2 New Additions To Our Family

Fish!  I got two fish last week :)  They are salt water tropical fish, and I love them.  One is called a sunshine something or other, and the other is some sort of guppy, I think.  But really one is orange/yellow (Shaniqua) and the other has leopard print on it (named Leonardo).  Today was Andrew's first real day without school, so he took me to work this morning and we transported them to the office I work at in American Fork.  What a great husband!  They are so funny to watch- Leonardo chases Shaniqua around all day, and she basically spends the day running from him.  It's nice to add a little life to my little, blah cubical.  It's a good substitute for children for the time being :)

Life changes!

Life is so good.  Next week marks our 8 month anniversary, and we couldn't be happier.  Life and love just keeps getting better!

We were lucky enough to go home to Ohio for Thanksgiving.  Like I mentioned before, a company in Cleveland paid for Andrew to come out first class, so my parents helped us buy me a ticket, and we got to spend almost a week with my parents and brother.  It was really nice to see them and spend Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house like I did in the good 'ol days.  My grandma is an amazing cook, and she does almost everything on her own- incredible!  It will be hard to not be with them for the first time since I was born on Christmas, but I'm glad I get to spend it with my husband.  I keep saying I don't get to go home for Christmas, but he really is my home.

Andrew spent the last day we were there interviewing- actually it was 4, 30 minute interviews as well as an hour lunch with two other employees who were seeing if he would fit in at the company.  Obviously he did pretty well, because he received an offer last week!  And after getting the inside scoop from an employee there who is friends with my family, they didn't even technically have an opening, they just loved him! 

At first we didn't know what to think or what to do- it's kind of a tough situation we've found ourselves in.  Andrew technically has one year left at BYU before finishing his Master's degree, but a lot of PhD schools in statistics will accept people without having a Master's. 

We've been thinking for awhile about applying now to start school this fall, but had basically come to the conclusion that we'd just wait.  However, with this offer, we have thought a lot about doing this for the summer and living with my family and then going straight to school somewhere else.  After fasting, praying, and a lot of long conversations, we have decided we're going to do it and take a leap of faith.  You see, if he doesn't get into PhD school for the fall, we'll be sticking around at BYU for another year and applying again.  That's all fine and dandy, but there is too much for us to lose here if we both leave.  So when we put those pieces together, we have decided that if we'll be in Provo for another year, we're going to have to send Andrew to Ohio, and I'll have to stay here and hold down fort.

Let's just say I am praying fervently that he gets in.  Twelve weeks without him sounds like an awful long time!  But if I leave, we lose our position as RA's at our apartment complex (buh-bye free rent), and I'll lose my job and insurance.  That's expensive for a 12 week get-away!!  We both feel really good about it, so Andrew called this morning and accepted the offer.  I know it will all work out because it always does, but hopefully it works out how I want it to :)

Work for me is going pretty well.  This week I was sworn at about 10 million times, though!  I was called words that I have never heard come out of a girl's mouth by one lady who was particularly upset about her Social Security Disability case.  At first I took offense to being yelled and sworn at, but after realizing these people's backgrounds by talking to them and what has happened to them in their lives as well as reading their medical records and hearing about how terrible they must feel all the time, added to a lot of mental disabilities, I have decided to not take it personally.  It makes the job a lot better.

After the worst phone call, I talked to the sweetest lady.  She sounded like a bigger, elderly black lady (or that could be complete assumptions), and she had a fun accent- I think she was from the South if I remember right.  She told me what an angel was and asked if I could come to her hearing with her and go out to lunch with her.  She seemed to think we could be best friends, and I really enjoyed talking to her.  It's people like her who really appreciate the help and tell me they are so glad I am nice to them and appreciate my friendship that make the job worth it after the meanie-heads scream.

School has been keeping Andrew really busy, especially with finals this week, but he is done for the semester!  However, after talking to him this morning being excited for him and his break, he informed me that he plans to work 60 hour weeks.  WHAT??  Haha, crazy kid!

