Happy Anniversary!

I made breakfast for us to eat on our balcony.

We went on a kayak and hiking adventure. It's been raining really hard here lately, so the rivers were all very high. This is Kent trying to ford one of them.
All of that rain also means TONS of mud!

Kent enjoying a slice of Hula Pie after our dinner at Keoki's.

One year together and still loving every minute!

This is for Sarah

And Dad, and Mom, and Josh, and Jonah, and Nathan.

I took a bite for each one of you. Could you taste it?

Christmas break begins.

• Friday: Finished up last of classes, presentations, and projects. Sold textbooks. Came home and almost didn't know what to do with myself without homework to work on. I got over that feeling pretty quickly, though.


• Saturday: Slept in (!). Bought treats for our vacation. Braved a snowstorm while running erands. Started packing. Attended the Ward Christmas party, and found someone to give our tree to.Goodbye tree! We'll miss you. But it's fun knowing that someone else will have a happier Christmas now. Vacation, here we come!!
  

The Doghouse

I got this movie clip in an email from my dad. Hilarious!

Click here: The Doghouse

You really must watch it. And laugh. Then watch it again and listen to what the intercom voice is saying while the men are folding clothes.

Nativity

My favorite thing to help put up when my mom was decorating for Christmas was always her porcelain nativity set. Kneeling on the piano bench, I would carefully arrange and rearrange all the peices until they were just right. Then, as I got older, I loved to see how the Christmas lights reflected in the porcelain while I played Christmas songs on the piano.

I have put my name on the list to inherit my mom's nativity set. But until then, I have this beautiful 3-piece set that my mom and sister made for me this year. It is beautiful.

Boughs of Holly

It helps to click on the picture so you can see it bigger. It's been so fun to decorate my very own house for Christmas!

Tannenbaum

The Hunt:

(It kind of looks like this tree is peeking around the others, waiting to ambush us, doesn't it?)

Bringing home the prize:
Trimming:

(This step included two trips to the store--because two strings of lights were definitely not going to be enough.)

The product of our labors:

(Drops lots of needles, but also smells great, looks pretty, drinks water, sits in our living room and makes us smile. Makes a pretty good addition, all things considered.)

And one last, albeit unrelated, item:

New hair! I've never had it this dark before, but I love it!

Highlights of our Thanksgiving Break:

Logan with the Wood family:

• Bowling with my brothers and sister. I've been promising the boys I would take them since Kent and I got married. But every time we try to go, something gets in the way. My overactive guilt producer wouldn't let me delay it any longer. And we had a blast! I lost by a lot. But my team ("the Squirrels"-Me, Jonah, and Josh) won!

• The impromptu Wood Family Musical during Home Evening. My dad reading Luke 2 = perfect time to hum "Silent Night."
• Dad making barbecued turkey since I wouldn't be there to have some of my grandpa's.
• Playing "Whoonu"
• Helping with Nathan's kindergarten feast and eating school lunch with Jonah.
• Most of all, convincing Dad to let us set up the Christmas tree before Thanksgiving so we could decorate it, drink egg nog, get new matching pajamas from Mom, read Mr. Wilaby's Christmas Tree and sleep in the living room together.

Oregon with the Andersens:

• Noticing how many things reminded us of Twilight. (The movie was filmed in St. Helens)
• Burgerville pumpkin shakes. Mmm.
• Gift basket waiting in hotel room for us from Shannon.
• Anna showing me her pink room at least six times.
• Just enjoying our time in Shannon and Scott's beautiful home. I was glad to have time to finally get to know their family a little better. It was wonderful, and so fun!
• Gingersnap cookies and wassail.
• Incredible Thanksgiving dinner.
• Watching Payton direct the orchestra on the Wii.
• Seeing Teresa and Dan. It's always so nice to get together with family.
• Conner's sweet baptism. I played the piano, and during the prelude music Conner stood by me and sang along to his favorite Primary songs. It was very, very sweet.
• Anna and the Christmas lights.
  
  (Sorry, this picture is blurry-there was so much water in the air that I couldn't turn the flash on)

We had so much fun with both our families! I was sad to leave, both when we drove from Utah to Oregon and then again when we drove from Oregon back to Rexburg. But, only two more weeks until the semester is over! Wahoo!

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, too!

Gratitude

"Those who live in thanksgiving daily have a way of opening their eyes and seeing the wonders and beauties of this world as though seeing them for the first time.


"I encourage you to look around you. Notice the people you care about. Notice the fragrance of the flowers and the song of the birds. Notice and give thanks for the blue of the sky, the color of the leaves, and the white of the clouds. Enjoy every sight, every smell, every taste, every sound.


"As we strive to open our eyes, hearts, and arms, our step will become a little lighter, our smile will become a little brighter, and the darkness that sometimes broods over our lives will become a little lighter.


"Don’t be discouraged if you haven’t been an especially grateful person. Rejoice and think of what an impression you will make on those who thought they knew you. Think of how delightfully surprised they will be.


