Fun Memories/Bad Judgement

I finally have our computer hooked up to the internet so I can post pictures from our drive home which was like a month ago already! Adam had some homework he had to do up on campus so I tagged along and brought my computer to blog while he studies hard :) I'm kinda glad I'm not him at the moment! I start school in less than two weeks, but I'm really really excited. I don't think it's even gonna feel like school to me. Doing hair/makeup/nails all day sound hard to you? It sure doesn't to me! Anywho..Here are the pictures and fun stories...

Day #1
We left Maryland about ten in the morning and wanted to make it to Nauvoo that night which was like a 15 hour drive. YUCK! We wanted to have the longest day done first cause we were splitting it up into 3 days. Due to the time change we got to a city right outside Nauvoo in Iowa at about 1:00 am which to us felt like 2:00 am. We were just a tad tired.

Day #2
We got up and drove to Nauvoo to see the temple! BEAUTIFUL! The Missouri river is right along it, but other than the temple there really isn't anything nice there. It's pretty run down. There were some old houses built when the saints were there, but that was about it. We wanted to have our picture taken in front of the temple and luckily there was an older lady from Oregon taking pictures herself while her husband was in their RV somewhere. She asked us how many pictures we wanted and Adam being sarcastic said "Go Crazy!!!" Yeah she literally did. I think altogether she took about 20 pictures. Only got a few good ones, but that's all that counts right?

The top of the steeple is a bell tower.

She got some good close ups, but didn't know how to use the zoom..so she manually did it and was right in front of our faces..kinda awkward.

So the second day was starting out pretty well. we stayed for about 30 minutes and then got back on to the road. We had all of Iowa to go through that day and wanted to end up in South Dakota. Well part way through we were on the freeway and our GPS decided it didn't know where we were at and didn't recognize the freeway. We had no clue where we were or anything so we got off and it took us to an older highway which would have been fine...if there hadn't been roadwork. The road was closed and there was no set detour to go around it so we let our GPS find us one. A few miles down the road it turned us onto a dirt road and because of the 3 inches of rain they had the night before it turned into MUD. I'm talkin..sticky, thick, clay mud. If we would have slammed on our brakes everything piled up in our car would have come flying into the back of our heads. My poor car was doing so good until about 50 yards away from where the gravel started back up. Yes we got stuck in the middle of a corn field in Iowa. We tried and tried to get unstuck, but it was no use. So Adam got out of the car and walked around the corner to a house up the street (about loosing his shoes on the way cause of how bad the mud was). He knocked on the door and about a 60 year old lady opened the door and Adam told her what happened. She wasn't surprised because I guess we were the 12th people that have gotten stuck in that spot because of our GPS in the last 6 months. She told us we needed to call the towing company to get us out. Adam called and it was about $65 to tow us 50 yards. YIKES. Adam got to talking with this lady and she must have got a good impression from him because she told him to wait while she went to talk to her husband. Someone was watchin over us that day. She came back with her husband and they said they would get their tractor and tow us out. They had never helped anyone else out until now. Her husband (Rick) had long white hair with a long beard and was pretty crude from what Adam could tell. The conversation coming down to our car with Adam went kinda like this:

"Where are you guys coming from?" -Rick

"Nauvoo"-Adam (In his head thinking..oh crap. No one is fond of Mormons around there)

"Oh so you're Mormon!"-Rick

Hesitantly "Yea we are"-Adam

"Don't apologize! I've got a good doctor friend who is Mormon too. So I guess I'm doin this for him!"-Rick

Luck? I think not. The Lord definitely answered our prayers and helped us out of our situation. I'm sure there are some of you who probably think we're idiots for even going in the mud in the first place, but now we've got a good story to tell and memories of Iowa right? :)

So we got back onto the road and our car started shaking...bad. we pulled over and adam had to dig all the mud out of the wheel wells. Even after doing that it still shook so we had to find a car wash to get the remainder out. Here is a picture after we dug all the mud out.

