Oh Detroit

So I went to Detroit for the big national UW conference. Overall it was pretty good. I got to see the new 2009 advertising materials which was cool. They also debuted the national versions of my video and the radio spot that they recorded. I'm sure I'm a little biased, but I think they turned out awesome! They also announced the winners of the "Best of" contest, and sure enough, UW of Utah County was one of them (for my video). That was pretty exciting! It is always nice to have your work recognized, and that is a pretty big resume booster.

Other noteworthy highlights include:

Secretary of Education (don't remember his name, how pathetic is that? Who needs to know the name of the guy in charge of the whole country's education?)

Guy the Pursuit of Happyness is based on (Chris Gardnor)

(Who needs to wait in a long line? I just snuck a picture while walking by)

Dolly Parton being like 20' away from me, and to answer the question I know everyone is thinking, yes, her "you know whats" were VERY large!

(The picture is obviously a screen, unfortunately, I didn't have my camera so I resorted to stealing the photo from my coworker who was too far away to see Dolly upclose and personal like me! I somehow snuck onto the VIP table)

Crazy spider Bite (doesn't sounds like much, but I basically have a decaying hole larger than a half-dollar on my leg, sick, I know, tell me about it...When i find my camera cord, I will post pictures)

My man cleaning our whole apartment for my return. And when I say cleaning, I mean hardcore scrubdown.

"This is it Boys, this is War" & "The Ants Go Marching One by One"

I am normally a fairly peaceful person, but I am declaring war. Our little apartment has ants. Originally we didn't think much of it because it was just an ant here or there. I thought it was weird because I never saw ants in the kitchen, just in the bathroom and an occasional little guy on the windowsill in our bedroom, so who knows what they are eating.

Well, I have had a change of heart. Although we still have yet to see an "Ant Highway" or anything close to it, essentially at almost any time of day, you can see a couple of the critters running around (a small handful has also found their way to the kitchen). I always wanted an ant farm as a child, but now I've grown up, I've learned a thing or two, and I definately don't want our house to be a large lifesize ant farm.

I think the deciding factor was the other night when we were laying in bed watching tv. My "behind" suddenly starting hurting/itching. I tried to be ladylike and just ignore it but was eventually forced to start scratching. It was all in vein though, with the dang pain continuing. After about 5 minutes, Matt showed me that we had a little ant in our bed. I was pretty disgusted by that, and then it dawned on me. I quickly yanked off my pants, and sure enough, there was a little guy trying to make my bum his dinner. I freaked out probably a little bit more than I should have, but Matt did think it was pretty funny when I started yelling "I have ants in my pants!!"

Well, typical me, those bites (yes, plural) swelled up pretty big and itched for the next few days. It was then I decided it was time for the ants to go.

After I got back from my conference in Detroit, we spent some time researching how to get rid of ants online. Then we went and started dumping vinegar down there holes. Apparently they don't like that. Also, pepper is also a deterrent so then we made mountains of pepper over all of the holes.

It has been a pretty good temporary method, but I still don't feel safe. I know I should hold grudges, but I don't think I'm going to be happy until the little guys have moved on!

Anyone have ideas on how to kill (it sounds so harsh, and yet, that is what needs to be down) these nuisances?

California Dreaming

A couple of weekends ago, we headed out to California for the wedding of one of Matt's good friends from growing up. It was a short but good trip.

After the wedding festivities, we drove over to the coast. We hit up the kite festival, which was cool. My favorite kites were the scuba divers whose legs were "swimming" with a shark chasing after them.

Once we were tired of watching the kites, we headed over to the golf course. Matt loves to golf, and his favorite course is the one on the coast (don't quote me on that, I may be accidentally lying). Since we've been together, I have only been invited along to the golf course once. Here is my disclaimer, I don't golf, never have. I enjoy miniature golfing, but I don't think that counts for anything. One time my dad took me to the driving range and about the only thing that happened was that I ruined his clubs because I hit the ground so much. Oops!

Anyway, so Matt invited me along once, but I only got to drive the cart. It was an.... Interesting experience, so I was excited when I got the full invitation to actually golf.

