Dear Santa; Thanks for Finding us in Austin.

This last week was Christmas, and we had a lovely holiday. Don't worry, Santa still found us even though we moved to Texas. (I guess that means moving to Texas wasn't too naughty, right?) For Christmas Eve a family in our ward hosted a kind of "displaced for Christmas Eve" potluck dinner. We aren't exactly displaced, but we don't have any family here so we ended up stopping by. Lots of people came it was an overall fun time.

Sunday morning we went to church for an hour. We had one musical number, and interestingly, they decided to let who ever felt like it bear their testimony.  When we got home, we cooked our cinnamon rolls that Santa left Daniel. (Daniel was nice enough to share them with me.) Then we finished up opening our presents. Some of them were things we already opened, like our computer. We also got a nice gift from BYU, diplomas! We slipped those packages under the tree so that we could open them Christmas morning. We got some other things too. Thanks for all the Christmas gifts, the love, and the thoughtfulness.

Wednesday we decided that we wanted to try out a new restaurant, Maudie's, here in Austin. We had tried one thing from their airport location/ kiosk. It was really good there, and Daniel had also heard it was good from work. We stopped by, and we ended up getting happy hour specials (surprise!). That's right, fortunately, they were the kind of happy hour special where you don't need an I.D to order. We ended up choosing a tasty dip appetizer. Then we had a breakfast and a dinner taco each because we shared orders. (Splitting up entrees at the restaurant is one of the perks of being married as well as not guessing how much you should choose to spend on your plate. )

Anyway, the food was delicious. The restaurant wasn't super fancy on the outside, -- or on the inside for that matter -- but the food was delicious. I think our favorite dish was the breakfast burrito, but the dinner burritos and the dip were really good as well. That is our food review for the month. :P

Exciting Christmas Season

First off, we really didn't mean to skip a week on our blog. There's just been a lot going on. However, as promised we are including a couple of pictures of our decorated living room.

We finished up the Savior of the World performances from our last post. For some reason everyone at church liked to call me by my name and then "oh, I mean Nephi." I think they were probably just letting me know that they'd noticed it was me playing Nephi. I'm pretty sure more things happened between that and our trip but I can't remember what, so we'll move on to our trip.

Thursday we drove to the airport for our flight, got to our gate, and noticed that our flight's time had been moved back since the time we'd printed our boarding passes, so we got to spend a lot of time at the airport -- especially because the plane arrived even later than they'd been planning on. We were a little worried we'd miss our transfer even though they assured us it would be okay. They were right. We got to Utah and stayed the night in a hotel, which was probably one of the only parts of the trip that really felt like a 'vacation'. Then Elissa's parents came to get us and it got crazy:

We just had time to grab a bite to eat, head over to Cortney's hotel, pick up the photographer (Emily Pilmer of pilmerportraits.com) and head to the Bountiful Temple, where we had pictures taken before the ceremony. It was really cold but I suppose it was worth it. After that of course the wedding happened, and one large group picture was taken. Then we headed over to Bella's Mexican Grill for the wedding dinner. They had excellent fajitas (see, we even managed to get food in this entry). Finally we drove to Elissa's parents' house just in time to get in bed.

The next day was really busy as we worked tirelessly to turn her parents' house into a reception hall complete with a heated near-outdoors hot chocolate bar(and yes, it was really warm even with the only separation from the outdoors being plastic. I mostly worked on that with Elissa's dad, while she worked with her mom on basically everything else. I hear she dipped about a million candy canes in chocolate.

Sunday we headed to Orem and visited my family. We only got to visit until Tuesday morning butwe got to see everyone in my family that's in Utah. We had fun making fudge and sugar cookies to take to the neighbors an then saw a large Nativity play put on by the nieces and nephews. It was great to spend that time with family.

We haven't really done a lot out of the ordinary since the trip, so I think I'll call this post officially over.

Performing and Presents

This week has been really full of play stuff. We had practice Saturday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Our first show yesterday. One of the ladies had a camera and took lots of pictures (We are even in some so this blog will have pictures. ) This is us getting into our costumes on Saturday. Daniel is helping me. I wear this white robe thing the whole time. It is probably 5 inches too long so I try not to trip all the time.

Daniel gets to play Nephi, which is cool. He is hard to see in the back there, but if you look close you can see him in his cool Nephi costume. If you choose to, you can also see me on the right, but that is obviously less important.  It has been mostly fun to do this play, but sometimes it was hard to pay attention and smile for the whole time. It is a really awesome story of course.

