General Conference Weekend

I didn't even blog in September!  Soooo my excuse is that I haven't even gotten my laptop out in over a month.  I think I'll go and backdate some blogs that happened in September so that when I look back at my blog I don't feel like such a bad person.

Two weeks ago we headed down to SLC for General Conference!  We left Friday morning since Nate doesn't have Friday classes and I don't work on Fridays.  We had multiple things to get done while in Utah on Friday.  First, we stopped by Provo to see Eli.  He had stuff to do that evening and so did we so we only spent about 45 minutes with him.  We took him to Walmart though to do some shopping so it was productive time.

Next, we headed up to Lehi to go to the outlets.  It's our sick addiction.  Outlet stores are so tempting!!!  Nate got a new pair of Nike's and I got a new dress and sweater from J. Crew.  I think we've been to these outlets 4ish times and we always go to Nike and never buy anything so it was about time he got a pair of shoes.  I, on the other hand, always end up getting something haha  It's bad.

After the outlets we headed further north to Draper to hit up IKEA.  We got an unexpected gift of money recently and decided that furniture is what we wanted to spend it on.  Nate has been looking at furniture online for MONTHS so we thankfully already knew what we wanted.  I'll have a post about what we got in the future.

After IKEA, we drove further north to Murray, UT to head to our favorite Desert Star Theater to see Dracula!  This was the third show we've seen at this theater and we love it!!  Highly recommended for anyone traveling through Murray.  Family friendly entertainment, great actors and free popcorn!  It's a dinner theater and we usually eat somewhere else but this time we couldn't wait to eat so we got a pizza there.

After the theater we headed further north again to Salt Lake City where we spent the night.  What an exciting day!

On Saturday we went to the first session of General Conference.  With 20,000+ Mormons walking around you are bound to run into people you know.  On our way out I ran into one of the PAs I work with and his family as well as a guy I knew from doing the Hill Cumorah Pageant five years ago.  I'm kind of surprised I didn't see more people I knew haha  We watched the afternoon session in our hotel room and then the boys went to the Priesthood session in the evening.  During that time I decided to walk around the mall for a bit and then stay in my room and read a book.  It was nice to have some quiet time to myself!

After that session we all (Nate's parents and brother) went out to dinner at Texas de Brazil.  YUM!!  I've never been to a Brazilian steakhouse before so I suggested it and I sure am glad I did!  The food was fabulous and our server was hilarious.  She was from Brazil, close to where Nate served his mission, so they were able to talk Portuguese which was fun to listen to.  For the record, my favorite meat was the lamb.

Sunday was more conference.  We watched the morning session in the hotel and then had tickets to the later one.  I actually got pictures this time!

With our nieces Taycie and Kambrie.

After dinner on Sunday we headed back up to Rexburg.  Not my favorite drive but I stayed awake the entire time to keep Nate company.  I think we watched a movie or something but I don't remember.  Probably Everybody Loves Raymond actually...it's our secret-not-so-secret addiction.

Well, there ya have it!  One update on one thing we did in the last month together!  It really is fantastic having Nate back home with me.

A Place to Sleep

We finally got a bed!!!!!

The first month and a half of our marriage was spent with me sleeping on the couch and Nate sleeping on the floor next to me (sometimes I would give up the couch and go sleep with him...but the floor is just not very nice).  Once we had a bit of money we bought a mattress and put it on the floor in our bedroom.  It was definitely a step up but a mattress on the floor doesn't exude the coziness I think a bedroom should have.  Instead of crawling up into bed we literally fell down onto it.  

It's been almost 10 months of marriage and this past weekend we finally buckled down and bought one.  Nate has been looking online for one basically since we said "yes" so this was no impulse buy.  Gosh, beds are expensive!  We went with an IKEA bed that we found online a few months ago.  The closest IKEA in in Utah so we had to wait to get it until we went down there.  

Our comforter is actually a down comforter we bought on ebay a few weeks ago with a duvet cover (also from ebay) that just came yesterday.  The down comforter retails for $450 and we got it brand new for $50!  Score!  We almost bought one with the Macy's giftcards from our wedding and ended up getting pots and pans instead...definitely the right choice as we spent way less money later!

Have I said how happy I am that we have a bed finally?!?!?!  It just makes our room 10X better and it doesn't take up as much space as I thought it would either.  Also, can I brag about my husband for a bit?  Because he put this whole thing together by himself while I was at work for 7 hours yesterday and totally surprised me.  I was under the impression we were going to do it together later in the week (which now doesn't make sense since we are going to Ohio on Thursday...).  Anyways, he's the best.  

