Lights Outside

Here's our apartment with the lights outside... it's taken with my phone so it's not so high quality but you can see it now at least.

'Tis the Season.....

...To decorate our apartment!!!!!!
Alex put up Christmas lights outside our apartment and they come on when it starts to get dark. (Set up to the apartment lighting system so we don't have to pay for electricity either).

This year we have 3 trees. The little fake one mom got for me a long time ago to go with my American Girl dolls. The biggest one Annie got for me as a "going off to college Christmas present" so I could decorate my college dorm. Most of the ornaments are broken due to an exciting game of "throw them on the ground and see what happens," played by Jarom and Cade last year, but there is still enough to make it look cute and festive. Alex did an amazing job redoing the lights and helping me get the tree back together.


























And the small real tree one I got for free. When we went to go look at Annie's gingerbread house display, they had a table talking about making a greener earth....take a tree and plant it....etc. So, I took one!! And I love it. It has 3 ornaments on it and is the smallest member of our tree family. I also love the teacup planter that mom let me stick it in. Darling.

















A while ago we were visiting Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma let us choose which stockings we wanted that she had just finished making. They are so cute. We just barely stuck our bulletin board up so that we could hang them on it. I think it's fantastic. "The stockings were hung on the bulletin board with care."













Someday I'll get a picture of the outside of our apartment when the lights are on. It's pretty fun. And everyone else is jealous that we are so festive!! :)
Well, the rest of our day is going to be filled to the top with studying. Wish us luck....finals are coming too fast!

Thanksgiving!

Last week was spent with the most amazing family in the world.....MINE!!! I have so much to be thankful for. Family is the biggest blessing I could ever have, and thanks to the gospel and temple work, I can be with my family forever!!
I am thankful for everyone to be able to talk to, share silly sister times with, play games with, have help with homework, share words of encouragement, give advice, and show genuine love. Alex and I get pretty lonely in Logan sometimes and we appreciate always knowing that we have family out there somewhere loving us. I am grateful for parents who raised me in the gospel and who watch out for me on a daily basis.
As the last week of school comes to a close, I am grateful for everything I have learned this semester. I have probably complained a lot, because a lot of it became repetitive, but I really have enjoyed the classes I had and the friends I made in each of them. 20 credits was a big load to take on, but I pulled it off pretty well....I hope (check in sometime next week to see if all my hard work really paid off. I should be getting my final grades by the end of next week).
I am grateful for a good ward and lots of friendly neighbors who say hi to us and who put up with our crazy lives and personalities. I am grateful for people who will come over and have dinners with us on Sundays and play games with us. It really is something that I look forward to each week. We like associating with other people in our stage of life, and it is a fun way to get to know people.
I am also deeply and extremely grateful for a husband who loves me!! I'm sure I drive him crazy sometimes, but he loves me anyways!! He is my best friend and I love knowing that we will always have each other. Life can be hard, but having Alex next to me makes it all worth it. And for the most part life is fun. We wish school could be done faster, but one day at a time seems fast enough sometimes!
I am grateful for a reliable car to drive, a warm place to sleep on these Logan winter nights, food to eat, the internet, cell phones, shoes, hot water, a hair brush, knowledgeable doctors, a toothbrush, and life in general. I truly am blessed!
Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on what I am really grateful for and focus on what I take for granted so often. I should make everyday a Thanksgiving day (only minus the food because that's too much work). Now as Christmas draws near, I like to continue the Thanksgiving spirit and think about Christ and how much I have to be thankful for because of Him. I am glad to know that I am a daughter of God and that I have Him on my side rooting for me!
Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas!
Thanks for being my wonderful family and friends!!!! We appreciate and love all of you!!!
Kristen

Rants and Raves

There have been a lot of stressful things this week... at least now my tests are over.  Kristen has some presentation still for Friday but yeah.  I feel a lot better to be done with my evil calculus tests.  I still need to register though and a lot of the classes I need aren't being offered right now.  That seems to happen to me a lot.

I should be working a lot more than I am currently working.  Aunt Cena has been good to let us help her but it's not equivalent to working more.  I've heard of wyzant.com where you can tutor other people on subjects like Spanish etc... but I really question how much is really made from that and if people actually even use it.  I had the idea of making desk name things (like the one that used to be the banner on our website) with my scroll saw and wood... but the whole selling it might be hard.  Does anyone have any ideas?  Scheduled jobs don't really work well for me in case I have a huge test to study for etc.  I could probably get a work-study job with the school and that might work well.

I heard some pretty good twists to the "in the bathroom European" joke:  If you're American outside of the bathroom, what are you inside the bathroom? (European)  What are you if you don't wash your hands? (You're a German)  And when you are all done?  (You're a Finnish).

I wrote a new poem recently and put it on the poetry page (link on left) but for some reason Blogger doesn't recognize that the page is updated so it thinks it's still old etc and not updated... but it is.

Look how cute we are!!

