Jared and Emilie

It's My Birthday and I'll Cry if I Want to . . .

2012-01-18T10:06:00.001-07:00

Well, my birthday week started out great! My in-laws took Jared and I out for dinner, then surprised me with cake and ice cream at their house afterwards with the whole family. My niece Savannah wrote in my birthday card this year and it was adorable! "I lov yuo - Savannah" So cute. Friday night, Jared took me out to eat at Olive Garden and our waiter was hilarious. He's probably one of the best waiters I've ever had. I wanted to get his autograph because he reminded me of Seth Rogen, but Jared wouldn't let me. Even for my birthday.

My Waiter . . . Oh wait that's Seth Rogen.

After dinner, Jared took me to go see the latest Twilight movie. Breaking Dawn (?). I had already seen it, but Jared hadn't and he knows that I like us to do weird corny things together. The first time I went to see it with my mother in law and baby sister (she's 15) and it was probably the most awkward I've ever felt . . . um ever. And just like I did the first time, during all the blood when she was giving birth I was gagging and grossed out and almost determined that I will never have children. People keep telling me it's not as bad as that but . . . we'll see. Jared also gagged and was worse than me almost so that made me feel better about it. The first time, Heidi had to almost carry me out of the theater I was so faint from all the blood. (Blood never used to bother me until I watched Daybreakers . . . it's a movie about vampires and it was fine up until a 2 minute segment at the end that's almost pure blood. I had turned white and couldn't sit up, oh man. It was bad.) This time around I think I was a little more used to the blood so Jared didn't have to carry me out or anything.

Sorry everyone. I'm team Jacob. I hate Edward. And Bella. I hate Bella most. You know what. I'm also team Seth. He is adorable! I love him!

Saturday Jared had to spend all day at a wrestling tournament so I spent the day mostly to myself. An awesome friend of mine took me out to lunch, then I treated myself to a little shopping at Kohl's. Then I went home and did absolutely nothing. We were hoping to be able to go to Jim Gaffigan but at the time when tickets went on sale we just didn't have the money to do it. Sad day. My mom, aunt and her three kids, my grandma, and two youngest siblings came caroling Happy Birthday to my door (is that normal?) and hung out with me for a little bit.

Then my day turned terrible! Jared and I went to go somewhere (I don't even remember where) and I could not find my wedding ring! We looked everywhere. I cleaned the entire apartment. Jared moved big things and checked the sink. It was no where. So I cried all night long. It might sound a little silly but Jared and I said a prayer that we would be able to find it. My parents were praying for us as well as some other family who knew about it. Sunday, we still couldn't find it so I cried some more. That night Jared was trying to comfort me and told me if we really couldn't find it that we would open up an account and start putting money in it so that we could buy me another one because I'm "worth it." I know it was meant to make me feel better but I felt terrible! So I cried some more. Monday, still nothing so this whole time I've just been wearing this crappy like $5 ring from Claire's. Finally, last night I was putting some clean laundry away and lo and behold I see it sitting there on my bed underneath where I had put all of my clean clothes!

I still don't know where it came from really but I'm just so grateful that I was able to find it. I think it's just another one of those tender mercies from my Heavenly Father. P.S. - I'm never taking my ring off again.

Cherry Walls Decal

2012-01-18T09:32:00.003-07:00

Kara's Party Ideas on Facebook/Blog is doing another giveaway. This time from Cherry Wall Shop Decal Store. You could win a $100 credit to Cherry Wall Shop!

http://www.karaspartyideas.com/2012/01/100-cherry-walls-shop-credit-giveaway.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KarasPartyIdeas+%28Kara%27s+Party+Ideas%29

~ I Love December! ~

2011-12-29T16:11:00.000-07:00

This season really is my favorite! I love the snow (even though we haven't had a whole lot this year), the lights (even though it seems no one has put hardly any lights up this year), spending time with our awesome families, and having a break from school and work. It gives me time to rejuvenate. It's been an especially good year for a lot of other little reasons.

One - I won two tickets to the Trans Siberian Orchestra! What!? I've been entering to win for a little while online and finally they sent me the email telling me I'd won. I was so excited! We went yesterday and it was soo so fun! Two of the girls we sat close to were kind of interesting as well. One seemed to think that she was Xena warrior princess, but they were both really nice. They even offered to share their popcorn with us. Unfortunately, they offered it to probably the only two people in the world who don't actually like popcorn. Ha ha! There were times during some of the songs where I actually felt the vibrations shaking my entire body and resonating inside my chest. I loved it! So much fun to get out and do something like that with Jared.

Two - I also won an outfit naming contest from Vanity and won this super cute outfit!

Yes, this is from their website and the name I picked out! (Tease me all you want about it. I entered about 5 or 6 names and that's the one that won!) I'll be getting everything you see pictured on the model. They did tell me they're actually out of stock on the boots so I will be getting these instead.

Am I okay with that? Yes I am. I'm pretty excited to get everything in the mail here soon!

Three - Probably one of the best of all, we got to talk to Elder Madsen on the phone! He is doing soo good and he sounds great! He had told us in his emails to make sure that we write everything down that we wanted to ask him or talk to him about. Apparently he didn't think our last phone call lasted quite long enough because no one really knew what to say. This time definitely wasn't a problem. We all had plenty to say and so did he. We each took a turn speaking with him and when we were done, my mom started to cry a little. Which started my dad crying a little bit, which made me teary eyed. He is so great! He's hit the year mark so we're on the downhill slope now. It will be good to have him home, but is doing so much good in Mexico too. I love that boy! I took a lot of video of the conversations but I'm still trying to figure out how to get that on here.

Family at Christmas time!

2011-12-27T17:07:00.000-07:00

The best part about Christmas . . . by far being with family. Here are just a few pictures of some of my most favorite people in the world during my favorite time of year!

