way to the island.

We tried samples of delicious homemade fudge, walked around cute little shops, and visited Fort Mackinac. Here are a few pics of the view from the fort.

At the fort they did little reenactments of soldiers from the 1800's. We watched them shoot off the old guns and an old cannon. It was pretty sweet.

The sun was setting on our way back over the bridge. It's too bad our camera couldn't capture the real beauty of it.

The next morning we made breakfast sandwiches on our little stove in the trailer. It was awesome.

Michigan truly is a beautiful place, a different kind of beauty than Utah beauty, but still beautiful all the same. We really enjoyed our little trip up north and will definitely do it again.

Back to my roots

2011-07-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

This past week I got home from a much-too-short trip to Utah. There is just never enough time to split between everyone. I flew out a few days before Jared got back from Peru (more on that later) so I was able to spend some good one on one time with my family. The first day I flew in, I went shopping in Salt Lake with my mom, then ate lunch with my parents at an awesome Thai food restaurant, and then that night we were able to see Harry Potter in Brigham city (at 7pm, BEFORE the midnight showings opening day, mind you). SUCH a great movie, best one of them all by far! After the movie we asked a kid to take our picture outside the theatre.

Not a wonderful picture, but I love it because it's our entire immediate family minus our youngest brother Andrew (who is on a mission in Korea right now). It's been a long time since we've had a picture with all of us siblings and my parents.

We were also able to have our 4th annual girl's day with my sisters and mom (usually we stay overnight in a hotel too, but Holly's husband was out of town so there was no one to watch her kids overnight.) It was still fun nonetheless. We started out with breakfast at the Straw Market (best. cinnamon rolls. ever.) Then we went to Tai Pan, and then to the Gateway where we shopped and had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen. (It's really funny to me that I can run for 2 or 3 hours and be fine, but shopping for the same amount of time just drains me for the rest of the day.)

I love my sisters and my mom!

One of the nights we also had a little BBQ in Ash and Jud's backyard. Here is a picture of the girlies.

Jared flew in to Utah from Peru four days after I got there (a full 24 hour hour trip with all of his layovers, including a thunderstorm in Detroit and a sandstorm in Phoenix!) Poor kid, he was so exhausted. A couple days after he got in, we drove up to Idaho to see his sister Kendra and their family. The night before we left Jared got really sick, a Montezuma's revenge, if you will. The 4 hour drive to Idaho quickly turned into a 6 hour drive, as we stopped at every gas station possible from Ogden to Mountain Home. Poor Jare Bear! Kendra's friend had a cabin about an hour from their house that they weren't using that week, so we stayed there for a few days too (although Jared spent the majority of his time there in the bathroom). Anyway, here are some pictures:

Jared taught the kids how to fish. He's such a sweetie, he's going to be such a good dad one day.

Alina and Isaac hanging out on a tree.

Jared and his dad trying to untangle the knots the kids made in the fishing lines. They were both very patient as this occurred about every 5 minutes.

Kendra and Ella. Poor Ella was not a fan of the hot sun while we were waiting for the fish to be caught.

Jared and Isaac

It was a lot of fun, I've missed being in the mountains so much!

These really were pretty much the only pictures we got while I was there. I'm kind of bummed because I always forget to take pictures when we do cool things, even when I do have my camera. Oh well. Anyway, I better wrap this up because I have to leave to go pick Jared up from the airport and I have to have this post finished by midnight or else I'll lose my record of having at least one blog post every month since I started this blog in 2007.

Nostalgia

2011-06-20T13:46:00.001-07:00

I was going through some files on our external hard drive today and I found what I have been looking for for a long time! All of our pictures of our first home. I thought they were lost for good! For those of you who don't know, Jared and I had a house the first year we were married. He bought it before we even met, and had his friends renting part of it. Then when we got married we kicked them out and had the entire house to ourselves. It was so nice, I wish we could have been making better money at the time so we could have lived in it longer. Anyway, I want to share my first house memories.

This is the front of our house in the fall:

The winter:

And the spring:

Here is the backyard -I miss all my tulips and roses! (We had a bunch of roses that went along the fence between our neighbor's yard, and one day the old man that lived next to us came into our yard-through the gate I might add- and cut down all of our rose bushes that were next to the fence. He said they had a fungus on them and were killing his plants...Really old man? I'm pretty sure that's illegal trespassing..)

This is the front living room (we had to sell our piano to make one of our house payments)

The kitchen:

The dining room:

Our master bedroom (Jared did textured walls on this room and ceiling, because he was sick of taking wallpaper off**):

The two guest bedrooms:

The main upstairs bathroom (Jared redid the entire bathroom, I wish I had before pictures. He put in the tile, granite countertop (I helped a little bit with the tile and countertop, even got to use the tile saw) new bathtub (he put the deeper tub in for me), and added the shower- did the plumbing and everything himself, he'd never once done plumbing before! Pretty proud of my man)

The downstairs family room:

And the downstairs bathroom (for the life of me, I could not get this picture to turn):

In the end we had to sell the house because it was just too expensive for a part-time CNA and a part-time Fed Ex truck driver's wages. (I was in nursing school at the time and Jared was trying to take all his pre-med courses.) While we were trying to sell it, we had to sacrifice a few items to make house payments, including Jared's jeep that he absolutely loved.

I'm really glad we had the experience of owning a house when we were first married, but I really miss it. One day we'll be able to have our own house again though, one day in the faaar away future. Until then we'll enjoy not paying property taxes I guess. ;)

**I just have to make this disclaimer: Every room in the entire house, including every ceiling, was covered in ugly wallpaper. Jared and his friends repainted every room except one of the bedrooms and the half bathroom. A TON of work was put into this house, mostly by Jared.

Memorial Day and Summer Finds

2011-06-03T15:33:00.000-07:00

Over Memorial Day weekend, Jared and I went up north to Crystal Mountain and met up with a few people he goes to med school with. One of the kid's family owns a condo on Crystal Mountain, so we stayed with them, and Sunday we drove up to Traverse City and took a boat ride on his dad's huge boat on Lake Michigan. Apparently Crystal "mountain" is one of the biggest places to ski in Michigan (the entire mountain is comparable to Nortic Valley's bunny hill). It really is a cute area though, we had a lot of fun. Traverse City is a pretty quaint little town, I would definitely go up there again when the weather is a little nicer. As we were driving up the hill to the condo, I took this one picture through our bug-infested window shield before our camera battery died. Oh well.

In other news, I've found some great summer furniture. $18 a piece for these chairs at Home Depot, and $12 for the little table at Aco Hardware.

I also just got this cute umbrella and chair today for $10 a piece at World Market. Score!

When I went outside to take the picture, this is what happened when I stepped out onto the grass:

The whole backyard is a complete muddy mess! Hopefully it will dry as the summer progresses. Gross! Well, that's about all the excitement in our lives right now. Jared is in school til the last week of June, then he gets about 6 weeks off before fall semester starts.

Cake, Presents, and Birthday Wishes

2011-05-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

The only thing I don't like about having a birthday at the first of May is that finals week is almost always during the same week. Jared's finals fell on my birthday this year, so I decided I might as well work because I didn't want to make him feel like he had to take his time away from studying. I also knew my mom was coming the next day so I would get the rest of the week off anyway. The day actually wasn't terrible. When I clocked in to work that day, the automated lady that tells you the time when you clock in told me Happy Birthday. One of the techs that I work with also knew it was my birthday, so she wrote it on the whiteboard and told me Happy Birthday every time I saw her. When I got home from work that day, there were flowers and a card sitting on the table from Jared, and there were two packages for me. One was from my friend Sierra, and the other was from my sister Ash. Sierra gave me a cute purple top (and a bunch of candy and a back massager), and Ash made me the cutest necklace ever. The two actually went perfectly together:

That night my friends Jess and Doug brought me over a little cake and sang to me. I ate almost the whole thing while I waited for my food to arrive that I ordered online (which ended up never coming because the idiot who was supposed to check their fax machine for online orders didn't get it for over an hour, so then I told them to forget about it and drove to McDonald's and got a Big Mac and a strawberry shake.) I also got on facebook and had a lot of very nice birthday wishes from my friends and family. I felt very loved. My friends Britani and James also brought me cupcakes the next day (which is the day I picked up my mom from the airport- see previous post).

The day after my mom left I had to go back to work. When I got home, I was greeted by Jared with a cake and his Iphone with my parents singing to me on speaker phone. Jared had to take a picture to send to my parents. Warning, it's kind of gross- but I did just work 12 1/2 hours so get off my back.

(The flowers in the picture are the ones Jared gave me on my birthday.)

Overall, it was a great birthday/week and I felt very loved. Thank you everyone for making me feel so special on my birthday!

Mommy & Me

2011-05-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

I am the youngest girl in our family, so I've always kind of been a "Mommy's girl" (as well as a Daddy's girl). My mom came out to visit me last week, and it was wonderful to have so much one on one time with her. I have really missed our little lunch dates/ shopping dates. Right after I picked her up from the airport, we went straight to lunch at Champp's, and then went shopping at the mall by our house. The next day we drove to Detroit to see the Tigers play the Yankees (and beat them 6-3!) Jared was going to come with us, but he decided to go skydiving instead...

You can't go to a professional baseball game and not get a Brat.

Cute Mom in her Tigers shirt.

During the 7th inning stretch we sang "Take me out to the ball game" with our arms around each others' shoulders loud and proud. (We were the only ones singing around us- as a teenager I probably would have been embarrassed, but I just enjoyed the moment hanging out with my mom. It was a blast!)

On the way home from Detroit we stopped at the outlets and did some more shopping. Then we ate dinner at the Pizza House in East Lansing (right next to Jared's school.) If any of you have been to Giordano's in Chicago, the pizza here is just like it. Yum!

The next day we drove around the city of Lansing/East Lansing so I could show my mom where I work and spend most of my time here in Michigan. We also shopped a little at Home Goods and World Market. Then we went home and Jared cooked us chicken and ribs on our smoker. This picture was taken before we headed out that morning.

The next day we went with Jared to Home Depot to grab a few things, and then went shopping YET AGAIN at another mall near us. My mom and I were a little shopped-out. We stopped on the way home at Bigby's to get a frozen hot chocolate (my mom had seen them on billboards all week and was dying to try it). I think we were all a little disappointed, but it was still fun to try. Jared made us more food on the smoker, this time cornish hens and pineapple. Delish! That night we stayed up late and played games. It was so much fun. The next morning was Mother's Day, so we made my mom breakfast, and then we had to take her to the airport. :(

(This is the birthday outfit I picked out with the money my parents gave me)

Thanks Mom for coming to visit us, we had a blast! You are welcome to visit us again any time (and so are all of YOU!)

