October

Of course, we watched General Conference this month, which I love not only because we get to hear amazing talks, but also because we get to do it in pajama’s while eating special breakfast! (I love eating too much…) I also decided it was time Dan got “cultured” and so we went to a performance of “Shrek: The Musical.” While it was no Broadway, it was still pretty good and he actually enjoyed it – success!

The best part of the month was our first real ultrasound! (First one doesn’t count, since baby was just a little jelly bean, to date the pregnancy). Because of my diabetes, I have to see a lot of doctors, a lot more often than with a typical pregnancy. So I don’t think most people have an ultrasound this early unless they specifically are trying to find gender (I was just shy of 16 weeks). This was with perinatology (maternal fetal medicine specialists – basically, they’re like expert OB’s for high-risk pregnancy!) and they did a really thorough exam where we saw all the body parts, it was so exciting and crazy to think of that little thing growing inside me! And we got it all on DVD, in case you want to watch. ;) The tech said she could definitely tell the gender, but I hadn’t made my mind up yet on whether or not I wanted to know, so we kept it a surprise. I also began to start showing this month, though really it was more fat-looking and anyone who didn’t know wouldn’t have guessed it was pregnancy!

For Halloween we tried watching Nightmare Before Christmas for a second time, since I still have never seen it. I lasted longer than last year, but after about 20 minutes I was done! It was weird and creepy, I’m just going to have to go through life having never seen this “classic”. We also bought a huge bag of candy but of course living in student housing, we had exactly ONE child come… we are STILL trying to eat leftovers.

15w 5d

September, finally!

I swear that right from the first day of September, the leaves started to change and I have to admit, at first I was not ready for sunshine, warmth, and poolside days to be over! But of course, my love of nature took over and I was immediately in love with the cooling temperatures, amazing colors, and of course the smells of fall! Utah really is beautiful this time of year – I just feel like it’s going by too fast now and I don’t have time to enjoy it as much as I’d like! But it has been good, I’ve been loving every chance to get outside with Dan and just enjoy the view.

So this month, it was back to work for both of us! I started back at my job at the accounting office, and Dan started a new semester at BYU as an official MAcc student (thankfully though, this year he is still considered an undergrad so we didn’t have to pay graduate tuition!) So after these last 2 years he will have a master’s degree and (hopefully!) a job offer! He has also been working at a company here in Utah in their accounting department, just a few hours a week and even though it’s not much it’s always nice to have any extra source of income at this point in our lives. He has been working so hard, both in school and at his job, to make sure we have everything we need and I sure appreciate it! That’s one of the things I love about that guy that I didn’t know when we were dating, is what a hard worker he is. Aren’t I lucky?? (Okay, enough mush. ;) ) *Update: I wrote this a few months ago, and since then the company Dan was working at let all their student employees go because their accounting department was a mess after years of horrible practices. Ah well!*

We also went on a couple of small hikes, which I loved because it was a good source of exercise and I had an excuse to just spend a couple hours outside in the beautiful fall weather. We also went to see Monster’s University, which I had been wanting to see since I first saw the commercials! It was pretty good, and Dan enjoyed it despite never having seen Monster’s Inc. (I know, what’s up with that?!) Oh! Earlier in the summer my mom texted me to say there was a drawing for tickets to see James Taylor with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and that I should enter. My mom is a HUGE James Taylor fan, so I figured I’d enter just to give her another shot. A few weeks later she texted me saying it was a sad day in the Malmberg household, as their name had not been drawn! I quickly checked my e-mail and, lo and behold!, I had been picked for a set of tickets! It quickly turned into a happy day at the Malmberg house and so they came down for a few days. It was great as always to see them, and I think my mom was very excited for the concert! Other than that, it’s been a fairly quiet month, just settling into our new routines and readjusting to life in the “dorms”!

This was a little over 9 weeks I believe!

Summer Nights

     It was pretty busy this month, for me at least! I was able to go up to the cabin for about a week and a half, and spend some awesome quality time with my family at the lake. It is probably one of my favorite places on earth, and I’m sad I don’t get to go there very much anymore so when I do, I gotta enjoy it to the fullest! It was a ton of fun, and I’m grateful to my awesome husband who was kind enough to let me go while he worked all day! Then I came back to Lethbridge for a week (man it’s good to finally be able to come back!), which was filled with doctor’s appointments! But on the weekend it was on to the good stuff – one of my best friends Kylie Orr got married! She waited a long time for that guy so even though I missed my own anniversary, I was happy to be there! I loved spending the day with friends and being there for Kylie (who was GORGEOUS, by the way!), and let’s be honest, who can resist the food at a Mormon wedding?! It was a great day and I’m so happy for her!

 

     Sadly, I had to return to Kansas the day after (my poor husband had been fending for himself for almost 2.5 weeks at this point!), and then it was a couple days filled with packing before heading back to Utah in time for school. So despite that, and a 16-ish hour car ride (way better than last summer's!), it was a really good month!