Jared and Emmett

Mary (Olivia) and Joseph (Savannah)

The donkey (Brett)

Jared squishing Emmett, I don't think Emmett minds.

Our little Christmas corner

The Kindle Fire that Jared spoiled me with. He had it in mind for months apparently. He was so excited for me to open it. Needless to say, I LOVE IT!

If I wasn't already spoiled enough, Jared also got me the Silhouette Cameo!!

Jared and Emmett playing with what we got him for Christmas

Wendy and Trevor

My mom and Abuelita

Everyone gathered around to talk with Elder Madsen

Me with the love of my life waiting for our turn to talk to Elder Madsen

Jared opening his secret Santa gift

Judith, me and my mommy with our new crock pots!

My parents opening up the gift Jared and I got them (from On the Avenue)

Temple Square

2011-12-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

As always, we made it a point to go to Salt Lake to Temple Square this year to see the lights. It's one of my favorite Christmas traditions. Four years ago was the first time I went with Jared and it was the first time I met his family. I love this tradition. We invited two of my friends from my program and their families to come with us this year. It's great being able to share it with people I care about. We spent about two, two and a half hours showing them around and we still didn't get to see everything. There's just so much to see!

Gateway Mall Christmas Tree and warming fire

Jared at Temple Square

The Tabernacle

Salt Lake Temple

The Nativity in the Reflecting Pool

Christmas Crafts

2011-12-18T16:48:00.000-07:00

I wish I could say I made all these, but I didn't. I did make some of them though! Christmas is by far my most favorite holiday to decorate for.

I made this for Christmas gifts

Hm . . . what are we watching?

Christmas Countdown (On the Avenue)

Believe (On the Avenue)

Rachelle made these for me last Christmas!

Christmas Trees (On the Avenue)

I made these for me! Christmas and Thanksgiving.

I got this mantle for Christmas! (On the Avenue)

And finally, I learned how to make bows. I will never buy bows again!

Grad School is . . .

2011-12-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

I am done with my first semester of graduate school. What!? I cannot believe how fast it went by. Good thing because if it was dragging along I'm pretty sure I would give up and die. I remember in the summer the second year students were telling us how hard it was but after the first couple weeks I didn't understand what they were talking about. Then about a month in I realized . . . yeah it's hard. Especially when waking up at 5 am every morning so that I could get my hours in at work. I actually think if it wasn't for that it wouldn't be as hard because at least I wouldn't be as tired all the time.

We'll see how next semester goes because I'll actually be teaching an online class on top of everything else that I'll still be doing. Man. What was I thinking? I just have to keep in mind that in the end, it will all be worth it. For one of my classes I actually had to go and shadow a school psychologist and for the past two or so years I've been so worried that maybe I'm not going to like it. That I've wasted all this time, money, effort, and I've picked something I'm going to hate. Thank goodness for that shadow because of that's what school psychology is . . . bring it on! I loved it! So yes, in the end . . . it will definitely be worth it.

One semester down. 5 more to go!

Forgotten Carols

2011-11-30T16:19:00.000-07:00

Jared and I went on a double date to the Forgotten Carols 20th anniversary show at Kent Concert Hall. We went with a friend of mine in my grad school program, Emilee and her date Mike. The Forgotten Carols is one of my very most favorite Christmas cd's so I was really stoked about going. It was a lot of fun! The live show doesn't sound as good to me as the cd, but it's still fun to go and see the show live.

Halloween

2011-10-31T14:31:00.000-06:00

We got to do a few fun things for Halloween this year. More than usual since Halloween is definitely not my favorite holiday. At all.

We got to go to Thriller at the Kent Concert Hall with Shane and Rachelle, and we set Brett up on a date with Kakoli. We ate at Frederico's beforehand but since we got there late we didn't exactly have enough time to eat a whole lot before heading to the show.

Brett and Kakoli

I'd been to Thriller once before for a class that I had to take my freshman year of college but I couldn't really remember it very well. It was a lot of fun and I think everyone else had a good time too. Jared's favorite part was the werewolves. My favorite part was having Rachelle about jump out of her skin when a zombie came to say hello. I wish I could have recorded that.

Shane and Rachelle

Shane and Zombie

Jared and Me

Werewolves

Another night we decided to have a Halloween movie night at our apartment with Shane and Rachelle of course, and Dan, Mandy, and Kara. We ate taco soup and watched The Silence of the Lambs (which I love!) and The Shining (which I hated!). Neither of them are scary but definitely creepy. Anthony Hopkins is awesome! And Jack Nicholson is just a creeper in real life so it wasn't a big stretch for the Shining. Maybe one of these Halloweens we can watch a movie that's actually scary. :)

Silence of the Lambs

Heeeere's Johnny!

Date Night!

2011-07-31T12:27:00.002-06:00

I love going on our date nights. It's usually dinner and a movie, but seeing as how I love movies and I really love dinner, I'm ok with that! Plus, I'm always guaranteed a really good looking date.

This weekend we decided to catch dinner at my favorite Chinese restaurant in Brigham called Hunan Village. My parents took us there to eat all the time when we were growing up and one day during my second year of college they were gone. I was soo sad! Luckily, apparently they were just moving and upgrading so they've opened back up and we love it! I almost always get their broccoli chicken and Jared's favorite is the lemon chicken. But the thing I love the most is their egg drop soup. I always try it at every Chinese restaurant I ever go to but no other place is as delicious as it is here. Sooo yummy!! We also always get us a side of their cheese puffs that you dip into sweet and sour sauce . . . I'm ready to go back again.