We also have TONS of Branbury shifts because all the other RAs are out of town.  It should be pretty quiet, though.   I'm in the clubhouse now, and other than a few people at the hot top, it's empty.  Andrew just went to the work-out room and is running, then we're going to watch a movie on his laptop.  We have tomorrow off, but then we work Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 5-10.  It's good for us, though!  Keeps us out of trouble.

OHIO baby!!

So Andrew has an interview for a summer internship in Cleveland (close to Wadsworth, where I'm from) and they asked him to fly out an interview.  So they scheduled the flight and everything and then I got this great idea, since it's the Monday after Thanksgiving, that he should ask them to change his flight and I'll go with him just a few days earlier.  Crazy as it is, I actually have more days off for Thanksgiving from work than Christmas.  We only get Christmas day off- crazy!  But we get Thanksgiving day and the following day off, thank goodness.  So Andrew called the lady who scheduled his flight, and she changed it to Tuesday- as in a few days- and so we had no choice but to get me a ticket!  Luckily my parents are nice and have a lot of credit cards points built up- so we're going to Ohio!  I am so excited.  This will be my first Christmas away from home, and I've already cried about it twice.  It's going to be a rough day, but I'm so glad I'll get to see my family just a few weeks before.  Andrew and I don't get to be on the same flight due to the fact that they're flying him first class on the most expensive airlines possible, but we'll leave and arrive within just a little while of each other.  I'm stoked! 

Andrew and the guy he shares his office with are doing statistics stuff right now, and it's seriously like another language.  You'd have to pay me A LOT of money to get me to do a Master's in Statistics, but they seem to be liking it.  Well, I have pizza in the oven at the complex where we're RAs and it's about time to pull it out, so I'm off. I don't want to set the fire alarm off here- that's be a mess!

Eventful Week!

This past week has been a good one, but completely crazy!  Andrew met with a professor at Texas A&M and we started thinking about applying to PhD schools for him now to start next year.  Schools often take students before they technically have their Master's Degrees.   We've spent a lot of time researching schools and deciding what to do.  We love where we're at in life right now- we have a great apartment where we can work off our rent as resident assistants, I have a good job with insurance benefits, and Andrew has a lot of research opportunities with his professors.

Our most recent thought is to have him apply to the top three biostatistics schools (Harvard, University of of Washington, and John Hopkins).  If he gets in, great!  We'll pick up and move at the end of the summer and he'll be able to finish a year faster.  If he doesn't get it, great!  We'll spend another year here where we love it, he'll be able to build his resume, and we'll apply again next year.  The only lame thing is that it takes a lot of time for him to apply and costs quite a bit, but we're excited to possibly start a new chapter in our lives pretty soon.  It's crazy what life throws at you, but we love the adventure!  We've spent a lot of time learning about these schools, thinking about what would be best, and praying to see what we should do- I'll keep you posted!

Two weeks ago was Halloween, and that was fun!  Andrew and I worked in the clubhouse of our apartment complex for a little while and then went out to dinner at a new pizza place in Provo called Pizza Pie Cafe.  It's a genius idea- a cheap pizza buffet that has a bunch of fun flavors as well as salad and pasta bars.  When we got home from dinner, we carved pumpkins.  Luckily Andrew is a little more skilled than I am first in cutting the top off, second in peeling out all the pumpkin poo, and finally, at being innovative enough to still light them even without candles.  Actually, lighting them was probably the funniest part.  We wanted to take pictures of them lit up, so Andrew crumpled up some newspaper, put it inside, and dropped a match in.  It definitely worked- at one time there were flames coming out of my pumpkins eyes!

Work is going well for me.  It's a little bit stressful because the company is growing faster than they can handle, but it's a good job.  Andrew is also doing well- he likes his classes and has a lot of fun  doing research for his professors.  We certainly manage to stay busy, but we also manage to have a lot of fun.  We love the little adventures- like today when I made popcorn not in a bag the first time and opened the microwave and popcorn came tumbling out.  Life sure is great!

