Spring is Coming! I don't know when, but it is coming!

One of my favorite things about winter ending (one of my many favorite things about that)
is hearing the birds chirp in the morning. I still vividly remember the ending of
my first winter in Logan. I was silly enough to take a 7:30 class which is a bad idea in the
spring semester because it is so much colder in the mornings than the fall semester. Anyway,
I was all bundled up, walking to class and I noticed the birds chirping. I remember finding
it so refreshing and I came to treasure those beautiful, freezing cold morning walks to class
I've noticed the birds chirping again lately and I love it!

Hmmm...

Sorry, please forgive us for never posting! (That is, if you haven' t given up on us and
you still actually read our blog every few months.) When I decide, "Okay, I just
have to post something. It can be quick and simple, but I have to post something"
then I can't ever think of anything. But here are a few random goings-on:

Nathaniel and I have been reading the Chronicles of Narnia together out loud. He actually
reads more while I work on things or cut his hair (don't look at it too closely). He also reads
better in the car and doesn't like driving much, so it works out. C. S. Lewis is amazing!
Two summers ago we read the entire Harry Potter series out loud too.


Nathaniel is trying to figure out what to do after he graduates with a degree in statistics
this May. He applied to the US Dept. of Agriculture and marked the "anywhere" box when asked
where he was interested in working. "Anywhere" includes 46 states and Puerto Rico. He is also
studying for the first two actuary exams and that would lead us a completely different direction
as far as what type of job he got, but also likely out of state.

I want to make a t-shirt quilt. I even gathered up my old t-shirts and called a friend to find
out how she made hers. But, Nathaniel still maintains that I won't actually start it for about 5 years.
Don't get me wrong, he is very supportive. He just tries to help me not get my hopes up because I
really don't have time. Plus I barely got around to fixing 2 of about 7 pairs of pants that need mending.
I don't know what he does to his pants, but I can't keep up with it. But I've also decided it just
isn't my time to do most of the things I want to do yet. Don't get me wrong, I try to stay really
organized and set goals, and I go 100mph 7 days a week, but barely have time to sleep. However,
everyone always tells me it just gets worse (worse meaning harder and having less time).


I also want to make curtains, fix my dress, sew a bunch of other things, scrapbook, make more
yummy meals, read any of the 20 books I have collected in order to read, read any of the other 100+
books on my list of books to read, finishing learning how to crochet, actually crochet something,
practice the piano more, practice my flute, practice the bagpipes, learn Spanish, learn to ride a
unicycle, take more classes (especially sewing, gardening, cooking, etc.), blog regularly with
interesting posts, read other people's blogs more (thankfully Megan helped me set up the blog
reader so I'm doing better at that, but I haven't been commenting on your blogs so I'll work on that),
play sports more often, hang out with girls... and the list goes on. Is that too much to ask?
I guess we all feel that way.

Nate has been busy too. He has some pretty tough math/stat classes, lots of study groups,
is an SI leader and Stats tutor, works with our friend named Kevin and helps me out a lot. He is good
to do the dishes often and make dinner quite a bit too - even though I've been doing better.

I spent my Presidents Day (really 7+ hours) taking 2 online courses about emergency management.
I have a training for it all day tomorrow too. My certificates say that I have, "reaffirmed a dedication
to serve in times of crisis..." I am not sure if taking these classes, being on the Emergency Committee
at work, re-certifying for First Aid and CPR, and being present when our ward/stake emergency plans
have been shared for the last few years has made me feel more or less afraid of some sort of disaster/emergency. I supposedly "know" what to do, but I feel pretty anxious about having to do it.

Our Christmas Tree

As you can see in an earlier post, our tree looked pretty sad.  

I also mentioned we hoped to decorate it a little different every year

and not really have a regular theme.  That came about because I had asked 

Nathaniel if we should get some decorations after Christmas when they are 

super-clearanced.  He was hesitant because he remembered some fun times 

growing up and decorating their tree differently and cleverly some years.  

One year I guess they used toilet paper and small ballons.  It may sound odd, 

but those are the times you remember, aren't they? 

 So, we needed to figure out how to decorate our tree...  

I was looking at it with the star (Nathaniel made it from butter boxes 

and tinfoil the first year we were married) we stuck on the tree until we 

could figure out what to do.  I don't know how I got the idea, but suddenly 

I decided it would be so fun/cool to decorate our tree with saran wrap, 

wax paper and tinfoil!  I wanted either red or blue saran wrap to wrap 

around the tree like garland or popcorn.  The wax paper was to make snowflakes 

and thenI needed to come up with some sort of ornament out of the tinfoil.

I went to several stores and couldn't find any colored saran wrap.

Finally I found red and green at K-mart, but no blue!  Thankfully my preschool

had some I could trade for.  Serena and I cut out snowflakes while we watched

Horton Hears a Who and Nathaniel covered little ornaments in tinfoil.  

First I had tried a few ways of trying to make ornaments from tinfoil,

but nothing really worked. So we settled on covering existing ornaments.

Before that, when Nathaniel saw the ball of tinfoil I had sitting on one of the

branches (I had to see how it looked), he burst out laughing and said,

"I'm finished with my baked potato." and then pretended to scruch up his potato

tinfoil and put it on the tree.  Then he laughed some more.  He thought it is was

just SO FUNNY that it looked like "a little ball of garbage" on 0ur tree.  