We got to Ogden and went to see Captain America! Love love loved it! It is definitely up in my top favorite hero movies. For one thing, everyone miraculously kept their clothes on (minus like one scene with Captain America showing off his new body of course), but all clothes on and still a GREAT movie. -Imagine that.- Also, it really was just a good movie. At the very end after everything is over, they had a little blip for The Avengers. I'm VERY excited for that one to come out!

Weekend Sleepover Party

2011-07-29T15:51:00.003-06:00

In celebration of my youngest siblings' birthday we are having them sleep over tonight and taking them out for a night on the town. I can't believe that Erik and Heidi are 15!! Just one more year and they'll be dating and driving and . . . I swear I was doing all of those things yesterday.

We let them pick where they wanted to eat and we ate at a place called Burgerz Exprezz in Smithfield. It's family run and they used to be the burger place that was in the mall for a while. It's Jared's favorite burger joint. Afterwards, we took them to Thor at the theater in Lewiston. Neither of them had seen it yet and I loved it so I of course wanted to see it again. (It's another one of those that we'll add to our collection one day.) We didn't tell them what we were going to see and they were guessing up until the movie started. Good thing they loved it too.

I love having those two over even though I have no idea why they like coming here. We are actually mostly boring. Hence, very little blogging really ever done. Oh well. It's great being able to spend some time with the baby brother and sister.

~Craft Night~

2011-07-29T15:21:00.007-06:00

So my beautiful friend Rachelle invited me to a craft night a couple months ago put together by this amazing lady in the valley. Her name is Mandy Schiess and she has a blog called On The Avenue. (www.ontheavenuelogan.blogspot.com) The craft night was so much fun and our projects turned out so stinking cute!! Since then, Rachelle and I have been to two more. The last one being last night. So far I've made 7 adorable projects (if I do say so myself) and I LOVE them! And of course I'm going to keep going!

There are a bunch of things that I love about these craft nights.

1. Everything is put together for you. Mandy and her husband have everything cut up and put into kits. They have the paint, mod podge, sanders, everything there so you just buy what you want to do and put it all together there. I love love this because a lot of the time I'll start something at home then I will never get around to finishing it. This way I'm just there for a few hours and I get to take home all made projects for my home.

2. Mandy is so great! She has such an awesome personality and is there to help you out with anything and everything. She and her husband also run all big nail and staple guns and sanders so that you can get bigger, cuter, put together projects that I wouldn't be able to do at home.

3. A lot of people go and do the projects so you can get ideas from the different ways people are doing their own things. This has helped me out a lot because sometimes I have a hard time getting my own creative juices to flow.

4. The prices for the projects are super reasonable. Like I said I just love being able to have a finished project to take home!

5. They do a drawing every time! The first night I won a free haircut from Valhalla. Last night they told us they're going to start doing bigger things as well like furniture (that they make and have all made of course) and other decorations. Last night they had an awesome decorative chair and welcome post for outside. I am so jealous of the people that won those. :) Maybe next time.

If you wanna come to the craft nights, I've been inviting everyone I know that I think would be interested in it. Her blog for the craft nights iswww.supersaturdayswithontheavenue.blogspot.com. The next craft night is at the end of August and she's got a whole bunch of Halloween crafts to do. I am very excited for a couple of them. Also, if you go on to good ole Facebook you can find her page there.

From our first craft night. My super cute Watermelon Welcome sign. It's what I tell people when they're trying to find my house. "It's the one with the big watermelon on it!"

My Lazy Days of Summer Blocks (also from the first night). I almost didn't do these because the picture she had they had a white background. But then when we got there she had brown paint, which of course immediately made everything better. For me anyways.

God Bless America! These are from the second craft night we went to. At first I had painted all my blocks blue and Rachelle had painted all of hers red. Then we saw that a couple other people had painted their blocks every other color. Ugh it's one of those times where we should have watched other people first. :) So Rachelle and I just switched every one of our blocks so that we could have it that way too.

I seriously LOVE these!! They're humongous so it took some rearranging to get them all to fit on my shelf. But I love them.

And finally, from last night. We made a bunch of fall stuff. I had zero fall stuff so I was pretty excited.

A cute birdhouse that I almost didn't make but decided to anyway.

My favorite from last night was this beadboard with sunflowers! I love love love it! I am proud of myself for taking a "risk" and distressing the inside with white instead of leaving it just brown, but I'm really glad I did. I love how it turned out.

Here is a picture of mine and Rachelle's boards. She did her's red with a brown distress over white. I like how they both turned out. :)

~ Bear Lake Weekend ~

2011-07-26T14:11:00.001-06:00

Shane and Rachelle and me and Jared wanted to do this last summer and ended up not doing it. So this year we managed to get it together and go! Shane has some family that owns a cabin at Bear Lake and they managed to reserve it for us to use over the 24th of July weekend. It was so much fun! The cabin itself was really nice and is on a part of the beach that's private. That made it even better since it was a holiday weekend and for some reason a million people go to Bear Lake on the holidays. We hardly had to deal with other people at all.

Once we finally found where it was (it took us forever!) we went and spent a little bit of time on the beach since it was a little later in the day when we got there. Shane's sister and cousin were there with us too and we went back to the cabin/house! and made some burgers for dinner. Afterwards we went outside and watched the fireworks going off all around the lake and talked about the show 1,000 Ways to Die. Which sounds really horrible, but for the most part it really should be called 1,000 Ways Some Really Stupid People Have Died. When we went back in we watched Red Riding Hood which Shane and Rachelle had got from Netflix . . . not gonna lie. It was a horrible, horrible movie. But at least it's something we can laugh about. What a dumb movie though. Seriously. I'm sorry if there's anyone who um liked it. :)

The cabin itself was really nice. On the third story of the house they had a game room where we got to play some ping pong and air hockey. I think Jared was being nice to me when we played ping pong, but still! I won 1 out of 3 games. And that is something I am definitely proud of. Ha ha!

