First day of school

Today is my last first day of school. Ever.  I can't decide if I'm excited or sad about it.  Last night I realized that I have never not been a student....since I was 5.  It has been a large part of my identity.  After this semester I will be done with that and then moving on with an entirely different chapter of my life.  One that I am very excited about.  Still, there is a small part of me that has no idea what life will be like without school or work.  I am hoping it is as enjoyable and fulfilling as I always thought it would be.

Riley did the honors of taking my last first day of school picture.

Lovely, right? I didn't even wear new clothes. Or put on make-up.  I think that says a lot about how I feel about this semester.  Riley and I noted the hoards of people making their way to campus in their newly purchased clothes to impress their classmates.  It kind of made me sad that I didn't even decide what I was going to wear until this morning!  Riley (serafine) and I used to make clothes people and pack our backpacks the night before.  I used to love the first day of school!  Don't worry, I did make a lunch for this handsome man last night!  He has a full day of classes from 9-4:30 and then has a meeting for work.  This morning he told me he had the same feeling he gets when he has a test that day.  It's going to be a challenging semester, but I am fairly confident that he will do great!  

In other news, Riley has officially stopped working at the MTC.  I think he will miss it more than he will admit.  But now he has plenty of time to research and TA! (for the sweetest professor at BYU- seriously, he called me this morning to tell me how great Riley is and wish me luck with my studies this semester)

Wednesday will mark the 24th week of this pregnancy!  I've been feeling a lot better lately.  Every night I dread taking my prenatal vitamin because they make me feel so sick. And they smell like dog food.  On wednesday I have a doctor appointment and will be addressing the vitamin issue.  I would love some that are a little easier on my sensitive stomach.  I've still been pretty tired...and I am sure our three day backpacking trip didn't help that! 

Riley packed his backpack for the trip on Wednesday.  We weren't supposed to leave until Friday... I could tell he was SO excited.  We woke up on Thursday and Riley made me breakfast in bed (for copsicus!) and then asked, "Are you excited to go backpacking today?"  I gently reminded him that we weren't leaving until the next day... Then I suggested we cancel work and go a day early.  You would think he had just won the lottery!  He jumped up and started getting everything ready.  So off we went.  

We headed to the unitah's.   I never realized how pretty it is up there.  Very different from the wasatch mountains that I am very used to, but very pretty.  The hike wasn't long or hard (thank goodness) and we found Merrill/LouJean/Andrea without any problem.  

The only thing I don't like about backpacking is that you have to sit on rocks.  My poor bottom hurt so bad after two days of that.  Oh and sleeping really isn't that much fun.  Other than that the trip was very pleasant! 

Here are some pictures to prove it.

 My backpack was very light. Riley's was not.  He was nice and carried my sleeping bag and mat, and most of the food. All I had was clothes and my pillow. That's what you get when you go backpacking at almost 6 months pregnant! 

 See those rocks? Those were our chairs. Ouch. 

 Ok, is that not the cutest picture?

Things to come

Well, here he is.  This picture was scanned in and isn't the greatest quality, but hey, isn't he cute?  I didn't realize this before but there are lots of things to look forward to with boys.  Sports and potty humor for example. There are also things I am not looking forward to, like scouts and being urinated on.  All in all, it should be a good experience.  Despite the lack of selection, there are some pretty cute boy clothes out there. Most of them have a Nike swoosh on them.  Which is totally fine with me.

Needless to say, Riley and I are just so excited to have this kid.  I hear Riley was a really good boy growing up.  I think the absolute worst thing he did was throw headless barbies at the ceiling fan.  I hope he's like Riley.

In other news, we are leaving on our trip to New York/Baltimore/DC on Wednesday.  This is a trip we can NOT wait to take.  We are so excited to see Justin, Erin, Bennett and baby Elsie!  We, however, are NOT excited to see how my car sickness/nausea does on the airplane.

Today is Katelyn's birthday, and even though she will not be reading this, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  She is such a cool missionary.

School starts all too soon.  You may remember my hesitant-ness to start school last fall.  I can assure you that this year is not any better.  Even though it will be my last semester of school. ever. AND a diploma and new baby will be the reward.  I just hate when summer ends. It is so so sad.  Nearly breaks my heart.. My list of summer activities has not been completed.

The Olympics are awesome.  We are completely hooked.

Bigger and better things

A lot has happened since the last time I posted.

• We finished finals successfully!  We finished finals on Tuesday and finished the week with some fun spring activities that we didn't take any pictures of.
• I got in a car accident :( That darn University Avenue is a killer.  I have sworn not to drive on that road during any busy time of day.  I'm almost too embarrassed to put a picture up but I'm sure you are all dying to see what I did to our lovely, reliable, wonderful car. Before and after.