We are going to perform tonight (Friday), and two times tomorrow. I will be glad to not put on any more stage makeup for a very long time, but it was fun to have something to do on Saturday's around here without having to plan things out.

This week we also got a few early Christmas presents. Daniel's computer died a while ago, and we decided that we had enough saved up that we could get a new computer! After a lot of thought and convincing we decided to get this cool Acer computer. It is smaller that our DVD player and it has a mouse pad that can toggle to be a little touch keyboard. So far we haven't had a lot of time to play with it, but so far it has been lots of fun! We decided to keep ours flat and not standing up like in the picture though.

 Daniel also had his "new" shoes basically fall apart a few weeks ago, so in our free time we have been going to shoe stores to find something for Daniel to wear to work. I just wanted to find something that wasn't another pair of gym shoes, Daniel wanted something comfortable, and we both didn't want to pay alot of money.  Monday we stopped by JC Penny, and after visiting two locations got a pair of these shoes. Daniel says they are really comfortable, and we got them on sale (which is what put them in our price range.) They I think the are a good looking work shoe. Hopefully they don't fall apart!

So, that was our week so far. Next week should be less eventful. Maybe soon we'll get the pictures off of our camera onto our new computer so that we can post our own pictures! Happy week to you all!

Christmas is Coming!

This week Daniel and I did some fun things. Tuesday we got to go help at the Bishop's storehouse again. It wasn't super busy, but it was fun to be able to help there anyway. We mostly helped stock the shelves in the front. The next day I was a little sore from the lifting and the squatting. It was like free exercise? Anyway, it took a couple of days for being sore to wear off.

Thursday Daniel and I started our advent calendar and count down to Christmas. So last night we set up our nativity set. It was pretty fun to get out the pieces and get them set up. It really made it feel real that Christmas is coming soon. We have finished up our Christmas shopping, and we are regularly getting packages in the mail box. (Which is always exciting for me!) We have also planned out fun things to do every night leading up to Christmas!

We also helped my friend do an interview for her class about being married. It was kind of fun to talk about how we feel about being married to each other. It was good to know that we had similar feelings about a lot of things related to marriage. (Which is probably good because we are married to each other)

Pizza and Pumpkin Pie

This week was Thanksgiving. It was a different Thanksgiving because Daniel and I have never done the Thanksgiving thing  on our own. We've always celebrated with family. Someone else was in charge of organizing who brought what for Dinner. Usually, we were in charge of helping some one more professional with a dish for the meal.

We decided that, instead of trying to make a 'traditional' Thanksgiving for two by ourselves, we would rather have pizza. We planned our menu and bought a frozen pizza for our Thanksgiving dinner. Because a 'traditional' thanksgiving meal is based on what is harvested in the North East in the fall, we decided we could pick whatever we wanted to eat. But, since we are American we couldn't have a Thanksgiving without something traditional so we made mini pumpkin pies. We decided that it would be best  They turned out to be tasty, but some of them didn't want to come out of the muffin tins we baked them in. All in all, we had a lovely meal!

We decided to skip all the Black Friday madness, but I did order Daniel a new white shirt online. That seemed safer than going out and physically fighting someone for stuff. I stayed safely at home for most of the day; we did go to the grocery store to get some things to eat this week. We also decided to run down to the temple for the 5:00 session. It was a longish drive, but it was a fun date for Daniel and me!

Almost Thanksgiving?

So, I am late posting our blog post this week. It has been a pretty calm week here in Texas. The weather has been nice all week though. It hasn't gotten too hot, and one day this week it rained. We got over a half an inch; it was really exciting to get so much rain in one day! This is one of the biggest rain storms we had in the six months we lived here. We are still 12" in deficit or something like that, but we will take all the rain we can get.


Daniel has been able to leave work at reasonable times this week so we've been able to spend time together, but we haven't been on too many adventures this week. We did check out the outside mall near our house to do some browsing. We also stopped by Tiff's Treats. I had an ice cream sandwich with fresh cookies, and Daniel had a large brownie. Besides that, we've mostly stayed at home, but it has still been fun. We bought a pineapple at the store for a dollar this last week, and it was really tasty. It was so tasty in fact that we bought another one this week!

We are both in the play that our stake is putting on for Christmas. We had play practice on Saturday, and Daniel had to go yesterday because he has a speaking part. He was there for two hours. I didn't have to go because I'm just in the choir.

I also can't believe that this next week is Thanksgiving. It is kind of crazy that is basically here.  I did get some canned pumpkin at the store, so we now have everything we need for pumpkin pie! We are excited to take the vacation day as well, and plan to have a good time.  I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving too!

