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!

Winter winter wonderland

It snowed SO MUCH today! It was snowing when I woke up and literally didn't stop all day. We had over a foot! It was such a fun day because I got to spend it with my mom :) We went to lunch at Zupa's and then went to Costco and the University Mall. We went Christmas shopping and I got most of mine done. I was starting to panic a little cause I hadn't gotten any done, but I made a big dent and I'll be finished by tomorrow. I'm excited to give the presents to people! Tyler and I, with his family, went to the Vegas Bowl on Friday where BYU played the University of Arizona. They played horribly, but we still had fun despite the white trash, low class Arizona fans behind us saying the F word every other second and making fun of our religion. Whatever.

We went shopping during the day before the game on Saturday at Caesar's Palace and saw Hugh Hefner's girlfriends. Haha. We also saw David Hasselhoff up close because he sang the national anthem at the game. He truly has the WORST voice! Oh my gosh everyone was cracking up! After the game we went to Luv It Custard (a Parcell Vegas tradition) and got custard, then Ty and I headed back to Provo the next day. We drove Drew's newly purchased 12 passenger van that he bought to use this summer for summer sales. We got a few weird stares, but it was nice to lay down in the back and take a nap! We then had tithing settlement and then went to my work party. We ate dinner and I got a mall gift card for working there over two years. I just got Jocelyn a job there too, so it will be fun to work with her every once in a while!

After the party, we went to my grandma's house because my family was there! It was so good to see them and I love that we get to spend the whole week with them! It's the best. I LOVE Christmas time because it brings the whole family together. I'm excited for our annual gingerbread house decorating on Christmas Eve!

Happy Holidays!

I made these lovely little cheesecakes for our ward party and they were so easy and delicious! Our ward Christmas party was a lot of fun. We had dinner and desserts and then afterward listened to the BYU Men's Chorus. They were SO GOOD. Oh my gosh it was one of the best things I have ever listened to. Their choir director is in our ward so she had them come to our church and sing to us. It was so great!

Ty and I went to temple square with Courtney and Marc and two of thier friends on Saturday night. We went to dinner at Pei Wei (yummo!) and then saw the lights and watched the Joseph Smith movie. It was a fun night!

I have four finals down, and just my accounting one left to do. Then it's Christmas break! We're leaving for the Vegas bowl tomorrow, coming home on Sunday and hanging out with my family for Christmas, then driving back to Vegas the following Friday to leave from there to Cancun on the 27th. It will be a fun and busy break!

Mexican Riviera Cruise!

We just got back from our cruise yesterday and it was wonderful! We ate a lot of good food (Holy cow, no wonder I gained two pounds. Ha ha! Eating a huge breakfast and dessert after practically every meal isn't a normal thing). We went to Acapulco, Ixtapa and Manzanilla. I went parasailing for the first time, we went snorkeling and we rode horses on the beach. It was nice to lay out in warm weather. I will you tell you what though, Mexico is CRAZY. We sat down on a beach and got bombarded every second asking if we wanted to buy this or that or have a massage or carry their next child or something. Okay, not really the last thing on that list but they are very persistent there. I am SO glad I wasn't born in Mexico. Some parts were very pretty though and we had fun. I did karaoke one night to "My Humps." Oh, dear. There were some fun shows, like on the second to last night we went to one that had all of the songs from many broadway musicals. Overall, it was a pretty good trip!

Thanksgiving was fun too because my family was all together. We hung out, went shopping, and on Thanksgiving day we had dinner with Tyler's family then went to Four Christmases with both of our families. I wish all my family lived here!

Bobby's birthday was yesterday so went to say hi to them last night, we went shooting with them this morning and had dinner with them tonight! It was fun!

Back to school....at least for another couple weeks and then its another fun break again!

It's official

These past few weeks have been the busiest of my life in school! I've been getting ahead in school because Tyler and I are going on a cruise to the Mexican Riviera. Yipee!

In other news, my family is here for Thanksgiving!