Alex and I decided that we didn't take enough pictures of ourselves, and we don't document our lives very well. We see a bunch of people in our ward, or on facebook with amazing pictures of hikes and dates and fun times. We decided that we were just plain boring and not fun at all. Therefore, we specifically took a trip to the mountains to prove that we have a life and we do have fun! Thus you see our documented date up Logan Canyon. I think our pictures are awesome, too!! Incredible what a tripod and a timer can do.






























This last one is my favorite!! I really like the angle and the pose, and the cute and handsome husband that I have!!! How did I ever get so lucky?

Halloween

Well here are the pictures that we have promised. We have sad stories to go with them all.



So these were our costumes for Halloween that I made. We were Lego's. Thanks to James and Allie for the idea... since they did it some years ago. It took many hours (somewhere around 12) to make them and was not easy. We think they were the coolest ever but apparently people at our ward party didn't because we didn't even rank in the top 5 of the best costumes. Anyways they can connect together forwards and backwards.



This was our 32 pound pumpkin that took quite a few hours to carve. It was so difficult to carve that we were tired of it after one hour but it took around 2 to complete.



This picture was taken at 5:25pm.



This picture was taken at 5:30pm... a few minutes after the incident. Almost self explanatory. I took the pictures of the apartment and watered the plants... while I was getting water for the last plant we heard a huge crash and looked to see that the whole stand the TV was on had collapsed. The saddest part wasn't that the stand broke but that it snapped the plant into two pieces. We stuck the other broken part in some water so it can grow some roots and become another beautiful plant... it was very sad though. I started to clean it all up and said wait we need to document this before we get too far. We put the nice 8x10 rug that we got into the bedroom... but didn't take a picture of that... sorry. So below is actually what our apartment looks like since we did a rearrangement of furniture:





It feels a lot more spacious and is really neat! We like how open it feels and looks. Now we just need the cool lamp that Kristen has in South Jordan to go between the two smaller flowery couches.

We're still alive!!

It's been a long time since we posted anything, but we're still here!!! We're just plugging away with homework, school, homework and more school! I got some good news yesterday....I passed the Praxis test (elementary content knowledge. Has to be passed before I can do student teaching). Yay!!! Now I can do Level 3 in the spring and student teaching in the Fall. Then perhaps I'll be able to graduate next December.
Other news, we went to Alex's friends wedding yesterday! Now we have more married friends in Logan. Hooray! Sometimes it's hard to play with single people. Dating is fine and married is better! It just makes it easier.
We were at church the other day and there was an older couple visiting their daughter, the guy basically had a heart attack. Apparently he had had a spider bite and was taking some kind of medicine to heal it....the medicine caused him to have a heart attack and we had to call 911 and stop the meeting for a while. It was pretty intense. It's scary when things like that happen. It makes me grateful that I'm not a doctor because I couldn't deal with situations like that on a daily basis. So sad.
Anyways, Alex is doing well, too! Stressed by all his math classes, but what do you do about it?
Oh, yeah, here is my schedule this semester!!




















I don't know why the picture is fuzzy, but you get the idea. I'm pretty busy, but it's entertaining anyways!! Well, I better get cleaning the house. Grandma is bringing us some rugs and a new couch from one of Aunt Rita's storage units!! How exciting. It's like Christmas.
Love you all!

Financial stuff everyone should know but maybe doesn't

I am really loving my Family Finance class that I am taking and I am learning a lot from it. We just read a book called "The Automatic Millionaire" by David Bach. It's a pretty good book... but anyways a few of the useful things I've learned:

You can get a free credit report every 4 months. The government has made a law that Experian, Equifax, and Transunion give at least one free credit report per person per year. The trick is to get one of these three every 4 months every year (that would be every Oct-Experian, Feb-Equifax, and June-transunion if you start now). Get one for every person in the house... you, spouse, and even children. Children should not have one but you should always check because identity theft could really hurt them, especially if not discovered for many years. If there is ever anything on there that you did not do, report it... they have instructions on how to get it disputed and removed. To get your free report go to www.annualcreditreport.com.

The credit report is not the same as your credit score... that you must pay for if you want it (it comes from a company called FICO). You can "estimate" your FICO score for free at www.bankrate.com/calculators/credit-score-fico-calculator.aspx.

If you don't have money for something, don't buy it. However, there is a cool credit card repayment calculator at www.ftc.gov/creditcardcalculator.

If your savings account is making less than 1.0%APY you may want to consider finding a new savings account with someone else! Ally has one of the nations best rates right now at 1.80%APY compounded daily. Anyways what I am saying is shop around for your banking needs using one of these excellent sites: www.mybanktracker.com; www.bankrate.com; or www.mymoneyblog.com.

If you are interested in seeing the US debt on many levels go to: www.usdebtclock.org

I know that's a lot of website stuff... at least you should get the free credit report if nothing else! Also... I have posted some of these links on our "Links" list to the left (which by the way will now open the links in a new tab so you don't have to use the back button).

Humor of Dave Barry

I was recently at my Stake Priesthood Meeting and they read this story. I thought it was funny and that you all needed to hear it!

The following story is written by Dave Barry and is titled "Clean Laugh 707":

Let's say a guy named Fred is attracted to a woman named Martha. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Martha, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?"

And then, there is silence in the car.

