Halloween, Anniversary and Other Happenings

For halloween we made some awesome cookies (Thanks Joy!!):

Here are some of our finished creations:

We recently celebrated our 6 month anniversary!

Jon made me a 6 month anniversary cookie :) thanks Jon, so creative:


Also, I wanted to show the Van Wickle's a couple of the things I was able to get with my bday gift card.

Mocassins so I can be twins with Jon:

New winter coat!

Thank you soo much!

And thank you Tate's for the $$ to go toward our gym membership!

We are looking forward to coming home for Christmas! We fly in Dec 20th and will be staying until Jan 2nd. We cannot wait to see all of our family!

Love you all :)

Jon and I have a new "niece"! Her name is Cali, and we go visit her as often as possible! Take a look:

She is soo cute! We love her little dress and hoodie. Thanks to Jessica and James, we get to play with her when we go over to visit them.

James, Jessica, Jon and I have been able to plan some fun acitivities. We went and visited Grandma Clara in Sandy, and went to Matt and Melanie's and played games. Melanie is so close to having her baby!! Last weekend we went to Allan Mount's LOL (laugh out loud) improv show. It was a total blast to see Allan as his funny self.

Jon and I have been going through some major changes at work. We cut down the office hours to 9am to noon, and have delegated a lot of the responsibilities. This leaves me pretty much off the hook. I was having a difficult time with the unavoidable confrontation with the tenants, and the stress of it didn't feel healthy. So our boss, our maintenance mangers, and us have found creative ways to make the business more efficient. And of course, absent of me (really my favorite part of it all).

Ultimately I truly believe these changes do make things more efficient, and that makes me happy too. It also makes me happy that Jon is sooo good at this job!!! I am so proud of him- right now he is the breadwinner of our little family :) we are happy that he is gaining so much experience and confidence in this field.

I will be looking for a more positive, uplifting job to help keep me busy in the afternoons. I am hoping to work with children or youth.

School is going well, we are half way done with the semester. Classes are busy busy busy, and we are spending a lot of time studying. I am happily doing much better in my classes this semester, and am enjoying them X10000 more! Jon is finding that anatomy is difficult, but he still enjoys it. He is also loving his management classes, and learning more about business.

We are watching in wonderment all of the chaos sorrounding proposition 8. I am hoping for a happy ending, and I hope it comes soon. There is so much hate sorrounding our generation's feelings on this issue. Even from Utah I read on facebook friends turning against friends, name calling, and hurt feelings. Jon and I respect others and their beliefs. However we still hold strongly to the definition of marriage that we uphold, the marriage we participated in, as defined as one man and one woman. God bless the people of California.

I apologize for the lack of update for a while, but know that no news is good news! We are doing well, staying healthy, and looking after each other.

I hope all of you have a happy halloween!

Much love.

First of all, a special shout out to Grandma Joan!! I didn't even know you read our blog but I am so happy that you do. Thank you for the sweet birthday card!

Jon and I have been very busy this past week with our first exams of the semester. Between us, we had 5 exams (and we have 3 more ahead of us), and some additional big assignments. Even though it feels like a lot of studying, we have been very happy, and feeling good about our results.

My birthday was last Tuesday, thank you to family for sending lots of love and birthday wishes, it was greatly appreciated. Jon brought me home some beautiful flowers, the first flowers he has ever given me! I was so excited. Mom was in town for Grandma's surgery, so James, his girlfriend Jessica, Jon and I went to Sandy and met mom. We had a yummy dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It was so nice to see family on my birthday, it made it feel like it was really special.

General Conference was this weekend, and it was as inspiring as ever. It is so neat to hear the prophet and apostle's words. You can't help but feel happy, uplifted and enlightened after hearing the simple truths of the gospel all weekend!
James and Jessica came over for this morning's session. We are lucky to have BYU TV, so we got to stay in our PJs to watch it. We made breakfast sandwiches and cinnamon-rolls (we like Elaine Mount's better!!).

Overall, we have had a busy but productive and happy week. We love being married and think that it's not hard- it's just worth it. We want our family to know that we are happy with our life together and we're trying our best to take good care of each other. We love you all! God Bless.

