My man asked me on a surprise date earlier this week.

He picked me up at 5:30 and took me here:



The Mayan!

I had been wanting to go here for so long! He's obviously pretty good at getting hints because every time we passed it I was sure to let him know that I wanted to go there sometime.

So this surprise dinner was the beginning of our date.

We then went here:


SLC

to see the lights. It's one of my favorite things to do during Christmas time.
However, we were not able to enjoy it very much because it was SO cold. We literally stopped at every tree we liked, snapped a picture, ran into a few buildings to defrost, and left.




We cannnot wait to be done with finals, take a few weeks off from work, and go HOME! I haven't been home in SO long, and I can't wait to see my family. I hope that everyone enjoys their holiday as much as I know that I will. Merry Christmas!

I'm Back.With the Best News Ever.

Hello, all you fellow bloggers. You MAY have thought that I was gone from blogging forever. I haven't blogged in more than a month now, I know. So you may be wondering what momentous event has sparked my return. WELL....

I COULD write about the Cornbelly's maze adventure we had with some friends.
Or me and Luke's day to Park City
Or the festivities we enjoyed on Luke's birthday
Or the late night Sundance ski lift ride we went on with Kev and Kel
Or our pumpkin- carving night with friends from the ward
Or our new obsession with the game "Scene it"
Or the fact that I don't have work for 3 more days.
Or the bridal shower that two lovely girls and I threw for Charlie
Or the delish enchiladas, calzones, and stuffed green bell peppers that I have made recently
Or how I've thought lately about coloring/ styling my hair in some new way (?)
Or how we climbed the Y a while ago b/c I had never done it before, and the whole way up I was wondering why I ever wanted to do it
Or how we went to the Utah Fair a while ago... the first fair I'd ever been to
Or how we bought a new (used) car
Or how good this season's Gossip Girl is
Or how I love the fact that my husband loves that show just as much as I do (he might kill me for revealing that....)
Or my first time to Outback Steakhouse, and how much it exceeded my expectations
Or tons of other things we have been up to lately.

And while these things are all very important things that have gone on recently, and while most of these things are very blog-worthy and I SHOULD have blogged about them early, and while I will blog about them in more detail in just a second, these things are NOT what originally brought me back to this good ol' blog.

THIS IS:

(Please excuse the bareness of the walls and the plainness of the bed. We been so busy decorating other parts of our apartment that we haven't quite gotten to our bedroom yet, so it's still completely bare.)

Today we made the best purchase of our entire married life. We bought this incredible BED! The first few months of our marriage we were lucky enough to live in APX's apartments who provided all furniture for us. When we moved to Provo we decided to put buying a bed on the back burner for a few days until we made a few other purchases first. A kitchen table, couch, ottoman, end tables, book case, curtains, and a few other main purchases later (not to mention the multiple months that passed as well) we decided it was at last time to say goodbye to our beloved blow up mattress.

Yes, you read that right. We have been sleeping on an inflatable bed for the past little while. This is embarrassing to reveal. Very. But to tell the truth, we loved it. It was the best blow up mattress ever. Thank you, Wal Mart. It has done us well. To make this sound better if I can, this wasn't just any ordinary blow up bed. It's not like the ones you go camping with. It's legit. You don't have to blow it up with your mouth nor with a separate pump. Instead you plug it into the wall, flip a switch on the back of the bed, and it inflates itself to the desired fullness. I'm not gonna lie... as excited as I am to sleep on our new legit mattress, I am sad to see our good old blow up friend go back into the box after it has served us so well.

Ok, enough about our bed.


Luke and I at the Olympic Park.


At Cornbelly's


The group
There were some pretty amazing pumpkins...

pumpkin carving night with friends from the ward.

boy pic
This year's choice: Volcom stone pumpkin

driving to Luke's soccer game in Lindon
taking the bus from the parking lot to the ski lift
us with kevin and Kelli on me and Kel's surprise date for the boys (Sundance ski lift)
bringing out the ice cream came for Luke's bday

The Y

the view from the Y. For those of you who are wanting to climb the Y for the view, I advise you to look from the comfort of your own car at the parking lot. The view is the same. I was a little bummed about that. But climbing it is a great experience nonetheless
The big yellow slide at the fair

the fair

I thought I'd throw this in just for kicks. this is when our car broke down. we were extreeeeemely sad. duh.

