We are still alive!

  Poor blog, I've left you to shrivel up and die.

  This is me posting to let everyone know that we are indeed, alive and well.  (Read: as well as we can be as two full time-students trying to juggle school, home, jobs, church, church calling, family, and and each other.  ;)  Read also: messy house and waaay too much eating out.  Haha!

  I am in my last semester of nursing school!  Those five stinker letters (BSN, RN) are getting closer by the day!  Honestly, it doesn't even seem real.  It took me forever to realize that I've done nothing but school and breaks for 19 years, so that's probably why it isn't clicking in my brain that I'm almost done!
 
  I don't really have a church calling right now.. I was a nursery leader but I got "relieved" (they never officially released me) and they said I'm the first person they'll call to substitute.  Doug has been the 11 year old scout leader for several years and he loves it.  This year has been rough, though.  The other scout leader who was fantastic moved away last year.  Since then, there has been nothing but problems of one sort or another.  He hasn't had a reliable leader partner (there have been 4 others called since then) since the awesome partner moved.  For most of this time too, there haven't been very many boys, or very many boys who will come.  Doug is such a good sport about it all!  The newest leader (#4) seems to be doing pretty okay so far though, so we'll cross our fingers tight!
 
  Doug will graduate in December 2013 in Integrated Studio Arts (emphasis in Graphic Design) with a minor in Web Development.  He loves his work!  It's such a good thing too, because he has SOOO much homework all the time it's ridiculous.  He is always sitting on his laptop working on something for his graphic design class.  Can I tell you how rude people can be when I say my husband is going into graphic design?!  I was at the dentist's office and told them I was going into nursing and Doug is going into graphic design, and the lady had the audacity to say, "At least you'll have a real job."  Umm.  Rawr.  I think my blood pressure is going up just thinking about it!  ;)

  On a totally random note- I've been thinking about starting a new blog with Doug.  I was thinking something along the lines of "A Nurse and her Graphic Designer."  I could post about all things girly and nurse-ish and Doug could post about graphic design stuff that is totally useful!  (How to install fonts from the internet, simple Adobe Suite tutorials, etc).  I just don't know if it would be too random for anyone to enjoy!  I have way too many interests...hair, makeup, cooking, nails, health... Would anyone read a blog like that written by us?!

Technical difficulty

Last night I was going to post our 3 days in Island Park so they would show up in order and our internet decided to freak out after the day 3 post. :( I'm at work this morning, so the others will be up later. :)

Island Park Day 3

The last day we had a slow morning and enjoyed breakfast burritos. Andrew made several smaller ones and lovingly referred to them as "Mini 'hos" (mini Idaho burritos). Haha! We went to Big Springs and fed the fish, birds, and some sort of little creature. It rained pretty hard while we were there but it was still really fun. Everyone got into their tye dye for a group picture before we left.

How many people does it take to get a shirt on Ty? ;) Steven and Lynn got it on eventually. Plus you can see a couple of the awesome (but sadly pink) tye dye shirts.

Andrew attacking Stacey. Haha :)

Ty feeding the cool little animal at Big Springs..not really sure what it was but it LOVED bread!


It was raining pretty hard!

I was trying to get pictures of him to show the rain on his face...isn't this one adorable?

"Remember This: Kindness Begins with Me"

I was reading this talk from the 2011 General Young Women Meeting. It is so wonderful! I just want to share it with you!

This is how the talk starts. "A few weeks ago I learned an important lesson from a Laurel who was the youth speaker in my ward. I was touched as she confidently taught and testified of Jesus Christ. She concluded her remarks with this statement: 'When I make Jesus Christ the center of my life, my day goes better, I’m kinder to my loved ones, and I am filled with joy.' I have observed this young woman from a distance over the past few months. She greets everyone with sparkling eyes and a quick smile. I’ve watched her rejoice in the success of other youth. Two Mia Maids recently reported to me of this young woman’s decision to forfeit her ticket to a movie when she realized that it was not going to be an experience that was “virtuous and lovely.” ¹ She’s loving, kind, and obedient. She comes from a single-parent home, and her life has not been without challenges, so I’ve wondered how she maintains her happy, kind spirit. When this young woman testified, 'I center my life on Jesus Christ,' I had the answer."

