Thanksgiving and 28th Birthday

We decided to spend head to Cleveland to spend Thanksgiving with my Oma this year. We had a really fun time! Oma is the best and took care of us all weekend, and it was fun for Jared to be able to meet some more of my family out there. We had a delicious turkey dinner on Thursday and then just hung out the rest of the weekend. We did a little Black Friday shopping with my cousins and then celebrated Jared's 28th birthday on Saturday. I told him on the way over that he was going to get the best birthday cake he's ever had, and I wasn't lying! My aunt and uncle own a bakery out there, and they seriously make the BEST cakes hands down, and Jared's was way good.

I don't want to get too mushy, but I'm lucky to be married to such a great guy! I hope you enjoyed your birthday, love you!

 Thanksgiving

On Friday night we went saw a show at a club with my aunts, uncles, 

my cousin Jess and her husband Mike, it was pretty interesting. . . 

A"Mardi Gras" theme and I'll leave it at that! :)

Jared's face in this picture cracks me up!

We went out for lunch on his birthday

Delicious cake!

When we got home we had a sweet package in the mail from 

our nieces and nephews, they are the best!

We decided to put the Christmas Tree up yesterday. 

New Year's "Resolutions" Revisited

Today has been an interesting day. President Obama got re-elected last night, and a lot of talk on social media has been about how much doom and gloom we can expect in the next four years. You'd seriously think it was the end of the world, which is a little dramatic if you ask me. I will admit that I voted for the other guy and I wasn't particularly happy to see that Obama won, but  all this pessimism me thinking today of the good things that Jared and I have that we can focus on. This got me thinking about this past year and how much has changed for us, so I decided to take a look at the New Year's "Resolutions" that I listed back in January and give updates about each one, which are listed in blue if you care to read any further :)

Things we will do. . . 

1. We will pay off our student loans, only 4 more months to go baby (We are so close. When I wrote this in January, I was only considering Jared loans, which we did pay off, but we still have a little ways to go with mine that kicked in after I finished Grad School.)
2. I will finish writing my thesis-of-doom and graduate with a Master's Degree! (Speaking of Grad School, I kicked the crap out of my thesis-of-doom and I officially graduated back in August.)
3. Jared will get a roof rack for the Subi. . . already has half of it now (Yeah he got the rest of the rack, I will admit that it looks pretty cool.)
4. We will pay off my car loan (Paid in full!) 
5. I will continue to make dinner most nights (Most is the key word here people, and I can say that I have done well to keep trying new recipes.) 
6. Jared will continue to go on lots of bike rides (This is the biggest understatement of the year.)
7. We will be moving up toward the SLC area, not sure where exactly, but somewhere north of Provo! (Bahaha, not so much, we are currently 2000 east of that destination.)
8. I will turn 25, the big quarter century year! (It's a perfect square year too, 5 x 5 = 25, there's really only 9 realistic perfect square years one could reach, so I thought it was a pretty cool, math geek here!)
9. Jared will turn 28 this year. . . nothing special about 28, other than it sounds old haha  (Yep, his b-day is Nov 24th and we will celebrate with some delicious cake from my Uncle's bakery.)
10. We will watch the rest of the second season of The Walking Dead (We finished watching the 2nd season and starting watching the 3rd season a few weeks ago. This past episode really pissed me off though, so I'm boycotting the rest of it!)
11. I will exercise only when I feel like it, which is not often haha! (Perfectly true statement here, I definitely have not exercised very often this year, although I did try out a Zumba class with a friend of mine, it's actually pretty fun!)
12. Jared will continue to curse the crappy Utah drivers on his commute to work. (Now he curses the crappy Wisconsin drivers. . . I don't think the location really makes a difference, everybody is a crappy driver in his eyes :) ha) 
13. We will be watching alot of basketball in the next four months and then alot of summer Olympics after that! (I watched the Olympics all day, every day. It was the best part of not having a real job over the summer!) 
14. I will continue to watch our budget like a hawk because I'm a little OCD when it comes to finances (Guilty, we just had a little budgeting pow wow last night before bed, it's amazing how fast you can blow through money if you aren't careful.)
15. Jared will design some sweet stuff at work and will likely pick up some free lance projects on the side (The verdict is still out on whether or not Trek will actually implement some of Jared's good designs. . . )
16. We will spend alot of evenings hanging out and relaxing together, we just aren't the most social people on the planet! (This is even more true now that we are living in Wisconsin)

Things we want to do. . .