Poor Ellie...we still had mud falling out of the bottom of our car when we drove into Idaho Falls.

So because of that 3-hour detour we didn't get quite as far as we wanted. I think we still got to South Dakota though..I honestly don't even quite remember. All the states turned into a blur.

Day #3

Our final day of driving! We were driving into Salt Lake that night to stay with my grandparents. The reason we wanted to go to South Dakota was to see Mount Rusmore!!! So worth it...There is absolutely nothing until you get there, but here they are!

They had flags for all fifty states lined up

It is pretty amazing that someone could turn rock into that. That's a place I would want to go see again! Well that's about it for our roadtrip! I'm glad we did it. Financially, the summer wasn't too good to us, but we had an adventure and we will always remember our first summer married together.

Well I've got more pictures of things we have been up to since we've been back, but I think this post has been long enough. I'll save them for later!

We haven't fallen off the face of the Earth...

So you guys probably think we've fallen off the face of the Earth! Sorry...we just don't have internet in our apartment yet and we still don't. I'm with Adam at the Weber State Campus! So here's a little bit about what has been going on with us lately. (Sorry no pictures yet from our trip)

First...we made our trip back from Maryland in 3 days with a few difficulties, but we got to see Nauvoo and Mount Rushmore! (Pictures and details later) When we finally got to Utah we went and saw and signed a contract for our apartment we just barely got to see for the very first time. Pretty scary, but we trusted Andrea's judgment :) We live in the Ogden Canyon which is a really pretty spot and Adam is only 2 and a half miles away from Weber state. Last Monday was his very first day of school. He's taking 12 credits this semester. So far we have both liked living here, but there is still a lot of territory around the city that we have yet to discover! I don't start school until the end of september so we have both been busy looking for jobs..no luck yet, but hopefully something for at least one of us will come up soon! Well that is pretty much a better idea of what we've been up to and when I get my computer connected to the internet I'll post pictures!

Change of plans....

So Adam called me up today on his way to work and asked me, "do you wanna go home Sunday" My obvious answer was YES!!!

So we are in fact starting out journey home this sunday as in 2 days from now :) We should be in Idaho Falls by Tuesday! CAN'T WAIT!

That is all :)

OcEaN cItY #2

We only have a WEEK and a HALF left!!!! We are both extremely excited and ready to be home. It's been an adventure and a lot of fun to live in a different place, but I'm ready to be close to people andplaces I'm used to! We're going to start going home on Monday the 17th and will be back by Wednesday in Idaho Falls sometime. We finally found an apartment in Ogden thanks to Andrea helping us :) I didn't like not being able to see it myself, but we trusted her opinion!! Now we both need to find a job when we get home which will hopefully happen fast. Adam isn't exactly where we needed him to be with his sales, but he'll make more than he did last year cause he knew how to make the most money out them this year! We've also been starting to look for another cheap little car for him to drive to school and work. We were okay for a year with one car, but now that I'm going to be in school and so is he it will be impossible to only have one. If anyone knows of a good deal let us know please!!!

As said in the title we went to Ocean City again a few weeks ago! The weather was finally perfect compared to the other two times we went. I actually got in the ocean this time! I didn't want to get my hair or face wet, but the waves didn't really give me any choice! Here are some fun pictures:

Megan and I laying out on the beach and watching the boys play in the ocean.

Adam on the boogie board

Adam has a pretty neck and farmer tan :)

Adam and Chase dug a whole to put bury Greg in.

Here is the result :)

The Square

Only three more weeks till we go home!!! Can you tell I'm excited? We are both definitely ready to be home. It's been an adventure being over here, but I'm ready to be back on the good part of the country :) Anyways, I have a bunch of pictures of the square we live in cause I never got around to getting pictures of it till now and it is one of the best parts here! First I have a pretty cool lookin picture. When you're driving on the freeway coming from the south you go around the corner and see the temple. We don't drive in that direction very often and I've been wanting a picture of this, but unfortunately I still don't really have one. My camera didn't capture it right. Well here's the picture...

