Giving Thanks

I love this time of year because it is a chance for me to reflect on all of my many blessings. Thanksgiving is the perfect holiday to kick off the Christmas season which is a time of giving and being grateful. I feel so blessed this Thanksgiving for all of the amazing people in my life and everything they do for me.

I am so thankful for my amazing husband and best friend! He is my everything and my hero. His greatest joy comes from making me happy and I can truly see that everything he does stems from trying to fulfill that desire. He is so selfless and passionate about everything he enjoys in life (which includes me). Philip knows me so well and I love watching our relationship develop. I keep thinking there is no way I can love him anymore than I already do...but then I'm proven wrong.

I am so grateful for my amazing families! Yes, plural...families. My family (top) has been supportive of me throughout my life and now I have Phil's family (bottom) as another support. I would especially like to thank my sisters, Ali and Sabrina, for their love and friendship. They have loved me through the good and the bad and they have always been my best friends. Phil and I are so blessed to have both families about 25 minutes away from our apartment in Provo. They are so kind and willing to feed us Sunday dinner every week, let us do laundry, and just be there for anything we may need. We are also so thankful to them for their strength in the gospel and for raising us in the church. That is a priceless gift they have given us and we are so thankful to them. We love you all!

Last but certainly not least, I am so thankful for my Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the one thing in my life that has been constant and has never changed. He has always been there for me with open and comforting arms. He knows my hopes and dreams as well as my trials and concerns. I am so thankful for His constant love and support. He has given me the ultimate gift and for that, I am deeply thankful. No matter what happens in life, I know that I am never alone.




Thanks again to everyone who makes my life what it is. I'm so grateful for your influence.
Happy Thanksgiving. I LOVE YOU!

Murder Mystery Dinner Party!

In our ward, the Sunday school is split into seven groups and Phil and I are called as the Sunday school leaders of our group. Our responsibilities include starting class and planning monthly activities with our group. For one or our activities, Phil and I decided to throw a murder mystery dinner party. We have wanted to do this with our group for several months so I have had plenty of time to come up with my vision for this night. I pictured nice table wear and a yummy dinner. I'm kind of a control freak so rather than having couples sign up for different parts of the meal, I wanted the meal to be uniform so I took responsibility of the main course and the garlic mashed potatoes and everyone else brought salads, rolls, fruit and dessert.

I have never cooked for 25 people so I turned to a woman who does it on a regular basis...my mother-in-law. Margo is an incredible woman and was so willing to cook with me and let me borrow plates, goblets, table clothes, etc. She really helped me make the night as amazing as it was. We've all heard the stories of horrible in-laws and since I've been married I have even heard them from several friends. I've come to realize that I have been blessed with an amazing mother and father-in-law which means that I can't relate to the horrible in-law stories. I'm thankful for all of the help Margo gave me to prepare for this dinner.

This is some of the food we had plus lots of fabulous fruits and desserts.

L-R: The Christiansen's (Natalie won the best costume award as an obsessed cat lady and the prize was two Cinemark movie passes!), the Peterson's, and Heather Fowers (Heather was a trouper and came even though Kade was out of town).

L-R: The Willmore's, the Snow's, and the Browning's

L-R: The Zohner's, the Allen's, and the Law's (Deidra was an evil mastermind and framed Jeff Mohlman for setting fire to his own property when she really did it).

L-R: The Clark's, the Wrigley's (Jonathan was the murderer! But unfortunately for him, most people ended up guessing it was him in the end), and the Mohlman's.

Everyone seemed to have a great time which makes me happy because we put so much work into it. I was so impressed with everyone's amazing costumes and their willingness to get into character! And thanks to Margo for making everything as beautiful as it was.

A New Start...

So until recently I've never really had a huge desire to blog. Shortly after Philip and I got married he though it would be fun to have a blog. My response was, "Why? We aren't that interesting. Maybe I'll start blogging when we have a baby." No, there is no baby on the way but I guess over the past year I have realized that we are more interesting than I originally thought :) Phil created the blog and started adding posts, but now I'll try my best to take over.