Don't you want to meet that girl? And be just like her?

Another thing I LOVED:

"President Thomas S. Monson taught us how to interact with our peers and everyone we meet when he told the young women of the Church, 'My precious young sisters, I plead with you to have the courage to refrain from judging and criticizing those around you, as well as the courage to make certain everyone is included and feels loved and valued.'"

Courage. Don't you love that?!

Have the courage to refrain from judging and criticizing those around you, as well as the courage to make certain everyone is included and feels loved and valued.

I LOVE IT. I want to post it somewhere in my house...

One more. "President Monson...has always had a special place in his heart for the elderly. He recognizes the value of a short visit, a ready smile, or a squeeze of a well-worn, wrinkled hand. Such simple acts of charity bring color into a life the sometimes is made up of long, lonely, gray days. I would invite each of you to be mindful of your grandparents and the elderly. Look around at church tomorrow and identify those who could use your shade of color added to their life. It doesn't take much: greet them by name, engage them in a short conversation, be available to assist them....'Remember this: kindness begins with me.'"

LOVE!

Now, I'm giving you an assignment. Ready?

http://lds.org/general-conference/2011/04/remember-this-kindness-begins-with-me?lang=eng&query=kindness+begins+with+me

GO!

Read the rest of this talk. Pretty please? You will LOVE it!

Happy birthday Doug!

Doug's birthday was last week. Here's a little info about him. :)

He is ridiculously handsome (evidence above!)
He is SO patient.
He loves kids, and they love him.
He is such a hard worker.
He never gets mad.
He doesn't complain.
He is going to school to be a graphic designer.
He makes me laugh.
He is my favorite!

I'll post more about his day after the gift from my parents come. :)

"Calling All Angels" 2

This is Doug's sweet cousin Angie and her husband Neal. She went into preterm labor and they only had a few hours with their little Jayden. They are AMAZING people. This is the second year they are doing this service project in memory of him.

Can you make time to help?

I'm more than happy to collect blankets from you if you don't want to ship them. Let me know! Send me an email at imgone2mexico@hotmail.com.

Yellowstone

This is from a couple months ago, but oh well.

We decided to go to Yellowstone on free entrance to national parks day. I surprised Doug and booked a "cabin" for that night. We had so much fun!

I can't figure out how to move pictures on here now...so they're in a weird order.

Only in Yellowstone!

A bear! WE SAW A BEAR!

The inside of the lodge. Don't you want to curl up in one of those chairs and read?

Cool sunburst picture at the tiny "lake" on the Continental Divide. (I think its a pond, but who makes the rules anyway..)

The gorgeous view from the amazing dining room in the lodge! Sunset at Yellowstone Lake.

Our cabin.

It was so fun to get away for a night and just be together. We had a blast!

Free Canvas Print!

I saw this on another blog and I think I'm going to take advantage of it! A company called Canvas People is giving $55 off any size canvas, you just pay shipping (14.95, I think). That makes an 8x10 canvas free, but the shipping. The rest of their canvas prices are INCREDIBLY REASONABLE with that discount too! Go check out! You upload your picture and choose a size canvas. AWESOME.

http://www.canvaspeople.com/special-offer?utm_source=HO_CP&utm_medium=Affil&utm_campaign=promo

Tagged :)

My friend Allie tagged me for these fun questions. Here it goes. :)

What is your favorite Christmas tradition?
When I was younger, my mom and I would pull blankets out and sleep by the Christmas tree for a night sometime before Christmas. Oh, and my dad would make me wait in my parents' room til he got the video camera set up...every Christmas. Talk about torture! Haha

What is your favorite way to relieve anger/frustration?
Talk about it! Poor Doug gets to hear blow-by-blows of what people do that drives me crazy. Haha

What was the last good movie you watched? Why?
Salt was AMAZING! I thought it was going to be just another good secret agent movie but it had SO many twists! We LOVED it!

