Birthday week!

This has been a fun week! On Sunday I got to go to my Nephew Kashe’s birthday party. It was just adorable! I loved getting to see how much he and Koda are growing up. Emily wasn’t able to go, and that was the only sad part.

Monday wasn’t as cool as it could have been. We ended up spending the whole day just doing homework. There was a good reason for that, though. Emily’s birthday was on Tuesday! That is why we had to get homework out of the way.

For Emily’s birthday we started out by going to Tucanos for dinner. It was super good. We had so much fun there. We even got the waitresses to sing to Emily, which of course made her super embarrassed :) It was still great fun. It was then time to give her her birthday present. It was really exciting because I had bought it and told her about it over three months ago. This whole time she has been dying to know what she was getting. Instead of telling her I just started driving around, letting the anticipation brew…

In the end we ended up at Hale Center Theater in Orem. I had gotten her season tickets to the Hale Center Theater! She was so excited. She had never before been to theater in the round. Her first play was Lend Me a Tenor. It was super funny and we both enjoyed it. It was just the perfect birthday present and she loved it!

We ended her birthday by going to get frozen yogurt. A great night and best of all she loved her birthday!

Wednesday and Thursday were filled with the ridiculousness of trying to get phone plans changed. It is amazing how hard TMobile can make everything… They are super cheap, but it every other way I would hope to never have to deal with them again.

On Friday we had another fun little date night. We made curry and Chinese food for Rob and Janelle. It was great to see them and it feels good to do something for them. After that we watched a bunch of Once Upon a Time. It was a fun night.

Man, it is good to have Emily back! Every week is better than when she was away :)

Phantom

This week has been a pretty good week! It all started with a great Sunday. Emily and I went to one of her friend’s mission farewells. That night we also got to go hear President Uchtdorf speak at the CES broadcast. It was a really good talk. After the talk we visited with Serena from the FLSR and then went back home and had some friends over for food and games. It was a great Sunday!

The week was good, but it sure was cold. On Monday morning after swimming my swimming suit froze solid between my car and my house. It was just crazy! It was also really fun at the gym this week because Emily came with me Wednesday and Thursday. It was really fun and also motivated me to work better. Hopefully we will be able to keep going together, but it depends on whether she can get a well price monthly plan or not.

On Friday Emily and I went and saw The Phantom of the Opera. It was really fun. The actors did well. At the end of the performance the actor that played the phantom proposed to his girlfriend. It was really cute.

On Saturday Emily threw a birthday party for herself. It was great, she got to see so many of her friends. I kept myself busy in the kitchen keeping everyone fed, but that was wonderful since it let Emily focus on enjoying herself.

So, overall a great week!

This has been a fun week! It has been really great having Emily back, everything is better! It is also good to be back to a ward that is mine. It is a little strange though, our sacrament is in the auditorium in the Maeser building, and so we have a balcony where half of the students sit. Really quite strange, still it is good to be in my own ward now.

Sunday night was great. Emily and I went over to my uncle’s house for Sunday dinner. We had pork with a delicious pineapple glaze. We also had Jello salad, roasted broccoli, and something else I can’t remember (but it was good!) Emily and I then made a bunch of cookies. We made some coconut cookies and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies! It was wonderful!

On Wednesday we went and got frozen yogurt. It has been a little bit since I got the chance to do that, and it was just the perfect thing to do with Emily back. They also had some really good new fruit flavors, it was great!

On Friday night Emily and I went for a date. We started by going to the Graduate Student Soup Social. It was amazing soup, but the activities didn’t interest too much. Instead of staying we went to the MOA. They had a good exhibit about super hero art. It was very interesting. We finished our date by going to The Chocolate. I love the chocolate!!! It was a perfect first date for us back in Provo.

On Saturday Emily and I did different things. She went to hang out with her freshman roommates, and I went to hang out with Sean, Pasha, Jared, and Jordan. We went to Village Inn. Our food took forever to get to us. Our food took forever and that was really annoying. Still it was great to talk to everyone! It is good to have Jared back in Provo. I miss having my friends in Provo.

