Colorado Springs

And a possible change of plans

Kent was in Colorado yesterday, interviewing with Lockheed Martin about a database position for next year. He said the interview went really well, and the company is nice, too. It's pretty comparable to USAA, actually. So now we don't know if we'll be in San Antonio or in Colorado Springs when we graduate. The city looks nice, and I'm loving the idea of having mountains at least on one side of us. Plus it won't get quite as hot in Colorado as it does in Texas. Homes are more expensive there, but rent is cheaper. Colorado is a very liberal state. The city does have five Targets and a Costco. (Not that those having anything to do with being liberal--I'm just excited about the stores. Rexburg doesn't even have a Super WalMart.)

Or

?

San Antonio is much farther away, and the climate isn't as nice. But we're familiar with San Antonio; we have friends there, a good ward, we know the city pretty well, too, so it's going to be a tough decision to make. In the end, we'll go wherever the Lord wants us to. Isn't it great knowing that we don't have to make all these decisions all alone? That there's a plan for us and we can rely on the knowledge of Someone who knows everything.

I'll let you know what we do decide. We hear back from Lockheed Martin in two weeks, and USAA wants our decision by the end of November.

If you want to see more pictures, there's a photo gallery and information about the city here.

Why I'm smiling tonight

Nothing says "I'm married" quite like being all dressed up yourself and carrying a man's dress shirt, tie, dress pants, shoes, socks, two Taco Bell Volcano tacos and a dripping rootbeer across campus and up four flights of stairs to the computer lab.

I got a lot of fun "you're-such-a-sweet-little-wife" smiles from people on campus.

"I'm dreaming"... Bing Crosby and Gingersnaps

It's snowing here. And it makes me want to listen to Bing Crosby. And bake things. And pretty much do anything that isn't homework.

On Friday we went to Wingers with Amy, Jake, and Denver. It was there that I learned about my husband's all time favorite cookies. I had no idea that I had married a lover of gingersnaps. Apparently it is a family thing, and all the Andersen boys absolutely love this particular recipe of gingersnaps.

Because I was cold and the house seemed so cozy and I was even wearing socks (I hate socks) to fight off the cold yesterday, I stopped doing my mountains of homework long enough to make Kent some gingersnaps. They are good! But they have so much ginger in them, that as Kent said, "If you eat ten or eleven of them your throat kinda goes numb." They definitely are the spiciest cookies I've ever eaten. But they were good, and warm, and now I'm going to listen to "White Christmas." It won't matter if we skip Halloween, right?

Protect Marriage

It's not often that Kent tells me something I should blog about. But his parents called us the other day to tell us about a special meeting the Church members in California attended. It was about Proposition 8.

The LDS Church generally has stayed out of political matters. Every election year we are reminded to vote for whichever candidate we personally feel upholds our individual values. We are never, ever told "vote for so and so" or even "don't vote for so and so."

But that doesn't mean that the Church cannot get involved in politics. When something is so important to our faith and our beliefs and our freedom to practice our religion, we get involved. And we get very involved.

Because, as Americans, it is our privilege to let our voices be heard.

What is so painful about this matter is that the people's voices WERE heard, and California voted against the legalization of gay marriage. But then a handful of judges took it upon themselves to act against the interests of the majority. And now we have to speak again. And we have to speak louder.

So, although I don't live in California and I can't vote on this matter, I am getting involved. I am standing up for the protection of marriage between a man and a woman as it is the fundamental unit of society. I have donated money to the cause. I have blogged about this before. I'm blogging about it again. I'm going to participate in a call center organized by the Church up here at school (in Idaho!) to call voting members of California and let them know how important it is that we stand up for what we know is right.

Please stand with us, and do whatever you can to help our voices be heard. Marriage is sacred, and we need to protect it.

Photo Tag

Okay, so I kinda cheated a little. Heidi tagged me to pick the 4th photo in the 4th album on my computer, but I have pictures in different paths all over the place, and some don't have 4 albums and some don't even have four pictures, so I took it as more of an opportunity to post a picture I normally wouldn't post.

This picture is from September of 2005, probably. My family has always been involved in a celebration pageant for Constitution Day, and this is my costume. I'm sitting on the stairs because by the end of the night, the black shoes I wore were always killing me.

Advice Needed

What color, material, and length of curtains would work best in our living room? I have no idea; but I really want to hang some, because this room needs some color or something.

Should I try a patterend fabric? Should I try hanging the curtains all the way at the top of the wall or just right above the window? How long should they be?

The window in question. (Most of the apartment is decorated with that same green color as the rug.)

Left side of the room. (Maroon leather couch, dark red mirror)

Right side of the room. (I'd love to paint this wall, too, but I'm not sure if I have time for that much of a makeover--hopefully curtains alone will make enough of a difference.)

Thanks for the help!

Hot Pockets

Last night Kent's cousin, Jake, came over for dinner and we made calzones, or, as I always called them when we'd make them as kids, hot pockets!

I got this picture from the Kraft foods website--our calzones didn't look quite as pretty, but they were sure good! I just used refrigerated pizza crust because I didn't have time to make some, and we stuffed them with whatever we wanted! We used chicken, pepperoni, chopped ham, green peppers, cheese, and a choice of pizza sauce (which I did make homemade), ranch, or barbeque sauce.

This semester is going to be very, very busy for me. So I'm going to have to make sure I do something fun like this every once in a while or else I'll go crazy! I have so much homework-I'm usually doing school stuff until 10 at night every night. But it's kind of satisfying to work so hard when graduation is getting so much closer. Until this semester, graduation didn't seem like it was going to feel like I'd actually done something impressive; but now, I am so excited to graduate, to know that I worked so hard and accomplished my goal of getting a higher education. So, I just have to get through 12 more weeks for this semester, and then only one more semester after that!

Twelve more weeks sounds like a very long time. I need to get started on that homework.

Tony Grove

While we were at my parent's house before coming back here to Rexburg, we decided to spend one of our nights camping at Tony Grove. It was pretty cold up there, but so beautiful, and I'm glad we did. Tony Grove is one of my favorite places. My family went every summer while I was growing up; there are so many memories I have of the lake and campground. And last summer it was our day at Tony Grove that led to Kent asking my dad if he could marry me.

Kent has told me that camping is only fun to him if he can do something while he's there to alter the processes of nature. Build a dam, make traps, create big fires, etc. So when he saw this little stream on the opposite side of the lake, he just had to build a dam.

Kent cooked our tin-foil dinners on the fire. We took up an entire box of wood, but we ran out when there was still two hours until dark. I suggested that we take a walk around the campground, and I'm glad we did, because we found three empty campsites with stacks of firewood left by previous campers. I'm sure we looked a little funny walking around the campground with our arms full of firewood, but it was so nice to have that warm fire as the sun went down.