I doubt anyone could ever get this exact picture again

Here are the pictures of our square!

Our apartments are the left building

There are business below the four level apartments and then a 2 level parking garage underneath

This is what you see when you walk out the front doors from our apartment

Pretty fountain in the square! Little kids run around in their swimsuits during the day and then a little later at night it lights up with different colors. The shelter behind it has live bands playing every once in a while and they have also been having a free movie night once a week in this square also. There are always a ton of people down here!

We were on our way to see Harry Potter and I wanted a picture of the 2 of us and this is what he does...

Much Better :)

July=A Little Bit of History Mixed with Fireworks

We're winding down to the last month of our summer here in Maryland and there is still a lot I feel like I haven't seen since we've been here! We went to DC once, but weren't able to see everything cause it takes so long to get somewhere. So one Sunday Adam and I rode the Metro-rail back down to see some sites we missed. This first picture is of the Smithsonian Castle. Unfortunately it closes at 5:30 and we got there after it barely closed, but at least I got a picture!

I thought this was a cool picture cause if you look close the lincoln memorial (which is really big in person) is right in front of the Washington Monument.

We never went in any of the museums last time we were there either. We wanted to go to the Holocaust museum but that one was closed too! We'll just have to go back one more time hopefully! A place we actually got to go inside of was the Natural History Museum.

If any of you have seen the movie up yet this looks like the funny bird in the movie!

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Adam LOVES when I make him post for pictures...NOT :)

Some cool Dinosaurs. We saw T-Rex too.

On another note..I never posted anything about the fourth of July! Nothing too exciting went on. We didn't go to the big DC fireworks cause it's too congested down there. Adam did get off early that afternoon which was unexpected! We went shopping and then about a mile away from us at a college there was a fireworks show. They had a live band and fun vendors.

The show didn't get much bigger than this. Idaho Falls definitely has them beat :)

Somebody's Picky

So I showed Adam my last post and he thinks he looks cooler with the ball already thrown than winding up. So here ya go babe :)

Swimming, Parks, and Russians

I'm a slacker when it comes to blogging..it's probably because I don't like writing in a journal or writing period! But really nothing too terribly exciting has been happening lately.I am still working at both jobs. Lately I've been only working maybe 25-30 hours a week altogether but it's nice to have a little break. On my days off I like to go hang out by the pool with the other wives and their kids if i don't have laundry, cleaning, cooking, or errands to run. One day a few weeks ago we went to the Virginia to hang out with some people from another office that's only like 20 or 30 minutes away. Their pool is bigger and deeper so the boys wanted to go mess around.

About $200 were thrown into the bottom of the pool for them to dive for. Adam got about $35. That's a lot of quarters!

A couple of times the managers will have a barbeque in the morning till about 1:00 in a park close by. They play football, baseball, or whatever they feel like doing. His manager bought a grill just for this purpose this summer. Can't complain!

Something else exciting is one of Adam's friends from Russia is here for the summer. He was in one of the branch's towards the beginning of his mission. His name is Volva (I'm sure I didn't even remotedly spell that right!) and he speaks really good English too. He is about 18 or 19. He was about 16 and just barely baptized when Adam met him. Adam is really surprised he stuck with the church. None of his family are members and were against the church and then no one in Russia period likes LDS people. He is a really good kid though. He is working in a Methodist summer camp about an hour and a half away from us. He was able to get last weekend off and come stay with us when we were here and then Volva also has a cousin that lives here that Adam knows from Russia also. While he was here I made that Pineapple Goo Cake from Paula Deen on Nat's recipe blog. It was SOO delicious and could easily be my new favorite dessert. Volva really liked it too. Before he left he said he would always remember that cake I made. Adam told me later that it must have been extremely good for him to be that impressed with it because most russians think they are a proffessional chef! So snaps for Nat for finding that awesome recipe :) If you want the recipe click HERE. Trust me..you want to try it! Anyways, since Volva was working at a Methodist camp he isn't able to go to church at all while he is here. So luckily he stayed with us Saturday night and we took him to church with us. Adam and I were teaching sharing time in primary that sunday also so he got to come watch that! He'd never seen the temple here either so since it's so convieniently right by our church we went and took some pictures!

