There's no place like home for the holidays...

Hello everyone!

It's been a long time since we've written. But it's okay, here we are!

The first thing I would like to share with you today is the real, honest-to-goodness answer that I found to one of life's deep, inspiring, unanswered questions: "In the Spanish version of Toy Story 3 (*WARNING: SPOILERS*), what language does Buzz speak when he is switched to Spanish mode?" I know you've all been pondering this as you go to sleep every night, and I know the answer will ease many a troubled mind and heart. And the answer is this: the Spanish-speaking version of Toy Story 3 was released in two different dialects: Latino (as in Latin America), and European Spanish (the kind they speak in Spain). Therefore, in the Latino version, Buzz switches to speak European Spanish. And in the European Spanish version, Buzz switches to speak Latino Spanish. Here is the Youtube clip of the switch in Spanish for those of you who care to view it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKdp1UUi61I Unfortunately, I am not awesome enough to know which version of Spanish is originally spoken and switched to in this clip. But I think my first guess would be a switch from Latino Spanish to European Spanish, since "Buzz se pone flamenco" (the title of the Youtube clip) in this context essentially means "Buzz puts on a flamenco accent". I looked up "flamenco" and it has to do with Spain. But if you know for sure, please comment and tell us!

Continuing with our movie theme, we went to see Harry Potter 7 (part 1) on opening night! We had tickets for the midnight showing at a relatively small, not-very-well-known theater. We arrived around 10:45 pm, and the line was already out the theater door, out into the parking lot, and wrapped most of the way around the side of the building. And it was cold outside - I'd guess around 20 degrees. Everyone was huddled, shivering in blankets. I asked a girl in line near the door to the theater how long she'd been standing there in the cold. She said four hours. WOW. That put her arrival at around 6:45 pm for a MIDNIGHT SHOWING, and she didn't even make it inside the theater! And there were a ton of people in front of her, too, who were already inside the warm theater, who had come even earlier than she did! I bet the lines were twice as bad at the more well-known theaters, and even worse at the ones with IMAX screens! People are crazy.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, there was predicted the storm of the decade here in Utah. It was really crazy how far they went; BYU campus shut down completely and they were sending out all kinds of warnings and watches to stay home, etc. Well Wednesday night came and went, but no storm. All we got was a bit of wind and a half inch of snow! It was a real let down. The good snow didn't come until Friday, where we got about 2-4 inches. It was fun to wake up and see the winter wonderland around - although the snow made it REALLY hard to get up our steeply-inclined street. We are starting to like winters here in Provo.

Thanksgiving day was really fun! Originally we had planned for about 5-6 people showing up for dinner (Me and Christian, our friend Chris, one of Chris's roommates, and Christian extended an invitation to the horns who didn't have anywhere to go (what a good section leader!) so 2 of them were going to come). However, once the day came, Chris's roommate ended up having plans, and the 2 horns found family to go to after all. So it was down to us three and a 17-lb turkey. We did the turkey right this time (in an oven bag) and it came out DELICIOUS!!!! It was so juicy and the dark meat actually got done. We played some games and watched movies. It was great! Here is a picture of Chris and Christian with our feast:and of me and Christian at the feast:

and a video of our delicious turkey.

For Christmas, Christian had to play in the band at a bowl game scheduled for December 18 in Albuquerque (he was being transported by bus with the rest of the band). So for Christmas, we planned to find someone off the BYU Ride Board to take me down to Albuquerque for the game, where I would meet Christian and drive down the rest of the way with him. I didn't want to drive myself to Albuquerque because I wasn't comfortable with a 10 hour drive on the road alone. So we found this lovely couple on the Ride Board that was going to Arizona that I called up and they agreed to drive with me.

So then the night of December 16, (we were going to drive down there on morning of the 17th) I called them up to find out when they were planning to get to my house. They then sprang the news on us that, "Oh, I actually don't think we'll be going. Yeah, we're not coming." So suddenly, I had no way to get down to Albuquerque. What ended up happening was that Christian went to the bowl game, then came back with the band to Provo. Two hours after he arrived in Provo (he came home and showered and packed a few things), we left to go the exact same route down to Houston (straight through Albuquerque, where he'd only been about 12 hours before).

We made it to Houston a few days later than we'd planned, but we still had a great Christmas break. We spent up through Christmas at Christian's parents' house, cuddling our adorable newest niece (Bekah):

and nephew (Aaron):

(who incidentally are cousins born a week apart), making gingerbread houses,

and just having some overall fun with the family. Then we spent December 26 through New Year's at my parents' house, having parties with my friends and shooting off fireworks.

Overall, we had a blast!

When we came back to Utah, we helped my sister Sarah move in to her dorm at BYU-Idaho. She started just this January as a freshman and has already made TONS of friends, and it sounds like she is having the time of her life! We took her on her very first college shopping trip:

and were with her to witness the very first time in her life where she realized her boogers had frozen - right as she walked up the steps to her dorm for the first time. Priceless.

We did a ton of driving over the holidays, and Christian ended up crossing 12 state lines within 2 weeks (UT-CO, CO-NM, NM-CO, CO-UT, UT-CO, CO-NM, NM-TX, TX-NM, NM-CO, CO-UT, UT-ID, ID-UT), but we really did enjoy our break.

Now that school has started, we are both really busy again. Christian is taking 15 credits. He has resolved to get into the Music Ed program this February - final decision on his major. We both think he'll get in, but he says if he doesn't get in, he will go with Computer Science with a music minor. His favorite class this semester is Astronomy (he took it as an elective), and he really loves it. He tells me all the time about things in the night sky - how that glowing star over there is this certain planet, and how the constellations move every so often because the earth rotates a certain way on its axis, and why all our zodiac signs are "off" now, and whether the moon is waxing gibbous or waning something or other, and how one day the North Star won't be in the North anymore, and so on. We keep planning to go on a date to the star-gazing place with a big telescope in the Eyring Science Center on campus, but every time we plan to go, the sky ends up cloudy and the place closes.

