So today is Nate's birthday! Yay! We had a good day, but it quickly became a spectacular day when OU outdid (one word or two?) all my presents and my parents presents by giving Nate a $9k tuition waiver for becoming a 20hr a week Graduate Assistant (before he was only working 10 hours). We are unbelievably grateful as out of state tuition is far from cheap...especially for grad school. Nothing could make our day better. So thank you Nate for being born - I love you more than anything and thank you OU for helping us celebrate this day - You have officially become our favorite state.

It's funny how now that I'm married, when people find out I'm Mormon my first thought no longer goes to "dang it I just potentially lost a date." Instead, I have come to relish in seeing the reactions of people. For instance, this guy at my work goes "so how was Utah? Did you turn Mormon?" And I just smiled and said, "well actually I already am." With those 5 words I managed to make an egotistical 30 year old blush. It's hilarious and I love it. And Nate's learning to love it and that also makes me so so happy.

The passed few weeks have been a busy few weeks. Nate started school and got a place to do his practicum at that's here in Norman, which is awesome. School is going well for him so far except that he has a professor that is extremely racists...against white males. It's weird and annoying and sometimes the things Nate tells me he says such as "you white males should feel guilty for having the opportunities you have" really boggles my mind. I mean who says that? Or even believes it for that matter? He is still loving his job, mostly because he only has to work 10 hours a week and he has a nice private office to study and all of the old ladies he works with adores him because they say "Oh Nate you're so sweet and always so helpful." They liked him so much he was asked to represent the School of Social Work in the dedication of the new building he's in, which means he got to go to fancy lunch and sit with the schools headhanchos.

Things are going well for me. I got a sort of promotion at my job and am now the executive administrative assistant to the CEO, but I also still do several things with the financials, which allows me to have basically everything i want in a position. AND! I just got told on Friday that I might be sent out to NYC and CT for a business trip in a few weeks. I scream inside with excitement every 5 minutes, but I'm not going to get too excited until the flight's booked and I know for sure i'm going. But boy oh boy i hope it happens because it would fulfill a dream of mine to travel to NYC/Manhattan on business.

We also were able to go see my friend get married, which was sweet. And we got to spend a lot of time with my brother and sister in law and their kids, which was tons of fun. Monday was our two year anniversary! We went out in the afternoon and then our friends invited us to go to this place in the middle of no where called POPS. It's a gas station/burger place with seriously over a thousand different kinds of soda. It was amazing and so much fun. I love Oklahoma's simplicity.

Yesterday we went to the county fair with our friends. It was way fun and so hilarious to see Oklahoma in county fair action. They had a cow milking contest, which was so entertaining. Then i got to hold a baby chick and pet a mini horse (not a donkey) who clearly hated his life. It was an all around good time. Next weekend we are all going to the state fair and we are so excited to see the type of Oklahoma rednecks that will be attending.


Picture time:

Here is us at POPS...even though you can't see us the soda bottle looks awesome.




And here is the video of the cow milking contest, even though you can't see it that well.

I've been meaning to post this video for a while. We were only in Norman a month when we had the tornado scare with the syrens blaring outside. Luckily it never hit our house but then later we had this storm. p.s. sorry the camera freezes my phone wasn't working properly.

When I think of a good day, this is what comes to my mind:

Nate getting a Graduate Assistant position in the practicum department at the School of Social Work. Not only does he get paid, but we get insurance (FOR FREE and on top of our other insurance), it is only 10 hours a week, which is brilliant for his 15 credit hours and 20 hour practicum that he will have to do, AND it puts him in a perfect position to get to know his professors and those that work in the social work department, which is again, great. Huge blessing.

Walking around the new outlet mall in Oklahoma City, then going to Freddy's (which full on beats In N Out...seriously), then going to Walmart and Kohls and buying OU shirts for the fall football season that is starting.




I couldn't pull Nate away from this bird shirt.



And to top off a wonderful day with the husband, on our way home we saw thee best lightening storm ever. Hopefully that means a huge storm and lots of rain...because oh boy does Oklahoma need it. The ground is so dry there are cracks in the dirt that are seriously half an inch wide. Not good.

I am so grateful for all the blessings we have received. It amazes us every day. I love the gospel.

