This is The New Year

We have been married a year and it feel great!  Time really does just fly by.  This winter has been a lot better than last year, in that there is actually sun!  I know some people hate that there is no snow, but I'll take everything as a blessing.  We started out the new year in Texas, which was a blast.  We love to hang out with the Sears, especially with the whole family being there.  And we spent Christmas with the Barlows, which was also a treat.  I got Jameson a shark pillow pet, and he loves it (almost as much as I love the panda pillow pet he got me last year).  And he got me a paint set, and other various gifts.  It was our first Christmas being married, and we can't wait to see how fun it will be when we have children of our own.

I'm off track this semester which has allowed me a lot of free time.  I have read The Help, and all of the Hunger Games, and enjoyed all of them!  I forgot how much I missed reading for fun instead of school.  Jameson is on track doing IBC, where they create their own business.  They're doing Vinyl Expressions, for home decor and businesses.  If you want any sayings, let him know!  They more money they make, the better their grade...or something like that.  He is very busy and goes to school from 1 pm-6 pm every day.  It's been interesting.

This year will be full of joy and promise, I can already feel it! I get to go visit my best friend and cousin Anna at the end of March in North Carolina.  She is having her baby girl the first of March, so it will be fun to see her and the tiny baby!  And we are going on a family vacation this year to Colorado! Yay!  Lauren is going to graduate and come to college, so we'll be able to see her and Jameson's parents.  Rachel and Jon are going to Italy on an internship from September to December. Oh and I'm supposed to graduate at the end of this year!

Joy to the World...

Fall Semester is over!  Woo hoo!  I'd actually have to say that this was probably my favorite semester of all of college.  My sewing classes were so relaxing and fun.  I learned...well I didn't learn too many new things, but it actually gave me time to just sew!  I spent so much money on fabric, but I got a lot of finished products too.  My family classes (covenant marriage, and family relations) were very fun and informative.  I feel like our marriage just keeps getting better.  The past few weeks have been crazy, with all the studying, sewing, unpicking, hand sewing, papers, reading, etc.  Yet Jameson always found time to do some dishes, and we made time to watch mostly every Christmas movie on Netflix, cheesy and all :)

I can't believe it, but in just a few days we will have been married for 11 months!  Woot!  That's almost one whole year!    We're spending the 22-25 with my family in BC, and it will be our first Christmas in a lot time with all of us there, and also mine and Rachel's first Christmas being married.  It will be so interesting to see how it all works out.  It's crazy to think that we were just about to go to Texas last year at this time.  We're going to head there the day after Christmas and then come back around the 1st.  It will be a great holiday to be able to get to see all of those that we love! [I also cannot wait to be in the nice warm weather of Texas!]
I love this time of year, it truly is the best.  Everyone is just so excited to be done with school, to go Christmas shopping, and visit family.  I can't wait to make some Christmas treats.

I've been thinking of some goals...and I think I really want to start being more craftsy with my time.  I have these ideas of clothes I want to make, and hopefully I will actually commit to making some.  I'm off this semester (til April) and all I'll be doing is working (boring).  We'll see what happens, but I hope to post some pictures soon.  Here are some random pictures of the past little while...

Weekends.

During school, the weekends are essential.  I needed time to relax.  Jameson knows that I get a little stressed about the school work, work, homework, work work work...but he's really good to me.  I come home and he's done the dishes and cleaned our house, yay!  Or today, we were in IF, and he even let me buy myself some caprees.  Life is good.  We had a ward party today too, which was lots of fun.  We went to our bishops house, ate a deliciously catered meal, and played some intense volleyball--until it started raining.  But how I love the rain...

Well everything is looking up, there is hope to this madness!  It is getting warmer outside, and that is my favorite time of the year.  I can't wait till I can go to school without having to take a sweatshirt and gloves. And there are just a lot of things that we can be grateful for.

It's Mother's day!!  Hip Hip Hooray.  Just wanted to thank my mom, for being so great and wonderful to me all the time.  I'm sad we weren't able to go to BC this weekend.  I feel like we haven't been home in years and it's only really been a couple weeks.  I guess I get homesick, even when I'm married.  But I also wanted to give a shout out to Jamie's mom Laura, for also being a wonderful woman.  I love all of my mothers!!!

I keep getting strange cravings.  The most recent: I want to watch Mary Poppins.

School's in Session

Well we are finally through the first two weeks of school.  It's such a drastic change that it's really hard to plan everything out and prioritize!  Some days I don't even see Jameson until 8 or 9 at night because our schedules clash.  We're both working about 20 hours a week.  Our lives are too boring to blog about now.

The past few weekends were very fun!  April 15th was my dad's birthday, so we got to go home and hang out with my family.  We went to ABC Mandarin, my very favorite restaurant.  The Saturday after, I went with Rach and my mom to my aunt's house for another wedding shower.  It was really fun to see all my cousins.  Sadly, Jameson was really sick that weekend, but he still got to hang out with my brothers and had fun with them. But my car broke down, and that delayed our return a little.  When we got back on Monday, we got to meet up with Jameson's parents and ate dinner with them, his aunts, and grandma.  Then we went shopping at winco!

April 22 we went down to Provo to see the rest of his family, for Jillian's graduation.  It was fun seeing everyone and just spending time together.  We went out to eat, and went shopping, and then played laser tag.  It was really enjoyable.  I also got to spend time with Rachel, Holla, and Anna.  I feel like I haven't seen Holla and Anna in so long.  It will be hard with Anna living in North Carolina now, but I'm sure her and Daniel will love it. Change is really good sometimes.

Things that have happened this week:
My laptop broke
Work was extremely busy every day
I had many group meetings
Jameson started his job
We stayed up late doing homework many nights (not a good idea when I have early classes every morning
I didn't have time to cook much :(
Jameson did the dishes every night
I got sick again
We got to relax on the weekend and go out to eat for our date
Mainly... we made it through the week!

[I would add pictures, but my laptop is broken and I haven't uploaded pictures]

Fish, Finals, and Friday

Jameson is finally done with all of his classes and finals.  It seems so weird that we have been married for a semester now.  I have been getting emails from my teachers for Spring semester and already have some homework.  I am excited to have something to do.  To have some new things to learn, and some challenges.  It will whip my laziness into shape!  I'm really looking forward to my cooking and sewing classes.  Chemistry...not so much.  It will be challenging with both of us going to school, but we'll get through it.

We're kind of really happy...

The weather is back to it's 'boring' stage.  It's been freezing, hailing, windy, pouring, snowing, and dreary.  How are we supposed to be happy and motivated in this state?  Work becomes boring because there is no sunlight to bring happiness.  I can't wait till we go to Utah next weekend (we'll cross our fingers that the weather gets a little better). 

For dinner tonight, I decided to make fish.  My family wasn't ever really into eating fish all that often, so I really wanted to try to make something new.  I didn't have many ingredients so I just made up recipes.  I put ranch and fresh cilantro on the tilapia, and then some butter and lemon pepper on the salmon (they were small portions, so we made two kinds).  I broiled them for about 6 minutes and then they were done.  It was so easy and I loved that!  We had some cilantro rice with them.  They were pretty good, but the tilapia didn't have the flavor I was looking for, I think I'll make a sauce for it next time.

We finished our Lord of the Rings marathon.  It's been years since I've watched them.  I remember Coleman was obsessed with them when we were younger, and he would watch them every single Saturday!  I'm pretty sure he's still obsessed, but at least he does some other things with his time now.  Well it's finally the weekend, and we're looking forward to it.  Especially seeing Jillian, yay!!!  It will be wonderful.

(Coleman then...)

 (Coleman now...4 years later)