Barefooting

 

Homemade chocolates for Kylie's wedding! 

The beautiful bride



In the Heat of Summer

     July was mostly a pretty slow month for us, full of work, the gym and the pool (well, for me at least!) For those of you familiar with summer sales, you know a lot of companies do weekly dinner incentives and competitions, which I love when we win! Though the offices are typically made up with a lot of single guys that want to go to places others of us don’t! Oh well. One popular place this summer was Oklahoma Joes (never heard of it? They’re famous!), because they have all this AMAZING barbeque. Well, I guess that would require someone to like barbeque first, because apparently I don’t. And so I hated going there because there was literally nothing on the menu I liked. (And yes mom, I actually tried different things before deciding I hated it! ;) ) Their fries were amazing though, so they sustained me! If you’re a fan of barbeque I definitely suggest checking it out if you’re in the area! Another place we ate at a couple times was a Japanese Steakhouse; I love them in Utah but this one had the best fried rice ever! Seriously, amazing.

     We also won a movie night so while the majority of the office went to Grown Ups 2, I convinced Dan to take me to Despicable Me 2! What can I say, I love those minions. It was actually really good, and I’m definitely glad we chose that over the other one. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s definitely worth a Red Box night!

     We also had a chance to visit some church sites. Dan was out of town for a couple days on an accounting “recruiting” trip, so when I picked him up from the airport he took the rest of the day off which, as a summer sales wife, is probably the best day ever! Our first stop was Liberty Jail – the site where Joseph Smith was held during the 1838-1839 winter. The actual jail has been reconstructed, and is housed in a modern building along with other artifacts, but the Spirit there was amazing. It was incredible to hear the guides talk about the hardships endured, as well as revelations received, and to think of the amazing strength and faith of these men. It is a MUST SEE if you are in the area, seriously. Then it was on to the RLDS temple (the offshoot church started by Emma after Joseph’s death). They had a beautiful temple that we were allowed to walk through, but it is definitely weird seeing all this “mormon” doctrine you’ve grown up with being used by another church! I tried to keep an open mind, and it was so worth it to go into the “bookstore” and see all the incredible artifacts and possessions they have on display! Early pictures, Liberty Jail’s original door, 1^st edition Book of Mormon, etc. It was very interesting. Our last stop was to the LDS visitors center; my favorite part of it was this whole room full of photographs taken of early church sites.

I'm behind!

June was a pretty slow month for us, so this is going to be a short post!

First, I went home to Canada for the very first time since my wedding – almost 2 years! It was very exciting; I was so happy to see everyone and finally be back where my true home is. I was only there for about 5 days and spent a lot of time going to various doctor’s appointments, but it was still great to spend time with my family. The girls and I (you know who you are!) also were reunited for a night and it was so great to see them and catch up on everything that’s going on in all our lives.

Yummy Canadian treats brought home for Dan!

While I was gone, Dan went on a recruiting trip to California for the accounting firm KPMG. He spent 2 days out in San Jose getting a feel for the company and the area, as well as networking and interviewing for an internship next summer. I think the best part for him was being in 75-degree temperatures and getting to miss work for 2 days! It was a good experience for him and we’re hoping the interview went well. It’ll be a while before we hear back from them, so we’re waiting and hoping for good news.

Dan’s parents also came out to visit us for a few days. Each summer they drive up to Montana for a family reunion so they stopped to see us on the way. It was good for Dan, since he doesn’t get to see his family much these days.

About the only "fun" thing we did together was go mini-golfing, along with Dan's brother Ryan, his wife Summer (and their new baby Maddison!), and their cousin Matt. It was pretty fun, despite mine and Summer's devastating loss.

I took hardly any pictures this month, so here's my artsy attempt. Eat your heart out! ;)

The month of May...

Is my favorite month! Cause it’s my birthday on the first! So since we were travelling at the end of April it meant we were still getting all settled in for my birthday, and of course Dan had to work all day. So Dan gave me my gift early, which was a copy of the most recent Les Miserables sheet music! I loved it, but only got a chance to play through it once before packing up. We’ve got every intention of going out to dinner to celebrate my momentous 23 years of life, just haven’t gotten around to it yet with Dan’s limited free time. One of these days!

I also got the chance to visit a new temple this month! My friend Cardin Frei and I spent a Saturday driving up to the Kansas City, Missouri temple, about 45 minutes away to do a session together. It was great to experience the beauty of a new temple as well as enjoy the fact that no matter where you go, the principles and patterns of the Church are always the same. It was a great way to spend the day and feel the Spirit.

(Not my picture.. but still beautiful!)

Saturday’s are the only night (except Sunday) that Dan has off, so we don’t get a lot of time together to do anything, especially time where he is not physically exhausted! We did take one weekend to go see Iron Man 3 – it was pretty good, though to be honest by this point I can’t remember a whole lot of the details! If that’s your kinda movie, and you liked the first 2, I’d say it’s definitely worth a watch. But since we’re new around here, we just went to the first theater we found it in. It ended up being fairly pricey, so we didn’t get popcorn – my favorite part! Needless to say, it is much harder to enjoy a movie without a bag of popcorn in front of you!