Once again, Andrew and I are sitting in the clubhouse of our apartment complex working off our rent.  It really is a sweet deal.  Andrew is working on his homework, and I just went up and made us dinner and now I'm sitting down to finish wedding thank you cards.  Those thank yous are killer!

This week has been good.  We've managed to stay super busy.  I think the craziest day was Wednesday, which was our first time doing cleaning checks.  There are 42 apartments in our building for us to check, and it takes FOREVER- about 5 hours from start to finish.  Andrew has been swamped with homework and research for his job, so I decided it would be best if he worked on that while I did the cleaning checks.  So I set out for the big adventure about 5.  Some of the apartments were super clean, but others of them were not.  I couldn't believe how messy and disgustingly some people live!  Luckily I survived, and I only received a couple of hate calls afterward.  And when I got back Andrew had made a yummy dinner and cleaned the entire apartment!  What a great husband!

That same night Andrew had to finish a take-home test for one of his graduate classes.  He worked on it quite a bit throughout the week, but it was so time consuming that it took him until 2:30 in the morning the night before it was due.  However, it sounds like that wasn't too bad compared to some of the other students, one of which was in her office until 8:30am!   His classes are very demanding, but he loves studying statistics.  He's been interviewing for a few summer internships, but we're not sure what we'll do yet.  We have a great deal working off our rent where we live now, which we don't want to miss out on.

Life is great for us, though.  We're happy and love being married.  We had our six month wedding anniversary Sunday!  It sure has flown by, and it just keeps getting better!

Fun Friday & Super Saturday

Andrew and I have had a very fun weekend so far!  Friday my office moved to a new building, and we didn't have desks yet, so I got to leave a little early.  I drove back to BYU and picked up Andrew and we stopped by Macey's grocery store to get some treats.  Then we headed to our apartment to pack some stuff up and went up to Park City for the night.  We found this hotel up there that we really like, and it's super cheap in the off season.  On our way we got some KFC and had a picnic at Squaw Peak.  It was beautiful up there overlooking what seemed like half the state.  The leaves were all pretty colors and there was a gorgeous sunset.  When we got to the hotel, we went hot tubbing, played games, and watched Chronicles of Narnia.  We had a lot of fun celebrating our six month anniversary, which is actually tomorrow.  It's hard to believe we've been married for half of a year now!  In some ways it has flown by, but in other ways it seems like we've always been married.  Married life is the best!

This morning we cooked breakfast in our hotel room, cleaned up our stuff, and headed back to Provo.  We stopped and bought Andrew new shoes (which he desperately needed) and then saw a sign for 80% off exercise equipment at this little store called Shape Up.  We decided to check that out and see if there was anything super cheap--there was!  We actually bought ourselves an elliptical machine!  It was only $105!  It's not a high end machine by any means, but we figured it works for our tiny budget and tiny apartment at least until Andrew graduates.  It will be really nice now that we are getting into winter to be able to exercise in our apartment.

The elliptical certainly is small for an exercise machine, but our car is not large by any standards (a little Mazda3).  The store is only about a 3 minute drive to our apartment, so we decided that even though only about 1/4 of the machine fit in the trunk, we could make it (it was either that or carry it back).  So we turned on our hazard lights and drove as slow as possible back to our apartment with our trunk open and 3/4 of the machine sticking out the back.  I'm sure that was a sight to behold.  Luckily it's not too heavy, so Andrew and I made it up the stairs to our 3rd story apartment without breaking it, or even scratching it up.  We are very excited to be able to work out without even leaving our apartment!  It looks a little hill-billyish in our living room, but it wouldn't fit anywhere else.  Luckily we can laugh and know it doesn't really matter as long as we are happy, and we certainly are!