To Martha, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

And Fred is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

And Martha is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily towards, I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?

And Fred is thinking: ...so that means it was...let's see...February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means...lemme check the odometer...Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

And Martha is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed - even before I sensed it - that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Fred is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

And Martha is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too. I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.

And Fred is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty...scumballs.

And Martha is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.

And Fred is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it right up their...

"Fred," Martha says aloud.

"What?" says Fred, startled.

"Please don't torture yourself like this," she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have...oh dear, I feel so..."(She breaks down, sobbing.)

"What?" says Fred.

"I'm such a fool," Martha sobs. "I mean, I know there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse."

"There's no horse?" says Fred.

"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Martha says.

"No!" says Fred, glad to finally know the correct answer.

"It's just that...it's that I...I need some time," Martha says.

(There is a 15-second pause while Fred, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.)

"Yes," he says. (Martha, deeply moved, touches his hand.)

"Oh, Fred, do you really feel that way?" she says.

"What way?" says Fred.

"That way about time," says Martha.

"Oh," says Fred. "Yes." (Martha turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)

"Thank you, Fred," she says.

"Thank you," says Fred.

Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Fred gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a college basketball game between two South Dakota junior colleges that he has never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it.

The next day Martha will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification.

They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it either.

Meanwhile, Fred, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Martha's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: "Norm, did Martha ever own a horse?"

And that's the difference between men and women.
~Dave Barry

Today was exciting!!

Today, well, more like early this morning, Alex and I became True Aggies!!! Last night was the homecoming dance, and at Midnight people line up so they can get their chance to stand on the "A" and kiss. At Snow College it works out so you stand under the bell tower and kiss while it is dinging 12 dongs at midnight. Everyone is done in less than a minute. Here, there are about a million people who want to kiss on a little 3'x3' platform. The lines were super long and I think we ended up becoming True Aggies at about 12:45 this morning. Pretty entertaining. Specially with the people standing next to us in line. He kept making funny comments, so it made it worth it!

After getting some sleep, Alex and I went up to Aunt Cena's to help her with her yard. Mostly we pulled a million and a half weeds. I am SORE already. My right arm and my poor fingers from gripping and pulling so much. Her yard looks SO much better, though, and she was really happy with it, too. (And she paid us for it, so it was nice to add something to our income line on the tracking paper Alex is doing for Family Finance). Anyways, when we got back from her house we had another surprise.

Some of you knew before, but I didn't post it.....I had decided back in June that I needed something to nurture and take care of. Alex won't let me get anything furry and cuddly (and it's too expensive to pay the pet deposit every month), so I decided to try gold fish. Not quite as appealing as a kitten, but still fun to watch and it gave me something to take care of to keep the nurturing side of me sane. Well, gold fish didn't work out very well. They all kept dying. The worst was when one died the day after I bought it, so I took it back and he gave me a new one. As soon as I got the new one out of the bag it died. Good grief. So, after my 7th goldfish died I decided to pay 1 cent more and try guppies. This was the middle of July sometime. They aren't as pretty, but I thought maybe they'd last longer. This was a Thursday and I bought 2 grown guppies for 30 cents. On Saturday there were 5 more. There were little baby guppies swimming around. Best 30 cents I've spent in a long time. Well, since then, one of the adults has died, and one of the babies died the other day. (I really didn't expect any of them to live). We separated the adults from the babies just to make sure none would get eaten, and we've enjoyed telling all our friends about how my 30 cents multiplied like crazy.

Anyways.......when we got home from Cena's house, we checked in on our guppies (who desparately needed new water) and to our surprise, there were 5 little guppies in with the remaining adult. It is so cool. We now have 5 babies, 4 teenagers, and 1 adult. It's pretty exciting. (Someone else can explain to me how one lone guppy can have 5 babies by itself......either they can fertilize themselves, or they are pregnant for a really long time......)!!

Yeah, then I went to the Relief Society Broadcast which was a really good way to end my Saturday. Now I think Alex and I are going to watch a movie and relax our aching bones.

My Schedule (Alex)

I had to make it I guess since I have a job interview tomorrow... so here is my school schedule.

Sweet Internet!

So we have a long story but I'll make it short. We have been sick of this "Truly Wireless" internet service that we were with that is provided by our apts. They were charging us $15/mo for a 512KB/sec connection... way too slow if you know what that means. We've always wanted to share a connection with our neighbors because they seem to never have any problems with it. The Truly Wireless was always having problems with it not connecting and resetting more than 50 times a day. It was really annoying to try and download something especially without the assistance of a downloader for a download. Our hometeacher is related to our neighbors somehow and they suggested that we share with our neighbors. We told them that's what we've wanted to do since we learned they got a good connection. Within minutes of our hometeachers leaving the neighbor came over and gave us the password and it will only be $10/mo and they get a whopping 8MB/sec connection! Yeah... we love it. It's great. Truly Wireless was trying to blame our problems with their internet on our computers... Ha ha yeah right! Anyways we love our neighbors and our connection is slightly faster than on campus!

