JEANNONATHAN

Long time, no blog...

2011-05-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it’s been entirely too long. Oops. I’m horrible at writing... and just lazy. I enjoy reading about/stalking other people’s blogs much more :)

But since I last posted (forever ago), I’ve FINISHED at BYU, graduated and got my BS in Sociology, and moved with Jon to Bountiful so he can have a 20 minute commute to and from work, rather than 1.5 hours. We love it here! Our ward is great and full of the most adorable and sweetest old men and women, as well as great younger couples with unbelievably cute little kids (if you don’t know what I mean by “ward”, it’s where I meet for church. To learn more about it, go here!). The location is wonderful because we’re right off the freeway, and both Jon and my parents are within 25 minutes of us! Free dinners and great visits? Yes, please.

The downside to all of this change is that (1) we miss our old ward and friends a lot…. Everyone was our same age and pretty much in our same situation that it was really easy to relate to everyone! But change is good and we needed to get out of college town. And (2) I no longer have a job… Yay for jumping into the job search again! I hate this. But on the upside, as I’ve been searching, I’ve had plenty of time to set up our new apartment and make it livable! Although maybe that’s a downside because now I want to buy a ton of cute decorations to fix it up and I no longer have my job… hmmm. Dilemma. I’ve tried to be thrifty and do fun and cheap projects on our place, but I’m afraid the curtains I hemmed are not the prettiest… haha oh well. I tried. Also on my spare time I’ve had a grand time cooking and trying out new recipes. So if anyone happens to have some amazing recipes they think I should try, send them my way! Oh, and food blogs are now my absolute favorite so you can send me your favorites there, too :)

But now, more so that I can have a record for my own future reminiscence, here are some photos of our good, old, twice-flooded Provo place (photos of the new place to come soon, once we finish decorating all the walls and such):

Our front room - notice the beautiful multi-colored shag carpet :)

Leading into our little kitchen table nook...

Half of our hallway of a kitchen. Small, but doable with only two of us.

And our bedroom, which, surprisingly, happens to be quite a bit larger than our current one!

And while we’re on the topic of pictures, here are some more of the events of the last several months. I thought I’d end with a bang, since pictures are all that anyone cares about, right? Haha

WAYYYY back on New Year's Eve, we gathered at my parents house and decided to be all trendy by making sushi and mocktails. Both turned out amazingly and we had a blast!

Jon was our master mocktail mixer and even had a drink menu we could choose from. He's pretty legit.

On New Year's Day, Jon and I got to hang out with his family, first going bowling and then later to the Children's Museum in Salt Lake. Unfortunately, this was the only non-crappy picture I got... But isn't Jon's neice, Emika, freaking adorable?!

This last year, especially, we decided to take advantage of the fact that we had four Lowe kids in Provo, so Nathan, David, Michelle (for a few months), Jon and I hung out a ton, playing games, eating lovely desserts, and having a grand old time. It was really fun to be together so often!

Then on Valentine's Day, which also happened to be Jon and my 6 month anniversary, we had a nice little dinner in - Jon made an INCREDIBLE lobster crepe thing. SO GOOD.

And I made a yummy strawberry and chocolate cheesecake pie thing. But it didn't compare at all to the deliciousness of dinner!

I am also proud to announce that I have now officially eaten a Big Mac. Yes, it's true. I was a Big Mac virgin for about 23 years of my life. Shocking, I know. It was good, I guess. Haha.

AND WE SPOTTED THE OSCAR MEYER WEINER WAGON!!!

Graduation! This is my friend, Alex, and her cousin, Jared. As the ceremony was long, I was so glad to be sitting next to friends who could serve as hilarious distractions... Alex and I are still as immature as ever.

It's official. We're both BYU grads!

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for supporting me through it all!!

A week after graduation, we were packed up and moving out! This was the majority of our things... a lot less than I realized... I guess that comes with having no places to put anything.