We also went out as an office to eat at Oklahoma Joe’s. Kansas is famous for BBQ, so it’s supposed to be this amazing BBQ restaurant; apparently it’s actually on some top ten list of places you must eat at before you die! Sadly, I’m not a big fan of BBQ so I didn’t enjoy it all that much. But the boys went crazy! They absolutely loved it, and it was a ton of food for a good price, so it’s a triple win for them.

Finally, the whole group went as an office to see an MLB game: Kansas City Royals vs. New York Yankees! It was my first time going to a professional game so although I’m not a huge baseball fan I was kind of excited. It got pretty cold, and baseball is a loooong game; I spent most of my time playing with my camera and talking to Dan. But it was a cool experience nonetheless.

Not gonna lie May  was a tough month for me; it’s always so hard to pack up and move to a new place, especially when it means such long work hours for Dan and long, lonely days for me. I try to be supportive, but I’ll be glad when this part of our lives is over!

My newest niece, Maddison, born May 16

APRIL means Spring!

At least, that’s what it’s supposed to mean, in my mind. Seems like these days spring doesn’t come till a lot later, and that April spends a lot of time tricking me! So I realize it is now May 13, which means that I am very behind. The end of April came and went, and I kept forgetting to write up this post. But it’s here now!

I was busy working at the accounting firm in Provo – it’s a small office but you would never guess from how busy the accountants all were this month! The tax deadline in the US is April 15, and with the whole fiscal cliff thing and the IRS delaying the release of some forms, it really put them in a bind to get everything done on time. Thank goodness for extensions or I don’t think anyone would have gotten any sleep at all! I couldn’t help them with any of the actual tax preparation, but I kept pretty busy. Not going to lie, some days were very stressful. I am extremely shy so dealing with a lot of frustrated people every day was definitely a challenge for me. I am hoping it helped me grow in some way! The day of the deadline I ended up staying with them until 11:00 – it was a very long day for all of us! Thankfully it is all over, and I promised myself I would never work in a tax office during April again. At least the guys I worked for were really good to me, so I appreciated that.

Dan (finally!) finished the Junior Core this month. I think we are both very happy and relieved to have that done with – it was a ton of work, which meant that he was constantly doing school stuff and I didn’t get to spend much time with him. He has applied for the Masters of Accountancy program at BYU, so we should be finding out within a few weeks whether or not he was accepted. His grades were very good during these tough 2 semesters, so here’s hoping!

April of course means General Conference, which I love. Not just because I get to watch church in my jammies, but because I love hearing all our leaders speak! There were some really good talks this spring, many of which I felt were directed at me personally so it was good. I also made us some delicious breakfast – yum!

Bacon, Sweatpants, and Conference - can life get better?!

In our free time, we did get to go to a couple movies. I finally saw Les Miserables, which I thought was amazing! Absolutely loved it, and Dan even enjoyed it, which surprised me. For days afterward he would ask me to play some of the songs on YouTube! We also saw Life of Pi; I heard of the book a lot when I was younger but never got around to reading it. It was pretty good, though the ending was a little weird. We also went on a little date night to the BYU Planetarium. It’s pretty cool, and then you get to go up to the roof afterwards and look through the telescopes.

My parents came to visit! Yay! It has currently been almost 21 full months since I have been home, which means I don’t get to see my family much. So I love that my parents take the time and effort to come visit me once or twice a year. And they always take us poor students out for some great food! We went to Gardner’s Village, which is a little village-like shopping area with lots of boutiques… it’s mostly just for girls! Dan was busy studying for finals the next week so he didn’t get to do a lot, but my parents and I went to see the Jackie Robinson movie “42.” It was pretty dang good, and pretty funny I thought. I’d definitely recommend it!

The next weekend we had to move out to Kansas City. Dan is doing sales for a pest control company called Alterra, so we spent the week packing up our house (in between work and finals!) and with our little corolla packed to the roof, we set out! By the time we got everything packed and cleaned it was about 9:00 Friday night so we headed out for the 16-hour trip. BAD DECISION! Turns out if you start a major road trip after a long, exhausting day in a cramped car where you can’t stretch out to sleep, it makes for a couple of cranky people. We had to pull over a couple times just so we could try and get a few hours of decent sleep. Nevertheless, we made it safe & sound and I don’t think we will ever make that mistake again! By Saturday at 6 PM we finally pulled into the apartments. The lady checking us in took FOREVER (bless her heart, she was so nice), so we were very frazzled and worn out by the time we finally dragged all our stuff up to our 3-floor apartment. Then next day we had to drive 8 hours to pick up Dan's cousin so he could start selling. So let’s just say I’m done with road trips for a while!

All in all, it was a very busy, but very good month. Stay tuned for news about Kansas City next month!

Turns out, I didn't take too many decent photos this month and since I can't work photoshop, I can't edit anything! I gotta get that figured out.