But while I dont have much to make up for the previous pic, this boy sure does. He's so cute... even while making this face.


I apologize for the length of this post. I figured I had to catch up sometime though.


oh ya... and I'll be sure to let you know if my sleeping improves with our NNNNNEWWWW bed. <3

SHOUT OUT

This one's for you, sweetie boy:


HAPPY BIRTHDAY!


My man is 24 today. Yep... the big 2-4. *What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good mannnn.

*reference to "Whatta Man" by Salt N Pepa

We've celebrated this day by: sleeping in an extra 15 mins this morning, resulting in a 7:30 wake-up time instead of 7:15, going to school (and he's been at work too), later opening up some presents from the wifey (namely me), enjoying a bite to eat, playing at our late-night kickball game, and later having some friends over to eat some ice cream cake. YAY. I sure do hope he's been having a good day. It stinks that we've been apart all day, and especially that neither of us are doing anything fun during that time apart. I wish it was Saturday so we could go out and do something together during the day, and make it more of a celebration, but at least tonight will be fun!

I have a lot of classes that deal with marriage and family, so lately my mind has been on me and Luke even more than before. I've been thinking a lot about how our relationship began and everything that occurred before and after we started dating. Basically, I am the luckiest girl in the world. Everything that has happened between Luke and I has been the biggest blessing, and I couldn't be any happier. I thought today, being his birthday, would be an appropriate time to say that I am the happiest I have ever been. I am so glad Luke stuck with me, and that we started dating, and that we are now happily married, and that I have an amazing, extremely handsome husband who make me laugh, smile, and happy.

PS: If you would also like to feel grateful for the people in your life, all you have to do is go see The Time Traveler's Wife.


Anyways.... a photo update is much needed, so that will be coming up soon!

Busy bees

Welllppp... we sure have been busy bees lately. With what, you ask? Well let me tell you:

-School is back up and running so we've moved back to Provo and we're all settled into our apartment. Well.... mostly set up. Actually we still have a long way to go. But we actually have a couch now, so our bed is no longer in our family room. What kind of bed do we have? Please don't ask because that's a little embarrassing. Oh and we now have electricity in our bedrooms. We lived the first three weeks without it. So little by little, our apartment is getting better.

- We went to Vegas for the 3 day weekend last week. Hen and Jared made the trip down from LA also so we all stayed with Luke's parents for a few nights. Talk about fun! We had a FULL lake day complete with jetskis, boating, and tubing.





After the lake we did a little BBQ action and watched BYU cream Oklahoma. What a fun weekend.



- It ended perfectly... an hour and a half away from home on our drive back our car decided to break down. Breaking down in the middle of nowhere at 10pm is always fun. We just loved it. Thank goodness for good friends who came to our rescue and picked us up. What life savers!

-Last weekend we went to the Utah State Fair! It was my first time to a fair, and I loved it. We went down a big yellow slide on potato sacks, watched the bear show and the rodeo, ate funnel cake, drank too much lemonade, and Luke even won me a stuffed animal tiger from one of the games he won! What a man.












-We've started our intramural kickball team. I know... who knew there was such a thing? I sure didn't until we enrolled. Luke is on 5 other intramurals, which keep him busy. I have found a new love for tennis. We played last night with Kevin and Kelli, and had a lot of fun. I want to play more.

- We occupy our nights with our shows (or rather MY shows): SYTYCD, ANTM, GG, and WIPEOUT which we love.

bassssically thats just about it. Busy busy busy. But loving it :)

PS: How cute is my husband?



Prettttty dang.

1) Last Day of Work!= TODAY!
2) Magic Mt!= TOMORROW
3) Fres-yes!= TOMORROW NIGHT
4) Vegas!= MONDAY
5) Provo!= TUESDAY
6) ONE WHOLE WEEK OF AN ACTUAL SUMMER!= NEXT WEEK

I cannot wait! I never thought I would see the day that I would be counting down to get back to Fresno. But that day has actually come, and I only have one more day to count. We'll only be there for a day, but I wanted to see my family one last time before Luke and I head off to school, b/c I won't see them again until Christmas!