Verizon Wireless is asking for a lawsuit

I just called in to Verizon asking about a $125 security deposit that I paid on August 9, 2008. (The bank processed it Aug 11, 2008) Anyways I asked them why I haven't received it yet. The first lady I talked to was really nice and she told me some of the notes they had written about me on my account etc. She transferred me over to someone in the financial department and that lady was very rude and said that my security deposit was applied to paying the previous account owners balance. Hello... why am I paying the bill of someone else? I am going to call them up again when I am calmed down a little and don't have so much homework and make them send me a copy of the paper I signed saying that I was liable for their bill. I know they can't do it... because I know I didn't sign anything to that nature. The dumb people couldn't even tell me how much the previous person owed. I will get the money back!!!

9 Sep 2009
Update
I talked to a guy in a Verizon call center who was very nice and understanding today. He admitted that Verizon had surely been at error for what has happened. He totally understood that what happened wasn't right. He couldn't guarantee that I would get the money back exactly because it has to go through the Treasury dept. but yeah... he was on my side. If the treasury dept says no now, he will get the bank authorization number of the payment and try again. Hopefully they get it worked out right the first time and extra work isn't needed.

12 Sep 2009
Update
Okay so the guy from Verizon never called back within 48 hours so I decided to call Verizon again. This time I got some guy who was understanding but he had no idea how to help me so he forwarded me to someone in the Financial dept... so I got Laura. She was very kind to listen to me and try to understand what I was saying. It almost seemed like she had dealt with something similar before. She read the records well and she was fast... she saw exactly what happened... they applied my deposit as a payment in the previous account holders name. She talked to her supervisor and they said they would give my account the credit since it was their error. She said it could take him up to 48 hours to approve it but when it happens I should get a text and/or email. Hopefully it has worked this time. I'm glad I got someone smart.

15 Sep 2009
Update
Our account was finally credited for $125.00 today. That doesn't include the interest that I was promised but that's okay... we got it back!

So many posts we forgot to post

First post we forgot to post... the check that Chris Call finally sent for refunding the deposit for Kristen's apartment that she paid way back in the days. He didn't give the whole $295.00 minus the six weeks of utilities but we figured it was good enough. Notice the oily spills on it.... He told us over and over that he had mailed it but I think he just lost it in a mess on his table.



Second... the front of our apartment after the managers decided to fix it up a little bit... I think it looks better now.



Third... we bought lots of healthy food one week and Kristen wanted to take a picture of it and post it. She did take the picture... now I'm posting it!



I gave Kristen the game "Mouse Trap" for her birthday because she really wanted it. I had to work that day and when I came home from work I saw Kristen asleep on the floor with one little mouse in her hand ready to play just as you can see in this picture.



The box fan that we used to have in our window was killed by the sewing machine. The fan was in the window one morning and it fell out knocking the sewing machine off of it's stand but as consequence of falling before it was skewered. It broke some of the plastic... bent some of the metal... and well burned up the motor. That's when we decided to get an air-conditioner.



We went camping last week before school started in Maple Canyon. We hiked around a lot and hiked up to the arch that is really cool as you can see!



This picture is just a nice picture of my beautiful wife!

Stress of school starting!

Yay for me I finally got a score acceptable to be able to re-take Math 1050 and 1060! I took it some time ago with Kristen for the first time and she was going for a stats class and got 51 which was good enough to get her into the class she needed. I ended up having to take the dumb accuplacer test 6 times. (That's expensive at $10 each time.) I needed to get 60 to get into 1050/60. At first I got 43, then 50, then 57... dang only 3 points away... then I got 45 (ouch), then 59... one little point away. Hah so today I took it and got 77! It almost makes me want to do it again to place into the Calculus class I need. I would need 95 for that though. Anyways... woo. Finally I don't have to take that thing again. However if there is anyone who needs to take the CLM accuplacer test I know just about every problem and answer they will give you.

Kristen got her hair cut a few days ago and she looks really cute! She says it's too short but I'd say it's perfect and cute. This picture doesn't really help you see the length because she has it up in a pony-tail but yeah... I like it! (Above is before, below is after.)
We both are finished with our current work (me DI and Kristen Walmart) and will be moving on to greener pastures! Yay... Kristen is really excited about that.

Ok, Ok!!! It's a new post!!

Well, Alex and I have been pretty busy. I'll give you a little update. We gave talks in church a few weeks ago. It was the anniversary of Joseph Smith's death, so we (as ward missionaries) talked about the life of Joseph Smith and his missionary work. I have only ever given 3 talks in church. 2 as the youth speaker that were 3-5 minutes long. This time was a step up. A 7 minute talk. Wow.
Next, I am officially accepted to the Elementary Education program. The only problem is that I went to register for my classes yesterday and half of them were full. I don't understand how it is a limited acceptance program, and it's all full? Hmm. Hopefully my advisor can help me at my appointment on Monday. We'll see. Other good news.....I took the Math Placement test and scored high enough to get into the class I need. Yay!!
More news. Um, I have my last day at WalMart on Thursday, August 13th! Then Alex and I are going to take a trip to see both our families. I tell ya, work is enough to ruin everything. It gets in the way SO much more often than it should. Good grief. Oh well!! Almost done. Then I'll probably be complaining about how school gets in the way, but at least I like school.
Oh yeah, we also bought a new computer. Both of our laptops are on the verge of death, so we got a desktop to replace them. So far it's been having a hard time getting the internet. We will probably need to get a better (higher quality) internet card. It's nice, though!!
Lisa and Matt stopped in for lunch today. It was fun to see them. Almost everyone has seen my [our--unless she wants it all to herself-- edit by Alex] cute little apartment now. It's small, but it's home!
Well, I have to do some homework for my online class now. I need to finish it fast!
Love you all!
Kristen

