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.

Happy Birthday Dan! (March)

Hi All,

As you know I made a resolution to start blogging at least once a month this year! Alas, I have already fallen behind. No worries though, since this post is only 6 days late it doesn’t really count as a failure. March was a decently busy month for us, though for some reason I am drawing a blank! Let’s see what I can remember…

Dan turned 25!! Yep, I’m married to an old geezer these days. He got treated very special during his birthday week, partially thanks to all the birthday clubs we’re signed up for! One weeknight he was craving a big burger so we took our coupon and went to Red Robin – delish! Thank goodness for coupons, or we would never go out! ;) On Friday night (courtesy of another coupon) we got Cold Stone ice cream for dessert. Saturday was a pretty chill day; other than going out for a walk and getting groceries, we didn’t do a whole lot. But in the evening we got to do his favorite thing about his birthday – go out to Texas Roadhouse! Big thanks goes out to my parents for their generous son-in-law birthday gift of treating us to dinner. Otherwise that place is just too expensive; so he looks forward to it all year. On Sunday, his actual birthday, I got up early to make his favorite breakfast – French toast, with scrambled eggs, bacon, and orange juice. Yay me! And that was about it. Other than lots of food, he didn’t really want to make a big deal of his quarter-century milestone. But we had fun, and just enjoyed spending time together (which, with me working and him in school, doesn’t happen as often as we’d like).

I also finally got my new camera this month! After a lot of going back and forth, I finally settled on getting the Canon EOS Rebel T3i. So far I’m liking it a lot, having fun going out and playing with it, but I still have a ton of learning to do on just where everything is on it and how to manipulate all the settings to what I want! I’ll get there. Dan is loving it too; a couple times a week he’ll excitedly ask me if we can go out and take pictures! It’s cute watching him play with MY toy. I’ll admit, I’m definitely no expert yet (and I still desperately need to learn how to work stupid photoshop!) but here’s a couple pictures! If anyone in my area ever wants cheap/free pictures and would be willing to be test subjects for me to practice on, let me know! Cause as of yet I’m not very good at photographing people.

What else? Oh yes, Dan is applying to the MAcc program in April so he has been very busy making sure he gets good grades! He also recently applied for some Summer Leadership programs with the major accounting firms and got accepted for 2 of them! Which, you should know, is awesome. I’m very proud.

We didn’t do anything for Easter, sadly. As much as I love holidays, it’s hard for me to find things to do when it’s just the two of us and no other family. I did make Easter cupcakes, but that’s it. We also got our special Easter eggs from my mom and a huge bag of Cadbury mini eggs! Yum!

(Yes, I'm aware this isn't actually a great picture at all, but!) Dan sure loves this little dog! I'm still completely against a bulldog - maybe one day I'll change my mind! He sure is cute.

February!

Well shoot! I had this post all typed up and almost ready to go yesterday, when things started popping up and then I forgot all about it! Oh well. Just pretend you're reading this yesterday.

 

Happy last day of February! This tends to be a dreary month for me – thank goodness it’s so short! Winter’s ready to be over, but spring hasn’t quite come, so it makes for some yucky weather. And Utah has definitely been guilty – it will be nice and sunshiney and almost warm one day, then it’ll snow and be nasty for the next three days! Not a very nice trick for someone who’s been missing the sun. Oh well, tomorrow is March and we will (hopefully) be on to better and warmer days!

