This Crazy Semester

Hi everyone!

So I know its been forever since we last blogged so I thought I'd post one now that I have a tad bit of spare time :)

This semester has been insane! This came as quite a shock to us as last year we were going to school full time, working part time, working in the temple, and I was volunteering at the Utah State Hospital. Now, its just school, work, and Adam's ORCA project, yet we don't seem to have enough hours in a day (or especially days in the weekend). I know the Lord definitely helped us out last year because of our work in the temple. Adam is taking 12 credits this last semester of his with two Digital Humanities courses to finish up his minor, a class on the history of WWII, and a 300-level Spanish class (which he hates). He will be graduating at the end of this semester in December, after which he will find work and apply to grad school. He will also be ending his work as being a TA which is hard especially because he has to do all of his normal grading in addition to helping hire and train his replacement. In addition to all of this, he is finishing up his ORCA project. His thesis for this project has evolved into being about Molly Brown (from the Debbie Reynolds movie) and how media and memory affect preservation of history. He has worked insanely hard on this especially in the past month. He finished his first draft which he will edit and then submit for publication. He also got specially invited to present his project at a symposium put on by his college. He did amazing at his presentation and had quite a few people come and watch it just for him :) Afterwards, the organizers, student presenters, and key note speakers went out to dinner at the Bombay House. They were nice enough to include me as well :)

Here is the poster with his name on it that was on quite a few bulletin boards :)

As for me, I have been kept very busy with work and school. My secretary job has changed quite a bit because we transitioned the testing service I help run to being administered online. In some ways this has made my life easier and in others, not so much. We still have to spend quite a bit of time ironing out kinks in the system but it will get better. I am taking 15 credits this semester with Life-Span Development, Behavioral Neurobiology, Social Psychology, Current Social Problems, and Child Psychopathology. This is the first time I've taken all major (or rather major + social work prerequisites). It has made it so that often a few of my classes are talking about the same things at the same time. I have enjoyed my classes this semester except for this last week when I had a midterm in every class all in the space of 8 days. But I got through thank goodness! Now there are no tests until finals week. After this semester, I decided that I will only go part time school because I only need two classes to graduate. I am considering taking an additional job at a residential treatment center to gain experience for a master's in social work program. I am looking forward to the idea of only taking two classes though!

Although life has consisted mainly of school and work, we have been able to do a few other things. Adam promised me a long time ago (either while we were dating or engaged) that he would take me to a dance. So, we decided to go to BYU's homecoming with a couple of our friends :) I love dancing and it was fun to have Adam join in as well.

Us at the dance :) the theme was Old New York and they had a live swing band

We also got a chance to celebrate Halloween a tiny bit by carving pumpkins :) We didn't do much else because this was at the time that Adam had to complete his first draft of his ORCA paper.

Our pumpkins that we carved :) Adam's=a football player, mine=happy vampire

We are enjoying our new ward and have finally received callings!! I say "finally" because we did not have callings in our old ward where we lived for a year and a half and therefore didn't get to know anybody. Adam is a home-teaching district supervisor and I am a Relief Society instructor. I haven't taught yet but Adam has gotten to know quite a few people through his calling. We are leaning towards having Adam do grad school at BYU so that we don't have to move and can stay in the same ward :) He is looking at a couple programs at BYU (Instructional Psychology & Technology, and Comparative Studies) as well as grad programs at WA State, University of OR, and University of UT. We will know our options next year :) We are excited for the upcoming holidays where we'll be going up to Idaho Falls for Thanksgiving and then staying home for Christmas for the first time. We're very nervous about all of the changes coming after this semester but we have faith that all will work out for the best :)

We love you all and will hopefully write a little sooner next time :)

<3 Ashley

End of my internship and our trip to Idaho Falls

Hey everyone! It's Ashley this time. Finally getting caught up on our summer blog posts! 

So I finished my internship a couple weeks ago which was bittersweet. For those of you who don't remember, I spent the spring and summer interning with the Division of Child and Family Services. I worked with foster teens in the Transition to Adult Living program. I met so many incredible social workers and some awesome teens. I also had some pretty crazy experiences which helped me learn a lot. I learned that I actually would enjoy working as a caseworker with DCFS if I can't get into grad school right after graduation. We'll see what happens with that :)

This is a picture on my last day with my wonderful supervisor Terri. She is an amazing lady and I learned so much from her :)

So two weekends ago, Adam and I traveled up to Idaho Falls with my sister Stephanie, her husband Matt, and her baby boy Anders. We went up there to visit my aunt Linsy and uncle Brad. They have three boys that are the same ages as me and my two sisters so we've always been pretty close. They all used to live in Maryland but Linsy and Brad moved to Idaho Falls a while back. Now that my sister and I live in Provo, it's only a four hour drive to their house. They had us come up at this particular time because all three of my cousins were going to be there! One of them I hadn't seen in about 7 years! Steph and I were super excited to see everyone :)

Steph and Matt in the back seat

Anders and I enjoying the boring drive to Idaho

The first night was pretty chill :) We had burgers and all the cousins (and their spouses) played games :) my aunt and uncle's house is in the hills east of Idaho Falls and gets amazing sunsets so we had to take a picture.

