Cleveland Weekend

This past weekend we spent several days in Cleveland with my extended family and luckily my mom was there visiting too. I haven't been out there in about 6 years and Jared hadn't met most of my family there so we thought it was a perfect opportunity to go now that we are in Wisconsin and it's only a drive away. For the most part we just hung out with everyone and didn't do a whole lot other then eat delicious food, but that was okay by us!

We visited the West Side Market, awesome food!

I got this huge crepe!

The house I grew up in, still looks the same

I got to see my best friend Addie, we were inseparable as kids!

I learned that colored pants are definitely not as popular on the 

east coast as compared to the west coast

Jared loved hanging out with my Oma's dog Scottie

He got new cycling glasses, he looks like Cyclops!

He was put to work doing "man projects"

My mom and her best friend, my "Aunt" Sally

My cousin Chris let Jared take his brand new 

Porsche 911 Carrera 4S for a little joy ride!

This was his face when he got back, perma grin for the rest of the night!

We went to the Cleveland Zoo one day

Cute little baby monkey!

My cousin Jess and I made some delicious tamales, 

pretty good for first timers!

With Jess

We were sad to have just missed meeting Jess' husband Mike, 

who has been at officer's training the past couple months.

With our Oma

My Oma and Te-Te decided I don't buy Jared enough treats

so this is what they sent us home with! (Not to mention a cooler full of food!)

It was a great time and we loved hanging out with everybody, thanks Oma for letting us crash your place! Thanks Tet for always making sure we were stuffed to the bone, I'm still trying to recover from the food intake!

Good News!

For those of you who are waiting for the announcement of a baby Gibbons you'll have to wait a little longer. . . BUT, I did get a job today, which is really good news! Before moving out here I had applied for several math positions at the community and liberal arts colleges around the area. I didn't think much would come of it because I honestly didn't know how competitive I'd be coming right out of school, but luckily a college here about an hour away had me interview and offered me the job today! My official title is a Developmental Math Specialist, so I'll be working in the Student Support Services department helping students who are struggling or behind with math. I'll teach a remedial math class and then spend the rest of my time helping students in an individual or small group setting. Only bummer is that it's a bit of a drive, but I'll only have to do it 4 days a week this coming semester and hopefully I can cut it down to 3 days a week for the next. Distance aside, it's going to be an great opportunity for me and I'm lucky to have found something so quickly out here, kind of a small (alright big) miracle!  So we'll both be slaves to the professional world come August, but at least our students loans will get paid off more quickly!

Got myself a road bike the other day, awesome perks of having Jared work for Trek. I decided that I need to get into better shape. It's not that I think I look bad or anything because I don't mind the way my clothes fit or whatever, but I just don't feel healthy ya know. Anyway, I went on my first ride this morning and it felt good, did 12 miles in just under an hour so I was pretty proud of myself!

Jared is stoked that he's finally converted me to road biking!

Wisconsin Weirdness

I'll give ten bucks to anybody who lives outside of Wisconsin, or who is not from here, that can pronounce these city names or street names correctly. . .

- Waunakee

- Waukesha

- Oconomowoc

- Monomonee

- Ashwaubenon

- Sheboygan

- Menomonie

- Kenosha

- Okauchee

- Koshkonong Way

- Egre Street 

- Trempealeau Trail

- Lalumiere Rd.

But don't worry my friends, if you ever come visit, you won't have to ever remember the street names because half of the roads and major streets go by either numbers or letters, and all of the locals use those instead of the full name i.e.

