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!