The Coys!

Happy Halloween

2011-10-30T18:11:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween from Mad Scientist Coy and his assistant!

I am a Marathoner.

2011-09-19T23:09:00.000-07:00

I am a marathoner.

It's an easy thing to say, but not an easy road to get there. It's something I never thought I would do, or rather someone I would become. I didn't want to, after all, who would willingly put themselves through something that awful? Not me.

At least not a year ago. I attended a missionary homecoming for my friend Niccol and we went to her house after for a breakfast. My friend Kristin's husband, Kenny, was pretty picky about what he was eating and told us that he was going to be running a marathon the next week.

We talked to him more about his running and I was especially intrigued to find out that he has not always been a runner. I always thought you had to be a "runner" to run a marathon. He told me that he used to not even be able to run around the block.

I thought, "that's me". I had never run in high school, or for leisure, or exercise, and I even remember being embarrassed by how slow I was when we had races in Kindergarten - yes, I actually do remember that.

Well that very day I entertained the thought of running and said to myself, if he can do it then I can too. Not long after that a co-worker started a Couch-to-5K training. I thought that this would be a fun way to increment up towards a goal so I did it myself.

The holidays came and went and I had worked up to being able to run for about 10 minutes without stopping (1 mile). Tyler and I sat down in January to make our New Year's resolutions. I was timid about even mentioning my desire to run a marathon. I had warmed up to the idea and thought it would be something so neat to say I've accomplished but didn't know if it was doable.

Well, I made the goal and with Tyler's support I decided I could do it. I knew the Top of Utah Marathon was in September each year and being 9 months away it's plenty of time to train. It can't take more than that to be ready anyway, especially considering most marathon trainings are about 18 weeks.

Well the journey was long, and very time consuming. I set up a training schedule that would carry me from January all the way through September. I had training laid out for everyone of those days. Most weeks included 3 days of running in the beginning, then up to 4 with a day of cross training and of course some days of rest and strength training.

There were so many days that I didn't want to go running. I would dread it and even cry to Tyler sometimes and tell him that I didn't want to go, but ultimately I knew I made the goal and I wanted to keep it. I am extremely competitive and high expectations for myself so making this goal meant I had to keep it.

I stayed on track by printing my training schedule on a calendar and crossing off each day after I came home from my run. Tyler had also bought me a watch to track my miles and time. I was able to upload that for each run and that accountability helped me stay on track.

I came to a critical point in the middle of July. I slacked on my training a bit when life got busy with the July holidays. I had missed several weekly mid-length runs and several long Saturday runs. I was at the point that I had to chose to either commit or drop out. I had already shared my goal with so many people and I didn't want to look stupid or let myself down, so I committed.

I was more deliberate in my running after that. It became my first priority after that. I knew that even if my runs weren't the best that if I would go and do them and cross off every one of those days I could finish the marathon. I missed one day after that, only because of schedule conflicts and in the end counted it as a needed rest day before running the Top of Utah Half Marathon.

That was a huge step for me in the process. I have learned a lot along the way. What socks to wear, what works for me to listen to, just how long a mile is (it's amazing how distant-conscience I am now), what to drink, how often to drink, how to eat GU, what to eat the morning of, and after a run (can you tell food is crucial), race logistics, and man the list goes on and on.

Most of all I learned a lot about the good nature of runners. Runners are good people. Plain and simple, they just are. Runners are so supportive of each other. They are willing to offer you help and advice, they will support you and offer to run with you, they'll even sacrifice their own chance at improving their race time to hold back and make sure that you're there with them at the end. They want you to succeed and smile along the way. I've learned that you can meet a complete stranger and share miles of deep conversation with them. You'll learn about their family and their goals and why they run. You can spend several miles running with them until different circumstances pull you apart and you continue on having been better for talking with them.

I feel like I've shared the experience of my marathon pretty well on my album and comments on Facebook. If you haven't gone through it please do. But as for the overall experience of running I wanted to share how amazing it is. In this year where I've gone from being a non-runner to a marathoner, it has changed me to become a better person. For so many reasons in so many different ways. Running alone has set my priorities straight, has made me look at people in a better light, made me more patient and tolerant, taught me that I Can Do Hard Things, and that I am in control of my life and my happiness.

If you would have asked me 13 months ago if I was ever going to run a single marathon I would tell you firmly, no! If you would have asked me even 4 days ago if I was ever going to run another one I would still have told you no. But now I know why people do it. It makes you better and it makes you stronger and it makes you you. I challenge you to run shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people who have made the goal to complete a marathon, those thousands of people who have decided to become better, and not become better yourself.

You'll find the amazing charity in people who cheer you on from the sidelines and run next to you and tell you can do it, even when you doubt yourself. And you will find yourself in those mindless miles of training when all you have are your thoughts. You will think a little deeper when you listen to the same podcast again for the 4th time that week. And you will realize you have strength beyond what you knew when you push past the pain and finish, just so you can say you did it.

I did it!

Steve and Kristen Came

2011-09-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

Steve and Kristen are visiting from Ohio for a few days and we were able to see them over the weekend. We had a lot of fun just being with them, going to dinner, going on a little mini Parade of Homes put on by Natalie, playing lots of games, and the enjoying the piano.

Steve and I attempted a duet. We've had a lot of fun with the piano since my parents let us borrow it while they're away.

We played our new Dominion expansion pack (Intrigue) and Bohnanza.

It was really fun to see them and be together for a bit. We can only hope it will happen more often. Perhaps we need to head out their way next.

We love you guys!

Top of Utah Half Marathon

2011-09-01T21:29:00.000-07:00

Remember how I decided I'm going to run a marathon. Well, on Saturday I got halfway there when I finished my first half marathon. Woo hoo! I ran the Top of Utah Half Marathon right here in Logan.

I was really nervous for it the days and minutes leading up to the race. I felt pretty prepared for it since I've been training for the full marathon this didn't seem as scary but there's still nerves involved in races since they're a relatively new experience for me, and especially long races with aid stations and such.

Tyler dropped me off at the finish line then I rode the bus to the starting line. I had planned to run this on my own. Well a few minutes before the race started as I was sitting at the starting line, my cousin Emily (third cousin really, but who's counting) and her friend Sarah came running up to me and sat right down next to me. They took my mind off my nerves and got me really excited to run.

We lined up based on the times we thought we would finish and waited for the shotgun start. I hadn't planned on staying with Emily and Sarah but they set a really good pace and I liked their company. We had fun talking for the first mile or so then we really got into our running groove. Before I knew it we were to our first aid station (mile 3) where we drank some water and we all kept going. Aid station 2 came quickly (mile 6) which brought us to the bottom of the canyon. Those first 6 miles were like nothing.

The next 3 miles passed quickly too since there were so many people on the side lines cheering everyone on. I think that's my favorite part of running - just that there are so many people rooting for you and wanting you to succeed. It's such a positive environment and runners love helping each other.

Miles 11 and 12 were tough. They were more uphill and it very sunny and hot by then. Sarah had broken ahead and Emily had stayed behind a bit after mile 9 so I was on my own for awhile. Emily caught up to me around mile 11.5 and really helped my through the last little bit, keeping me going.

The finish was brutal because it's at the end of a long stretch of straight road. I could see it for almost about half a mile but it seemed like I would never approach it. As I got closer I sped up a bit and right before crossing the finish I saw Natalie, Luke and Dax off to the side cheering for me. I ran towards them and gave Dax knuckles. Then Tyler was up a little further holding the camera with one hand and cheering with the other.

I couldn't help but beam with happiness and relief and Emily and I both crossed the finish line. I turned to her and we hugged right away knowing WE DID IT! I finished in 2:26:58 I couldn't have done as well as I did without her and I wouldn't have had nearly as much fun. I'm so so glad she found me at the starting line!

We took some picture and reveled in our victory. It really was such a good experience and such good training for the full. (Click on the pictures to make them bigger)

Seeing Nat, Luke and Dax

Seeing Tyler

We did it, we really did it!

Me and Emily - love her!

Me, Emily and Sarah

That's right, I finished! Now bring on the full marathon

Oh and just for fun here's the stats from the run:

My Week Off

2011-08-14T21:35:00.000-07:00

Tyler and I had a pretty nice week. I had the entire week off work and we sure took advantage of it. We celebrated our anniversary on Monday by staying at Little America and going shopping at the Gateway. Once again, breakfast at Little America was EPIC!

We also stopped by my parent's Bon Voyage party that some good ward members threw for them. We played one last game of Yspahan and said our goodbyes. We're excited for them and have already talked to them quite a bit and they're doing great down there.

My parents wanted me to bring this little airplane to my nephew and show him that it was from "Mima and Boca" so I took a few pictures. This one was too awesome not to post - notice Tyler in the background too.

Later in the week we flew to California and spent the weekend with Tyler's family. His brother was there this week too so it was fun to hang out with everyone.

Excuse the blurriness, this was taken on Tyler's iPod since I forgot to pack our camera.

We went to Six Flag's Magic Mountain on Friday and spent the entire day on huge roller coasters. It was a ton of fun!

Saturday we went to Long Beach. They had a sand sculture contest that was kind of neat. It was just amatures, or everyday people so a lot of them weren't too cool, but there were some neat ones.

This one of Patrick was pretty awesome

This one is for you mom and dad!

Pictures of You, Pictures of Me

2011-07-07T22:24:00.000-07:00

My very talented friend Kristin Brown asked if Tyler and I would help her out with a new kind of photo shoot she wants to start doing to capture the little everyday moments in life - great idea right! We were so willing to help and so glad to have such great pictures. I hope we were okay models. Kristin did a great job and I LOVE the beautiful shots she captured. Check out her blog and website here - you'll love her!

Mini Vacation to Cali

2011-06-10T18:26:00.001-07:00

The no money thing worked for a few days. It was pretty nice to not even think about money and just focus on other things. But I'll be honest, I kinda got bored of it and we decided to go to California (we did spend less than $200 in California - flights included, so I think that counts for something). It was fun though and interesting to try. I was happy when a co-worker shared this article with me. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only nerd who has tried this.

