October (& part of November) 2013

In October, we had a chance to attend the open house to wish some relatives of the Bradshaws well on their mission:

Thomas' dad visited for a few days for the BYU Sperry Symposium. The boys went out to dinner while I was busy at a PREP training.

Thomas got to attend the symposium.

That weekend we decided to try out a nearby Thai restaurant. If I look like I'm sleeping in this picture, it is because we'd waited for our food for 3 hours. It wasn't quite the "quick, easy" dinner I had hoped for! But it's an interesting memory, and we were able to laugh about it even then.

For Halloween, we did the usual carving pumpkin thing a few days in advance. On Halloween, after food from Thomas' work party, we went to our ward Trunk-or-Treat and had fun admiring others' creative expression via their costumes & decorated trunks! It was a really pleasant way to spend Halloween.

Jack-o-lanterns! Any guesses as to who we carved?

Here's our trunk. Thomas' characters (right) are pretty recognizable. Mine's (left) a little tricky unless you know the movie. A couple of people guessed correctly immediately.

Give up? Mine's Edward Scissorhands (left). Thomas carved Calvin & Hobbes (right). We used templates (1 & 2) we found online. Oh, and do you like our ghosts? They are empty milk jugs we Sharpie-d faces on. They have candles inside. You can't see them very well, but we also made egg-carton bats that are hanging from our open trunk.

In November, we attended the Interpreter Symposium on Science and Mormonism at the Utah Valley Convention Center (Thomas' dad is on the Board, so was involved with getting it together and spoke at the symposium). It was a good opportunity to ponder ideas, theories, and personal beliefs.

...Stay tuned for a post about how we celebrated Thanksgiving!

oxox

February 2013

At the beginning of February my family came out for a few days to drop Morgan off at the MTC. It was a little hectic because Morgan had a lot she wanted to accomplish but there was not much time! I think the essential stuff got done.

Dad, Sister Paulson, Mom, me. Thomas had to work. This is across the street from the MTC.

Our little missionary - she left the MTC last week for Louisiana.

Here are some other things we have been up to:

We got a great deal on strawberries, which made for some perfect pink smoothies.

Valentine's Day:

For Valentine's Day, Thomas got me some beautiful Peruvian lilies. I made truffles and a candy box for him. On top of that is a rose I crocheted. I also made some crocheted heart garlands but we didn't get any pictures...

On Valentine's Day, a couple in our ward invited us to a dinner activity for the Special Needs Activity Program (their church calling). This is Sister Johns and her son Micah. We had a great time and loved learning about the "SNAP"!

This was our 5th Valentine's Day together-- crazy, huh?

Other stuff:

I started reading The Infinite Atonement, a gift from a friend in our ward.

We took a walk the other day when the weather was nice last Tuesday and snapped a picture of the Provo City Center Temple construction progress.

We also stepped inside the new Provo Convention Center. We might have explored a little but there was nobody around.

We checked out the Covey Center for the Arts gallery for the first time in ... probably a couple years, sadly.

Last Wednesday a special and much-anticipated package arrived:

A graduation gift from Thomas' parents!

Now I need to decide on a good break-in project :oD

Thomas' dad came for a couple days last week. He was in town for a presentation.

After the temple, we had pizza and root beer floats together (with Samuel, too).

This weekend, we made it up to BYU campus:

We went to an indexathon hosted by the Vineyard (BYU chapter) that Samuel invited us to.

On our way home we briefly checked out the new venue in the Wilk, The Wall. It's a project Thomas' uncle worked on.

Other than that... well... we've been working and doing the usual stuff. I'm back to full-time hours. Work for both of us has changed buildings so it's been hard to establish a normal routine this year. We've been trying to eat healthier and exercise - I do my Leslie Sansone walking DVDs and Thomas has been playing basketball on Saturdays.