After the move, Jon turned 26! He is now officially older than a quarter of a century. I've married an old man... Ha kidding. I love this old guy quite a lot. Upon his request we had a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, which I pretty much demolished in trying to decorate it... hence the distance from the cake so you can't see any detail :)

And on our spare time and on funny dates, we like to visit stores, such as Pier 1, that we can't afford, but enjoy being ridiculously immature in. I love us :)

So there you have it! We're alive and doing quite well! The end.

my lame attempt at a 6 month update :)

2010-11-06T22:46:00.000-07:00

Look, everyone - I ACTUALLY BLOGGED!!!

This is rather embarrassing how long it’s been since I’ve blogged. I promise I’ve been busy. But you’d think with all the things I do to distract myself from doing homework, this could be one of them… I just fail. Oh well. At least I’m doing it now, right? Right.

So, since my last post, the following big events have happened (and be warned… it’s a ton to catch up on so it’s rather lengthy…. Sorry. I don't blame you all one bit if you can't make it though):

1) David graduated in June – the last of 8!! Crazy.

2) I worked at Jim Puffer Landscape as an office help and missed Jon terribly as he worked as an EFY counselor and BC most of the summer (so I’d only see him for a tiny bit on weekends – 8 weeks straight, up until the week before our wedding. Awesome. Sarcasm intended.)

3) We went shooting with Miriam and Marc so he could try out his new gun (I pretty much just included this because I thought the pictures were funny :) ) – also, please note how pregnant Miriam is in her picture… haha

4) I got my wedding dress (well… haha I’d actually had it for about a year- since last July. But we finally picked it up. Long story.)

5) My mother-in-law and sister-in-law threw me a bridal shower (as did my family, but I managed to somehow forget pictures of that one…. Probably a good thing since I ended up getting make-up all over my face and up my nose in a hilarious, rather interesting game…). And unfortunately, we didn’t get a big group shot, so this is just one with my friends and Michelle who were invited with some of the blankets Jon’s grandmother made for us!!

6) I got MARRIED to the wonderful and amazing Jonathan Kenichi Maruji and am so so happy! Here are a few of our favorites from the bridals we took a few days before the wedding (we’re still waiting on the actual wedding pictures so I’ll definitely be posting those as soon as we get them, which I think will be sometime soon!)

7) We went on a honeymoon to the Mayan Riviera in Mexico and it was absolutely amazing! It was definitely my first time leaving the country (unless Canada at the age of 5 counts..?) and going somewhere cool and exotic so I’m a little obsessed and camera happy... The beaches, the ruins, the excursions, snorkeling, the animals, the service, the food (including some very strange fruit…), and the finality of all wedding plans were all amazing. We actually somehow missed our flight from Denver to Cancun (curse you, Frontier Airlines!!) and ended up spending a day there in Colorado instead. We ended up meeting up with our really good friends who live there now and they showed us the sites. We had a grand ol’ time.

8) Labor Day weekend we spent up in Idaho with Jon’s family and grandparents. We got to go fishing, play tons of games, make noodles with an incredible antique pasta maker, go to the Southeastern Idaho State Fair (where I found that I’m rather allergic to horses… or cows, or sheet, or rabbits. Either way I was sneezing nonstop. It was awesome), and play around with the kiddos! Also, apparently there were a few rides from Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. Haha to put it nicely, they weren’t exactly the most exciting ones there… But it was such a great weekend…. Until we came home….

9) On Monday while we were still in Idaho, we got a call from our apartment manager, letting us know that our apartment had been flooding all weekend due to a sprinkler leak right outside our window (we are on the basement level). WOOHOO!! Haha welcome back from vacation, right? Haha. So they had moved most of our larger furniture (kitchen table and chairs, mattress and box spring, bookshelf, tables in the living room, and the TV) into another apartment in the complex and put all the rest of the smaller stuff in our kitchen. So we basically lived out of two apartments for about a week, with very little access to our food in our kitchen since it was crammed and covered in all of our stuff. It was great fun. We feel really fortunate, though, because really, the only major damage we had was that the $25 bookshelf collapsed from water damage. That’s all. Thank goodness! The complex replaced the carpet padding only (haha man, what we would have given for them to take out this nasty shag carpet with multiple shades of brown. Sick.) and then we moved our stuff back in. Whew. It was nice to have our apartment back to normal again. And we are still in the process of putting up pictures on walls and such so stay tuned for more pictures of the apartment!