And I surprise myself every summer when I find that I can't wait to get back to Provo. Everyone's always so anxious to get out of that place by the end of Winter semester (mostly to escape from the dreadful weather), yet I've always found myself anxious to get back. This year will be especially exciting b/c WE'RE MARRIED! That entails:

-married ward
-married friends
-married housing
-married... just about everything.

We're excited for everything that's ahead, but especially excited for the next week or so! Bring on the fun! and a full week of no work for either of us! Summer has begun!

The Latest....

Yesterday morning as I was folding laundry and cleaning up, I heard "vroooom vrrooooom" outside our apartment, and I knew just what it was. Luke and his friend, Bobby had been working on their pit bikes, and by the sound of it, I assumed that they had gotten them working. I decided to step outside on our balcony like a good wifey and watch Luke ride around the parking lot, when I saw this:
a dead....rabbit?

I couldn't really tell what kind of animal it was.. but I was sad for it, annnnd also kind of interested. So as soon as Luke was finished playing with his bike and had come back home, I told him he had to see this. We went downstairs to the bushes beneath our balcony and scoped it out. Instantly I knew I was going to get made fun of.. It was some poor little child's stuffed animal that had conveniently been dropped right outside our apt.

I should have known better... why would any animal, in its last attempt at life, jump up and through the bushes to end its life peacefully sprawled out over the greenery? Its positioning made no sense. What a fool I am, to have fallen for the little child's unintentional "dead-rabbit" trick.

Anyways... This past weekend was adventurous. Luke and I drove to Santa Monica on Sunday to spend the day with my sister and brother-in-law. Church seemed to provide an equal amount of entertainment as it did spiritual growth as quite a few funny things happened throughout the day.

We spent the afternoon with them, ate lunner? (lunch/dinner?), walked NEAR the beach, took a few unprepared-for photos,




(I have no idea why the quality of these pics are turning out so bad..)

ate some delicious fondue, and eventually were on our way back to Rancho. We hope to see Hen and Jared again soon as we've made Labor Day plans together! Woo hoo!

The upcoming weekend will provide GREAT fun as well! We only have about 4 days of work left (give or take..) so we'll be packing up the rest of the week, head to Magic Mt on Saturday and then up to Fresno to see my family one last time before going off to school! Yippee!

As for tonight: we plan on getting lucky and seeing a few shooting stars as tonight is supposed to be prime time to see the Perseid meteor shower! I hope we can escape enough of the city lights to see atleast a few!

<3>

Exciting!

- Luke said something very exciting to me today

-The suspense of who's getting kicked off SYTYCD tonight is killing me. I hope it's Evan.

-I'm excited to have company this weekend... more excited that they're GIRLS (I miss having girl friends).... and even MORE excited that they are some of my favorite girls ever!

-I'm starting my "project" today. I've been thinking of crafts that I can do to fill my time while I'm at work. I decided that I want to make headbands:

We'll see how this goes... And how long it'll take until I get bored of this project too. (I've tried scrapbooking, reading, compiling a recipe book, etc but I find that after a short period of time I get bored and end up spending all my time playing Tetris or my newest favorite Facebook game, PathWords.) I am just a lame case.

- Me, Luke, Nate, and Roy finished our last night on our Summer Bowling League last night. Although I spent the majority of the nights being frustrated because of all the effort I would put in to bowling straight while the ball would immediately turn for the gutter, I will miss having a Wednesday night ritual that includes my hubby, friends, pizza, rootbeer, and entertainment watching some of the other bowlers' interesting techniques. We had a lot of fun doing it!

Lately..

Welp.. We've been pretty busy people lately. Lots has been going on. Here's the latest:

-My fam came into town a few weeks ago. I LOVED seeing them all. The younger siblings stayed the night at our apartment and spent the next day with us. We took them bowling, swimming, played volleyball, and took them to the mall. Busy day! That night the whole family met up and went to the Pageant of the Masters at Laguna Beach. This year's wasn't quite as good as the one a few years ago, but it was great just being with the whole fam!