I'm taking 18 credits this semester, and am planning to graduate on April 22 with a bachelor's degree in psychology. I'm taking tons of classes and it'll be a lot of work, but I can do it. I've also decided that I want to attempt to get into the BCBA Master's program at Utah State University (a brand-new program only two years old), so that I can prepare for and take the exam that will allow me to become a "national board-certified behavior analyst" and design all the ABA programs and provide behavioral consulting services for parents of kids with autism and other disorders. I think that would be an awesomely fun job, and the pay isn't half bad. The application deadline for this fall is July 1. To get into the program, I have to take the GRE and get a score at or above the 40th percentile, as well as have 3 letters of recommendation, a few essays, and a few other things. I'm scheduled to take the GRE in mid-March, and am taking practice tests whenever I get a chance. It shouldn't be too hard to get higher than the 40th percentile, but I'm still a little nervous. I've heard that this program is new enough that it accepts about 75% of its applicants, so hopefully it won't be super hard to get in.

Anyway, this blog is long enough, so I'll end it here. Kudos for reading the whole thing! Love you all!

Brittany and Christian

The recipe for this quarter (heh) is a really yummy one! It's a meatball with spaghetti sauce recipe that we found that is truly DELICIOUS. They come out so delectably moist and perfectly done.

3-4 cups spaghetti sauce

1 lb lean ground beef

1 c fresh bread crumbs

1 Tbsp dried parsley

1 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1/8 tsp garlic powder

1 egg, beaten

Bring spaghetti sauce to a simmer. In a large bowl, combine all other ingredients. Mix well and form into small balls. Stir meatballs into sauce. Simmer 30 minutes then serve.

Happy November!

Hi. How are you? I'm good too.

This week our brother Steve (15 years old) posted a new video online. We're very impressed with it. It's a lip sync and home video of Taio Cruz's "Dynamite". It really is amazing the things you can do with a home computer nowadays.

Last week for Halloween we carved another pumpkin. We didn't take pictures, though. From this second pumpkin, we made pumpkin pie with the fresh flesh. It was a very fun adventure and it turned out delicious! The recipe will be put at the end of the blog. We ate lots of candy from a package that Brittany's mom sent us. She sent us cookies and candy bars and a sheet set that really matches our comforter, and a shirt for Brittany that fits her really well. We really appreciated it! We had a very fun holiday.

School has been going very well for both of us. We will both have a very successful semester. I got chosen as the first chair in the men's basketball team pep band again and I'm crazy excited about it! We should have an amazing year with the basketball team. The first game is on Friday, against Fresno State. It should be a stomping.

Speaking of stompings, yesterday the BYU football team played UNLV. Final score: 55-7. It was a GREAT game. It was like watching last year's team. Hopefully this will lead to a bowl game. After the game, the French horns decided to hang out and have a party. We watched Hook and went to Macey's and got some snacks. Then we came home and played ImaginIff. It was very fun to play - we had a very fun time.

Brittany has a calling! Today she got sustained as the Primary pianist for our ward. She is excited about it. I have yet to get a calling, but they've said they've been thinking about it. They told me they would try to give me a "Sunday calling" since I'm so busy during the week. Maybe I'll get put in as a teacher of something. We shall see.

Anyway, that's about all that's really been happening in our life. Love you and kbye!

Christian and Brittany

Homemade Pumpkin Pie

2 cups fresh pumpkin, boiled until soft and mashed

1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

1 (9 inch) deep dish pie crust

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

2. In a large bowl, combine pumpkin puree, sweetened condensed milk and eggs. Season with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt. Mix together with a wire whisk until thoroughly blended. Pour filling into pie crust.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees F and bake another 35 to 40 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

It was very simple and came out very delicious. Just don't eat it boiling lava hot, because it will hurt and doesn't taste good when your taste buds have been torched. Top with whipped cream.

Halloween party!

This is going to be a short blog, but I figured I should write about it while I'm thinking of it.

The only really exciting thing that happened this week is the couples' Halloween party that we went to Friday night. It was hosted by Josh and Michelle, and there were about 16 or so people there. We played "Minute to Win It" games, like "who can hit the paper witch with the most suction cup darts", "how many marshmallows can you stuff in your mouth", a pictionary-type game, "how many ping pong balls you can bounce into a container", and stuff like that. Our team lost, but it was really fun. We ate a lot of candy. Everyone dressed up, too. Here is a picture of our costumes:

Can you guess who we are?

If not, here's a hint:

Yep... we're Bella and Edward from Twilight. We even made Christian's face sparkly with glitter body spray! Heehee. I have such a great husband. I know so many guys who would absolutely REFUSE to dress as Edward. But my husband consented. :)

Anyway, our recipe for this week is homemade egg rolls.

http://www.5dollardinners.com/2010/09/fast-fabulous-egg-rolls.html

We also made our own sweet and sour sauce, which turned out to be VERY strong-smelling. But it tasted good. Not the best I ever had, but they were good for the price. It was an adventure to learn how to cook them too... at first we couldn't figure out why the spring roll wrappers kept breaking when we tried to wrap them. But then we figured out you're supposed to run water on them first to soften them. Who knew?

Of Homecoming and Halloween dates

Hey friends and family! Welcome to our new and improved quad-quarterly (aka every three weeks) blog. Brittany and I have felt guilty about not writing nearly as often, but we realized that last year everything seemed new and exciting because we had so many firsts from our first year of marriage. Now life moves on, and not many exciting things happen - well at least noteworthy.

School has been very intense for both of us this semester. Brittany is working very hard this semester as she prepares to graduate in April. For me, I just have a very hard class-load that takes lots of time. Life plows onward.

A week ago we had our homecoming week. The band played at devotional, there were lots of activities on campus. Brittany and I thought about going to a dance, but the only one we were interested in was the formal dance, which was $30 a couple and in Sandy. So we decided to make our own date night. We made dinner together and ate by soft-bulbed lamps and fell asleep in front of a movie together. Awwww ain't married life great? :-)

This past week we had our Rocky Mountain Festival, which is a high school band festival at Lavell Edwards Stadium. BYU Marching band performs while the high schoolers wait for results from the competition. It was a superb performance. I was very proud of the horn section in how much they worked through the semester, and then brought it to the field for the performance.

