The Tulip Festival

Yesterday, my husband proved once again how absolutely wonderful he is. Yesterday morning I got a text from the people that were buying our contract saying that they were sorry, but they weren't going to be able to follow through. Our plan is to move tomorrow, so this stressed me out quite a bit because this means that we now have 2 rents to pay starting May 1st. (We are still looking for someone so please continue to spread the word.) Anyway, between the stress of moving and cleaning and doing this while pregnant, and with this added stress of money, I basically had a breakdown. I crawled into bed and just started sobbing uncontrollably. Robert came in after a couple minutes and instead of trying to "fix it" or make me talk about it, he just held me and let me sob into him. I think I just needed a good cry. Once the tears started to subside he says, "I know what we should do today. Let's go look at and take pictures of tulips." Those who know me best know how much tulips brighten any day for me. So off we went to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point.

Those of you who don't know what the Tulip Festival is, Thanksgiving Point is a place half way between Provo and Salt Lake and every year they plant 250,000 tulips and when the tulips bloom they have a 2 week long festival. In the Thanksgiving Point Gardens there are several differently designed gardens with pretty walkways in between each garden and they are all beautiful!

The Italian Garden.

Robert's first comment when he saw this yellow tulip was "There's a Mormonad saying in there somewhere." :)

Robert's first comment when he saw these upside down tulips was, "What in the world kind of freak of nature of a tulip is this?"

We got a kick out of feeding these fish :)

This is the entrance to The Secret Garden. Songs and quotes from the musical "The Secret Garden" were running through my head the whole time we were inside it :) Even when I look at this picture I am thinking "There it is. There's the door. There's the door to the garden!"

Inside The Secret Garden

It's finally happened, I've turned into a tulip :)

Robert is such a trooper. We both enjoyed the festival, but I think I had a little more fun than he did :) We were there for about 2 hours, and I took almost 80 pictures. He would patiently wait as I would take several pictures of one tulip until I got it just right. He even pointed out a few that he thought I might want a picture of. I LOVE this boy!!!

Weekend Adventures - Bonfire

After spending most of Saturday with Robert's parents and then dropping them off and saying our goodbyes at the airport. We met up with some friends that night that had come into town for our friends', Ben and Ashley's wedding, and we went up to Bridal Veil Falls and had a bonfire.

First, the dried up Christmas tree. I don't know what possessed us to trust Ty and Kaci with the matches, but somehow, we survived.

Here is the tree at the peak of it's flame. From the time it was lit to the point where it had burned itself out was 60 seconds, maybe 2 minutes max. But, I'm not going to lie, I was scared to death the whole time that it was going to catch something else on fire. I could just see the news headlines running through my head. But just as soon as it started, it was over, and everything was fine.

Devin, Autumn, and Lizzy joined us after the tree burning for the regular fire and the marshmallow roasting. Autumn had made a seat out of the extra wood, but unfortunately it collapsed. I gave Devin a hard time for looking so not concerned about the well being of his girlfriend, but I was the one that instead of making sure she was okay, I grabbed my camera and took a picture. Silly me :)

Lizzy and Autumn were getting a little chilly, so they snuggled with each other. I love how sad Autumn looks versus how happy Lizzy looks. It makes me laugh.

It was a fun night of relaxing, story telling, and singing around the fire. We all had a great time.

Weekend Adventures - Robert's Graduation Part 2

Friday morning we had Robert's Convocation. This is where he is actually handed his Degree, or at least the envelope for it.

Here Robert is processing in.

This is Robert getting his degree envelope. The dumb cameraman was right in the wrong spot!! He better have taken a good picture.

Bloated and VERY pregnant me with my graduate.

And Robert with his wonderful parents. It was so fun to have them here for the weekend.

Now it's bragging time. Robert graduated Magna Cum Laude (top 5% of the almost 7000 graduates) and #1 in the Statistics Program. He graduated from the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences with a Bachelor of Science in Statistics with an Actuarial Science focus. He made the Dean's List 3 different times (maybe 4, we don't know if he made it this past semester yet), AND it only took him 3 years instead of the usual 4 to get his Bachelor. I'm so proud of him!!

Weekend Adventures - Robert's Graduation Part 1

Last Thursday Robert had his graduation commencement. It was wonderful, and surprisingly short and not boring. It was awe inspiring to see all of the BYU graduates together at the same time, and I was very honored and proud that my husband was one of them.