This month was pretty uneventful for Dan and me. I think the only part of February worth actually mentioning was Valentine’s Day! For him, I made a little treat bag of various Hershey Kisses with a little note (thank you Relief Society activity!). My day started off by discovering a little box of my new favorite chocolates (Mrs. Cavanaughs) in my purse, with this note attached to it:

Isn’t he cute with his little heart exclamation points?! And what was in the red binder you ask? Well, for the sake of preserving Dan’s manliness, I won’t share a picture of that. But I can tell you what it was – a sweet little love note expressing how awesome I am. ;) And then I had work, which kinda sucks, because I like to think of holidays as days off! But that was okay, since a couple hours before I got off, Dan surprised me by coming into the office with a vase of pretty flowers! Yay! That night, I made a conscious effort to do NOTHING except have dinner, decorate cookies, and spend time with my awesome husband. It was nice to just chill out. Since we’re poor, and didn’t want to wait 2 hours to get into a restaurant, we just had dinner at home… I can’t even remember what it was now! Probably something super delicious. Anyway, instead of dinner we went out for dessert – that’s my favorite part anyway. We went to the new Cinnabon in the mall, and it was amazing! (The extra frosting we ordered probably didn’t hurt, either.) And that was it! Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

Oh, I guess the one other thing is we went to the last Twilight movie. Yes, as much as I hate to admit it, I have read and watched all of the Twilight series. It wasn't too bad, it was at the dollar theater, and the popcorn is amazing - so all in all, I'd say it was worth it! I mean really, we all know we're going to the movies for the popcorn anyway. Don't deny it.

So other than that, not much happened this month. But at least I kept my monthly posting resolution. Next month is Dan’s birthday, so that’ll be fun. He’s getting kinda old, but more on that later!

My dear faithful followers,

I am so sorry to have kept BOTH of you waiting so long for another update! ;) I’d like to say that it’s because I’ve been so busy with awesome adventures, but alas, it has just been life. And as I’ve said before, I’m a terrible blogger. But! I made a halfsie “resolution” this year to be better at blogging, and try for once a month, so here goes.

                Last summer was a rough one – I was in a completely new place with people who I mostly did not know. And if you know me, you know just how painfully shy I can be. But I made a couple friends, and as hard as it was having Dan gone for upwards of 12 hours a day, we did get to do some fun stuff. In Alabama, we had AMAZING apartments (it was so hard to come back and live in our crappy Provo apartment!), and, most notably, we took a weekend to go down to New Orleans. That place really has been destroyed by all the hurricanes, especially in the French quarter where most of the touristy stuff is. FYI: Bourbon Street smells awful! It was so stinky, but it was cool to see all the shops and hear the artists playing jazz on the street. We also went to the Audubon aquarium, which was pretty awesome. But probably our favorite part was Café du Monde! It’s this tiny little café that’s insanely popular and they only have one food item on the menu: beignets. Basically scones/donuts drowning in powdered sugar. It was probably the best part of the summer.

Guess what? Sometimes Piranha's are pretty!

 

                For Thanksgiving, we decided to spend it just the 2 of us and went to Vegas. It was crazy to me how many casinos and bars they have just in that little part of the strip we saw! And it smelled so badly of smoke, however I will admit it was cool to see all the popular hotels and whatnot. It will definitely not be on my “family vacation” list, as it seemed to be for many others there (same holds true for Nawlins’)! Too much smoking, drinking, and prostitution for my sheltered little eyes! But we had a lot of fun and, of course, our favorite part was the eating. For our Thanksgiving meal we went to one of the many buffets (how many buffets do you need on one street?!). Though pricey, it was totally worth it. The food was amazing and we ate so much! Definitely made ourselves sick that night.

 

 

 

                For Christmas we went up to Montana again to see my family. Which was nice since I still did not have my green card. It was a ton of fun – have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE hanging out with them?! We had some amazing snow up at Big Mountain, despite the freezing cold temperatures. And I loved getting to meet the newest addition to our family – my adorable niece Tatum Gray! She was so precious and probably the most well-behaved newborn I’ve ever seen. To top it all off, I finally got a onesie like I’ve been asking for for months – with a hood and everything! It’s pretty sweet. After Christmas I graciously allowed Dan to go see his family (aren’t I a good wife??) in Arkansas for a week. It was probably the worst week of my life! I was so lonely; I’d get home from work and basically mope around watching tv all night. So I was one happy camper when he finally came back!

Isn't she the cutest?!

