Inspiration

I just wanted to share something that I found super inspirational. A year or so ago, BYU's Women's Services department did a "Recapturing Beauty" campaign where they worked to get women to focus on inner beauty rather than what's on the outside. They had Stephanie Nielsen come do a presentation. I  tried to go and dragged Jeremy with me, but we couldn't even find a parking spot and it was promised that it would be online so I just decided to wait. I watched it as soon as it was up and it was so amazing. She is such an incredible person. Just a few weeks ago, I was teaching a MiaMaid lesson about overcoming adversity and wanted to badly to share part of her talk with my class. She is such an amazing example of how to overcome adversity with a glad heart and learn from her experiences to teach others and brighten others' lives. They didn't have it on the BYU site anymore where it used to be, so I looked and looked and finally found it. It's pretty long, like 40 mins or so, but if you have time, it's so worth it. It really helps me put things into perspective.



Stephanie Nielsen @ BYU - "Finding and Loving Your Beauty" from BYU Womens Services on Vimeo.

we're baaaaack! :)

Whoa....

Okay, to say it's been a while would be a bit of a [HUGE] understatement. Pretty sure the maybe two people who ever checked this blog gave up hope long, long ago. Hopefully I can regain your bloggy love and attention. I have a renewed motivation and also a very important tool to help me out-- I got a computer that doesn't take 20 minutes to load a webpage!!!

So, I need to confess something. I have a very dear friend that I have been rude to lately. I've said mean things that I didn't really mean and I think this friend is worried that I've found a replacement. I feel like I need to apologize in public, so they know how sorry I am. The friend I am referring to is my dear PC laptop. The one I used all through college. We were close friends and it really helped me through a lot of hard times. We spent a lot of all-nighters together crackin' out last minute papers, we learned all about what it means to actually be a good student so we could have less all-nighters, we had tons and TONS of g-chats with Jeremy when we were dating and mostly saw each other only on the weekends, and even in the last few months, it's kept me company in my empty hotel room while I had to travel away from my lovie dove for work. So many good times together. Its always been so loyal and has never asked for anything from me in return for all it does for me. Through the last couple years, its been slowing down gradually , which hasn't been so good for our relationship. This is why I decided it was time for it to retire from all its hard work while it still had a little energy left to enjoy the rest of its life. Thanks for everything, little Compaq. I won't forget you. (All of a sudden, I have that song going through my head about how we need to make new friends but keep the old, New friends are silver and the others are gold... or something like that)

Anyways, so now I have enough memory space on my new friend to keep all of my pictures all in one spot and since it's young and fast, I feel like I'll be more prone to post about all of our many adventures.

Now for a quick update on the last um... 10 months. oh gosh. That's pathetic that it's been this long.

 April: I graduated!!! Well, technically, that was back in December, but I walked in April, which made it really official.

 

Also, my grandparents and parents came out to Utah for the graduation and we went to the temple for Matty to receive his endowment. I can't believe how much that kid is growing up!

May: nothing too eventful, except Jeremy's high school buddies tee-peed our house as a house warming gift. So thoughtful, right? (to be completely honest, I'm still a little bitter about it... )

June: We took a weekend getaway to the cabin at Bear Lake. And treated ourselves to raspberry shakes! So yum!

There's no place like La Beau's! 

July: Jeremy's first trip to Fishlake!!! It's an annual tradition for my fam and he hadn't had the privilege of going until this year. He hadn't had much fishing experience before that, and man, what a good sport he was! He even went out for 6:00 am fishing with my dad even when I stayed back and kept sleeping.

 

Also, check out this rainbow!! Not a huge event, but so pretty right!?! It was on our way home from Fishlake and we could actually see the end of it! That had never happened to me before, but I'm pretty sure there was no pot of gold. We drove right under it though. So awesome!

 

August: First year anniversary!!!!!! We went to Park City and went window shopping on Main street. We got some yummy Italian pizza and gelato and Jeremy was so sweet and bought me two new scarves. Such a relaxing little getaway.

We also sent Matt off on his mission! He's already out of the MTC into the mission field in CA, speaking Armenian and doing fabulously. He's such a great kid. I'm just so proud of him and the way he's really living up to his potential. 

In September we had a reunion with my sophomore year roommates. We have all gone on to new adventures, but everytime we get together, we pick up right where we left off. It's so great to have girlfriends like them. They are such a good example to me. I'm so grateful to know all of them.

Aren't they all so beautiful? I really am so blessed to have them in my life. 

 October: I took Jeremy to his very first pumpkin patch! His family always got pumpkins at Walmart or something, so I showed him the way it's supposed to be. It was so fun :)

We carved them a few days before Halloween.

The weekend before they closed the canyons for the winter, we took a 2 hour long detour home from Salt Lake. We went through Big Cottonwood, down through Provo canyon and out the Alpine Loop to take us out American Fork canyon by our house. The fall colors were amazing!!!!