Can you find Robert? I sent this to my little sisters, and they insist that he isn't even in the picture, but he is. I promise!

Elder Christofferson spoke. He only took 15 minutes, but it was a 15 minutes well spent :)

Me and my graduate. Ain't he cute!?!

That night, Robert's parents flew in from Mesa, AZ to Salt Lake and we spent the evening with them at Temple Square. It was quite enjoyable :)

Contract for Sale... Again!

The people that were buying our contract just fell through. The new tenant can move in as early as May 3rd. The contract expires August 16th with the option to renew. It's a 1 bedroom, 1 bath, with large front/family room for $575 a month which includes all utilities, including cable and internet, except for electricity which for us averaged $20/month. Located on the southeast corner of 100 S and 200 E in Provo. Great neighbors! Great ward!! No smoking or pets. The people who were going to buy our contract just fell through. We are needing to sell ASAP.

Front room view from front door

Front room, different view

Kitchen

Bathroom (with full bath tub and shower)

Bedroom

New Adventures

Like I said in the last post, we found a new place!! We are very excited about it. Robert's cousin and his wife were selling their contract and it was exactly what we were looking for! I stole the pictures of it off their blog (Thanks, by the way :)

We'll be moving the 1st of May, or should I say, Robert will be moving and my 37 and a half week self will be watching and giving instructions :) We have a lot to do between now and then, but my sister Christi and her husband Ryan were here this past weekend and helped us get a head start on our kitchen, and I already, during my nesting phase, have gone through most of the apartment and cleaned out and organized everything. We also have plenty of friends that are willing to help, so I'm not stressing too much about it... yet :)

This does mean we are leaving our ward :'( I've loved our ward!! We've made so many friends and memories. But we feel it is what we need to do. We haven't decided whether we will still do the family ward or if we'll go to the BYU married ward. We think we're going to go to both and then decide. This past Sunday was a great last Fast Sunday in our ward. Testimony meeting was AMAZING!! And the cherry on top was that toothbrush boy returned! He bore a very memorable testimony our first Sunday in the ward after we got married, and I thought it was quite fitting that he would get up our last fast Sunday in the ward and say the following:

"I think it's great that God loves us. It doesn't matter what we do, He will ALWAYS love us. Even if we blew up the whole city. It would make Him sad, but He would still love us. And that's all I gotta say." And he sat down :) Classic.

Anyway, we have a lot of adventures coming in the near future - Robert's graduation, moving, baby, new ward etc etc etc - and I anxiously await all of them!

And remember, God ALWAYS loves us!!

Toxemia

Well, Friday we had a doctor's appointment. Turns out in the past month I put on 13 pounds which is twice as much as I'm supposed too. So they had me do a urine sample, which no matter how many times I do those I will always feel awkward peeing in a cup, and there was a small trace of protein in my urine. This means that I have a little bit of toxemia. My blood pressure was still fine, so the doctor said that for now all I have to do is cut as much sodium out of my diet as possible, drink a TON of water, and start coming in every week so they can monitor it closely. When he said that I should cut out the salt, I looked at Robert and we both laughed. Salt and vinegar chips have been my favorite thing lately. In fact, the day before the appointment I ate half of a big bag of them in one sitting :) So, just cutting those out might do the trick. But I am being very careful and checking the sodium content of everything that I eat. Also, the first thing that Robert did when we got home was this...

The doctor said to just leave the salt shaker in the cupboard. In true Robert fashion, he took it to the next level and put all of our salt on top of the cupboards and forbade me from getting on a stool and getting them down. He is so silly. Anyway, I am missing all of my salty foods, but I only have a few more weeks to go, and I'll do whatever is best for Lydia and me!

Baby Shower

We had my baby shower in Mesa, AZ this past weekend and it was so much fun. My sisters and mom did such an amazing job with the food and decorations and everything. They are AWESOME!! My favorite part was just being able to see so many people I haven't seen in a long time. I love my friends and family!! Here are some pictures from the glorious event that I yoinked from my sister's blog. Thanks Tiff!! ;)

This is my adorable niece, Alena. I hope Lydia is blessed to have as much beautiful hair as she does :)

FOOD!! It was all amazing. My sister-in-law, Becky, even made sure that I had my very own chocolate milk.