Adam and Volva

Adam was really happy to see him. He didn't know whether he would ever see him again. It makes me feel really lucky to live in America. We have run into so many people from foreign countries that are coming over here to work a minimage wage (if that) job so they will have money to take back to their country with them because of how poor they are. Count our blessings!

Then last, but not least I was able to go home a towards the middle of June to see my family! I didn't really take any pictures with my camera because my dad took so many. I just have the one on the first day I got there with my Mom playing the piano to calm Ivy down. Sophie climbed up to hear her play too.

Definitely the best pictures from that week are of the loaf of bread incident with Sophie. Nat posted it on her blog along with some other posts from while I was there. Take a look HERE. Well I think that's about it. Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything too important :) We only have about a month and a half till we make the trip home. I can't wait to be back. I miss everyone!

Busy Busy Busy

So I don't have any pictures this time. I've been meaning to take some pictures of the shopping square we live in, but I keep forgetting!! Anywho, life has been really busy for both of us! Adam obviously is with his work and now I've been working about 40-45 hours a week between boths jobs. It's making time fly by so fast! We'll be home before we know it! Adam is doing really well. Definitely better than last year. He is about the top ten in his office and there are like 30 reps. Way to go babe! 

Anywho, not too long after we moved in we got callings in our new ward. We're primary teachers! We teach the ctr 7 class. There are about 5 boys and 1 girl. I've never taught primary before and I've learned quickly that you NEED treats to bribe them with so they will listen. It's pretty fun though. We've taught for 2 weeks now. The one girl we have in class is named Avery. She is one of the older ones and is really smart. She attached to Adam and I VERY quickly and when I mean quickly I mean the first time she saw us she sat as close as she could by me and had her arm looped around mine. She does the same with Adam too. I forgot what primary was like during sharing time. The little kids say the funniest things sometimes. It definitely keeps us entertained during church! 

Since this past weekend was Memorial weekend both Adam and I were very busy with work. Holidays are big selling days for Adam's company and with my jobs they both had sales and everyone was out shopping! So since we couldn't do anything saturday or monday, after church on Sunday about 5 or 6 couples went to a park nearby that had grills and we all pitched in and brought stuff for a bbq! We lucked out and had beautiful weather. On Memorial Day it rained more than I'd ever seen before. It was pouring when I got done with my first job that day and while I was driving home it looked like buckets of water were being dumped on my car over and over again. It was quite the storm! Also over the weekend the square we live in has an annual festival here. It reminded me of a fair. There were craft booths, lots of food, rides, and live bands all weekend long. It was weird for me to be living right in the middle of it. I'm glad we kind of got to do something for the holidays..it's nice to get a break every once in a while from our hectic works schedules!

Some other exciting news (not for Adam) is I'm coming home in 2 weeks!!! I leave on June 10 and will be home for a whole week. Nat is flying in the same day with the girls. I"m so excited! I haven't even met Ivy yet and she's already 6 months old. The last time Nat was here was when I got married which actually today was exactly 8 months ago! Wow...it doesn't seem like that long. Anyways, I think this is all for now..I probably forgot something because I always do. I will remember to take some pictures of the square or something interesting around here to post next time! love you guys!

Ocean City!

So I didn't realize it's already been two weeks since I posted something! Time is flying by so fast. I can't believe we've been here for over a month already. I've been super busy with work now that I've got two jobs. I've been working at Gap about 4 nights a week and Victoria's Secret I work during the day 28 hours next week. I'm really not excited about that. I only wanted about 20 at each job so I'll see if I can handle this much! Since Adam works all day everyday I have to make sure i get all the groceries and errands done, plus make sure the apartment is clean, laundry is done, and have dinner ready every night. So having two jobs on top of that is getting pretty interesting! I've been doing a lot of crock-pot meals!