 Finally, we dressed up at Popeye and Olive Oyl for my sisters Halloween party. None of her kids knew who we were. We had the same problem last year when we were the Flintstones. I think we'll have to do something next year besides old cartoon characters. Kids these days are so deprived...

 

That's just about all caught up. It's pretty late, and Jeremy fell asleep on my lap, which I love because he's so adorable, but it's making it impossible to type. So, I really will do better, I promise! Keep checking on me, to keep my to my word! G'night! :)

Bumper-to-bumper

It took me an extra hour to get home from work on Friday. A crash happened about a minute in front of me. I had just slowed down to a complete stop on I-15 when I heard the traffic report on the radio saying I would be "at freeway speeds" all the way home... so I figured something must have just barely happened. Everyone has heard the expression that before you complain about not having any shoes, you should think of the person that has no feet. I've thought about this before in previous traffic jams I've been stuck in.... and have decided that before I complain about being stuck in traffic, I should think about those who just got in an accident. I honestly have nothing to complain about. Plus, Friday was a beautiful day and since I wasn't moving at all, I just turned off my car (yes, I literally was parked on the freeway) and rolled down my windows and enjoyed the fresh air.



{Part of my sympathy may have come from the fact that when I was in an accident last year some guy had the nerve to yell out his window and ask if "we were going to clean this up soon?" so that his drive home wouldn't be too inconvenient because of the traffic... really mister? I didn't think about it much then, I was too distracted, but now I just can't ignore the fact that that was pretty selfish of him. Not that I'm still bitter about it, it's just that I don't want to be that person that's only thinking about myself.}

Next time you're in a traffic jam, just think of all you have to be grateful for.

Called to Serve

Matt opened his mission call Thursday night. We made a whole family party out of it. All the siblings came over to our house and we got my parents on Skype. Since it was also the night of the big BYU Sweet Sixteen game (which, by the way, we're not mentioning to prevent Jeremy from crying big tears of sorrow), we made it a mission call opening/BYU watching party. It was a lot of fun. Any excuse to all get together is always welcome, but an event as exciting as a mission call just makes it that much more wonderful!

Josh got stuck in traffic and was the last one to arrive. We were all so anxious and nervous, especially since this he's the first one to go on a mission in my family. We had all made our guesses as to where he'd be called to, most of the guesses were foreign.

So anxious to open it!!! :)

He's going to... drumroll please.... the Arcadia, California mission... speaking Armenian!!!

Look at that big grin!

We are all so thrilled! I really feel like he's getting the best of both worlds. He gets to experience people from a culture vastly different from his own-- talking about both Californians as well as Armenians ;)-- but we can still send him packages without totally breaking the bank!

We are all so proud of him and his commitment to serve the Lord for 2 years. He is such a great kid and brother and I'm going to miss him terribly. One of my favorite sayings is "a missionary is someone who leaves their family for 2 years, so that others can be with their families for eternity." I love that, and I think it really helps keep everything in perspective. We'll miss him, but he'll be doing something far better with his time. Good job Matty-Moo on making the right choice! We couldn't be prouder!


Also, just for your information/entertainment.... this is the language he's going to be speaking. Here is the Armenian alphabet. Good luck Matty (you're going to need it...), we'll be rooting for ya! ;)

I have a great view from my new job. I'm working on the 13th floor of the Well's Fargo builing in downtown SL. I've been here for exactly a week, and every single day it's been a cloudy, dreary view from my window. Except for yesterday.

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It was a gorgeous day!

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And I thoroughly enjoyed it from my little receptionist desk on the 13th floor.

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Today it's cloudy and rainy again, but hopefully we'll have more sunshiney, blue-skied days coming soon. Hopefully.

Out with the old, in with the new

So Stefanie decided that she couldn't put up with our old fridge and decided to buy a new one. We found a great deal at Sears and purchased it online about 3 weeks ago. After two weeks of nothing but issues and two delayed deliveries we finally got the fridge and Stef is definitely happy with our purchase. Unfortunately for her March Madness has begun. Even though the NCAA tournament doesn't start until next week she has had enough of basketball and is being a really good sport about it. We are loving the new house and our freezer of a basement that will come in handy during the summer. Life is great and we are loving just being together and being poor newly weds with a mortgage payment.

Here we are! We decided to jump on the bandwagon and create a couple blog. Cliche, I know. But in this case, I think there's good reason everyone is doing it. So, here we are. Welcome to all the adventures of Jeremy and Stefanie.

Short summary of where we are: Jeremy is working really hard doing both school and work full time. He's taking online classes and working at a customer service job that he loves in American Fork. Lucky for me, he's really good and still making time for his wifey :)

I just graduated with a degree in Public Health and am now looking for a job. In the meantime, I'm having a great time being a full time homemaker and wife. We just bought a house about a month and a half ago now so the timing is perfect for me to be able to get us all settled in while I have so much free time.

Anyways, we're just loving life and absolutely loving being married. Life couldn't be better. Happy Friday!