Life is good at home, sweet little home.

It also came with covers for pillows but they go on King size pillows and ours are just regular ones so those are on our "to buy" list for the future.

Rexburg Beginnings

Off to Rexburg on Wednesday!!!!!

One of the first things we did was go grocery shopping since we had no food.  While at Walmart we stumbled across the following kitchen table and after staring at it for 20 minutes and talking pros and cons we bought it on the spot.  I couldn't be more pleased with it!  We were both a little hesitant to get it because it was Walmart but it's really great.  Solid wood!  I am thankful for a husband who will spend hours putting it all together while I sleep on the couch...

I also ordered some awesome canvas pictures of our wedding and had them sent directly to our apartment so I had yet to see how they turned out.  They are AMAZING.  I found a company called Canvas on Demand and they had a sale going on where the 16X20s were 78% off AND free shipping if you bought at least two.  So I got three prints for $78 instead of $336.  At Walmart I believe it would be $120 for the same thing so it was still a steal of a deal!

We have had some delicious meals on our table in the few days we have had it.  One night we made homemade pizza and it was probably the best homemade pizza I've ever had.  Thanks completely to Nate (of course).  I wasn't a huge fan of the sauce we picked but the stuffed, garlic crust was amazing!

On Sunday we had full intentions to cook a delicious Easter dinner.  We had steak, potatoes and artichokes...yum!  Well we made guacamole after church and had that for "lunch" and then we weren't hungry by 7:00 when we went to a friend's housewarming party.  When we got home from that a little before 9:00 we weren't in the mood to cook a huge meal anymore so we settled on Red Robin frozen french fries, Bobby Flay cooked hot dogs and buffalo hot wings.  Happy Easter!!

Home, Sweet Home

I've had quite a few people ask about our apartment so here it is!  It's absolutely perfect for us.  Granted, it's not decorated beautifully and we don't have a ton of stuff...but it's just perfect.  From the moment we moved in we knew it was where we were supposed to be.  We actually had never seen this style of apartment before we moved in.  We'd seen ones at this complex that were bigger (2 bedroom) and smaller (1 bedroom w/ less square footage).  Well, as I've said...this one is perfect. 

I have to admit that I am not much of a decorator.  All the decorations in the pictures were done by my fantastic husband.  I can't make decisions about stuff like that so he just hung stuff up while I was at work and I'd come home and love it!

Here's the outside of our complex.  I believe there are 15 buildings total. 

Step inside our humble abode and you'll walk straight into the living room.  This is just one wall...the other has the couch on it.  All the decorations we have are from our reception basically.  This wall doohicky went around our cake table and the frame we got as a present (although it isn't quite filled with pictures yet!).

To the left of the living room is our dining area.  We don't have real chairs so when we do sit at the table to eat we use the black cubbies on the sides of the TV.  The table we have is short so it works well :)  I love our kitchen!  I wish it had a window but can definitely live without it.  It is stocked FULL with all of the fun appliances we got for our wedding and I'm pretty sure we've used just about everything at least once.  Again, as a reminder, Nathaniel did the decorating.  There are also some nice decorations on the side you can't see from this angle.

Lastly is our bedroom.  After three weeks of sleeping on the couch/ floor we finally bought a bed (king size at that)!  I was getting kind of sick of the living room honestly.  I felt like that's the only room I was ever in because we only really went in the bedroom to get to our closet.  Hopefully within the next few months we'll be able to find a bed frame we like so our room looks more like a room....but it's 10X better than the floor!

So, as you can see, it's not much.  But it's a perfect first little apartment and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.  It's gone below freezing outside at night the last few weeks but I think because it's so small it stays nice and warm and we haven't even had to turn our heat on yet!  Oh, we do have a bathroom too but it just looks like a regular bathroom...although all these rooms look pretty regular too sooooooo yeahhhhhh.  We do have a washer and dryer which is FANTASTIC.  On the down side, the washer has broken three times (yesterday being the most recent) and yesterday the dryer stopped working too.  This morning the dryer had risen to life so we could dry all the sopping wet clothes we had but I think they're going to have to get us a new washer.  I'm just glad we got all our underwear washed and dried before they broke so we're good for a while!

Welp.  That's the tour.  It's small, but it's home.

On a larger note, I thought all my non-western-living friends would like to see our chapel.  The church building is our stake center as well and all the wards that go to that stake center actually meet in that building.  There are two of every room (including the chapel) and all the bishop's offices for the entire stake are in there.  At each meeting time there are actually TWO congregations meeting.  It's crazy!

That's our life.  Hope you enjoyed stalking it for a moment in time.