All that Jazz

2011-04-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

Last night was Jared's "med ball" for the 1st year CHM students. We had a nice dinner, then they had awards and played videos some of the students made over this year, and then they had dancing. The theme was "All that Jazz". Jared dressed like a gangsta. There were a few of the faculty and staff that wore flapper outfits, but almost everyone there had just regular dresses on. There was one girl (there's always one at these types of things) that wore a huge puffy white prom dress and stood out like a sore thumb. It almost looked like a wedding dress. Poor girl. It was a really fun night though, it was cool to finally meet a lot of the people Jared always talks about from school.

Standing in front of Sparty.

Freaky...

2011-04-03T20:36:00.001-07:00

So I ran a half marathon yesterday in Dearborn, MI with a few people in my ward (Doug, Karen and Emily). It was called the Martian Marathon. It wasn't like any other race I've ever run. The trees were all dead, we ran partly on the freeway, next to a bunch of construction sites, and there were aliens everywhere (mostly inflatable ones) but some people running dressed up like aliens, including one kid who was in a full spandex bright green jumpsuit that covered even his face. Weird. But the real freaky part? My race bib number was the EXACT same number on my race bib from the Ogden Marathon last year.... (psycho music playing.....) What are the odds of that?!

Anyway, it was still fun, and I got a cool t-shirt and metal out of it.

Cute Jessica (Doug's wife) is 8 months pregnant and was there to cheer us all on despite the freezing cold weather. She's the one who took these pictures. This was the start of the race. I look like a total dork, I saw her and I think I was just about to wave to her. Oh well.

Unda da Sea!

2011-03-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

Here are the pictures taken with our disposable underwater camera. Not the best quality, but some of the pics are pretty cool.

There were a couple of pictures I tried to take of Jared that looked really cool but obviously didn't turn out, I was really disappointed. It's really inspired me to buy a new camera that can take underwater pictures. There are some pretty nice ones out there these days, maybe that's what I'll ask for for my birthday....

Spring Break in the Bahamas

2011-03-13T16:34:00.001-07:00

Jared and I were planning on going to New York for Spring Break. About a week before we left, Jared came home from driving in the snow and almost dying on the freeway (not really, he just could only drive 25 miles an hour and couldn't even see 2 feet in front of him at 1 in the morning one night) and he told me he wanted to go somewhere warm instead of going to New York. So we decided we would go to Florida, and then the next thing we knew, we had booked a cruise to the Bahamas. The day we left, the roads were icy and it was snowing, and our plane had to be de-iced before we left the runway. 3 hours later, we were sweating in our warm clothes as we got off the plane in Miami. We knew we had made the right decision. It was such a nice vacation, and very much needed by both of us. The past couple months I have been working 50 hours a week, and well, Jared is in med school, so enough said. And that's all I've got to say about that. (We watched Forest Gump in our hotel room the first night... hehe) Anyway, picture time.

Leaving the port of Miami

Our room on the ship, nice view. ;)

A few minutes after Jared and I got into our room, these were delivered to us. Yum!

The sunset as we were leaving Miami. So pretty!

Our first stop was Freeport (Grand Bahama Island). Jared and I rented a scooter for the day and explored the island on our own. This is the only picture we took, we were really surprised how ugly the island was. It was just a bunch of industrial buildings and dead trees. We did find a little beach that we snorkeled from for cheap though, which was really fun. I forgot to bring my underwater camera because we hadn't planned on snorkeling until the next day.

The next day we were in Nassau. We booked a shore excursion through our cruise, which took us on a little boat to a reef to snorkel, then gave us a little tour of the island from the boat.

I haven't had a chance to go get my underwater camera developed yet, so I will post those pictures once I get them back.

Our cruise ship is on the left. This is a view from the little tour boat.

This is supposedly Chuck Norris' vacation home in Nassau. (Who knows if they really make that stuff up or not.)

Another view of our cruise ship

The last island we went to was Norwegian's private island, Great Stirrup Cay. We had to take a little boat out to it because it was such a small island. They were doing a lot of construction to it, but the part we hung out at was pretty nice.

I kept wanting someone to take a picture of us at dinner, and all the servers looked super busy, so I saw a guy walking slowly around and asked him if he would take our picture, not realizing that he was the captain of our ship. Right after realizing it, Jared hurried and asked him if we could get our picture taken with him too, so we didn't look like complete jerks. I was really embarrassed when I realized I asked the captain of our ship to take a picture of us. Ha ha, whoops!

We got back to Miami as the sun was rising, and realized we had to get off the ship and get back to reality. Too bad it couldn't last longer.

What a great vacation!

CHM vs COM

2011-02-19T15:21:00.001-08:00

Yesterday Jared had a hockey game, it was the MD students (College of Human Medicine-AKA CHM) vs the DO students (College of Osteopathic Medicine- AKA COM)- students in all 4 years played. Apparently this is an annual thing, and it's kind of a big deal. This is the first year the MD students lost, and it was in overtime. But it was still a pretty exciting and fun game to watch.

Our friends: Doug and Jessica on the left, and Britani and James on the right.

Doug is a first year COM student, so he and Jessica painted their faces, but Jessica crossed over to the other side....

The whole CHM team (their jerseys were way cooler... the COM students didn't even match. But they did win so I guess looks aren't everything.. ) Jared is the second person from the right on the back row.

After the game was over we all ice skated for a while. Then later that night we went to a concert of a local band called My Dear Disco, who Jared and I actually saw in Portland for our student government trip a couple years ago. It was such a fun thing to do on my one Saturday off for the month.

2010 in a nutshell

2011-01-03T10:14:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened in the year 2010 for Jared and me. Here's a brief review:

- Jared was accepted into medical school at MSU
- Jared graduated Weber State University with honors- a Bachelor's degree in Spanish, and minors in Art, Zoology and Chemistry
- I ran my first marathon
- We said goodbye to family and friends and moved across the country to Michigan
- We said bye to my brother Andrew for two years as he serves a mission in Korea
- We said hello to my brother Alex who just got home from a mission in Korea
- I ran my first half marathon (after my first full marathon of course)
- We spent Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania with some good friends
- Jared finished his first semester of med school with mastery level grades in all of his classes
- Jared and I were able to visit our family and friends back in Utah for Christmas- what a good time!

We have been very blessed this past year and look forward to this year as we continue to have new and exciting adventures together. We love you all and happy new year!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-20T09:03:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving 2010... in Pennsylvania?!

2010-11-29T09:41:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving was the first holiday being away from our families. We couldn't afford to come home for Thanksgiving and Chirstmas. So our AWESOME friends Jessica and Doug invited us to go with them to Jessica's family's Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania. We stayed at her cousin's house who lives just a few minutes away from Valley Forge. They were so sweet and amazing hosts to us. We drove all through the night Wednesday after I got off work, and got there about 6:30 am on Thursday morning. Instead of going straight to bed, all the boys went and played in the Turkey Bowl football game. Crazy boys! Jared said it was perfect weather, and started snowing just a little toward the end. (I wouldn't know, I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow when we got there.) Thursday afternoon we had the big Thanksgiving dinner at their family's Chocolate shop called Zwahlen's (if you're ever in Valley Forge, PA, I suggest you definitely visit! Best. Chocolate. Ever!).

Behind us on the wall is their family tree, starting with their ancestors who came over from Bern, Switzerland (which is where my mom's father's family is from!)

A few pics of the cute decorated chocolate shop

Cute holiday card pic

After we ate WAY more than we should have, we played "Guess who's pregnant". Can you guess who really is?

If you guessed contestant # 2, you were right! Haha. The girl on the left is Jessica's cousin Amanda, who let us stay at her house. Jessica is the cute pregnant girl in the middle.

Later that night, we went to the outlets at midnight for the Black Friday sales. I got Jared a nice Columbia coat for only $47, normally $150. We also got him a nice church shirt from Perry Ellis for only $10. It was pretty funny, all the guy stores has like 3 people in them, and all the girl stores had lines that went outside the doors. It was so much fun, I've never been to the Black Friday sales before. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The only bad thing was that we had to park like a 1/2 mile away, but it really wasn't that bad, kind of a fun adventure.

When we were walking to the outlets it was completely dark except for the light of the stores we were walking toward, almost like a horror movie or something.

On the left is Jessica's husband Doug, then Neil and Amanda, who we stayed with.

Saturday we ran a "Burn off the bird" 5k. It was pretty fun, but probably one of the hardest 5k courses I've run, with a ton of it up steep hills, including the very end of the race. This is Jessica's aunt and uncle and cousins after the race.

We also played a lot of games and the boys watched a lot of football. It was a ton of fun to just hang out and relax. Their family was so much fun and we felt so welcomed there. Sunday morning we left to come back home to Michigan, and got home at almost midnight. We are very THANKFUL to Jessica's family welcoming for us as their own and treating us to TONS of delicious food. We are also thankful that we made it home safely and that we were able to have a fun relaxing vacation together.

The last of fall

2010-11-16T08:58:00.000-08:00

These past couple of weeks have been a pretty typical fall weather, cool and crisp, with a few days in the mid 60's, and I have been loving it. I'm sure it will start to get really cold soon, but for now, I will enjoy the last of fall...

Weekend in Utah

2010-10-27T14:22:00.000-07:00

My mom flew me back home to Utah for a few days since I hadn't seen Alex yet since he got home from his mission. Jared wasn't able to come because of school, and he had one of his finals on Monday. (poor kid, med school is rough!) It was such a great weekend though hanging out with my amazing family!

On our way home from the airport on Thursday we stopped at In-N-Out (so good!). Then I took a nap for a couple hours because I worked a graveyard shift the night before and hadn't slept yet. That night Alex made us Korean food, which was also way good! Then we played games the rest of the night.

The next day (Friday) Holly and Ash came over and we had lunch and watched Napolean Dynamite and our wedding videos. I love spending time with my mom and sisters!

That night we had our annual Halloween party with my mom's side of the family.

My favorite costumes: Effie Trinket and a mouse. Olivia is so stinkin cute I just couldn't get enough of her! She is the best baby ever!

Saturday I went running with Holly (man I've missed running on dirt trails!) and then I went to the temple with Ash, Alex and my parents. That night my friend Sierra had a Halloween party and I took Alex with me. We painted pumpkins...

