Green Bug & too many books

Funny story....our car is in the shop....again. I have decided that our car is possessed. It is the spawn of Satan.....literally. Anyways, that is not what this post is about. If it was, I would probably go on and on for a long long time, like I am now. So, our car is in the shop for longer than we planned and the place its at graciously offered us a free rental car because they couldn't figure out what was wrong yet. So we are pretty excited. We don't have to make arrangements for one car, plus we get it for free! I don't think that happens very often. So, our next question... what kind of car do we get? The answer to this was not what we were hoping for. The only car they had left...

Yes, thats right a lime green Volkswagen bug. On a side note, every time we see a guy driving one of these cars, which seems to be more often than not, we laugh hysterically and think 'why would a guy want to drive one of those.' So it just so happens that Chad had to drive this car home from the mechanics shop. Needless to say I laughed pretty hard when I found this out. Chad on the other hand, didn't think it was funny. I have been driving the car in order to spare Chad the humiliation. I'm not really a fan of the car either. I loved them when I was 14 and actually wanted a lime green one. Funny how much changes in 6 years. Now I just think it is ironic that my lime green coat from Old Navy matches the color of my rental car. Gosh we really hate our stupid Audi. Oh well.

On another note, I have been reading a lot! By a lot I mean a lot. This is the book I am currently working on for my media and the marginalized class. It's only 4 Saturdays out of the whole semester and I thought it would be a piece of cake. Well, it's not exactly hard, just a looooot of reading. I had to read the first 300 page book in a week because I signed up for the class late. The next book I am afraid to say I procrastinated in starting. It is huge!



A total of 400 pages and really small print. It has so many names and jumps around so much. It's on the civil rights era and press coverage of it. So it's a really good topic and there are a lot interesting facts, but just so dense! So my class is on Saturday and I am only on page 237. So it is my goal to get to 300 tonight and finish the rest by Saturday. We will see if that actually happens. Anyone who knows me knows I love to read, but I am slowly starting to hate it (not really, I will always love to read) . I just can't wait to be done with this class. Only one more book after this to go. Then I can read books at my own pace and read ones that I actually want to read!

Oh and on one more note Chad and I just want to say how excited we are for Chad's sister Emily who is getting married on April 25th!! Yay! We haven't met her fiance, but we are sure he is wonderful. Here is the wonderful bride to be.

Congratulations!! We can't wait to come for your wedding!

5 points for Chad

So its Valentines day...and its nice to be married because I actually have a Valentine for once. Chad and I have a three day weekend so this is just the first day of a wonderful weekend. We are excited to get to spend so much time together. Last night Chad "went out" to the ATM to get $20 bucks, or so he said. He actually went to get these...




I guess they were an early Valentine's day gift. So some might think flowers are overrated, I think I used to. But the times Chad has gotten me flowers always make me happy. It's just a nice
gesture I think. Flowers are beautiful and I think that when a husband buys flowers for his wife it should be because he thinks she is as beautiful as the flowers. Ok, sorry, didn't mean to get that cheesy. Anyways, my husband is wonderful and although we don't keep score I give him 5 points for the flowers. Love you babe.

Rest in peace blenny...

So we bought a red-lip blenny a few weeks ago and sadly he passed away two nights ago. His death was quick and not painful. He will be missed.


Then just last night our clam died as well. Don't know if his death was quick, we think our new angel fish pecked at him to death. Goodbye Clam, you will also be missed.



And here is our new fish. She is a coral beauty and accordingly we(and I mean I, Chad thinks its silly to name them) named her Coral. She really is a beauty. I am a little mad because she killed our clam, but oh well.

Bored on a Saturday....

So this was my Saturday to work... and it's pretty slow... so I thought I would blog. This week has been rally crazy...and I assume that is how its going to be the rest of this semester. But it will be well worth it when I will be done in 2 more semesters. Not sure if I blogged about this, but I am hoping to get an internship with one of the church magazines. I found out about it in December, I think.

Anyways, it is a full time paid internship. They have 5 positions, one at each magazine (Ensign, New Era, Friend and Liahona) and then also a writing/editing internship. So I have really been looking foreword to applying and putting together a portfolio. So last week I called the person in charge of everything to find out exactly when the application would be posted online and I got some bad news. She told me that because of the current economy, the church had a hiring freeze and there was a good chance that they would not hire paid interns. So there might still be a non-paid part time internship or not at all!!

I was heart broken. I had been looking foreword to this for months and was basically planning everything, including school and credits, around it. So she told me to call back in a week and she would have some definite answers for me. So the day comes to call her and I don't have much hope... but.... I got really good news.