Sunday, Jared and I made french toast and scrambled eggs for breakfast after watching GI Joe in the morning. Afterwards, we made it back out on to the lake. The water was so cold! It took a lot of coercing on Jared's part to get me all the way into the water. Although, I wasn't as bad as Rachelle. :) They had found a couple of tubes in the garage where we were staying and it was hilarious watching Shane and Jared trying to stand on top of them.

I am seriously the biggest dummy. For lunch we were supposed to bring our own sandwich supplies and I forgot our Miracle Whip. Now, I refuse with all my heart and soul to put Mayo in my mouth. Gross. Gross. Gross. So I was a little upset about that. So I had resigned myself to a plain sandwich when I opened the turkey I bought and realized . . . it's the wrong kind. It was the gross kind. Ha ha! So feeling a little bitter, I grilled myself some cheese sandwiches and pouted while we watched Couples Retreat. Not as funny a movie as I thought it was going to be. In fact, it was really pretty slow. Oh well!

Later we grabbed some milkshakes and fries (what would a trip to Bear Lake be without getting a shake!?) Spent a little more time together and made it home. Despite my sandwich failure, it was an awesome weekend!

Playing games and waiting for dinner.

Getting the canopy set up.

The place next door to the milkshakes was an antique store. Of course we had to stop and get a picture.

Standing on the balcony looking out on the beach in the morning.

3 Years Down (Eternity to Go)!

2011-06-23T23:14:00.001-06:00

We just celebrated our third anniversary! I cannot believe how fast time goes by! It's crazy! We decided to keep it fairly simple this year and went and spent the day at Lagoon. While we were there we had a bit of a surprise when we saw my youngest sister Heidi there with one of her friends and their family. She is so sweet. She came running up to us while we were sitting in a ride to wish us a happy anniversary. I love that girl!

By far one of the best rides ever at Lagoon! Love Wicked!

Afterwards, we went to the theater in Ogden to watch Super 8. We love going to the theater in Ogden (and Salt Lake) for the pure and simple, beautiful reason that you get reserved seats and we don't have to wait in any lines! We really liked Super 8 and that's one that will probably end up on our movie shelf. By the way. Has anyone tried the D-Box seats at the theater there in Ogden? What it is, is the seats themselves move with the movie. Kind of like a Disney World type thing. We just did the sample they have sitting there where you by your tickets and I think it would be so fun to try out for a whole movie! So when we do I'll let y'all know if it's worth it.

It was a great day! But I love any day that I get to spend with Jared. Yup. I think I'll keep him.

Grad School Here I Come!

2011-03-30T16:12:00.001-06:00

So after a very long, very stressful year of studying for the GRE, writing a letter of intent (painful to say the least), taking the GRE (Ugh. That is all.) . . . I am in! I'll be starting grad school this fall!

This is what I felt like when I found out that I got in!

I've decided to go into School Psychology EdS. and (hopefully) School Counseling as well. I'm actually really excited and scared at the same time. Just the idea of finally getting closer to being done with school . . . and into real life, real job, etc. It seems a little overwhelming if I think about it too much.

My program will be 3 years long with 2 years of classes and my third year will be a full paid internship. I've heard rumor that after I get my EdS, if I go to the U it's just one more year and I can get my PhD . . . Now if that's true it's definitely something I will look into. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Until then . . . YAY!! I'M IN!!

~ Our Weekend Getaway! ~

2011-03-27T11:40:00.001-06:00

Jared and I decided we needed some time away from everything for a weekend. Just take some to reconnect a little bit away from family, friends, work . . . and just spend time together. So we booked a room at La Quinta in Salt Lake and headed down. For dinner we stopped at Outback Steakhouse in Layton which we'd only been to once before. It is soo yummy! Jared is in love with their baked potatoes. They are probably so horrible for you but they are delicious!

The next day we decided to head over to Hogle Zoo. Which I've never been to any other time than summer so going in March was a little chilly. I guess they're building an entire new section at one end of the zoo. So they didn't have the polar bears or penguins since they're going to be moving them into the new section. We're gonna have to go back when they get it done! We ended up spending three hours there anyway and had a lot of fun.

Finally, we ended our day by going and spending a little bit of time at the Clark Planetarium. We were too late to make any of the good films they have there so we just walked around looking at all their displays and pictures. We also spent almost an hour trying to defeat Level 4 on the games they have by the planet display. We were bound and determined! In the end, we were finally successful. Our reward . . . a picture of space. :) So worth it!

By far one of our favorite parts about the zoo were the all the tigers. They are so huge and so beautiful! We loved them.

We were lucky enough to be able to watch these two in a big race! The little one, who we were cheering for, won!

My other most favorite part was the elephants. They were so cute! We watched them for almost a half hour because the zoo had the radio blasting and all three elephants were dancing in time to the music. It was so awesome!

Meet Mr. Grumpy Pants. He did not move or blink I swear for like 15 minutes. Even with all the little kids smashed up against his window, nothing fazed him.

I think Jared might be a little bigger than the natives who made these little dwellings were. I'm just glad he didn't get stuck.

This is Jared's "determined" face.

And of course . . . our amazing reward. :)

~ZuMbA~

2011-01-27T22:31:00.002-07:00

So I decided to try zumba tonight with a couple of the girls from my work and I invited my sister in law to come with us too. So much fun!! I'm not really into dancing but I seriously need to start working out so figured why not? I would definitely recommend it to everybody. You don't have to be good which was definitely a plus for me. Funnily enough, the Latin type dances came a lot more easily to me than the stupid line dance one. I could not figure that one out! I ended up just spinning in circles and jumping around now and again. Other than that . . . Loved it!!

P.S. - Is anyone else as super excited about the super cute new fonts you can use on here as I am?! About time!

It's My Party . . .