Right now we're  working a shift in the clubhouse at our apartment building and then we're going to the BYU game, which we're stoked about!  ESPN game day!!  Go Cougars!  What a great weekend!

Biking Adventures

This weekend was the perfect fall weather.  It was 70ish degrees, the sky was perfectly blue, and there wasn't a cloud in sight.  The leaves were amazing- beautiful reds, yellows, and oranges.  I have really taken to biking lately, and Andrew seems to enjoy it as well.  So, we decided to go for a ride up Provo Canyon.  We drove to the bottom and parked our car down there and headed up to Vivian Park.  It was gorgeous!  We passed by Stuart Falls, a very pretty waterfall, and we even passed the place we had our engagement pictures taken.  It's right along the Provo River, and it was absolutely stunning.  Andrew and I must have said to each other at least 50 times we couldn't believe how beautiful it was.  Beauty like that sure doesn't come from a big bang!  Even when we got back home, we were impressed by the beautiful fall weather.  We have a great view of the river and some wooded area behind our apartment, and the trees were a brilliant yellow.  As much as I hate to admit it sometimes as an East Coast/Midwest girl, Utah really is a beautiful state!

Mmmm Pizza!

Andrew and I have had a good weekend so far.  Last night we went and hung up fliers on all the girls apartments that we are now the RAs for.  There are a ton of them!  We're excited for this.  We move to the next building, which will be the one we are over next month- it should be good for de-junking.  Then we were so exhausted that we used part of a pizza hut gift card we got for our wedding to get a Pizza Mia- our first ever.  We told them extra sauce and easy on the cheese- it was certainly saucy.  We laughed because one of the slices was pure sauce with about 3 little sprinkles of cheese and a piece of ham.  But it was good, and nice to not have to cook or do dishes!  Then we went to bed super early- like before 10.  It was amazing!  Today should be a great day- it is absolutely beautiful!!!!

We get to be RA's!

Andrew and I both got our hair cut the other day at the complex where we live, and our hair dresser mentioned that there was an opening for RA's that they were trying to fill.  The next day Andrew stopped by the leasing office and they asked us to bring us a resume that day, so we printed them out and dropped them off on our way to Idaho this past weekend.  Then Monday they asked us to come in for an interview Tuesday, and today they offered us the position.  We are stoked- that'll help us save a lot of money!  We've realized that it is so hard to save money, even when I have a full time job and Andrew works 20 hours a week.  This should certainly help, and it should be fun!  We're excited!

Way to go Idaho!

Andrew and I had a lot of fun this weekend.  We headed up to Preston, Idaho to visit Andrew's grandparents.  On the way, we stopped by my old roommates wedding reception in Logan, Utah.  It was a lot of fun to see them glowing and so excited to be married (I can't blame them, being married is the best!).

After the reception, Andrew and I made the rest of the trek up to Idaho.  It is so pretty up there now with the leaves changing and the crisp, autumn air.  Andrew had to work on homework a lot of the time because his course load right now is pretty crazy, but we had a lot of fun playing games with his grandma and grandpa.  While he was doing homework, his grandma showed me some fun pictures of him and his relatives from back in the day.  He was such a cute kid!  We played a lot of Hand and Foot and Skip-Bo.  Andrew and his grandpa are seriously competitive, so it was quite funny when his grandma and I beat them every time at Skip-Bo!

On the way back we stopped at his family's house and had an amazing home-cooked meal.  I know I make meals all the time, but there's just something about a mother's cooking that can't be beat.  We stopped by his Granda Olsen's house and we picked a ton of tomatoes, which we have been eating like apples- they are soo good!

It was a fantastic weekend, but I must admit I'm glad to be home, too.  We really do have the best lives!

Newlywed & Newlyblogging

Andrew and I are finally starting a blog! We just celebrated our 5 month anniversary yesterday and are loving married life. We are living in Provo while Andrew attends grad school at BYU. I am working at a law firm about 20 minutes away, and we seem to have a picture-perfect life. I can't imagine being happier!