Ctrl-Alt-Delete

Elissa put me (Daniel of course) in charge of the blog this week, which means that it'll probably be really concise because I don't know how to write any other way. Meanwhile, she's headed to the book club that she started up a while back. This is the first time they've met so we're hoping that it goes well and people will want to keep participating.

This is probably going to be sort of boring since things have calmed down here a lot and there's no pictures again -- since my laptop died we haven't had a way to upload pictures from our camera. But don't worry, we'll be getting that all sorted out soon and then we'll be able to have exciting pictures again.

Probably the most exciting thing that has happened this week is that the control-alt-delete guy, yes, ladies and gentlemen, David Bradley, came to speak at work. I almost had him sign my keyboard, but figured he'd be busy and that it's a Dell, and he's kind of an IBM man. He was actually really interesting and funny. Of course, maybe he's only funny to nerds, but I liked it.

Also, we got to eat out with a bunch of people from the ward. We got a new Elder's Quorum president recently and he wanted to get a chance to get to know people better so he organized an unofficial activity where we met downtown and all had dinner together. This was even fun after we got downtown and realized that the place we thought had free parking was kind of expensive (and we like to save money where we can) so we drove down the narrow city streets (which other people probably don't think are too bad) looking for a decent parking space and got really stressed out but finally found a spot. I'm definitely glad that we live in suburbs so I don't have to deal with that all the time.

No Sleep for the Weary

This week has been the last week of Daniel's class. Wednesday Daniel decided that he just needed to get some serious work done, so he would stay a little late. A little late turned into 5 in the morning. Since he came home so late, we decided to sleep in later in the morning. I decided to get up and make breakfast cake. (I also told Daniel that it wasn't a reward for staying out late!) Either way this is just the climax of Daniel's recent crazy work schedule. Hopefully we get in some sleep this weekend!

Because of Daniel's work, we haven't done much that is different or exciting this week. We did go to the grocery store, and for the last few weeks, I've ended up getting something for free because of a "buy this, get that for free" sale. Two weeks ago it was free eggs (which I needed already) and this week it was free Chex mix for buying potato chips (I was buying the potato chips already). Getting something free just for buying something you were already planning on is super fun!

I was late posting this blog because yesterday Daniel had to go to play practice. He got cast as Nephi in "The Savior of the World." He has a few lines that he gets to give. It is kind of cool! I'm sure he'll do a great job.

Cool Weather and Cool Stuff!

This week, Daniel has been really busy working on his project , so we haven't gotten out much to do things. I'm really proud of him working hard to get everything done on time the way it is supposed to be. Earlier this week he found out that he could use his laptop at home and do some of his work at home in the evening. That when well for a couple of nights, and then one evening he opened his computer and it wouldn't boot up at all! He says that he thinks it is something like the CPU dying or something. Either way that meant that he had to go back to working at the office in the evening instead of being home.

Saturday, however, Daniel couldn't work on his project because the computers were undergoing maintenance at work. We went to choir practice (for the first act of The Savior of the World), and then we decided to finally get downtown to a store we've been wanting to visit. We went to the Paper Source, and browsed. I saw that they had these really cool "Wrapping Papers ." I'm not sure I'll ever buy one of these for wrapping a present, but I think they would make pretty cool wall decorations or something. The store was pretty cute. It had papers, planners, and books. It was fun to go see a little boutique in down town. (Because we don't go downtown very often.)

Then, we went home and had a pizza party to celebrate having a free Saturday. We bought a frozen pizza and baked it in the oven and ate some cookie dough afterward as a treat. While we ate, we finally watched Iron Man 2 on Netflix . (The last time we wanted to watch it there wasn't any video to go with the sound!) It was a fun afternoon of being together after Daniel being at work so long!

The weather here is also kind of crazy. Earlier this week the highs were in the mid 80's and then tomorrow we aren't supposed to get into the 70's. (I'm excited about having fall weather this weekend!) Its kind of fun because the weather here shows the little blue and red "weather front" lines on the map. We watch them slowly come from different parts of America to get to Texas! This new cold front crossed Denver leaving 5" of snow (right after an 80 degree day!) I'm excited for the cool weather, and hopefully Daniel and I can come up with some fun stuff to do outside this weekend to celebrate the cooler weather.

Apple Pies and Other Little Adventures.

This week I decided I wanted to try out a new recipe, and I wanted something sweet. Apples were on sale at the store. Then, I found a recipe for mini apple pies. This is the link to the recipe that we used:
http://www.noveleats.com/dessert/mini-apple-pies/

We used half granny smith half gala apples for our filling, and I think that if you want enough dough for a top like they show you'll need to make more dough than the directions say, or roll it out really thin. We doubled the batch though.

