The beginning of my last semester

Hi everyone! I haven't taken many pictures in the last few weeks, but we've been very busy! We both got back into school and work with a full load. I like my internship that I do 20 hours a week and school is going well so far. I still work at Ruby River but only on Friday nights. Tyler and I went out to Texas Roadhouse last week with Ashley and Bobby and it was DELICIOUS! Oh my goodness, I love that place. The rolls, salad, steak and yam were to die for. We then went to see Bride Wars at the Riverwoods theater and I loved that movie!!! It was a great chick flick, and Tyler thought it was funny too. Courtney and Marc met up with us at the theater. On Thursday we went to the temple with the Parcells and then went to Olive Garden after. I was starving by the time we got out and almost died (okay, maybe not really that bad ha ha) but then I had breadsticks and salad and fetuccini alfredo. Yesterday I woke up, did some homework and then made sugar cookies for our 5-year-old class today. In the night, we went to Mimi's Cafe with Marc and Courtney and then rented the Happening and watched it on our Clearplay. It was really creepy!

Here are some pictures of Tyler in his good-looking sweater I gave him for Christmas :)

Here is the yummy lasagna I made last week! I gave some to my dad after he had his knee surgery. His surgery went well. He had bone spurs, and then got out of his car one night to help people who had slid on the ice in their car, but he fell. He tore his meniscus in his knee too! Then he could hardly walk, and another night he fell getting into his car because his knee couldn't support him. He fell right on his back and hit his head. But he got his surgery and he is going much better.

I have one more thing to say...if you are a bad tipper for no reason - tip better! Tip 20% if your server does well! It's amazing the type of people we run into as servers. These people I served two Fridays ago had a big meal, everything went completely smooth and I had to do a lot of extra things for them, which I did. They weren't an easy table to serve, but everything went completely well. The bill was $100.98 and they paid with cash so I didn't look at the ticket book that they left on the table until they left. They left A HUNDRED DOLLARS. Not even enough to pay for their meal, let alone give me a TIP!!!! Oh my gosh. This infuriates me. It is literally me having to PAY THEM to serve them! Wow. So, I just wanted to say I hope you are good tippers...or else.

K have a great week! xoxo

Who loves to cook?

I do, I do!!! I made chicken tortilla soup and homemade rolls by myself for the first time today! They turned out really well, and since this is kind of like my journal, I figured I would document this grand moment :) We crushed and put tortilla chips, cheese and sour cream in the soup. It was so good!

Today was such a lovely day. I woke up at nine and hung around, played on the internet
and watched t.v. shows I had recorded over the break until about 11 then cleaned my apartment, bathroom, did all of our laundry and then went to the grocery store to fill up our empty fridge. I bought the ingredients to make our dinner, and then I came home and cooked away! My poor neice Brynley fell out of a grocery cart today and fractured her skull on the cement. She is doing fine, but is in the hospital over night so they can watch her to make sure she is okay. It's scary but I think she'll be fine.

Okay, well I'm off to bed. My first class of the semester starts tomorrow at 8 a.m. Welcome back, right? Ha ha. It's my last first day of school. Weird weird!!

Christmas and our Cancun vacation

Christmas was SO GREAT because I got to spend a few days with my family. I was kind of sad to go to Cancun honestly, because I had to leave my family in Utah without me! We had fun, though. This is me, below, in my scuba diving lessons. We went to a beginner level of 30 feet and it was really neat. It's a whole world under the ocean and we lots of schools of fish. I felt like the Little Mermaid.


This is the view from our hotel room. The water and waves were very pretty!This is at dinner one night at a Mexican restaurant. I seriously think the Mexican food in America is better than the Mexican food in Mexico! Funny, huh?!This is Tyler doing his best to sell trips to swim with dolphins. Just kidding :) He wanted to sit down while we were shopping and he couldn't find another spot!This is what we did most of the time. Lay out on the beach and read. I did venture into the water though because I love playing the waves! Tyler rented a boogie board and I caught some waves which was really fun.This is my cute husband :) Ha haThis is our hotel room. We had 2 suites, and this was one bedroom in one of the suites. There were two bedrooms and one living room and kitchen area in each suite. We went to Wal-Mart on the first night and bought food for breakfasts and lunches so we could eat at the hotel during the day.

We had a good trip. We laid out on the beach pretty much every day and read and relaxed. Ty and I took a few walks down the beach on a couple days, played in the waves and one day we went scuba diving. Every night we went to dinner at a different restaurant, and luckily none of us got sick! It makes you worried to eat salad, but we ate it and it was fine. We bought our own water at Wal-Mart, and oftentimes got free drinks from random vendors and restaurants so we could get a free pina colada or lemonade. We ate at a taco shop the first night, then Hard Rock Cafe (yummy nachos, salmon and pina coladas!), Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, Outback Steakhouse, Bubba Gump's, La Parilla and Chili's. I missed my family terribly!!! But we had a great time :)

This is my dad and Katelyn building an igloo in Utah! They are so cute and fun I couldn't help but take a picture!

This is my beautiful mom and best buddy! I love her so much and I was SO happy I got to see her at Christmas!

One of our family traditions is to make gingerbread houses on Christmas Eve. I seriously look forward to it for months! I love it and it's so much fun to everyone together with loads and loads of candy creating masterpieces. We had a blast and I love this tradition!

This is Tyler's wonderful house.

And here is my gingerbread house. Call me Gretle and I'm ready to move in!

Tyler and I got called to teach the five-year-olds in primary and we taught our first class today. They were so cute! We have four girls and four boys. The girls are SO well-behaved, and the boys...well, they are fun but wild! There are triplets in our class that are adorable. Their names are Francesca, Cecily and Finnigan. Two girls and one boy. And OH MY gosh Francesca is a DOLL. I want to squeeze her cute chubby cheeks! We're going to have fun, and I'm excited for this calling.

I hope you all are doing well! I'm off to start my LAST SEMESTER of college on Tuesday!! WoW!