Anywho, I do have some exciting news though. I finally know which hair school I'm going to! I've been really wanting to go to this school called Taylor Andrews in Layton. I went and looked around before we left for Maryland and was really impressed with their facility. They have it designed to look like a professional salon. The bad thing was this school was going to cost $14,000. That's quite a bit for only 13 months! So I emailed them and told them I wanted some information on their school and getting scholarships. Well, a few days later I got an email from their recruiting director and she told me that I could have a $4,000 scholarship if I signed up soon! Plus, if I finance with one of their programs, or pay it all up front I can get another 10% off. So I could end up paying only $9,000 for that school which is extremely good! I got in contact with her and told her I wanted to do this so I sent in a registration form and the registration fee and my spot is saved for me to start September 22!!! I'm really excited. I think I'm really gonna love it.

Now that I've got all that stuff out of the way here's the real reason I'm posting today! Since the boys don't work on Sundays they usually like going and visiting places after church. We decided to go to Ocean City, MD! It is about 2 1/2 to 3 hours away from where we are. We stayed for about 3 or 4 hours. It was a beautiful day! I love the ocean. I don't get to see it very often so I try to soak it all in while I can! We really want to go back when its warmer this summer. The water was FREEZING. Well I know everyone wants to see pictures to here you go!

Along the backsides of the buildings bordering the beach was a fun boardwalk that reminded me of the fair. There were game booths, funnel cakes, souvenir shops, and carnival rides!

Just having a little fun :)

This is where the rides were plus on the edge of that boardwalk you could go fishing there. People catch sharks, blowfish, and all sorts of cool things!! The boys want to go back and do that!

We walked along the beach for awhile. About 3 of the single guys were brave enough to jump in the freezing water. The rest of us went seashell hunting! We found the top of a real crab shell. You could see the teeth and where the eyes were!

Not all of the buildings looked like this, but his is the kind of atmosphere that was here. Not really nice, but extremely beach like with shacks and beach houses.

Well that's all I have for today! Sorry again it's been so long. I will keep up on it better and at least blog about what we've been up to! Love and miss you guys!

Trying to be Productive

So...I'm pretty bored at the moment so I thought I'd add another little post. The area that Adam is working in this week and last week has been in Pennsylvania, which is like an hour and a half away. They all haven't gotten licenses for Maryland of DC yet so they've been having to go that far. Usually he's been getting home about 10:30, but tonight it's like 11:15 now and probably won't be home for another 30 minutes. It was for a good reason though. He was in the middle of getting a sale! Also today they had an incentive for whoever got the last sale, which was Adam. He gets an extra $100 from his manager too..so i guess it's okay he's late :)

Anyways, today was my first day of work at the Gap! I love my managers. The two main ones are boys probably in their thirties that aren't married, but they are SOOO nice. I already feel pretty comfortable being around them. Another exciting thing is I got offered ANOTHER job! I had an interview at Victoria's secret too while looking for a job and they called me a few days after I got the job at Gap and offered me a position, so I took it! I definitely won't have a problem keeping busy. I'm really excited to work at both places. I get 50% off at the Gap and Banana Republic plus 25% at Old Navy too. I guess this could be a good AND a bad thing for me :) I'm not sure what the discount is at Victoria's Secret yet. I don't start until Sunday. I told them I wasn't available to work that day, but it's the best day for most of the other people for the orientation. It's right during our church so I guess I won't be going this Sunday. Since I new I wasn't going to be going to church I decided to go to the temple by myself one afternoon this week. It was only my second time even being in that temple so I was pretty happy i found my way around ok. Speaking of the temple...I couldn't believe how pretty the ground around it looks right now. They have TONS of tulips blooming everywhere. I took some pictures but it looked ten times better in person. I could have sat there gazing at it all afternoon!

