Accountability

I thought I would be a little accountable for my new years goals for 2009, seeing as how it is rapidly coming to a close.  My goals for 2009 were as follows:

1. Don't drink carbonation- Completed

2. Find someone who I can legitimately kiss new years eve 2010- Completed

3. Don't eat anything past 10 p.m.- Failed Miserably

I haven't given this much though yet, but I here are a few of my 2010 new years resolutions.  I will probably add some as we go.

1. Don't drink carbonation OR sugary drinks (such as fruit punch, juices, etc. Crystal Light is ok cause its sugar free)

2. Get my weight down to 185 by the time I go to Field Training sometime this summer (right now I am fluctuating between 197-200)

3. Boost my GPA back up to at least a 3.5 (as of this last semester it is a 3.35)

4. Run a 10 minute (or faster) mile and a half

I know some of these are lofty goals, but I feel like I can obtain these in a year.  I will try and be accountable, but if you think about it, check up on me to see how I'm doing.  Thanks.

A place of refuge

As promised here are some pictures of our married apartment.  We live in provo just 1/2 a block south of Center Street.  Its a nice place and pretty cheap for the neighborhood we live in. 

This Is A pic of the outside front of the house.  We live in the basement around the side.
Just walk down these steps to our front door.........
This is our kitchen.Here is our makeshift table.  Its just a card table (for now)
Our Living room is connected to our kitchen.
Our tree, entertainment center from Ikea, our 32" Vizio flat screen TV (Thank you Target Gift Cards).
Our bedroom is pretty small, but cozy.  there isn't much room for anything.
And that is the digital tour of our new apartment.  However, we just bought a progressive sleigh bed from RC Wiley, so I will have to get a picture of that when its up. 

At long last, our honey moon!

I'm finally getting some time (or making some time. I've been catching up on lost season 5 online) to tell you about our honey moon.  It was a great time.  We went to North Carolina the day after the wedding.  We flew on Southwest.  Our lay over was in Phoenix, which went fine.  But we were the very last 2 people to get on the plane in Phoenix heading to Raleigh.  So there were no seats next to each other.  Well I asked a guy who had an empty seat next to him if he wouldn't mind going to another seat, thus freeing up two seats next to each other.  His reply was "You have your entire lives to sit next to each other."  I wanted to punch him in the face!  He and his wife had a seat between them, so apparently things weren't going well in his marriage, but that didn't give him the right to be a jerk.  So I went and asked the steward if he would make an announcement.  He announced that we were on our honeymoon and asked if anybody would move seats so we could sit together.  Everyone clapped, but nobody offered to move.  So eventually we sat down in separate parts of the plane.  I was pretty mad and Amanda was getting upset.  So then the steward got back on the intercom and said "The happy couple has just offered to buy drinks the whole flight to whoever will move (which we didn't)." Then eventually two women volunteered, and said they didn't drink.  So we did  get to sit next to each other. What a relief.  They kept saying things about us being on a honeymoon the entire flight. Ha Ha.

One of the Stewardess's was curious and started talking to us when the lady next to me went to the bathroom.  We told her we were married in the temple in utah, etc.  turns out she was a member from Mesa and was in Stephanie Meyer's ward.  She was way nice and very talkative.  Then near the end of the flight she made an announcement that she had made us a "cake" and presented us with this roll of toilet paper she made.  She told us she is very into scrap booking and had a lot of fun making it for us.  They also gave us 3 big bulk bags of peanuts which we ended up serving at our reception in Wake Forest.  Thanks SouthWest.  
For our actual honey moon we stayed at a B&B in Pilot Mountain, NC.  It was about an hour and a half west of Raleigh.  It was neat.  We were in a cabin in the woods.  Our cabin was the Penthouse sweet, and very nice.  We even had our own personal hot tub in the living room.

(The bed is all messed up because it was the end of the week and we were checking out and took the sheets off, I promise.)
And that is our honeymoon in a nutshell.  My 2nd favorite part was spending every minute with Amanda and not having a care in the world.  For that week we didn't have to worry about school, work, homework, money, anything.  It was so relaxing and such a great week.