So yes, we went to California. Tyler's parents finally sold their house in Centerville - yeah for them, boo for us. They had to move all their things to California and Tyler took off work to help them. I was going to stay in Utah but decided last minute that hey, what the heck, I'll go too. We helped them pack up the moving van on Friday and headed out on the road that night. Once arriving in Cali we unloaded the whole van into their garage for now.

We took a few more days for fun too and really packed in quite a bit of fun. We went to a really pretty Japanese garden, ate at a lot of really good restaurants, went to the beach three different times, rode on Tyler's dad's motorcycle, went to church - where I got to see a lot of my family (Tyler's parents chose an apartment in my uncle's ward cuz they really liked the ward).

I was also really happy to drive by my childhood home and show Tyler where I lived. We got donuts from Martha's donuts, which has been a tradition every time we visit California. It's neat that Tyler's parents live only about 10 minutes away from where I grew up, it definitely makes the visits very fun.

My aunt coordinated a family party on Memorial day which was great to be able to see so much family. I really enjoyed talking with my grandma. She is getting more forgetful so I had to remind her who I was a few times but she still sure has a cute personality. We played a game called Toss Ups and she got so disappointed when she kept losing her points she had built up.
We also got to visit my grandpa's grave site. He died when I was 4 months old so I really never knew him but I know he was a neat man and I'm excited to meet him some day.
All in all we had such a great time and really enjoyed just relaxing. We were glad to spend so many days with Tyler's parents and were so grateful that they let us stay with them in their little apartment.

Oh, and I also ate possibly the best churro I've ever had. And those that know me know I love churros, so that's saying something!

Money Free Week

2011-05-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

Do you think you could go an entire week without buying anything? Yeah, spending zero money, like no cash purchases, no debit transactions. Nothing.

I’m curious to see if I can do it, so I’m going to try. Mostly just to see if I can, like a social/economical experiment. Yes, Tyler thinks I’m weird too, but I think it will be kind of fun.

The rules are that I can’t buy anything with cash or a card. I can use gift cards if I already have them. I can’t make Tyler buy anything for me, but I don’t necessarily have to limit his purchases too if they’re for him only. So he can still go out to eat for lunch but he can’t buy lunch for me.

The week started yesterday, which was easy enough to do on a Sunday, and goes through Saturday. So, let the fun begin...

Please Be Careful

2011-05-18T20:31:00.001-07:00

I had a really scary experience yesterday which I want to post about to make other people aware of.

I went to pick up my Young Women for our activity and after arriving at one YW's house and finding that she was not home I began backing out of her driveway to go pick up the next YW. I had seen our Bishop's youngest boys ride by on their bike minutes before so I consciencely looked for them. Not seeing them I assumed they had rounded the corner and were a safe distance away. I backed out slowly and before I got past the sidewalk I hear a crunch or some noise, knowing I had hit something.

I threw the car into park, jumped out immediately and found the youngest boy laying on the driveway crying. He was not hurt but more shaken up, and understandably so. I'm not exactly sure if I hit him directly or hit his big wheel bike. I asked him if he was okay and watched him ride off so I knew he was fine. His brother who is only a few years older saw it play out and was a bit shaken up as well.

I had to pick up my other YW and I didn't see the boys' mom so I made sure that both boys were okay and left. As soon as I got to our activity I called the boys' mom but she didn't answer. I called her again later that night knowing how frantic she must be wanting to know exactly what happened. You just can't get the full story from a 5 year old.

I didn't get ahold of the mom until today when I saw her post on Facebook about the situation and called her again. This time she answered and I explained what happened. From her point of view and through the eyes of her boys I sounded like a terrible reckless lady who basically did a hit-and-run. I realize I should have forgotten about my YW and immediately told her what happened. I explained everything to her and she was grateful that I called. Ultimately were are both so relieved and feel so blessed that we were all watched over.

All in all there were definitely guardian angels watching over this little boy and also over me. I normally would back out faster - which I will never do now - so I know I was blessed to be more cautious. I am so grateful that this didn't amount to more and I'm glad this little boy is okay.

Please be more careful when you back out and just driving in general. I can not imagine how my life and the life of this little boy's family would change forever if things would have turned out differently.

5K number 2!

2011-03-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

March 12th was my first 5K, and March 19th was my second. I really wanted to get another one under my belt soon to see how I could improve my time.

I worked all week to lengthen my stride and I could definitely feel the difference since I was sore in a whole new way.

To recap: here's my run from the first 5K. Too many walks and too slow

Here's my training throughout last week. Getting better....slowly.

And that leads us to my second 5K.

My friend Hayley convinced me to do the Braveheart run with her to support Baby Mason who has HLHS. It was super windy and cold! She ran a 10K, go Hayley! and I ran the 5K.
Here's a video of the 5K starting off. I didn't know that Tyler was there filming it until after I ran past him when I realized it was him cheering for me!

The race went really well for the most part. I got a few side aches and my iPod died right off the bat. But there was a gang of Air Force soldiers running behind me for half the race and I was bound and determined that they would not pass me. It kept me motivated and I made it in at 28 minutes and 43 seconds.

Still not the best, I know, but I'm getting there. And now I want to keep doing 5K's to see how much I can get my time down.

5K numero uno

2011-03-20T12:58:00.000-07:00

I did my first 5K last week with Natalie. I talked her into running the Shamrock Shuffle with me up in Smithfield. It was fun to have her there with me and a fun thing to share. I thought the run would be a piece of cake since I've been training for it for weeks, but it was tough! Really, it was my sister that kicked butt and I was glad to have her there pushing me along the whole time. I guess that's what sisters are for right, to push you along when you want to give up.

Here's the group. 10 points if you can spot me and Natalie
We're right in the middle here, hopefully easier to find
The course started out uphill. Not the easiest start, I tell you what!
Here's our cute cheerleaders. Thanks Mom and Dad for coming!
Natalie did awesome and finished in under 31 minutes. She probably would have been even faster had it not been for me slowing her down. Really.
I was hoping to get under 30 minutes, so I was a little disappointed to come in at 31 minutes and 07 seconds. But at least I did it and I got one race under my belt.

All in all it was a tough run and I realized that I'm not pushing myself hard enough. My dad helped me see that I need to utilize my long legs better by lengthening my stride. I have a long way to go to my marathon, but this was a great start and I really learned a lot.

I Need Your Opinion

2011-02-27T23:28:00.000-08:00

So I'm working on our wedding album and I have to submit it tomorrow.
I need a final opinion because I can't decide.
I had the idea to add some swirly line things to kind of spruce up the pages a bit.
I threw in a rough idea of what I'm thinking. It's pretty rough so ignore the rough edges and stuff. This just gives a general idea of what it would look like.
What do you think?
Should I keep the pages simple with no swirlies, or go for a little more bling with the swirlies?

Update: I decided to go with the simple, clean, no-swirly pages. I was leaning that way but I appreciate everyone's input! Our album is on it's way!

i

Our Borrowed Pet

2011-02-09T16:36:00.001-08:00

Our neighbor's kitty likes to come over and meow at our back door.
I couldn't help but give it some milk to drink.
Now it comes over everyday right when I get home from work.
It's like he's waiting for me. I think it's cute.

I'm Committed

2011-02-08T22:50:00.000-08:00

Well, after my last post and all the positive feedback I got from everyone I guess I'm committed. Thank you everyone for your supportive comments and confidence in me. I'm accountable to you now. I'm going to do this!

I'm super stoked cuz I just found out that my cousin Megan is going to be running in the same marathon that I picked to run, the Top of Utah. How awesome is that! My aunt Jen also told me if I picked a marathon then she'd fly up from Texas to come run it with me. So now this is turning into a whole family event. I'm loving the support already. Anyone else on board?!

In other news, I recently discovered the show Cake Boss and love it. If you haven't seen it, do. That guy makes the most creative cakes I could never even dream of. Legendary.

a little goal

2011-02-03T22:20:00.001-08:00

One of the goals (that's a nicer word than resolution) I made for myself this year is...oh, can I even say it... I hesitate to say it because I don't know if it's something I even can accomplish but...I want to run a marathon this year.

I don't know what has possessed me to want to do this. I've never been a runner and I don't think I will ever love the sport. I don't like any form of exercise that's not completely disguised by something fun, like racquetball or snowboarding. So why would I ever like running? There's no way to hide running. It's pure, nothing-but-the-real-deal exercising.

But I think it would be really cool to put a marathon on my list of accomplishments. To say I have successfully run 26.2 miles is huge! I've always admired avid runners and I think it'd be admirable to count myself among them. I can't even imagine my body running for that long, but I know plenty of people who have done it so I guess that means if I want to put my mind to it I can do it too.

I have no idea how long it takes to train for such an endeavor or if I'm crazy to think I can just do it within a year. I started small, very small with just running a few minutes at a time and I'm working up to longer jaunts. I'm following this training program and I'm 5 weeks into it. Every time the distance increases I think "there's no way I'll be able to do that", but I somehow push through it each time and do it. It's a good feeling to finish a run!

So, if anyone has encouragement or advice, I'll take it. And when it comes time to run this little marathon how about everyone comes to cheer me on! Deal?

New York

2011-01-16T16:35:00.000-08:00

I know it's been several months since we got home from our Europe trip, but I'm just now going through pictures to print them and I thought I'd throw some up here to share our experiences:

We flew standby, which means two things 1) you can fly in style for really, really cheap 2) you never know what flights you'll end up on so when one looks semi-decent you take it! And that's what we did on our way to London. We were planning to take a flight early on a Friday but it was looking pretty packed so instead opted to take a flight the night before at 11 p.m. We got to New York early Friday morning and had about an 9-hour layover. And man oh man, did we ever take advantage of it!

Note that all we took with us to Europe was a single backpack each.
We couldn't find lockers in the New York airport (which makes sense
for security reasons) so we hauled our backpacks around with
us all day. Let's just say it was a really really good workout.

We got off the subway right in the middle of Time Square.

One word: magical!
I could sit there and watch people and cars go by
all day long and be perfectly happy. I loved it!!

We caught a glimpse of Good Morning America being recorded...