Before Nate and I moved to OK, we found a way to get our bed shipped through a shipping company for super cheap, which made it so we didn't have to pay for a moving truck (it wasn't worth it, but we didn't know that at the time, but that's beside the point) Anyway, long story short, we got a bill from a freight company for $1057 for shipping our bed. Nate tried calling the guy we worked with back in May, and got a hold of him once, but coincidentally, after he knew our problem, every time Nate tried calling him, it went straight to voicemail. We were anxious to get this taken care of because we found out that we only had 5 days to figure this all out before the bill went to a collections agency. Eventually, after having to go through another guy and after me calling him literally 3 times a day to make sure he was still taking care of the bill, we got it sorted out Friday afternoon. You can be sure, our relief was great.

On a more random note, this week at work I had to book around 15 hotel rooms for employees traveling out and about. While this is one of my favorite tasks because I love looking at flights and hotels and dreaming about the day when some day I'll be able to travel to cool places, this week was especially depressing as I had to search for hotels in downtown NY, which is another destination I would very much like to see. Since we needed the room on such sort notice, our normal hotel wasn't available, so this is where I ended up putting the employee.

This would be the lobby.




And this would be the view of downtown NY.



Certainly no one would have to twist my arm to stay there.

However, Nate and I did get a really good looking desk for our second bedroom this week. It only cost us $45 and it will be perfect for Nate when he starts school. Now he will have an official study area. We clearly live simple lives as this made our week.

You know you've had an exhausting week when you get legitametly excited about bed time after work, on a Friday night.

Today Nate and I scheduled our first dentist appointment with our own group dental insurance. I shouldn't be as excited as I am. But this is a milestone.

London. Europe. My dream vacation. I think about going there at least 3 times a week and i'm not kidding. Today that's only where my thoughts are. London. Paris. Rome. Vienna. Old gorgeous Europe architecture. Accents. Regretting not going to Belgium.

Yet, will I ever go there? It looks like it's not in my cards. At least not until i'm old and decrepit. Please money, fall into our lap and let me fulfill my lifelong dream of traveling overseas. Please.

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, so I figured it was about time.

Nate and I have settled into life here. I got a job at Agio Technology, which is a start up company. They have only been in business in a year and a half, but they are doing really well. I'm not sure I liked it for the first week I worked there, but now that I'm starting to get the swing of things I really really like it. Nate hasn't found a job yet after quitting the job at the nut house for kids. BUT he just got accepted to the full time program! We don't know yet if he will be able to work since he will be doing 15 credit hours plus 20 hours of a practicum, but he's still looking nonetheless.

We experienced a pretty crazy storm here about 2 and a half weeks ago. Apparently winds got up to 90 mph (i'm not exaggerating) and there was tons of rain and hail. So much rain in fact, that water started coming through our windows and front door at a pretty rapid rate. It was a scary 15 minutes. After it was all over we went outside and saw all the damage...which was a lot. Our neighbors (in the duplex next to us) came out screaming a few choice words because his roof caved in. He wasn't the only one our street. We now have 3 abandoned units of townhouses because their roofs were torn off. It was eerie hearing all the sirens and car alarms going off in the background. But it was cool to see the niceness of all the Okies emerge as everyone rushed to help those who had to get things out of their homes because the water destroyed everything.

On a happier note, we have seemed to have made a few friends here which is nice. They are all in our ward and two of the couples live 20 steps away in our circle. We are trying to get the third couple in our neighborhood so it's complete. It would be nice if we could trade them with our super loud next door neighbors. Anywho, on Sunday night we all went to a private lake that my co-worker invited us to for fireworks and picked the perfect secluded spot on the lake where we could see the amazing fireworks perfectly. It was really the perfect night. The lake was perfect and the weather was perfect, which is extremely hard to find here considering it hasn't been less than 100 degree for about a week and a half now. Afterwards we went to ihop (we waited until after midnight of course) and i had the best tasting pancakes I ever had. Of course I think anything tastes good at that time of night.

Today we bought tickets to go out to Utah at the end of August to see my best friend of how many years? 17 minus a 10 year break? get married. I have to bring this up on here because I'd feel so cheesy sending her a text or telling her in person, so here it goes. I know I tell her probably daily how excited I am for her, but I don't think she really knows how happy I am for the experience she is about to have. I already know that when I watch them get married, I will ball my eyes out. I'm so glad she found a great guy and that everything she has been hoping for and wanting is about to come true. Plus, I cannot wait until they come to Oklahoma to visit...which they have to. Oh, and please still be my friend after you get married.


