Family Newsletter: February

So, um... yeah. It's MARCH, everybody! And it's coooooooold. Joke's on everybody who thought they had somehow escaped winter after a relatively warm and breezy February, including yours truly. I'm now hoping to be equally disappointed in my prediction that we will have a white April in Utah this year. February was annoyingly long this month - oh yeah, leap year! THAT'S WHY - and yet still too short to get anything super important or noteworthy accomplished. To give you a sense, our major accomplishments this month included:

Cutting out hearts and taping them to our door. It was a big deal to take down our snowflakes, but I love the hearts (and am already planning for us to do shamrocks next, followed by eggs/bunnies/chicks and then patriotic stars and stripes).

Can you guess which ones I made?

Making this (delicious, fattening, Reese's peanut butter) pie for my Matthew on Valentine's Day. This was a pretty big deal for me, by the way. Not only was it the first pie I have ever baked solo ever, but it also required me to make the first graham cracker crust I've ever made. Plus it took me all morning rather than the 1.5 hours I had planned, and used up probably 1/3 of my dishes. And my husband loooooved it.

I was also pretty excited to finally get to use this cute pie dish we got at our wedding.

Finally seeing Breaking Dawn (no, not on Valentine's Day - puh-lease; we watched Captain America on Valentine's Day because I was so awesome and generous and self-sacrificing and smart that I used a coupon to get it for free from Redbox and surprise Matthew).

 Finally reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. In, um, a week. That's how hooked I am.

 

Going miniature golfing with Matthew's family at Trafalga over the President's Day holiday.

Totally rocking the Ice Ball arcade game at Trafalga after studying and copying the strategies of the 4-year-old in front of me.

Going to a free dinner at BYU for graduate students and then sneaking off separately on the pretense of going to the bathroom so we could leave early and miss the keynote speaker. Oh yeah, we're so bad. We probably would have stayed if they hadn't served the dessert before the speaker, though.

Going to a magic show at the Orem library for kids and loving every minute. Yes, even the talking monkey.

Bonding with our home teacher by going to dinner with him and his wife at their apartment and learning to play a pretty intense game called Sequence. Then being crushed when we were suddenly assigned new home teachers.

Paying our rent. Speaking of rent, did I mention that we just found out that this August our rent will increase by $75 and we'll lose free Internet? We are not at all happy about this turn of events, but haven't yet decided whether or not we'll move (or if we do move, whether we'll move in a dramatic protest of outrage or in a silent, furtive "thief in the night" style... thoughts?).
Completing a brutal, lengthy leg workout that left my calves and thighs aching and throbbing for a week. Coincidentally, I fell in volleyball the next day and got a huge bruise on my knee that looks impressive and doesn't hurt at all.


Discovering The Big Bang Theory. Awesomeness.

That was pretty much it for February. School and work continue to keep both of us busy, movies and books continue to keep us from going totally insane. And of course, the best part of our lives is just having the other one there at the beginning of every day and the end of every night. Speaking of which, I am incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful, loving, adorable, sweet, kind husband as my Matthew. This month was the 1-year anniversary of the day Matthew proposed to me, and he recreated the proposal (with a ring-pop this time, the silly) on Valentine's Day, reminding me once again how happy and lucky I am to have him in my life. This Valentine's Day was definitely the best one of my life, and I can't wait for many, many more years of wonderful romantic times with my favorite guy in the whole world.

In the words of Sally, "Isn't he the cutest thing!!?!?!?!?!??"