Easter

This past week has kept us busy.

School and work were as usual, Allison and I both continued to get good grades on our class assignments.  I also am still pressing forward on my portfolio to apply to the Nickelodeon Artist Program that is due the 15th of April.  2 weeks, I can do it.

Thursday we also had a bit of a scare with a visitor to our office.  A Scutigera coleoptrata, a house centipede. It is this freaky 30 legged spider-mutant.  obviously not a spider, but before we knew what it was it was just creepy. I intentionally kept this picture smaller in case you get freaked out, if you are intrigued, you may search for it on your own.

Friday we went and donated blood, Allison was very happy that her iron was high enough to donate this time. 

Saturday night after work we watched the Doctor Who premiere at a friends house. It looks like these episodes will be a nice finish to the season and a great build-up to the 50th anniversary.

We had Easter yesterday on Sunday at my moms house and were able to visit with a few of my family members there.  Afterwards we went to the park and tossed bread to the ducks.  we also found out that it is entertaining to throw a whole roll out to the seagulls and they all flock to it.

Birthday Week

I just had my 26th birthday on Friday.  It was a big one, full of... stuff, and things....

Free food is always good and a couple years ago I signed up for birthday clubs with a ton of restaurants and now each year I get freebies.  We had a few meals out and went up to Salt Lake to visit family.  2005 was the last time my mom saw me on my birthday.  We also went and visited with one of my mission companions and good friends. His daughter just had a birthday, and it was fun picking out princess toys and accessories for her.

I got Doctor Who Yahtzee from my mom, Allison and I have played that quite a few times now. And she gave me a coupon book...  Hehe, best present ever...ish... and we're not talking last minute, quickly hand written coupon book because you forgot.  This was done on the computer with pictures and well thought out gifts... she also used the sewing machine to make the pages perforated for easy tearing and redeemability.

The car was also finally fixed, again.  The parking break has had issues and once it was "fixed" it didn't actually hold us if we were on a hill. Now it is all good and our car likes us again for taking care of it.

We again went to Studio C on Saturday night.  It is a lot of fun to go to a live taping of a TV show. The atmosphere is great and you get to see them set up the sets and what goes on between shooting the scenes.  Over all fun experience and a perk for still living in Utah.

The week of continual sick, ugh

This week has been mostly about rest and relaxation.  We have remained sick and possibly got each other sick again. Allison is on the mend which hopefully means that I shortly will be too.

On the plus side Allison finished her first sewing project, an apron. Se is very excited about it and can't wait to use it.  I think she did a really great job on it. She is enjoying sewing, there were a few cases of frustration that arose but it was the sewing machines fault, mostly.

Ezra modeling the almost finished apron.

All done!

My mom spoke in Church today and that took us up to Salt Lake.  We had a great dinner and I got some of my birthday presents early since I might not see them again before my birthday. Doctor Who Yahtzee.  Hehe, the cup IS the TARDIS.  We have yet to play it, but I am sure we will enjoy it.

I'm also working on a personal project, An animation based on the Russian fairy tale the Snow Maiden. Not to be confused with Disney's upcoming adaptation of the Snow Queen, Frozen. I'll start posting images and progress on my art blog.

I'm still not very good at knowing what to say in these blog posts.

I'll be home for Christmas

We have officially left our old place and now only have one home rather than two! On Wednesday after work we worked on cleaning our old apartment. We finished at eight o’clock which is when we had our manager scheduled to be over to check it out. She thought the place looked great and gave us our full deposit back. We were sooo happy to be done.

Our little Christmas tree, in our new place.

We slept in a bit on Thursday to recover from all the late nights and hard work we went through to get everything done. After I got Ezra to work I made sure to get laundry done so we had clean clothes to pack. After work we packed and got everything ready for our trip.

Well, I’ve never had any major problems with holiday travel before. This year changed that. Everything was fine getting to the airport. Our plane was a little late but not much and it didn’t cause any problems. We flew into Portland, OR and took TriMet over to the train station. Our train was running about two hours late. Apparently all the snow in California had slowed it down. So we made it to Lacey around 8 o’clock.

While in Washington we did a lot of packing. Ezra’s mom is moving down to Salt Lake City so our days in Washington were filled with packing and sorting through things. We made a lot of progress and hopefully everything will be done and ready when they take off this weekend. We also had a wonderful get together with Ezra’s family on Saturday the 22nd. I got to meet family members that I hadn’t met yet and I think I’ve finally met most of Ezra’s family.

We found some of our wedding cake in the freezer. We decided we should eat a bit.

Monday, the 24th was the really crazy day. We got up early and worked on packing things. I got a voicemail that there was an issue with our train. Great. I called Amtrak and they told me that the train that we were supposed to catch at 11:20 was running late, two hours late. They said to call back again at 12:45 to check on it. Okay. Well, there were a few things we still had to shop for and some bank stuff Ezra had to take care of, so we took our time getting that done. On our first stop Ezra asked about the trains again (it was about 10:20am) and he suggested I call Amtrak and check on it again. So I did. They told me there was a train we could catch that was supposed to arrive at 11:20 (our original time) but was running about ten minutes late, so it would be there at 11:30am. That train would take us to Portland, then we could take a greyhound bus down to Albany. Cool! We rushed through our last stop, which was Target. One of the items we got was a gift card, a normal, typical, every day gift card. It had some issues and took a while. We had a train to catch and I knew we would be pushing it so I sent Ezra out to the car and he and his sister, Casey, went back to the house to get our things. Then they would come back, pick me up and we would go straight to the train station. It was a great plan! The only thing was, we were slightly short on time.