"Be grateful. Every day is a new canvas—a new opportunity."

-Joseph B. Wirthlin, “Live in Thanksgiving Daily,” Ensign, Sept. 2001, 6

Me, tonight.

It is Saturday night (I know when you're reading this it will be Sunday night, so don't get confused.) It's Saturday night, and this is me:

• Finished: with writing my magazine articles for English 450. Now I just hope they get accepted by the editors!


• Listening: to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. For the third time in a row. I needed a little Hawaii in my system.


• Full: from pigging out with Kent at Craigos. You should have seen that boy's reaction to the Oreo dessert pizza. I was afraid I'd have to carry him out of there on a stretcher.


• Stressed: there's only 35 days until the end of the semester and I have at least 45 days worth of stuff to do by then.
• Wearing: the shirt that Kent likes best. We made "top three" lists today of shirts that we like most on each other.


• Thinking: about Christmas. It's coming! I know this because there's a huge tree at the grocery store.


• Hoping: that people come to choir practice tomorrow night.


• In love: with my sweet husband who I keep trying to talk to but forgetting that he's got his headphones on in the other room.
• Content: I've got a good life, people to love, a warm house, healthy body, money for food, and church to go to in the morning.

It's a good night here tonight.

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You know what I love?

To go to the grocery store, spend $40 and have the bottom of my receipt say "You saved $43.86."

That is fun to read. So fun, in fact, that I'm going to go get that receipt and read it again.

Soda Cracker Toffee

I've started my health goals again. I had five eating healthy goals all summer, and they were tough, but so good for me. Moving up here, though, I kind of gave up on them for a while. But now, I'm back again. Five servings of fruits or vegetables per day, portion control, not eating after a set time each night, eight glasses of water each day, and only eating one sugary treat per day. I know some people can cut sugar from their diet entirely, but I've got things like Soda Cracker Toffee that I just can't stay away from.

To make this incredibly easy treat, start by placing a single layer of saltine crackers on a baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 425. In a saucepan, bring one cup brown sugar and one cup butter to boil and let boil for three minutes. Pour this directly over the crackers and place baking sheet in the oven for only 3 to 5 minutes. The crackers will begin to sort of "float" over the mixture. Be careful, because this can burn really fast, and the sugar will get grainy and bleh.

Let the crackers cool for a while, then spread with melted chocolate chips. Place in the freezer until it hardens, then break apart and eat!

YES!

"Some portray legalization of so-called same-sex marriage as a civil right. This is not a matter of civil rights; it is a matter of morality. . . that is of critical importance to the future of the family. . . . We are compelled by our doctrine to speak out."
-President Gordon B. Hinckley "Why We Do Some of the Things We Do." Ensign, Nov. 1999

I was reading a book by Elder Bruce C. Hafen, of the Quorum of the Seventy titled Covenant Hearts: Marriage and the Joy of Human Love. One of his final chapters is about how same-sex marriage weakens what marriage means. What Elder Hafen says in this chapter makes sense to me. I wish I could just copy the entire chapter here for you to read.

Some quotes:

"Because gay marriage is fundamentally a moral issue, laws on this subject can alter both personal and public moral attitudes."

"Same-sex marriage blurs the distinction between what society tolerates and what it endorses."

"The obligations of parenthood, marriage, and biological kinship are fundamental to preserving a civilized order. Such weighty societal obligations are worthy of being highly protected, not merely being tolerated or permitted. One consequence of the law's protecting marriage is that the state is a party to the marriage; and the state must legally approve both starting and ending it. These formalities are not required to create or dissolve other legal contracts. Society actually has a greater stake in the creation and survival of each marriage than it does in the survival of each business agreement."

"To marry is to accept a public responsibility to the community and its basic social values, especially its values about what is best for children."

"Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in 1986 that he would protect homosexual behavior not because it promotes any social value but precisely because it dissents from the established social order: 'We protect these rights not because they contribute. . . to the general public welfare, but because they form so central a part of an individual's life, including one's right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.'" Marriage, Elder Hafen explains, is fundamental to the survival of society, and the autonomy argument for gay marriage undermines that social obligation.

"The power of the law to communicate society's endorsement tells us that our system does not and should not protect everything it tolerates. If we merge tolerance with protection, our system will end up removing marriage and childrearing from the most protected legal sphere, because the lowest common denomiator effect of 'individual autonomy' denies the possibility that some relationships are more significant to society than others. So, the closer our society comes to approving gay marriage, the more we will actually reduce our expectation that married people owe anything at all to society, including their utmost effort to succeed in their marriages. That is how gay marriage undermines the sense of personal and social obligation that is fundamental to our thinking about what marriage is and what it means."

"From the perspective of prophetic teachings, state endorsement means the government would be promoting serious immorality."

-Bruce C. Hafen. Covenant Hearts. pp 249-255

Please vote YES! on Proposition 8! And please vote tomorrow even if you aren't in California. It is our right to choose the government we believe will make the best choices for our country!