It turns out the the decision went all the way up to the first presidency, but the internships ended up being approved! I was and still am ecstatic. So the process is a little long, but I should find out in a couple months, after applying, interviewing and submitting a portfolio, if I got one of the 5 internships. I am really really hoping I do. I told Chad that I would probably cry for a week straight if I didn't and then he assured me I would.

This has been my dream for so long...since well I can't really remember. When I first wanted to be a journalist I wanted to travel and be really famous. Then I got married, so I had to adjust my plan somewhat. And also, now that our world and newspapers are going down the tube, I really have no desire to write depressing articles in the local newspaper about death and murder. So my only option I can think of right now is the church magazines. They are uplifting and positive and I feel I could actually make a difference with a job like that.

As you can see I am pretty passionate about this and that is why it turned into a long ramble. Sorry. So anyways, keep your fingers crossed for me!

Ok so I wasn't really planning on blogging about that. I was going to blog about the fact that CHAD GOT A JOB!!! YAYAYAYAY! A lot of you probably don't know that Chad was out of work, so this may come as a surprise. We didn't really talk about it because we didn't expect it to be so long. Chad worked for an engineering company as a land surveyor and the work really slowed down when winter got here. So in December they "gave" him two weeks off. This was a blow to us. We are a newly married college couple who struggle to get by but somehow we did get by even without that paycheck. So Chad goes back to work after the two weeks, but there is still no work. So he is being sent home every day after a couple of hours.

So he decided to start looking for a new job. That was at the beginning of January. He just now found a new job and we couldn't be happier. He found a job as a non-emergency medical transporter. Basically he will transport patients around. This is equally exciting because Chad is taking his EMT class right now so that he can become an EMT/firefighter. So this job will look really great when he is trying to get hired onto a station.

We are very relieved and know that we owe our Heavenly Father a great deal. Without him, we couldn't have survived the last month and a half physically, mentally or financially. We somehow always had enough to get by even with only one income. Also I want to thank everyone that kept us in their prayers and finally my dad. He very graciously offered to pay our car off so that we could pay him monthly and not pay interest. This has been a big blessing for us! We love you dad!

So yeah Chad starts on Monday and he is soooo excited to get out of the house. He was going crazy. All in all life is great for us. We are of course going to a super bowl party on Sunday. I can't say that I am excited to actually watch the Super Bowl but it will be fun to eat of course and to visit with Chad's aunt, uncle and cousins. Super Bowl is overrated. I have a hard time liking pro football especially now. I will explain. Football players get paid millions of dollars to what? Throw a football? I don't think that warrants being a millionaire. So they get paid this much when there are millions of unemployed people across the nation. It's pretty ridiculous if you ask me. But I will bite my tongue and watch it anyways to make my hubby happy. I just can't wait!! (sarcasm)

Death of Innocence

So I usually only do posts that include pictures of what we've been doing lately so I decided to change it up. School is absolutely crazy this semester. I am taking 19 credits so that I can graduate in 2 more semesters. For those of you who aren't schooled in the matter of college credits, thats a lot! I normally would only take about 14 or 15 credits. Any who, thats not really what this post is about. One of the classes I am taking is a special seminar class. Basically we will be reading 3 novels and then the authors come on a Saturday(all day) and speak to us. The first book we read was really good. It is called Death of Innocence, thus the title. It is the story of Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley. If you don't the story(like I didn't), I'll inform you.



***Disclaimer*** I will give away the ending of this book *** Also I am posting a picture of what Emmett looked like when he was beaten to death. It is gruesome so if you don't want to see it don't look down!!

Emmett Till was a 14 year-old boy who was lynched(a murder because of racial hate) by to white men when he was visiting Money,Mississippi. Emmett was from Chicago but was visiting family in Mississippi. He was only in Money for a week when he and some of his cousins were getting some candy from a local grocery store. When the boys were outside of the store, it is said that Emmett whistled at the white women who worked in the store, Carolyn Bryant. It is ambiguous whether Emmett actually whistled at the women or was whistling because thats what his mother taught him to do when he stumbled over a word. Emmett had a stuttering problem when he spoke.

So the boys immediately left because they were afraid of what might happen to them. A black kid did not whistle at a white women in Mississippi in the 1950's. Three days passed by without incident. But then one night a group of white men, led by Roy Bryant(Carolyn's husband) and J.W. Milam( Bryant's half brother) came to the house where Emmett was staying. They dragged him out of the house and carried him to a local plantation. Here they beat Emmett to death and then threw his body in the river. All because he had "maybe" whistled at a white woman.