What is the first thing you think of when you wake up?
Depends on the day. What time is it? Can I sleep longer? Is Doug in the bathroom?

Name 5 things that make you happy.
Doug! My family and Doug's family. My friends. Traveling. Comfy clothes.

Describe your perfect day.
Sleeping in together and hanging out all day with nothing to worry about.

What is the worst job you've ever had?
I worked with developmentally disabled adults and some of them were REALLY hard! There was one who got mad all the time over tiny stuff, and there was one who you had to wipe every time she went to the bathroom. Iiiiick. Good thing I was just a fill in at that job!

If you could relive the best day of your life, what day would it be? I want details!
I've had so many best days with Doug! Our wedding day would obviously be amazing to relive, and just soak it in more. A weekend we recently spent in Yellowstone where I suprised him with a cabin on the lake...we saw the sites and came back to the lodge and ate a yummy dinner in the GORGEOUS dining room that faced the lake. We played games and relaxed and saw everything else the next day. A camping trip we went on this summer was amazing too... there's a lot of days that would be awesome to relive!

Watering Plants

Just a quick laugh for all of you.

My boss came up and handed me a pitcher and said, "Will you water the plants?" I asked her where they all were and she pointed into the big room next to us and said vaguely, "There's one there, there, and there, and in the corner. And there's two in my office." She indicated that it didn't need to be done immediately.

Well, it was after she left and I decided to go water the plants. There seemed to be more than she mentioned, but fit in with them being close together (there, there, and there). She failed to mention there were fake plants. And I totally watered a fake plant.

Hahahahaha :)

The Blue Angels

If you haven't seen the Blue Angels before, you HAVE to go see them if they're ever anywhere near you!

Two days before the show, I was at my friend Kourtney's house and the Blue Angels started practicing and flying right over her house. Once we figured out what that loud noise was, we were like little kids running outside to see them. My parents came down the weekend of the show and my mom had a great idea of where we could go watch for free. We ended up right next to the runway, with free parking, and no ticket price. :) It was the most perfect spot- they would fly right over us all the time.

Feast your eyes on the wonder that mere mortals know only as the Blue Angels. :)

See how low they got? We had such a perfect spot.



Holy cow....

I spy with my little eyes: two upside down planes. Can you spy them too? How on EARTH do they do that?!?! (A common question in my mind throughout the show)

I don't get how they can fly that close together! If any of them even hiccuped they'd all die.

We had so much fun! There's nothing like seeing something so amazing that you can't stop saying, "Oh wow!" "Holy cow!" "How do they do that?" "That's impossible, but they do it anyway!" every other second. :)

Prayers For Preslee

I stumbled across the story about this family. I don't know them, but it broke my heart. A young couple in Rexburg has a daughter named Preslee. A few days ago, she fell in a canal and a farmer found her 2 miles down. She's at Primary Children's now. Go check out their blogs and say a prayer for her. They look like SUCH a sweet family.

http://helpsullengers.blogspot.com/

http://patrickandashley.blogspot.com/

Oops

The most recent 3 blogs (all published tonight) published in a weird order. I meant for the older stuff to be at the bottom. Read all the way down to the Sleepover one! :)

Happy Birthday to Me :)

Like our anniversary post, this is almost 3 months late. Oops.

I started my day off by going to work at 8 in the morning. My sweet bosses got me a card and came out and made everyone sing to me. :) When I came home, I couldn't wait to open presents. I got The Proposal and an iPod (from Doug and my parents)! Doug knows me better than I do... I had thought that when I got an iPod I would want a pink one, but he explained as I opened a RED one that the pink ones were nasty and he got me this awesome red one instead. It's so nice! He had engraved on the back: Now we can rock out together. Xoxoxo He's so sweet! We went to my favorite restaurant for dinner.