Daniel did all the lattice work on our pies. He did such a good job with the little strips of dough. I just cut them all out to help though. I was really excited that they turned out tasting so good! It was really exciting to make something new and different. They were also the perfect size for Daniel's lunch box (so Daniel got to have a tasty treat in his lunch box several days this week instead of something boring. They taste good cold or warm.

Other than that Daniel has been busy with his work class this week. Saturday we went into his office so he could do some homework. Homework is kind of lame, but it was cool to finally see Daniel's cubicle. We also went over to a couple from our ward's apartment for games and had a lot of fun. Neither of us won, but it was a good time anyway.

Singing and Scooping

This week was full of cool things that Daniel and I did. Friday we had a couple over for dinner and games. We had some great hamburgers which we got on sale from the store and popcorn. We played lots of games and had a pretty good time!

Saturday we went to stake choir practice for our stake's performance of the first act of the Savior of the World. It is going to be pretty cool. Hopefully we can get down all the music and a few more people show up to be in the choir! It should be fun. We probably should have tried out, but that would have been a lot more of a time commitment.

Later that day we went down to Bastrop, Tx (which is just outside Southern Austin) to volunteer with the church cleaning up properties. We basically moved trees, bricks, and metal into piles near the road so that the trash companies could come pick it all up. We even got to wear the yellow "helping hands" vests along with face masks so we wouldn't breathe too much ash. Apparently almost 600 members volunteered from 4 area stakes. They helped clean up 75 homes. They split us up into groups of 30 to go to houses. Our group ended up helping with two homes. It was a good experience; we ended up coming home covered in ashes and with a real appreciation for what we have.

So, apparently the group who sponsored the event asked our area 70's executive secretary (who happens to be in our ward) if he could even find 100 people that could help. He replied, "I can do better than that I'll send 200!" Afterwards he thought to himself "I hope I didn't just embarrass myself!" He asked wards in 4 stakes for volunteers and they ended up with 580 or so people to help! Here is the story that the local news showed! (We aren't in the movie, but you can pretend that it is us :P) Video Link- Click here!

Late Blog Post

So this week we are late posting on our blog because we chose to eat out on a Wednesday. I ended up getting handed the wrong plate, but they were really good about getting me my real order. Fortunately for all you readers out there, I am not going to talk about food for the entirety of the blog this week!

Though, after eating out, I wonder why restaurants can't serve smaller portions. (Or at least offer smaller portions.) I can never really eat more than half of a "dinner time" portion. Maybe other people don't have this problem, but if we are going to say that there is an "obesity epidemic," we should give people the option to order less food.

This last weekend of general conference. It was really fun to watch, and good to hear all of the talks and lessons. I don't think I had a favorite talk or anything, but watching is always a really good experience!

Our Stake is going to preform the first act of Savior of the World near Christmas this year. We volunteered to help out with the choir, and the first practice is this Saturday. We are pretty excited about participating. It should be lost of fun, and something to do!

A Less Warm Day in Austin.

Since this week we had a weekend day that wasn't 100 degrees, Daniel and I decided to go outside! After careful consideration, we decided to try out a frisbee golf course up in Wells Branch (about 5-8 minutes from our house). We pulled out our trusty frisbee and walked along the course. It wasn't as green as idyllic as it looks in the picture to the right. (Like most places in Austin the grass was dead because of the drought )  It was fun to get out and do something, but the course was really confusing. We never actually found holes 5 or 6; we just faked it.

Daniel would also like me to note that we didn't play 'traditional' frisbee golf. We used a regular size frisbee, and we just took turns throwing our one frisbee instead of each having a frisbee (or set of frisbees of our own). Basically, I think he made me explain that last part to see how many times I would type frisbee in one paragraph!

Monday I babysat a couple of kids from our ward while their parents supervised the moving of their belongings from their Austin apartment to their new Austin house. We watched the beginnings of a lot of Netflix shows and the entirety of an animated Stewart Little show. (He goes and learns to survive in the wilderness.) The baby was in a stage where she missed her mom so she cried unless you picked her up, or she fell asleep for most of the three and a half hours. She finally decided she liked being here just before her parents came to get her. The moral of the story is that baby don't like me, and that even human like mice need to learn to live in the wild.

Daniel has been working on his project at work. He says that progress seems slow, but that they aren't behind schedule or anything. He continues to have little classes he takes during the day to introduce him to the company and things. Soon he is starting a month long class that even assigns out of "class" work. We'll see how that goes!