Well I think that's all that's going on in our lives. I really should blog more often so these posts aren't so long...

I know I just posted something yesterday, but on Yahoo! there was this story about this guy who threw himself over his wife to protect her while a tornado ripped through their house and because of that he saved her life, but lost his.

While it's a super sad ending, could this story be anymore sweet?

Alright well I guess it's time for an update about our new adventures in Oklahoma and since I don't really know where to start, I guess I'll just start from Day 1 of arrival. We got into Norman and went straight to meet our landlord at his work where we picked up our key and learned that due to a few unlucky circumstances, we would not be able to move in until the next day. Not exactly what we wanted to hear, but our landlord was extremely nice about it and put us up in a nice hotel. It wasn't until we started driving to look at our place that I noticed how shockingly pretty Norman is. It's so green and my most favorite part, there are so many trees and at a lot of spots the trees hang over the road creating this beautiful canopy. I loved it more than Nate probably because it reminded me of WI.

Anywho, we weren't able to move our stuff in until the day after we arrived, giving us a lot of free time to get some things done we needed to like become residents of OK and go grocery shopping, etc. It was nice to get to drive around the city even though I'm sure we will never get used to the layout...they love one way streets here. So, we got settled in and a few days later experienced our first BIG thunderstorm here. I forgot how much I love/miss real thunderstorms.

Since we both don't have jobs we decided to go walk around the OU campus and get Nate his student ID so he can be official. I LOVE the campus. It's so gorgeous and beats out every other campus. The buildings have amazing architecture and give it this almost medieval feel. I don't know it's hard to explain. But it's gorgeous. While we were on campus we went into the social work building just to look around and boy was timing right because we literally ran into the MSW program coordinator and by the end of talking to her she said she would do everything she could to switch him to the full-time program. We loved hearing that. We also found this awesome duck pond that makes the one at BYU laughable. It's gorgeous and while it doesn't smell the best we had a great time walking around and taking in the green. We also found this great animal shelter that treats their dogs so much better than the humane society and we get to walk the dogs and play with them for as long as we want and it's wonderful and I love it.

It didn't take Nate long to find a job...a great job. He will be doing almost exactly what he wants (which is individual and group counseling with troubled kids ages 5 to 12) all because the director of the treatment center was so impressed with him. He hasn't started yet though because he is waiting to get his background check from UT. I'm very proud of him needless to say.

A few days about we experienced our first tornado threat. When we heard the sirens we decided to go outside and look and as we opened our door we saw all our neighbors hurriedly jump in their cars and leave? They clearly know about a tornado shelter that we do not know about.

I'm sure since this post is so long and pretty uninteresting no one will read it, but I'll post pictures that will basically summarize what I wrote.

Here are what the pictures show.
1. The Welcome to Norman sign as when we first got to the city...we were cleary very excited.
2. Us getting our Oklahoma license plate. We are officially Sooners!
3. Me playing with one of the dogs that we got to walk. I loved this dog. He would walk a few steps and then stop to be petted (is that a word?)
4. The duck pond with part of OU in the background.
5. Our place! we are the one on the left. We <3 our apartment. 6. Last but not least, an OU chair we found while shopping for our couches. No we did not buy it, but Nate loved the chair.

So on May 9th Nate and I will begin a road trip to our new home for 3 years...Norman, OK. I know I keep bringing this up whenever I talk about Oklahoma, but I really think I should write this down, just so that if there is a hard time in Oklahoma I can look back and remember that we are definitely in the RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME.

Ever since Nate applied to grad schools in January, our number one thought is where we should end up. We LOVED the idea of Portland and that was about it. I had anxiety every time I thought about AZ or Denver and the University of Oklahoma we never even thought twice about because why in the world would we want to live there?