Last night Brittany and I had our Halloween date. It was the first day that neither of us had anything to do all day long (except for a test for Brittany)! It was a very exciting prospect. We slept in til about 11. (Beautiful!) Then we made French toast for breakfast. Afterwards, Brittany studied for her test and took it. We hung out with Chris Williams for a while because he was having a bit of a bad day. After, we went and bought a pumpkin and rented Corpse Bride to watch for our date. We also got this pumpkin carving kit that came with a TON of tools to work with and some patterns. We did a pattern, and it turned out very well! We ate some dinner and watched our movie. It was a very fun night! Here are pictures that you can enjoy.

Us and our pumpkin.

Cutting into the top.

The guts inside the pumpkin.

All the guts, now outside the pumpkin.

One of the tools was a score-er. It made the pattern onto the pumpkin so you'd know where to cut. It was great!

The first incision

Cute Brittany doing some carving.

Me carving out a wing

Our ghoul!

Through the magic of Photoshop, we have a picture with both of us in it! Our completed Halloween window.

During the day

Our front door window

Anyway, we also had a recipe, but can't quite remember it. Hopefully we will.
Love yall!
Christian and Brittany

Night of Woe and other adventures

It's been 3 weeks since we wrote, but only a few interesting things have happened.

First off, Mike and Lanie came up to Utah to recruit BYU students for ExxonMobil and do some other work stuff, and so we got to hang out with them. They stayed with us one night on the futon we now have for visitors. Our friend's roommate, Floyd, used to live in a place where he had to have his own furniture, but when he moved into a furnished apartment he had to get rid of all his furniture, one piece of which was the futon. So we took it off his hands and put it in our second bedroom for a guest bed. We had a lot of fun with Mike and Lanie here; we went out to Cafe Rio with them and hung out, and then Christian went to Lanie's demonstration at BYU and took home lots of leftover goodies. We are so glad they came up!

This last weekend we had a night of woe. We had just watched Kung Fu Panda at our friend's house, and we were on our way home (around 11:30 pm) when the car suddenly started making a thumping noise. We pulled over and discovered that we had a flat tire. So Christian got out the jack and our spare and everything, and started changing our tire. It took a long time because our jack isn't the best in the world, and the screws on our tire were really tight, so Christian had to bounce up and down on the little metal pole thing that loosened them, and it just took forever. We finally got our tire changed, and started making plans for the next day when I'd have to go all the way to Alpine for work, and leave before the tire places opened. Anyway, we got all that worked out. We drove home, all tired and looking forward to crawling into bed. By this time it was about 12:30. We walked up to our front door and discovered.... we'd locked our keys in the car, so we couldn't get in the house. We walked around and tried all our windows, but they were all locked. We finally decided we'd have to go knock on the upstairs people's door, as they have a spare key for our apartment. We felt really bad about knocking on their door at 12:30 in the morning, but we had no choice. So we did. They came to the door in their pajamas and acted really nice about it, but you could tell we'd woken them up. We brought them brownies later.

Anyway, that's all our real adventures for these last couple weeks. We will have a recipe next time we write, because we're trying a new recipe this week.... we just haven't tried it yet.

Love you all!

Brittany and Christian

Back to School

We have a fun video for all of you to watch this week. CLICK HERE for it on Youtube. If you liked the "They're taking the hobbits to Isengard" spoof video then you'll love this too! For all of you fans of the TV show 24, watch for the cameo of Jack Bauer and President Palmer.

Anyway, it has been a very busy time here in the Mealey household. Two weeks ago was band camp. What a week it was! I was chosen as section leader this year, and as such am responsible for the care and maintenance of the French horn section. I've been so pumped for this marching season all through the summer! Monday was spent getting to know people in the section and learning M&M (not the candies - I know them very well! It means marching and maneuvering). Tuesday we spent the day learning our pregame show, which is pretty lengthy at 19 sets and several pages of music along with horn flashes; it's about a 10-15 min sequence. It turned out really well after just eight hours of rehearsal. Most high schools learn maybe 5 sets in that amount of time. We have a great band this year! Wednesday and Thursday we got half of the first movement of our "B Show" (about 12 sets) and all of our "A Show" (around 9 sets). These were a lot more fun.

Our A Show is based on the music of the band Journey (the songs were Separate Ways, Anyway You Want It, and Don't Stop Believin), so it was a real crowd-pleaser. Our B Show is Frank Sinatra themed; featuring the songs Ol' Man River (jazzed up of course), The Lady is a Tramp, and I've Got the World on a String. It's gonna be such a fun year in marching band.

This last Saturday was the first game of the season, and it was a good one! We performed our A Show with the band and that went well. I sometimes forget why I do marching band, especially during the hard marching band weeks and the rehearsals and the "Ok guys do it one more time" for the fourth time. But when I get to game day, it all comes back. The thrill of the 65,000 person crowd cheering (even if it isn't for us :p), and being on a field that so few people actually get to do something on, and being part of something that is bigger than I am. It all is so worth it. Go band! Anyway, the game was really close all the way down, but the Cougars won out in the end with a 23-17 win.

Classes started last week. Brittany and I are both extremely busy this semester with work and classes. We sat down on one family night and worked out the calendar. When we were done, two hours later, we sat back and realized that we had literally no time for much of anything. We had to resort to scheduling our time together to fit in between classes and work and everything else. It's a sad life, but it's working so far. Brittany is looking forward to applying for graduation in the coming months. She's pondering if she wants to do graduate school, but that would be a ways off because the graduate schools that have the programs she is looking for aren't anywhere near here. (University of North Texas is a possibility, though.) We shall see on that. She is taking an ASL class and loves finding interesting things to learn in it.

Anyway, we love you all! Hope everyone is doing great.
Love,
Christian and Brittany

Camping Tales of Woe - and other stuff

Hello everyone! It is Sunday and we are back on weekly posts. :D

On Monday, Mary and Derek came to visit us for about a week. They were awesome. They slept on the floor in our spare room (we had made plans to pick up a spare futon from a friend, but that ended up not working out in time for us to use it) and did fun things with us all week. They also bought us a bookshelf! I don't know if you noticed in the video from the last post, but we had all our books in boxes turned on their sides. Mary and Derek noticed that, and went out and bought us a bookcase!!! It looks lovely and fits all our books! We thank them profusely for that!