...saw lots of cool things and took lots of random pictures...

...saw the Trump Tower - which I recently read a book about
and have much more appreciation for now. Notice the
trees on the atrium of the building (on the right),
you don't see that very often in New York...

And of course we had to stop in Central Park.
We only scratched the surface considering how large the park is,
but boy did we soak it in. We took a nice nap on that grass straight
ahead. The park's another place I wouldn't mind spending a whole
afternoon taking in sights and sounds.

We saw some tree huggers shooting a commercial...

...ate some sub-par New York hot dogs...

And we loved every minute of it. It was an electric way to start off a fabulous trip.
We hope to make it back someday soon and soak it in a little more!

Christmas is coming

2010-12-12T21:05:00.001-08:00

We're gearing up for Christmas around here.

I am thrilled about it this year and more prepared than I've ever been

since I'm not trying to finish up finals and projects.

We decorated our cute tree right after Thanksgiving and I love it!

Maybe I'll keep it up all year round and just put Easter and 4th of July ornaments on it and such.

Wouldn't that be a great idea!

In other news, we finally finished our laundry closet,

so we can now wash clothes at our very own house!

Exciting stuff.

Tyler put a lot of hard work into it and it turned out great.

I haven't taken pictures of the final project,

but this actually shows the progress much better

2 New Additions

2010-11-12T20:13:00.000-08:00

Within a matter of a month we've sold both our cars and replaced them. We had plans to sell our Jeep, but we weren't planning on our Hyundai dying so soon. Just 4 days after we sold our Jeep (and before finding a replacement for the Jeep), the transmission went out on our Hyundai. Funny story involved there...

I came home for lunch one day and as I was backing out of the drive way and the car just wouldn't go in reverse anymore. I revved the engine but to no avail, I could not back out. Luckily it shifted into first gear so I pulled forward into the drive way and gave up on it. So there I am stuck with no way to get back to work. I couldn't call Tyler to pick me up, because he didn't have a car (we sold the Jeep) so what could he have done, given me a ride on his bike? I tried to take my bike, but as Murphy's law would have it the tires were flat. So what was I left with? My ever-trusty scooter, that's right, my Razor scooter. It was only a few blocks but I just felt like a 6 year old gliding through the parking lot on a scooter! We all had a good laugh about it though.

Needless to say, after that little experience we felt that it was time to get a new car pronto! So we borrowed my sister's car (thanks again) to go look at a few cars in Bountiful and Salt Lake and came home with this Mazda 6! I really love it and especially love that it's reliable and should be a good car for us for a long time.

Well, Tyler did a little trouble shooting and determined that the transmission was shot. Since we bought the Hyundai for $1,000 we couldn't justify spending twice that to get it running again, so we decided it was time to move on. Tyler was okay with riding his bike to school for a little while, until it starting getting cold and rainy. We've been wanting a truck for as long as we've been married. Okay, we had my 1985 Ford F-150, but really, we've been wanting a real truck, like one that runs. So we did some research and decided on a Chevy. Tyler absolutely love it and it should be another good car for us too. I'll get better pictures later, but here it is: It's blue, Aggie blue, which I love. Our "A" plate will look pretty good on here.

It definitely wasn't in our plans to buy two cars in a month, but I guess that's how life plays out... not the way you plan. But we hope we're set with some reliable cars for now and we love them both.

New Do

2010-11-07T21:17:00.000-08:00

So here I am Friday morning. Yes, I look sleepy, but ignore that. Focus on my how long my hair is. I had Tyler snap these pictures of me before leaving for work because....
I came home looking like this!

I've been wanting to chop my hair off for several months and I finally just did it thanks to some prodding from my co-workers. They also convinced me to go darker, but I'm absolutely loving it!

Looking Back

2010-10-31T22:39:00.000-07:00

I know that summer has long come and gone, but we had such a good one that I do want to mention a few things that happened. We got to see a lot of family, which was more than great. We got together with my mom's entire side together over July 24th weekend. My awesome grandma rented out the Bountiful Bubble for us one night and then we spent the next day at Snowbird doing all sorts of activities and then the next day hanging out at my grandparent.
Later on in September we had a wonderful visit from my cousins in Sweden. Filippa and Bodile (pictured below on either side of my mom) stayed for two weeks and we sure filled their time with "cultural" events. We took them repelling and to a demolition derby among other things. I was curious to see how they would like it but the verdict came in very positive for both events.
We sure enjoyed repelling. Tyler was an animal out there and even tried going Australia style (face-first). I did it a few weeks before he did and I tell you what, it's no easy feat. We sure got a kick out of watching him give it a whirl:

Here's the repelling gang:
In other news, we celebrated our 2 year anniversary in August by having a blast at Lagoon then staying at the Little America. I highly recommend their breakfast-in-bed, it was quite the feast!
Life continues to keep us busy. Hopefully more updates to come soon.

As of Late

2010-09-30T23:06:00.000-07:00

When it rains it pours right. I was just getting to the point where I said to myself yesterday, "Things are going pretty smooth right now, and actually kind of boring. It's unusual, but I'll take it!"

Then, there was today. I found out that I really will have to go to jury duty tomorrow. I returned their surveys and stuff thinking the whole time that they'd cancel the case. They do 2 of 3 times everyone told me. But not my time. Nope, I have to go to jury duty tomorrow and I'm NOT thrilled about it.

Today also happened to be the day that we sold our Jeep. We're happy to sell it so we can upgrade a bit, but I'm so sad because it's been the first car I've absolutely fallen in love with. There's just something about owning a Jeep. Buy one and you'll see. Tyler joked that it was probably good we sold it because he was starting to get jealous, thinking I loved it more than I loved him. Not true. I do have to say though that even my iPod pitched in to make my last day with the Jeep a great one, it played only the best song one after another.

On top of this and a million pieces of mail to respond to, work details to smooth out, and now car shopping, we are right back into the busy swing of things.

I still have a cute nephew

2010-09-08T21:27:00.000-07:00

Natalie asked me to take 9-month pictures of Dax and even though I'm not a pro photographer, boy, who needs to be when your nephew is this cute! The poor kid was pretty grumpy so even though he wasn't much of a smiler, they still turned out pretty cute.

I love a boy named Tyler

2010-08-16T21:27:00.001-07:00

I love a boy named Tyler. I was smitten right from the start. When my brother introduced us at church that one day in May, I couldn't believe I was talking to a boy who was just that cute. He was too tall, too handsome, and too charming for me. But for some reason he found interest in me.

As we started dating I couldn't believe he just kept getting better. I kept thinking he would just stop calling me one day or just lose interest. He was just too cute for me, there was no way it was going to work. I kept falling for him, and luckily he kept falling for me.

We had the summer of a life time that year we met. Everyday was either filled with fun dates, or just hanging out doing a puzzle together or talking after he got off work when he couldn't be together.

Then Fall came and I came back to Logan to go back to school. His dad wondered what he would do and how we would make it work being so far apart. I didn't know for sure, but I did know that if we liked each other enough it would work out. And luckily it sure did.

We got married 14 months after we met. I look back on us when we were dating and it seems so different now. We were each such different people, and we were different together than we are now.

The great thing is that we're different in a better way. Interesting things have brought us together in the 2 years we've been married. We didn't know that we'd end up in Logan, or that we'd get to travel the world together, or that some of our travels might end in complete disaster which would actually make our marriage stronger. We didn't know what was in store for us then, and we don't know what's ahead for us now.

The thing I do know is that I love a boy named Tyler. He made a good decision to pursue me three years ago. And I made a good decision to say yes. The live we've created together is better than I imagined it would have been and I'm so happy to share our 2 years together. Happy 2 year anniversary Tyler. Love you!

Messy House, Happy House

2010-08-15T22:36:00.000-07:00

I really can't decide what kind of blogger I am. Which I guess means I'm just a pretty bad blogger. I can't decide if I'm one to post random thoughts and short comments. Or if I'm one who blogs only when significant events happen. Of if I'm one to delve into my deep thoughts and pour them out. More often than not I think about blogging and then just toss the idea out because I can't decide what approach I'd like to take. Hmmm, more thoughts on that later....if I decide to write about it.

**********************************************************************************************

For now, I'll share that with Tyler being gone so much lately, I've noticed that our house has been generally a little cleaner. I'm not saying that he is the one who normally makes it messy. In fact, I'd say the opposite, it's me that makes it messy. He's really good about cleaning up his stuff. It's me that comes home and doesn't take the time to put away my shoes or hang up jacket. I'm the one who thinks "I'll get around to washing those dishes when I have nothing better to do".

But who am I kidding! Of course there's always something better to do than dishes! So usually don't end up "getting around to it" cuz I find so many more important things to do. I would much rather spend my time at home just being with Tyler. So more often than not my socks are still lying on the floor and the dishes are still in the sink when we crawl into bed. Lucky for me I scored an awesome husband who will take care of the dishes the next day. So hey, I'll spend time with him today and let him do the dishes tomorrow. Maybe a messy house is a happy house.

The past 8 days

2010-08-03T19:47:00.000-07:00

Well the past week has been a little quite so I've tried to fill my time with the people I love and enough things to keep me busy.

So what have I been up to?

bookshelf painting
birthday celebrating
friend sleepover-ing
decorating
Photoshop-ing
IKEA shopping
repelling
softball playing (injuries included)
nephew loving
Bachelorette finale watching
junk food eating
Anniversary anticipating

I've also discovered a new-found love for the HGTV channel. Can't stop watching it!

Dinner of Champions

2010-07-19T16:54:00.000-07:00

Today Tyler told me that Taco Bell is the breakfast of champions. I always thought it was Wheaties. Guess I've been mis-informed to this point. Hmmm... So if Taco Bell is the Breakfast of Champions, is there a lunch of champions? Tyler knew this one too...it's chocolate chip cookies. With milk. No, no milk. Just chocolate chip cookies. But it's actually the "brunch of America". And the lunch of champions is "definitely Texas Roadhouse". I threw in that the dinner of champions might be Chili's.

We were hungry (to the point of delirium as you can tell). And I didn't want to cook. So tonight we ate the dinner of champions.