This is supposed to be my little brother Andrew who is in the MTC and going to Korea soon. Racist? Perhaps a little. Wasn't trying to be. Alex made me do it. ;)

What a fun night, thanks Sierra!

The next day I went to see Alex and my dad speak in another ward, and then went to the rest of my parents' ward with my mom. Then the rest of the day was spent hanging out with family, and before I knew it, I was back on a plane at 6:00 the next morning... :( I miss my family already!

Why do I run?

2010-10-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

People tell me that I'm crazy, that running is boring... So why do I love it so much?
Here are a few reasons I've come up with:

1. When I was in junior high I always wanted to play some type of sport so I could be part of a team. But I'm not very coordinated in throwing, kicking, or hitting any type of ball, so the only other sport left for me was running. I started in 9th grade with track and it seemed to stick with me. Being part of the cross country team especially was SO much fun.
2. I would probably be a diabetic (among other health problems) if I didn't run because not only do I have a big sweet tooth but I absolutely LOVE carbs of any kind.
3. I've made some really good friends while running. Running with other people helps you learn A LOT them, maybe a little too much sometimes. ;)
4. I love the endorphins it releases. It makes me feel good, sometimes during (depending on the day) but almost always after I run.
5. It is VERY rewarding, especially when you set a goal and you finish. There's nothing like crossing the finish line and knowing you gave it your very best.

It wasn't until after this marathon when I hurt my knee and had to take 6 weeks off that I realized my love for running. It was my first and hopefully not my last. I hope I can be one of those old ladies who's still running marathons in her sixties or seventies.

1/2 Marathon

2010-09-27T19:17:00.000-07:00

I ran a 1/2 marathon on Saturday, and it was so awesome! It was up in Holland, and honestly probably the most beautiful race course I've ever run on; yes, even prettier than the Ogden canyon.... ok maybe it's a tie... We ran through long streets surrounded by huge trees, up to Lake Michigan, and then back through forests of trees. There were several HUGE beautiful houses amid the trees at some points. Some of the trees were just barely starting to change colors, just breath taking! And I couldn't have asked for better weather. It was about 50 degrees and cloudy. And to top it all off, I felt great the entire time, just like I could run forever! I ran with my friend Valerie, who has a 7 month old baby. You go girl! (She is amazing)

(This is at the very start before we crossed the start line, and I was trying to fix my ear phones, which is why it looks like I'm walking...) Don't juge me.

Man, I love to run!

GO GREEN! GO WHITE!

2010-09-04T13:26:00.000-07:00

Jared and I went to Michigan State's first football game of the season today! So much fun, I just love everything about the fall! (Little tid-bit: Spartan Stadium holds 72-75,000 people, making it the 5th largest Big Ten stadium!) It's pretty darn big....

The Michigan State marching band.

A lot bigger than what we're used to at good ol' Weber. Fun times!

(P.S.- This is my 100th post since I started my blog almost 3 years ago! Woo hoo!)

Jared's White Coat Ceremony

2010-09-03T10:49:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday Jared had his White Coat Ceremony in Grand Rapids. It was pretty exciting to see the official "start" of his medical school journey.

Sorry, I know this picture isn't very good, I was trying to video tape the whole thing and take pictures at the same time, I'm no photographer that's for sure. He's right in the center of this picture getting his coat put on him by one of the professors.

This is the new Grand Rapids campus, where they just added 100 more med students to their program this year. It's a pretty cool building, but I'm glad we're at the East Lasing campus, it will be fun to be at the heart of a big ten school.

(Look at that studly "soon-to-be" doctor!)

Later that night we had our new friends Jessica and Doug over for cake and ice cream to celebrate this new beginning. Doug is a DO student who is just starting this year with Jared and they are also in our ward. I tried to make green and white frosting for their school colors, but I didn't have butter to make the frosting. (Note to self: margarine CANNOT replace butter when making frosting) Oh well, it's the thought that counts, right?

Laundry

2010-08-21T19:48:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when Jared "helps" me with the laundry

Giant waterslide in the street!

2010-08-21T19:21:00.000-07:00

Today Jared had his first day of orientation in Grand Rapids. It also happened to be right next to a giant waterslide. He went down on a bus, and I drove down separately so we could go ride the waterslide. I got there at about 3, thinking he could just sneak out of his orientation for a "few minutes" and be back for the rest, which ended at 5. When we looked where we were in line and realized it would be a while, Jared went back to his orientation and told me to text him when I was close. Well, 4 1/2 hours later, we finally got to the front of the line, about 30 minutes before they shut it down. It was kind of silly that we waited to long for a 30 second ride down a waterslide, but it was pretty cool and the idea of it was great. This was the first year they did this, and apparently they wanted to make some sort of world record. But there were a lot of kinks that needed to be worked out so it could be a success (like making it free, but if you wanted to pay $30 you could get a "front of the line" pass and ride it all day.) This was the reason for the 4 1/2 hour wait for us, the ones who didn't have the money to pay for an all day pass. Needless to say, that is probably the only time we'll ever do it, but it was fun, and we made some interesting friends (and Jared almost got into a brawl with a lady that tried to cut in line with all of her kids after we'd already been waiting 3 hours! Ha!) Sorry, that story was way too long. ANYWAY.... that's what we did with our day today. Here are some pics:

Camping in Michigan....

2010-08-13T19:38:00.001-07:00

Defnitely NOTHING compared to camping in Utah. We left yesterday afternoon after being bored out of our minds from sitting around all day at home. We drove up to Holland, which is just a few miles from the coast of Lake Michigan. The only campsites that were available last minute were ones located right next to the freeway. Talk about a "quiet" outdoors camping trip, right?
It was still pretty, at least we weren't in the middle of a dessert.

Jared set up our ginormous tent.

Then he practiced his golf swing for a little while.

By this time we were already bored of our campsite, so we drove down the street and played some miniature golf.

There were giant spiderwebs and spiders everywhere on this bridge at the miniature golf place. It was way gross!

Then we went back to the campsite and roasted marshmallows, hot dogs, and starbursts on the fire. Yum! (Note to self: fires are definitely not the same in Michigan.) Everything is so wet so not only does it take longer to start, but it takes a lot more to keep it going, and everything you cook on it will melt in about 15 seconds. No joke. Well, we went to sleep in our tent, (didn't need any blankets) and woke up the next morning drenched in sweat. Mmmm. We decided we needed to go swimming. So we drove the couple miles to Lake Michigan, and we did not regret it. It was beautiful. The sand was so soft and it was almost like being on a beach at the ocean, except better because when waves hit you it didn't taste like salt. AND, no sharks, stingrays, or jelly fish. (My biggest fear when we lived in San Diego)

Didn't get any pics of me and Jared together though because I set the camera down right after taking these and we swam the afternoon away. It was so much fun! (Tell that to our sunburned skin...) Maybe next time I'll be better about taking pictures of us. You can never have too many!

Happy Birthday to my Beautiful Mother!

2010-08-08T16:18:00.000-07:00

Today is my mom's birthday. She is my biggest role model and I love her so so much. I am so proud of her, even after raising 5 kids and having cancer twice, she still runs 5 miles a day and looks amazing. I am so blessed to have her as my mom. Happy Birthday Mommy! I love you!

Finally! House pics!

2010-08-05T15:38:00.000-07:00

I know many of you have been wondering what our new pad looks like, so I finally decided to take pictures. I actually haven't taken pictures of the guest room yet because due to lack of funding I haven't been able to do anything with it. I will be getting a desk tomorrow so I can unload the last couple boxes of computer stuff that sit lonesome in the room. Also, the downstairs, which will be Jared's "man-cave" isn't ready for pictures yet, Jared is working on it still. But for now, here is the rest of the house:

The front

The back

Front entry way

Guest bathroom downstairs next to the door

Kitchen

Dining room

Family room

Master bedroom

Master bathroom
(Not very cute yet, also due to lack of funding. One day though...)

Stay tuned for pictures of the "man-cave" and the girly room/guest room!

Catch up

2010-07-27T15:25:00.000-07:00

This will be a long post, as a lot has happened in the past few weeks. The first week of July we drove to Michigan with a moving truck towing Jared's truck.

It was the longest and worst 2 days of our lives. We rented a Budget truck because it was by far the cheapest, but now we know for next time that it is NOT worth the savings.
This is how much leg room I had.
The truck had crappy shocks, so every time we hit any bump in the road it sent our entire truck rocking violently back and forth. One of the times I started bawling because I honestly thought we were about to die. Jared was very calm and drove us carefully out of each of these scary events safely. I felt so bad for him, because he drove the entire 30 hours it took to get here, and he didn't even have cruise control. His knee cramped up really bad a couple times and we had to stop and buy him a knee brace at a Wal Mart. Stupid Budget. He was such a good sport though.

I did make a new friend though. The bug on the upper right corner of the mirror hung on through the entire state of Wyoming. (I know, I'm lame, but I had to do something to take my mind off the thought of dying.)

Well we finally made it to Michigan at 2:00 am two days later. Jared and I went to a Lansing Lugnuts baseball game a couple days later.

A few days after that (approximately a week after we got to Michigan), we flew back to Utah for a family trip in Park City with Jared's family. We got there a couple days earlier, and were able to go camping with my family for two days at Washington Lake. We took Jared's cute sister Alina with us. It was way fun! We went fishing in the canoe...

Roasted "mallows" and breadsticks on the fire...

And went hiking up to Wall Lake ...

James rode on my uncle Scott's back, and every few minutes took off his hat and said: "Ride like the wind Bullseye!"

It was a good time. I really love my family and I'm going to miss them a lot...

Moving on.
Next we drove up to Park City with Jared's parents, sister Alina, sister Kendra, and all of Kendra's kids. They are all so dang cute and hilarious. We went on another hike.

The view from the top

We also went to the farmer's market, shopping at the outlets, hung out by the pool a lot, and went boating at Jordanelle reservoir.

I took this picture from the boat, it looked really pretty.

After Park City, we drove my car back to Michigan. It was a lot harder to go this time, knowing it would be a lot longer until we see them again. But we had some good times and we can stay in touch via internet and cell phones. We love all of our family so much and hope they know it. Wish us luck on our new adventure!

I'm scared....

2010-07-02T21:02:00.001-07:00

So.... I'm not going to lie, I'm a little scared that it's almost here. We are leaving our family and moving clear across the country. Up until this point, I've mainly been excited, but I think it's starting to wear off and now I'm feeling a little nervous and scared. I know I will have so many times where I will be sad and lonely. I just hope I can make some really good friends to keep me company.