We are excited for Conference and the good weather that is returning this weekend! The weather man always says "Maybe this will be our last 100+ day!" and I always hope that he is right.

Hello World

(Those of you who are familiar with computer programming will be familiar with this title. For the benefit of everyone else, "Hello World" is the first program you ever write in a particular language.)

Many of you may know that I've been working on a nativity set like the one my grandma had made with us when I was little. It's a plastic canvas & yarn project, along with a few other little bells & whistles (none of which are actually bells, OR whistles). Since I was able to finish up this last week, Elissa decided to finally invite me as an author for our blog and have me write an entry in honor of the achievement. That's why there's no food yet.

As I was working on the project, Elissa made sure that we named all of the animals. Some of them aren't very imaginative, but for whatever reason, all of the sheep got European-sounding G names, like Gretchen, Gretel, Gertrude, etc. Also, I'm not sure why they're all girls, but that's ok, because the rest of the animals are 'obviously' boys. The kings posed a big challenge, because I think the craft world has changed what they sell since the pattern was designed. I was supposed to use beads to make little bottle-type things for them to hold, but I could only find sets of like 20 large beads for way more than I wanted to pay for them. So, we got creative and invented boxes for them to hold. We used the one the pattern provided, then decided to make an octagonal box and a treasure chest with a curved lid. We think they turned out nice. The other major change was that we changed the colors so that the men weren't stuck in pastels and pinks. Here's a picture:

We also went to the orchestra this last week -- the Austin Civic Orchestra. We found out about it from my boss, who plays violin for them. The concert was the 'Looney Tunes Greatest Hits' as he put it. We liked it though -- it had classics like "Where's the Beef" (okay, that's an official title), Beethoven's 5th, the 2001: A Space Odyssey opening theme, and more modern stuff like Harry Potter main theme, etc. For a non-profit group, they were excellent. We had a great time.

Provo Visitors

This week was kind of exciting. The BYU football team came down to Austin. Daniel and I got to go to the football team fireside. It was pretty cool. There was a cool musical number where Brian Smith sang a solo, and the team sang "We'll Bring the World His Truth. A couple of team members gave their testimony of the gospel as well as their stories of coming to BYU and becoming missionaries. Bronco Mendenhall and his wife gave the closing remarks.

Sunday our ward literally doubled in size for sacrament meeting because of all the people who came down for the game. Our whole chapel and cultural hall were filled up! We are usually pretty crowded with the pews and the over flow, but this was crazy!

This weekend Daniel and I worked on our craft projects. Daniel is almost done with his nativity set that he has been making for almost a year now. It is pretty cool! He has a few sheep left to make, and then he will need to find a new project to keep him occupied.

Saturday I decided that our living room needed a rug.  I also decided that I needed something to do. So, I started making a rug. I stole some of Daniel's left over yarn and started working. I'm not sure how other people don't have lines from when they change colors, but I guess it gives my rug a little character or something. I was pretty excited, so I posted a picture of it!

This weekend we are hoping to go to the civic orchestra on Saturday. It should be really exciting!  

To the Church and Back Again

This last week hasn't been super exciting,but we did do a few things. One of the first things we did was make fresh tortillas. I had never done it before and neither had Daniel, but we decided that if we neededh to live on food storage some day that tortillas would be a necessary item. They turned out pretty well.  I just made half a batch or so which makes about 10 or so Tortillas because Daniel and I didn't need 20 tortillas this last week!  I followed the recipe on this website /http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2009/10/29/whole-wheat-tortillas/ but I just used multi purpose flour instead of whole wheat flour. This is the recipe:

Whole Wheat Torillas
4 cups of whole wheat flour (fine)
¼ tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
1 cup of warm water (may need a little more – I usually do!)
¼ cup cooking oil

We also ended up going to the ward building several times. Wednesday we went to the building for recommend interviews. In case anyone was worried, we both passed! Afterward, we stopped at the grocery store for oatmeal (which was half off) and ice cream (which was on sale, and we had a coupon) The ice cream was a little disappointing (I think it was on sale because it was a little old.) But, I made some stove top granola with the rest which turned out pretty well.

Thursday I went to our Relief Society activity which was an "episode" of Food Storage Jeopardy. I won two cans of tuna fish as a door prize. Most of the ladies had a good time, and the presentation was informative. I think the storage coordinator was right in saying with disaster so close to home this week that most of us have been thinking about getting our food storage together. (Oh, in case anyone was worried, we are just fine. The Austin fires weren't near our apartment, and we didn't have to evacuate or anything.)