Well we got the email that Nate was accepted to OU and I specifically told Amber: "well OU is out" and she said "yea why would anyone move to OK?" and I answered with "yea no joke. we will not be going there"

Two weeks later, we accepted OU's acceptance and ever since then, everything has fallen into place, letting Nate and I know that we are supposed to LIVE IN OKLAHOMA. Here's why:

After getting the acceptance to OU, we started researching the school, town, state, etc. We suddenly met a lot of people who lived in OK and who kept saying how much they loved it. As we mulled it over, we suddenly started getting excited for our future, something that we hadn't felt in a while. Eventually, we just knew that's where we were going. It was no longer a question it was now a fact. A few weeks later we went to the temple with our friends with the question of when we should leave. The next day, we found out Nate's parents house had sold and that they wanted to take possession of the house May 11th. QUESTIONS ANSWERED. Thank you.

So that night we started looking through all different types of websites for apartments. When I thought I had visited every website with apartment rentals, I decided to try one last website. What did I find? A brand new posting for a townhome that was being COMPLETELY REMODELED, was only $625 a month and was only 5 minutes from the school. I emailed the guy and didn't think twice about it. He emailed me the next day and we chatted for a bit, but i just wasn't that interested.

Later that night while I was at work, he sent a response to a previous email I had sent, and for some reason after reading the email, I just had to have this place. I have NO CLUE what changed my mind, but it was definitely changed. Suddenly I wanted this place and only this place and I was willing to do anything to get it. Since I was at work (and it was slow) I was able to respond to him quickly, which after allowed me to claim dibs on the townhome. The potential landlord kept saying though how he didn't want to rent it to us when no one had seen it, so we thought we had hit a roadblock.

BUT WAIT, we remembered that Nate's brother and his wife had friends that had moved to OK about 8 months before, who, coincidently, only liked about 40 minutes away. So she went to check out the place the next day and by Thursday of this week, we had secured it.

People reading this may be think "so what. things worked out. congratulations." To them I say, it's not just that everything worked out, it's that everything worked out SO PERFECTLY with MINIMAL EFFORT. Some may call us silly, but as a result of this, we know beyond a doubt that we are about to be in the RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME and we couldn't be more excited for what's in store.

On Thursday, I had the opportunity of making a new friend. This is a rare thing because I usually don't want to take the time to move passed the acquaintance stage...which is why I have only 1 friend before making my 2nd friend on Thursday.

I would go into details about how this friendship developed and why it's such a perfect friendship, but I would have to go into deep detail about my personality and that would just take too long. I just want to express how excited I am to make another friend, who understands and thinks the exact same way I do when it comes to friendships and people. So rare.

For some reason, lately I have been missing our old apartment, which is strange because our place was a hole. We killed spiders daily, couldn't shut the bathroom door all the way, had a kitchen that was so small it couldn't fit a full stove in it, and windows and doors that were more drafty than a skirt on a windy day.

Regardless of all these things, it was our place, with our stuff and for that reason, I miss it beyond measure.

I never properly got to say goodbye, so below are memories of our wonderful, old, disgusting apartment.

Quote: "You're much prettier than your voice sounds."

Compliment or insult? Who knows.

I'm really getting sick of people not fully understanding the current state that nate and i are in in life, so I have come up with an analogy.

Here it is:

Currently Nate and I are stuck in a game of spin the bottle. The players of the game are Portland State University, Arizona State University, Eastern Washington University, University of Oklahoma, and University of Denver.

University of Denver took its turn spinning and luckily for us, the bottle stopped on us. This is good because it means we will end up in the closet with someone, but unfortunately for us, it's our last choice, but the first one who spun. As a result, we can't decide whether to pull out our pass card, or just take what we got.

Next up for spinning is OU or ASU. They might even just spin at the same time, but their spins last 2 to 4 weeks. Both ASU or OU seem enticing to us. We like ASU's gorgeous ability to stay warm every month of the year and we like OU's randomness and small town feel. Still, those spins aren't what we are looking for.

The most anticipated spin is PSU's. We are desperately crushing on PSU. I mean everything about it looks good. We even get butterflies when we think about how our lives would be with PSU. The problem is, they are in a lot of other spin the bottle games and have decided that they aren't going to join our game until April 30th. Apparently, we aren't their one and only. Stupid competition.

So, until PSU makes their final decision, we can't decide who we want to go into the closet with, which is extremely frustrating.


Cautionary Note in case my mother reads this: I have never participated in a spin the bottle game, so I don't actually know if a closet is involved.

I love you Bilo. You have been the greatest dog a family could ever ask for. We grew up together so its hard to imagine home without you there.