Windsor = 19

Washington Ave. = 151

Bristol = Hwy N

Grand Ave. = Hwy C

Stoughton Rd. = 51

You'd think there would be some sort of system for numbering and lettering these roads, but as far as I can tell there isn't! And when you get through the end of the alphabet, they just start naming the highways with double letters such as Hwy TT, DM, Bb etc. Confused yet?? Try living here!  But at least there's a Happy Valley Rd. here close to us, makes me feel like we're back in P-Town again haha 

3rd Anniversary

Our Anniversary is on May 30th, and this year I was on the road from Utah to Wisconsin on that day, so we decided to celebrate it after we got moved in a settled. Trek owns this really sweet Bed & Breakfast in downtown Madison which we were able to get a discount with, so we stayed there for a night. Our room was pretty awesome, the bathroom was even better. It was really nice to just be able to go relax for a weekend and recover from all of the craziness of moving.

Playing around with the remote for the blinds

Our room was at the top of this cool staircase

View from the top of the B&B

We went out to dinner and had some 

fried cheese curds, pretty good actually!

A nice Wisconsin cheese platter

We went to the farmers market and came home with some goods

This past week has been pretty good, other than our AC is not working, but luckily we are getting it fixed tomorrow morning before it gets too hot here. We've been hanging out with some people from our ward which has been fun. I went to a cool waterpark the other day with my friend Char and her kids, it was a blast! We watched a movie and played games with a couple in our ward on Friday night and then we went out to Waterloo to hang out with our friends there last night. It's been nice to get to know more people out here. Hate to say it, but I actually like it out here quite a bit. 

On Friday I had an interview for a math position at a community college in a small city out here about 45 min away. It went really well and I have a second interview with them on July 3rd, so hopefully I get the job. It's only part time, but that actually works out really well for me because I wanted to try and get something more flexible as opposed to teaching full time. 

Jared and I got called to be sunday school teachers for the 16-18 years old in our ward. We taught for the first time today, and the kids are pretty cool so I think it will be a fun calling. Jared also got called to be a counselor in the young men's today so he's gonna be double doing it for the next while. 

Well that's about it, things in Wisconsin are pretty good so far!

Life in "Winsconsin"

Haha, our nephew Drake has a hard time saying Wisconsin, it usually comes out as "Winsconsin," pretty stinkin cute! Anyway, after two straight days of driving my mom and I made it to Madison. The drive was  definitely kind of boring through Nebraska, but once we hit Iowa it got alot better. It's really green out here in the Midwest, although pretty dang flat. Driving that long made me feel like a old grandma though, I don't think my lower back has fully recovered yet!

We had gotten here on Thursday night, so Friday morning my mom and I ran a bunch of errands and got stuff for the new place while Jared was at work (and when I say "at work" I really mean the 100 mile bike ride his Trek department did that day, the perks of working there I guess!). It was ridiculous how much crap we got, did some serious damage to our bank account! On Saturday we spent the day painting the apartment which actually went pretty quickly because our stuff hadn't gotten there yet. Sunday we went to church and it was nice to reconnect with some of the people I had met when I visited Jared there back in April. The movers came with our stuff on Monday morning. It only took them 30 minutes to unload all of our stuff, pretty comical. We spent the next few days unpacking and organizing everything. For the most part everything is put together except for a few boxes Jared needs to go through. It is nice to have so much extra space in this apartment. Both of the rooms are huge compared to our old place, and they both have pretty big walk in closets, which is awesome! We've also got the garage for storage and tonight Jared got some hooks to hang his bikes from the garage ceiling so there's literally nothing on the floor of our second bedroom, perfect spot for visitors. We've even got a nice air mattress for you so please come see us!

Tuesday was my birthday, the big Two Five. I like to think of it as the quarter century year, but another math geek (thank you Kathie!) pointed out that it is a perfect square year, which is pretty cool too! We went to dinner at Panera, their strawberry poppyseed salad is seriously out of this world, so delicious! Then on Wednesday we had some of our friends, Jen and Ivan, come over with their two cute little girls Lily and Sofi. We had dinner and cake and then we played some Just Dance. It was nice to have some friends over, made our place seem more like home.