We decided we didn't have enough time (or maybe it was just golf knowledge on my part) to actually golf the course (is that a proper golf term?), and so we just went to the driving range. Well, then the golf lessons began. I had no idea what I was doing and could barely even hold the club correctly. We started with Matt having me show him "what I've got." Yeah, that didn't go to well, because, well, I don't have anything. We started with the basics, and I just could not figure out the movements. The way you stand and twist felt so wrong and awkward. Eventually, my club was taken away, and I was demoted to using a twig. I was skeptical of the twig working, but we actually made pretty dramatic improvement with that twig. At that point, I could easily get to the different points, but when I tried to do the whole movement, I just got all twisted and it wasn't exactly working.

My husband is a very smart man. I think he was at the point of not knowing how else to help me, when he had the brilliant thought of asking me about lacrosse. I was then given a real club, which was quickly turned into a make shift lacrosse stick. He had me show him some of my moves. While i was showing him different things I would do while playing lacrosse, he pointed out that many of the body positions were the same. After that, our training changed to "Ok, now protect the ball! Now throw the ball..." I'm sure all of the other people thought that we were crazy, but it worked, I actually started to look like a golfer! The best part was, I started actually hitting the balls (not very well, but I'll take what I can get...) and not the ground or the air.

We're still working on me not taking a step as I swing (that's how you 'throw' the ball), but I made some significant progress. I even hit 2 really goods ones. I'm on my way! Watch out Tiger, I'm coming!

Oh Kids...

I just got home from my first YWs activity. My favorite part of the night.

"Wait, you're the new leader?! I thought I didn't know you because you went to the OTHER middle school!!!"

Two Months of Kitchen Duty

Matt and I realized shortly after we got married that we had no pots or pans. I stressed out a little bit about this, but when we moved into our apartment, someone had left a nice little pot in the oven. Matt was pretty excited and decided it was a blessing enabling us to actually eat something besides raw fruits and vegetables. It took me a little longer and many washes later to decide it was sanitary enough to use, but I eventually caved in due to necessity.

Well, yesterday was officially two months of marriage. Two months and many meals later, I've been shocked at how easy it is to cook with one little pot and an electric fryer. It's kind of amazing to think of all the things that have happened and probably most to think about how long it seems to us, when in reality, two months isn't any time at all.

Anyway, it took us longer than it should have, but we are now the proud owners a beautiful set of stainless pots and pans. Oh boy are they pretty. I'm kind of sad to use them because I want them to stay as pretty as they are! As weird as it is, I also think I'm going to be kind of sad to not pull out my electric fryer, it became quite normal to figure out how to turn everything into a one-pot meal because you had no other choice...

We also quickly realized we had no sharp knives. I was skeptical about using butter knives to chop vegetables, potatoes, cheese and meat, but you'd be amazed at the things those little dull babies can do. I am also excited to announce that the other day, I ordered an excellent set of knives complete with kitchen scissors. Not going to lie, I'm pretty excited and hope they get here soon!

I almost have a "real" kitchen! Wahoo!

My Bad...

So I was very excited to finally finish up all of the wedding Thank You cards a couple of weeks ago. It was something that I worked on every night (almost) faithfully since getting married. I'm not going to lie, when I finished up, I felt like celebrating.

Well, we've gotten a few more gifts since then, and I pulled my box of cards out again tonight for the new ones, and what did I see? A huge stack of cards that I wrote, addressed, stamped and then apparently left sitting in the box. Oops! Good thing I wrote all of those so long ago...

There's a Girl on the Boy's Side!

After Matt and I got married, we moved into a very nice condo, which is actually in the same complex as we lived while we were single (below one and across the hall from Matt's old place, and yes, it is a single's people place). The place came up for sale due to foreclosure, and his parents decided it would be a good investment. Well, we needed a place to stay and since it would be essentially impossible to fill 4 spots mid semester, we decided the smartest thing would be to have us move into it until the end of August.

I was a little bit weary of moving in where we lived before and being the only married people, but they are great apartments, it is about 1 minute away from both my office and Matt's school, and it just made sense, so I had no problem agreeing to it.

I'm happy to report, that it has been even less awkward than I originally anticipated. The location, as mentioned is perfect, and it has the best parking situation in Provo. We've had a couple of doorbell ditches, but things are good. It is a little wierd though, living on the boy's side. I am definitely the only girl on this side of the parking lot. Yesterday, our neighbor even made the comment, "I can smell your air freshener outside! It's great having a girl over on our side!" Every morning when I leave for work, I can't help but timidly poke my head out and look both ways before running out to the car. Even though I know everyone knows we're married, I still wonder what they think seeing a girl run out every morning.