10) Okay, so this has gone plenty long enough, but I guess I should quickly update on our lives now, as we’ve been married for almost three months! Jon has been working at Applebees for the last couple years and has been doing so since we’ve been married (and I’m just going to vent for a second to say how miserable this all has been for the both of us: not only were we living off of his tips, but his shifts would usually go from about 5pm to 1am about 5 times a week, and on top of that, he usually worked every Saturday and almost every other Sunday. Lame. Sorry, vent session over). At the same time he has been applying for as many legit jobs as possible, going to job fairs, networking.... blah. Not fun. However, last week we received a small (huge, actually) miracle when he got a call from the LDS Church Audio Visual Department in the Church Office Building in Salt Lake (also where my dad and Jon's brother-in-law work!). He interviewed with them and within a day or two got a call back to offer him the job!! So now, Jon has a real adult job and it’s crazy that life has moved on so well and so quickly for us! He will be working with the new technologies going on right now (i.e. Mormon Messages, Church movies, etc.), which is awesome. Meanwhile, I am still trucking away at school and only have until April before I graduate (and I actually signed up for graduation today – WOOHOO!!). But in the meantime, I’m trying to ward off senioritis and actually try hard to do well in my capstone class and other hard, reading-intensive classes. We’re pretty dang exciting. But when we do have time to enjoy together, we’ve recently become absolutely obsessed with the games Bang! and Hand & Foot. So if you’re looking for entertainment, look no further.

So life is grand we’re very very happy to be together for time and eternity! Sorry for my long absence in blogging world, but I really will try to be better, because it seems like now that I’m a married Mormon girl, that’s what I’m apparently supposed to do. Haha. Anyway, welcome to the life of the Maruji’s!

still alive! and with some very belated and exciting news...

2010-05-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

So here’s the deal. I promised my sister, Sarah, two days ago, that I would FINALLY blog, and I told her to expect it by two days ago. Failed. But to be fair, I am writing this post in my bed after a couple of long, busy days. Haha. Eh, you all can deal with yet another day of my not posting since I’ve just been so great at it thusfar. I know I have been the world's worst blogger so far. But that just means that I've been super selective of the special events in my life that I want every one to know about. Basically since my last post, I have continued in school, declaring Sociology as my major, and enjoyed time with family, friends, and a certain boy. In fact, that certain boy is what this post is almost completely about.... His name is Jonathan Kenichi Maruji, and he is now my fiance as of March 8^th :)

As I am sure my large amount (haha) of blogging readers already knew this fact, thanks to Facebook, I thought I’d FINALLY share how it all happened, and more details of plans thusfar – that is, if anyone cares to read about it. I figure this cannot only be for those who have requested the information but also for me just to keep it recorded for myself and my posterity!

…. So as a WARNING, this is going to be quite long and wordy. Feel free to skip forward if you are only interested in pictures, as I know I often am :)

So first of all, Jon and I had been dating about 15 months by the time he asked me to marry him. And we had started talking about marriage at about the 6 month mark. Yeah. We’re slow. But we finally (mostly) made the decision to go forward with things a couple weeks before it all happened. Jon and I kept having doubts and fears about making this final decision and weren’t sure if what we were doing was what our Heavenly Father had planned for us to do. We realized however, that through this long waiting period that doubt and fear is not of God, but of Satan. We were just scared because he wanted us to be. So after weeks and months of feeling like we were on a roller coaster with our feelings all over the place, we decided it was about time we just made a decision and stuck to it, leaving it in our Heavenly Father’s hands to let us know if we made the right choice or not. Once we made this decision, I just waited for Jon to make the next move, as boys should! Haha

It had only been a week since we had made this final decision, but for some reason I was getting a little antsy and wondered why it was that Jon still had not asked me to marry him. So on Sunday night, March 7^th, Jon and I went for a walk around south Provo to a little playground. During this walk we talked more about where we stood and what was going to happen next for us. Basically I was asking him nicely what was taking so long. Haha I’m impatient. He assured me that he just wanted to wait it out a little bit longer to make sure this feeling of assurance on both our parts was going to continue. But little did I know that he already was planning on asking me the very next day. He also had informed my roommate, Alex, of the coming events and somehow she kept it from me the entire next day! That’s pretty impressive, seeing as we tell each other everything.