This is the hand quilted blanket my Grandma Hall made. She has made one for every grandchild and great grandchild. That's quite the accomplishment seeing as how she has 26 (I think??) grandchildren and Lydia will be her 62nd great grandchild. My grandma is amazing!! I still have my blanket. It looks just like Lydia's, but it's red.

This is my little sister (green shirt) and 3 of my nieces. I can't believe how old they are all getting!

PRESENTS!!!

P.S. Everyone is FIRED for not telling me how retarded the part of my hair was looking the whole time!

This is a cradle that Robert's brother, Terrel, and his wife Jenn made for us. It's beautiful!

And that about sums it up. It was a great day filled with smiles and pink :)

To the FUTURE... Keep Moving Forward

Well, like I said, we've made decisions on what we are doing for the next few years. Any of you avid readers of this blog may remember the post I did a couple months ago talking about how lost we were amidst all of the possibilities that were set before us. A couple Saturdays ago after the research conference, Robert let me know that for the past few months he has been thinking that he knows where he wants to be is in Mesa, but what he wants to do is get a PhD in statistics, and in order to get into a good PhD program (Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, Duke, UCLA) he would need to do his Masters somewhere that had a more distinguished statistics program than ASU, such as BYU. The more we talked about it the more right it felt to stay here at BYU to the point that by that Monday morning we were basically decided. Then that day we got the acceptance letter for BYU that said they will pay for Robert's full tuition plus a $10,000 stipend, and that night Robert was emailed his acceptance letter from ASU that basically just said that he was accepted and he would have to pay non-resident tuition ($15,000 a year). Of course, money isn't the only reason we're staying. I could go on and on about all the pros, but getting both of those acceptance letters the same day, and on the day that we had already basically decided, definitely was a sign to us that this is what Heavenly Father wanted us to do. I think I'm going to go ahead and list some of the pros, so here I go:

• - Robert is already on good terms with the Stats department at BYU
• - Now that I've lived in Utah long enough to be considered a Utah resident, we can afford for me to finish my Associate's Degree here.
• - We don't have to worry about switching health insurances right after Lydia is born.
• - One of Robert's professors, Dr. Tolley, has claimed Robert as his research assistant for the next 2 years, and told him that he has been praying for a grad student with Robert's skills and work ethic for years. The research Robert would be doing for him has to do with the actuarial field so, unlike what would have happened going to ASU, we won't be completely closing the door on Robert being an actuary.
• - Dr. Tolley also has asked Robert to do some computer programming work for him that will pay $25 an hour, earning an extra $150-$1000 a month.
• - The research that Robert will be doing for Dr. Tolley might be able to be applied to his PhD dissertation which could take a year or so off of how long it will be before we're done.
• - We might be able to stay in this ward that we love for a little bit longer.
• - If we start this now, we'll still be back in Arizona in time for Lydia to start 1st grade, or possible before she even starts kindergarten.
• - In my opinion, Robert will be 100 times happier in BYU's atmosphere than he would have ever been at ASU.
  

So now the plan is 2 more years here, 3 to 4 years somewhere else for the PhD, and then back to Mesa. Oh the adventures that are in store for us! The statistics professors at BYU could not be more ecstatic that Robert is staying, and just keep giving him opportunity after opportunity. We have felt Heavenly Father's hand in this and are already seeing what a blessing it will be for our family.

This does mean we won't be back in Mesa for good for another 5-6 years, which is sad, but I try not to dwell on it too much. We will be able to visit more often than we have. At least we aren't too far away, and can visit often.

So, that's our plan. Next step, find a bigger apartment that, best case scenario, is still in the same ward we are in and within our budget. Keep your fingers crossed that we can! I'm happy where things are at and I am excited to see where our journey goes from here.

Recent Happenings

Well, I haven’t posted in a while so I thought I would post a couple of random recent events.

Nickel City Date Night

A couple of date nights ago, Robert and I went to Nickel City. It’s basically (especially now that it’s been remodeled) Peter Piper Pizza, but the tokens only cost a nickel instead of a quarter. When we first arrived I scanned the prize wall for what would be our goal for the evening and spotted it immediately – Neon Fedoras! Right away I decided that we each HAD to have one. They were 200 tickets a piece, so we had our work cut out for us. Through much blood, sweat, and tears, we triumphed at last!

Robert scored a ton of tickets on the Baseball Jackpot Game.

I was a master at the Spinning Sonic the Hedgehog Game.