2011-01-23T00:18:00.004-07:00

Had a great birthday!! Even though I still had to work that day, it wasn't too bad. My awesome sister in law brought in the nieces as well as some delicious chocolate covered strawberries for me. I also have some pretty awesome co-workers so it wasn't too bad. Earlier in the week we went to Firehouse to get some dinner.

And my boss bought a cake. I also took the kids donuts to get them to be extra extra nice for the day. Ha!

Jared took me to Ogden and we went to dinner at Rooster's. The food there was so good! Jared got the salmon and I ordered the rack of lamb. I was worried about ordering something new but it was very yummy. After dinner we went to the theater and watched The Green Hornet. I didn't have super high hopes for it going in, but it was hilarious! I laughed so hard I cried a little bit.

Jared bought me a new camera (since I was kind of stupid and broke my last one) and I love it! It's tiny and still has 14 mp. It also has a lot of fun features that I've been playing with. I can get it to highlight one color in the picture and it will turn everything else black and white. It's awesome!

We'll get to celebrate Jared's birthday soon and I'm trying to think of super fun things to do . . . Can't wait!

Fall, Fall, Fall!

2010-11-08T22:40:00.001-07:00

Autumn is my most favorite time of the year! I love the colors, and the smells, and the weather and just everything about it. I have been loving the weather that we have had so far this fall. I've noticed that everyone has been posting what they're grateful for on FB everyday and I love seeing how many of us are truly blessed. I decided that I wanted to write my gratitudes here.

Nov. 1 - I am so incredibly grateful for Jared! I could never have asked for a better guy to have for forever. He is so kind and patient. He is so willing to watch all the crappy shows that I for some reason just love to watch. He always gets those dishes washed (eventually)! And I know that all he wants is to make me happy. - Sap done.
Nov. 2 - My parents are the greatest!
Nov. 3 - I have a job that (for the most part) I love, and helps us pay for the bills. Those kids crack me up pretty much every single day.
Nov. 4 - I have some pretty amazing and fantastic friends who have stuck by me through thick and thin! There are those that I know I can go to with anything and they'll be there for me.
Nov. 5 - The gospel!! Where in the world would I be without it!
Nov. 6 - A place to live. (Even with it's yucky couch. I'm grateful to have something to sit on besides the floor.)
Nov. 7 - Food to eat. And boy do I.
Nov. 8 - The opportunity to have an education and to (hopefully!)continue with my schooling.
Nov. 9 - I am so incredibly grateful to have in-laws that I absolutely love. There are no terrible, horrible, no good, very bad in-law stories from me! (And thank goodness!) They are always so supportive of us and completely and totally loving.
Nov. 10 - This is going to sound really weird but birth control. Holy cow. I look at it as a miracle drug! I look forward to the day when we will have kids, but that day is not today.
Nov. 11 - Just the time period I live in, in general. Look at all the technology that we have! I don't know about you, but I am feeling super pampered today what with my car, and my microwave, and my movies. . . Yup. Technology is the best!
Nov. 12 - Blankets!!! If you know me, you know that I love blankets! I don't know what it is exactly about them but I love just wrapping myself up in any one of my many blankets at any time of day and just feeling that happy warmness. And the funny thing . . . Jared is the exact same way! If you've never seen anyone get giddy about blankets, you are missing out.
Nov. 13 - Books, books, books. I can never get enough of them. I love to read and I am so grateful to have so many talented people out there who can just reel me in and keep me for hours. Books are my escape and there is nothing I would love more than to win a ten thousand dollars just to spend on books.
Nov. 14 - Jared wanted to include something he was grateful for. "I am grateful for my wife. I am grateful for Emilie. I love her." Awww!
Nov. 15 - Jared's too! "I am so grateful for both of our families."
Nov. 16 - I have got some really good visiting teachers. Sometimes I get really annoyed because I feel that they're just trying to get it done and that's it. But mine don't seem like that. I got a text from one of them asking how I was feeling because of my brother heading to the MTC. To me, that is sincerity at it's best. Love them.
Nov. 17 - I am so grateful to have a younger brother who is someone that I can completely look up to. We took him to the MTC today and I could not be prouder of him! He is going to do such a great job!
Nov. 18 - So grateful to have a husband who holds the priesthood and can give me blessing when I need them. Today was definitely that day and it helped me so much! I love my Jared!
Nov. 19 - All I can is . . . HALLELUJAH!! I am so grateful today that the GRE is done and done! I'm very grateful that we had the means to be able to pay for it and that my studying seems to have paid off.

I'm pretty sure 30 days won't be enough to contain all that I am grateful for, but another reason I love autumn is because this is when gratitude comes to the forefront of our minds. Thanksgiving is a time for thanks then we get Christmas where we focus our gratitude on Christ. I love it!

~~Reliving the Honeymoon!~~

2010-06-30T00:59:00.001-06:00

"Our memories of the ocean will linger on, long after our footprints in the sand are gone." - Anonymous

For the Madsen family reunion, my grandma rented some houses on the beach in Newport, Oregon and we all got to go and spend a week on the coast. Jared and I were extra excited because it's the same area we went to on our honeymoon and we got to back and see and do some of the things we didn't get to while we were there the first time. We also got to do a lot of things we did get to do but loved so much it was worth doing again! What made it special for us as well was not only was it the same area we went on our honeymoon, but we got to be there on our 2 year anniversary as well.

We headed out a little bit later than my family did since Jared still had to work that Saturday. Our first night we spent in Winnemucca, Nevada which really wasn't all that exciting except for getting to park next to a camaro at the hotel. The next day we made it to our first stop in Klamath, California. We got to go through the Trees of Mystery which are the trees that are in the Guinness Book of World Records for being huge awesome redwood trees. While there we got to ride the sky trail which is a little box you sit in and ride up over the trees. This was Jared's favorite part. He loves how humongous the trees are.