The next day we went down to a Farmer's market in town which had lots of fun food and cool things :) Adam and I got some yummy caramel corn and huckleberry lemonade. We also walked along the Snake River.

In front of the river and with the Idaho Falls temple in the background

After that, we all went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch and met up with my other aunt Amber and her three kids. It was so great to see them since the last time I did, she only had two kids. Her kids are adorable and the baby was so sweet. I took advantage of the time with them to hold little James as much as I could :) In the evening, we went mini-golfing at this place near Rigby which was a blast.

This is my oldest cousin Calvin with Adam. Calvin is hilarious and it was so great to hang out with him again :)

I got a hole in one once which I was excited about :) we finished the night with some yummy shaved ice. We went to church with them the next day and then that evening had a party for my cousin Devin's daughter Emmy who turned two.

Me with the birthday girl

We had lots of fun having all of Amber's kids, Anders, and Emmy together and they loved playing with Emmy's new bubble machine. Then on Monday it was time for us to head out. But we got some good pictures before we left.

my three cousins (Bryce, Calvin, Devin) and my aunt

my cousin Devin and his wife Suzie with their little girl Emmy

All the cousins :) (Stephanie, Bryce, Calvin, Devin, me)

Overall, an awesome trip! :) I miss them all and hope it won't be too long until I see them again.

Well, thats all for now!

<3 Ashley

Colorado Trip

This is Adam again!  We had quite the busy summer this year.  After my birthday, we had a short visit by my mother who brought a desk and a glider from my parent's house since they did not want them anymore and we could use them.  It was a fun, short visit and the furniture that she brought has become some of the most used furniture in the house. :-)

Later in July, Ashley and I went on a well-planned trip to Colorado.  Not only was this a chance to visit family and not only was it Ashley's first visit to Colorado outside of the winter months, it was also necessary for a research paper that I am doing.

Ashley was really enjoying the view of the mountains in the summer

She also enjoyed taking pictures of me driving. (This is my excited face) :-)

We were visiting for three full days but we reserved the last day, Saturday, for the family as my sister Ruth and all of her kids were going to be in town as well.  The first two days, Ashley and I would go into Denver to visit places and then go back for games and rest in the evening.

At this point, I should probably explain my research project.  I am doing a paper on Colorado Mining Age Domestic Architecture.  I have been interested in how a city like Denver, famous for the instant wealth of a mining boom, would reflect architectural practices of the more established wealthy of the east coast, in a period commonly referred to as the Gilded Age.  My goal was to visit a few houses to explore some of the architectural and interior design techniques used and compare them to the Gilded Age 'cottages' of the East Coast.

The first house I visited was the Castle Marne, a old home turned into a bed and breakfast.  The owners were most interested in helping me with the project and I spent over an hour talking to the owner, Jim, who gave me a ton of information and was just a wonderful host!  I was very impressed by their kindness, and I would give a glowing recommendation of them as hosts. :-)

Here are a few pictures I took (I took a TON for the project, but only a few I think would be interesting in general):

Ashley and I in front of the Castle Marne

Standing on the front porch

A picture of us from the front door as we stand on the grand staircase

A picture of the fireplace which is original. (In the reflection, you can see our host, Jim)

A portion of the Dining Room

The windows in the Dining Room

After visiting the Castle Marne, Ashley and I went off to lunch and then ended our day at the Molly Brown House.  There are no pictures allowed of the interior but I took a few on the outside.  Here is the best one of the house as a whole:

The next day, Ashley and I went to visit one more home: The Molly Brown Summer Home.  This house is a little less well-known after having been in the same family for 80 years.  For a while, it has been a normal residence, but now they are starting to set it up as a museum.  We had a small group and the tour guide/owner was very informative and kindly allowed us to take some pictures of the place.  I am well aware that permission was given for the purpose of the paper, so I will just show one exterior picture:

This house's interiors were not quite so lavish as the others but it was interesting as the Browns had a greater influence on its design.

That was the end of the research part of the trip but Ashley and I had some fun going to the Adventure Golf place that I used to go to a lot as a kid.  It was fun but we went right after a rather large rainstorm so there were puddles everywhere and the 'greens' were a little squishy.

