"Adventure is out there!!!" (Our travels to SLC)

The Schedule

8:00- Wake up
8:32- Finally leave warm bed for freezing environment, only to tumble in a really hot shower
9:00- Breakfast
9:30- Clean up and make pizza dough

Pizza Dough Recipe 

(It will rock your socks...if you are wearing some.)

1/2 cups of wheat flour

1 1/2 cups of white flour

1 tsp of salt

3 tsp of yeast

1 tb of oil

1-ish c of warm water

10:00- Slap water on hair or run a brush through, look for a reasonable outfit

10:15- Make pizza sauce and roll out dough and add on the toppings

10:30- Pizza goes in oven, Matt makes sure we have money for the bus

10:40- Matt leaves for school

10:50- Pizza comes out

Our lunch and dinner for the day

12:40- Michele leaves for school

1:00- We have class together!!!!!!!

2:50- Classes are over, mad dash to bus

3:01- Watch old man almost get hit by car as he very sloooowly jaywalks across Canyon Drive and pray that no one hits him.

3:03- Reach bus and crossing fingers that it isn't the bus driver that likes to leave early.

3:05- Bus leaves and we talk about life, hope, dreams and our relationship

4:24- We reach Sandy Trax and get on Trax (and shove pizza in our mouths)

5:13- Reach The Gateway Mall and dash to BYU Salt Lake Center for Michele's class

7:30- Michele gets out of class, and get back on Trax

8:10- Arrive at Sandy Trax and get on bus

10:03- Get off bus and come home!!!!

Adventure complete.

Mondays really are crazy, but in all honesty it is one of my favorite days of the week. I love the time I get to spend with Matt on the bus. I have 4 hours to discuss anything I want to with him, and we talk about everything. (He gets sick if he does his homework on the bus. Lucky me!) We talk about what we learned in our class, graduate school, the random person that is sitting across from us, awful names we could name our future kids, etc. It is awesome and so much fun.

Also, I love people watching on the bus too. It interesting the types of people that come on the bus. The guys that were right in front of us two weeks ago were ex-drug dealers. They were talking about the pros and cons of the jail system and what they think would improve it. We didn't necessarily agree with them, but Matt and I found their conversation very enlightening. There are always cool people on the bus, that I would never interact with except for the fact that we are riding the same bus.

The bus drivers are just as cool too. Jerry is one of my favorites. He has been driving the Provo to Sandy bus for the last two years. He is an avid bike rider and is always pointing out random trails that I should check out one day. There is another bus driver Miguel who I really like. He loves learning different languages, (the last count I heard was eight.) He practices with passengers and goes to night school at UVU to get his degree. How cool is that? 

I love that these people are on the adventure with Matt and me. They are our fellow travelers, just going to different places. It's a nice change to be with some normal people before being canned up in Provo the rest of the week. :)

Coffee Shop Home

This semester I have not been as busy as Matt and to compensate for that I have been doing crafts. Lots and lots of them.

The one I did this week was one I had been looking forward since Christmas. When we rearranged our living room, I noticed we use our living room to study, hangout, eat, and to store our books. Most spaces usually separate those things into different rooms, living room, library, kitchen etc., so I was really struggling with how to make the room look more cohesive. Then I realized coffee shops mix all those things together!! 

Since that moment I have been brainstorming how to make our home more coffee shop like. The "SIT" pillows helped a bit, but it still wasn't giving the right vibes. Then I saw this awesome picture.

Isn't it beautiful? I love the idea of having a gallery of pictures, especially on shelves! It doesn't take up a lot of space, and I don't have to take down all the pictures of I want to add a bigger or smaller picture to the collection. On top of that, shelves are cheap. So this weekend, I did my own version of this picture. 

(The hearts are left over from V-day)

I love the finished product. It cost $30 for the whole thing, and I think it feels coffee shop-y. Matt was awesome. He helped me measure, level, and drill, which I am not too good at. I am so excited in the next few weeks, I'll have all my wedding photos to put on the shelves! 

Also this week, I finished our fake roman shades. 

Before

After

So with new shelves and curtains, I am even more in love with our home. I really love living here, especially with my cute husband.

February Recap...basically

I have not blogged in almost two weeks! During which a lot of random things happened, including Valentine's Day.

We did not do anything special for Valentine's Day, because as newlyweds, basically we celebrate Valentine's Day everyday. Chocolate, random gifts, gross PDA, and texting each other disgustingly cute stuff, are all part of our quotidian routine. I made Matt a pizza saying "I <3 U" in pepperoni and decorated the house, and Matt gave me Mint Milano cookies. It wasn't anything too special, but it worked perfectly with our school lives.

I decorated the house with tons of these hearts with random quotes on them.

Also here are a few other pictures of this month.

I felt ignored when Matt was doing his homework one night, so I attacked his hair with hairspray. He reminded me of Dilbert by the time I was finished. It was pretty epic.

I went to a RS activity and the thing I was most impressed with was this tablescape. It's so cute! The girls arranged it for a  crepe brunch thingy. 

And...that's all folks! 

V-day version 1.5

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Love,

Matt and Michele

Seis Meses

We have been married 6 months and 12 hours and 27 minutes!!!