Riding in the Sky Trail

Jared standing next to the trunk of a tree that had fallen over. It's huge!!

As we headed north we stopped at a zoo that we played at on our honeymoon. We really like it a lot because the animals wander around and we get to play with some cool baby animals. This time we got to play with lion and tiger cubs. They were adorable!

5 week old lion cubs

3 week old tiger cubs

We made it to Newport and then spent a lot of our time going to the different lighthouses in the area, going to the beach, and getting shopping. One of my favorite activities though was when we went deep sea fishing. I've done it before but it was Jared's first time . . . that's when we found out Jared gets seasick apparently. Poor Jared spent a lot of the time in the cabin keeping his head down. In the meantime I caught 5 big sea bass! The crew we were with is going to be on an episode of Big World Little People. They were hilarious. I also got to be the hooker while on board. (I got to hook the crab pots and hand the rope off to the strong men to pull them up.)

Our beach house. The inside was gorgeous as well. It's what I want to do with my house one day.

On the Misty, getting ready to set sail.

Heceta Head Lighthouse

It was such a fun trip and we loved getting the chance to spend a week away from the real world together. I'm ready for the next trip!

Graduated!

2010-05-07T18:54:00.000-06:00

Well, on Saturday I graduated from Utah State with my degree in Psychology! Unfortunately, I woke up incredibly sick that morning and was worried that I wouldn't be able to make it to the ceremony, but I decided to tough it out and just go. How often does one get a bachelor's degree? So my plans for life now are to just work and start applying for graduate school this year. I want to get into the school psychology program and then we'll see where I go from there. Now we're going to work on getting Jared graduated asap!Savannah giving me a big hug after the ceremony!

I'm graduated!

~Mod Podge Blocks~

2010-01-05T21:00:00.006-07:00

Here are the instructions and steps I followed to make the mod podge blocks that I did for my familia and friends. I put up a couple of pictures so that you can kind of see what I did, but it's all really easy. You can make things up as you go, use different materials, types of paper and pictures, etc.

1. Get the blocks that you are going to use. I worked with two different sizes and they both worked really well. I did like the 3 x 3.5 inch blocks a little bit better than the perfect cubes. It made it easier to have more space for the pictures on the size. This is just a preference though. The ones I used were sanded and had the edges rounded off.

2. I painted all the edges of the blocks the color that I wanted the base to be. Let dry.

3. Not all of the blocks I used were exactly the same size so I made sure that I measured each block then the pictures and papers that I was going to use to those measurements. I just used different scrapbook papers. I found that the thicker kind worked a little bit better and were less prone to wrinkling, but the other kind works as well.

4. Put a layer of mod podge on the block and lay the paper/picture on it. I rubbed them down thoroughly to make sure that there weren't going to be any bubbles underneath. Make sure that you don't go super crazy with the mod podge because you don't want the pictures or papers to wrinkle.

Here you can see the painted edges, an example of a paper, and picture.

5. Once you've done this for all of the sides, make sure that everything has had a chance to dry. Put a final layer of mod podge on the top of the pictures and paper. I used the matte pod podge for the bottom layers and the paper, but used the glossy mod podge for the top of the pictures. It doesn't really matter what you use, I'm just very particular about what my stuff looks like. Both matte and glossy look good for everything.

6. For the letters I just bought some of the foamy 3-D letters to put on, but I imagine you more crafty people can think of more creative ways of doing letters or whatever you're doing with them.

This is one of the blocks for my sister in law and her family. I cut out the stars from the same paper that I used on top.

7. You can add whatever you like to them. Some people's I used stickers, some I cut out thick, glittery paper for stars and flowers, and others I used little, fake flowers.

This is the one I made for my family.

This was a really fun project for me. I'm not a particularly crafty person although I would like to be. It took a little more time than I anticipated, but then again I did end up doing about 52 blocks in a couple week period. But they're really easy and really cute. (If I do say so myself.)

~Tis the Season~

2010-01-03T12:02:00.003-07:00

On December 12 another one of my very best friends Mandy got married to Dan Gordon who is also one of my very good friends. I love weddings and theirs turned out beautifully. The weather was so dreadful that day but the bride was beautiful and the reception was beautiful and it was all just a ton of fun.

This year we spent Christmas Eve with Jared's parents in Richmond where everyone got a chance to speak to his brother Brett who's in Fiji on his mission. He'll actually be coming home on January 7th and everyone is very excited to have him home. I'm excited to have the chance to get to know him, since I only got to meet him twice before he left on his mission. We each got to open one present from Jared's parents, we watched most of 'Up' (which is such a good movie), then went home where we stayed up until 6:30 Christmas morning while I finished everyone's homemade Christmas presents I made this year.

Jared being the donkey for Mary and . . . the other Mary.

I had been working on these mod podge blocks for weeks, but somehow got behind while in school and going to work still. Rachelle's husband Shane helped me out by cutting and sanding around 30 of the blocks that I used. What I did was get enough blocks that I could have one for each letter of each family's last name. In the end I had 52 blocks total that I made. I don't think I really realized how big a project I was undertaking but it was totally worth it. I will post instructions that I used for them later.

Christmas time really is my most favorite time of the year. I just love having a break to be able to spend time with my family and most importantly with Jared. The presents are pretty fun too. I love that both of our families live here in the valley and it's so easy to get together with everybody. Santa was very good to us this year.

Christmas Morning!! (On a lengthy 3 hours of sleep.)

