Car Shopping

We've been looking for a car pretty diligently since the beginning of July and now we need one in the next 2 weeks before we drive our current car back to Minnesota where it will stay with its real owners, Steve's parents. Our top pick right now is a Hyundai Elantra. We've been doing most of our searching through ksl.com's car classifieds search engine. Our ideal car is: gas efficient, <$6500, <90K miles, and will last for a long while... us and every other college student in Utah.

Any suggestions on cars you or your friends/family have had success with or good resources to finding a car?

1st Anniversary!!!

It really does deserve 3 exclamation points. We had our 1st year anniversary on Sunday, July 20th and it's been the best year of our lives. Here's how we celebrated:

On Saturday, Steve took me to see the Utah Symphony and Wasatch Cannoneers (pictured above) perform the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky (cannons are actually written into the score) at Deer Valley Ski Resort in Park City. Before the concert we stopped by the grocery store and stocked up on snacks and treats. This may seem insignificant to you, but we really don't buy snack foods very much so it was great to pig out on our favorite stuff and enjoy the drive and concert together.

The scenery. I wouldn't mind staying there for a day or two.

Enjoying the concert! (picture courtesy of Steve's shoe)

The concert was great. They played some Leonard Bernstein (mostly West Side Story), Aaron Copland, John William's Olympic Fanfare (one of my favorites...such a sweet song), a Billy Joel Tryptich (they must have been excited about coming up with that one), a tribute to Elvis, and the 1812 Overture, with an encore of John Philip Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever (another one of my favorites!). The cannons were of course awesome and the 1st one made me jump like a foot in the air.

Our families were here on Sunday for Steve's sustaining (see below post) so on the actual day we spent time with them and took a big long Sunday nap.

I printed off about 100 pictures from our dating/marriage time and gave them to Steve in an album. He got me a really cute and nice plant for our apartment. He's so cute... he looked up 1st anniversary online and found out it's the Paper Anniversary. Apparently plants were on the list of suggested gifts and I didn't complain because it really does make our apartment look nicer and I've been wanting one for a long time.

On Monday night we went back to Buca di Deppo's to redeem the free dinner card they gave us last year when we had our wedding luncheon there. Despite being the *tackiest restaurant on the planet, we had a lot of fun. We got to read the messages we had written to each other on a bottle of sparkling water (gross, but that's all they had that was nonalcoholic... I suggested that we use it to make italian sodas on our 50th. Yum, aged water!). They were pretty funny to read because when we wrote them everyone was standing around us and let's be honest, it's tough to think clearly on your wedding day. It was a great anniversary and I look forward to MANY more.

* Tackiness

A sanitary bathrooms neon sign outside, statues draped in Christmas lights, a table with the pope's head in a glass case as the centerpiece and a peeing statue.

Singles Ward

No, this is not about the movie.

Yes, it's about Steve being called to be the 2nd counselor in bishopric of the BYU 3rd ward (student single) in the BYU 2nd stake. He got a call about 2 weeks ago and was sustained this Sunday. We even ran into another family from our married student ward, the Sommerfeldts, who were there because Bro Sommerfeldt was being called to the bishopric of another ward in the stake. My brother and his wife are going to start going to a family ward soon and so we were joking that Steve and I are moving back a step since we didn't get it right the first time. However, I guess we did get married....

We're actually really excited about the calling. The Bishop and his 1st counselor both seem like great leaders and we already love the Stake Presidency. I think Steve will do a wonderful job fulfilling his responsibilities, loving and leading the ward members. The ward comes from a bunch of houses on the tree streets by the Creamery on Ninth so it seems like a lot of the members are a little older, and more mature. I even knew a few that are grad students at the Taylor Building. I'm sure we'll have adventures to share so stay tuned!

P.S. We will really miss our friends in the BYU 29th ward and hope they won't forget about us!

Emma Smith

I've been wanting to make this post for a while. Last summer Steve showed me some music from a CD called Joseph: A Nashville Tribute that has songs about Joseph Smith and other individuals from the period surrounding the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

There's one song about Emma Smith that I really liked and has stuck with me (I put it in a music player on the sidebar). This past Monday Steve and I went to see Emma Smith: My Story with his mom and aunt. It was a good movie. It was well made and shared important stories about Emma in a very respectable light. Well, anyway, the movie made me remember this song and how I've been wanting to share it. I'm not an expert on Emma Smith but I know there are a lot of controversial things about her. I agree with the man who wrote the song and lyrics:

"Everyone has his or her version of Emma’s story. But you know what, I am fairly certain that Emma was the only person in her own head during those difficult years; as she laid her precious husband to rest in a secret grave and then watched her dear friends follow a new prophet into more of the unknown."

I don't really know everything there is to know about Emma Smith, but I have a lot of respect for her, even just for the fact that she lost 6 children and a husband. Both the song and the movie reminded me that we're here to love each other and that God loves us too and will judge us righteously.

Speech therapy with the Brady Bunch

I work with a boy at the BYU Kindergarten with down syndrome who LOVES the Brady Bunch. He even introduces himself as Bobby Brady sometimes. I decided to incorporate his interests into our therapy session yesterday. He's working on asking gramatically correct questions so we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? and then played a kind of I Spy game with some popsicle stick Brady Bunch puppets (i.e., What does he see? What do they see? What does she see? What do you see? etc). We had tons of fun.

Families are forever

About a month ago we got to go to the sealing of one of Steve's good friends, Ryan, from Lakeville. They actually came to the Salt Lake temple to be sealed so we got to be there. It was great and they are a beautiful little family.

the 3 musketeers Chad, Ryan, Steve

Everyone in this picture but me and Christopher went to school together.
Bottom: Chad, Steve, Heather, Angie, Derek (Ryan's brother)
Top: Christopher, Sarah, Ryan

4th of July

We spent the 4th with my family in Murray. The parade was not all I had remembered from my younger years and the most exciting things were a big scary looking Obama puppet riding in a car and Costco throwing rolls of toilet paper instead of candy. But the rest of the day was great.

Playing a game of Bocce Ball with my family. You can buy a cheap set and it's just as much fun, if not more, than croquet. I wish I had a picture, but after bocce ball we had a DELICIOUS lunch of fresh Alaskan halibut caught by uncles and Grandpa the week before. I am not a fish person but it was amazing!

At the T Minus 5 (a cappella) concert and fireworks at Murray Park. For the past 5 years I've always had jobs where I had to work on the 4th of July so it was great to actually enjoy the day, especially since this year I had a husband to share it with!

Hot air balloons

This was right outside our house this morning! Provo's 4th of July celebration, the Freedom Festival, includes launching a bunch of hot air balloons every morning. There was another one hovering right over our tree but I couldn't get a good picture. I thought seeing this one was a great way to start the day!

Jedi Clean Up

I just had to share this video that my friend Chad made. Enjoy!