Jon and I weren’t able to see each other much this last semester due to an internship he had a couple times a week in Salt Lake. So with that being an issue, Jon told me a couple days before the proposal that he wanted to do something fun that week before he was going to be gone so much. He also had a lesson that he had to teach for his Marriage Prep class and asked me if he could teach me. Of course I said yes, since the assignment was due just a couple days away. So on Monday night, he said he’d planned something for after I got off of work, including the lesson – but he promised he had more than just the lesson planned so I wouldn’t be bored and so we could make our little time together worth it. It was definitely worth it. Well, I was supposed to get off work at the Testing Center at 9pm, but because we were so busy that night, I had to stay until about 10:30. Jon was apparently freaking out this entire time, wondering why it was taking so long and just wanting to get it over with so his nerves could calm down. I was ruining his plan. Hahaha.

When I finally got off, I called him up to apologize for the delay and let him know I was done. Soon he showed up at my apartment to pick me up so we could do dinner and go over the prepared lesson (obviously not the only events of the evening…). Because it had been a long day and I hadn’t seen any of my roommates, I stopped on our way out the door to ask how their days were. Alex saw that Jon was going crazy since I’d taken long enough already and decided to have mercy on him by hinting that it was cold and we should just go. I guess I’m not the only impatient one then :) - Jon thanks you, Alex! Haha. So we left, he trying hard not for me to notice a certain ring box in his left pant pocket. He had picked up a pizza from Brick Oven about a half hour earlier since it had closed and had it all ready for our outing. I asked where we were going and he just said I’d have to wait and see. *Ding* that was the first hint that something was up…. But I soon waved away that option seeing as we had just had such an unsure conversation the night before.

We drove around campus and soon came to our final destination: the BYU Bell Tower. He said that one of his roommates’ sisters played the organ in the bell tower every once in a while and lent him the keys so we could have a special night together. *Ding* - hint number two, but once again, I forgot it as soon as it crossed my mind. So we climbed the 90+ spiral stairs to the top, looked around a bit at the dark, but beautiful view, laid out a blanket, and started eating our pizza that had gotten somewhat cold by that point. It was nice to just sit and enjoy each others company without the presence of roommates, friends, or others. Fairly soon after we started dinner, Jon said he didn’t want the lesson to go too late so he went ahead and started on it. It was discussing the 3 pillars of marriage: Leaving our Heavenly Parents, Cleaving to each other in as husband and wife, and Being One. We discussed each of these topics in detail as he went over it – appropriate for the coming event, yeah? Haha oh goodness.

I noticed as we went through the lesson Jon was getting more and more fidgety and was rushing a bit through the end. I couldn’t understand why he felt we needed to rush since these were good topics to be discussing, but I just let him continue since it was his lesson, afterall. Towards the end of the lesson, Jon told me he was just really excited about our life together and that he wanted to “Be one” with me forever.

Then he told me he brought something with him.

That’s when it all clicked and I just gave him a look saying, “No you didn’t.” He pulled a little white box out of his pocket and, saying my full name (haha very important to me, for some reason), told me he would be honored if I would be his wife. I guess my first instinct was to give him a big hug (and of course cry) instead of put on the ring. After saying yes, of course, he asked me why I hadn’t put on the ring yet. I told him that was his job to put it on me :) – so he did. We sat there in shock for a bit, Jon shaking quite a bit less, and me shaking quite a bit more. We realized that we should probably choose a tentative date since people would be asking about it and came down to a couple options – either June, if Jon decided to do summer sales, or August, if he decided to find another job before his already scheduled EFY weeks (to be a BC for 6-7 weeks). We settled on August and finally came to the 14^th a little bit later with all other events at the time put into account.