Sorry our blog is late this week, since I went to the meeting last night and came home a little late, there wasn't much time for blogging! I'll do better next week!

To Next Week and Beyond!

This week was not a very exciting week for us. I know I start my blog off every week saying that it wasn't an exciting week and then somehow come up with a bunch of things that we did. This week is going to be different, but I'm going to come up with something for you to read since you came all the way to the blog to read about our week.

Last Saturday we finally finished setting up our new checking account and closing our old checking account. We have been slowly working on moving over payments and things from our old card, and Saturday we finally were able to close our other account. (That is right crazy, mean Internet people, that account information you may or may not have been gathering and intending to use is now useless.) The whole thing was a vaguely frustrating experience because if things were left up to us, we would have gotten to keep our free, no strings attached account, but things were not left up to us. We had a really nice banker named Alison, though, and if you are ever in our part of Texas and need a banker, I would suggest her. We also ended up talking to the branch manager, who treated us like we were twelve or something. It is okay because we are younger and she probably has way more knowledge and experience being a "grown up" way longer than us.

Daniel and I also decided to start exercising in the mornings because I'm home all day and Daniel is at a desk. I mean it probably still isn't enough steps for me to not be living a sedentary life style yet, but we will maybe work up to that. Mostly we have gone on walks around the block and played some Wii sports. We just finished our fourth morning, and I'll say that I've been sore for four days! Hopefully it gets better, but even if it doesn't I feel better getting out and doing something every day.

Our title hopefully means that next week we will have more exciting things to share, maybe even pictures. . . We might even try making our own fresh tortillas this next week. So tune in next week for our next post!

Park, Pizza, and French Fries

This week we didn't do a whole lot of things, but we did do a few, so we are going to blog about those. Saturday we helped one of the members of our Sunday School class with his Eagle Scout project. It was a pretty cool project. They were laying small cement pads to keep in granite 1/4 mile markers along a walking trail in a Round Rock park. It was good to get out and walk around (We set wood frames in pre-dug holes along the path.) It was pretty hot outside by the time we got done with that job. Daniel and I felt really hot and tired by that point, and we slowly got back to the car. But all in all, it was fun to help with a project,and to move around a little bit.

Sunday we taught Sunday School, and we decided to make treats for the class as a part of our lesson. We made a fruit pizza crust at home and then had the class mix up the frosting and put on the fruit. A 1/3 of the class was not interested in eating the treats, but there were plenty for those who did want them!

This week we also tried out the Five Guy's down here in Austin. (Daniel would like to note that we do talk about food pretty much every week on this blog. That is true, but our food adventures are more exciting than our sitting around the apartment adventures.) The burgers were excellent juicy and fresh. The potatoes were from Rigby Idaho, ( I always check to see where the potatoes come from when we go to five guys) but the fries were not well salted so they were a little disappointing. We were also sad to discoverer that they do not have any fry sauce down here at the the one we visited. Maybe next time we will ask for some extra mayo since they don't seem to have the fry sauce.

Our Future is So Bright that We Need Sunglasses

Well, our future is bright, but this week only Daniel got sunglasses. They are pretty cool. He also visited the eye doctor, and his glasses were a pretty close match to his new prescription, so Daniel decided to get some new prescription sunglasses for driving. He says it feels like he has "super vision" when he wears them to drive. I don't know about that, but he does seem to be able to see pretty well when he is driving the car without any pesky glare! Anyway, they are pretty glass awesome, and we think that an "unspecified" Vision Center should pay us for advertising on our blog. Okay, Just kidding about the advertising part.

This Monday was also our anniversary. We went out to eat at one of Daniel's new favorite Austin restaurants, Firebowl. They serve Chinese food in a cool sit down crossed with fast food atmosphere. Daniel had the orange peel chicken and I had sweet and sour. They were both pretty good. When we got home Daniel hosted a private dance for me. We both got dressed up in fancy clothes, and while I was getting ready, Daniel moved our furniture, set up music and mood lighting. It was a really fun, special surprise! We had a great night remembering that we still like each other even if we have been married a whole two years.

One (Mostly) Boring Week

This week we haven't done a whole lot, but we'll tell you about the adventures we did have. Saturday we decided to go see some neighborhoods around Austin/Round Rock. I decided that Daniel needed to try Round Rock's "famous" donuts. (I had them when we were down here in November.) You might not be able to see it from the picture very well, but they are actually orange. The dough is orange and Daniel thinks that they make the glaze look a little orange to enhance the orange effect of the donuts. I am not sure about that, but they are definitely orange, and tasty. (They remind Daniel of Kristi's donuts. They remind me of Stokes donuts in Burley when they are fresh on Friday nights.) Basically they are a yeast rise donut that they cook every day. The ones we had were warm and a little melty.