We also went camping - well, kind of. We prepared tin foil dinners, collected items for S'mores, and drove up to Utah Lake State Park. At the entrance you were supposed to put your money in an envelope and write your campsite number on it, and put it in the drop box. However, since we hadn't reserved a campsite yet (they say you can come and camp there if no one has reserved it) we decided to go look for a good one and then come back and put our money and campsite number in the drop box.

We found a good empty campsite. The guys went and collected dry firewood (somewhat scarce as it had rained that morning). Mary and I collected dry grass, smaller sticks, and other firestarters. We all came back, and with some trouble because it was quite windy, we were able to start a good fire. We were just getting out the tent and the tin foil dinners when... the SPRINKLERS came on, dousing us, our fire, and our leftover dry firewood. We hurried to salvage the dry firewood that was left, collected our gear and moved to the next closest empty campsite. We had to collect some more wood and firestarters, and after a bit of trouble again, we managed to start another fire. We began to get out the tent and the dinners, then... the sprinklers on THAT campsite came on, putting out our fire again, and drenching most of the rest of our firewood.

So this time we got smart and moved to an empty campsite that we had SEEN get watered already, so we knew it wouldn't get watered again. This time we decided to make our fire in the little grill box, but since most of our firewood was soaked and we couldn't find any more, we had a lot of trouble making it and it took us quite a while. By this time it was about 8:30 and we were starving. Eventually a guy who had seen our unfortunate series of events donated us some of his firewood, and we were able to start a weak fire. A few minutes later, guess what? Yep. The sprinklers. They came on AGAIN, even though we had SEEN them already come on just 20 minutes before.

At this point we figured the park managers probably had security cameras and a button that turned on the sprinklers, had seen our plight, and were having a good laugh at our expense. So we packed up our things, got in the car and drove off. We never put our money in the drop box - we didn't think they deserved it, and we'd only stayed a few miserable hours anyway. We called up my aunt Nicole and asked to cook our tin foil dinners in her oven and roast S'mores in her fireplace (as we didn't have a fireplace at our house). She agreed, and that's how we spent the rest of our night. We didn't end up eating until about 10:00, by which time Christian had already fallen asleep. We did roast some s'mores that night, but the next morning Derek also discovered that you can roast marshmallows quite nicely over the electric stove burner, so we had s'mores for breakfast as well.

The next day was much more fun. We "hiked the Y" - for those of you who don't know what that means, there is a big Y painted on the mountain near BYU, and there is a popular hiking trail that leads up to the Y. So me, Christian, Derek, Mary, and Sarah went along on the hike. It wasn't a very long hike, but it was pretty steep at some points, and we stopped a lot on the way so that people could rest. It took us about an hour to get to the top, but it was fun. Once we got to the top it was beautiful looking out at the night lights (we hiked in the evening) and the stars. We took pictures, but unfortunately can't find the camera we took them on, so we will post those when we find it. The hike back down was interestingly harder than you'd think, because it still takes muscles to keep you from tumbling down the mountain at horrific speeds. (Random side note: isn't it weird that "horrible" and "terrible" mean the same thing, but "horrific" and "terrific" are complete opposites?) Our quads started aching after a while, and we invented fun ways to walk to avoid the burn - doing the "grapevine" walk sideways, walking backwards, etc.

Mary and Derek went home Friday morning. It was very fun to have them around! They got back to Idaho safely and we hope they come again soon!

Saturday Christian and I decided we'd go on a date. We packed up a picnic and took it to the BYU duck pond (http://www.flickr.com/photos/35069521@N08/3644271744/), a popular date spot (and spot to take your kids to feed the ducks). We spread out blankets and ate our picnic in the shade under some trees, while watching several cute little kids trying to throw bread to the ducks (usually missing and landing the bread on the sidewalk right in front of them). It was quite relaxing and fun.

After that, we went to a French horn party that Christian had put together as section leader. We ate pizza, drank soda, played a bunch of games like Pit, Cranium, and Catch Phrase, and got to know everyone (most of the people who came were new freshmen). It was very fun.

I apologize, we have no recipe this week. We were concentrating more on cheap than new food this week, so we didn't actually make anything new. We love you all! Keep us posted on how you're doing!

Love,

Brittany and Christian

Back to Provo

Hey everybody! Long time, no see. Sorry about that. We've been recently spending Sundays on ourselves and haven't been doing blogs. It's just been really busy with school and with our move back to Provo.

Anyway, yes, we've moved back to Provo! We successfully got all of our stuff out, just as the new people were moving in to our old place :p. There was a little mix up on timing, and I thought we had more days to move than we did. But that's okay - it all worked out. As soon as we clean up our place today, we will post a video tour of our apartment. Unfortunately, we don't have a camera that will record sound, but you will at least be able to see the tour, and we will provide commentary underneath. We really enjoy our new place. It's much bigger than our first apartment, although smaller than the townhouse (especially in the kitchen), I think that's what I will miss most. Brittany says she will miss the dishwasher most of all.

First you walk in and there's the kitchen (obviously). The first bedroom you enter is where we just keep most of our stuff. walk in past the kitchen area and you see our dining table. Turn right and there's our bedroom with a large-ish closet. Walk back out, another look at the dining table, and the living area. Walked into the bathroom with our own washer and dryer! It has been awesome living here and we're gonna love it.

Brittany's cousin Brooke was baptized on Aug 1. She is autistic and ADHD, and so they had let her decide when she was ready to be baptized, and they worried a little if she would be willing to let herself be put under the water. They practiced a lot in the swimming pool, and a couple months after she turned 8 she was ready. Her uncle Shane, who had just returned from a mission, was who she trusted most to baptize her. It all was very, as they called it, "Brooke style." Basically, there were no talks, and it was a pray-dunk-pray event. In a way, though, it was good because it was tailored to the receiver of the ordinance. If it was as formal as a typical baptism, it would have been like Brittany and I having a cotillion-style event for our reception. It just wouldn't have fit. Afterwards, the family went and had cake at Nicole's. It was a really awesome evening.