-We made a trip to Vegas over the 4th of July. Unfortunately, we had to work most of the weekend, but we got off early enough on the 4th to enjoy the afternoon and went swimming. We watched fireworks that night at some casino. Pretty cool. Bad news: The AC in our car blew out on the way home :(

-We made another trip to Vegas last weekend to spend some time with Luke's family. We drove there in 115 degree weather with NO ac. blahhh. Luckily Luke and his dad are car geniuses and were able to work on it and get it to work better. Our car must have brought them a curse though, because the day we got to Vegas, the AC in his family's house broke. We're bad luck.

-Hen came to spend an evening with me this weekend. We enjoyed dinner, walked around Tai Pan, the outlet mall, and ate some Cinnabon. It was great catching up and hanging out with her.

-Yesterday Luke and I visited his friends Matt and Kendra in the San Diego area. They are a cute couple with adorable kids. We had a lot of fun with them.

- Cockroaches are back. Meh :( I JUST got comfortable going back into that bathroom after the exterminator got rid of them the first time. Now I'm back to having to flick the light on with the tip of my finger super fast so they won't jump on my hand... just in case they've escaped the tub and are on the wall. I also check under BOTH toilet lids to make sure they aren't hiding under one of them. And I examine my make up bag every morning before digging through it to start getting ready for the day. It honestly has gotten me to a state of paranoia. :(

The last little while I've been looking through the pictures that Luke and I have together. We've done some pretty fun stuff. Some of these pics just make me laugh...

stuffing me with a pillow to look preg-o.

This was the sketch Luke made of the afro man we carved in our pumpkin.


I made him a Chinese dinner and we both dressed up Chinese to eat it. haha.

Haha. Luke knew that I had always thought it would be cool to put on as many pairs of clothes as possible and sumo wrestle. He made that dream of mine come true.


Oh! and lastly I thought it would be appropriate to make a shout out to Jason Glover, the guy who got kicked off of "So You Think You Can Dance" last week (sadly). I just found out today during my SYTYCD research time that he is from FRESNO, CA and graduated from Bullard High. REPRESENT!

(Hopefully he'll prove to be someone to be more proud of than Fresno's other "claim to fame", Mr. Kevin Federline, Britney Spears' ex- husband, who graduated from CW. I think he will. Kevin's not too hard to beat.)

PS: Go Kayla and Jeanine!


PSS:
SYTYCD Season 5 tour.
West Valley City, UT.
Nov 7.
Girlfriend needed for accompaniment.

my baby boy

today's entry is dedicated to my one and only.
i just figured i'd just take a second and explain why i'm the luckiest girl in the world.

1) the first thing luke said to me yesterday morning as we laid in bed: "do you want to go clothes shopping today?" he knows that i've been having issues with my boring and plain clothes lately and he patiently trailed behind me for an hour and a half while i shopped around. although we left a little bummed that we'd spent all that time without finding anything modest/appealing, he didn't complain. instead he said that we'll just have to try again another time.

2) he works SO hard. i make money by facebooking, blogging, occasionally taking a few phone calls here and there, but basically i have the easiest job in the world. he makes money by knocking door to door in the blazing hot sun *all day every day. today he sold TWO alarms! i couldn't be more proud. he's amazing.

3) i came home from a run this morning and he had made the bed all neatly.

4) he makes me feel like a million bucks

5) he looks like this:






and I absolutely love him.

the list could continue for days and days, however i'm getting off work in just a few minutes and must get ready for tonight. we're in a prettttty legit BOWLING LEAGUE and we compete every wednesday. watch out.


*= baby i got your money

Our First Bug Encounter

Welp... this morning I was getting ready for the day in the bathroom... putting on my makeup and beginning to straighten my hair... the usual. I was just looking around the room aimlessly when I happened upon these 2 black strands coming out of the bathtub drain. First I thought it had to have been a piece of hair that got wound around the drain plug. That thought lasted for about 1 second when I saw both strands moving. It was definitely alive. It was definitely a huge bug's antennas. So I did what any normal person would do. I grabbed my phone and got a safe distance away from the drain to where I could easily take a picture of the antennas but could also easily run away screaming without it jumping on me if it decided to come out of the drain. Since my hubby was currently not at home at the time, I had to have proof of the hugeness of this bug so he would understand my reasoning behind my screaming and running around the apt like a crazy lady when I told him the story later if the bug wasn't there when he got home.