We were pulling up to the train station and we could see the train sitting there. I knew this was a short stop and that we’d have to hurry. Then we pulled into the parking lot as the train pulled out. We missed it. I walked into the train station and asked about it. He said that was part of the train, but that our original train was running late and they didn’t know when it would arrive. We'd just have to wait. I had about an hour of frustration and then was fine. I just don’t like being let down. I felt like we were so close to being back to our normal schedule but then had that ripped away, and literally seeing that missed opportunity chug away. So we sat and waited. The train arrived around 3:40pm and we finally made it to the Albany train station at 7:45, about 3.5 hours late. I was really just relieved to be back in Oregon and so close to home.

Then we were pleasantly surprised by our welcoming party! Who pulls up? None other than my mom, sister-in-law, and my adorable new nephew Oliver! I’m ashamed to admit that Oliver was a little more exciting than anything else and when we walked in the house and I had Oliver in my arms I may have forgotten to greet my dad… Oops! The rest of the family was just starting on desert when we arrived so Ezra and I ate dinner and then didn’t have to wait for desert. It was great to see my family. And play with Oliver. Oliver trumps all.

Auntie Allison and Oliver!

On Tuesday we had a great big family breakfast, opened presents, hung out and relaxed, then in the afternoon we had more family show up and did some more presents. In the evening we got to watch the new episode of Doctor Who. Awesome! Oh, and throughout the day there was a lot of Oliver. Did I mention that Oliver is the best? I love being an Auntie!

The Christmas tree! All ready with Santa's gifts.

Britney, Oliver, and Matt getting ready to open Oliver's stocking.

Sleepy Oliver.

Such a happy baby! He loves watching the village scenes around the living room.

Auntie, why are you taking pictures of me?

Today has been a pretty relaxing day so far. Britney and Oliver showed up this afternoon and I got to see my adorable nephew some more. I have to get my Oliver fix because I won’t see him again until sometime this summer.

So, that’s the news from this past week! It’s been a busy one, and we won’t leave Oregon until the 31st. So hopefully the rest of this vacation is just as fun as the first half has been!

Happy Halloween!

The last week has been a pretty fun one for us. On Monday we made Spudnuts and we still have a few in the freezer that we get into on occasion. I had a friend stop by to drop off a book while we were making them so Ezra and I got to share with her.

Spudnuts!

Running from the Silence.

My Pumpkin head.

On Halloween we had a huge bowl full of candy for trick-or-treaters but we only had one person knock on our door. I was so disappointed, yet so grateful for that one person. I wish I’d given the little zombie girl more candy. So we’ve been working on getting rid of that. Ezra was a Ninja Turtle at work, and I was on the run from the Silence in the library (Doctor Who thing if you’re confused). In the evening Ezra was a pumpkin head. We played Bookopoly again to keep my mind off of the lack of trick-or-treaters, which worked. By the time we finished I knew there would be no one knocking on our door so we turned off the porch light.

In other news, Ezra finally sold his snowboard! A few years ago he got it from a roommate who was getting rid of stuff and he’s never used it. I finally convinced him to put it on Craig’s List so it wouldn’t take up space in our house. It finally happened. He sold it Thursday evening so we went out to lunch on Friday to Tucano’s! New favorite restaurant? I think so. Alas it’s a little on the spendy side so we only go if we have coupons.

That’s all that’s really been happening in our lives. Not sure if next week will be any more exciting. We’re looking forward to the election being over so that we’re not bombarded with politics everywhere we go. Of course, I’m sure people are going to be angry either way so hopefully that dies down soon too. I guess we’ll see what happens.

25th Birthday of the Wifey

Allison had a Birthday again this year, go figure.  Not wanting to have to sleep on the couch, not that she ever goes through with the threats, but just to be safe.  I decided to get her something.  I did small things during the week leading up to her birthday, A drawing, dinner, cleaning the bathroom, you know, the typical things one gives on a birthday.  The main presents were a TARDIS beach towel and a TARDIS teapot, and yes, it is larger on the inside.

Allison's mom also sent a cake mix for us to make.  And this is what came of it. Poo frosting. But once you get past the look of things, and taste it, it is good to behold.

Now my wifey and I are both quarter-Centurions

Welcome!

The most astonishing words came out of Ezra’s mouth the other day.

 “I want to start a blog,” he said.

“About what?” I asked.

“Us,” he said.

Confession: I love stalking my married friends and reading their blogs. For a while I’ve toyed with the idea of making our own, but I didn’t want to be at it alone. Now that I’ve got the Mr. on board (and he thinks it’s his idea!), I think we’re ready to start.

The Mr. (Ezra): From Washington. Studying art at BYU. Served a two year, full time LDS mission in Indonesia. Works 40 hours a week between the PCL (Provo City Library) and the HBLL (Harold B Lee Library). Enjoys drawing, rock climbing, and building things.

The Mrs. (Allison): From Oregon. Graduated from BYU with a BA in English. Studied abroad in England for a summer term. Works +30 hours a week at the PCL. Enjoys reading, writing, and doing wifey things (though I’ve discovered I’m a terrible housekeeper… working on that).

As a couple:

*Nerf gun wars and sword fights. I hope our neighbors don’t hate us.

*We love Doctor Who, so much in fact that the TARDIS was the top of our cake at our Washington reception.

The TARDIS, bike tire, book

wedding cake, designed by Darby Harris!

*We’re okay with sitting, staring at each other and making faces.

*We love our little home here but it has a lot of quirks, such as the refrigerator that we’re defrosting again (3^rd time) tonight, the bathroom that has no ventilation, the front door that sticks, and the humidity that likes to migrate to the bedroom and warp the books in there.

*We talk to and play with our stuffed animals as though they were our children.

*The Mr. is a furnace and the Mrs. is a block of ice. Together we’re a normal temperature.

*We love rain and miss the wet and green northwest.

Stay tuned!