Brittany has been volunteering at Utah State Hospital, the local mental hospital, here in Provo during this term.  She was assigned to help out in the patient library. It was an assignment for her abnormal psychology class. She enjoyed it, mostly, except for a few...let's say "interesting" events that occurred while she was there. I'll let her write about them:
The best one I think is when a little boy that looked about 11 or 12 came in.  He seemed completely normal, he was talking to his supervisor and I checked him out an Eminem CD that he wanted.  He took it into the kid room and started listening to it on his headphones.  A few minutes later, though, I suddenly heard a bloodcurdling scream from the kid room: "SLAUGHTERRRRRR!!!!!!" The little boy's supervisor shushed him, and the kid started laughing maniacally: "I'm sooooo happy!!!! Hahahahahaha!"  The supervisor shushed him again, and a few seconds later the kid comes calmly back into the CD renting room and asks politely if he can check out another Eminem CD.  I hesitate, and his supervisor says, "Ummmm, no.  How about you pick something with a little less violent lyrics?"  I thought it was kinda funny.  It's interesting, though, because a lot of the people there you'd never guess at first glance that there's something "up" until something like that happens.

Finals were this last week, and it was an extremely stressful few days for the both of us (since we're both horrible procrastinators). I had to hurriedly get a few java projects done for my computer science class, and then, for finals, they gave me two days to get another pretty extensive project done. On top of that, I had to memorize about 30 painters/sculptors/architects, and 5-10 composers, and 5-10 writers from the 20th century for my music civilization final. On my final CS project I got a 95! (Surprising, because on my self evaluation I had given myself an 83.) I think I have found a way to export my projects, so I will try and do that and post them for download. CLICK HERE for a download of my final project. Not sure how I ended up in music civ, but I feel really good about it.

Then Brittany had to write a 4-5 page paper on a celebrity (real or fiction) that had a mental illness. She wrote about the Joker from the Dark Knight having antisocial personality disorder. CLICK HERE for a link to see what it is. She gave very good arguments, and was a pro at the diagnosis. And she got a 100 on it! I'm so proud of her. She has learned a lot in the class, but would still rather work with autistic children than become a psychiatrist/psychologist. For her public speaking class, she gave a speech on why it is NOT sexist to hold open doors for girls. She has been very frustrated at super-feminists since she took her psychology of gender class. She did very well on it, and got a 91 on it. She doesn't feel like she's increased much in public speaking, but I know she has at least learned to prepare a good speech, which is a great portion of it.

Yesterday, Brittany, Chris Williams, and I went to a barbecue thrown by a guy that used to be in my parent's ward back home, Brother Lopez. It was lots of fun to see him and his family again. They were traveling through on vacation and decided to throw a party for people they know living in Provo area. It was lots of fun getting to see them again.

After the barbecue, we went back to Chris's house to have a going away party for a guy in Chris's ward that Brittany and I have gotten to know named Chase. He's heading up to USU for school. We had some dinner and brownies for him and we all played a new game of Chris's called "Tales of the Arabian Nights." It is a very fun game, similar to the choose-your-own-adventure books, where you have a character and try to gain points through quests and encounters. The way you react to different encounters, and different skills you have, will change your story, and what ends up happening to you. Chris was very proud that he picked a game that Brittany really liked, because those two almost never agree on anything. 

Anyway, we have to go now. We have a recipe this week from Chris Williams childhood. It's simply called "Stew beef, rice, and gravy." Can you guess the main ingredients???? There really aren't any measurements, so if you don't like those kind of recipes, it's not for you.

You will need:

package of stew meat
white rice
water
flour
cooking oil
large pot
salt and pepper

1) Cover the stew meat in flour and fry it in oil until the outside is brown - don't cook it all the way through.

2) Put the meat on a paper towel to drain off the excess oil, and take the crusty drippings from the oil pan and put them in a large pot along with the meat. Add enough water to cover the meat.

3) Boil the meat on med-high until it's tender. Do not discard the water.

4) Start cooking the rice as normal.

5) Add flour to the pot until it thickens it to a gravy-ish consistency and season to taste (we only used salt, and seasoned pepper

6) Serve the gravy/meat stuff over the rice and enjoy.

Brittany was particular towards it, but I thought it was awesome.

The Adventures of "Funny Guy" and His Wife

I know! We haven't written in forever. It's my fault, it was my turn to write the blog. Sorry!

Well, so the biggest news is that we found a new apartment to move into on July 27th (yes, that's next week). It's in south Provo, so we'll be closer to school than we were in the townhouse. It's a cute little homey place that a cute old couple built out of their basement (originally for their son and his new bride to live in, and since they moved out they are renting it out to BYU students). And we signed the papers for 3 years, meaning we don't ever have to move again until Christian graduates! It's a nice balance between the two places we've lived- not too small like our first apartment (300 square feet, 1 bedroom), but not so big that we can't fill it up with stuff like the townhouse (1500 square feet, 3 bedrooms). It's two bedrooms and we're not sure of the square footage, but it's quite comfy for two people plus a possible baby if we end up pregnant within the next 3 years. We will take pictures once we move in and get everything settled. We like it and I think we will be quite comfortable there.

A couple weeks ago Christian and I volunteered to be in the "race crew" for the annual Provo Freedom Run, a race for... freedom, I guess. There's a 1k, a 5k, and a 10k track that runners can choose from. Four thousand runners participated, so it was a big event and they needed a lot of volunteers. Christian and I both ended up being assigned to Water Station #3. Our duties included filling up 4,000 plastic cups with some nice lukewarm hose water that we sort of borrowed without asking from a nearby apartment complex, and holding out the cups to the runners as they passed so that they could grab some and rehydrate as they ran. It was actually kind of fun although it was a little bit cold that morning (yes, I know, it was in July, Utah weather is very unpredictable) and the runners kept grabbing the water cups with too much force so that it kept spilling all over me and making it colder. A bunch of the runners were in costume - we saw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a batch of Vikings, Uncle Sam (walking the race on stilts!!!), and even a puppy riding in a stroller dressed up in a costume as well, so that was fun. And we got pretty cool t-shirts out of it as well, made out of some kind of moisture-wicking material, and they have a little zipper pocket in the side of the t-shirt for your iPod. Admittedly, they are bright blue and construction orange, but Christian and I gave up on trying to be stylish a long time ago, and we think the cool zipper pocket trumps the questionable colors.