So we’re getting MARRIED! And we’re both super excited about it. Although a 5 month engagement is not fun, it’s going to work out just great with Jon’s job at EFY and my being super slow in getting a job, let alone not knowing how to plan a wedding. We are both at our families’ homes this summer in Centerville and West Valley City, so seeing each other is not nearly as easy as it once was. But we’re still doing it and I’ll be so glad when it’s all over. In the meantime, I have a dress, I have colors picked out, and we’re looking at reception details. That’s all though, so I’ll eventually have to get a move on this…. Haha. It’s kind of hilarious how much work goes into just one day. But it’ll be a great day and hopefully worth it!

I’m just so excited for August 14^th when we can move along with our lives and happily be together forever!

Anyway, here are some more recent pictures of both us and more of this last semester since my last post… which was almost a year ago. So sad.

For my birthday (way back in February...) my amazing roommates got me a snuggie to match their own. That's right, I am now the proud owner of a beautiful zebra print snuggie. And I'm sure you're all jealous :)

Then for Valentine's Day weekend, my roommate Alex, her fiance Troy, Jon, and myself went down to Vegas to feel some warmth and sunlight and take a little break. So fun.

... still in Vegas.

Measuring up with Shaq's hands

The four of us left Vegas and and decided to hit up Golden Spoon in St. George on the way back. Best. Ice Cream. Ever. Okay not really, but it's really good.

I'm so glad we have such awesome couple friends. Basically they're hilarious.

The usual. Thank you, Photobooth, for hours of entertainment. Haha oh goodness.

We're engaged :)

A close-up...

Even more of a close-up... Sorry, I just think it's pretty gorgeous.

And one of my favorite parts - the little hidden diamonds on the sides :)

Okay sorry, enough with the ring pictures. I've just had many requests to see it so there you are!

Also, at the end of April, Jon GRADUATED!!! He's now a graduate of the Communucations program with an emphasis in Broadcast Journalism. He's a pretty big deal. Here we are with his amazing and awesome parents at the traditional graduation photo spot. Yay for graduating! (too bad I've got another year ahead of me.... schmeh)

And finally, here's yet another picture of the two of us. Sorry if you're getting bored of these... but I think we're pretty great together and maybe I like to brag a little... haha

Whew. The end.

(lack of creative title to make up for my long absence...)

2009-09-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

So I realized an entire summer has gone by and I have not once posted for the two or three readers of my blog! TRAGIC!!! Haha but seriously, I decided it was time. So I've actually decided to bring my camera around with me different places and would like to share with you, my small following, my activities for the summer when I wasn't working or being a bum in my lovely ghetto apartment. Annnnnddd here we go:

So this is my special friend, Jon :). And this is us at fireworks with his family. And the fireworks were in 3D so they were bigger and crazier than ever. So cool!! And we looked as cool as we felt.

This is what it looked like through the glasses... Fireworks on steroids.

And then we had an amazing extended Lowe family reunion. Seriously so fun to see everyone. This was the majority of us joined in our backyard for an great FHE.

This was the extent of the immediate Lowe family there at the reunion. It was so much fun to have Sarah and the leprauchan boys join us from St. Louis.

And I couldn't help but just say that I love my parents and that they're adorable :). Okay, next topic....

So next we had our Harry Potter 6 promo party with the ward. Hilarious. We played Harry Potter Scene It and ate chocolate cauldrons and acid pops. And check out these sweet shirts that Kylie's dad made for us. We're so legit.

Then came the Fray concert in which Jon and I had free tickets for and it was amazing. Highly recommended.

And then Rachel, Sam, and their adorable girls came up for a visit and it was awesome. I'm not sure why they decided to move to far away...

While they were here we decided to go to Pineview Reservoir where we canoed and played in the water and ate....

... and made silly faces. Yes. I am a proud aunt of these two adorable Sorber girls, Lucy and Natalie.

Miriam and Marc met us there which meant we got to spend more quality time with them. But mostly we wanted to see Anna. Haha kidding. Kind of. Anyway, Anna took a nap during the trip and she woke up like this, grinning from ear to ear. So I just wanted to share this moment of bliss with you.