1. We want to get some new couches, we are thinking a sectional (Haven't made this purchase yet, we are still making due with my parents 15 year old hand-me-down couches.)
2. I want to fly back to Cleveland sometime over the summer so that Jared can meet the rest of my extended family back there (One perk of living in Wisconsin is that we are close enough to drive to Cleveland. Jared has been able to meet alot of family back there, and he will get to meet even more when we go for Thanksgiving.)
3. Jared wants to get fog lights for the Subi (No luck there yet, it's further down the list now that he has access to discounted Trek merchandise) 
4. We want to see the Hunger Games movie (Good show)
5. I want to find a new apartment that is big enough to fit my piano (Done, just in a different state then originally planned when writing this list!) 
6. Jared wants to find a new apartment that is big enough for all of our biking and camping junk! (See above)
7. We want to go on a fun road trip somewhere with friends (Hmm. . . if we count each other as friends, road-tripped to Cleveland, and we plan to road trip to Lambeau Field this weekend haha)
8. I want to get a job as an adjunct professor at BYU teaching math (this is a freakin long shot but it would be cool!) (Well I did get offered that job at BYU, but we moved to Wisconsin, which still counts for something I'd say! At least I'm still working at the college level out here, much better fit for me than public school teaching)
9. Jared wants to get a job at REI Headquarters (another long shot, but this is a list of "wants" people!) (I'd say Trek is a pretty good deal for him)
10. We want to go to see a Jazz game when they play Jimmer's team (Never ended up getting tickets to watch the Jazz when they played Jimmer's team, not that it mattered because Jimmer is not a very good NBA player as of yet.)
11. I want to learn how to cook some good German food like schnitzel and spaetzle (I'm going to have my Oma teach me over Thanksgiving if there is time)
12. Jared wants to design a christmas card for us this year (I don't know if he really wants to, but I'm going to make him!) (Considering it's still just the two of us, I figured a legitimate Christmas card from us would really be underwhelming for friends and family. . .)
13. We want to do something cool for our anniversary this year as we've always been too busy with school and family stuff the past couple of years (Yes! We stayed at an awesome place in downtown Madison and spent a great weekend together, it was great!) 

And last but not least

14. I want to get pregnant. . . totally depends on where we are at toward the end of the year and what I feel like I should be doing with my career at that point in time, but we aren't gettin any younger folks and we want to start having kids sometime in the next couple of years. (Working on it, and that's all I will say about that)


 A lot has happened this past year and we still have almost two months to go! I would say it's been one of the best although bittersweet years of my life. Best because we've really been blessed with good jobs, a nice place to live etc. but also bittersweet because we are now so far away from our families. But overall, it has been a great year so far and I look forward to many more great years, regardless of who the dang President is!

Slacking

I guess I've officially joined the club of people who are slacking on their blogs. I'll try to be better for the sake of our family who probably reads this. . . but I'm not making any promises. The past couple of months have been busy, but good. My job is going well. I like teaching and my class is fun, which makes it easier to go to work everyday. The hour commute both ways gets tiring by the end of the week, but I really like my students and it's cool to see the progress that some of them have made. It's different teaching college freshman, makes for some pretty entertaining moments at times! I try to keep it light during class, their favorite thing to do is call me out whenever I spell something wrong on the board, which is about 3 times a day, no joke! Anyway it's going well and I'm lucky to be doing something that I love and that I am good at.

Jared's job is good. It's still been a struggle pushing new ideas in the creative department at Trek, but he's been making some progress which is encouraging. He had a business trip out to Vegas last month for a couple of days, and so he was able to spend some time with my family in STG. I'm jealous he got to visit without me, but he had a great time and I'm glad he was able to go! He decided to buy a bunch of winter riding gear so that he can keep riding to work even when it's cold. . . like 25 degrees outside, no thanks! 

We went back to Cleveland for my friend Addie's wedding a couple of weeks ago. I was pretty lame and didn't take any pictures, but it was great wedding and she was a beautiful bride. We stayed with my Oma and she was excited to cook for us :)  Jared hooked up her new blu-ray player and we coerced him into watching The Sound of Music with us. He'd always bagged that movie even though he'd never seen it before, and now he admits that it's actually good (or maybe I might be putting words in his mouth)! 

