The Last Month

I guess it's time for me to play some famous blog catch-up.

Two days before Christmas I got to talk to my brother who is serving a mission in the Philippines for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was great to talk to him!  He sounds like he has an accent.  :)  Missionaries only get to call home on Mother's Day and Christmas.  He comes home in March -- So crazy!  It will be good to see him!  He has grown up a lot from what I can tell by his letters he writes each week.  It's nice to have someone else in my family who is as dedicated to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as I am.  I think we're going to end up getting close!  :)

We also got to talk with Adam's brother who is serving a mission in Portland, Oregon.  He comes home in July!  This is a crazy year for missionaries coming home.  It's going to be fun!

Speaking of this year...  2012 has some great things happening!  I got a new calling in church which I am totally excited about (but I can't say what just yet because I need to be sustained on Sunday first!).  We're thinking more about buying a house, which we may or may not do, but we would love to!  I'm being more involved with dancing -- My mom and I are taking a tap dance class this semester which I'm super excited about!  I'm also taking a ballet class this semester with the same teacher I've been taking other dance classes with, who I love!, and hope to keep working en pointe!  I'm also progressing at work in the mortgage biz.  I'm learning more and more every day and it's awesome, and fun!  And I'm sure there are tons of other things this year has in store, some things of which are probably not yet known!  But I'm way excited, and happy about life!

I took a ballet class at a studio this past semester and danced in a recital production of the Nutcracker!  En pointe!  It was challenging but super awesome and fun!!!  I miss it.  It's so crazy, I never would have thought I would be dancing en pointe for a performance.  I'm hoping to continue working on it and getting better!  I love dancing!  I can't believe it has taken me this long to figure out how much I like it.  Oh well, better late than never.  I figure I have more time for it now anyway and am more able to appreciate it.  :)

Adam and I took a trip to California when school got out for him in December.  It was our Christmas present to each other.  We got to see my aunt and uncle, and went to the Ghirardelli factory outlet.  Yum!  And we went to the Steelers game!  It was our first NFL game (for both of us).  Sadly though, the Steelers lost.  :(  But we had fun anyway!  We went to the LDS Oakland Temple (beautiful of course!) and also to the Golden Gate Bridge.  Surprisingly there was not even a hint of fog at the bridge!

Christmas was wonderful!  Adam and I opened stockings in the morning (since our present to each other was the Cali trip, including the Steelers game).  We went to church with Adam's family and my parents joined us too.  We had a nice Sacrament Meeting and then got to talk with Adam's brother, which I mentioned, and then opened a ton of presents with Adam's family.  Coming from a family that struggles to find one thing to get for each other (which we don't even bother with anymore) it's strange having 10 presents for each person to open, and we're all adults!  But it's super fun and I am not complaining at all!  Then we had dinner with my parents and my dad's parents who live in town and some of my dad's sisters who were there too.  It was a busy and nice Christmas, spending time with family and cherishing those relationships because those are the ones that last forever if we choose to live righteously and fulfill the ordinances required.  What a great way to remember Christ and all He has made possible for us.  :)

We went to Alabama with Adam's family to visit his dad's family.  It was a new experience for me!  I got to meet mostly everyone.  We spent time with Adam's grandmother, which was really good.  We even did some video recording of interviews with Adam's grandmother and her sisters and also Adam's dad's dad.  And we went to a bunch of grave sites where a lot of the family is buried.  We also went to the Blue Bell factory!  It was awesome and so yummy!  Unfortunately the tours were closed, probably for the holiday.  :(  But there was a window to see into the factory and we saw them putting together chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream!  We also went to the Talladega Super Speedway racetrack and took a tour on the track!  And got to take pictures in Victory Lane!  It was cool!  And we went to the Chick-fil-A bowl in Atlanta.  And celebrated 2012 twice!  (Once in Georgia and once in Alabama!)  You don't get to do that many times in a lifetime!

I'm learning how to use Photoshop!  We bought a Photoshop Elements and Premier (video editing) package on Black Friday for half off (yesss!).  It's been fun trying to learn how to use them.  I even created our own Christmas cards from scratch!!  I'm so proud of it!  But we didn't get to send them out at Christmas since it was so busy with our trips and everything.  I still want to send them out though because I can't let it go to waste!  And no, of course I don't want to wait a whole year to divulge my awesomeness with Photoshop!  I think I will still send them  :D

And of course, we squeezed in time for some shooting practice before school started back up again for Adam.  I did really well!  Better than him this time!  Hehe.

2012 has been good for us so far!  It's going to be a great year!  It always is.  :)

And it Begins...

The HUGE new scoreboard!
Biggest in the West I guess (counting colleges).

Arizona football.  Oh hello.

Us at the game last Saturday against NAU!  We won of course.
(And got free tacos!)

This is what I get excited about!  The marching band!

U of A!  U of A!  U of A!

Go cats!

Lots of happy things!

Alright, let's see here...

We updated our walls!  Probably about a month after the wedding we put up an "F" and it took a lot out of us so it's been lonely ever since...

But now we put up the wonderful painting Grandpa Gene Coltrin painted for us:

And I finally got a beautiful picture of Christ and also The Family: A Proclamation to the World, and The Living Christ documents (yayayay!):

And this cute little number:



I'm still working on getting my wedding wall worked on.  And I need to figure out what picture of the temple I'm going to put where...  Those are the next items on the Wall To-Do List!  I am happy that I am making progress.  :)

NEXT!  I make dinner every so often, and Adam is happy that he doesn't have to eat the same thing over and over and over again.  This week I made Hawaiian Haystacks!  My first time.  I've never made rice on my own before and I was home alone when I started making this so I ended up cooking the whole bag of rice.  It wasn't a big bag but it made a lot of rice!  It came out well though.  Adam says that it's better to make more than to make it bad!  I like it!  For those of you who don't know how to put together Hawaiian Haystacks (because that's essentially what you do, put it together) here's how it goes:

• rice
• gravy made from Cream of Chicken
• sprinkled with Chow Mein Noodles
• topped with pineapple chunks
• and your choise of an assortment of things such as shredded cheese, mandarin oranges, coconut shreds, chopped onions, peppers, celery, tomatoes, olives, peas, nuts, etc.!

Adam also likes chicken or ham added to it (unless you use a chunky chicken gravy! or you could do both)

Easy peasy.

ALSO!  We bought a car!  Finally!  After searching and searching we at last located the car we wanted.  It's a 2003 Honda Civic EX.  Woohoo!  We have two cars!  I feel like a real grown up making such a large purchase.



ANNNNDDDDD!  The U of A game!

What a great game!!  And we got to be there for it.  ALL the way up on the second to last row!  We had a great view though on the 45.  We could see all the awesome action!

We got there super early to beat crazy traffic and to get a spot in the Institute parking lot and to cheer on the players at the Wildcat Walk.  It was cool!  There were tons of people! 

We got there at a perfect time so we were right up front.  Adam got to high-five all the players!  I'm sure he was in heaven. 

 (This is where a video of Adam slapping the hands of all the UofA players

should be but I can't get it to load.. It might be too big.)

Bear down Arizona!

And this is us being happy after we WON a fantastic game:

Yeah!

We finally got home, exhausted, around 12:30.  And had church early at 9am.  But it was worth the fun and good times!  But I would rather not do that every weekend....  :D