My angel visiting teacher brought me a present so sweet it almost made me cry! I had raved about some cookies she brought me about a month before. For my birthday, she brought me a plate of hot cookies, a bag of dough that she had frozen so I could have them whenever, a scoop, the recipe, and the chocolate that goes in. Thanks so much Terry!

My mother in law bought me the vinyl saying for the frame that I bought ages ago with it in mind. It's a 24x36 frame that now reads: "Real love stories never has endings." We're going to hang on the wall next to our stairs when we get the motivation to get the ladder in here, haha. She also gave me money that I'm going to use to buy paint for the kitchen! Sweeet! Thanks!

My sister in laws went together and got me a gift card to the most wonderful decorating store! I quickly used it to buy awesome decorations, of course! :)

My parents came down the next weekend and we went to my favorite restaurant again with them. I got free fried ice cream. :) It was a wonderful birthday!

Thanks everyone! Love you all!

Our Anniversary (Posted almost 3 months late...)

So....this is almost three months late. But I figured it would be good to get it on here anyways.

It's been a year already! It's gone by so fast and I love him so much! For our anniversary, we started off by sleeping in! It's a rare day that we can sleep in together, so it was wonderful. We went to go to Avatar 3D but it was sold out. (I should have listened to Doug! It had been out so long that I really didn't think it would still sell out...oopps!!) We changed our plans and bought tickets for the later showing and went to dinner early. My mom was so sweet and had given us money to go to an expensive restaurant. Thanks mom! After dinner, we went and picked up a new wedding cake layer that I surprised Doug with from the same lady that made our cake. We went to the movie and LOVED it! It was both of our first 3D movie and it was an awesome movie too! It was so nice to spend the whole day together.

Pretty cute in 3D glassees, huh? :)

Sleepover!

A while back we had our nieces over to our house for a sleepover! We had such a good time! We had pizza for dinner (yum!) and made the world's best brownies together for dessert. I LOVED having the girls helping with the brownies, it was heaven! Needless to say, they were very enthusiastic helpers!

I love these girls so much!!

Calling All Prayers!

This is my cousin's daughter, Michelle.

She is an angel. A miracle. The moment she was born she had to start fighting for her life. After forever in the hospital, she was finally been able to come home. She has been growing and learning SO much since then! Unfortunately, she is back in the hospital very, very sick. I know you don't know her, but she desperately needs your prayers right now. So please, please, PLEASE pray for sweet Michelle with all your heart.

The Refiner's Fire

Doug and I were in SLC and had the amazing opportunity to watch gold be refined up close. I am banging my head against the wall that I didn't think to take the camera in... But I was completely overwhelmed by why this certain symbolism is used in the scriptures.

First, the gold goes into a very thick metal cup and gets put into a metal tub where the fire is. This fire was so powerful by itself that it was astounding to look at...and the people said the fire they have didn't get hot enough by itself, so they took what looked like a welding torch to it to get the fire even hotter every once in a while. I asked them how hot it had to be to refine the gold, and the answer was somewhere around 1800 degrees. Every so often he would drop in some powder that makes all the impurities cling to it and come together . After quite awhile of melting the gold, the refiner got the cup out and cooled it in buckets of water. He dropped the gold out onto the floor, and all the impurities were all together in a black shape on the bottom. He hit it and they all dropped right off.

Pretty simple right? I can't even explain to you what a powerful representation to me of why the refiner's fire is used as a symbol. You're going through a trial and it's really bad, and then when you think it can't get any worse, the fire gets hotter. It circulates between bad and worse, all the while you are (hopefully) learning what you need to and your imperfections are sinking down. When you bring the Savior into it, the imperfections or bad things can fall right off, just like in the gold.

It's odd to me how much this experience taught me..I definitely don't think it was a coincidence that we had this opportunity. I mean, I'm the type of person that gets emotional at gorgeous art and beautiful songs, not watching raging fires.. Not that I got teary eyed emotional at the experience, but I don't think I've ever felt so powerfully taught about a symbol and that I knew and understood why Heavenly Father chose that symbol to use for us. I remember that feeling of absolute understanding and I know that I was supposed to learn what I did.