Which of course is a cause for celebration. (We basically celebrate anything we can if you haven’t noticed.)

Celebrating for us always involves food.

First, we slept in until 10:30. We took a luxurious hot bubble bath, followed by strawberries and pancakes! They were so yummy. Our breakfast dessert was sprinkle cupcakes that we had made together the night before.

After that, we went to church where Matt made his usual heretical comments (his words not mine) and I got to see my friends and reassured people that we really are nice people.

When we came home we armed ourselves with aprons, recipes, and knives. We made thai green curry soup (which is amazing, hopefully Michele puts it up soon,) and cheesy pull apart bread. Then we succumbed to vice and played poker. Once we had eaten all the chips, we weren’t left with much besides the clothes on our backs, but we kept on going! Gambling is such a destructive addiction.

Finally, Matt got wasted while reading aloud Winnie the Pooh!

As you can tell marriage has been a wonderful experience for us. Really, it has.

A few things we like about our first 6 months together…

1. Our whole honeymoon

2. Taking classes together

3. Cooking and grocery shopping together

4. Fixing up our home

5. Eating out (especially Outback and Macaroni Grill)

6. Shopping in Salt Lake together during Thanksgiving break

7. Matt surprising me with an early birthday present

8. Laughing so hard it hurts over stupid things

9. Reading books together

10. Listening to and singing music together

11. Finding out just how weird each other are and then realizing how perfect we are for each other

I can’t wait to see what the next six months are going to bring us, but I’m sure it will be exciting.

First Dance Ever

For anyone who didn’t know, Matt and I met when we were 14. At the age of 14 in the LDS church, boys and girls are encouraged to start mingling. Usually, it starts like this:

“Hi.”

*awkward pause*

“Uh hi.”

*both run in opposite directions*

  

Or sometimes, it’s like this:

“Would you like to dance? I think this is a slow dance song.”

“Well… I guess.”

*awkward shuffling mixed with complete uncertainty as to where to place hands*

“Sooo… what’s your favorite ice-cream flavor?”

“I’m lactose intolerant.”

Matt, on the other hand, was too cool for school. With his long, blonde hair and  black band, XXXL T-shirts, he wasn’t really into that whole dancing thing. When we were supposed to swing dance together for mutual, we ended up not dancing. Instead, we talked together, masterfully avoiding the awkwardness.

Fast forward to last week, we still had not ever danced together. But fate seemed to want to fix that because we were invited to go to a married people formal dance with a few of my friends. While I was excited to get all dressed up, I was even more excited to finally have my first dance with my husband. I carefully did my make up and burnt a few fingers doing my hair, but I was so ready to leave and get on that dance floor. We arrived and instantly were slightly shocked.

In the middle of the BYU ballroom there was a 10-foot, red pole!! Yes, a pole. (And yes, there were people dancing on the pole)

Then we looked to the right and there was a bingo table (old retired people activity right?) and a magician (he was really cool and basically the best part). On the left side, there was a long line that turned out to be for photo booth pictures.

Also despite it being a “wedding attire” dance, they played pop music and line dances. (Pretty amusing to watch girls in big, poofy dresses and heels trying to do the Cotton-eye Joe)

I was completely overwhelmed. I am not the biggest fan of dances. Everyone still awkwardly stood around (as couples now) just like the dances that Matt didn't go to when we were 14. I was determined to get that first dance. After bleeding all over my dress (I cut my knee) and refusing to dance to a few songs (Matt! This can’t be our first song. It has to be special!!!), we finally got to dance for the first time to a clean (and ridiculous --Matt) version of Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream.”

My night was complete. So now Matt and I officially have two songs as “our” songs.


Half Moon Bay by Train
(We went to our honeymoon there! and it's a great song...)

"Teenage Dream" the weird version
(Our first dance and the theme of our honeymoon. Yes, we had a theme for our honeymoon.)

Apparently Awful Pictures

 Matt and I went up to my parent's house for Riley's birthday. The first thing Matt and I did when we got there was to check out the new members of our family. My parents got baby chicks, and they are so much fun to hold. They sound like little squeaky toys. My parents' dog Jasper just loves them. He kept trying to lick them when we were holding them.

(This picture is definitively not a very flattering picture, BUT it is worth putting on here. Why you might ask? It because it is the only picture of Matt and me together in a picture since we came home from our honeymoon.)

We went up to Salt Lake to see the Hilton Family Concert, which was amazing, before coming home to cake and presents. A few highlights of the night...

Jasper

Matt took advantage of my parents' supply of ramen. I do not like having it in our  kitchen...

Riley the birthday boy!! 

Yum

I did two 5K runs this week!! Go me! I was so excited, that I could do that without dying. When I was a senior in high school, I barely finished one under an hour. This time 36 min.

My motivation.

Blooming Onion

(Matt says as I put this up: Can't we just have it every week until we die? They are so freaking good.)

I totally wanted one for my birthday dinner, so Matt and I walked up to Outback to get it. It was completely worth sweating for an hour to eat this. 

Highlights of my birthday:

1. Blooming Onion

2. Matt cooking me breakfast in bed

3. Cake with my family and friends

4. Having a Clean House

5. Getting a sewing machine a month before my birthday