For New Year's we spent most of the day at my parent's house. My dad was out of town which sucked, but we did get to play with everyone else. We spent many hours watching sports and America's Funniest Videos. In fact, over the whole break I think I watched more athletic events then I have ever watched in my life. They're pretty fun though so I enjoy them. We went home about 1 am from my parent's house and stayed up until about 6 am watching Grey's Anatomy. How many husbands would spend hours upon hours watching such a silly yet entertaining show with their silly little wives? I guess it's only fair though. I watch hours upon hours watching sports too. Ha ha!

One of the days Jared and I got to go to Salt Lake to see all of the lights on Temple Square with two of our best friends Shane and Rachelle. This is one of my most favorite traditions even though I know it's something that pretty much everyone else in Utah does. I was really worried that we weren't going to make it this year, but luckily we got it to work and we had a blast. It was prety cold and pretty snowy, but so beautiful. We ate dinner at Applebee's and spent the whole way home talking their ears off. Jared and I can't seem to control ourselves sometimes. I am so grateful for such good friends though.

Jared and I posing like models by the temple.

Anyway. It's been such a great break. Thankfully I'll be graduating this Spring and I can have a tiny break of just working before I get into grad school (which hopefully really does happen). We actually have tons of plans for the year 2010 . . . but that's another blog for another day!

Happy New Year!

Worst Semester Ever, but . . .

2009-11-23T22:38:00.002-07:00

The semester is finally almost over and I am pretty sure that after that one . . . I can do anything. Jared has pretty much been the best husband ever in helping me out so much with everything for the past couple months. Not only by making dinner every night, doing dishes twice a week, and always taking out the garbage, but having so much patience with me! Waking up at 5 every morning to get to work is pretty much the worst thing ever for someone who is a through and through night owl is the worst!Going to work, then class, then work again until 6:15 makes for really really long days.

Good things that happened this semester: Being spoiled by Jared every day. One more semester down! One more and I'll graduate!! Yay! Hockey season! We have made it to every home game so far. And so far we haven't lost at home. Hockey is the best. Jim Gaffigan! Oh Jim. We love you (and bacon). Football season. Hmmm. Let's just say Jared loves that more than me. And more recently, New Moon. We went to see it on a double date and got to sit by some screaming old ladies rather than screaming 13 year olds. Funny and weird all at the same time. We decided it's not that great. About the same as the first Twilight movie. Eh.

Nothing really exciting but that's the last couple months in a nutshell.

Summer's End

2009-08-31T20:24:00.010-06:00

I always feel as though I never truly appreciate my summers. Because by the time we start doing some stuff and really getting into it, it's over and school's started all over again. We started out the summer with one of my very best friends in the world getting married in the Logan temple. They looked so incredibly happy and are doing so great!

In June, Jared and I celebrated our one year anniversary (yay!) by spending the weekend in Salt Lake. We stayed in a suite which was pretty nice. It was big and . . . we'll probably never go there again. It really wasn"t all that great. Ha ha! We spent a good majority of our time at the Clark Planetarium watching movies in 3-D in their I-MAX. It was awesome! I'd have to say my favorite was the ocean one. We also watched a couple of movies in the dome and I'll admit I dozed off once or twice. It rained cats and dogs the whole time we were there which was pretty disappointing. All that mattered though was that I was with Jared; my most favorite thing ever.

We also went to the aquarium in Sandy which I absolutely loved!! I love anything that has to do anything with the oceans, water in general, etc. I was like a little kid (shoving the real little kids out of the way, pushing pregnant women so I could get a better picture, and screaming when Jared forced me to touch the sample of an electric eel's shock.

We went to the Larsen family reunion and even though we only got to stay for two of the nights, we always have a lot of fun together. I made Jared go canoeing with me (which was my first time ever) and I loved it. It was just nice to get away from work and real life to be able to just relax and spend time with the family.

All in all it was a really good summer. On to school.

Summer is Official!

2009-05-02T10:49:00.003-06:00

I can't believe that classes and finals are done and it's finally summer break! April was so stressful with work and all of my classes requiring everything! 5 finals, a practice final (that still counts for points), 6 performances (which also means 6 papers), 3 final projects (and presentations on them), and a book report. All just in the last couple weeks of school. Really? Why? For the love of . . . Jared got a 4.o this semester which is great! I came close darn it. Now I can just relax and just work all summer. I'm ok with that.

Jared and I are moving out of our apartment at the end of the month. I'm a little sad, but only because I won't have my own washer and dryer anymore. I love doing laundry. But I prefer doing it in my own place. It's a nice little place and it'll be nice to have a change of scenery (aka neighbors!). Nothing else has really been going on yet. We're just so happy to be done with school for a while!! Hopefully I'll appreciate summer and not sleep the whole time.

Spring Break and Such

2009-03-27T10:20:00.005-06:00

I cannot wait for school to finally be out and for real spring and summer to be here! Work and school together can be a little overwhelming sometimes. Let's see what's happened so far this year to catch up. We got to celebrate a million birthdays here in the first couple months. For mine and Jared's birthday we ate dinner at the always delicious Olive Garden. We haven't done presents really for each other yet . . . we're working on it. Jared wants an XBox 360. I want a million dollars. But you know, you're grateful for what you get. Ha ha!

We just bought a new TV and entertainment center. They are some great additions to our living room . . . which is now really where we live. In the living room. We've been wanting to do this for a while though so we love it!

Spring break was awesome! I worked a 12 hour shift and got 35 hours in 3 days so that we could go to Vegas. We went to Jared's cousin's wedding in the Las Vegas temple and it was so much fun! Not only to get away from the miserable Cache Valley weather but also to be able to spend so much time with family. That's got to be one of the very best things ever.

The Las Vegas temple is so beautiful! And the area was gorgeous. I love weddings.