Then we all met in Orem for Paul's sister's wedding reception and Michelle and I decided we looked cute together. Sort of Sound of Music-esque :)

And I took Jon along for the ride! He is very nice and patient with me.

Also, this was my bestest friend for the summer, (President) Kylie Debra Durham. Pretty much, she's hilarious. This was us at the Relief Society campout being dorks.

Then we had a ward party at Jump-On-It in Lindon and we decided to test out our "ultimate punch" skills (reference to the most hilarious movie of all time, Hot Rod)

And our amazing basketball skills. Kylie, please don't hate me, because I know you're thinking it. You look awesome here :)

So all in all, my summer was fairly eventful and I enjoyed it! Too bad school is back in session and I am still working 20 hours a week. Ugh. So we're back to the same ol' routine. But it's okay! I'll survive and I'll probably make more excuses to blog rather than doing my homework. No promises, but it's just a thought. Haha.

Jeannine = UBS

2009-06-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

(Ultimate Blogging Slacker)

Yeah, so I guess my life has progressed a bit since the last time I update here.... First of all, no more depressing thoughts of not having a job!! I got one after about a month of searching on Craigslist and such. I'm now working at a company called Thrive. It's somewhat of a school to help coach people through making their own online business. My title is "scheduling coordinator" and it is absolutely THRILLING. Or not. Basically I make calls all day long in hopes that someone will actually pick up and schedule their welcome call with their coach. And then that goes on for 8 hours. But I can't complain because somehow I managed to get a full time job in this ridiculous economy! So woot for craigslist :)

Secondly, I'm missing my two best friends terribly. Alex decided to leave me to go home for the summer... who does that? Ha kidding. But not really. I'm just needing my Alex in my life again. Too bad she's not coming back till Fall. I'd better suck it up. Not cool, Alex. Not cool. Hahaha thank goodness for facebook and it's ridiculous quizzes for keeping us entertained. My other best friend is Jon. He decided to leave me for two months to be a counselor to a bunch whiney, immature EFY kids. How that's a good trade off is beyond me... ha well I suppose it's for a good cause.... :) So in the meantime I'm trying to find things to do to fill my time post-work. Maybe I should be productive and work out.... bah who does that? Not me. Haha but maybe I can make a goal to change that... meh we'll see. Haha.

Other than that I am still alive and enjoying being in Provo (FAR FAR away from the humidity of the east) for spring and summer semesters. I've also decided that I really don't ever take pictures now... which is really sad! I'll have to find new, fun activities to do to take up my time that are worth taking pictures for :)

So my 2 tentative goals (that most likely are not going to happen...):
1) attempt to enjoy working out
2) take more pictures of my boring life

The end.

In between time.

2009-05-01T23:32:00.000-07:00

So I am currently unemployed and not going to school. You would think this would be a nice time to take a breather now that school has let out, but I'm finding myself stressed that I have zero income and annoyed that I have nothing to do with my time! I realize that I'm not very good at enjoying myself when there is nothing to do. I'm antsy. Ugh I hate this in-between period. I kinda just wish someone would just hand me a nice, flexible, well-paying job on a silver platter. Yes, I wish that very much. And on top of it all, my Alex is not here. She's at home in Vegas. Lame. So I'm bored out of my mind and have realized that I really don't get out much. I have plenty of friends that I should hang out with, but they're just not Alex. So Alex, thanks a lot for ruining me :).

I also would like to apologize to those who have continually reminded me that I haven't updated my blog in a while. And now I have - YAY!! I have resorted to blogging... this is how bored I am... oh boy I need a job. School this semester was crazy. And I believe the last time I posted, I hadn't heard from the Advertising program yet to see if I got in.... well, I didn't. So now I have officially decided on Sociology (which I find is a fascinating topic AND I don't have to apply for it! Woohoo!). So I'll be starting those classes in the fall and I'm really excited. And as for my minor, I'll be doing visual arts. No relation whatsoever to Sociology, but who cares. Anyway, that's pretty much my life now.