Just to save you money!:

Hey everyone... before you go to the store to buy milk and cheese you should go to coupons.com and print off their save $0.75 on any brand of milk (that makes it $0.84 a gallon [here]) and save $1.00 on any brand of cheese from 2 lbs. and up. We think those coupons are fantastic and nobody should miss out!

(Oh yeah, with all the money you save, you can save up for a vacation and send us on it!-- hee hee.)

Holiday or not?

Oh so a quick update about that citation... the dumb officer lied to us... you can't talk to anyone about it on the phone, you can only pay it. To talk to anyone you have to be at the Davis Cty. courthouse at 7ish in the morning. We decided it wasn't worth the gas and everything to try and appeal. I know it would have been appealed if we did go though.

Yeah so Saturday is my most favorite holiday and Kristen has to work from 5:30-10pm... I don't know exactly but I think that's right. It's really sad because parades are the more lame part of the 4th but the fireworks are part of what makes it the best. I guess I have not too much room to complain since Wal-Mart has given her every Sunday off because they hired her and she had that she was not available on Sundays.

Oh yeah... we haven't gotten any mail for a very long time... that could be good or bad. I haven't had an email in about 2 weeks either... hopefully in making this post people will comment and that sends me an email!

Updates

We were at the Utah Arts Festival when it came through Logan.... There was an oriental man selling Bonsai trees. One lady was saying that she can't keep any flowers or plants alive and she went up to the man and asked, "How do you take care of them?" "Water," was his response. "No, how do you take care of them, like how do you keep them from dying?!" "Water!" We thought that was pretty funny.

Great, so we got pulled over today... dumb UHP. We were following the flow of traffic and there was a yellow car going particularly fast. I started to speed up to follow the yellow car. Right in that time the patrol man saw us and slowly got around and started following us after a while. In that time we could have and should have taken the nearest exit. Anyways we were going the speed limit after I saw him turn around. He followed us for the longest time and then decided to pull us over. He told us he did it for two reasons... that our registration was showing up expired and speeding. Our car was registered on the first of the month but it must have been that we registered it in Logan that they didn't get things entered in the system right because it was supposed to be done in South Jordan. Anyways the officer understood that but felt like giving us a ticket so he did cite us for speeding. Duh! We had just gotten into the lower 65 mph zone from the 75 mph and he cited us for 80! Anyways... I feel like it was stupid.

There was something else we wanted to write about but I forgot... oh yeah! We get to speak in church on Sunday. The topic is a little difficult but not so... on how Joseph Smith restored the church in a missionary standpoint view.

Fun and Stress!!!

So, a while ago I decided that I wanted to take care of something!! We got fish!! Their names were Georgio, Edwardo, and Josepe. Georgio was murdered by the others, so he died first. Then the other two followed a few days later because of a reaction to something in the bowl. We bought 3 more, cleaned the bowl, and had 5 snails to help keep it clean. They were called Bonk, Flipper, and Spaz. Spaz died the next day, so I got a replacement named Ida. By the time I got her out of the bag, Flipper and Bonk were dead. Ida died an hour later. We now have a bowl of water on our table and the 5 snails are still in there. They all sleep at different times, so we don't know how many of them are still alive. They appear to be doing well, though.
I think I am done with goldfish for a little while....it makes me sad to find one (or two, or three) dead. Someday I'll convince Alex that something bigger than fish can be fun, too!!
The other day I said, "We should go on a date!!! We should go see UP." So, I left my homework behind and we went to the movies. UP is the newest Disney/Pixar movie about an old man who attaches a million balloons to his house and flies his house to South America. I thought it was an extremely cute movie, but Alex thought it was kinda lame (but cute, but he can't really decide). They show the movie in 3-D, so we are sporting our fantastic glasses in the picture.