I cry the day that I take the tree down

2009-01-10T15:10:00.006-07:00

The end of one year and the start of another. I always love the Christmas season and I'm always sad when it's over. It was so much fun being able to have all the the time off from work and school to be able to spend that time with each other, our family, and everyone important to us. I was very excited to put our first tree up, even though we had nothing but lights to decorate it with. The tree has always been an important thing for me. I miss the days of real trees. I always associate the smell of pine trees with Christmastime. I made a paper chain to put on our tree and a few awesome people gave us some decorations as gifts. We kept everything very simple. On Christmas Eve day we went to my parents house and ate posole and tamales, and watched some Christmas movies with everyone. That night we came home and read the Nativity story together and talked about Christ. It was a very special way to spend our first Christmas Eve together.

Christmas morning we went to my parent's house again and had a very simple gift exchange. It's always fun for me to see my younger siblings get excited about everything, as well as my 2 year old cousin Sophia. That afternoon we went to Jared's parents and got to talk on the phone with his brother Brett who's on his mission in Fiji. We got to play with our super cute nieces Savannah and Olivia. (I swear one day Olivia will be old enough to like us. Ha ha!) That night was the craziest snowstorm I've ever seen. It took us about an hour and a half to get back home from Richmond (normally only a 20 minute drive). We had my little brother and sister stay the night with us that night.

For New Years eve we wrote down ten favorite memories/blessings we'd received in the past year. It was really nice to be able to spend the night with each other talking about what we'd done with each other the past year and remembering everything we have to be grateful for. I'm very excited for this new year. Jared and I are back in school and we have two classes together which I'm pretty excited for! Living with Wildlife and Creative Arts. (They're required to graduate.) It's now a competition to see who can get the best grade. ;-D It's gonna be a great year!

Weekend in Salt Lake!

2008-12-15T21:49:00.003-07:00

We got to use Jared's Christmas present this weekend! We went to the Jazz game vs. the Orlando Magic. The only reason I bought tickets to that game was because Jared's favorite player in the NBA is Dwight Howard. He's one of the best players in the NBA! Since 2004 when he was drafted into the NBA he has never missed a game. He played over 300 consecutive games. Never missed a game ok?! Until that night!!!! Seriously. Seriously? The first game that he misses and it had to be that one!? I'm still feeling a little bitter about it. On top of it we lost. We totally died in the second half. But I wouldn't have cared so much if Dwight Howard had actually played.

When we got to Salt Lake we went to the Olive Garden to eat (which was part of my Christmas present) to kind of celebrate when I first met Jared's family last year and the night he decided that he wanted to marry me. It was such a great night. We then walked around Temple Square, another one of my very favorite things to do. The temple is so amazingly beautiful. And since that's where we were married it means that much more to me.

It was so much fun and we were able to spend a lot of time reminiscing, talking about the future, and just enjoying being with each other! It feels so good to be done with finals, have a break from school, and just be able to spend my time with Jared. We have a lot of fun together!

Getting Married = Being Sick All of the Time!!

2008-12-06T16:49:00.003-07:00

Yes my friends, we are sick . . . again. November was horrible for it because that's when it all really started to get bad. Jared developed pneumonia the first week and I had a bacterial infection. We were told that pneumonia takes about a month to get over. Well, a month later it's December and the pneumonia is gone, but Jared has a cough that shakes the entire apartment. I also have a cough, but it's not nearly that bad.

After talking about it with a couple of girls at work, we decided that once you get married your entire body decides that it's going to fall completely apart. Jared used to go years in between getting sick and it's really frustrating that it just won't go away now. It's put a little extra stress into our already busy and stressful lives. And insurance companies. I've pretty much decided they're run by the devil himself. Where they pretend for a while like they're good and helpful and what not, but when it really comes down to it they'll just leave you to rot. They don't really care. Except to make themselves some bucks.

On the upside, the semester is just about done!! Hallelujah! One more week of testing all week long and then a great break that I'm definitely looking forward to. I always like starting out a new semester, and really going through the rest of the semester isn't too bad until you hit about the last 2 or 3 weeks. Then it just sucks. So one more week of sucking!

Finally, I gave Jared his Christmas present 2 nights ago. I got him 2 tickets to the Jazz vs. Orlando Magic basketball game. I bought them clear back in September and I was worried about it since then because they're not cheap for one. And two, if I had waited like a day or so I could have had better seats. That's frustrating. He was excited about them anyway and we're excited to go!! The game is next Saturday and he's going to give me my Christmas present then too. I love December!

Thanksgiving is so great!

2008-12-05T11:36:00.007-07:00

Thanksgiving Jared and I went to Las Vegas with his parents to spend the holiday with his extended family that lives there. I hadn't been to Vegas since I was teeny tiny so it was pretty sweet to go and see it again. There is so much stuff that goes on there! We were able to go up the Eiffel Tower and look over everything and there are just so many lights!

I was very grateful for the way my new family treated me while we were there. I tend to be shy when I'm in a new situation and everybody made me feel incredibly comfortable, welcome, and loved. I'm very lucky to have married into a good family! There are those people that talk about the "horrible" in -laws and relatives and I definitely do not have that problem at all! Thanksgiving dinner itself was crazy!! There were lots of family and tons more food. Of course that's one of our very favorite things is food. I love Thanksgiving because it's a day specifically dedicated to being grateful. Something that I think should happen more often, but it helps you to remember to reflect on all of the blessings that God has given us. There is so much to be thankful for. And I for one am incredibly grateful for my family. All of them. And most especially for Jared!! I never would have thought I could ever be this lucky and so happy!

We love you all!

Fine . . . So I Gave In

2008-11-22T22:55:00.002-07:00

Yes my friends, the anti-blogger decided to get a blog. Jared thought it was pretty funny when I told him that "we" have a blog. I figured that Facebook would be enough, but after seeing a few of my friends blogs I decided that I wanted one too. So here it is. I'm still learning so it might be a while before it looks like I know what I'm doing. I'm pretty excited to get it really going!