Going private

I have thought about it and have decided to make our little blog private. There are lots of things I want to post and don't feel comfortable doing so in view of the general public. So, send me an email with the email address you use to login to: mmaarrcciieeATgmailDOTcom. :)

If there's a chance I won't recognize who you are by your email address, just write your name in the subject of the email. I look forward to posting about things, places, and people I love that I wouldn't otherwise do without having the blog being private. :D

Couple survey :)

My friend Allie did this and it was cute!

1. When is your "engagement" anniversary?
*November 19th

2. When is your "marriage" anniversary:
*February 6th

3. How long have you known your spouse:
*Ha, neither of us remember when we first met. But somewhere around 2 years.

4. How long did you date/court before you were engaged?
*6 months

5. Where did you meet your spouse for the first time?
*Neither of us remember! Haha! But it was through friends/my friends' single's ward/Institute. So probably at a party or an activity.

7. Do you have any children:
*Nieces and nephews for now :)

8. How many - boys/girls:
*As long as they're healthy that's the most important thing!

9. Do you have any house pets:
*A cat

11. Do you live in the country or town/city:
*Country

12. What are some of your favorite activities together:
*Spending time together. Relaxing, watching movies, playing games. Just chatting.

13. Do you have a favorite vacation spot:
*Mexico was really fun!

14. When did you first kiss?
*After we'd been "officially" together for a couple weeks

15. What church do you attend?
*The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

16. Did you get married in a church?
*Nope, Idaho Falls Temple

17. What town is your current address at:
*Our address isn't in a town :)

18. Do you work or stay at home:
*We're never home! Work and school!

19. Where did you go on your honeymoon:
*A month after we got married we went on a road trip to Nauvoo.

20.What was the funniest gift you gave when dating?
*Haha well before we got married I did a little countdown with presents for every day. For 6 days before I gave him a package of sugar cookies and I THOUGHT they had twelve so I said something like 6 cookies (times two) and there were only ten! He hasn't let me forget it. Apparently sugar cookies come in 10's, not 12's.

21.How long have you been together?
*A year and almost 5 months

22. How long did you know each other before you started dating?
*About 5 or 6 months, and then we dated for 2 months before we were together.

23. Who asked who out?
*Doug asked me

26. Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
*Our crazy busy lives.

27. Did you go to the same school?
*Nope

28. Are you from the same home town?
*Not "technically", but yes. Our moms grew up like a block away from each other too.

29. Who is smarter?
*We're both smarter at different things. For example, I have no clue how to operate power tools or build things. However, if he happened to hurt himself while using said power tools, I know how to take care of it. :D

30. Who is more sensitive?
*Me

31.Where do you eat out most as a couple?
*Good question. We like lots of places!

32. Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
*Mexico

33.Who has the craziest exes?
*It depends on your definition of crazy...

34. What attracted you about him/her?
-We were friends and he was super nice and fun to hang out with

35. Who does the cooking?
*Doug usually cooks breakfast and I cook everything else

36. Who is more social?
*Depends on the situation. I would maybe say Doug though. He can strike up conversations with people he doesn't even know.

37. Who is the neat-freak?
*For the kitchen and family room-me!! For the bedroom-mostly Doug.

38. Who is more stubborn?
*We're both pretty stubborn

39. Who hogs the bed?
*Neither of us. We sleep in the middle

40. Who wakes up earlier?
*Doug!

41. Where was your first date?
*His basement. We watched I am Legend. I kept jumping and he would laugh at me. Hahaha

42.Who had more boyfriends/girlfriends?
*Me

43. Do you get flowers often?
*No

44. How do you spend the holidays?
*Together and with fam

46. How long did it take to get serious?
*Awhile

47. Who eats more?
*Depends on what it is!

48. Who does the laundry?
*I do the actual laundry but Doug is good at helping me sort and hang

49. Who’s better with the computer?
*Doug

50. Leave a piece of advice for the other couples:
*DATE NIGHT!