• Doesn't that just tear your heart out?  Well, everything worked out great, the car was considered a total loss and we received a lovely check from Geico a few short days later.  
• It took us almost a month to find a new car, but last week we finally bought one!  It is an 04 white Toyota Camry.  We are hoping it lasts us a long. LONG. time.  And I'm sure it will if we treat it nicely! (sorry we don't have pictures, but I promise it isn't very exciting)
• On April 23rd we celebrated our ONE YEAR anniversary!  Cool, huh?  My little brother told me that he never thought we'd make it this far.  We celebrated the day with a lovely walk, Costa Vida and a trip to the Riverwoods where we wasted $4 trying to win an iPad and then watched the Hunger Games!  Which we were both quite disturbed by.  Nonetheless, it was a great day!  We've had a really awesome year. Some of our favorite memories include our wedding (of course!), fun trips to Manti, Las Vegas, St. George, Logan and our honeymoon cruise, kayaking with my parents, the cabin with the Wilson's, rafting, hanging out with family, celebrating Christmas, dreaming about an iPad, getting an iPad(!!!! still the coolest thing either of us has ever owned), walking to school together every morning, date nights, dinners, me suggesting we go out for pizza but instead Riley makes one (happened at least once a week), fun parties, meeting new people in our  super cool ward, getting locked out of our apartment on several occasions, and many, many more!  
• Last weekend we went up to Logan to visit Brandon and Chelsie.  They showed us a pretty awesome hike that I may, or may not, have been extremely sore from the next day.  Pass the Popcorn is a really awesome game!
• Riley and I attempted a dutch oven pizza at Bridal Veil falls... after forgetting our lighter and trying to use a car cigarette lighter, riley drove down the canyon to get a lighter (talk about dedication).  Unfortunately not even that would make our two year old coals light...  we ended up cooking it in our oven at home and renting War Horse. 
• Riley took the GRE and did aawwessome!  We will keep you all informed when we figure out where we are going!  Which we won't know till.... next spring! Until then, folks!  (ok, I will most likely update before then...)

FHE

I feel like a lot has happened since a few weeks ago.... let's see. School is hard and long! But that's not new, I guess. We finally got some snow, I was wondering what happened to Utah, "The Greatest Snow on Earth".  As much as I don't like walking in the snow it sure is pretty to look at. But now I feel like we should have a Christmas re-do. Who's with me! Another 3 weeks off school....

Last night for FHE we made valentine boxes.  We used to make them in Elementary school and I loved it!  I am glad we did it.  They are the only Valentine decorations we have and I think they are great.  Riley made his, but didn't want to claim the sparkly letters.  I think they are cute.  You are all welcome to stop by and put a valentine in there :) (Kidding, they are mostly for us)

On February 13th Riley will be taking the GRE.  This determines our fate for the next several years of our lives! No pressure or anything.  Needless to say Riley has been using every spare minute to study. His practice tests have gone pretty well so I have great confidence in him!! Someone the other day told me that the GRE is easy. I definitely don't believe that person.  I think it is hard and stressful- it takes a lot of work!

Can you believe January is coming to a close? Me either.  A month has past since Christmas.  A whole month! We celebrated Copsicus again yesterday and ate delicious cake waffles and ice cream in traditional Copsicus style.  Even though it wasn't a great day at school or work for either of us, the evening was great! FHE, box making and treats. Copsicus  is great!

November? Really?

I have only 8 more class periods of statistics and like 6 of New Testament. Finals are just around the corner.  I'm pretty sure this is the best part of the semester.  We've made it past the part where the newness and excitement has worn off and it seemed like school would never end.  We are now just looking forward to Thanksgiving (which is next week, crazy) and the two weeks of class, finals and then.....3 weeks of no school!!! And CHRISTMAS! Does it get much better than that? I highly doubt it. Except for summer of course. Nevertheless, I am feeling very excited for the season.

I am not a winter person, but this year I figured I would be better off dressing for the weather and being prepared, which I hope will make it less miserable.  Riley and I walk pretty much everywhere.  To school, to work, to church, to the mailbox. We do lots and lots of walking.  So, instead of paying for gas... I stocked up on warm clothes!  I am the proud owner of really comfortable flat boots that will keep my feet dry and warm. They can even be worn with both black and brown. Handy things.  Since I wear a skirt to work each day I bought several pairs of tights/ stockings etc.  I pulled out my trusty puffy coat and am all ready to go.  Before daylight savings the mornings were freezing, but now they aren't so bad.  Now the evenings are bad. Walking home in the dark after a long day can be rough.  Anyway, I'm ready for the really cold weather and who knows, maybe all of these clothes will come in handy someday when we go to Russia.  One day.

I may or may not disappear from the world for the next several weeks. We've got to finish midterms (which end the week before finals. gah)  and finish papers/ projects and then take on finals. Then we can celebrate the season.  I can hardly wait!
Have a happy thanksgiving!!

Back to school shopping

Ok so we hit up some major deals and I still don't think we're done. When I say major, I mean minor. Nonetheless, a deal is a deal.

First we went to Kohl's to find Riley some church shoes. I'm bad at shopping for other people and usually wonder off. I found some DARLING black heals/shoes on clearance for ten dollars. But I couldn't convince myself to buy summeryish shoes right before it ends. :( Riley found a nice pair of shoes, though! So we went to check them out. As soon as they rang up we remembered a gift card we had from our wedding! It covered all but 8 dollars. Then he handed us this 10 dollar gift card thing for spending a certain amount of money!! Remember how much those heels cost? Ten dollars. (Yes Kelli, we did have a front row parking spot) The promotional deal didn't start till the next day, but don't worry I went back and got them. I'm wearing them as I type this, as a matter of fact!


Our next stop was Burlington Coat factory! Which is wear we got Riley's wedding suit on a major sale. Anyway, we found me some jeans that weren't on sale and Riley some church socks. Great deal. At the checkout line they gave us coupons so we can go back and get Riley some dress pants!

Then we went to Payless where I found a cute pair of durable, yet fashionable black flat-ish shoes which I have been searching to find for a couple of years now! Bad news though... they weren't my size, and no one in Utah county had my size either. Don't worry everyone, I found them online! And I fell into the BOGO trap and got a second pair...but, thanks to Riley we had a coupon and free shipping!! Booya.