Ok, here comes the stress part. Some of you may remember last month when I was having massive and painful headaches all the time. Because of a couple of other symptoms we decided that maybe my birth control wasn't right for my body. I went to the doctors and he up-ed my prescription strenghth and the problems did go away. I have always been taking my pills regularly and have been pretty consistant in months past. This month, however, I have been really stressed with summer school, working 35 hours a week, getting Alex a better job, etc. The week of my period came along and nothing was happening. I have been told that once you start that particular week it can take a few days to get your body regulated differently enough to bleed. Wednesday came and went, then Thursday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday...nothing. Monday and Tuesday also came and went....no blood....ever. I completely skipped my period this month. We were getting pretty nervous, so, just to be on the safe side, we went to the Student Health and Wellness Clinic and got a pregnancy test. First the nurse tried my left arm, then she tried my right. No blood. (Ha ha. I'm just not bleeding anywhere!!!). Finally the doctor was able to get enough blood out of the back of my hand to do the test.
10 dollars and 15 minutes later we got the results........NEGATIVE!!! Hooray. We were so relieved. It is not the time or the situation in our lives that we could handle having kids yet. Alex was SO relieved (he said he hasn't slept in 5 days, can't eat right, doesn't like being social...he was just so worried and so nervous). It was funny. The nurse told us, "Congratulations!" which I thought was hilarious because it's not usually something to be excited about. But there we go. I'm not pregnant and I will be able to finish school like we planned. It must have just been the change in pills, the added stress of finals week in summer school, etc. (Alex did his research to see why one might miss a period....he found lots of answers but was still not completely convinced or calmed by any of it).
Well, that's all the news for today. I have 3 needle pokes, I'm exhausted, I'm cold, it's raining, and I have the day off, so I'm going to take a nap. (So will Alex, now that he can finally relax!!).
Love you all!
Kristen

Fate of the Neon

On Saturday (16th) the Dodge Neon got hit again! Same place! This time it was a hit and run kind of thing though while Kristen was at work. It supposedly happened around 4-5pm and the lady who hit it knew that she did because her window was down (as witnesses told) and she put on a "did I really hit it?" face and drove off quickly. Thankfully there were two witnesses there who saw it happen and they wrote little notes saying that they saw it and what truck did it. It is a minorish thing but the irky thing about it was that she knew and drove away. We filed it with the police and it is currently being investigated. If the lady would have put a note there and said she did it, it may have been okay with us... but it shows... and she drove off!

Oh yeah... just a side note... in my job searching yesterday I went to an antique store because the guy is a frequent DI customer and I thought I would check it out. He has some really old coins... oh how I wish my coin collection were larger. He has some Morgan dollars... ahh if they were only cheaper! There's a way to make me happy... find me an old U.S. coin! Hee hee Jk. Old coins are exciting though!

Our work at grandma and grandpa's!

Grandma and Grandpa needed some help in the yard so we went to help them yesterday since we had the day off! It was pretty fun and well we got the job done. Cows had messed up their yard and they decided to put in a retaining wall because most of where the cows did their damage was on the slope in their front yard. So we did that! Anyways that's about all of the latest. We've both just been busy working and Kristen is doing her three summer classes!

Here I am!!!!

Well, I don't really have that much to say. I'm just bored....waiting for 25 minutes so I can go to work. Basically I finished folding (and putting away) laundry, doing the dishes, waiting for the dishwasher to finish its cycle, tidied up the front room, made the bed, etc. Actually, it was kinda fun. I sometimes wish that it was my full-time job. I know, I know, someday when I have kids and do stay at home all day I'll be wishing that I could get out, but right now that's all I want. I want to be home when my husband gets home from work and have dinner on the table ready for him. I want to spend time in the evenings reading stories with him, playing games, making cute remarks. I realize that when we were both home 24/7 that was a bit much, but now that we only get 7 hours with each other (that is used for sleep) it makes me want to cry. I miss being able to see him at all.
Working at WalMart has been interesting. It seems like everyone and their sister is pregnant. One of my coworkers is due today, someone found out they were pregnant yesterday, and everyone in the break room is always talking about their doctors appointments, how they feel, what it's like to be pregnant, what they are doing, waddling around, shopping for baby things, etc. Seeing and hearing all of these pregnant people makes me want these next years to go by so much faster than they will so I can join that group too. All well. I'm sure everyone is thinking that it'll go by fast enough.....but at the moment, I don't believe that!! Yes, I'm having baby wishes. I know it's not the right time for us....we both need to get through more school and establish ourselves a little bit....but I can still wish, right?
Well, the dishwasher just beeped. I think I'll go empty it and head off to the drama of work. (That will be a different post. I thought I was done with drama when I left high school, but WalMart is just as good. People are silly.) I'm glad I have a day off tomorrow. Sigh.
Later for now!
Love you all!
Me

So much for time

On Monday I was hired at the Logan DI. Yes, I still have the other part time job thing doing the fliers too. It's really kinda not fun in any way.... My schedule is usually from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. full time. That's not the bad part... the bad part is that Kristen was hired at Wal-Mart and works a schedule of 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. four days a week. WE DON'T SEE EACH OTHER! It's making me sad.

On Sat I had to get a new phone because my other one died... completely... the white screen. There was some sort of an after warranty replacement to get the exact same phone for $50... so I have the same looking phone... only new... and it works! The lame part is that I can't have any of my custom ringtones like my other "same" phone had.

This city of Logan is a happening place at the moment... within the last 15 minutes I have heard 3 different sirens.

Yay for a job!