Did I mention that my husband is amazing?

2010-06-25T21:13:00.000-07:00

He can pretty much do anything, no joke. There's nothing that he's tried that he's not good at. Here's a few reasons why my husband is amazing:

#1- He can play any sport:

#2- He can fix ANYTHING. A few of his fixings:

This is the 1985 Nissan truck that Jared drove in high school (AKA "Old Blue"). When he went on his mission in 2002, it was broken down and his parents took it to several people who couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. So they gave it to one of their friends, who didn't have a place to store it so it ended up in a field behind his grandpa's house where it sat, not running, for eight years. Somehow this beauty ended back in Jared's hands. Jared, having never worked on cars before in his life, was the one who got it running. He put in carpet on the floors, seat covers on the seats, and is currently working on installing an air conditioner unit he got at the junk yard. I'm pretty proud of him.

He also fixed a tv that we bought on KSL that didn't work. He even brought in a tv repair man before fixing it, who told him it was hopeless and then charged him 90 bucks for his "service call". So he once again proved everyone wrong and fixed it on his own. AND he fixed my IPOD that was completely broken and wouldn't even turn on. He bought some parts online, got out a little welder and fixed it. Amazing, right?

#3- He is freaking smart. He had the hardest time deciding what he wanted to do with his career because he was so smart in every aspect of school, which is why he ended up with 3 minors.

#4- He is somewhat of a romantic. Every once in a while he will surprise me with something very heartfelt and thoughtful.

#5- He is genuinely a good person with a good heart. Whenever he hears people talking bad about someone, he is always the first to stick up for them, and be an advocate for them since they can't be there to defend themselves.

#6- He is a very good husband to me. He puts up with my stressed out "girl moments". He is always there to listen when I've had a bad day and to give me a shoulder to cry on. He is just a sweetheart.

I'm sure I could go on longer, but it's getting pretty late and I just worked 13 hours, so I think I'll call it a night. Just thought you should all know that my husband is amazing. The end. :)

Good times...

2010-05-12T14:57:00.000-07:00

Now that I posted about all the things I'm excited about, here's a list of things I'm really going to miss:

-This crazy bipolar Utah weather... oh wait, I'm not going to miss that. Michigan may be colder in the winters but at least they have normal seasons. ;)

- Hanging out with family on Sundays, holidays and whenever the crap we feel like it

- Girls nights out with my mom and sisters (we're going to have to find some way to continue this annual tradition)

- Doing random things with our awesome friends (like such as, driving to Evanston at 11:00 pm on New Years Eve and couting down with a random lady in the gas station, cheering for Jared at all of his hockey games, going to the Utah State Fair and gawking at "Little Lina", the smallest woman in the world, "Tragering" just about every night, watching Tosh.O and other shows til midnight or later, and just laughing our butts off at funny inside jokes and Youtube clips.)

(Trace and Sierra have been so awesome to let us stay in their basement until we move to Michigan. We have had some pretty good times. Before we lived with them, we lived in apartments just across the parking lot from them and had some fun times these past couple of years hot-tubbing and "tragering" stuff on the grill. We'll defnitely miss these guys when we move away!)

- Hanging out with my friend Kelly while she was on bed-rest and giving her weekly "butt-shots". She's such a trooper, made it through all those long weeks of bedrest, and she's such a beautiful mommy! I also miss our good times in nursing school; farm town on facebook was what got us through the last couple months of nursing school. Haha

This is definitely a bitter-sweet thing for us; family and friends are the biggest part of our lives, but we really are very excited and ready for a new change. I'm just glad we have blogs, facebook, and skype to keep in touch with everyone. I don't know how people survived med school away from their families back in the day when there was no phone or internet. Thank goodness for technology!

I'm excited...

2010-05-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

- to move to a new place
- to make new friends
- to FINALLY have a dishwasher (it's been 2 years since we've had one)
- to be able to do laundry in my own home on my own time, not sharing with anyone else (I know, I'm very selfish..)
- to not have anyone living above or below me (watching loud movies at 3 in the morning when I have to work at 6, letting their kids bang pots and pans on the floor right above us, showering at 11:30 EVERY single night- and the shower was not quiet, it sounded like the ceiling was going to crash through at any moment...)
- to start a new chapter in our lives!

We found a cute townhome in East Lansing when we went out to Michigan last week. Our lease starts June 1st, but we probably wont move out until the 1st week of July, depending on when I get a job though. It's in a great area, there are 4 other LDS families in the same complex, within walking distance to the grocery store, and best of all there's a bus stop right in front that takes Jared to school every day and only takes about 6 minutes to get there. It's also 7 minutes from one hospital and 12 minutes to another hospital. Now let's just pray that I get a job at one of those hospitals!
Bottom line, I'm excited!

Tribute to the Graduate

2010-05-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

Jared graduated last week with a major in Spanish, and minors in Art, Chemistry, and Zoology. He has worked his butt off for this, especially this semester. Not only was he the student body vice president and had several activities to plan this semester, but he also played hockey through the end of February along with his 20 credit hours and 3 hours a week of research. Talk about burn-out! He ended up with a 3.5 this semester to top it off! I have to say, I'm pretty dang proud of him. He's kept a level head through it all.

*Note: all of these pictures were stolen from my sister-in-law Kendra's blog. I accidentally packed up our sd card that goes in my camera so I wasn't able to take any. Thanks Kendra!

A picture with the handsome graduate

President Monson was given an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities at the graduation ceremony that morning. Pretty dang cool. Jared got to sit on the floor with all of the important people because he was a student body officer.

After the ceremony, Jared had his two cute nephews come down with him on the floor to meet President Monson. They both got to give him a "high-five". How cool is that?

I am so proud of my husband for all of his accomplishments. Congratulations babe, you did it!

Finals week = stressful

2010-04-19T11:01:00.000-07:00

This is the time of the semester when absolutely nothing gets done around the house. The laundry stacks up, the dishes stack up, and I basically just want to pull all my hair out. Luckily, I'm not going back to school in the fall; I'm just going to put Jared through med school and work my 3 days a week and have a normal life! Yay! I am so excited to move to Michigan and meet new friends. We're leaving this Saturday to go look for a place to live. Woo hoo! We also have tickets to go to a Red Wings playoff game while we're there. So stoked!

We're going to.....

2010-03-03T12:32:00.000-08:00

Michigan!!! Jared got a call last night while he was in class that he is accepted into Michigan State's MD school! We have been praying that he would get in to this one for a while (ever since we found out he didn't get into the U). This was his number one choice though, even before he applied to the U. I am seriously so excited to start this new adventure in our lives together. Jared is especially excited because Michigan State's med school has a hockey team (don't ask me how he'll have any time during med school, but I'm sure he'll find a way to make time.) I know that it is VERY cold there in the winters, but I guess we'll just have to go buy some extra warm clothes and make sure we have a good heating system in our house there. We'll probably leave the week after finals to go find a place to live and search for a job for me so we can start getting settled. I am SOOO excited! I'm definitely ready for a change. Thanks everyone for all of your prayers! I know they helped!

Full time work + Full time school + training for a marathon =

2010-02-08T10:19:00.000-08:00

BUSY!! So I know I haven't been very good about posting, but I think most of you will understand that I am very busy! I have a full load of classes at Weber State, most weeks I work overtime, AND I'm training for the Ogden marathon (the whole thing!), which is very time consuming but also a good release from school and work. I may or may not post again before school is out in April, but at least you will all know why if I don't. Happy days!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T16:09:00.000-08:00

My Grandpa got to spend Christmas day at his own house, he was just so happy to be out of that nursing home for a little bit I'm sure. At least he's got his "favorite nurse" to take care of him while he's there. We're hoping he'll get to go home for good this week. Keep your fingers crossed!

We spent New Year's Eve in Evanston, Wyoming. Well, we spent most of the night hanging out at Trace and Sierra's house, and then around 10:00 we decided on a whim to drive to Evanston to buy some fireworks. By the time we got there all the shops were closed for the night, and there was only about 15 minutes until midnight, so we went into the nearest truck stop and counted down with this lady at the front counter who would have spent it all by herself. Haha we're so crazy, but it was really fun, and definitely a New Year's we will never forget.

Christmas break was so nice! I can't believe we have to go back to school tomorrow. What's worse, we have 3 nurses on maternity leave and 3 doing their precepting this month, so I am scheduled 43 hours a week this whole month (which will turn out to be more around 45 or 46 since I never leave on time) Bring on the overtime! Luckily my classes wont be too hard; I have Spanish, Abnormal Psychology, Consumer Health, Bowling, and a rock climbing class that is just a weekend of rock climbing in March. I'm pretty excited. I hope everyone has a great year! (oh, and be sure to pray that Jared will get into the U for med school! He'll find out in March whether or not he is accepted.)

2009-12-21T20:20:00.001-08:00

Dear Obama,
I hate your stinkin' guts. You make me vomit. You're scuuum between my toes.
Love,
Stephanie

Jared the Duck Hunter

2009-12-20T16:21:00.000-08:00

Jared has been duck hunting a few times in the past couple weeks, this is the first duck he's ever shot. What a stud my manly hunter is!

Thanksgiving....

2009-12-01T14:13:00.001-08:00

Well I don't have any pictures of Thanksgiving because I worked all Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving day was horrible, probably the worst day I've ever had being a nurse so far. When I got home (from my 12 hour shift working on 3 hours of sleep) I called Jared to see if they were all still at his Grandma's house, but he said they were all about to leave soon. So I waited about an hour for him to come home and bring me some cold turkey leftovers. It was actually really good, and it was the only food I had all day. I ate it so fast that I got sick. Then I went to bed and woke up at 5 the next morning for some more fun at work. And then again the next day. I was scheduled to work Sunday too but I told my manager there was no way I was working 4 12-hour shifts in a row, especially on the holiday weekend. I was already about to punch someone in the face by the third day. Haha (I wouldn't really though, I don't abuse patients....) Sunday was so nice to be able to go to church and relax for a little bit before I started back Monday. I'll be at over time this week because we have 3 nurses on maternity leave and one who has been sick all week, plus I have two finals and a paper to write. I'll tell you what, I am in MUCH need of a vacation!!! Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Haha
Thanks for reading, I feel so much better now that I've vented my feelings for all to see. ;)

Portland!!

2009-11-10T19:26:00.000-08:00

Jared and I went to a conference in Portland last weekend for student government. It was such a blast and so nice to be able to have a little break from school and work. We basically just watched one giant concert of comedians and music for four days straight, with a few educational sessions in between. It was a good time.