Happy Birthday Tyler!

2010-06-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

Let me begin by letting you that Tyler can be very pursuasive at times. But only in a good way of course. He began his prep-work early, probably right after Christmas, putting plugs in here and there about a PlayStation3. "Do we really need one?" Of course, his answer was yes! Well, before we knew it I was asking him what color paddles he wanted and which games would be the funnest. He convinced me.

It took further pursuasion to convince me that he needed it as early as possible so he could play during the summer. See, in my family, if you you're going to get something for your birthday, you get it on the day of your birth. In Tyler's family they are more liberal with when they actually get their gifts.

Well, I broke and when his PlayStation finally came in the mail it happened to be a day we had planned a bon fire so we kinda made it his birthday celebration.

He didn't know at first...

Until I pulled out two wrapped boxes.

This face says it all.

So since we celebrate Tyler's birthday 2 weeks early, today was a little more low-key. Dinner and a movie and a quiet night at home.

It's been great to celebrate his birthday over the past few weeks and see how truly grateful he is for EVERYTHING. It makes me very grateful for him and all he does for me. He is always so happy and patient and encourages me to be a better person.

Love you, Babe!

Make it Happen

2010-06-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

In an effort to change my most recent post to something that doesn't sound to demeaning to my workplace (since I actually really like my job), I'm going to post a quick snippet about our weekend. I hope to post pictures shortly...although, I think I've said that many times and have yet to come through with that.

Let me explain something first. Back in about February or so Tyler and I were featured in our ward newsletter in the "Getting to Know You" section. I'm sure most people (those that actually read it) thought we were just another nice couple, but one couple decided that we had enough in common that we should see if we'd click. Two days later we had game night and the rest is history.

Doesn't that sounds like the beginning of a love story! Haha. Well it's the beginning of my love-for-life story.

On that fateful game night, the couple briefly mentioned that they wanted to go to Europe this summer. We of course had the same aspiration so they jokingly said "oh, you should come with us". Three months later we were on a plane to London.

Within the 5 months we've known the Sampsons we have done a lot of things that we would never have done on our own. Sampled numerous foreign cuisine places starting with the White Owl, then Indian Oven, Factory pizza, Happy Sushi, Beehive Grill $.15 wings, and a billion places in Europe. Boy, have they cultured me! And I'm proud to say I liked all of them (except the sushi). We've gone to Europe (again, hope to blog more about that soon) which has opened my eyes to an entirely new beautiful world. And we DO stuff. Ya know how you usually say "Oh yeah, we should hang out sometime." Well, with these guys, we take action and we DO stuff.

Last week we had a last minute bon-fire. This week included fondue night and a camping trip to Bear Lake. We've had numerous movies nights - many of which were a complete flop but we're still friends nevertheless - and all this has changed my attitude towards life.

Live it now. If you want to go fishing tomorrow morning, make it happen. Pack a picnic and make an event out of it. Who says that just cuz you're married you have to stay home every night and go to bed at 10? Live today cuz it makes today awesome and challenges you to make tomorrow even better.

Safety Training

2010-06-24T17:54:00.000-07:00

Did you know that June is National Safety Month. Pretty exciting stuff. Today at work we celebrated by having Safety Training. The whole time our HR guy was showing us hand exercises I couldn't help but thing about how much it reminded me of the safety training episode from The Office. Remember the episode where Michael tries to make the office staffs' work sound really life-threatening when in reality there are production people who have serious safety things to worry about, like the deadly bailer.

I have to admit that while I'm sure I could have benefited from the wrist-rolling and finger bending exercises, I got more caught up in the thought that the company I work for is kind of like Dunder Mifflin. They sell paper, and now printers. We print things on huge printers. Dunder Mifflin has an office staff and production staff. So do we. And most importantly, Dunder Mifflin and RR Donnelley both share a deep-routed respect for safety. It's important stuff.

Big Fish

2010-06-09T17:07:00.000-07:00

Tyler went fishing today (yes, he's feeling much better). We went fishing on Memorial Day but had no luck. He and Ben went a little earlier today and had a few more tricks up their sleeves.

Here's the little philly he caught, or black crappie to be exact.

So he brought the little guy home and we ate him. Poor little guy, never stood a chance did he! I still can't get over how cool it is that he went out and killed our dinner and brought it home to eat. It's so primative, like..."Bye honey, I'm going out to kill some dinner." Tyler's response was..."you've never fished before have you?" No, I have not.

Something so small.

2010-06-02T13:20:00.000-07:00

Well we have a lot of catch-up blogging to do, but at the moment I still need to get the rest of our pictures so our Europe trip will have to wait.

In the mean time, Tyler just couldn't deal with things being dull around here, so he decided to get appendicitis. As we were going to bed last night he complained that his stomach hurt. I gave him some Tums and told him he'd feel better in 10 minutes. I was wrong. He was up all night moaning and trying to clear his stomach in any way possible. By 6 a.m. he threw in the towel and let me take him to the hospital. We got checked in, they gave him some pain killers (which were greatly needed at that point), and ran a CT scan.

Sure enough all the signs pointed to his appendix so they booked him for the surgery room. He went into surgery around 11:30 and was out in an hour. Tyler had a great doctor, Dr. Weiss, who took great care of him. During surgery he found that Tyler's appendix was very close to bursting, so it was good we came in when we did.

He is out of surgery now and his pain has gone from an 8 or 9 to a 1 or 2. It's crazy to think that a useless little body part caused him so much pain. We're both in good spirits and surprised how much better this hospital experience has been than our December experience when he broke his ankle. We appreciate all the texts, prayers, blessings and meals we've already received. Thanks everyone.

We Got Our Keys!

2010-04-18T21:45:00.001-07:00

We got the keys to our house on Saturday! I picked them up from our realtor around 11 thirty and was so tempted to go in and check out our house, but I waited for Tyler to get off work until going in. And I'm so glad I did. Buying your first house is a big deal. We are so happy to be in this stage of life and we love the house we bought.

Here's the first picture of us in our new house.

We were most excited to get the keys so that we could start painting and hopefully have it all done by the time we move in next week. We picked up some paint and called over our bestest friends in the whole wide world (they'd have to be to want to help us paint) and set out for a fun night.

By the way, don't be scared by the darker yellow I'm painting, we're going to tone it down a lot.

Natalie painted our names on the bedroom wall. So cute!
Which of course led to cute pictures and a paint fight.

What's painting without a paint fight. You can't call a house a home without a proper paint fight.
The paint is turning out really good. We have another coat to do in both rooms but it's looking pretty good so far. We're so excited to own our own home. When we were going through the whole process of making an offer, getting all the paperwork in for the loan and getting remodeling quotes together we kinda got caught up in the tedious and overwhelming details. But this weekend really gave us the chance to realize how important this step is to us. I mean, when you're 10 and someone asks you want you want to accomplish in your life, you say, "I wanna get married, and buy a house, and have kids, and live happily ever after". Well, we have now completed steps 1 and 2. Tyler and I are so happy with where we are in life right now and so happy to share our new home with all our friends. So come visit anytime!

Closing Early

2010-04-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

I checked in with our realtor and lender on Monday to make sure everything was on track to close the following Monday (like the 19th). But they came back with the good news that we could close EARLY! So tomorrow, we will sign our little hearts out and get handed the keys to our first house! Oh boy, are we excited!

Happy Easters

2010-04-05T22:46:00.001-07:00

We enjoyed Easter weekend very much.

We took a trip down to Bountiful and the Easter Bunny

still knew where to find us. He brought us this:

The day was filled with cute nephews and Easter egg hunts.

It's hard to get good pictures of these boys when they're always moving.

Easter egg hunts are not just for the little kids in our family.

No, we insist that we're included in the hunt too.

We may all be in our early/mid/late twenties,

but can you really ever get too old for an Easter Egg hunt?

I think not.

This was the catch of the day, I think Connor ended up getting this toughy.

Daxton was only slightly impressed with his dinosaur Easter eggs.

I like Today.

2010-03-31T22:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight Tyler and I pretended like it was the weekend.

We went to dinner, at Hamilton's. Very tasty. Even tastier since it was free.

Then we went to movie. Sherlock Holmes is fabulous! Witty, funny, intriguing, and delightful.

Throughout the course of the night we drove around town in awe of the beautiful snow frosted trees. We drove past our soon-to-be-house and saw how cute it looks with snow atop the roof and the little garden lights illuminating the frosty ground.

Doesn't snow do a magical thing. It makes the world all quiet and peaceful and you feel like you're living in a world sprinkled with fairy dust. It reminds you to slow down and stick your tongue out to catch some snowflakes and just take it all in.

Those are my thoughts on a wonderful Wednesday.

Mmmm!

2010-03-23T22:09:00.001-07:00

Tonight we made smoothies...

They were wonderful.

Some Exciting News

2010-03-16T21:51:00.001-07:00

So we have some pretty big news we'd like to share!

We are buying a house.

Infact, we are buying this cute house:
:

We made an offer on it on Friday, only to find out that another couple had made an offer a few hours earlier. So we were in a bidding war over the weekend but we came out on top. We found out this afternoon that the sellers accepted our offer. We were thrilled about it!

So in about a month we will live here and be very proud home owners!!

Happy Crafting

2010-03-12T16:19:00.001-08:00

Last night at I made coasters and hot plates with the ward.

Here's my hot plate. It's about 5"x7". The C stands for Coy :)

Here are my coasters! They match our living room since that's where we'll use them.

I painted the tiles black on the edges then just modge-podged paper.

I'll finish them off with cork board or foam on the bottom.

So cute :)

I made a whole bunch of these for Christmas for my family.

They are probably the best craft cuz they're so cute and you can finish them in just a few hours.

