Real life is starting again...

Well it's back to work and school for both of us now, and we miss summer! We finished out our last weekend of freedom with a quick trip to the exotic Mesquite, NV and then decided to spontaneously extend it with one more night in the even more exciting Primm, NV. Where are those places, you might ask - EXACTLY. The middle of nowhere is the perfect place to relax, so that's where we went. Actually, the Oasis resort in Mesquite comps CCSD teachers a 2 night stay during the summer, so we took advantage of that. On our way back to Vegas from Mesquite, we decided that we weren't realdy for summer to be over so we drove right on past Vegas and to Primm which is on the state line of Nevada and California. We had a great time there - rode the rollercoasters and shopped at the outlet mall and just RELAXED!
Now that we've been back, responsibilities have hit us in the face and we're busy, busy, busy. Besides school starting, we're moving in 2 weeks from today and have not made as much progress packing as we should -oh well, it will get done one way or the other. Hope to have a more exciting post for you soon, but for now it is off to bed. Goodnight :-)

Arizona and Lisa

Last weekend we went to visit our friends, John and Cindy, in Mesa, Arizona. It was so nice to get out of town for a few days and just relax. My sister, Lisa, was also there visiting so we got to spend some time with her too. While we were there we spent a lot of time sleeping in, playing Wii, lounging around and EATING at tons of great places.
One of our favorite shows on the Food Network is called Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. A couple months ago we were watching it and they featured a place called Joe's Farm Grill in Gilbert, Arizona. It looked so good that we decided to try it while we were there. Seriously, it was the BEST hamburger restaurant we have EVER been to. It is a rennovated old house right next to their farm, so mostly everything they use in the restaurant is really fresh from the farm. I had a delicious cheeseburger, Moose had the Fontina burger, Lisa had chicken strips that you could tell were actually made from real chicken, and we all shared some onion rings. I wish that we had gone back the next day because I'm still dreaming about how good it was. Here are some pictures from our visit there:
Recently, John and Cindy got a new dog named Gracie. She is a really cute little dog and we had fun playing with her. Interestingly, she had a HUGE crush on Moose. Seriously, she followed him everywhere. Wherever he was, she needed to be. Honestly, after a few days I was a little bit jealous :-)
For all of you who know my history with animals, this picture is for you:
After our visit with John and Cindy, we decided to bring Lisa back to Las Vegas with us for a few days. While she was here we put her to work and "let" her practice cooking. She did a great job. We decided to let her have the day off on Sunday and we made meatloaf. Normally meatloaf wouldn't be something to blog about, but this time we made it in the shape of a football in honor of the preseason football games that have started. Moose's favorite time of year is starting up again and he is very excited. I expect that most of our food for the next 5 months or so will have some sort of football theme.

Charity Case

Last night some friends of ours that I work with invited us over for dinner and games. We had a great time - they made delicious steak, potatoes, and asparagus, we played lots of fun Wii games and talked for hours. However, the best part was the free stuff. I don't know if people just feel bad for us poor newlyweds or if we are just the luckiest people ever, but look at the cool free stuff they gave us!

It may be hard to tell, but this is the heaviest TV ever! In the picture it looks like it is exactly the same size as the one we already have in the background, but it is really a LOT bigger. We are excited that we have the perfect space for it in our new apartment - that's right - we're moving (again!) in a few weeks.

I have also been wanting to learn how to golf and they gave us these awesome clubs! We've been looking on Freecycle and at DI, but we hadn't found any that were in good shape. These are pretty old, but they'll be perfect.

Haircutting adventures...

Tonight I gave my very first haircut. It was a little more awkward than I thought it would be, but I got the hang of it after a while. It really doesn't help that my husband has curly hair and is still taller than me while he is sitting down, but I think I did a pretty darn good job :-)
Here's the before picture (isn't he SO cute?):

And the after:






What do you think?

Gettin' Crafty With It.....

This weekend I was feeling crafty. A while back, we went camping and thought that it would be fun and functional to have some carrying cases for some of our camping equipment. We went to the fabric store shortly after we got home and Moose picked out this cute and durable desert camo fabric. I finally got around to designing the pattern and making the cover for the camp stove (Moose's family calls it a Cache Cooker) this weekend. I think it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

Lessons we've learned in marriage

In the last four months, we've learned a lot about each other and ourselves. I think that one of the most important lessons we've learned is that we really do like things that we thought we hated. Moose has been a really good sport about watching So You Think You Can Dance with Me (as long as we fast forward through Mary Murphy's commentary). He is actually a very good judge and can predict exactly what the judges will say and who will get kicked off and why!

I have learned what Ultimate Fighting is, and have actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The fighting is actually pretty entertaining once you get past the awkwardness of most of the holds that they put each other in. :-) Last night we went over to Moose's boss's house and watched the fight. They have a really nice house and it was fun to get to know them better - especially since I'm going to start teaching piano to 2 of their kids later this summer.

Have any of you learned similar lessons?

Retail Therapy

Yesterday started out as a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I woke up in a bad mood, when I went to get dressed none of my clothes were cute or fit right, I had a ton of things that I needed to do (including write a talk for church the next day) and I didn't want to do any of them. Moose and I decided that we would go get our hair cut with a coupon that we got in the mail. Turns out the coupon was expired, but we got the hair cuts anyway. Bad idea. I knew from the second that I sat in the chair and she was rude to me that I shouldn't let her touch my hair, but for some reason I just sat there while she chopped and chopped and made snippy comments about how damaged and horrible she thought my hair was. The worst part is that when I told her that I didn't want her to cut any more off the front she told me that she hadn't cut any off the front at all, which was a blatant lie because I just watched her do it. I asked her why the front was 4 inches shorter than the back and she said that's how it was - it is just SO broken and damaged. PUH-LEASE old lady!!!! You're just crazy and trying to cover up your mistake. Luckily Moose had already paid at the front counter so I could let her know that I was very dissatisfied and make my dramatic exit.
After a few tears and then taking a shower and styling it myself, Moose helped me to realize that it's not as big of a disaster as it seemed - it just is really choppy, especially in the front. I decided to cheer myself up with a technique that my mother taught me - RETAIL THERAPY. For those of you who don't know this, spending money really can make you happy! Here are my purchases from yesterday. I know that some of them might not seem that exciting, but they really were to me.

Badly needed eye makeup remover.
I didn't believe that 5 blades could possibly be that much better than 4, but boy was I wrong!
TONS of new shampoo - gotta love Costco!!

Some really comfy sweat-shorts to wear around the house.
Some cute new jean shorts for the HOT summer in Vegas. I also think they'll come in handy on my trip to Texas next week.


A really cute brown swim cover-up dress thingy.

The book I've been dying to read - now I'll have something to do on the way to Texas!

In conclusion, retail therapy works!