No need for an explanation in this one. Ha ha

We rode the MAX everywhere, one of the days we skipped out on some of the educational sessions and went downtown and went shopping. Awesome!

We also skipped another session and went to Voodoo donuts. It was so cool! I got a donut with Butterfingers pieces on top. Jared got one with oreos and peanut butter. They all had really dirty names, but it was really funny. While we were in there, a lady was rolling a big fat doobie right outside the store. Ha ha No wonder they had the "Keep Portland Weird" sign...

The only bad thing about this trip was that they kept us out til 1 in the morning each night and then expected us to be back at 9 for more sessions. We all got really worn out, and Jared ended up getting really sick right after we got home on Sunday.(I'm pretty sure he had the swine flu, he had a really high fever, aches, and a horrible cough.) Luckily he's taken it easy the past couple days and he's slept a ton so his body can fight this off. I think this is the first time I've ever seen him let himself recover from being sick. He deserves it!

Busy, busy, busy!

2009-10-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

Jared and I have been very busy lately. This past week was Homecoming week at Weber State, and Jared was the main one in charge of it. This was probably the most important week in his year as Vice President and he freakin rocked it!
This was the list of events that went on during homecoming week. It was also on the back of our homecoming t-shirts, which were way awesome!

Monday night we painted the W on 25th St in Ogden, and afterwards we had a free concert, Buckets and Tap Shoes. Click here to see what they're all about. Way cool!

This is our activities committe with the band after the show. These guys were way cool. We went bowling with them on Tuesday, too. We paid for them to fly out here from Minnesota and stay in a hotel for a few days. Jared was their chaufer. What a cool experience!

Friday night was our Homecoming Dance, so Jared and I decided to get all dressed up and go dance the night away. We went with our two good friends Sierra and Trace. We seriously had so much fun!

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That night we all became "TRUE WILDCATS"!! at midnight. Oooooh!

Saturday we had the Homecoming football game. We helped everyone die their hair purple for the game, it was awesome.

Needless to say, it's been a long week. Last night I took Jared to the airport so he could go to a medical school interview in West Virginia. He took a red-eye flight and I'm sure he's exhausted. He had a long hard week but I think it paid off, it was a very successful one!

It's official!

2009-10-08T15:48:00.001-07:00

I know most of you already know by now, but I passed my RN boards last week and I am now officially a registered nurse! Here's the proof:

Update

2009-09-17T10:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted anything. Wanna know why? Cause I'm crazy and decided to go back to school this fall. I'm applying to the online bachelor's program at Weber (for nursing). Right now I'm just taking fun classes that I've always wanted to take but never had time. I'm taking Spanish, rock climbing, Marriage as an Interpersonal Relationship, and an online Healthy Lifestyles class. I am loving them all so far! Also, more good news. We got a new vehicle!

It's a Pontiac Torrent and I absolutely love it! Our Durango was costing us so much and it was going to cost another grand just to get it re-registered next month. So we traded it in and got this bad boy! (I keep forgetting to take a real picture of ours until it's too dark outside, but this is the same color and everything.) It's a 2006 and only has 26,000 miles on it. It's going to cost us a little bit more each month for payments, but it gets a lot better gas mileage and it costs the same amount to insure each month. Jared said it's mine since it's more of a girly car, so he said this is my graduation present. Haha! We were going to get a truck for him but ended up finding this instead because trucks are too expensive right now. I told him we would get him one for his graduation. ;) Well that's about all that's been going on in our lives right now, besides me working full time to put food on our table. ;) Life is good!

Being a mommy is tough!

2009-08-24T13:24:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago I watched my niece and nephew (Lily is 3, almost 4 and Jack is 1, almost 2) while my sister and her husband went on a trip for their anniversary. I watched them for two days, staying over night with them at their house. I'll tell you what, I give props to my sister and anyone else with kids. Being a mommy is tough! I seriously was wiped out when I left, I don't know how all you moms out there do it! I think I'll stick to enjoying being an aunt for a while longer.
I did have fun though and they are really a crack up! Never a dull moment that's for sure. And how can you get mad at faces like these? Seriously. I love my niece and nephews and I'm glad they have great parents like my sisters!

Camping!

2009-08-11T16:34:00.000-07:00

This is the first trip Jared and I have taken in a long time, my first one of the whole summer. We went up to the Uintas with my dad's side of the family for a few days last week and camped. Jared and I couldn't find our tent so we slept in the Durango, which really wasn't terrible. It was so nice to get away for a few days!

Hiking up to Wall Lake.

Wall Lake

Fishing

Our catch of awesome rainbow trout!

If you look closely, you can see that the fish Jared is holding is pooping power bait. I think a lot of people fish with it here so a lot of them must have a pretty steady diet of it. Probably not too healthy...

WARNING: THIS NEXT IMAGE IS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC

All that was in this fish's belly was power bait. This was one my dad caught. Disgusting!

Now for some pretty pictures to take your mind off that gross one...

Graduation!

2009-07-30T16:41:00.000-07:00

I graduated last night from nursing school. What a relief to finally be done! It still seems pretty surreal to me, but I'm sure it will sink in next week when I realize I don't have to go to school. I do still have to take my RN boards, but I can't even sign up for another month or so, so right now I'm just enjoying not having to worry about studying or homework. All of my family came to support me, including my grandparents and my aunt Carrie, who is also an RN. I am so grateful to have such a loving and supporting family.

Carrie got to "pin" me since she is also an RN (even though it wasn't my pin, I didn't buy one, a lot of us boycotted them because they were $32 and way ugly. Oh well)

She was so sweet to come and support me, what a cool aunt I have!

My awesome sisters who I am so excited to spend more time with now!

My cute grandma who came to support me

My amazing supportive hubby who helped me get through it all.

My sweet Grandpa who has always called me his "favorie cashier" and I will probably always be known to him as that, even though I have long since moved on. (I worked at Golden Corral as a cashier about 6 years ago, and he used to come visit me.)

My amazing parents!

Getting my diploma(the cover anyway, the real part will come in the mail in a few months, which is what I have to wait for to be able to sign up for the NCLEX... LAME)

My awesome friends Tori, Amanda and Kelly. We had a blast together in our little corner in the back, we all helped each other get through this. I'm going to miss seeing them all the time, but we'll definitely have to get together often. I'll probably go through withdrawals. ;)

Happy 4th!

2009-07-07T13:28:00.000-07:00

We had great 4th of July weekend! Jared and I ran the Riverdale 5k Saturday morning. Then we went to my parents and had a BBQ. Then we met up with the Smedleys and drove down to Provo to the Stadium of Fire. It was awesome! I think I'm deaf though now, because the Jonas Brothers were there, so you can only imagine how many screaming little girls there were. I totally should have brought ear plugs. I'm already deaf enough as it is!

We ate at Fudruckers before braving the traffic of trying to park.

I don't know why I put this one on, it's kinda gross but it's the only one I have of Jared and me together.

The sweet F-16's that flew over our heads

This was pretty cool, the guy that was flying one of those helicopters is the one on the Jumbotron.

This flag was burned later that night; it was made right after 9/11 and had a pretty cool story behind it. You can tell it's kinda on its last leg

Theflag being burned

And of course the fireworks were awesome at the end! Happy 4th everyone!

Look-alikes?

2009-06-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

So there have been a lot of people who have told us that Jared looks a lot like Michael Buble. I was looking at pictures of Michael Buble online the other day to see the resemblance and I found a picture that looks very similar to one I have of Jared. The only problem is, it's a pretty crappy picture. It was taken with a disposable camera in a dark room. It was actually taken while he was waiting for my wedding shower to be done so he could hide in a box and pop out and give me my real ring that took so long to be made. I had a fake one for the majority of our engagement. Anyway, does anyone see the resemblance of my hot husband to Michael Buble?

They both have that same widow's peak hair, it's kind of cool.

Focus on the good

2009-06-13T15:40:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry if my last post made you all depressed. On a good note, I went back to the storage unit and found Jared's mission pictures and a letter that one of the people who he baptized wrote him. We thought they were stolen too, but I had moved them into another box because I was going to scrapbook them. What relief! I know I sounded pretty negative yesterday, but the truth is I know there are a lot of really good people out there too. All things in opposition, right? We can't have the good without the bad. I just need to focus on all the good people that have helped me in my life instead of the crappy ones. I really am grateful that there are still a lot good honest people who live in this world too. Thanks everyone for your supportive comments. It made me feel a lot better. I love you all!

WHY?!

2009-06-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

I can't understand why people steal. How can you feel good about taking someone else's personal things? I have only two explanations. Either they are pure evil, or they are not in their right mind, most likely from drugs or some mental disorder. Both are possible. If you are wondering why I'm posting this, here is why:

Jared's mom called him last night because the boy scout office called her, telling her someone called them an said they found Jared's boyscout uniform in a dumpster. That, along with a lot of other stuff was in our storage unit. So Jared went to go check out our unit and sure enough, someone had cut a hole in the sheet rock that was betweenour unit and someone else's. The other person's unit wasn't broken into, but it was half empty. We're not sure, but Jared thinks the place next to us was empty for a long time and he's thinking someone went to go "look" at it and got the combination. Then they waited a while, and when someone moved in they got in to it, and then cut the hole and started taking things from ours too. They took all of Jared's baseball and basketball cards, his Sammy Sosa signed baseball, and a bunch of other stuff from when Jared was younger. We're not exactly sure what else yet, but there's a big chunk of boxes missing, so I guess we'll find out when we move and open all the boxes.

I know we're not the first people who have had something stolen from them. When I think about it it's kind of silly compared to what other people have been through. Ashley's car got stolen when they had James at the hospital, and I think Jared's parents have had it worse than anyone I know. They're out hundreds of thousands of dollars because people are so dishonest. I just can't figure it out. It just makes me so sad that no one can trust anyone anymore. This world is full of dirty people who steal and lie and don't feel any remorse for it. Is there any hope for us anymore? I hope so...

Great weekend!

2009-05-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

I had a great weekend. First of all, no work- that's always a huge plus! Yesterday Jared and I went shooting at the gravel pits after he got off work. Then we drove to Salt Lake and got a hotel and ate pizza and watched tv like lazy bums. It was so nice to just relax and not worry about anything. Today we walked around temple square and went to an organ solo concert. I just loved being outside and seeing all the gorgeous tulips. It's been so nice to not worry about school for a little bit. Too bad it's short lived. I start summer semester again on Tuesday. It was a nice break while it lasted though.