My mom and my brother Danny also came up and stayed with us for about two weeks, and that was really fun. They came up primarily for the family reunion happening in Fremont, UT. Where's Fremont, you ask? To answer that question, I will tell you that Christian and I drove down to it and completely missed the entire "city" of Fremont at least four times. My mom's GPS didn't even have the place registered into its database. We think the population of Fremont must be somewhere around 10. Anyway, after finally finding the place and cursing whoever it was that decided to have the reunion in Fremont, we actually ended up having a good time. We all wore nametags so that everyone would know who everyone else was. Someone brought a Carrom board, so Christian and I learned how to play. We also tinkered around on the piano, sang pioneer hymns, and told stories about ancestors. I got my face painted by my sister Sarah, and the boys all played with water bottle launchers outside. At the end of the reunion when everything was winding down, the entirety of the fun was centered on writing things like "Kiss me, you fool!", "I pick my nose!", "Kick me! No really, do it!", or"Team Edward!" on the leftover blank nametags and sticking them to unsuspecting people's backs when they weren't looking.

We also visited Seven Peaks, the local water park. Christian wasn't able to go since he was working, but I, my mom, and my brother and sister went, and so did our friend Chris, as well as my aunt and a few cousins. We had lots of fun going on the different rides. I had to leave early because I had school that evening, but apparently after I left, Chris, my mom, and my aunt Laura were riding in a tube together down a tube slide, and they flipped over and hit their heads on the bottom of the tube slide. Everyone was okay besides a few bruises and water lodged temporarily in ears, but they decided to leave after that.

A couple days later it was my cousin Marty's birthday (he was turning 10) and he had a party up in a park in the canyon. It was quite fun, and we discovered Christian's enormous popularity with little girls. My four-year-old cousin Danielle (who glared at him and yelled "NO!" at him when she first met him two years ago) now adores him, follows him around, calls him "Funny Guy", and is very sad when he has to leave. And when he's not around, she will say "Where's Funny Guy?" or "I miss Funny Guy". Her six-year-old sister Nicole also adores Christian and follows him around. At one point at the park during the party, he was trudging playfully around the park with Nicole sitting on one of his shoes clinging to his leg, and Danielle on the other, both of them squealing with delight. My other cousin Brooke (8 years old) also joined in by jumping onto his back. It was wonderfully cute to see him play with them and, upon seeing all this, my grandma commented to me that he would be a great daddy and that we should have lots of little girls.

Anyway, that's how we've been for the last few weeks. I believe we had a recipe for you at one point, but at the moment I am unsure of what it was. So, if I remember, I will update this post. We love you all!

Summer Summer Everywhere!

Howdy all,

Not a whole lot has been going on around here. We've just been very busy with school and work. We let you know how finals went last post, and then the summer term started up the very next week. Brittany and I have both been loving our classes. I have especially loved my programming class. I've already made about 5 programs. Only a couple of them were really worth anything though. Most of the programs and labs we've been doing are just a reinforcer on the things we've discussed in class.

I felt very proud of myself today because I had a lab due, and was having an extremely difficult time putting together all the programming for it. I went to get some help from the TAs, and they explained one or two things, and then I realized the bigger problem I was having. The TA left me to figure it out, and I puzzled for a bit fiddling with things to see if it worked, and then all the sudden I just got it. It was like an epiphany! It was so awesome. I felt very accomplished for finishing up the last of my problems on my own. I'm sure it would be very easy for others, but I just felt so great :).

Brittany has been preparing constantly for new speeches that she keeps giving. She is actually really enjoying her public speaking class, and has been delighted that it's really not as hard as she thought it would be. She's been practicing giving impromptu speeches lately. I'll think of a random word, and she has 60 seconds to come up with a 2-3 minute speech applying that word/phrase to general life. She's gotten pretty good at it. For her abnormal psych class, one of her assignments is to volunteer at a mental health hospital a couple miles from campus. She went to an orientation last night (Wednesday), and starts either this, or next week. I hope she likes it.

I swear I thought that three or four weeks had gone by in this term already. It has been very full so far, but lots of fun. I just keep dreading the fact that I'll be doing this for the next 3 years solid. Such is life, and with hard work comes the blessings, right? :)

The townhouse we've been living in has been shown quite a few times. That has been quite bitter-sweet. It would be awesome to live here for the whole summer and not have to move yet, but I want Brittany's aunt/uncle to be able to get rid of it. We just keep it looking nice, and hope for the best, whatever that may be.

We tried a delicious recipe last week. It is a very simple recipe for honey dijon chicken, but turned out VERY good. The only thing we thought of to change it was to add a little more of the dressing on top after you coated everything.
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/honey-dijon-chicken-2/Detail.aspx

Anyway, we love you all.
Keep it real.......yo
Christian and Brittany

Pictures from Recent Posts

Howdy. Here are the pictures from fishing and pictures of our new townhouse.

^Me and Christian in the car on the way to go fishing.

^A dead deer skeleton we found on the path down to the lake.

Christian showing us one of the bugs we caught and used as bait.

Christian with all the bugs.

Another decomposing deer carcass in the river, covered in flies.

My very safety-conscious grandpa has a rope that he uses for people crossing the river. It was actually really hard to keep your balance with the current. Everyone holds onto the rope, and then if someone falls, the weight of everyone else will keep that person from floating away. Rather ingenious actually. You can see Brooke almost losing her footing here. From left to right in this picture: My uncle Tennessee, my cousin Kira (Laura's 10-year-old daughter), my cousin Nathan (my Uncle Tennessee's 10-year-old son), my aunt Laura (Kira's mother), Brooke (Tennessee's 7-year-old daughter), and my grandpa.

Brooke squeezing the fish that Grandpa caught for her and let her reel in.

Me and Christian in our sexy fishing gear. Waterproof waders, boots, sunglasses, slathered in sunblock, and comfy t-shirts.