The end.

try and try again

2010-02-27T23:23:00.000-08:00

So I had very good intentions to blog today. We had a great weekend and I wanted to share my dad's accomplishment. But that will have to wait. I tried to blog, I really did. I thought it would be nice to be finally put Photoshop on Tyler's new laptop so I could have Photoshop and internet all on one computer. Aparently that's too much to ask for. I started my quest at 3 o'clock. Deleting Photoshop from his old lap top to free up an activation, establishing an internet connection on his old laptop, finally downloading Photoshop onto his new laptop only to have it turn off right in the middle of the installation because the battery died. I tried to make it work, but finally by 8 o'clock I gave up. Maybe I'll blog on Monday.

goodbye for now

2010-02-23T18:51:00.001-08:00

Some people come into our lives and we are better just for having known them.

For any of you who knew Roland Trump, you know that he was that kind of man.
He and his sweet wife Suzie raised 9 wonderful children, 6 of which they adopted.
He served in the scouting program for many years where he influenced many boys for good.
When one of those scouts didn't show up for church,
he would visit them and invite them back.
He would take them to baseball games, just one on one.
He always had a few dollars to share with the homeless.
It was just in his nature to love everyone,
his family, his neighbors, the homeless, and the Lord.

Tyler had the honor of being one of his scouts. Roland took Tyler under his wing and kept him involved. My family also had the privledge of knowing him throughout the years because my mom helped clean their house. I got to go cleaning with her the summer Tyler and I started dating. Since Roland knew both Tyler and I, he took a special interest in our courtship. He warned me that Tyler was "an old returned mission who looking for a wife, so I better watch out because he would try to marry me". He was a big propenent of our getting married, and always quick so ask how we were doing since.

Roland found out about two years ago that we was diagnosed with ALS (lou gehric's disease). His body slowly turned on him and his muscles and organs shut down one by one. But that didn't stop his love and service. He kept visiting neighbors and serving in any way he could, until the day he died.

On Thursday, February 18th, 2010, Roland Trump passed away.

He will be remember by Tyler and I, and many more, as an amazing man who served everyone around him. There are many more accounts of his life, told by people who are much more elequent, found here. I hope I can always remember his example and try my best to live as good of life as he did. We'll miss you Roland.

Happy Valentine's Day (a few days late)

2010-02-13T14:29:00.001-08:00

Tyler and I celebrated Valentine's Day early this year by

going to the Jazz game on Wednesday when they played the Lakers.

From the picture below you can see we has awesome seats.

Not! Despite that, and the fact that the Lakers killed us, we still had fun.

Happy Valentine's Day!

On Books

2010-02-11T21:41:00.000-08:00

I recently finished reading this book

and I LOVED it.

It was the first book that I literally could not put down.

I preferred reading it over miniature golfing on our cruise.

And it actually kept my mind enthralled during Tyler's hours of surgery a few days later.

However, I have not been able to get into this book.

I know all you fans will say I just need to give it a chance and I'll love it...

...but I think I've figured out that I just don't really like fiction books.

I feel so unproductive when I read them.

I can't get through a page without thinking about

the dishes I need to wash or the taxes I need to file,

or the other books I could be reading and learning something from.

I guess I was just blessed with a desire to read good books.

Personally, I'm glad.

this vs. that

2010-02-03T20:06:00.000-08:00

Let's say you had a choice between

a) doing something you like that you're comfortable with,
which is rewarding and would be fine

or

b) doing something you really like that would be challenging,
and has the potential to be really rewarding

what would you do?
Please leave me feedback here cuz I could use some guidance

i have a very cute nephew...

2010-01-16T15:00:00.001-08:00

...that's all you need to know.

also, if anyone knows how to help me fix my margins
that'd be very helpful.

work

2010-01-14T21:33:00.001-08:00

I realized yesterday

how much I love my job.

All the people I work with have some magical way of making

every problem

shrink

and placing priorities back in order.

Like a few days ago

when one of my co-workers came in extremely

high-strung

because her twin sisters had gotten tattoos the night before

and it had turned into a family ordeal,

another co-worker talked to her for five minutes

and calmed her down

and she was happy for the rest of the day.

Or when I could tell that another co-worker

was a little stressed

and I ask him if he needed a high five

and he said,

"you called it!"

and smiled.

Or like yesterday

when I made what I thought was a small mistake

and my boss bought me

a cold hard drink (orange juice)

to let me know that it would all be okay.

And even today,

when the issue escalated

to the point that the entire company now knows about the mistake I made,

he blew it off

and assured me that

"it's not blood plasma."

I love my job.

Update on Tyler

2009-12-18T21:58:00.000-08:00

Well I have quite a lot of things to blog about...graduation, birthday, the cruise...but all those things have been temporarily overlooked because of Tyler. I think most of you who read my blog have already heard what happened to Tyler but it helps me to talk about it and vent. And I think the most helpful thing for me emotionally right now is to have everyone's support, which requires me updating you.

So Tyler was playing basketball on the 10th level of the cruise boat (on Tuesday, the 15th around 4:30 p.m.). The air was kind of misty and so the court was a little slippery. Tyler jumped maybe about a foot to rebound the ball and when he landed he rolled his ankle in and heard a loud pop. I was watching from just outside the enclosed court and knew right when I heard him scream that it was serious. I immediately ran to him and realized the most helpful thing I could do was run for help. I ran down to the next deck below whimpering "help!!!" the whole way and battling between trying to be brave and crying.

It was the most emotional thing to see my husband, who's suppose to be strong and protect me, be in such excruciating pain and being so completely unable to do anything to fix the situation. It's indescribable unless you've experienced something like that.

He had to climb out of the netted basketball court, almost tripping on the net, then walk across the deck, hobble down the stairs, before finally reaching a wheelchair. He was brought down to the medic station that they had on board. He was in so much pain at that point, which was eventually relieved by four shots of morphine. Doctor Bridgette reset his ankle, then casted it, then took X-rays. It wasn't until about an hour after it happened that we knew it was bad enough to send us home.

Although we were hoping that it might just be a sprain and that he'd have to rest for the rest of the cruise and cancel our horseback riding and snorkeling plans, we knew it was much worse than that. Our cruise fun ended immediately.

We began making plans to go home. Between Tyler's parents, the cruise, and my parents we worked most things out fairly quickly and left for home on Wednesday. Everyone on the cruise with us, especially Vickie and Paul, Dan, Joe, and everyone really helped me to feel like things would eventually be okay. Dan's spirit was especially helpful in calming me and blessing Tyler. His hug in that medic station is still the thing that helped me the most to this point.

Luckily much of the airport staff was very helpful in Mexico and Phoenix. It was long day as Tyler slept though much of it and I tried to fight back tears as random travelors reminded us how crappy our situation was. I couldn't have gotten through that day without all the help from the people who wheeled Tyler to and from different terminals. They doubled as my friends and family for the time.

We finally got home late on Wednesday night, and fed Tyler one last meal in case he could go into surgery the next day. On Thursday, my birthday, we made a visit to Dr. Hess. He was really spacey and even at one point wrote down the wrong ankle. I haven't been very impressed with him and he certainly has not been very patient in answering my questions which makes me more emotional.

Well, Thursday was a fairly good day. Whitney and Kollin were my angels that day when they came to celebrate my birthday with us. It was so refreshing to see them and have some normality to the crazy four days we've experienced. I can't thank you enough for being AMAZING friends to me!! Thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU!

Now, Friday, we came to LDS Hospital at 1:30 p.m., did some paperwork, and then sat in Tyler's own little waiting room until 4 when he was admitted to surgery. My parents came around 5. We got a phone call around 7:15 saying he was done with surgery, and they had stabilized his pain and were going to bring him to his room in about an hour when we'd be able to see him. Dr. Hess came out and showed us three Xrays of the plates, wires, and 13 screws he put in. He broke the news to us that Tyler wouldn't be going home tonight, which means the hospital bill will be even bigger, as he said it, trying to ease the pain of it but really making it worse, "it's only another small fraction to keep him here overnight." Swollow. It would have helped me if I could have asked him questions or if he would have reassured me that Tyler will be all right, but all he wanted to do was go home, so he left me in an emotional mess.

I finally got to see Tyler. He was in a lot of pain for awhile, but was doing relatively well. It only took him about three hours to down a ton of graham crackers, a smoothy drink, pudding, grape juice, and a turkey sandwich. What would Tyler be without his appetite.

So, I'm here at the hospital right now, sitting next to Tyler as he lays drugged up and currently sleeping. It's been an emotional roller coaster, and still will be a rollercoaster for awhile it seems. I'm trying to be brave and strong for Tyler cuz it helps me to see him smile, but it's hard cuz all I want is to hug him and cry in his arms.

the last night of this

2009-12-09T23:46:00.000-08:00

Today I finished my last paper and studied for my last final ever....
It's weird knowing that this is the last
night I will pack up my backpack in a long time.
Tomorrow I'll turn in my two papers and take my last final,
and at around 4 p.m. I will have earned my bachelor's degree.

I have very mixed feelings about this.
How do you part with school, the thing that has been in my life for 17 and a half years?
I know, most people are glad to finally be done with school whenever that happens,
but I really like school
and I like seeing all the people I know on campus
and I like the accomplishment of turning assignments in and getting things done.
A few of my teachers have told me they think I'll go on to get a masters,
and a doctorate.
I think they're crazy.
I guess time will tell.

I went to my friend Natalee's house tonight to study and came home after 3 hours to this....
Cute Tyler fluffed his hair.
He gelled it too,
but this is post-rubbing-my-fingers-through-his-cute-hair.
I love you, Tyler!

we're out to WIN

2009-12-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

May I just say that today, along with every other day but especially today,
I am very proud to be an Aggie.

What doesn't kill you, just makes you really want to graduate

2009-12-01T21:26:00.001-08:00

I really am trying harder to keep up on this blogging thing.
(I won't mention my efforts anymore)
I've noticed that all my friends' blogs are very happy and reflect their happy attitude.
From here on out I will try to be positive....

...but first, I have to mention that I just got home from doing a homework assignment for my investment class. We started a little before 3 p.m. and were working non-stop until 10 p.m. I was working on it with two other people and we even put in about three hours last week, so this assignment took a cumulative of at least 30 man hours. I'm glad it's done.

Now, for more positive things....
I get to watch last week's episode of Office with Tyler now.
And we are very excited to see the Cougars get crushed tomorrow!!
At Utah State, it's all about basketball

Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas

2009-11-30T21:46:00.000-08:00

I don't blog enough.