And here we are sporting our beautiful prizes. We even had some tickets left over to get some candy :) If you can’t tell, Robert felt very awkward when I made him take this picture with me while a huge group of people that was eating pizza was staring at us. But I was so excited about our winnings that I couldn’t resist. What a good sport!

Robert’s Spring Research Conference

Some of you may not know, but Robert has spent the past year doing research for the IMPACT (Interdisciplinary Mentoring Program in Analysis, Computation, and Theory) program at BYU which is funded by the National Science Foundation. His focus (which was assigned to him) is Gaussian Markov Random Fields for Climate Model Assessment. Do you know what that is?... Me neither. The way I understand it is that basically there are these different models that climatologists use to test different things about the weather and Robert's job is to find out why/what makes these models, which test the same thing but produce different results, different, and what adjustments can be made to make them the same. He presented his research at BYU's Spring Research Conference this past Saturday. I went and although I didn't understand a single thing he said (or that any of the other presenters said for that matter) I thought he looked really cute while he said it and that he did a great job. I am constantly amazed at how brilliant my husband is. Here are a couple of slides from his presentation so you all can witness his amazingness.

When this "Quest For That Which is Real" slide was put up my first thought was that I was amazed that everyone else in the room knew exactly what it meant. BUT it turns out that since Robert is rare breed of statistics major that also has a strong mathematics background, he was basically THE ONLY person in the whole room that knew what this slide meant. Typical genius Robert.

Primary

I taught a lesson in Primary this week about being a missionary. The only boy that was there didn't want to dress up, and since Robert already looked like a missionary, I was elected. It's a bit out of focus, but you get the idea :)

Robert's Awesomeness!!

Robert is my hero. He really has gone above and beyond lately, even more so than he usually does. With how crazy his work load has been with school, work, tutoring, and getting his presentation ready, he still has managed to do all the ridiculous things pregnant women make their husbands do. For example, the other day I had a craving for green grapes, chocolate milk, and Poore Brothers' brand salt and vinegar chips. Robert went to 7 DIFFERENT STORES trying to find Poore Brothers' brand chips before he called me saying that he failed and wanted to know if a different brand would be okay. We found out later that Poore Brothers doesn't even distribute in Utah. And that's just one of the THOUSANDS of things that he has done. I am so lucky. I LOVE HIM!!

And that's it for now. We are going to Mesa, AZ this weekend to visit our families one last time before the baby comes and to have a baby shower. I can't wait!!!

P.S. We have made some decisions about where we will be the next few years. It's different than I had planned, but we know it's right. And the more we think about it, the more right it becomes. I'll post details on that later.

Toodles!!

30 Weeks!!

I can't believe I have only about 2 months to go!! We are officially in the 30s and I could have her before we get to the 40s!! So exciting! I'm actually hoping to have her anytime after April 23rd (just over 36 weeks) which is Robert's graduation. That way I could maybe make it down to Mesa, AZ for my sister's high school graduation at the end of May, but I guess whatever happens happens :)

The doctor says everything looks just great. I passed my glucose screening with flying colors. Lydia's heart sounds great and she was moving around like crazy when the doctor was trying to listen to it (as always). This is normally the point where I would start going in every 2 weeks, but the doctor said everything looks so great that we can still wait 4 weeks. Three cheers for healthy babies!! Now... if I could just do something about this weight I am starting to gain more and more rapidly??? Maybe it has something to do with the chocolate chip cookies, homemade ice cream, cheesecake, apple cinnamon pull aparts, and fudgesicles that are in my kitchen... NAH!!! That can't be it ;)

Our Goings On...

First, do ya'll remember these?

This is Sssaved the Dragon and the vase we painted for our anniversary. I promised you an after picture and here it is...

We are both very pleased with how they turned out. I no longer think the vase looks like a cow with the chicken pox. :)

Second, I have finally done it!! With the help of my wonderful husband and my cousin's blog, Miranda's Recipes, I successfully baked a chocolate chip cookie recipe from scratch that not only looked beautiful, but tasted wonderful. Before I continue, let me just say how amazing my cousin's cooking blog is. Every recipe I have made from the blog has been AMAZING!! Back to the cookies. Here's some pictures from our adventure.

What would baking cookies be without eating a little of the dough along the way? :)

The completed cookies. They made me so happy!

The judges all agree...

And we stuff! Robert says nothing says "I'm pregnant and can do what I want!" more than this picture :)

Horrah for cookies!!