                Good news: on January 1^st my green card finally came in the mail! Which means…. I can go home!! I’m so excited – now all I need is some time to actually go up there. I’m so excited to finally go back to Lethbridge and to see everyone. It’s been way too long. But for now, I am working at an accounting firm as an office assistant. It’s pretty good so far, but things are about to get crazy! Pray that I make it through the next 3 months. And Dan? Well, he’s working on the Junior Core at the Accounting Program. And loving every minute of it. Which is good, because it sure keeps him busy; hopefully the long hours will all pay off in the end! (I was gonna put a picture to show you, but Dan says that would be bad... probably a good idea!)

                And that is our life for now! I know, it’s kind of a crappy post, I whipped it out in like 15 minutes. But otherwise it would have had to have been like a full on novel. I didn’t want to write that, and I know you don’t want to read that. So now we’re both happy. I promise I’ll try to write a better one next time!

Florida!

If I have learned anything in the past month or so, it is this: I am a horrible blogger. But fear not, loyal readers! For I have a brand new, all-inclusive post with all the juicy details you’ve been waiting for. So read on, while I take you through the joys and heartbreaks of life in the Sunshine state!

For months I had been wanting to chop my hair off – I was getting sick of dealing with it, and I wanted a change. A real change, not just some new layers. So about a week after we got here, on my birthday, I went and cut it all off. I was really nervous at first but now I love it! It is so easy to deal with and doesn’t get all in my face like before, and I think it’s pretty dang cute! It’s not styled, but here is the before and after!

Dan also got a haircut – courtesy of me! It was my first time ever cutting someone’s hair (other than my own bangs…) so I was pretty proud of how I did.

We found another beach that we love to go to, called St. George Island. The sand is gorgeous and soft on your toes, and the water’s pretty good. We’ve gone there a couple times now because the boys just love it and it’s a great way for them to relax!

 Our new Pirate friend!

Awesome little lighthouse. Maybe one day it will be open when we come.

Beachfront condos. How awesome would it be to stay there?!

The beach is really beautiful, looks amazing at sunset!

We found sand dollars! Okay, Matt found them – right in the ocean. But I stole a couple for myself.

Dan and mine’s new beachfront home. It’s all we could afford J

I love my husband so much! We have a ton of fun together.

Last week we went to Wakulla Springs. It was this awesome place, where you take a tourboat through the spring/river thing and you get to see turtles, birds, manatees, and alligators! It was so much fun, and afterwards we got to swim, the water felt so good and was so clear.

 Do we look like tourists? Haha. So there you have it – that’s all I’m gonna show you for now! The boys are working hard, it’s hot out, and life is good.

We Made It!

Okay guys, this is gonna be a bit of a long one. But it's got lots of good stuff, so bear with me and read on! As many of you know, Dan and I have moved down south for the summer! A couple months ago, Dan, along with many co-workers from Linx, decided to switch over to Vivint. The company was much more professional, a better fit for us, and the potential for earnings was much higher. So after much consideration and prayer, we made the switch. Now we are living in Tallahassee, FL and in two months we'll relocate to Mobile, AL. It's going to be quite an adventure over the next four months!

My green card isn't in, so I can't leave the States. And my work authorization isn't in, so I can't work in the States. Sooo that's leaves me with... not a whole lot to do! Dan and the boys drive up to area in Georgia every day (about 2 hours) because their Tallahassee license isn't in yet, which means he's gone from about 11am to 11:30 pm every day! So I sleep in a lot, then I usually go to the gym. I'll go to the pool for a while, do a bit more organizing/cleaning the apartment, watch TV, and at the end of the day, make dinner! Hopefully soon I will be able to get a job, or at least find something to keep me occupied for the summer. Or else it's going to be a loooooong four months. I brought my scrapbooking stuff, so once we get some dressers and have things finally put away, I'll pull that out!