I finally have a job! It's really not all that great and it wears me out easily. I work for Lawn Pride as a Flier Distributor. It's kinda like those Boy Scout days of delivering food bank drive bags to every door in the neighborhood... only this is huge and ongoing. I like this job because I could actually have another on top of this one. I set my own hours just as long as I don't have more than 30 a week. There are a few things I have to do and I can't really deliver them in bad weather because it is pointless. I get minimum wage per hour and a $2 commission bonus if people actually call the phone number to have service done. Let's just hope a lot of people call to make all of this worth it. It seems like this place is bursting with job openings as we have been told would happen.

I think it's pretty funny that Kristen and I are both famous people! Well in actuality we aren't but if you google us you can find out that I am a famous singer, and Kristen is a famous painter!

Kristen got a call from Wal-Mart (North Logan-- the old one) and goes to an interview on Monday.

So that car repair insurance that I talked about... someone has apparently created it... I've seen commercials for US Fidelis and they do that supposedly.

Oh yeah... Don't forget to check out "Our Other Pages". We think the Random questions site would be really fun if you all told your friends and the site became more popular.

HOORAY!!!!!

Sometimes I really love WalMart. The other day Alex and I were wandering through and we found some nice khaki pants for Alex for $9. We didn't get them at the time, but Alex went back a few days later....tag still said $9, but it rang up for $4.50. YAY!!! Well, I needed some new pants (that weren't jeans) for work, so we went to look. Because I needed some, we didn't really care about the price. We found some nice khaki's for me for $18. When we got rung up....9 bucks. Was there a 50% off of khaki's this week? We didn't know, but now we both have new pants for half the cost. I love that!!
Second thing.....USU e-mailed me today and said that they have awarded my pell grant from the FAFSA that had been submitted. (Nothing is known about the summer, yet, because it's from last years FAFSA and who knows?) But anyways, Fall and Spring I get $3,150 each. Totalling $6,300 for the year. That more than covers full tuition and books and will help out with paying Alex's tuition (unless he gets a grant of his own!). :) We are now eagerly awaiting the e-mail about Alex's acceptace and then his financial aid. We may, once again, get paid to go to school......too bad housing, food, gas, cell phone, etc are so expensive. Otherwise we would really be set not needing jobs at all. I would much rather have that happen. It's so much easier just to be a student and not have to worry about working, too.
Oh yeah, for those of you who haven't heard about it, I got a job at the DI. Woo. Exciting, I know!! Alex and I both applied at the same time. DI is a place where they give you a job, at minimum wage, and try to get you out of there into a better job as fast as they can. They just give people experience and training so they can qualify better for a different job. Anyways, they decided to call me and hire me, but leave Alex hanging for a while. In the mean time, I get to go to work 8 1/2 hours a day and Alex gets to stay home and do the dishes, do the laundry, and be bored trying to find a different job. I feel like my life is backwards. Oh well!! Maybe when I start my classes and have to cut my hours they'll consider hiring Alex.
Oh yeah, that's another thing. I'm taking 3 classes. They start May 4 and end June 19. One of them is just May 11 to June 12. It's pretty nice....but then I have 2 full months until school starts again. My life just works out really crazy. I have to take these classes, though, in order to apply for the Early Childhood Education program in July. They have deadlines for application July 1 and October 1 and 2 certain classes have to be taken and completed before you can apply. I have to commute half an hour for one of the classes, but at least it will be done and I won't have to fill up the entire Fall semester before starting the program. Everyone can pray that I get accepted July 1 and that everything will work out!!!!
Well, that's all my good news for the moment. I think I'm going to go put my poor, aching feet up for a while and read my book.
Love you all!!
Kristen

Some Clips we Like

Smile! "Validation"


How dull can one be? (Audio only) "Why Mechanics Like to Deal With Most Women" (Disclaimer: We did not name any of these by the way-- because we know "most" people aren't as dumb as this person sounds.)


Great prank (Audio only) "Radio Host Prank Calls Chinese Takeaways"

News

We are receiving another one of those crazy snowfalls at the moment... it's really lame but we are in Logan... what do you expect?

We are ward missionaries... we were called last week for that.

We went to the Crystal Hot Springs in Honeyville yesterday. It was fun but I don't think I'd go there again. They are a little miss kept and not the cleanest for the price. We got sunburned pretty good.

A lota things

Okay mom, here's your picture of the outside of our apartment. Ours is the first door you see (bottom right).

We just yesterday were finally able to really use our dishwasher that we got a little while ago. It works great and we love it. It's really nice even though it is a little tiny.














On Wednesday we went to donate plasma. We got there at 11:20 a.m. and didn't get out of there until just after 5 p.m. It was crazy to only get $20 each out of that experience. If we go back before Wed we can get $35 for it. I probably will do it but Kristen isn't so sure on that. We both felt pretty sick afterward. At least they won't have to do the physical and all that good stuff if I do go again.

Kristen wants to write something too:
First of all, I got my acceptance letter today!!! I'm officially allowed to go to Utah State now! Hooray. I'm hoping that they have a lot of my classes during the summer so I can hurry and get school over with!! Wouldn't that be nice?