We still teach the 14-15-year-old Sunday School class. We've been implementing the new curriculum, Come, Follow Me. Today, we had a lesson on Doctrine and Covenants section 76, "the vision" of the post-judgement degrees of glory. The best part for me was when one of the students read verses 103 and 89-91 and testified that God is merciful and loves His children because even those who do wicked things ("liars, and sorcerers, and adulterers, and whoremongers") may receive a glory "which surpasses all understanding". Very very awesome.

oxox

January 2013

We've had a very wet, very cold January. The snow has just stuck around, and every week or so we get some more. We've had some insane icicles around Provo, including on our complex. Unfortunately the gutter above our top step leaks, so we end up with a very slick patch of ice at the top of our steps.

It's hard to tell, but we were guessing the longest ones were 5-6 feet long.

I'm enjoying being out of school, especially since I do not have to walk to campus in this cold.

Here's a picture with me holding my diploma cover. My diploma arrived about a week later but we didn't take a picture :o)

In mid-January I went to visit my family for the weekend to be there for my sister to receive her endowment at the Sacramento temple and for her farewell talks. Unfortunately, Thomas couldn't come this trip. Doubly unfortunately, I was sick the entire time. Other than that it was a good weekend with lots of time with family.

Morgan at Sacramento Temple

Aunt Cookie, Mom, Dad, Morgan, Me, Aunt Ruth

Uncle Bob.... with same group as above. He and Aunt Cookie switched as photographers :o)

All the relatives that came to dinner after. Uncle Bob, Aunt Cookie, Aunt Ruth, Morgan, Dad, Mom, me, Aunt Lucy, Cousin Gail.

Morgan came back to Utah with me and stayed with us for a week. She and I went shopping at all the local places to get her outfitted for her mission! While she was here, we worked on an embroidery project our Aunt Patsy sent us a few months ago :o)

Embroidering!

Morgan sang a song for us while she was here :o)

This weekend it actually got a little warmer (like above freezing) so we went on a walk up to campus to deposit some checks/get some exercise.

Yoda and R2D2 made out of sticky notes....

oxox

Ch-ch-changes

Ok, so there haven't been very many changes, but you will have to wait till the end of this post for the ones I refer to in the title.

We got pretty good use out of the Halloween costumes I sewed for us this year. Although they are (still) not entirely finished, we got them done enough to wear to 3 Halloween parties:

(Thomas' costume is definitely more noteworthy than mine, despite the contradictory head wrap.)

(1) a get-together with some of my former roommates:

Tyson and Dara. (frog & mime) They made some excellent homemade root beer!

The engaged-to-be-married Cody and Beth (seen here as Gaston and Belle)

President Obama even graced us with his presence! (Sarah & John)

"Mr. Obama" was trying to heat up some food but came across the "Child" setting. We were concerned at first that this was a cooking setting (similar to "popcorn" or "potato") but we think it in fact meant that the microwave had been child-locked.

(2) our ward's Halloween party/trunk-or-treat. No photos, apparently, but we spent the evening working the donut-on-a-string booth with some other young marrieds.

(3) Thomas' work Halloween party:

We also wore them Halloween night, to show off to our 2 trick-or-treaters (although they came when I was finishing up the laundry at the laundromat... so only Thomas saw them). We were surprised at the huge decline in numbers from last year (when we had like... 8).

Overall we're happy with how our costumes turned out, and we're excited to keep them forever to use for nativities/Halloween/etc.

Among our other activities, we helped celebrate our friend David's birthday:

Thanks again for having a birthday, David! We enjoyed the cake & ice cream & seeing you guys.

We babysat my visiting teaching companion's cutie pie kids last weekend for a few hours. They are so precious. I wish I could show a picture but apparently we didn't take any... oh well.

Last Tuesday, I enjoyed the great privilege of attending a BYU devotional where President Thomas S. Monson addressed the university.

you can kind of tell that he's walking onto the stage here... he's the first one at the top of the ramp.

Our real "big news," though, is that since the New Testament filming finished last month, and Thomas wore his costume with his beard for Halloween, he decided it was time to ditch the extra hair and facial hair...

Before...

During...

...during... (I told him he could pull off a goatee...)

...during...

...during...(he had a straight razor shave, too!)

...After! I hardly recognize the fellow...

I decided I needed a change too (though mine's not as drastic):

added some color (darker brown/reddish) and got new (better) layers.

...oh, and I changed my major. I officially have 3 more semesters until I finish.

oxox