Phil and I have been staying super busy with school, work, and managing to spend time with each other, family, and friends. So...quick update...Phil is studying biology at UVU and then wants to become a Physician's assistant and I'm at BYU and recently changed my major to school health education with an English teaching minor. Due to this change, I'm quite behind where I'd like to be with school. What can you do though? I figure it's better that I'm excited about my new career path even if it takes a little longer. I met with my advisor today and received good news and bad news. The good new is I'm closer to graduation than I thought...the bad, graduation is still far away. We mapped it out and figure that if I take 18-20 credits each fall/winter semester and 4-5 each spring/summer term, I'll be set to do my student teaching in the fall of 2012. Ok, that many credits sounds like bad news too. But actually I'm really excited about it because it gives me an end to look forward to. It will be hard, but worth it in the end.

Phil has been enjoying intermurals. He plays on our ward flag football team and a soccer team with some of his friends. This is his second semester as a TA for anatomy and he loves it. I am so impressed with his amazing knowledge of the human body and how great he is at helping others learn as well. He is also a great provider and stays very busy at work. I love him!

Well that's the end of my first blog post. Hopefully I can keep this blogging thing up and we don't get too boring!

Date Night!!

One thing that Katelyn and I have been really good at is making sure that we spend time together. Our schedules during the week make things very difficult to do so, but I asked Katelyn out for Friday night. I planned a great date, and to start things off we went to her favorite place to eat out...Los Hermanos. One of our favorites is their chips and salsa with a little bit of ranch on the side. We will mix the salsa and ranch with our chips and man is it good!! After a dinner of chips and salsa, and burritos we treated ourselves to Nickel City Arcades. Every game uses nickels and averages around 15-25 cents to play, which for us college students is heaven. One favorite game is Deal or no Deal. We played for 200 tickets and had the choice between 14 and 140. Since we didnt have much time to decide I told Katelyn we should go with my gut...yeah not the best. We ended up getting 14 when we could have gotten 77. (that just means less candy in the end. ) Hollywood video showed us a video that looked really good and so we rented it. Its called State of Play with Russel Crowe and Ben Affleck(however you spell the guys name). It was a really good movie, but because time was not on our side at this hour we watched our long awaited for, hour long Office episode, where Pam and Jim have their baby!! (sorry if I ruined it for y'all) ;) In conclusion I really have the best wife in the world. I feel so blessed to have her be in my life and be right by my side. One thing is for sure...I am a lost puppy when she is not around. Goal: become better at not being so lost when she is gone at work! She is my better half.

Ikea!!

We were walking past this set up family room and kids room where this puppet show curtain was in the kids room. Katelyn was so excited that she ran past the curtains and told me to wait. This is what my surprise was! Is she not the cutest thing ever? I think she is so cute!

Katelyn's dream kitchen. There was the coolest looking microwave that looked exactly like the the oven. It was a really cool Kitchen to have someday.

Pretending to have a cool desk and laptop in our apartment.

Funny thing is this book is in russian. I was trying to read the words and I didn't make sense.

Region!

Katelyn's sister is on the Lone Peak Drill team and is a very good dancer. We have gone to lots of her performances and I have been amazed at how great they were. This is a picture of their team that won region. The region they are in is a very hard region and to win this is a huge accomplishment. They also got 3rd in state this year in 5A. I'm sad that there are going to be no more dances to go watch, unless she keeps on going. Love you Ali!

New hair cut!

So I have to say that I have the most beautiful woman

as my wifein the world!!! After lots of debating she

decided to chop her hair. She has always had it long since 5

years old when she cut her own hair. I think she

looks way good with this new dew.

School

I know everyone has been wondering where we have gone...well, the answer is no where! School has totally taken over my life and since i take control of the blog I have not had enough time to post anything. Updates:Me-I am taking Chemistry 1210 and Physics 1210 at Utah Valley University. I also TA for Anatomy lab and love it. Its a little bit of time but there is nothing better than seeing someone do well in Anatomy. Katelyn is working at Timpanogos Hospital full time in wait for the answer to nursing schools. We didn't get into UVU but we are waiting on Weber State University and Provo College and Ameritech. Weber would be our number one choice but anything to get going on her career and so we can get having a family someday...hopefully. HA. We have started a Weekly game night for our Sunday school group on tuesdays and it has been really fun. I will post up some pictures as soon as i download them onto my computer. I must say we are really good at our dancing game. Hopefully it will keep getting a good turn out and we can get our group together a little more often than once a month. We have the best neighbors ever and since our schedules are gone we haven't seen them for a while. So other than family, school and alone time(whatever we can get ;) ) there is not much else. Love who ever is reading this!