Maybe if I write more often more people will read my blog.
High hopes.

Well, Tyler and I had a great LONG weekend. We enjoyed food, shopping, games, movies, and family while we were at home in Bountiful and Centerville. Although Tyler dreaded the shopping I think he appreciated that Santa brought him a present early. He opened this tonight....

It was this...

just some thoughts

2009-11-11T20:36:00.001-08:00

What will I do with all my time when I graduate in four weeks?

Maybe I already kind know,
since I haven't been spending nearly enough time doing my homework.
I'd like to think that I'll keep busy with crafts and learning other new things and such,
but I will probably just bask in laziness for at least a little while.
Maybe I'll spend all my time with this little man...
My only concern about having the cutest nephew in the world, is that my own kids may not be as cute.
I think it's a valid fear.

Welcome, Daxton Luke!

2009-11-01T20:19:00.000-08:00

We got the most exciting phone call this morning from Luke. Natalie went into the hospital early this morning. We went to church and tried to pass the time quickly, but I was going crazy the whole time!!! My parents came up around 9:30 a.m. and waited at the hospital for most of they day. We joined them around 3:30 p.m. and played SkipBo and 7-up in the waiting room. We hadn't heard anything so we finally asked a nurse at about 5 p.m. She couldn't tell us anything but Luke came out and told us that he was a proud new father!!!! Daxton Luke Nesbit was born around 4:45 p.m., weighing in at 8 pounds, 6 ounces, 20 1/2 inches long. He has cute black curly hair. Luke says he's a crier and good eater. He's so precious. Because of the stupid swine flu they only let one visitor in, which got to be my mom. She got to hold him and the rest of us got to see him through a window for a few minutes. I already love him so much! We're so glad he's healthy and doing so well and Natalie is also doing great. I still haven't seen her, which is also killing me. I think they're both pretty tired, but so thrilled. I love how happy Luke is!

Today.

2009-09-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

I met the Mr. Jon M. Huntsman, Sr. today.
He is such a nice, giving and important man!
I smiled at him and he waved back at me.

I have many other important things to blog about (which I promise I will do),
but I just thought I would mention that one for today.

We're going to print shirts that read "I hiked the Wind Caves at midnight...and survived"

2009-08-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

We embarked on a crazy adventure last night. Equipped with flashlights, jackets, and my fear of the dark we commenced our hike to the wind caves at 11:30 p.m. We were only paralyzed a few times by animal encounters, one time being when Tyler and I found a bat in the cave. The stars were amazing and even though we couldn't really see our surroundings, it felt beautiful to be there in the dark. We shared lot of stories and laughs and sore feet. None of us brought water so everyone, expect for smart Tyler, drank from a flowing stream which we later found a real bone in. I'm happy to report we are all still alive...I think. There's something so exhilarating about laying under the stars, being there with my husband and other great company, and staying out until 3:30 in the morning.

I see the vision.....

2009-08-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

Recently I've had a really strong desire to decorate our living room. I've been thinking almost non-stop about it for about a few weeks and have mulled over different ideas. Some color schemes seem cool but just don't fit our personalizes or our "style". But after watching Oprah today and then reading some of Designer Nate's ideas online, I struck a brilliant chord! He said to incorporate what you love into your house. Brilliant! I looked online a little more and put all my ideas together. I think if we can make it all happen our living room is going to be rockin'! Keep in mind that we're still not millionaires so we're trying to keep this as low budget as possible. Lucky for us, Tyler has mad upholstering skills so we have a lot more options. Here is the beginning of our vision. I hope we can get these chairs and make it all happen. I'll keep you (2 readers) posted about the final project. For now, be excited!

Before the Non-Party

2009-08-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

Most of you know that my parents host a "non-party" every year on July 24th. Well this year we went down early to enjoy the whole day. I had so much fun just relaxing and hanging out with the family. I think you really appreciate family more and more the older you get.

The morning started off with a great breakfast, washing the cars, then a long game of Crockett. We never did make it to the park to get scones but it was such a great day. And I had to post some picture from the day. The last one is my favorite.

I think Travis was having a blast! Can you tell?

Oh yes, Dad loves Hawaiian Fridays at work. (I think he started them)

Oh I just noticed that I think Tyler's trying to poke my head with his Crockett stick. Do you like how all the couples are kinda matching? That usually ends up happening.

We tried to do a jumping one. I just love my family!

Idaho Reunion

2009-07-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

So two weeks ago now we went to Rupert, Idaho for the Adams Family Reunion. What a blast! It was so fun to relax and be with family and just enjoy the sun and water. Here's the ranch we stayed at.

It's right on this beautiful river where we got to wakeboard and kayak and canoe and swim.
This water slide was a blast!

There were different crafts during the week. I painted this watercolor picture.

And Tyler made these animals. Who knew he was a Playdoh master!

On the 4th we did a few fireworks. I love this picture of my dad.
It explains his excitement for lighting firework perfectly!

Mc Kynlee rode down the water slide with me a few times and was my best friend for the rest of the weekend. Such a doll!

And it was so fun to have Tyler there. At the last reunion we had just started dating and he was on a family trip in Florida.

Thanks Nat and Nancy

2009-07-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

When we got married my aunt Nancy gave Natalie some money so she could buy us groceries to put in our house. It was nice to come home to a house with milk and bread and eggs and some food to eat.

One of things Natalie picked out was this Razzleberry pie. It's been in our freezer since last August. It's lived in both apartments with us. It's kinda just always been that constant item in the freezer that you overlook. I was worried it would be too old to eat, but when pulling it out of the freezer tonight, we found it didn't expire until May 2010. Kinda makes me wonder how many preservatives are in it, hmm.... But we finally cooked it and ate it and loved it.

So, thanks to Natalie and Nancy!

Happy Birthday My Dear!

2009-07-10T14:54:00.001-07:00

On June 30th, Tyler turned the big 2-4!!

We celebrated in Centerville with his family on the 27th. I gave him his first present there. I made this mission collage for him. I watercolor-painted a map of the Dominican Republic and pin pointed the places he served. I put his missionary name tag in there and some pictures. The picture of the shoes were his mission shoes that he still has. I tried to find a Dominican flag, but couldn't, so I made a makeshift one and we'll put a real one in there someday.

Tyler loved it, I think. At least he better cuz I spent a lot of time and money on it. It was really fun to make actually and I think it's a good way to display his mission.

On Tyler's real birthday he worked his first job, which gave me a chance to decorate the house and make a cake.
Then he opened his presents. I got him the First Season of "The Big Bang Theory", the video game "God of War II" and a pair of pants. Oh, and a new Sudoku book.
Then I made Tyler's favorite dinner. Hamburger Pie. He was in heaven! Next we went to see the new Transformers movie. Tyler had been dying to see it. From the day it came out on the 24th, to when we saw it on the 30th I think he asked me about 10 times if we could go see it. He loved it. I liked it too, although I think I liked the first one more.

After the movie we had Jalene and Greg over to help us celebrate with cake and ice-cream.
It was a great day, and Tyler said he felt very spoiled.

This was Tyler's 3rd birthday I have celebrated with him. The first one was only a few days after our first date and he was out of town so I got away with just leaving him a phone message. Last year Tyler started working a new job on this birthday so we just went out to dinner and a movie. It was great this year to be able to spend the whole day together doing whatever we wanted. We felt like little kids enjoying summer!

I'm so glad to have Tyler in my life. He's the best, most patient, caring man ever. He makes me laugh more than anyone I know and he understands me perfectly. He's so helpful, infact he's making dinner all by himself this very instant, so I better go help too. But I love you, babe! Happy 24th Birthday!

We get really creative (bored) on Sundays

2009-06-21T22:15:00.000-07:00

Tyler and I were playing around with his camera and re-discovered how cool the lapse time videos are. We did a few videos but this one in my opinion is the best.

I asked Tyler to tell me a story, and here's what I got:

"The Sea Monsters Who Lost Their Shoes"
There's no sounds, but you can make up your own.

My Missionary

2009-06-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

Let me clarify. Tyler actually was not my missionary. I met him three months after he got home. But he was such a great missionary that I thought I would share some of these pictures. I think they're priceless.

Look how cute my Tyler is. He was such a good, happy missionary. He served in the Dominican Republic. He lights up when he talked about his mission. You can ask him about it and he'll tell you he loved it. I hope we get to go back someday to visit and meet some of the people he taught and baptized.

He looks so young in this picture. Cute little 19-year old Tyler.
(Don't tell him that I said he was cute, he'd be offended)

I think the glasses that Tyler's wearing belong to that little lady.
She really makes Tyler, and his companion, look like giants!

I think Tyler baptized these people.

This picture was taken at the airport when his family greeted him home. It's not the best quality picture, but I love how happy Tyler looks. I'm sure he was ecstatic to see his family, whom he LOVES!

That's my cute missionary Tyler. I love hearing about all his mission stories, and really seeing how happy he gets when he talks about his mission. It's an experience that I know he would not have traded for the world.

.beautiful.

2009-06-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

So this weekend was really great. Tyler and I got to share in the festivities of Kristin and Kenny's wonderful wedding day. It was the most beautiful day. And I must say that this was probably the most beautiful wedding I've ever been to. What made is so beautiful? The bride and groom. I have never seen a couple enjoy their wedding day more than Kristin and Kenny. They focused on the most important parts of their day, like the actual wedding ceremony, and the people who were there to celebrate all day with them, and each other. Kristin is such a beautiful person and lives such a beautiful life that I would not have expected anything different. It was so great to watch them become husband and wife and see them so happy. Kenny is so sweet to Kristin and I know they deserve each other. What great couple and an absolutely beautiful day!