There were three huge circles of tulips in the middle

This is the view coming out from the temple

Well off to another topic! I have come to really enjoy cooking. (I really shouldn't be surprised looking at my grandmother, mother, and sister) I've had a lot of time on my hands lately and have tried a lot of new things! I've made nearly everything from scratch. I like having a nice dinner made for Adam when he gets home late cause it will kind of give him something to look forward to after a long day and he is usually starving. I try to help out every way I can to take the stress away because I know he is working so hard and I am so proud of him. He's starting out better than he did last year. One of the things I made was last Sunday. I'd been craving a key lime pie for a long time and i found a recipe in one of my cookbooks. It had meringue on it. I have never made meringue before and i've never actually paid attention to how it was even made. I was pretty amazed that 3 egg whites turned into this huge bowl of fluff! Anywho...here's a picture :) The inside was lime green...i thought it turned our pretty!
Adam approved and had two pieces the first time around :) It was pretty and it tasted good :)

The Apartment!

I feel like I'm on a post marathon or something, but so much has happened since my computer died! This will probably be the last post for a few days. Finally, I've taken a video grand tour of our new apartment. I'll post some pictures below too of the highlights, but if you wanna see the whole thing watch the movie!

Everyone here feels pretty spoiled that we got such nice apartments. I guess these are by far the nicest ones out of every other APX office. Just for our one bedroom apartment it costs about $2000-$2500 a month. We are only paying $1000 for it a month and APX covers the rest. It also has a 2 level under-ground parking garage for people who live here. It's really secure. There's a big door that you have to have a pass to get through to get through the garage, and then you need the same thing to get into the elevators. The outside door by the street you need a pass to get in also. One thing for sure is I feel very safe here. There aren't a ton of people that live in these yet because they're only 2 years old. There are also 2 other buildings besides ours. Our apartments are in a place called Rockville Townsquare. The apartment buildings are above shops and restaurants. There's also a movie theatre and a library in this little square. Lots of people come here who don't even live here. I dont have any pictures right now, but I'll definitely take some later to show you!

America the Beautiful

I guess I should probably do part 2 from my last post since I kind of left everyone hangin..so here it goes! Like I said before, Adam and I took the metro one day downtown to DC to see all the famous sites. It was a BEAUTIFUL day. Every other day had been like 60ish degrees, but it was in the 70's the day we went. It seemed everyone else in the area decided to take advantage of the weather too. I was kind of surprised at how many toursits there were with it not being the summer yet. Speaking of people..I don't think I have every been anywhere that there has been such a wide range of races. I literally can't understand about 50% of the people that live here because they're foreigners. It is a little frustrating, but I guess people get used to it. ANYWAYS..after going to the White House we stopped to see the WWII Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument.

WWII Monument Beautiful isn't it?

Yay for Idaho! This is the same monument. It had all the states surrounding it. Doesn't Adam looked thrilled to be there? :)

Vietnam MemorialThe Lincoln Memorial! It's a lot bigger than I thought it would be.

Good ole' Abe. We didn't really wanna ask a stranger to use our camera, but a photographer lady was nice enough to offer.

The Washington Monument looking at it from the Lincoln Memorial. It is beautiful. I love how you can see it in the reflecting pool. If you look at the monument you can tell how far they've cleaned it.

That pretty much shows everything we saw in DC. Walking back to the metro ended up being about a mile! We were extremely tired by the end of the day. It was definitly worth it though. The day after we went to DC Adam and I and our friends went to the DC Temple. I thought the DC was a smaller temple, but it's not. It's really pretty. All the tulips are blooming everywhere around it already. You go through this windy road of trees to get to it. You can see it from the freeway. It's right around a corner and I guess that corner gets a lot of wrecks at night because people turn that corner and BAM there's the briht white temple. I don't know if this is fact, but I think they had to dim the lights a little because of that. Anywho.. here is a picture!