This is my first time shooting an AK47.... Jared kept making fun of me because I leaned back so far. It's because it was so dang heavy. I guess I'm not cut out for war. Haha

Did I not tell you the tulips were gorgeous?!

The colors were so intense behind the organ. These pictures don't do it justice.

My husband, the stud

2009-04-10T11:31:00.001-07:00

This was on the front page of the "Sign Post" (Weber State's newspaper) a couple days ago. What a stud!

Vice President Jared

2009-04-06T14:08:00.000-07:00

Jared found out on Friday night that he is next year's Programming Vice President at Weber State! I am so proud and very excited for for him. We hung out at Weber State almost all night: waited a long time for them to announce the winners, took pictures, and went bowling. It was fun to spend so much time with him, which doesn't happen very often since we're both so busy with school and work.

Right after they announced his name.

Jared giving his big speech. (not really, we were just messing around after everyone left)

Being weird...

Imagine you're in a sea of tiny seahorses... Now, gently ease your hand under your chin... that's gonna turn out real nice.

Jared talking on the phone while we were bowling.

Grrrr

Jared got this coat at the DI on a date like 3 years ago. As you can see, the arms are a little tight...

I love to see the Temple....

2009-03-29T01:07:00.000-07:00

Today Jared's little sisters Sasha and Alina were sealed to their family in the Ogden temple. They were so dang cute in their pretty white dresses. They are such gorgeous girls and it made me so happy to be able to share this special day with them. I love my in-laws so much, I really lucked out in that department. They were so good to let us live with them for a few months while we got back on our feet. I'm so grateful to have such an awesome family for my in-laws. I love you all Smedleys!

Cute eternal sisters

These girls look up so much to Jared, he's such a sweet brother to them.

Shooting

2009-03-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

Today Jared and I went and shot our handgun for the first time. This was the very first time I had ever shot a real gun in my entire life. I was a little nervous at first, but it ended up being pretty fun. Trace and Sierra went with us, so they let me try their bigger 9mm gun first before trying my tiny one. Trace and Jared were both very good teachers. My little one kicks back quite a bit, but I think I'm getting used to it. Here are some pics we took:

Here are my excellent teachers

My very first time shooting our little Ruger .380 LCP. You can tell my face is pretty tense

Trace and Jared

Jared

This is my best target. Not bad for my first time shooting a hand gun, eh?

You can tell I look a little more comfortable in this one.

Watch out...

Good day

2009-03-17T14:39:00.000-07:00

Today was a really good day. I had the whole day off. I hung out with my sisters and their kids earlier today, and I loved it! We went shopping and then ate lunch at Costa Vida. Ash had to go to the dentist before we went, so we hung out at her house with James and Holly and her kids for a little bit. The first thing Lily said to me when I walked in was, "You're not wearing any green, the baby leprachaun is going to pinch you now!" And then she pinched me. Haha My bad for not wearing green on St. Patrick's day.
Here are some pics I took while we were waiting for Ash.
The kids were kinda crazy...

This was at the end of the day, if you coudn't tell... haha poor Lils

After I left Ash's house, I stopped by Wal Mart on my way home and picked up this:

I planted them all by myself. Haha not like it's that hard to plant a few flowers in a pot. We'll see how long I can keep them alive. It's supposed to hang on the side of things, but I think our railing is too thin for it. I'll have to have Jared help me figure out a way to hang it when he gets home.

Now I get to spend the rest of the day cleaning and organizing. Yes, today was a good day...

Saturday

2009-02-23T19:36:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning my friend Kelly was sealed to her husband Jordan in the Logan temple. It was such a pretty day, and it was so cool to be there to share that special day with them. Afterwords we ate at the Coppermill, which I can't complain, the food was AWESOME. It was a really good day, I'm so glad I was able to be there. Love ya Kelly!
This is us at the Coppermill. Happy day. :)

Slacker

2009-02-20T17:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know, I have been a slacker lately when it comes to the blog world. But in the real world, I have been so stinkin busy it's not even funny! I will be SO glad to be done with school in a few months. It couldn't come soon enough! I'll give you the scoop on what has been going on for the past month:

Jared and I got out concealed weapons permits a couple weeks ago. We probably wont get a gun for a while since we don't have any money, but we decided we better at least get our permits before that privilege is taken away... You never know. ;)

We saw the movie Coraline in 3-D on Valentines Day. It was a really cute movie! Valentines Day was so nice. Jared and I spent almost the entire day together, which doesn't happen very often. We ran errands, saw Coraline, and then he took me to JaSoh (I don't know how to spell it) It's the restaurant that used to be on Harrison by Weber State and is now on 25th street. It was a 5-course meal and it was SO good! Fine dining at its best, that's for sure. Definitely not a place to go often though, it is VERY expensive. But it was fun to dress up nice and get out on the town. (I brought my camera and then forgot I had it so I didn't take any pictures.) Dang it. I'm so bad at taking pictures, I even got a new camera for Christmas and I still forget.

Well, besides school, that's pretty much all the exciting events that have happened lately. Yay for school.... or something like that.

Bad days, good support system

2009-01-14T11:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had a really bad day. Jared was so sweet to me when I called him yesterday and told him about my day. He called a few different times after that to see if I was doing ok. Then he gave me a huge hug when he came home from work and gave me a good pep talk last night. Today my mom came over and brought me a balloon, soup, chapstick and a Jones soda (my favorite, berry lemonade!). I am so blessed to have such good family in my life to make me feel better when I'm having a rough day. It makes all the difference in the world. Thanks guys, I love you all so much!

Happy New Year AND Happy Birthday (to my sweetheart)

2009-01-01T14:59:00.000-08:00

We spent New Years Eve with all of Jared's friends at Cord and Adelle's house. Jared's friends Kevin and Jesse were here visiting from California. We ate Mexican food (homemade tacos made by Adelle - so good!) and then played games and watched a crazy kid jump on top of L'Arc de Triumph (the fake one in Las Vegas) with a motorcycle, and them jump back off of it onto another ramp. If you want to wach the youtube video, click here. It was nuts! We're just glad he didn't die on live tv. (He did break his hand though.)

We played Guitar Hero and Mario Kart on the Wii. It was a blast!

The two little girls didn't make it to midnight.

But Rem did. He's a little trooper, and he was so good the whole time. What a well behaved kid!

Jared and me. FINALLY a good picture of both of us. (except that my legs look ginormous- I'll blame it on the camera angle)

This isn't what it looks like. Ok it is. Jared is getting 26 birthday spankings from Kevin with a wooden paddle. Haha

This afternoon we ate "brunch" at Moore's family restaurant with Jared's family and his Grandma and Grandpa Meier

Jared and his mom (I just love this picture!)

Happy Birthday Jare Bear! You're getting old, but I still love you! ;)

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-27T12:38:00.000-08:00

We had a blast spending so much time with all of our family this week. On Christmas Eve "Eve" we went to my parents house. Jared has been working over time this week and last during the holidays for Fed Ex because they've been so busy. He got here just in time so start the Christmas program and open presents from each other. (that's why he's still in his Fed Ex clothes.)

The Christmas program was put on by the grandkids,(and my dad who read the story from the scriptures) who were probably too little still to understand what was going on. None of them lasted more than a few minutes with their costumes on, not even Lily.

My cute mom and dad

Andrew got a remote control car that Jared stole for a while. He's such a kid! The picture is really blurry because I tried to turn the flash off so his jacket wouldn't glare. Oh well

On Christmas Eve we went to Jared's grandma's house and had dinner. Jared's aunt Kim sang a funny country song that she made up her own words to. The kids all sat around in a circle and loved it. Jared's grandma also read them a little story about Christmas too, it was really cute.

The kids all had their own little gift exchange. Jared's grandma made them all matching pajama bottoms. She's so awesome!

The adults had their own gift exchange, which always gets a little crazy because each present can be stolen 3 times and people get really mad when theirs gets stolen. It's awesome. Jared and I ended up with some pans and some "SHAM WOW" towels that you see on the commercials on tv. It was really fun. That night we stayed at Jared's parents' house and watched the little kids open presents in the morning. That's always the best part of Christmas. Christmas day we ate at the mess hall at Hill Airforce Base with Jared's side of the family, and then we went to visit mine again. I forgot to take pictures all of those times though. Dang it. Merry Christmas everyone!

One stepping stone down....

2008-12-18T07:33:00.001-08:00

...And one more to go! Last night I graduated with my LPN. 8 more months and I'll graduate with my RN. Woo hoo! I can't tell you how excited I am to have that out of the way and have a little break. Sort of. Now I just have to pass the NCLEX... that's probably what I'll be doing over the break is studying for it.

This is the only picture we got of last night; my mom took more but I guess her camera was full so it didn't save them. Our camera isn't wonderful, but Jared was able to take this one (even though I held up the line because the camera took so long to take the picture). I think we're about due for a new one. Maybe I'll be able to afford a new one with my new pay raise. Yay!

Happy Thansgiving!

2008-11-30T02:09:00.000-08:00

This year we spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house. It was so awesome to be able to have the entire family there (minus Alex who is on his mission). I really love spending time with my family. Here are some pics:

After dinner we made our traditional gingerbread houses with graham crackers. The boys seem to get more into it than the kids I think.
Lily decorated hers but then ate most of it right after it was done. She was on a sugar high the rest of the night, I felt bad for Holls and Cody when it was time for them to leave.

Here is Jared hard at work. He is definitely a perfectionist, he sat and cut each graham cracker with a knife and everything. What a cutie!

The finished products:
Here is mine, very simple and it only took a few minutes.

Here is Jared's masterpiece. It took him a very long time and he would have spent longer but I made him be done because he would have been there all night. (he even made a john deere tractor and hay bales-cute!) Nice work Jare Bear!

A few of my favorite things..

2008-11-14T16:05:00.000-08:00

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens....

Ha ha just kidding. But seriously, here are some of my favorite things:

Velcro Shoes: Can it get much easier than this?

All-a-Dollar (or any of those stores). I got this scripture case there for $1. I'm really wondering how much longer stores like this are going to stay open, seeing how a dollar isn't worth crap these days.

Food
I'll pretty much eat anything, I just really love food. This turkey looks pretty delish, huh?

And of course, my husband is my very favorite thing. Which is a good thing, because he's the only thing I'll have for eternity... Awe... (p.s. I know he's not really a "thing", but you get the point.)

A little late, but.....