Now, you're probably all thinking: "Wow, you live in Florida?! It must be so awesome! I would love to move there, it'd be awesome and I'd never be bored." Lies. See, here is what movies and everything make it seem like life is, living in Florida:

White, Sandy Beaches

Beautiful, Resort-Style Apartments surrounded by Palm Trees

Disney World!!

Friendly, Tropical Birds

And here's a little look into what it's really like living here:

Nasty Bugs. Everywhere.

Crazy Intense, Misery-Inducing, Heat & Humidity

Ravens. Enough Said.

So there you have it folks! It's not all just fun and games down here. But really, it actually is quite beautiful here. And it's nice that you can wear a T-shirt and shorts at midnight! Our first day here, the boys thought they'd take a day off to settle in, instead of heading straight to work (after all, we pulled in about 5am!!) So we went to the beach! About an hour away, we drove to Alligator Point, right on the Gulf of Mexico. It was kinda windy and cloudy, but we didn't care! We were so excited to just be at the beach. We played in the water, buried a couple people in the sand, and found a bunch of shells. Take a look!

 Beautiful little Coast

 Dan got buried!

 Walkway to the beach. Beautiful :)

 I found a snake crossing our path. Lucky one of us saw it!

 My first (baby) garden!

And the seashells I found!

Possibly even more exciting was the fact that I just graduated from BYU! I did it - a Bachelor of Science degree in Family Life/Human Development, so basically I'm really smart now. :) It was the best weekend ever - not only because of that, but because my parents came down to visit and celebrate! I sure miss those guys. We spent the weekend catching up, going to various ceremonies, going out to eat, packing, going to the Tulip Festival, and sewing a baby quilt for my friend Nicole Maclean. It was so much fun. Here's a look into our weekend!



 Special Musical Number!

 Dr. Coyne ran away, so here's our picture together!

 Oh Daddy...

 I graduated! With some of my favorite people

With my mommy at the Tulip Festival

A Letter

As instructed, I am putting up this assignment for my blog post! I don't know if we still need to keep up our blogs, since we've done all the checks, but I figure I will for the next week.

Dear Miss Lawrence,
First off, I would like to commend you for a fantastic performance as Katniss in the Hunger Games. I loved the books and thought you did such a fabulous job in your role; I love forward to
the next film! Having said this, I am currently in a media class and have an
assignment to write someone about an issue in the media. I have seen some of
your interviews and noted how down-to-earth you are, and how you actually had a
different “plan” for your career.
As a young actress who has recently come onto the Hollywood “scene”, I feel like
you can have a great influence for the better in the media industry. I thought
you would be a great person to write, and hope you share some of my own
sentiments. I loved that you chose to do a film with very minimal profanity and
no sexual content. Too often today I believe filmmakers put this sort of material
in, simply for a shock factor or because that seems to be what the public
wants. But this sort of content does not really ever constitute an important
element of the film, or even add to the overall storyline. Not only that, but
this sort of thing is becoming ever more prevalent in movies meant for younger
and younger audiences. I think this is irresponsible of the film industry to
put such material in children’s films, as they are so impressionable and today
learn so much of what they know from the media. It is also inappropriate to be
showing crude, unnecessary profanity and sexual material to children and young
adolescents. Characters portrayed this way are poor role models for the children
who will soon be adults and making independent decisions.
I think producers, screenwriters, actors, directors – anyone in the film
industry, should make an effort to remove the excess of this material from mainstream
media. Profanity and sexual scenes do not add to the quality of a movie, and
can greatly influence the attitudes and behaviors of viewers. Over time, this
could mean an overall increase in promiscuity in society – resulting in
sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancies, and broken homes.
I urge you to consider the importance of this issue, and to keep it in mind when
thinking about future roles to accept. I think you have the power to make a
positive impact in our world; that your voice and your behaviors will be a good
role model for others to follow. You have the opportunity to make a big
difference, and to make choices that so many others will see. I hope you will
use this chance for good! Again, congratulations on a fantastic job in the
Hunger Games, I am a big fan.
Sincerely,

Maggie Brumwell