So I'll be trying really hard to blog more often since I seem to have all the time in the world on my hands. And once I find my usb cord for my camera, maybe I'll even make it more exciting and include some pictures! Because honestly, that's what a lot of us look for when we get onto each other's blogs. Am I right? Yes. Haha anyway, we shall see about my dedication here. Let's just hope and pray that I find a job soon... I DID find an opening for a T-shirt printer on craigslist.... verrrrry tempting. Haha oh goodness.

And the Tag continues on....

2009-02-09T00:13:00.000-08:00

Time to join the bandwagon and do my "8 things":

Here are the Rules:
1) Post rules on your blog
2) Answer the six '8' items
3) Let each person know by leaving them a comment

8 Favorite TV shows:
Haha well, when I have time to sit down to a TV show, I suppose it would be one of the following:
1. The Office
2. Lost
3. Grey’s Anatomy (yes, I’m pathetic, but it’s true. Alex got me hooked)
4. So You Think You Can Dance
5. American Idol, although I think they’re getting worse and worse every season
6.… yup that’s it.

Things I did yesterday:
1. “Slept in” till 9, which should have been later, but oh well.
2. Skipped breakfast and eventually ate my leftover Brick Oven pizza… mmmmm.
3. Went jogging in the semi-nice-ish weather (at least it was in the 40’s)
4. Went to our ward Winter Olympics and helped conduct the “curling” station… except the Olympic kind of curling is a little different from our version. We did foam curler competitions :)
5. Went on a date
6. Tried Sammy’s diner for the first time – adorable, TINY diner!
7. Watched for the first time full episodes of Flight of the Conchords
8. Wrote in my journal

8 Things I look forward to:
1. Hearing back from the Advertising Program to see if I got accepted!!
2. Warmth
3. Any vacation
4. Our next family reunion :)
5. My next haircut, whenever that is….
6. Any upcoming episode for the Office or LOST!
7. All my missionary friends coming home from their missions this summer! Weird.
8. Marriage and kids later, of course

8 Favorite Restaurants:
1. Café Rio!
2. Macaroni Grill
3. Panera
4. Cold Stone :)
5. Applebee’s
6. Brick Oven
7. My dinner group. Haha not.
8. uuuhhhh… I don’t really go out much.

8 Things on my wish-list:
1.That I get into the Advertising Program and from there, into the Creative Track within the program
2. Be able to get better with my art skills and maybe be able to sell something
3. Learn to like jogging so I can get more in shape
4. To travel SOMEWHERE outside of this country! Preferably a trip to Europe
5. Go to Hawaii and do absolutely NOTHING
6. For it to get warm soon!!
7. To eventually fall in love :)
8. To live in a beautiful house with a wrap-around porch next to a lake

8 People I Tag:
1. Miriam
2. Michelle
3. Alex
4. Becky
5. Jessica Morgan
6. Danielle
7. Karey
8. Jeff Ward

Still alive

2009-02-05T08:54:00.000-08:00

Okay so it's been all too long since I've actually updated this thing and I've gotten plenty of comments about it, so let's all give Jeannine a round of applause for finally posting again! Thank you. Thank you. So I am still alive and STILL waiting for those results for the Advertising program. I turned everything in on January 16 and am supposed to feel free in the meantime, but I'm pretty sure it's on my mind a lot... I should be hearing back before February 13, which is in 8 DAYS! Yikes. So, now more than ever I just need to take my mind off of it.... yeah right. Anyway, I've tried numerous times to download my application movie on here, but apparently my blog hates me for not using it for so long and decided to not let it work. So I'm sorry, especially to those who said they wanted to see it! I'll see if I can find another way or place to upload it. But I think it really turned out well and my amazing film friend did pretty much all the work so I owe it all to her!