The donut part of the adventure was successful. The looking for a favorite neighborhood was less successful. We don't have a favorite, but Daniel liked most of the neighborhoods we looked at, so apparently I picked out good ones. I guess that just means we have more options when we save up enough for a house someday.

Daniel's work is going pretty well. Except this week he was working on a detailed block diagram filed that got corrupted. So he got to spend some time today trudging through the XML style stuff. He basically edited the file and found the problem. So that is good. He has been busy getting things done at work. I think he likes that.

Basically, we had a boring week, but now you all know all about it!
Love you all!

We Can Never Be Movie Critics

So, our title is from an episode of The Office we watched. Andy says, "I could never be a movie critic because I am not deep enough. I could be a food critic, 'that muffin is bad'; I could be a an art critic,' that painting is bad' . . . " We have decided that we do not go on enough adventures of our own, so we can't be movie critics. We can, however, be book critics, which is something we did this week in full force. (No offence to people who loved/might love/wrote these books. We are sure that you are great people.) Daniel started Running with the Demon by Terry Brooks because I liked some of his other books, but Daniel only made it a couple of chapters in the book before he declared it frustrating and refused to read it anymore. I started The Children's Book, I don't remember the author. The cover made it sound really interesting. I understand that it takes a while to get interesting sometimes, but after 5 chapters and 60 pages I was still bored. (Sorry Mr. Roper, I didn't make it to page 100 like you told me to always do before giving up on a book.) Don't worry everyone, we went back to the library and got new, interesting books. We'll have to see if they end up being boring; we'll let you know when we finish them up.

This week we also decided to try roasting marshmallows over our gas stove top since all outside fires are banned until further notice. They turned out pretty well. Daniel was better at it than me, but he is better at it when we have a real campfire too. He decided to make me feel better about it by deciding to lick the fork off which ended up burning his mouth. The edges were cool, but it was really hot where the marshmallow was still on the fork. *Lesson* Don't stick hot things in your mouth even when they have yummy gooey marshmallow on them.

Saturday we went and got our tires rotated. It didn't take too long even though there was a really long line of people in front of us when we got to the store. We flipped through some magazines and got right out of there. Overall, it wasn't a bad experience getting our car tires checked on. Sunday we helped give the 5th Sunday discussion. It went pretty well. The 20 or so people in our group seemed excited to do service and help people. That is good. We also learned that there is a secret lesson manual on LDS.org for our Sunday school class that includes pictures, and stories that isn't in the regular online version. It is helpful to know what story you are supposed to be telling!

That was our week! Hope you all have a great week this week too!

Cake Adventures

Cake Adventures

This week we were a part of a red velvet cake competition with some friends in Utah. (We love you Jason and Emily!) We were buying our ingredients at the store and decided we weren't willing to get a 1/4 cup of food coloring; that was just too disgusting. So we made the excuse that since originally they used beet juice or no coloring at all to make the cake red, we just wouldn't color the cake at all. I decided it might be fun instead to make a red and velvet cake. We made a layer cake with our velvet (no food coloring) cake on the outsides and a layer of strawberry jello in the middle. I put the jello in a 9" circle pan (the same size as our cake) covered the pan in wax paper and then poured an 1/8th of an inch in the pan. Daniel wasn't so sure that this would taste good or work at all, but since he is a good sport, he tried it with me anyway. (Don't worry, he decided that it was totally worth it once we'd eaten it.) He was happy that we put on some cream cheese frosting either way!

The second part of our cake adventure was to give away our cake! It was a contest with our friends so we also made cupcakes which we gave away. (They didn't have any jello). We thought it was a good excuse to give some people in our ward treats!

Mortagage book

This week we also went to the library. I ended up getting a book about mortgages call Mind Your Own Mortgage. It was a pretty interesting read for a non-fiction book. It talks about America's view on mortgages and how that needs to change or risk another housing crash. Then it gives tips on how to shop for a mortgage, and then a whole section on ways to pay off your mortgage (and why you should want to pay it off early). Anyway, it was pretty good, for a book about real stuff that is.

Design and planning

Daniel is busy designing and planning at work. He says that it is okay, but he doesn't really get to building anything for a while until all the planning and designing is done. He seems pretty excited about the project he is working on though, even if it is just planning. He could be doing much more boring things!