I'll miss the way you would sit on my lap and sleep or when I was sick and laying on the couch.

I'll miss the way you would lay with your leg on the heater in the winter or how you would always sleep with your nose in mom's slipper whenever she left the house.

I'll miss the way you would go for the broccoli that was on the floor before you went for the meat and how you would howl every time an ambulance or firetruck passed by our house, but then when you noticed we were watching you, you'd get all embarrassed.

I'll miss the fact that you would lay by me when I would go outside to tan. I'll miss the Sunday night walks we would take in the summer. I'll miss you dancing and your reaction when I would pick you up and give you a squeeze hug and then how you would run away from me for fear that I would do it again.

I'll miss you Bilo. You have no idea how much.

1. If i don't know you very well, I really don't want to hear about your problems. Please and thank you.

2. According to Yahoo! eating carbs actually makes you loose wait.
"A recent multi-center study found that the slimmest people also ate the most carbs, and the chubbiest ate the least. The researchers concluded that your odds of getting and staying slim are best when carbs make up to 64% of your total daily caloric intake, or 361 grams."

So, to all those who think eating carbs is next to murder, lay off me. I will eat as many mashed potatoes and as much (whole wheat) pasta as I darn well please.

Every so often I think why do... and then fill in the blank. Usually I can think through the answer myself, but this one has me stumped.

Why do the majority of Europeans seem to travel everywhere while the majority of Americans usually just stay in America and maybe go to Canada and Mexico?

Is this because Americans are brats and don't want to go anywhere? Or is it because we are more thrifty with our money?

I doubt i'll ever get an answer to my question.

TodayI had the extreme privilege of reading one of the best articles I believe Yahoo! has ever posted. By the way, if you keep wondering why I keep writing Yahoo! with the exclamation point, it's because I feel guilty leaving it off. doesn't give the true Yahoo! feel...Yahoo...that did nothing for me.

Getting back to the point at hand. They posted an article entitled: "What the guys think of your fashion". 1 word, 4 syllables: hilarious.

Because the article is so long and not every second of it is funny, I'd thought I'd post a few of my absolute favorites. It begins.

Fad Fashion #1: Designer sweats/sweats with words on them

Men's comments:

“Irony is seeing the word ‘classy’ down a woman’s thigh. Forget trans-fats, these fashion catastrophes need to go.”
– Ed, 29, nightclub manager, Ohio

My comments: First, he is comparing writings on sweats to trans-fats...fair comparison. Second, he said "fashion catastrophes." does a real man say that?

Fad Fashion #2: T-shirts with witty slogans or sayings

“Ninety-five percent of the girls who wear t-shirts that say something like ‘Out Of Your League’ really aren’t, actually. And shirts like these only serve to point that out. As for the other five percent, why rub it in?”
– Steve

My comments: ding ding ding. Steve is right on the money.

Fad Fashion #3: Leggings

“If you’ve got nice legs, this look can be attractive with a short dress and heels. It says, ‘I know it’s cold out, but I still want to give you guys something to look at.’ That’s just being considerate.”
– Steve

My comments: leggings are equal to being considerate. who knew?

Fad Fashion #4: Ugg boots

“Pam Anderson used to wear these on Baywatch, and it made me want to change the channel. Think about that. I wanted to turn off Baywatch.”
– Ed

My comments: Ed. you deserve a gold sticker. please come speak to Utah county.


Fad Fashion #5: Giant sunglasses

“I immediately assume that a woman is not attractive if she covers up half of her face with these things.”
– Andrew

“These are absolutely OK — if you’re 87 and playing shuffleboard. Otherwise, they’re just covering up prime real estate. No one is gonna bid if they can’t see the property.”
– Joey

My comments: These guys are witty.

Fad Fashion #6: Miniskirts

“This is a time-tested, man-approved sure thing. Miniskirts and heels are like the playoffs and ribs — they go together perfectly.”
– Joey

My comments: again another nice comparison. First it was comparing a womans face to real estate and then within that same sentence comparing dating to bidding. Second it was the simile of mini skirts and heels to playoffs and ribs. I bet he got an A in english because these comparisons couldn't be more accurate.


Well that is the end. I hope you enjoyed these few parts of the article as much as I did. Thank you again Yahoo! for entertaining me.