Sorry, bean, I stole this picture from you too. :)

strange

2009-06-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

Isn't it strange to think that your husband, the one you love so much now and know so well, used to be a stranger? He used to go through everyday, doing everyday things without you. He used to wake up every morning and eat his cereal and imagine how his day would play out. And you weren't in it. He used to go to school and work and come home. All without you. He was always looking and always wanting to find you. But he didn't know it was you. Then one day, he met you, a stranger. He knew nothing about you and you knew nothing about him. You became friends, then companions, then the only people you can image each other with. Now you can't image life without him. Now, isn't is strange to think that he used to be a stranger.

our HOME

2009-06-06T15:27:00.000-07:00

Well, we've been on our new place for only about 3 weeks now. It feels like longer to me. But Tyler and I LOVE it here! It's a billion times better than our old place.

We have yard so we have picnics and play frisbee all the time. We have a garage to keep our new Jeep away from bird poop and stuff, and a driveway and space to park like 5 cars and do projects like sanding our table. And we actually have a real table now!! We don't even have to use TV trays anymore!

We sure feel spoiled sometime, but we are really grateful for this home. And since there is more room we feel like we can really have friends now. We have already had more people over than we ever did in the last 10 months we lived on our old place. It's great!!! Ahh, and yeah, it really feels like home, not just an apartment.

I love decorating this place too. On memorial day Tyler and I worked on the tables all day. I was able to finish the coffee table and Tyler stained the kitchen table. Here are some before and after pictures of both tables:

Tyler was pretty sad to paint over the beautiful wood. But, I think it matched with the couch much better now:

We also painted some square legs and put them on the couch. They're kind of hard to see cuz they blend it. But that's much better than the ugly wood pieces that were on there before.

Here is the beautiful table that Tyler gets full credit for. He meticulously sanded it, which took about three days, stained it, and put 3 shiny coats on it. I think it turned out great. And it looks great in our little breakfast nook!

That's after sanding it and the second picture there is after staining it, before the shiny coats.

Tyler had me get under the table and stain the feet. While I was under there I added our initials :)

We brought the table into the house in two pieces then Tyler put it together. The top splits and there are two more leafs we can add in.

And there's the finished product. We still need to re-finish the chairs, but we thought we may as well get the table done and we can do the chairs one at a time.

Oh, we also hung this shelf and some pictures. This used to be hanging in my old bedroom at home. We kind of cheated and hung the pictures the exact same way as they were hung before, haha, but trying to arrange pictures is hard work! Also in this picture is the desk that the Torries left here. We love it! And the desk chair is one that Tyler refinished and reupholstered a few years ago. It's absolutely gorgeous!

We found a cure!!

2009-06-02T23:09:00.000-07:00

I'd just like to bring to everyone's attention that tonight Tyler, Jalene and I cured the bird flu and terrorism. Unfortunately, we were not able to cure the swine flu or mad cow disease, so be on the watch for those.

In translation, we played the board game "Pandemic" in which you try to cure the world of four diseases. It's a real fun game and if anyone else wants to try their hand at curing all the diseases, please come over and we'll teach you how to play! It's wonderful.

Preparing for Summer

2009-05-20T14:02:00.001-07:00

So....I just went shopping. I think I really needed to. I haven't really gone clothes shopping since Tyler and I got married (9 months ago) and I don't really have summery things I can wear. I keep buying things for Tyler because, let's face it, guys are way more fun to shop for because everything fits them. Well, I went out looking mainly for shorts...and, I found some! I got two pairs of shorts, two pairs of flip flops, a pair of white tennis shoes, a pink shirt (for $.97!!), three Down East undershirt things, and a cute white button up cardigan all for under $95! I'd say that was quite the find if you ask me. I never knew Old Navy had such great deals. It's a "hidden secret", as Jalene says. And Lindsay, yes, there truly is nothing better than a new pair of white tennis shoes :) Well, that's all. I just had to rant here for a bit cuz I don't think Tyler will get as excited over this kind of stuff so I have to share my excitement somewhere.

Owww Oww!

2009-05-17T22:58:00.000-07:00

Check out my handsome hunk of a husband! There's nothing more attractive to me than my husband working hard at something I don't know how to do. He's been so excited to work on this table and he's been talking about it for months. Now that we're in our new place we actually have room to work on it and he's so ecstatic to do it. I personally think that's great since I wouldn't enjoy all the dust and slivers that come along with sanding it.

Our New Addition

2009-05-11T18:58:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! We got a new car! and I love it! Our car search started early Saturday morning. Throughout the day we traveled to Orem, Taylorsville, Salt Lake, Draper, Bountiful, Centerville, back to Draper, then back to Salt Lake, back to Bountiful, then back to Salt Lake again.

We looked at a few Proteges (I still love Tyler's blue car he had when we first started dating), a Jetta, a Camry (which we were close to buying but I'm glad we passed it by), and our last find was this Jeep. We had pin-pointed it on KSL a few days ago and tried to call the owner a few times during the day. When we finally saw it and test drove it we were stoked and decided to get it!

We then had an adventure trying to get the cash for it since we weren't smart enough to withdraw the money before my bank closed. So several transactions later we had the cash but by then the owner of the Jeep had taken off to the Eagle's concert. So we went back later that night to Salt Lake to complete the transaction. They got back later than planned and we actually ended up buying the Jeep two minutes after midnight. What a long, draining day! But it was worth it.

We love our new Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's very powerful and clean and so fun to drive. It's going to be great in the snow and I hope it will be a lot more reliable than our little truck has been for us. I'm usually not a real big fan of red, especially bright red, but I think it's fitting for this Jeep. We have yet to name this car, so if you have any good ideas pass them along!

Spring is stinky

2009-04-20T22:17:00.000-07:00

I think some things need to change, such as: my sick truck needs to either kill over and play dead FOREVER, or quit playing and come back to life so we can get rid of her. One way or the other it's time to part. Also, we need to get out of this little, stinky apartment. It's beginning to stink all the time. And I think it might just be the dead mice that we poisoned this winter and it's just now getting warm enough for them to smell up the whole place. It's only a possibility, but Tyler thinks I shouldn't say things like that on Facebook or our blog. But I need to vent. I mostly need to move. And we are so excited to do just that in only 25 days!! It could not come sooner. Un/fortunately we have plenty of finals to distract us in the mean time. Which, by the way, I should be getting to....Happy Birthday, Natalie! Love you

A Sunday Walk with Edwin

2009-04-05T19:23:00.000-07:00

We went for a Sunday walk today to get out of the house so we both didn't go crazy. We walked up to campus.

We even saw Edwin the squirrel and he was rather friendly.

W.O.W. (Week of Wonderfulness)

2009-03-15T22:11:00.000-07:00

As Tyler can attest, my happiness is most accurately measured by the amount of things I can check off my list. So I'd say this Spring Break was the best of those yet to come. We got our taxes done (we think), finally ordered our wedding pictures (only 7 months later), changed the brakes and replaced the door handle on the car, I went to a job interview in SLC and applied for another job, Tyler also applied for a job, we caught up on all the homework we needed to do (which is unheard and probably hasn't happened yet for Tyler this semester)...and also did about 5 other things on the list. Ahhhhhhhh...
We also got to measure our happiness by Tyler's standard, which is quality time. We had plenty of that this week with me not working and Tyler having Monday, and Tuesday off. We attended Aida at Viewmont, which was amazing. Those little Vikings look smaller every time I revisit VHS, but they are still just as talented. My very very talented friend Lindsay took the pictures for it!We also got to go to the Draper Temple open house. In efforts to fully prepare for that day I took an allergy pill so that the sunny day would not bother me. Turns out the pill was NOT non-drowsy and I took about 10 naps that day, literally! But between those naps we did enjoy seeing the new temple. It's absolutely gorgeous! My favorite room was probably the sealing room with the huge mirros and large windows that let in so much light. With Tyler's upholstery background, he pointed out all the little details in the chairs and couches. His dream is to one day have the time to create amazing furniture like that. We were really glad we got to go and bring Tyler's brother and my parents too.
Oh we also had a great weekend to open Spring Break. Tyler's parents came up to Logan and spoiled our butts off! They took us bowling. Tyler and his dad both got Turkeys!! Like father like son. They also took us out to a wonderful dinner at Ruby Tuesday. Then, thanks to Natalie and Neil and Jill, we all got to go to the last Aggie game, which as you know was amazing. Let's hope our Aggies keep doing great! We concluded that fun day at Tyler's parent's hotel where we played an exciting game of Oodles of Doodles.
(This picture isn't actually from this weekend, but it's a pretty cool one of my awesome in-laws!)
We also spent some good quality time doing one of our favorite things....playing games. We got together with Nat and Luke of Friday to play Banana Grams and Carcassonne. On Saturday we had our friends Whitney and Tyler over for games and phazookies. We had so much fun with them playing good games and even teaching them some new ones. I wish they weren't moving away soon. Whit, how about if you guys just stay here?
(This is just a google pictures too, but I actually have played all those games except Outwit. The Tamagotchi one is actually pretty fun)
The rest of this week has consisted of homework and movies and lots of relaxing. We have loved every second of this no-school thing. We concluded our wonderful week with a nice Sunday walk. This is about the only activity we managed to take pictures at. I whole-heartily tried to get pictures this week! I brought my camera....but kept forgetting the memory card.

Yup, we're still here.

2009-03-01T22:07:00.000-08:00

Tyler and I are still alive and doing good. After my amazing internship at RR Donnelley ended I began the job search and was lucky (or should I say blessed) to find a job only a week later. I'm working in the Dean's office in the Business building. I'm an assistant to the secretary of the Dean...so yeah, I'm a peon, but hey, it works. I actually have liked it so far. I guess it's pretty cool that I'm working in the tallest building in Logan on the second to highest floor. What more can you ask for right?

Tyler is still working at the survey place and he says it's okay. I guess it's about as good as a job like that can be. We're both very glad that this semester is passing by so quickly and looking forward for a few days free of homework (and work for me) during Spring Break.

The warm weather is a nice change. It reminds me of last year when we got engaged, so it brings welcomed reminiscent feelings.