On Saturday, we got to spend time with Ruth and her family. It was so much fun, as we played croquet in the backyard (a family tradition), spent some time shopping with my teenage niece, and then went to Lakeside Amusement Park as a family.  It was a lot of fun but it was cut short by a rainstorm (the theme of the trip).  I loved going back and introducing Ashley to the old amusement park.  Lakeside was founded almost 100 years ago and some of the rides are very old, but still in operation.  The Roller Coaster ride, for instance was built in the 1930s.  Ashley likes roller coasters, but she was scared of that one a bit just because it is so old, but no worries, it ran perfectly. :-)

Sunday, we packed up and headed back to Utah.  We certainly loved our trip and I loved letting Ashley experience some family traditions especially since we don't know when we will visit Colorado again.

Independence Day and Birthday

So Ashley and I have quite a few posts to catch up on and we will try to work through all the fun before school starts again in one week! Aaah!

The start of July is always a fun time for us since not only do we get to celebrate Independence Day but also my birthday!  As we noted in our last blog, we had moved the first day of July.  We had already planned on inviting family and friends over for a barbeque on July 4th so that was motivation enough to unpack everything quickly.  We made it and my birthday was a great success!

To start off the day, I woke up early while Ashley slept in so that I could continue my tradition of watching 1776.  Ashley doesn't like it too much so we didn't watch it at all last year.  However, while Ashley slept, I was joined by my friend Steven, who watched it with me for the first time while we played Axis and Allies.  Steven and I spent my birthday last year playing Axis and Allies as well and it is beginning to be somewhat of a tradition for us.

Later on, Steven and Kayla played some games with us for a while before we had our barbeque.  We had quite a few friends and family join us and afterward, we watched the Stadium of Fire fireworks.  It was a lot of fun and we closed the night doing sparklers with Steven and Kayla.  Unfortunately, we forgot to take any pictures on my birthday, but we did take pictures the next day when we did some more sparklers.

And here is a picture of the smore cake that Ashley made.  It was quite yummy!

Moving!

Hello all!  This past week has been crazy busy for us as we have had work, Ashley's internship, my birthday/Independence Day and.. oh yeah... moving!  Yes, as of July 1st Ashley and I have moved out of our first apartment as a married couple and into another apartment.  This apartment is a bit nicer, with 2 bedrooms, central air (which has been one of Ashley's favorite things), a better kitchen, dishwasher, washer/dryer hookups and happens to be just below a couple of our best friends!

This all happened quite suddenly though.  Ashley and I have casually looked at new apartments a couple of times in the past year, but always ended up deciding to stay.  However, we often asked ourselves that if we had a place like our friends, Steven and Kayla, would we take it?  We would usually say, maybe, but most likely yes.  So, the apartment below theirs opened up and we decided to take it.  After a lot of worry about selling our contract in our old apartment (which was a most needless gesture as we had nearly 20 couples come look at our place in 5 days and at least three couples applied for the apartment) we sold the contract and started packing up.

Here is what our apartment looked like as we showed it:

Luckily for us, our friends were away in Hawaii on vacation for the 10 days before the move and allowed us to put our stuff in their apartment until we could actually move in.  That was incredibly helpful as we packed away most of our little stuff before the day of the move.

The day of the move came and boy were we busy!  We had to pick up our friends from the Salt Lake Airport and then had to start the move.  We were fortunate to have a lot of help including a person from Ashley's work who brought his truck and my home teaching companion who offered his van.  With their vehicles and the help of my brother and three of our friends and a couple of brothers of Kayla's, we managed to complete the moving in 1 hour!  Then we had to do the cleaning as we had to be out of the apartment by 5 PM.  With the help of Steven and one of Kayla's brothers, we had the apartment cleaned and locked right at 5 PM.

Here was our last look at the place we had lived (at least one of us) for 20 months:

It was sad to leave the place but we were excited for our new place.  We still miss some of the cooler things about the old place like the step-up pantry but our new place is wonderful too!

We came back to our new place around 5:30 and had a huge pile of stuff in our living room!  We spent most of that night to start organizing things.  By Tuesday evening, our place looked like this:

Even though we had work on Tuesday, we worked hard that evening and had the kitchen done, the dining table and desk set up and some things in our second bedroom assembled, but we still had a large pile in the living room.

We had set a goal to finish organizing the house by Wednesday night as my birthday was on Thursday and we were going to host a few friends (more on that in another blog).  With the help of Steven and Kayla, who kindly helped us again that night, our place was finished!  Here is the finished product with a picture of the happy workers:

We are excited to live here and have enjoyed every day!  I hope you enjoy the pictures as well!