Christian perfecting his cast.

Me failing at casting, obviously needing further assistance from my grandpa.

Now you shall be privileged to see pictures of our new townhouse.

The entrance

The backyard (we have weed-whacked since then, and see that tiny shiny metal thing at the end of the hose? That's our sprinkler head. It has two holes and it can water our backyard thoroughly in about 10 minutes.)

Our living room

The other half of the living room. That's the realtor's sign that we have to keep in the window since the townhouse is technically for sale right now.

View of the kitchen from the door.

Guest bathroom

Our big kitchen (hark! the herald angels sing!)

Our walk-in pantry!!!! :D :D :D

The stairs

Our bedroom. We have not quite yet gone to pick up our mattress, though we have bought one (see our last post).

My dresser and the door to the WALK IN closet (! We have a closet!)

Master bathroom

Our "music/book room", home to Christian's French horn, my guitar, my oboe, and all our books over in the right corner (there are more that aren't in the picture). And yes, they are in boxes because we have no bookshelves.

Our craft/study room.

Well, that's the grand tour!

Best wishes!

Love,

Brittany and Christian

Happy Anniversary To Us!!!!

All right, in the last post Christian said we'd tell you about our trip to Idaho. On the weekend of June 11-13, we picked up Sarah and drove up to Idaho to visit Mary and Derek, mostly because it was Derek's birthday and we wanted to celebrate with him. We arrived late Friday night and slept over. Mary had already had a surprise birthday party for him on Thursday, but apparently he had expected it so it wasn't really a surprise. So she decided that we should throw him another surprise birthday party because he wouldn't be expecting two. Plus, there'd be different people at this one. So Saturday morning Mary and Sarah and Derek went to take a tour of the BYU-Idaho campus, and Christian and I got busy setting everything up for the party. We bought streamers, a happy birthday banner, balloons, chips, candy, gummy-worm-chocolate-pudding-and-Oreo-crumbs "dirt cups", and everything, and set it all up at a picnic table at the park. It was surprisingly cold for June - I was wearing a sweater and a jacket and was still cold. When they arrived (Mary had told Derek that she wanted to show Sarah the local park) we yelled surprise and we all celebrated. I think he was genuinely surprised this time. Then we all went home and talked for a while, and then Mary and Derek said they wanted to take us out to Texas Roadhouse for our anniversary! We said yes and went, and it was DELICIOUS. We drove home that night so we could celebrate our anniversary together on Sunday.

On Sunday after church we came home and just spent a lot of quality time together. We made no-bake cookies together, watched Enchanted, and spent a lot of time just giggling and being silly. It was a really fun night and we had a great anniversary!

Christian and I both did relatively well on our finals. Out of the two I took in the testing center, I got a 96 on one and a 79 on the other. I was disappointed about the 79 because I thought I'd done better, but I do have 2.5 extra credit points that will be applied to it, so... it should be ok. Christian got a 96 on one final, and he doesn't know what he got on the other one. Final grades come out next week, so we'll see how we did overall this semester.

This last weekend we went mattress shopping (FINALLY!!!)! We got a good memory foam mattress and box springs for about $350 plus tax, which we regarded as a pretty good deal, and we bought a regular steel run-of-the-mill bed frame. As soon as we find someone who is nice enough and has a truck, we will be able to pick up our mattress, put away the pile of blankets on the floor that we've been sleeping on, and finally let our backs heal. It's going to be so awesome :D

Today we start our new classes for summer term. Christian's are Intro to Computer Programming and Music 202 (Music: Civilization), which is basically a study of the 2nd half of the history of art forms (music, art, architecture, etc). Mine are Public Speaking and Abnormal Psychology, which I'm REALLY excited about!!! Public Speaking I just took because that is a very weak area of mine and I figured, hey, let's make my weaknesses my strengths, right? I am SUPER EXCITED about Abnormal Psychology... this is probably the highlight class of my major (to me). I get to study all the possible disorders and mental illnesses and stuff you can have, and all the symptoms and everything... oooh it's going to be so fun!!!

We did try a new recipe this week (it was called Best Chicken Ever), but we both agreed that it really wasn't the best chicken ever. It was slightly below average, actually. So we decided not to post it for you.

Although, we have a great tip for you. If you've ever tried those things called "Suddenly Pasta Salad" that they have in the store, they're really good but are slightly expensive (usually around $2.50-$3 for a box that makes 2 servings). But this week we discovered that the Western Family off-brand of the same thing tastes EXACTLY THE SAME and runs you usually around $1 or $1.50. Sweet! Try the Ranch and Bacon flavor, it's my favorite. :D

Quick Update

Hey everyone,
I haven't got a lot of time, but I wanted to post a quick update on life. The term is wrapping up with finals today (Wednesday the 16th) and tomorrow. I had one final scheduled for this morning for my Latin class. Ugh, never again will I take a 5 credit course, especially in the spring/summer terms. It was very fast paced, and I might have only gotten a B in it. I'm a little nervous to see how my final went. Tomorrow Brittany and I have to take the rest of our finals.

We were studying yesterday, when Brittany got sick in the library. I took her home real fast and got her some Sprite and soda crackers at the store (I don't know why, but that's what my mom always gave me when I was having stomach problems). She's been pretty out of it since, sleeping a lot. She says that she gets sick every time she moves a lot, so she's tried to stay pretty still. Hopefully I'll be able to get some food in her that she can keep down.

We are still trying to finish off our move-in. We keep finding things that we should probably get now that we've upgraded. Brittany's grandparents bought us a dresser at a garage sale for our anniversary, which was this last Sunday. (I'll write about our weekend in Idaho and anniversary later.) I think all we need still is a mattress and a TV. It's pretty obvious which one is more important *cough*TV*cough* jk. :) We'll be going mattress shopping tomorrow moms, so don't rag on us.

Anyway, I better get back home. It's been rough not having internet at the house. That's the biggest reason we haven't been doing our blog as faithfully. We just don't really think about it during the week. Love you all!
Christian and Brittany

This is from June 3rd. Oops!