And that was my week. It was a great week!

Christmas Break

This has been a great last two weeks. There has been quite a bit that has happened. I will try to get it all down.

A week ago was Christmas week. On Monday I went to Salt Lake to spend Christmas Eve with my father. He, Chris, and I went out to dinner at Red Robin. It was really good, but I ate way too much (a habit that has persisted for these last two weeks :/ ) We then went and watched Frankenweenie. I know, wrong holiday, but it was still a lot of fun. It was good to be able to spend the day with my dad.
For Christmas I went to Bart and Crystal’s for the day. It was really good to see them and the boys had gotten an inflatable jumping castle. They had so much fun with it. It was cute to see how much they were enjoying Christmas. That was probably the best part of the day.

We also had a really good dinner. Then there were presents, and I got some really nice gifts from my family, especially Crystal :) To end the night we all watched The Bourne Legacy, because it is about as Christmas as it comes ;)
Wednesday was another good day. Ryan and Chris came over and we setup all three of my computers to play some Torchlight II. It was just an awesome time. It was like the old days, having LAN parties, especially the part where it took us forever to get things actually working! The only sad part was that Jason wasn’t able to make it with us.

He made up for that on Thursday by coming over to play Madden ‘13 with everyone. It was a fun time. I also sent that day getting ready to head to see Emily in Washington. I left my house at 5:45 AM on Friday to catch a flight to go see her. It was really good to see her. It was hard being apart for fourth months, but it just felt so natural and right to be back with her.

It was a little strange being in Washington though. There was no snow! I just seemed so weird after the beautiful white Christmas we had had in Utah. I got to say hi to Emily and her family. We looked at her pictures from China. We then went out and got some Thai food, followed by a trip to Zoo Lights! I have actually never been to Zoo Lights anywhere, and so it was great to get to do that with Emily!
On Saturday the great adventure was throwing a surprise party for Emily’s mother. She was turning 50 and so Emily and her dad wanted to throw her a surprise party. It involved me and Emily in the kitchen for three hours, but it all worked out. Her mom was really surprised and it was just a great party. I was glad that I could help Emily with it!

On Monday Emily and I decided that we would spend New Year’s Even up in Seattle. We started by watching The Hobbit and the Pacific Science Center’s IMAX theater. It was really fun, even if it was a little long. We then walked around the area for a little. Eventually we hit up the YSA dance in the area. We finished the night by watching fireworks about the space needle. I guess that wasn’t really the end of the night since it took us almost 3 hours to get home. It was ridiculous! Oh well :)

On Tuesday Emily and I spent the day with her little brother and sister. Her parents and older brother were away skiing. Still, it was a lot of fun. We made German pancakes for breakfast. Then there was a bike ride. Emily’s sister then went to a friend’s house, and we spent the rest of the afternoon making snowflakes with Emily’s little brother. He really fell in love with making them. I think the next time I go to Emily’s house I will find all their walls covered with snow flakes!

At night Emily’s parents took everyone out to dinner. We went to this really good Mexican restaurant. It was crazy how much food they gave us. It was probably the biggest burrito I have ever eaten! Still it was really good. We’ll certainly have to go again. We then finished the night by watching You’ve Got Mail. Got to love the chick flicks! (I do.)

On Wednesday Emily and I got to go out on the ocean on one of her friends boats. It was a fun little cruise around the bay. It was a lot of fun. After that Emily and I went to Tacoma and had fun playing around in various stores. I then had to head back to Salt Lake, which was really sad…

The rest of the weekend was spent moving into my new apartment and helping Emily move in as well. We are staying at the Elm apartments. They are pretty nice apartments. The only problem is that parking is terrible. On Sunday, after dinner with the Whitings, we spent about half an hour finding a parking space, which still ended up being ½ a mile from my house. Ridiculous!

So that is what I have been up to. It has been wonderful having Emily back. Everything is just better now. I hope that everyone else also had a wonderful Christmas!