Husband Tag

Jocelyn tagged me to do this post about Kent

1. Husband's full name: Kent Garrett Andersen. A good, strong name.
2. How long have we been married? Almost 11 months.
3. How long did we date? 11 months. (counting engagement).
4. Who eats the most sweets? Kent, for sure. He has a separate shelf in the kitchen he calls "instant goodness" with all of our candy and snacks.
5. Who said "I love you" first? I said it first, but Kent was the first to want to say it--he was waiting for me because he wanted to be able to say it back to me right away. Sweet, huh?
6. Who's taller? Kent, by only 3 inches. A good excuse for me to wear flat shoes.
7. Who sings better? Well, I enjoy singing in choirs and at church more, but there's hardly a moment at home that Kent isn't making up a song or singing something silly.
8. Who is smarter? Oh boy. Let's not go there.
9. Who does the laundry? Kent has actually kind of taken over this semester because he has less schoolwork.
10. Who pays the bills? Kent.
11. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Kent. But it switches if we're sleeping in a bed where the nightstand is on the right--I always sleep where the nightstand is.
12. Who mows the lawn? We don't have one, but I hate mowing, so I hope Kent will take over that job. :D
13. Who drives? Kent always gets nervous when I'm driving, so he likes to take over as often as he can.
14. Who admits they are wrong? Kent's answer to this: "I'm never wrong." Truthfully, though, we're both good at apologizing.
15. Who kissed who first? Kent kissed me--I had never kissed anyone before, and I didn't know what to do!
16. Who asked who out first? Kent asked me to go ice skating and to lunch at Big Judd's.
17. Who wears the pants? Good question. As the oldest child, I'm pretty bossy. But I'm learning to let Kent lead while I "encourage."

Welcome to November!

Just look at the mess my "Raven" pumpkin left on my doorstep!

I crack myself up sometimes.

Happy Halloween!

I cleaned the guts out of both of these pumpkins. Kent doesn't like doing it. We were happy with how they turned out. After we were done carving, we lit the candles and turned off the lights and listened to "The Monster Mash," "Thriller," and "Ghostbusters."

I hope you all had a fun Halloween night!

Feasting my eyes

(from http://fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com/)

My newest (and currently most persistent) addiction:

http://www.foodgawker.com/

Beautiful pictures of food, taken from webpages and blogs all around the world, displayed here with links to the page it came from so you can click on the ones that make your mouth water. Which for me, is almost all of them.

Like the pumpkin milkshake,
homemade potstickers,
sage and apple pork chops,
chocolate roses,
vegetable chowder in a sourdough bread bowl,
homemade sorbet,
and on and on and on.

I seriously have to wear a bib when I open up this website. And I can scroll through those pictures with my face only inches away from the screen for hours. I want to taste everything on there!

Well, almost everything. Sometimes they'll get a wave of bizarre foods from other countries. But if that's what you see when you go to the site, don't give up on it! Either jump to the next ten pages or so, or just wait until the next day. It seems to go in waves of normal, American food one day and then foreign stuff the next. Not that there's anything wrong with foreign foods, they just don't make my mouth water as much.

I love this website. I have loved it for the past few months, and I don't get tired of it, because there's new food every day. And there are certain hormone-charged weeks of the month that I love it way more than any human should feel for a website. I call it the "eat myself to death week." I am learning to stay away from this website during those weeks.

And here's one last example, one of the many pictures that caught my eye on foodgawker.com today:
from http://www.kayotic.nl/blog/?p=1042

on reading Poe

My reading assignment tonight for one of my three English classes this semester was Edgar Allen Poe. I like to try to get my homework done while Kent is still at work, which requires a lot of motivation on my part to avoid the TV, blog world, and even the housework (which is at times more appealing than my homework).

I was mildly successful tonight, and I was sitting here at the kitchen table reading "A Tell-tale Heart" and "The Fall of the House of Usher." It was getting dark in my apartment as the sun went down, and it was very, very quiet with Kent gone. It's always windy here, and I could hear the wind howling around the building. And I realized these stories were perfect for Halloween. I was getting a little creeped out. Which, if you know me at all, is easy to do.

And then, when it was time for me to go pick Kent up from work I put on my shoes, turned off the lights, and opened the door to find a perfectly white pigeon sitting right on my doorstep between my two pumpkins.

A white pigeon! I have never even seen a normal pigeon in my four years in Rexburg, let along a white one. It didn't move at all; it just sat there on my doorstep, staring up at me. I have no idea what it was doing there. I guess I should have looked for a note or something attatched to it's foot. And instantly, I began to wonder what kind of omen Edgar Allen Poe would say this white bird was. At least it wasn't black and it didn't say "nevermore." But it sure startled me anyway.



Update: I just got a call from our next door neighbors wondering if we knew that there is a white pigeon hanging out in front of our door. Um, yeah. It's still there, almost four hours after I first saw it. What am I supposed do with a lost white pigeon?

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.