2008-11-05T22:16:00.000-08:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! ha ha I just barely got a chance to post our Halloween pics. Thursday night was our annual Niederhauser family Halloween party.
Here is some of our family. Holly and Cody didn't come but their kids did, Andrew was at the Halloween dance, and Alex is of course on his mission.

I stole this collage from my mom's blog because I forgot my camera. From left to right: 1. My Grandma and Grandpa Niederhauser always dress up so silly every year. My Grandma was a BYU co-ed this year. haha what hoot! Next to them are my uncle Spencer and his friend Lindsey. (Spencer was Sasquatch but he took his mask off because he was scaring all the kids.) 2. The pig tail on Jared's costume was the best part of ours. We planned our whole costumes around finding the pig-nose glasses and the tail. 3. Another pic of us in our "naughty" costumes. 4. My Nana and uncle Billy were party poopers and didn't dress up. But they're still cute and I love them! ;)

Friday we went to the Halloween party that Sierra planned. It was a blast! Here is the whole group that was at the party. Everyone had such sweet costumes.

One more pic of Jared and me as "pigs". (we bought donuts to the party by the way...)

Welcome to the 70's

2008-10-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

Jared and I found an apartment close to the school last week. I can't tell you how excited I am to be able to cook real meals again. There are only two downfalls to this apartment:
1. They don't allow pets. I don't know what I'm going to do with my cute kitty. I've sort of grown attached to him this past year. If anyone knows of someone who wants a cat, let me know.
2. It is very ugly. The carpet is disgusting and crunchy. He said he just got it cleaned, but I don't know what his definition of "cleaned" really was. (Probably just ran a vacuum over it.) The worst part is that he wont let us paint or put in better carpet. Oh well, at least it's a roof over our head and DEFINITELY not permanent. Here are some pics of our new 70's home:

This is our awesome carpet.

Here is the cool sparkly (probaby asbestos) ceiling

This is the sweet light that is in our front room. (Funny but kind of sad: The comcast guy who came to set our tv up bumped his head on it. It's really spiky I'm surprised he didn't cut his head open on it.)

Here is our awesome orange door. (I blacked out the number on it..)

And here is our mailbox, kinda cute I guess.

As you can see, the colors all go very well with the fall theme, but I'm not sure how good it's going to look during all the other seasons. Any ideas on how to make it look somewhat pleasing to the eye?

Life Flight

2008-10-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

Last Friday everyone in our nursing class went to Life Flight in Salt Lake. It was a way awesome experience and a nice break from our regular lectures and clinicals. Here are some pics from the day (thanks to Tori!)

Inside the helicopter (from left to right: me, Jill, Amanda, Kelly, Brent)

Our whole class in front of the helicopter

This is the "portable NICU" that they use when transporting babies

You can see me, Kelly and Amanda freezing in the background. I think I'm the only one that didn't have long sleeves or bring a jacket. All of my warm stuff is still in boxes!

Ah, the life of a starving college student...

2008-10-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

I love Mac-N-Cheese with hot dogs, it reminds me of being a little kid. Also, I can't afford real food. (healthy food, that is). It's no wonder we're always sick (we as in college students). Not only do we not get adequate nutrition, but we are also very sleep deprived. Some day...

Jared in D.C.!

2008-10-02T09:49:00.001-07:00

Jared went to Washington D.C. last week for Student Government. (I didn't feel too bad because I've already been there with my family, I'm actually really glad he got to go.) He got to see a lot of cool things and they even got to meet members of the Senate. Here are some pics of his experience:

This is the underground tunnel between the Capitol building and the Senate building. He got to go to both; pretty sweet huh?

My handsome man in front of the White House, what a stud! (Notice his huge arms in the picture in front of the Washington monument.. ow ow!) ;)

The Museum of National History

The Hope Diamond (A little smaller than we all imagined it)

The signed Declaration of Independence

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (When my family went it was about 100 something degrees with 9o something percent humidity.. let's just say we probably didn't appreciate it as much as Jared did. :) )

I love September!

2008-09-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

There's just something about the month of September that just makes it one of my favorite months of the year. (Yes, I know, it's almost over but I just decided to proclaim my love for it now.) So here are some reasons why I love September:
1. I love the fresh, crisp air, how it starts getting just a little chilly; no longer stifling heat, but not cold enough for coats yet (all you need is a light jacket.. name that movie!) I also love to see the leaves start changing and taking drives up the canyon on a Sunday afternoon.

2. I absolutely LOVE peaches and September is definitely the month for peaches. My favorite thing is having a couple in the morning for breakfast cut up in vanilla yogurt. Probably one of my all-time favorite breakfasts.

Millions of peaches, peaches for me, millions of peaches, peaches for free! (What ever happened to Presidents of the United States by the way?!)
3. And of course, school is back in session... ha. I know it sounds dorky but I kinda like school. Fall semester always seems to go by the fastest too.

Rice-A-Roni anyone?

2008-09-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

Ok, so since we don't have a stove or an oven, I decided to try Rice-A-Roni in the microwave. It probably would have turned out ok if I took it out 5 minutes earlier. But you see, the relief society ladies came to see me and we ended up talking longer than expected (imagine that!) and when I came back downstairs to check on it, this is what I found...

There was about a teaspoon of soft rice right in the middle that was delicious. Totally worth the 20 minute wait. The rest is hard as a rock, although it came out quite easy and now I have a giant rice cake.

Now I get to clean these dishes all by myself since I'm the dishwasher around here... Fun!
Moral of the story: if you're going to put things in the mircrowave for 20 minutes, check on it at least once in between to make sure it's still alive. Or just cook things on a stove like a normal human being. (that is, if you have one) ;)

Alex is a missionary!

2008-09-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

My little (I guess I should say younger since he's almost a foot taller than I am) brother Alex went to the MTC last Wednesday to go to Seoul Korea. Crazy! I can't believe he is that old already. On Tuesday we went to see him get set apart as a missionary and then slept over at my parents house that night and went to breakfast with everyone Wednesday morning at Jeramiah's and then drove to the MTC to see him off.
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He was sick the whole morning, even at breakfast. Poor kid! He may have gotten the 24-hour flu, because I guess it was going around at their house. Being nervous probably didn't help any. He still kept smiling despite it though. What a cutie!

The whole fam (and my cute grandparents -Grandpa Grose and Grandpa and Grandma Niederhauser) after Alex got set apart.

At the MTC right before going inside. He's going to be an amazing missionary. Good luck Al Boy! I love ya!

The deal is done!

2008-09-04T14:19:00.001-07:00

So Jared and I went to a lady's house last night and signed the papers to sell our house. I can't tell you what a relief that is! Thanks to everyone who prayed for us! We love you all!

Girls Day Out

2008-08-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took Jared's little sisters Sasha and Alina to Salt Lake while Jared went fishing with his dad. We rode the Front Runner and went to the Gateway. We ate at California Pizza Kitchen, went to the Clark Planetarium, and then watched Batman at the Megaplex. It was really fun to spend the day with the girls and I think Cathy enjoyed having them out of the house for a while. Jared really enjoyed spending time with his dad, too, so it was a good day for everyone. :)
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Picture #1 is Alina and Sasha (left to right) at the California Pizza Kitchen. Picture #2 is Alina on the "gravity simulator" at the Clark Planetarium. We were going to see an IMAX movie but all they had was the Deep Sea 3D and one other one that both sounded "gay" to Sasha (she's at that age where those kind of things aren't "cool"), so we all decided on watching Batman at the Megaplex instead. The third picture is Alina and me riding the Front Runner. On the way home we played cards on the table on the front runner; we had a lot of fun.

This is probably the last time I will be posting for a while now, because school starts again tomorrow and I'm going to be so busy this entire semester. I'll try to keep everyone updated if anything new or exciting happens...

2008-08-22T23:21:00.001-07:00

Fruit Pizza!

2008-08-19T13:59:00.001-07:00

Well I don't have anything to post so I decided to take a picture of the yummy fruit pizza I made last night. I made vegetable pizza for dinner and fruit pizza for dessert. It was a pretty healthy meal, I even used low fat cream cheese for both and low fat whipped cream for the dessert (the crust for the fruit pizza is a sugar cookie though...) Yum!

Bear Lake... Sort of...

2008-08-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

Jared and I decided on a whim to go to Bear Lake yesterday for our anniversary to get raspberry shakes and possibly camp for the night. We decided to wait and take a nice longer trip next year when I'm a nurse and we'll actually have some money. So we drove up to Bear Lake and realized we didn't have our tent, so we just had a campfire and roasted hot dogs and ate our year old cake, which was surprisingly very good and moist still! Then we started driving home at 1 in the morning and Jared was too tired so we pulled over at the mouth of Logan canyon so he could take a half hour nap and the next thing we knew it was 8 in the morning. Ha! So that was our anniversary trip, and it was really fun, even to get away for just a day. We set this up on a timer on top of my car; it actually worked quite well. The sunset was pretty with the lake and mountains in the foreground.

Our beautiful one year old cake!

After we took this picture Jared said, "Any more pictures we HAVE to take for your blog?" Haha what a punk!

1 Year Ago Today....

2008-08-10T12:12:00.001-07:00

Today is our one year anniversary. We were married in the Bountiful temple one year ago today. Jared is such an amazing man, I couldn't ask for a sweeter husband. Here are some pictures of our wedding day:

The Reception

My awesome cake. It turned out so pretty, thanks to Jared's mom Cathy! I didn't see what it looked like before, but from what I heard, it was kind of a mess. Luckily, Cathy was quick and started pulling flowers off the pots that were hanging from the gazebo around the cake. Thanks Cathy!

We had Frosted Rock cater our reception. My colors were pink and brown so we had strawberry, chocolate, and of course, cake batter ice cream and you could put different mix-ins on it. I think everyone loved it. How could you not?

The Temple

I loved my bouquet. It was very simple but elegant.

My beautiful mommy!

My handsome daddy!

This is one of my favorite pictures of us

Happy Anniversary Jared! I love you so much!

Look what came in the mail today!

2008-08-05T17:24:00.001-07:00

That's right, I got my associates degree and I didn't even have to pay all those parking tickets they threatened me with! Shh, don't tell anyone....

Photo Tag!

2008-07-31T17:59:00.000-07:00

I was "photo tagged" by my sister Ash and my mom, so I guess I should probably do it. Plus I found my camera in a box a few days ago so I don't have that for an excuse anymore. :) I took most of these a couple days ago but then my internet wasn't working so I'm just barely posting them all. I know these are all in a random order but it's the only way my computer would let me do it. So here we go... (P.S. for those of you who don't know the rules, you have to take a picture of all these things right away, without doing any cleaning...)