My parents came to visit this past weekend which was really nice. We saw some cool sights here around Madison and then we took my dad over to the Harley Davidson Museum in Milwaukee yesterday. He was in heaven! It was actually a pretty sweet place to check out, even though I'm not way into motorcycles. Only down side now is that Jared is set on getting one in the future, we'll see about that. I am slightly obsessed with the show "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" (a.k.a Triple D) that's on the Food Network and I got my parents hooked on it a few months ago. There is this little diner in Milwaukee that was on the show, so we decided to check it out after the museum. It was pretty good and my parents thought it was cool to hit up a Triple D joint! Anyway, it was really nice to have them visit us, even though it was too short and it makes me miss all the rest of our family even more now. 

We spent Labor Day in Milwaukee. We went to the Art Museum and to the 

top of a cool lighthouse among other activities.

I decided to chop off a few inches of hair last month

His winter riding gear

A couple of weeks ago, some of my friends ran and finished a marathon

on a morning of 15 mph wind, rain and sub 40 temperatures, they were amazing!

Out to lunch with Oma!

The Harley Museum

Some of the engines on display

Different paint schemes

Haha, the mini bike! Our nephews would love cruising

on this little thing!

Captain America Bike!

At the end of the tour, they had a bunch of motorcycles you could sit on

Haha, an early scooter version of a Harley!

I'd take this hot pink ride haha

On the old man trike bike :)

In your dreams baby

August

Well the summer is winding down out here, which is a good thing and a bad thing. It's a bad thing because I've really enjoyed having a relaxing summer to recover from my grad program, plus it's been nice having no obligations and being able to do whatever I want, when I want. It's a good thing because I'm ready for something new. I'm excited to start my job and to meet new students. I never thought I would admit this in a million years, but a bunch of friends have been talking about going back to school lately and it's really weird knowing that I'm not going back to BYU this semester, I might actually it miss it a little (other than the thesis writing, homework doing, finals studying etc.) Anyway, here's an update in pictures of this past month. 

Olympics. . . all day, everyday

I got my haircut again and the girl convinced me to grow out my bangs, something about longer "fringe" being better for my face shape, blah blah. I'm trying to decide what to do, they are kind of driving me crazy at the moment. This pic is on a great day, if my bangs looked like that everyday and stayed out of my eyes I'd be fine with it, but my hair skills are terrible, so I end up pulling them back 99% of the time. Okay I'm done with hair venting. . . 

We got "volunteered" to take the youth down to the Chicago Temple. I'd like to think it's because we are cool and the kids think we are awesome, but it's really because we are the only couple in our ward who don't have kids of our own! It was a fun trip though, we'd never been there before, so it was nice to get a chance to go.

Trek has a big trade show every year in Madison where they show off all of their new bikes. These are the spaces Jared designed for it. It's been a learning experience for Jared in how marketing and design functions from an organizational standpoint when working for a big company like Trek, but I think he was pretty happy with how this project turned out. He was able to push through more of his own ideas, and hopefully the higher ups are starting to realize he is capable of showcasing the brand effectively, and that he really knows what he's doing, even if he's only been out of school for a year.  

I've been hanging out with my friend Char and her kids quite a bit this summer, another perk of having so much free time. I told her I've adopted them as our nieces and nephews since ours are so far away. Her oldest son Tyler is obsessed with sports, my kind of kid. Jared and I played Bocce Ball with him and his little brother Jaden last week, and I went over and played basketball with him this week, good times! I found out that Jaden, is obsessed with all things Legos. I told him Jared has a box of old Legos (thank you Carolyn for forcing us to take those off your hands when we moved! haha) and that I'd take some over for him to play with. We have been BFFs ever since, and he affectionately calls me his "lego buddy" now haha. Then her youngest Kambree thinks I'm the greatest babysitter around because we make playdough, watercolor and do nail polish. Fun kids!

Jared was inspired by Jaden's Lego obsession one afternoon

We decided to brave the hoards of teenagers and go to the fair 

so I could get a funnel cake and corndog, definitely worth it!

Our nephew Cole had his birthday a few weeks ago, so Jared was able to hook his parents up with a good deal on a bike. This was the pic Heidi sent us, she said he was pretty excited about it! Jared is already corrupting the young minds, this will be our own kid in another ten years or so!

And this is an old random pic I found and posted it 1) because Jared is hot 

2) because it was taken in my friend Dana's neighborhood and I miss her and the twins!!

Overall, things out here are still good. Some days are better than others. Obviously we miss our family and friends and wish we didn't live so far away, but we are happy and just taking things day by day.

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!