We have pretty much grown out of our apartment. I am getting really anxious to move this summer. I tried to take a picture of our apartment to give those of you who haven't seen it an idea of what it's like, but it's hard to get a good perspective because you can't step back far enough to even get a picture of an entire wall. Here's our living room, it's just big enough for a couch. We shuffle the coffee table and banana chair around a lot. Also you can see our kitchen table(s) there. Yup, the TV trays. Our dream is to one day have room for a real kitchen table. Here's a view of our kitchen. That lovely blue linoleum you see on the floor is the same material they used on the counter tops. It actually does give the kitchen quite a bit of personality.
Here's the mysterious foot print that's in the doorway of our bedroom. I think whoever finished the floor got a little excited and walked on it too soon.
There's a peek of our apartment. It actually is adorable and it's been great for us. But it's definitely time for a bigger place real soon!

You know you need a new car when.....

2009-01-28T23:09:00.001-08:00

Well, Tyler and I had yet another grand adventure yesterday. It began with a text from Tyler asking where the switch was to swap between the front tank and the back tank of the truck. I knew right away that the truck was dead. Sure enough it would not start. I wasn't too disappointed cuz I thought maybe this was our chance to get a new car, but at the same time it isn't in our plan until the summer.
Well, I left work to pick up Tyler and bring him to work. After he got off work we tried to start the car again.....and it "worked"! I suggested that he drive it around the block to warm it up and make sure it was okay. So we hoped in the truck and began on our quest.

Well, it only took about five seconds for the truck to mal-function again. All of a sudden the gas pedal was stuck completely to the floor. We were zooming of out control and I was certain we were nearing our death. Well, it's been a good life, I love you all, see you on the other side.... But lucky for me Tyler is able to handle situations like this much more rationally than I am, so he threw the car in neutral as it continued to rev at full throttle. He tried to pull the gas pedal back up or apply the brakes, but it was all to no avail.

Well it turns out the gas cable was frozen or something. I'm not sure if we really know what happened, but the truck began working like "normal" again. We'll drive it with caution...as we always have. I guess now we really have no doubt that we'll get a new car this summer. We were hoping to get a little bit of cash for it but I think I've concluded that my little truck is destined to become a demolition derby car.

Viewer Discretion Advised

2009-01-25T12:04:00.000-08:00

So Tyler was faithfully doing the dishes the other night and I was on the computer in the other "room" when I heard Tyler yell from the kitchen, "AHh! I did it!" Our drinking glasses are squarish and too small for Tyler's hands to fit in them when he cleans them. He's always said that one day he would be washing the dishes and he would break a glass and cut his hand off. Well, didn't quite cut his hand off, he only just about cut his pinky off. Well, really it wasn't that bad, but as you can see below he sliced into it pretty good. We got him all cleaned up and it's actually healing pretty well now. Had we had insurance I think he would have gotten stitches. Right when this happened I told Tyler he was never allowed to do dishes again...then I realized that was a little drastic so I settled for never letting him wash those glasses again.

Water, a simple pleasure.

2009-01-10T13:39:00.000-08:00

We had a really "fun" experience on Monday. I woke up to get ready for the first day back at school. I went to take a shower and as I turned on the faucet...no water came out. I immediately called our landlady because they pay for the water. She checked with the utility company and assured us that the water was paid and turned on. After several other calls to our landlady and talking to a few people I concluded that most likely our pipes had frozen. After school and work, I returned home to attempt to solve to the problem. Our landlady was not much help so took the endeavor into our own hands. Tyler spent nearly 45 minutes in the utility room aiming my blow dryer at our frozen pipes. After all that time it seemed that the hot air was doing nothing but making us more frustrated. We had just about given up when we thought to call our home teachers. One of them is an apartment manager at a different complex and we thought he may be able to help. While Tyler was on the phone with him I heard something in the bathroom. I ran in there and there was brown water flowing out of the faucet. I had never been happier to see flowing brown water! After about 20 seconds it cleared up and we were back to enjoying modern plumbing.
While this experience was frustrating it was also a testimony to us of a few things. First of all, we were glad that we were prepared with food storage. I don't know what we would have done if we did not have water saved up. It was a testimony to us that you really never know when you might need food storage, but you are infinitely grateful when you do have it! Also, we felt blessed because after doing all we could to get our pipes unfrozen it took calling our home teachers to fix the problem. Sometimes it just takes blind faith. We were really grateful for this experience, and now even more grateful for running water. Needless to say we now leave the faucet dripping every night.

Christmas in Bountiful/Centerville

2009-01-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

Christmas to us this year meant going home and spending lots of time with our family. We tried to equally split our time between Tyler's family and mine. We feel lucky that our families are so close and we can spend holidays with both families. We played a lot of board games and went to a few white elephant parties including the famous Mug Exchange on Christmas Eve. Tyler and I thought the mug exchange was a success because we didn't make any little kids cry, unlike last year. We spent some time with my Uncle Dave and got to hear him beautifully play his saxophone. On Christmas morning Santa came to Tyler's parents house and then we went to my house to open presents. I think Tyler was surprised by how long that took. We went to Tyler's family party where we enjoyed great food and had fun hanging out with his cousins and such. Then to my grandma's house for more food and fun. My parents gave us a lot a lot of food storage and we got some things we need and even some that will just be fun like lots of movies and the first season of the Office! We really enjoyed having so many days off work and being able to relax and really enjoy being with family. It was a wonderful Christmas

Our Cheap Christmas Decorations

2009-01-10T13:05:00.000-08:00

Next up on the adgenda was Christmas. Since this was our first Christmas being married we decided we needed to put up some decorations, but we don't wanna buy a lot of stuff yet since we don't have room to store anything. Tyler's mom gave us a little tree and some decorations. We set up pretty late on December 22nd but kept it up through the new year.

A cut the star out of a piece of paper!We also hung some lights that are suppose to be draped over bushes outside. Yeah, white trash, I know but it helped us feel more like Christmas. And our stockings are hanging there too. Mine is a reindeer and Tyler's mom cross-stitched his. He's really proud of it.
My mom gave us this little nativity set. We really liked it and put it on top of our tv.

One of the traditions we started this year was to read the Christmas story from the scriptures by candle light. It was humbling and helped us feel the Christmas story and focus on Christ.

My 21st Birthday

2009-01-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

I know it's been awhile since my last post and a lot has happened! We've had Thanksgiving, finished another semester of school, celebrated my 21st birthday!, and Christmas, and New Years! and now we're back in school :( So I'll try my best to catch up here.
My parents and Steve came up for my birthday to take me to lunch. We went to our new favorite place, Fredrico's.
Nat and Luke met us there too. It was the best way to celebrate my birthday! I have the best family :)
Then we went home and I got to open my gifts from Tyler. He Gave me the second and third seasons of the Office, a pair of pants, and a shirt that he picked out all by him self and I actually liked it, Go Tyler! He even got me flowers. My cute little husband! He's the best.
He even tried to make a cake for me. But our lovely oven did not want to cooperate. In this case it really was the thought that counted!
So to make up for the lack of cake I had a leftover cupcake that I brought to work and Tyler bundled 20 candles together to make it 21. I don't know if it was the best idea, but it sure made me laugh a lot! So ingenious
We finished off my birthday by playing racquetball and going to see Mama Mia. All in all it was one of the best days.

2008-11-25T15:58:00.000-08:00

So I've been a little overwhelmed by blogging. It's such a big job and I don't know how to do it. Plus, after reading all my single friend's blogs who do exciting things, and my sister's blog who has exciting cats, I feel like my life is pretty boring and I don't have much to say. But I guess I should keep up on it anyway. Especially since i love reading blogs I figure I should contribute to the blog world. So here we go....my attempts at being a better blogger:

Well life is a little crazy right now with work and school and everything else there is to do. Tyler and I are very excited about Thanksgiving because it means THREE days off school, TWO days off work, and a lot of fun time with family...oh and I lot of really good food which means I don't have to cook for THREE days! I guess when we really count our blessings we have a lot to be excited and grateful for.

Some of the things I'm most grateful for are.

Tyler! He is the best husband and my best friend in the whole world. I absolutely love being married to him. He makes me so happy and knows how to calm me down when I stress out. He always helps so much around the house and is a wonderful man. I love him soo much!
My parents. They sure do I lot for me that I don't even realize so much. They are so giving and so kind no matter how selfish I can be. I love them too.
My siblings. Probably one of the best things about going to school in Logan is that my sister and brother-in-law live up here. I love hanging out with Nat and Luke and always having them to help me out, like when my car dies cuz I leave my lights on. I love watching Office with them and poker nights and dinners. Also, my brother! I don't see him as much because he's not in Logan, although I think he should move here! But it's always fun to see Steve and talk with him and just hang out.
Our little apartment. For those of you who have seen our apartment you can testify that it sure is little! But I love it. I love having a place that's just ours and we get to decorate it and control what comes into it and the spirit there. I love turning it into a home.
Food! I guess I didn't fully appreciate food before I got married. When I lived at home we always just had food, thanks to my mom's excellent cooking. Now I'm the one who gets to cook every night and stock the cupboards. It can be fun. But it can also be overwhelming when food disappears much quicker than it used to, but I guess a husband will do that to you! So I'm grateful that we always have enough food for our needs.
School and work. Although they can be burdensome, it's great that Tyler and I are both blessed to fill our time with meaningful things (although sometimes work doesn't seem to meaningful to Tyler). It's great to learn and earn.
Friends!!!! I have the best friends in the world. I love that we still keep in touch, even three years out of high school and still get together and keep in touch. I'm glad to have Jalene and Kristin up here in Logan. (I'm real excited to hang out with them tonight at the game!) My friends are amazing and always so supportive of me and Tyler.
every little thing...there's so many other things to be grateful for and I love them all...

A Little About the Coys

2008-10-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

Our story begins about a little more than a year ago. We met in the single's ward in Bountiful, Tyler finally asked me out and we hit it off. We dated for nine months doing the long distance relationship thing. We were engaged for four and a half. Now we've been married for about two and a half months and loving every bit of it! We love playing racquetball, snowboarding, and any games (card, video, board). We're both going to school (a.k.a. doing our time) at Utah State. We actually love it though. Lindsey's major is Finance with a dual minor in Economics and Personal Financial Planning, and Tyler's major is Civil Engineering. We hope you will enjoy our blog!