Today was my mom's last day here, so we decided to check out downtown before she left. There are alot of cool shops and restaurants down there by the Capitol Building and the university. We had fun walking around and checking it out. We also found this European Bakery that has some good pastries and sourdough bread. It reminded me of my grandpa's bakery in Cleveland, except his is definitely better!!

It was hard to say goodbye to my mom. She was seriously so much help this past week, we could not have gotten our apartment in order without her! It's sad knowing we are so far away from all of our family and friends, but I'm just glad that we are together now. In a twisted way the long distance was probably good for me because it's made the actual moving part of this alot easier. As much as I would love living close to family, I'd obviously rather be with Jared, even if that means being with Jared 2000 miles away from everyone else.

Anyway, Wisconsin itself has been nice so far. The weather has probably been the best part. I know it will get hotter, but this past week has been in the mid 70's, low 80's with a nice breeze that comes through our windows all day. I think we lucked out with our neighborhood. It seems to be a newer development with some four-plexes like ours but then alot of single family homes as well so it doesn't feel like an apartment complex or anything like that. Even though I definitely miss the mountains, it is really really pretty out here, super green with alot of trees. It's awesome too because you can drive three minutes out of the city and it feels like you are in the country and in a completely different place.

Here are some other random Wisconsin tidbits I've noticed since I've been here:

- Everything closes early around here, by 10 pm everything is shut down.
- They only mow the lawn about three feet back from the road along major streets and highways, the rest of it they let grow high, kind of weird.
- Alot of the homes here have detached garages. I would shoot myself if I had to park my car in the garage and then sludge through 4 feet of snow in sub zero temperatures during the winter!
- People definitely have some awesome accents out here, I've already started picking up on some of it, so I'll probably start sounding like a Wisconsinite (whatever that word is!) here pretty soon.
- The Super Walmart here has underground parking that is insulated. . . I'm living in fear of the winter!
- All of the houses here have wood trim
- It's always cloudy here during the afternoon
- Most days have been pretty windy, I'm not sure if this is a constant, let's hope not

Last time seeing Utah mountains, or any legitimate mountains for a while

Completing one of his many "man projects" 

This was the kitchen island which he successfully constructed.

He credited the completion on his amazing Lego building skills haha!

We finally have a grill!!

The pretty green out here!

This was literally two minutes away from our aparment

and we definitely don't live in the sticks.

It's crazy how fast the landscape changes around here!

Living Room

Kitchen

2nd Bathroom

Our Room

Our Bathroom

Peace Out Provo

I'll be leaving Provo in the dust come Wednesday morning and who knows when I'll be back to this place again. My mom (bless her sweet heart, she is a saint) will be making the drive to Wisconsin with me. I'm a little sad, I've made some good memories over the last 6 years, but I can't tell you how ready I am to be out of here and with Jared. At this point, I'd move to freakin Antarctica if he were there, it has not been very fun living apart for the past three months. He was able to come for a few days this past weekend though. There was a photoshoot in Sun Valley, Idaho that he was in charge so he went to that for a week and then was able to stay in Provo over the weekend. We were able to hang out with our families for one last time together which was pretty awesome. His sister Heidi just had a baby boy, Hudson, about two weeks ago and we got to meet him. He's the cutest little baby! Whit brought up Big and we got to spend some time with him too so it was a great weekend.

After I defended my thesis and got that beast finished I spent a couple of weeks with my family down in STG. It was kind of weird waking up in the morning and not really having a plan or stuff to do everyday! I got to see some of my friends from high school and family friends, but I mostly just hung with my family, lots of swimming with the nephew. A couple of my good friends, Sarah and Holly, from my math ed. program came down to visit, which was way fun. We have known each other for years and had always talked about making a trip to STG so I could show them around, and we finally did it! We went hiking and swimming and did a session at the temple, such a great couple of days!