A light at the end of the tunnel, for a couple days

Finals are almost over!  I'm so excited!  I have a few more left and Amanda still has 2, then we are home free for almost 2 weeks.  We are so excited about the break, even though we just got one for our honeymoon.  Speaking of, here is a little preview of our future posts.  I still need to write about our honey moon in North Carolina, and our new apartment.  Well, new for Amanda, old for me.  I've been living there since August, but she has made it look really good.  Pictures soon to be coming.

I'm On No team

About a month ago Amanda and her room mate wanted to watch Twilight.  So her room mate's boyfriend Camron and I reluctantly decided to watch it with them.  This was my first time watching it.  I have decided to not assign myself to either team edward or team jacob at this time, as i ended up laughing at the movie pretty much the whole time.  This was not the new movie, it was the old one.  Ya know the one?  The one where Edward looks like an emo homo and gives the camera weird looks the entire movie?  Well the funny part of it was that both Amanda and her room mate Jennica fell asleep, so Camron and I found ourselves watching twilight together.  It was a great bonding experience for us.  We sat there and made fun of the whole movie without receiving any ridicule from either of the girls.

Here is a little SNL clip I thought was pretty funny after seeing the movie. Enjoy.  (Sorry there is no baseball in this clip).

Our Wedding Presents

Amanda And I exchanged wedding presents for each other the wednesday before the wedding.  She got me an old metal globe that she got on eBay and a note along with it.  We say the movie "up" while we were engaged and they had a little book of adventures that they used.  So she wrote that she was excited for the greatest adventure (marriage).  And we plan to mark on the globe everywhere we've been, and everywhere we want to go.  Its a pretty vintage globe though.  Russia is still labeled USSR.  Oh yeah, and the globe is a piggy bank, so we are going to put spare money in there (if we ever have spare money) to go flying with, cause I still haven't taken her flying yet.  

For my present to her I had my friend Spencer Craven paint us a picture (above) I found online of the Oquirrh Mountain temple.  He did an amazing job and we are very pleased with it.  Thanks Spencer.

Sin To Commandment In 30 Minutes

Its been a while since my last post. The last month has been pretty crazy with the wedding. But its all over now, which is a relief. Here are a few thoughts. I don't have any pictures yet, but I will put some on once I get them.

Amanda's family came into town thursday the 19th, and we had dinner at my parents house. It was really fun. I think the families got along well. Two of Amanda's young women leaders also flew in for the wedding. They were awesome and a HUGE help. Friday morning I attempted to go to class, but couldn't focus, so I went and took an anatomy quiz at the testing center (and I thought it was hard to focus in class, this quiz killed me). Then i went back to the apartment and hung out with my then soon-to-be father-in-law. Amanda and all the girls came over and her sisters informed me that the brides maid dresses had been left in North Carolina! Yikes. So when the girls left to get their nails done her dad and I spent the next while on the phone and internet trying to find a way to get them overnighted to SLC in time for the wedding. Nobody told Amanda cause we didn't want her to get stressed. She eventually found out though, but it was at a time right after the sealing when she didn't care very much cause she was in awe, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Friday night we went through the Salt lake Temple for Amanda's Endowments. It was really neat to be there with her. A bunch of my family was there, and her dad and young women leader Sis Howe. The spirit was so strong and she loved it. After the temple we all went to Cafe Rio.

The wedding morning for the groom is polar opposites than it is for the bride. The whole morning Amanda was running around getting ready, etc. i woke up around 8, got up and ate some lucky charms and cheese toast with my nephew Isaac and niece Grace. Then I took a shower, shaved, and went to the church to help set up for the reception. A bunch of awesome ward members were there and I didn't have much to do cause they did such a good job. So then I came home and put on my suit and drove to the temple with my mom.

The sealing was awesome. My uncle Neuenschwander sealed us. He talked a lot about covenants and how each covenant we make there is an ordinance involved. It was crazy to think that up to the moment I walked into that temple I could be excommunicated for the same thing that I would be encouraged to do with Amanda 1/2 hour later. The luncheon and reception were awesome and we are very grateful to everyone that helped pull it together. The cultural hall looked incredible. It was an amazing day. I think that is all I will cover in this post, but there will be more to follow soon.