Anyway, moving onward, not too much has happened worth noting. But I did have a birthday on Tuesday :). I am now officially OLD. At least I think so. It'll be so weird to tell people now that I am 21 instead of 20.... for some reason that makes such a huge difference... Anyway, I got to go home this weekend (as in I drove approximately 51 minutes to Centerville) and we had a fun family party on Saturday night that involved an amazing dinner and pie, presents, Grandma Lowe, and Uno Attack. It was great! I also got to see our family picture that we took over Christmas break for the first time and it actually turned out! Amazing... our photographer put us in these really awkward leaning positions, but in the end I think it turned out quite nicely :). So since I didn't get a copy of it, I decided to take a picture of the picture. Anyway, here is our immediate family (minus the spouses and kids) - and it was absolutely amazing to have them ALL here for Christmas!

So anyway, on my actual birthday this week, I had an interesting day, to say the least... it started off at midnight when my friend Jon and some of his roommates told me to meet them in our apartment complex laundry room for a little birthday surprise. Sounds kind of sketch, yeah? I thought so too. Anyway, they decided that now that I am legal, I should be totally legit. They bought me Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey. No joke. So now it’s sitting on my desk and I feel almost dirty having it… (so naturally I had to take a picture for future reference) but I don’t want to just throw it away because it cost them money… I’m thinking it could help make an amazing bonfire :)… Or not. Any ideas? Who knows, maybe I’ll end up dumping it down the sink so I can actually get my ecclesiastical endorsement… because apparently I can’t be in possession of anything like that… oops? Okay so now that I’ve convinced myself that I’m a horrible person for owning an unopened bottle of whiskey, I’m going to move on with the rest of the events of my day. So actually it was pretty uneventful. I went to my classes, went jogging with Alex, and went to work at the Testing Center for a while. When I finally got back at 10:30, we (Alex, Tiffany, Nicole, Bolton, Kirby, and Ben) decided to go to Applebee’s for a little birthday celebration and Jon served us. It was pretty much hilarious – let’s just say we forgot that it was karaoke night every Tuesday night at Applebee’s. I didn’t get up but Ben and Tiffany did. So it was a good night. Thanks to all that came!

Okay well, it’s probably about time I got ready for class. So…. adios, and I hope you all enjoyed my babbling :)

P.S. And Sarah, just for you, I will do the "8 things" you tagged me in. I hope you're happy... just give me a little time. Haha thanks for pushing me to do this more!

Are we done yet?

2008-12-03T16:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, so here's the deal. I'm applying for the advertising program here at BYU this next January and I'm pretty sure I just want to be done with the whole process already. For real. I am feeling better about it now than I was before though.

But these are the billions of ridiculous things required to get in:
1) A written exam covering the major ideas, theories, terminology, concepts,
and information in advertising - 80 QUESTIONS. Boo.
2) Answering 9 weird essay questions in less than 100 words each.... weird questions. Seriously.
3) A 60-second commercial about myself... meaning....? This should be fun.
4) My grades have to be B's or higher (which won't be a problem, I think.... I hope...)
5) My advertising teacher has a chunk of points to grant me that help me get into the program (but I talked to him today and he said he would definitely be putting in a good word for me before the board of deciding professors - YAY!!)
6) ... um. I know there was something else... but my mind has definitely drawn a blank. Ha oops?

So now there is a LOT on my plate that I have to think about and get all done by January 26. That's right. I now have an official date where it is all due. So it's crunch time. And hopefully everything will go smoothly and I will get in!!!! Yikes.

Okay I'm done venting.

....TWILIGHT...

2008-11-20T19:06:00.000-08:00

So yes. Tonight is the night. And I'm stoked.

As much as I don't like to admit that I'm a Twilight fan, this movie is getting me SUPER excited. So at 12:27 tonight, I will be using the ticket that I bought about a week or two ago.... hahaha I'm such a dork. So that's really all I'm thinking about now. Anyway....

i gave in.

2008-11-17T23:40:00.000-08:00

So thanks to all the pushing and shoving by Alex(ilkins), I have given in and created a BLOG.

So... let's all find out how boring my life is, shall we? Actually I lied. It's not really boring at all. Boredom does not happen in M10. True story. Actually I lied again. It's exciting to us, but others probably think we're retarded. I'll accept that. Because life is great :)