I couldn't get any really satisfying pictures, but hopefully

you get an idea of the finished product and the details...

If you want to come see it in person, please do!

Finals and Blogging

So Nathaniel is studying in our front room with two other people from his

hardest class for his most difficult final.  Three down and one to go -

tomorrow @ 7:30 am.  He was super lucky today after showing up to

his 11:30 final at 12:45 not having studied and finishing it in time

(about 35 minutes) anyway!  I hope all goes well for the lot of them.

So blogging is a funny thing.  I never know what to say or how to say it.

I don't make cute crafts or decorate our apartment with great creativity.

We don't have cute kids or big life changing events to talk about.  I guess

blogging is fun to keep up with the day-to-day goings and comings of life

(at least in other people's lives), but hopefully before long we'll be able to

blog about all of those things. Just give us a year or so! 

Lately

We went to a USU basketball game and sat in the student section.  

As I looked around I saw some highschool students sitting in the college 

student section... that's cool.  After awhile I noticed that there were 

a lot of them and was a little confused as to why.

Then it dawned on me - they are college students!

Nathaniel is finishing up his last week of classes for the semester.  

He has finals next week and then one more semester to go!  In May he

will graduate with a bachelor's in statistics, hooray!  He has really impressed

me with his consistency in studying all semester long.  You all know how it goes:

decide to study really hard, determine amounts of time that you will spend studying, 

even make a schedule or whatever... eventually things come up or you get 

distracted or stressed.  But he has been pretty hard core and disciplined all semester.

I got a nice little prize because I hit my 25-classes milestone in Jazzercise.

The sad thing is that the instructor is moving and will be teaching in Riverton.

She is one of the best, if not The Best aerobics instructor I have ever taken 

a class from.  I may go to some of her classes in Riverton if she is teaching 

over the Christmas break.  Anyone want to come?

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving was a crazy one for Nate.  He was 

running one place to the next trying to do a million things and was even late 

for some.  In all the rush he forgot to return 2 course reserve books.  These

books are generally high demand and, therefore, can only be checked out

for a few hours at a time and have a $0.10 per minute late fee.  Two books

almost 4 hours late... total fee: $45.60 ($22.80 per book).

As soon as he realized the books were still in his backpack we drove quickly

up to the library and he ran in hoping to save every cent we could.  I asked

him to at least ask if there was anything he could do or if they could waive 

part of the fee.  I told him to tell the truth.  The worst they can do is say no

and we'd be in the same position anyway.  The manager wasn't there that

evening so the attendant couldn't say or do anything about his plea.

But today he went back and only had to pay $10!  Whew.

We've started and mostly finished putting up our Christmas decorations.  

They are all sort of odd and random though, and I'm not very good 

at decorating.  Put it all together and...  

Well, our tree is nice; my brother and his wife gave it to us last year.

It currently just has lights on it (the kind that come that way) and we haven't

plugged things in the right places to make it all work yet.  Plus it is too tall for

our basement apartment so we have the tip folded over and the star resting

several branches down from the top of the tree.  Last year we had it under an

even lower part of the ceiling and decided to only use the top two sections

of the tree.  That looked a little too homely.  We hope to come up with

random, different, inexpensive ways to decorate it every year.

Than has also been growing a beard.  He was going to do it for maybe 

just a few days but it has been a couple weeks.  I don't love it or hate it and 

figure if I feel strongly one way or another I'll tell him, but I'm pretty sure I don't 

want him to have it for a long time.  The longer he has it the more he likes it.

Kids and Birthdays

Here are some funny stories about birthdays and kids I've worked with.

I think it was while I was doing my preschool practicum that this happened.  

It was a little boy's birthday and the teacher asked, "Whose birthday is it today?"  

No one responded so she rephrased the question.  This time 3-4 little boys 

raised their hands and one said, "I have a birthday."

A few weeks ago one of the boys in my class had his birthday.  

While we waited for the other kids to get off the bus and line up I was asking 

him if he had had a special breakfast or received any presents for his birthday 

(he is in my PM class) .  The little guy behind him got excited and while holding 

up two fingers he said, "My birthday is in two minutes!"  I sort of chuckled 

and said, "Really?"  He thought hard for a moment and decided, 

"No, my birthday is in A LOT (great emphasis) of minutes." 

Last week we celebrated another birthday.  Before large group I asked

who was having a birthday.  Same phenomenon as before, no one responded.

I asked the question in other ways and gave several hints (it's a boy, he's

turning 4, etc.).  A few volunteered for it to be their birthday but in the end

I had to call him to come up so I could give him a crown and have us sing to him.

I guess he may have been confused because his birthday was actually two

days later on Thanksgiving when we don't have school.

I wish I could put pictures of them on my blog but it's confidential.

Our Story

Nathaniel and I have been adding a lot of stories to "Our Story" instead of 

posting on our blog.  This website is similar to a blog but very different too.  

It has a lot of really nice features, including connections to companies that 

will archive your stories on DVD or print them in a book.  I have been adding 

stories from my single college days and stories my dad wrote when I was young.  

I hope to eventually make a very complete timeline and get it printed in a book.  

Nathaniel's timeline is incredible!  He remembers so many events from his life 

and is great at including details and sharing his stories in fun and interesting ways.  

Mine, on the other hand, has only a few stories and I have a hard time making 

things sound fun.  But, I'm working on it.