1. My kitchen sink... Also my dishwasher. I wont tell you how long those bowls have been there for... ;)
2. My fridge. I know you're all so jealous of how big it is. (It's about 2 feet tall.) As you can see, milk doesn't do too well on its side..

3. My children. This is as close as we're going to get to children for a little while.

4. My favorite room. It's our kitchen, our computer room, and tv room all in one! None of this is our furniture of course, but it's way nice and greatly appreciated!

5. My closet. This is what we get to share between the two of us. Again, I know you're all jealous...
6. My laundry room. I don't have a picture of this because first of all, it's upstairs and I'm too lazy to go up there. Second of all, it's not really mine and none of my stuff is ever up there, so I don't think Cathy would appreciate me taking a picture of her laundry room...

7. My toilet. 8. My favorite shoes. Target special. :)

9. My dream vacation.... Italy!
10. Self-portrait. I had just gotten off work, hence the scrubs. Yuck!

Well, that's all folks! I am now tagging Kendra, Sierra, and Hannah. Have fun! :)

The Police!

2008-07-22T14:23:00.000-07:00

Jared and I went to The Police concert last Saturday. It was probably one of the best concerts I have ever been to. They are AMAZING in concert (although there were a couple notes on some songs that Sting probably can't hit anymore, so he changed them to lower notes.) And I have to say, Sting is a pretty good looking older man now. I didn't have any problem with watching him on the big screen for an hour and a half... ;)

4th of July!

2008-07-15T15:52:00.001-07:00

I stole these pictures from my mom from the fourth of July party we had at my parents' house because I STILL don't have my camera.

This is me and my cute cousin Alyssa.

Jared and I didn't get in the pool because Jared was still sick. Everyone in the Smedley household passed around the 24-hour flu except for me (which I owe to Acidophilus!)

Finally settled! (or getting there...)

2008-07-02T16:47:00.000-07:00

So we moved in with Jared's parents a couple of weeks ago. We still have a few boxes to unpack but we're finally starting to get settled. Last week our room was stacked to the ceiling with boxes because we didn't have anywhere to put anything. So Jared's mom Cathy and I went to Ikea (which I had never been to before and now I am in LOVE!) and we bought some organizers to put all our crap in. It definitely helped a ton! Trying to fit all our stuff in one little closet was just not cutting it. Needless to say, I finally have a little time again to blog, even though I don't have any pictures to show for it. (Our camera is still in a box somewhere...) So all is well with the Smedleys in our new "crib". We love you all!

Vegas Baby!

2008-06-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

Jared had a dental convention on Friday and Saturday at UNLV, and it happened to fall on the same weekend Ash and Jud were planning on being in Vegas. So we made a weekend of it and we had a blast. Jared and I stayed in the Stratosphere the first two nights while Ash and Jud were in Zions. It was very convenient because it was about 2 blocks from UNLV so I just drove Jared there both mornings and then did my own thing while he was gone. The first day I didn't really do anything except run on the treadmill that over-looked the pool and watched ginormous ladies in bikinis by the pool while doing so. It made me want to never stop running! (Oh and I watched like 3 episodes of Law and Order in the hotel room. :) ) I was too scared to drive anywhere. The people aren't very nice on the road. If you don't go half a second after the lights turn green, people honk at you and speed up and flip you off. The second day I conquered my fear Las Vegas traffic and drove a couple blocks to the mall and shopped all day. Then we met up with Ash and Jud after Jared got done at the school. We walked around for a while and took some pictures (well Ash did because, as usual, I forgot my camera). That night we ate at a big buffet in the Luxor where we stayed with Ash and Jud the last two nights. On Sunday we had a very busy day. Jared and I listened to one of those time share presentations so we could get tickets to the human body exhibit and the roller coaster on top of the New York New York hotel. We went straight to the human body exhibit, followed by an Imax film about the deep sea, followed by dinner, followed by our ride on the roller coaster. It was totally worth sitting through the time share thing for!

Ah, how romantic!

The famous Bellagio
And...yes... gambling...AGAIN. That $2 was totally worth throwing away though. It's all for a good cause, right? ;)

I look like I fit in with the rest of the crowd...STONED!

The Cure

2008-05-25T16:23:00.000-07:00

Jared and I went to see The Cure on Friday night at the E Center.They look like a nice-looking bunch, don't you think? Despite what they look like, their music is pretty good. We had a great time. Jared even made a new friend. Here's the story behind it:
So this kid (I'm sure he was high on something other than life) kept going up and down the aisle next to us making these really weird arm movements, just a weird kid. I told Jared he looked like the Dungeons and Dragons type of kid. So anyway, the kid stood right next to us and made the weirdest move I've ever seen, so when he started walking back down the aisle Jared made fun of his move and the kid turned around and saw Jared making fun of him. So Jared played it cool and gave the kid a high five. Then I took a picture of them with Jared's phone and the kid wanted Jared to email it to him. So Jared asks him what his email address is and the kid says it's CrystalynDragon or something like that. As soon as the kid walked away I could not help but laugh hysterically because I totally called that he was a dungeons and dragons kid. Check out the kid's outfit, the shirt is see-thru and on the back of it was a black cheetah, and he had a black "wife-beater" shirt underneath and he kept opening it up and dancing around. It was awesome. (Pay no attention to the scandelous girl in the background..)

Jared and I both wore shirts with skulls on them so we would fit in with the crowd. :) Good times

Kitty's first haircut

2008-05-15T16:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I ruined our cat. He's pretty much an outdoor cat, but we usually give him baths every once in a while if he wants to come in. So today he came in with sap all in his fur, so I have him a bath and had to cut out some of the sap in his hair. Then I told Jared we should just cut his hair because we both hate how he sheds so bad. I wanted to use Jared's electric hair cutter, but he didn't want me to. So, long story short, I started cutting the cat's hair and it ended up looking like this. (Holls, remember when we cut Alex's hair into bricks?) It doesn't look as bad in these pictures as it does in real life though, if you saw him you would probably pee your pants. I almost did. Oh well, hair grows back, right? especially cat hair... I hope.
I know it's so sad, we don't have any kids yet so I have to blog about my cat.

Disclaimer on last post

2008-05-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

Ha ha! So apparently everyone thought I was trying to give REAL parenting advice, even though I know nothing about being a parent seeing how I don't have any kids yet. Just so you all know, it is just a joke, and I was trying to paste it right into my blog so everyone could see it right away, but for some reason that day it wouldn't let me so I had to make a link to it. But I promise I'm not trying to tell anyone how to be a good parent. Jared just got it at his work and thought it was funny enough to put it on my blog. Sorry for the confusion, have a great day! ;)

Tough Love vs. Spanking

2008-05-07T13:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a great parenting method:
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/dlubo/ToughLove.html

The BIG 2-1!

2008-05-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

I turned 21 on Saturday, and for my birthday Jared took me to Wendover. We rode the "fun bus" with a lot of very interesting people. It was really fun, and pretty cheap too. It's $15 a person, and that includes the bus ride roundtrip, $5 back in cash to gamble with, a few free drinks at Starbucks and any other bar (we got "cherry" cokes, and the lady just put a cherry in each of our drinks; she was really pretty snotty). It also included a free buffet which wasn't bad either and I had a huge piece of cheesecake for dessert, YUM! So then we were bad and each spent our 5 dollars on gambling, playing the nickel machines. Our total winnings were.... $17! Yeah, I know, we're pretty much the richest people I know now, so feel free to ask us for loans anytime. HA! So here are a couple pictures of us at the casino, we asked the lady to give it to us all in ones so we could fan it out and take a picture.
This one is kind of fuzzy, I don't know if it's because we have a crappy camera or if the lady that took it was just drunk. Maybe it's a combination of both. :)

The search for the "little black dress"

2008-04-30T08:30:00.001-07:00

I have been looking for a cute "little black dress" for almost two years now and still have yet to find one that fits right and is remotely cheap. If anyone has any ideas on where to get one, please let me know! :)

A day out with the girls (and boy)

2008-04-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

My mom, Ash, James, and I rode the front runner to Salt Lake today and went shopping at the Gateway and had lunch with my dad in celebration of my birthday. It was a blast! I love spending time with my family. Here are some pictures from today. (P.S. you may see these same pictures on my mom's blog either today or tomorrow.... :) )

Notice how the seats are all still very nice and clean. It won't last long, so if you want to ride it before it becomes disease-infested, I suggest you do it soon! :)

James was so good the whole day, even with skipping his naps! What a cute boy!

Schoooooool's.....Out, For, the Summer!

2008-04-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

So I finished my last final this afternoon, and I am proud to say I passed all my classes with fLyInG cOlOrS! (yes, I know, that's so clichè.) I have so many things I want to do this summer. Some of these things include scrapbooking Jared's mission pictures and our WEDDING pictures, reading as many books as I can, and taking a few little trips. Somehow I need to fit that all in between working full time and my Patho class (which may be slightly time-consuming). I guess I'd better get started!

My Husband, the Science Geek

2008-04-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

Jared just found out that he made "Science Senator" at Weber State. Although it sounds geeky, this "geek" gets $1100 (I can' remember if thats each semester or just per year) and it will look great on his application to dental school. I'm so happy for him, especially since he's spent so much time and effort making signs and handouts (he pulled an "all-nighter" one of the days makng his signs because he's such a perfectionist!) and he was worried that it would be for nothing. So he made it. Yay! Doesn't he look so handsome in this picture? He took it to put on one of his signs but then never had time to put it on.

Thank goodness!

2008-04-02T16:25:00.000-07:00

I am done with my clinicals (which means no more concept maps that take about 10 hours each!) until September! I am also glad that I won't have to look like this lady too! It's nice that nurses don't have to wear those ugly dresses/uniforms anymore. I would hate to work in a dress. Think of all the nasty things that would probably end up on your legs! Yuck. So I have 2 1/2 more weeks until finals and then I have the summer off, which will be wonderful! It is a much needed break. Only 16 more months and I'll be an RN. Woo hoo!

How sweet!

2008-03-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

Jared came home Friday night and brought me home these flowers and cute stuffed animal. He always picks the cutest most original arrangementof flowers. What a sweetheart! To make things even better, they called me off for the first half my shift on Saturday (which starts at 5 in the morning) so we got to sleep in, it was wonderful! We both hadn't slept in longer than 6 or 7 for months. It's so good to have my sweetie back! Yay for husbands! :) Hehe