My next step was simple. Close the bathroom door, hope it doesn't come out, and wait for Luke to come home to get rid of it. A few minutes later, curiosity got to me, and for some reason I just wanted to know if it was still there. Although I was completely disturbed, grossed out, and disgusted, I was somehow also intrigued by it. When I opened the door, it was still in the tub but this time wandering around it instead of confined in the drain like it was the first time I saw it. It looked like this:

Huge and nasty.

Next, I got a piece of tupperware, held it right above the bug (but about 4 feet higher), dropped it, and ran away screaming. Needless to say... I missed, and our little visitor began running around the tub frantically.

My next conclusion was this: close the door again, but this time stuff towels and placemats at the bottom of the door so there's absolutely no way he could get out. And this was exactly what Luke came home to.

Our story has a happy ending. Luke captured the bug with the tupperware piece that I had conveniently left in the tub after my previous attempt, and threw it outside. However, being as paranoid as I am, I periodically feel like I have bugs crawling all over me. I hate that feeling.

Anyways: exciting/ new news going on in our little Stephenson household:we're making a little visit to Vegas tomorrow. Here we come!

Dancing Dreams

The other day I asked Luke what he would want to be if he could have any career in the world. He chose a professional basketball player. That's a worthy choice. I would be a singer.
preferably this one here:

Celine Dion. She's perfect. and beautiful. Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely love to sing. It's probably my favorite thing to do.

However, what you probably don't know and what might take you by surprise is one of my other dreams. If I couldn't be a singer, I would be a ballerina.

I know... funny, right? Especially since I can't dance... at all. (My good friend Kara knows that. Sophomore year she and I took a hip-hop class together. Probably the biggest waste of money I've ever made my parents spend on me. I couldn't do a single move in that class. It was a beginners' course.)

But, despite my lack of ability, I love to pretend. Back at home, doing the dishes after dinner would take quite some time for our family because we'd have a selection of music blaring and we'd all be dancing in the kitchen. My attempted style of dance would most often be ballet.

Yesterday as I was walking home from work (I work in my apt complex) I had this sudden urge to dance. I knew that I had about an hour and a half before Luke finished work, so I figured that would give me enough time to go home and get my wiggles out before he came home and caught me dancing alone. So I instantly got into my dancing uniform which looks a little like this:




+

Leggings plus a nice long turtleneck shirt make for a great dance outfit. Next, I turned on my iPod speakers full blast, grabbed the mop and started dancing while mopping the floor. (Chores are always much more fun when dancing and singing.) I was have a grand ol' time dancing it up as I finished the kitchen floor and moved to the bathroom floor when I heard the front door open and shut. Either I was going to get kidnapped in .2 seconds or my hubby was home early. Luckily it was the latter. He was a little confused by my attire and the loud music, but understood completely when I told him I was having a personal dance party.

After getting all my dancing out, finishing the chores, and being excited about my man coming home early (and about the fact that I wasn't being kidnapped), Luke and I sat down to enjoy our favorite activity of late: WORSEARCHES! We love wordsearches. We bought a whole book of them the other day at Wal-Mart so we could do them together. Last night's wordsearch activity was a competition. I took a puzzle on the left page of the book and the right page was his. Whoever finished theirs first was the winner. I won.

Other things that we have enjoyed so far in the WEEK of our married life after the honeymoon are:
-making a make-shift couch by sitting on a love-seat with our legs stretched out and pulling the coffee table underneath them. Not the comfiest or softest form of luxury, but the best we could do when our friends stole our big couch.
-peeling the sunburn off of eachother's backs
-grocery shopping at Target with our many generously given gift cards
-seeing TRANSFORMERS at midnight the night it came out. I fell asleep on his lap half way through it because I was so tired. But the parts of the movie that i DID see were great!
-eating at Cheesecake factory... my fav.
-hardcore detailing our car: even took the seats out to vacuum up the disgusting french fries and collection of pens and coins the previous owner had stashed under the drivers' seat.
-etc, etc.

WE LOVE IT.

PS... I've discovered that spending 6 1/2 hours a day at work with absolutely no work to do leaves me a little bored. I have a feeling that this whole BLOG thing will keep me entertained for a while, so I'm sorry that I update like every second.