22

It was my birthday on Thursday and Chris spoiled me like none other! I slept in until 8:30 and then we went to breakfast at this place called Red Rooster Waffle something or other. It was delicious! There are some huge bar stools there and I picked to sit in them for fun. The seat of them is seriously as high as my shoulders! It took me a bit to get up there. After we untangled a dog outside the restaurant that someone decided to tie up right next to the road we went to the pet store and Chris bought me a frog for my fish tank. I named him Squishy. He doesn't really do very much but that's okay. After we got the frog in the tank we headed down to my parents' house and had them watch the puppies so they wouldn't be in their kennel all night. We went to the Gateway and ate at the Skybox and wandered around for a while. After that we were off to Brian Regan! Yay! He is so funny! A little old lady scolded me for taking a picture of him though. :( I ended up sitting behind the Jolly Green Giant though, and instead of being smart and having Chris switch me seats we bunched Chris' coat up and I sat on it. After we walked back to the car we went to fetch the dogs (haha...ha?) and went to the store to buy some ice cream. I believe we then proceeded to watch some Monk and go to bed. I haven't had a really good birthday since I was 15 so this blew me out of the water. I need to figure out a way to give him an equally awesome birthday! I love this man of mine! I can't believe I'm 22!

New Year's

I'm actually making some resolutions this year. I'm just making a bullet point list because none of they aren't in a specific order that I want to work on.

• keep a clean house
• be a better member of the church
• be more outgoing
• be better in control of my anger
• find a hobby that I love
• and the traditional, lose weight.

I figure all of these will keep me busy for the rest of my life but now is a great time to start now that I'm starting a new chapter of my life.

Our Small Christmas

I was looking at our small little Christmas tree in the corner. I think it's 3 1/2 feet tall. With all the craziness that's been going on lately I realized how glad I am to be having a small Christmas this year. All the awkward and painful situations that I've been through or watched my loved ones go through this last year seem less horrible knowing what Christ went through and what we're celebrating.

So I love our little Christmas tree and our little presents we had to get creative about because in the end it's spending this time with family and not spending money on things that will be broken in a year.

College Graduate!

That's right! I'm completely done with college...unless I decide to go back some day to graduate school. I took my last final Thursday night and just about skipped back to my car when I was done. The U only does one graduation ceremony a year though, so I'm not sure if I have to wait until them to get my diploma. That would seem silly though. I graduated with a bachelor's in Sociology a minor in psychology and got a criminology certificate along the way. I keep feeling like I should be doing homework; it's weird actually having free time! Now we just need to get Chris back in school....and figure out what he wants to do. :)

Life

Things are so crazy right now! By 3:00 pm tomorrow I will be down to two classes (from my seven that I took). Sometimes I think I was stupid to take so many classes, but being done earlier is making up for it. Also the fact that I'm going to miss the tuition hike next semester is nice too.

I just turned in the keys to our old apartment yesterday. It's so weird not living in the student housing village any more! I'm going to miss some of the people but definitely not the apartment. At least we got a "When we were first married" story to tell our future kids. Speaking of kids, Tiffany and Mark I am so excited for you! I know I've known for about a month that you're finally adopting an amazing little girl but it still makes me so happy!

We're slowly getting our new place put in order. I'll post pictures after I get it all how we want it. I'm going to paint one of the bathrooms too, so I'm excited to have a project. It will be easier once I'm done with school and not making a 45 minute commute both ways six days a week. I feel bad for Chris though who will be doing the commute for a long time unless he can find a new job closer to home. It's just his luck that when we lived in the village he originally had a job way out by where we live now. And now that we've moved he has a job way up by the village. I really appreciate all the hard work he does for our little family. He's such a great husband and I can't figure out why I deserve to have him in my life some times.

I'm so excited for Christmas to come! We're having a poor-man's Christmas which I absolutely love! I'm tired of all this stuff that we're "supposed" to have. I'd much rather do things with family. In spite of that I still need to figure out something to get for Chris. He's always buying me little presents and being cute like that so I need to do something for him. Now if I can just figure out what.

My bosses at the library gave me a job proposition. I've already agreed to transfer out to my other job though. I think I'm going to stick with Jamba even though I don't like it there. It's going to be more stable long-term than the library. I just hate that the library is so far away because I love working there. It's probably my favorite job I've ever had. Such is life though.

Halloween Half

I ran my first ever half marathon on Halloween! I think I must have been crazy, but I did it. I probably looked crazy too since I was dressed up like Optimus Prime. The last 3-4 miles I wanted to rip my feet off but I made it in the end. Actually, I think if I'd known how far I was I would have given up. At the start of the race it was 29 degrees. It's a good thing Chris is amazing and got me some gloves the night before because I didn't even think about it. They started us an hour late but I still managed to have about the same end time I was hoping for. I finished in 3 hours 40ish minutes, I'm not sure of the exact time because I was about ready to pass out by the time I trudged across the finish line. I'm so proud of myself! This is by far one of my biggest achievements so far in my life. Especially since before the actual marathon I'd only managed to run 6 miles in a little under 2 hours. Now I'm just trying to hobble around on legs that feel like they're filled with cement. I'll be back to normal in a few days...I hope.

The Best Two Years :)

Our 2nd anniversary was on Tuesday. I don't feel old enough to have been married for two years! We didn't do anything too exciting and I didn't take any pictures unfortunately. We went to breakfast and ate pumpkin pancakes which were pretty fantastic. Then we ran around for a while doing nothing in particular and had a late lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. Neither of us had ever been before so it was nice to do something new. We had a random stop trying to find a cheap fridge (if anyone knows of one let us know!). We finished off the evening by playing pool at a bowling ally and then buying a new board game and wii fit plus to play - we decided to just pick a few small gifts out together rather than worrying about actually buying each other something. The best part is that none of this cost us anything. Thank you Verizon wireless rebates!

On Wednesday we went and turned in some more papers for our place we're buying. After that we spent most of the afternoon hanging around out there getting more acquainted with the city. And best of all, Chris took me to a pumpkin patch so I could pick out my pumpkin even though he didn't want to go. That's true love right there! He ended up getting four pumpkins though to create a "pumpkin man" so I don't think he minded much. I love Halloween! I love Chris more though. I wish I was creative like him.