Yesterday I had what I call a "quitting day", where I get really frustrated with work and bogged down by the people we interact with.
So today, Jon and I took the day off! We both slept in, spent the morning studying and getting ready. We then went to Golds Gym and signed up for membership. We held out.. so they took away our initiation fees, slightly lowered the monthly payments, and kept offering us things like free gym bags. We paid more than half up front, so that we don't have to worry about budgeting it in on a monthly basis.
We then came home and made some lunch, did a little more studying, and hanging out. We decided to go the gym for the first time this evening! Jon did cardio with me, and really felt the workout (as did I). I am scared to do weights with him! Then I'll be the one really feeling it!
After, we watched our new favorite show, House, and made a healthy dinner. And then.. of course.. we had to end the perfect day with the perfect treat! So we used the cold stones gift card Joy sent us (thank you!!!)
It was the perfect end to our perfect day:
Jon apparently wanted to show us the ice cream while he was enjoying it :)

Oh, and don't forget, we also got ZERO phone calls on the work phone! It was such a blessing. We feel ready to face the rest of the week.

Jon and I spoke in church today. We were nervous before speaking, but felt great once it was over. I talked fast, but I'm pretty sure I was coherent. Jon spoke slower than I did (thank heavens) and did a great job!! Many people complimented him on his talk.

also, check out Jon's new suit!!
What a stud, thanks for helping mom!!

Also, ownership is being changed for Summerwood Condos! Meaning.. we have a new boss! Who has an accountant. Our old boss will still have a certain percentage of the units, but our new guy holds the majority. We are excited to have an accountant who will get the bills and deposits paid on time. More people means more organization, and these guys seem excited and motivated with their new investment.
For example, our new boss Vincent, said he needed all of the tenants email addresses. I said we could leave notices to get them from our tenants. He went out and made fliers and is raffling off an i-pod for the tenants who turn them in with their email's! Jon and I appreciate the enthusiasm of this guy.

Tonight Jon and I drove up Provo Canyon and picked a random drive off point.


It was really beautiful up there. There was an old train station, park areas, and still water ponds.This is a dark one.. but it its a happy one.

We have been to all of our classes!

Jon really likes his first aid class. On his first day the teacher passed around pictures of severed limbs and deep wounds to desensitize the students. Apparently those pictures will passed around each class period. First aid is set up to be very hands-on and user-friendly. Jon thinks the teacher has a really realistic approach to the class. There will be skill tests that are pass / fail, and if you fail you basically do it again until you pass.

My family recreation class seems like it will be really fun. The teacher has set up the class in how I feel I would set up a class.. so clearly it really appeals to me. Everything we learn in the class, she said, we will use again in our lives. We have lecture Monday and Wednesday, and Friday we take a weekly quiz (so no midterms) and then we will play different games that can be used as wholesome recreational activities for families.
I am also continually thrilled with my New Testament class. My teacher reads straight from his Greek translation of the Bible and refers to early-Christian writings that he has gotten to translate himself. He has a very scholarly mannerism :)

Jessica and I went to Lori's wedding reception on Thursday night. Unfortunately Jon could not accompany us because he was too busy looking at severed limbs that night. It was soo fun to see all of the family. I loved talking to Heather (Tanner) and Michelle. I also had a great talk with Uncle Charlie about photo-shop and digital photography.
Here are just a couple of pictures:


Lori looked soo beautiful! And was still her loveable tom-boy self, even in the big white dress.Jessica, Dave, Lori and I. (this is not my favorite picture of myself.. but mom really wanted to see my new haircut)

We are happy it is the weekend! I hope everyone has a good one!

Jon and I loved having a 3 day weekend! We saw Indiana Jones and Hancock in the dollar theater on Saturday and Monday.

On Monday we were driving by campus, there is this beautiful pond, and we noticed a little huddle of baby ducks!! Soo cute.
There was good lighting so I took a picture of Jon's new haircut. Good thing you can't see the little nick I left from when the razor comb fell off! Oops, its tiny, I swear.


We bought most of our books and did all of our school business as well. We bought bus passes and figured out our routes. I had never taken the bus by myself before so the first day of school was an adventure. I think Jon and I were more nervous about taking the bus than our actual first day of school.

I had a good first day, only 2 classes. My strengthening marriage and family class seems really involved and I have an enthusiastic teacher. I think this class will relate to many of my other family oriented classes. My New Testament class seems like it will be really great, we're studying from Acts - Revelations. Our teacher is having our reading be done in the King James bible and any other translation we choose, to help in understanding the language and message of the New Testament.

Jon had philosophy and nutrition today. He is really excited for philosophy and is hoping nutrition will be more straight-forward than the ever-changing nutrition advice on the news.

We are excited to see how our classes go tomorrow, we will be sure to give you the rest of the update later.