We will be able to get into our apartment out in Wisconsin on June 1st, but our stuff probably won't be out there until a few days after that. Seriously, the only way to move is to have professional movers do it. Trek paid for our movers and we didn't have to do a thing. They came in, packed everything, loaded everything and were gone within four hours (granted we hardly have anything considering we have been poor college students our whole marriage!), it was the best! Once we get into our place and get settled I'll post some pictures.

As bad as it sucks to have to leave our family and friends here, I am glad to finally have this in-between time over with. Everybody keeps asking me what I'm going to do out there, if I'm going to teach etc.  At this point I'm definitely not going to be trying to get a job teaching in the public schools out there. It's likely we'll try to start our family here in the next year, so I really don't want to go through all the trouble of getting licensed out there to only barely survive my first year of teaching and then quit. I've applied for some adjunct positions at a few colleges in the area so we'll see if anything comes of that. I'd be fine even just working at a school in some other capacity, I really don't care what I do anymore. It's kind of a funny feeling because I'm usually a little (majorly) OCD when it comes to planning out my life and figuring stuff out like that, I've just decided I'm not going to worry about it.

Anyway, here are a bunch of random picks from the last month. My trusty flip phone I had for five years finally died a few weeks ago, so I caved and got an iphone. I kind of love it, but sorry if some of the pics are crappy quality because that's all I've been using as a camera the past while!

Big and I made a pretty sweet tent

His new thing is to give a "thumbs up" in every picture!

With Holly and Sarah on our hike, I don't know 

why we decided to do a cheerleader pose. . . haha

My dad bought Jared a drill, so he could

build stuff or something. . . 

I got a new haircut when I was down in STG!

Us sisters rockin the colored skinnys, I was thinking 

about how our shoes perfectly demonstrate our personalities. . . 

Whit's leopard flats = quirky with an attitude

Melissa's heels = high maintenance (in a strict fashion sense my dear!) with ambition

My Vans = laid back with no style! haha

And then there is Biggie just lookin cute!

I am done with school forever!!

Right after I picked him up from the airport,

the look of happy spouses who hadn't seen each other in over a month!

Hudson, such a good baby!!

Jared was the first one to teach Big how to game,

and he created a little gamin' monster!

Bed Head haha

We took a little church vacation and 

went to the aquarium in Sandy yesterday

Jared looks like he's about 16 in this picture haha

Peace out Provo, it was fun while it lasted!

Done

This week marks a week where I feel like I am done with everything. . . I'm done with my thesis, I'm done with my graduate program, I'm done with teaching this year and mostly I'm just done being without my husband. Yesterday I defended my thesis, probably one of the biggest accomplishments of my life, and he was 2000 miles away. Today was kind of a crappy day for him and I'm 2000 miles away.  Our 3rd anniversary is in a few weeks and we'll be 2000 miles away from each other. Although I am honest when I tell people that things are okay and we are doing fine, it still sucks sometimes like tonight and another month of the long distance blows, especially for him being by himself out there. But whatever, it is what it is and we can't do anything about it. I'm heading down to STG for a couple weeks and Jared will be traveling to Sun Valley, Idaho for a week this month because he's in charge of a photo shoot up there, so the time will go faster now. I can't even imagine how army/military couples handle being apart like this and for even longer periods of time. I have a lot of respect for them and the sacrifices they make, because being apart from the person you love most is hard.

Anyway, on a lighter note, I passed my thesis defense which is really good news! I only had a couple of small revisions I had to make, so now all I have to do is submit an electronic and hard copy version of it to BYU. My 5 year old trusty flip phone decided to break on me yesterday, so I finally bit the bullet and entered the world of iPhone users this morning. The nicest thing about that will be the map application thinger for when I get out to Wisconsin, considering there are no landmarks (like mountains or even small hills!) that help you orient yourself out there! Jared finally got his road bike put together so he's been riding around Madison quite a bit this past week which has been fun for him. He's going to start riding his bike to work now that the weather is getting nicer out there. It is about 40 miles round trip, he's crazy!