When Emmett's mother Mamie found out she made a very bold statement by having Emmetts funeral as an open casket. Emmett was hardly recognizable when they found his body. Mamie became a hero for what she did. She made her mourning into a public event and this helped to start the civil rights movement. It is said that Emmett Till's death is one of the reasons why Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.

Sorry, that turned into a longer explanation than I intended. So the co-author of the book, Christopher Benson, a professor and journalist from Illinois came and talked to us on Saturday. He wrote the book from the personal memoirs of Mamie Till-Mobley. He would sit down with Mamie and just listen to her tell her story. Sadly, Mamie died shortly before the book was finished. I would highly recommend this book to anyone. It is wonderfully written and Christopher Benson has managed to capture Mamie Mobley's essence in the book. Many times I felt as if I was actually experiencing what was happening. Mamie Till-Mobley is a hero in my book. If you are looking for a good book to read, this is it!! I

Family, New Years & Siblings

So the Saturday after Christmas my sister Nichole, her husband Chase and daughter Brielle and Chad and I all went to Clearfield to visit my grandma Adams. We were supposed to go there on Christmas, but the snow prevented us, so we went then instead. We ate leftover Christmas dinner and just visited. My Grandma got Brielle this little singing and dancing frosty the snowman. Here is a little clip of Brielle and frosty.

She is adorable. Here is a picture of three generations. My grandma, sister Nichole, me and Brielle.


For New years we went to Chad's aunt and uncles house in Cedar Hills. His cousins Andrew, Ben, and Johnny and their families were all there. We played a little psychiatrist until midnight, did the count down of course, and the had a waffle party at midnight. They were really yummy. We has a really good time and stayed up way too late. Needless to say, we slept in the next morning. Then New Years we ate at Joe's Crab Shack and saw Marley & Me. It was a fun date. It's nice to get out once and a while. Here's some pics of us on New Years Eve.

Ben and Malynda


Andrew & Brittney


Johnny (Lorna wasn't feeling well)

Last week my brother Cody came to visit. He was here for a whole week so we got see a lot of him! We (Cody, his girlfriend Ariana, my sister Nichole and Chad and I) went to Cafe Rio one night for dinner. That was a lot of fun. I forgot to take a group picture though! Then on Friday Chad, Cody and my brother-in-law Chase all went snowboarding at Sun Dance. Oh and Scott Moses went too. Chad was really excited to go because he hadn't been snowboarding in a few years. They all had a lot of fun and were very tired that night. I took the day off of work and spent some time with my sister and my niece. We went to the mall and window shopped and of course took some pics of Brielle. That is one of my favorite past times as an aunt.

See Nichole, I got her to smile in a picture.


She is just so precious!!

And then on Saturday Cody and Ariana came so Salt Lake to spend the weekend with Chad and I. Saturday night we went to this pool hall and grill to play pool and eat. We had a ton of fun, even though I am not that great at pool.







Happy New year everyone!

Winter is definitely here...and Christmas has passed.

So our Christmas was really great. Christmas Eve Chad and I went to my sister Nichole's in Lehi. We fixed tortilla soup and had lots of goodies. Then we watched The Nativity. It is such a good movie and I would really recommend it to anyone! Here is a picture of my sister and her little baby Brielle. Aren't they cute?

Here are some pictures of Brielle's bath time. Just before this she laughed a little. It was her first laugh. I was excited to be there to hear it!




Earlier in the day we also went to see Chad's sister Jill who was visiting from California and her husband Phil and her son Parker. Here are some pics of Chad playing with Parker.




Chad has fun being a kid sometimes...or a lot of the time. But thats why I love him, because he is so much fun!



Christmas day we opened presents together. Chad got some new sunglasses, a white and blue dress shirt, a pea coat, a cell phone holder and some other stuff. I got a new jacket, some new boots, a scarf, some jewelry and a couple cd's. We had a really fun Christmas. We also went to my grandpa's house and just relaxed together at our apartment. We were sad we weren't able to go home, but we were also happy to have a peaceful Christmas by ourselves.


Here is me after a relaxing Christmas day.


Here is Chad and all the leftovers from Christmas morning...



And of course we got a ton, and I mean a ton, of snow this week. Here is a couple of pictures of my wonderful husband shoveling snow. He is so diligent. If it snows, you know where Chad will be the next morning.

There is a lot of snow!!

Lastly, here are a couple of new things we got for our fish tank. The first is a gold striped maroon clown.



And this is a clam.


Today we took a few things back from Christmas and then we went to temple square to meet Chad's Uncle Mike and some of his family to see the lights. I love this temple.


This is a good shot of us.


Here is another...


And here is a shot of all of us who were there.


It was a great Christmas!!