Secondly.....so, we get this dishwasher and finally get the connections so that it will reach the sink (our counter is too small for it, and it won't fit under the sink because it's too big, etc) anyways, we get the extension hoses and hook it up to the sink. We didn't have any dish detergent, but we did find some dish soap. Who knew that you couldn't put DISH soap in a DISH washer? It makes a great and wonderful mess of suds. We had great fun getting it all bailed out. Fun times!!!

Oh yeah, no one has to worry that we are going to sell our blood as an income.....it was just for the experience. And I never have to do it again. It was entertaining, though!

Too much snow!

Okay so yesterday morning I said that it snowed 8 inches overnight. Well in total it snowed almost 16 inches... I thought it was kinda interesting so I took a picture before it was too late and the ruler could not be seen.

Change

I looked out the window and what did I see?... A bunch of snow fallin' on me.

It's crazily snowing at the moment and I'd say there's a good 8 inches of snow... I think it's more than I've ever seen fall in one night.


We got a little bored of our furniture arrangement so on Saturday we did a nice change-around that gave us a lot more room and it looks nice too! The extra space is really nice.




One of our biggest problems here is that we have an infestation of Box Elder bugs. They have disappeared today because it has snowed, but when it is warm they are everywhere. They are really annoying.

We are awaiting about 8 different pieces of mail... almost all are checks from various places for refunds or rebates. Hooray for the day that our mailbox is flooded!

I hope y'all like the changes I've been making to the site! (Don't forget to check out our slideshows page [link is under the slideshow on the left]!)

Presto Change-o Car-o

This is Kristen's car after Grandpa backed into it; and today, after painting it yesterday (and fixing it for a month or so)... not completly the same but hey it looks better than it did. I'd say it's not bad for my first time doing auto body work and learning from seeing others and the internet. I spent many hours on it and now know why the auto body shops charge so much for things like this.

Well...

Well, Alex doesn't have mono. He just has some kind of virus, and has been feeling miserable, but it's just starting to get better. The doctor just called and told Alex that he probably has the Adenovirus. When Alex told me, I said, "The 'I dunno virus'?" It sounded like it!!! Funny!!
As for anything else going on.....nothing has been happening. We apply for everything we qualify for, create profiles, fill out applications online and off, go to SOS, Kelly, LDS Employment, etc, call people, e-mail people, check the job board at the student center.....and hear nothing. Ever.
On Saturday someone in our ward paid Alex to come and help paint an apartment (they are the managers of the complex next to ours) and tomorrow I get to help the wife clean a house. So far they are the only ones that have been interested in us.
It gets a little discouraging when we see nothing from our efforts. The worst is when someone will advertise at the student center that they need help with their two kids while she recovers from a broken arm. She needs help, I offer help, a week later she is still advertising for wanting help. Either she really doesn't want me, or she really doesn't need help, or something. Seems like if you had a broken arm, you'd at least respond to anyone offering help. Duh!
Anyways, right now, to pass the time, Alex is pulling off all of our baseboards, scraping off all the nasty glue, puttying and painting the wall again....and probably not putting the baseboards back on. We can glue them back on when we leave if they have a fit about it. They are so nasty, though,...the brown plasticy rubber junk. :)
That's about the fun of our life right now. Oh yeah, my friend from high school is going to bring us dinner tonight!! That's fun. We've been having some fun dinner/game nights with people. We've never had a Sunday alone, yet!
Hope everyone else is doing well!!
Kristen

Moo (long story)

I (Alex) have had a sore throat since Sunday night and it has been just horrible. We have thought it was strep but strep tests came back negative. It's really weird. The health dudes say it's probably just a virus (or it could be mono he said, but I doubt that). Whatever the case, they told me I just have to live in pain.

I had some guys come give me a blessing last night for my throat. One of the guys was from the same apt. complex and he commented that we really made our apt. look good! We were hoping that someone would say that and they did! He thought we made it look really nice with our curtains etc.

That reminds me... mom T... we did get the curtains hooked back on where they were falling off. They weren't missing the hooks at all.

This morning I decided it was time to get the nasty caked on grime off of the kitchen cabinet pulls/handles. They were so nasty... they looked black when we first moved in and we found out they are really copper in color. I scrubbed them good with 409, then cooked them in tomato puree for a little while to restore the copper look and wow they look a lot better. After I got them cleaner than they were... they may never come clean, we decided to go to Lowes and buy new ones that matched and looked a lot better than those dinosaur aged ones, and they were 97 cents! Maybe we'll take a picture of them to show but yes they are way nice (not to mention modern [they are silver wire pulls - if you know what those look like]).

In Progress! -- Progressed?

Hey this is the new site for Alex Christensen and Kristen Christensen! Their sites were formerly www.alexchristensen.blogspot.com and www.kristenchristensen.blogspot.com . Ooh and if you're in Mozilla Firefox and maybe others you can see that I finally got the 'favicon' (the icon in the address bar) to work! Wahoo, it's really exciting! Oh yeah... I don't think anyone has ever told me what they think of the family blog collage (For the Steve and Lori Thornbrue family).

Our New Appartment

So here's our new apartment! We made it look a lot better than it was and hey for $365 a month with the gas (heat) paid it's a deal... not to mention how close we are to campus... across the street!









9 Feb 2009