June 3, 2010

Sorry about the blog not being done on Sunday, but it was right in the middle of our move. That's pretty much all we've done this week: cleaning and moving. Besides Memorial Day.

We spent all last week cleaning our old apartment and gradually moving stuff into our new place. We spent forever cleaning it top to bottom for a very strict cleaning check like our landlady said she'd do (including scrubbing the floor under the fridge, oven, etc), but when she finally came to check it, she basically just glanced into each room and said we did great. So it looks like we'll be getting back all of our deposit. We took probably around 10-15 round trips in total to bring all our stuff, including one trip that brought all the furniture. My uncle and our friend Chris helped us move stuff, which was super nice of them. My uncle and aunt also loaned us their table and chairs since our table isn't really very snazzy-looking. We want our new place to look as good as possible so that when people come to see it to see if they want to buy it, they won't be dissuaded by our crappy furniture.

So now we have a 3-bedroom townhouse to live in for about 2 months, so we decided we needed a couch. We managed to get one off of Freecycle.org (best site ever) that's black vinyl with tears in it that have been covered up with black duct tape. So much for not having crappy furniture. We are planning on covering it with probably a big afghan or something. Also, since the bed we had in our old apartment belonged to the apartment, we don't have a bed now. In the past week ish, we've been sleeping with one of us on the couch and one of us on a pile of folded blankets on the floor beside the couch. But we are planning on going bed-shopping on Saturday, when we will be able to make use of our friend's truck to transport a new bed. We would just borrow one from someone, but we figure eventually we will need to buy our own bed anyway, so why not now? I am quite excited to go bed-shopping. We have unpacked most of the boxes, but we've still got a few to go, and our new place looks SOOO big compared to our old apartment. It's a full 5 times bigger!

Our old computer died last week, to the point that repairing it would cost more than getting a new one. Fortunately all our files are safe on the hard drive. So we ordered a new computer (we got a great deal on it) and it just arrived about an hour ago. Christian is VERY excited about it (I consider it an early anniversary present since he can finally play his game I gave him for his birthday on it) because of the nice big flat screen monitor it came with, and the nice speakers and great graphics and other awesome specs that I won't even try to mention because I know nothing about them and I'll be sure to mess something up when I talk about them. He calls it his “new toy” and has officially named it the Mealey Master. Right now he is in the process of setting it up, and he keeps exclaiming over the big screen and the cool graphics. He will probably be playing his game and watching movies on it until I make him go to bed tonight.

On Memorial Day we went stream fishing with my grandpa, grandma, uncle, aunt, and cousins. It was Christian's first time to go fishing ever, and sort of my first time as well since I don't remember the last time I went. It was quite fun. We got to wear waders and everything. There was a nasty deer carcass decomposing in the water which my cousins were quite excited about. We strained some disgusting-looking bugs out of the stream with a big mesh cloth, and used them for bait. Here are some pictures of it all for your own personal enjoyment. Neither Christian or I ended up catching anything (actually, my grandpa was the only one who caught anything and he only caught 2 trout, one of which he let my cousin play with and release). But we had lots of fun!

Since in the process of moving out we didn't have time to go shopping much, we ate out a lot and consequently didn't have an opportunity to make a new recipe this week to share with you. We apologize and will try a new recipe within the next couple days so that you can have a new recipe soon.

We love you all!
Brittany and Christian

"Jeez they only have like one type of peanut butter: Kroger......and Jif......."

Alright, I know it's been two weeks, but yall'll just have to deal with it. I had two tests this past week so I've been studying like crazy for them. They both went well, I was just a little nervous about them. Anyway, the quote from this week is by yours truly. Brittany and I went shopping and we were looking to get some peanut butter. I spoke before I got all the information processed in my brain so, of course, I said something stupid. Oh well.

Life has been very busy with this spring term. Classes are super fast, and Brittany is finishing up her school year with the boy she works with. It's weird to think that the classes I'm taking will be over in 3 weeks. It's barely enough time to learn anything it seems like. I'm going to have to get use to summer classes, though, because I'll be taking them for the next 3 summers. Worth it. Speaking of classes, Brittany and I finalized our class schedules for this fall. Brittany worked it out so all her classes will be on Tuesday or Thursday and she will be switching to a MWF schedule at work. This gives her more hours, but us quite a bit less time together. We're definitely going to have to make the time we have quality.

A little story when I was signing up for classes: once I got my double major approved, I had to redo my fall schedule to include all the computer science stuff. I had it all down and was set, until I realized that a class I had signed up for conflicted with marching band (in which I was recently chosen to be section leader for this fall, woop!). I couldn't find another time except for one that would be during an ensemble time (I won't know which ensemble I will be in until the first few days of the semester). It was very dis-heartening and frustrating and I gave up for the day trying to move other classes around. The next day I logged back in and 5 seats were added to each section of the class I needed and I was able to pick one that fit absolutely perfectly into a time slot I had open. I can't say whether it was a coincidence or divine help, but I definitely know that I am supposed to be doing this.

Anyway, Brittany and I went to the temple last Thursday after having not been for a long while. It was wonderful to feel the Spirit there and to connect to Heavenly Father again. Friday, we went to Red Robin on a date. It was delicious! Brittany had never been there, so I had to introduce her. We got this fried zucchini appetizer that was delicious. I think we're going to have to make this Thursday/Friday combo thing a regular occurance in our schedules. We'll see how long it lasts though. Our routines fall apart.....routinely lol.

We've started getting down to crunch time with the move. This weekend is the last weekend we have so we're getting some help from Mary and Derek and our Aunt Nicole's family to finish up. We've made several trips up there with the things we don't normally use and most of our clothes are up there already. We're both very excited about getting into a bigger place. We've run into the dilema, however, that we don't have a bed yet (or couch). We've been looking on craigslist and found a hide-a-bed for pretty cheap, but we decided that out of anything we would spend money to get a nice mattress. We can deal with a semi-comfy couch, or a beaten up dresser, etc, but life is just too miserable with a crappy bed.

I'll have to post our recipe later, as I am at work right now. I can't even remember what we had decided to put up...but I'm sure it was delicious.

Anywho, we love you all and hope you're doing as well as us!
Christian and Brittany