Church Stuff

This Sunday we are teaching our 12/13 year old Sunday School class about how being prepared and righteous brings us peace. It is a pretty cool lesson, and a really good idea. I hope our class decides they want to learn about it too!

We are also teaching a fifth of our ward the fifth Sunday discussion. We are going to talk all about our ward service day that is coming up soon. Hopefully our fifth of the ward wants to do service (maybe before our lesson, but definitely afterward!)

That is our week this week!

We love you guys!

An Uneventful Week

This week was a pretty uneventful week. We didn't do too much, but we'll tell you about what we did do! So Saturday we tried out Chuy's TexMex Restaurant. We ended up waiting for a half hour to get a seat because it was a busy Saturday, but it was fine. They food was Los Hermanos good. Not better, not worse, just the same. Daniel liked it better than me, I think. We just don't like paying for huge portions that we have to reheat later. We would love to pay less for one portion! Oh well, it is better than paying twenty dollars and getting lettuce with a nice dot of sauce on the plate or something. It was fun to try a new restaurant and get out together.

Sunday we made tin foil dinners on our george foreman grill. We weren't sure it would work because neither of us had ever done it, but it was pretty easy. We just wrapped everything up in tin foil, put it on the heated grill, and let it cook for about 15 minutes. It didn't heat up our house and most importantly it tasted good! (Daniel thinks that most importantly it didn't ruin our grill. Probably good too)

We also went to what Daniel has lovingly named "the crazy hippie store." We got lots of vegetables and fruits. They also had hamburger and salmon on a great sale so we got some of that too! All in all we got way more food on our budget than ever before here in Texas. We also got blue bell ice cream so no one would think we were crazy health nuts when we left the store. (Also because it was on sale, but that is a less important reason.)

Hope you all have a great week!

Daniel the Spy and Other Adventures

This week Daniel (with the help of a friend) decided that going to work is sometimes like being a spy. So, now I can tease him about being a spy. Really is it because there are secrets he can't tell people until after a product has been released, and some of them have to stay secrets forever! He has been busily working on his secret projects at work, and I think he is having a good time for the most part. Supposedly the other day he got birthday cake; that sounded fun to me. I think we are both having to get used to Daniel going away all day and me not coming with him -- we used to see each other all the time during the day. I think we are getting better at having our time apart though. Daniel also finished up his mormon.org profile -- he says it isn't that exciting.

This week we decided to make orange chicken and fried rice better than we ever have before! I think we were pretty successful. Since I made the rice later in the day, I put it in the freezer on a cookie sheet so it could cool off before we  got in the freezer. That helped our batch of fried rice turn our really well because the grains of rice were able to be individual grains instead of sticky clumps. Then I decided to try and shallow fry our chicken chunks for flavor. (I've been watching too many cooking shows on Hulu.com, obviously.) That turned out pretty well, I'll make some changes for next time so the chunks have more coating on them! In case you were wondering, we totally cheated and used the bottled panda express sauce. We aren't total culinary geniuses or anything.

I've had lots of time hanging around the house. I've watched lots of episodes as I finished this project. I think some of the colors the designer picked out are kind of funny, but the pattern is pretty cool. ( This is for my Mom and Dad because they got married in the Salt Lake Temple; they just don't have it yet. Maybe I should hold it ransom until they come down to Texas to visit :P ) It was a lot work, but I think it turned out looking pretty good. Hopefully my parents find a cool place to hang it up in their house when they get it.

And that is all this week from our little Austin family. Wish us luck with the heat, and have a good day every day!

Sweet Pork and Other Adventures.

This week Daniel had two days off from work for the holiday! Monday, the 4th, we made sweet pork burritos. They were tasty, and then we made a few more and put them in the freezer so Daniel could take them to work when he gets too tired of sandwiches. We didn't have any fireworks because of the drought none of the cities in the county were allowed to have any fireworks at all. Some kids did play with some behind our dumpster though. (We only know because two fire trucks had to come and put out the fire in our dumpster.)

Tuesday we went to get our new Texas driver's licenses. First we got in a long line to get a few forms and a number so that we could sit in a big group of uncomfortable chairs waiting for our turn. We actually didn't have to wait that long in the seats, but we did laugh that sitting in the line was like waiting for a raffle ticket number to get called or getting called down on the price is right. We think someone should make a short movie about it, but that is just us. We also finally cleaned up our second bedroom where we store all of our things. It now looks a whole lot better! Instead of a bunch of boxes out, they are all put away in the closet!

Finally, Daniel headed to work and seemed to enjoy it. He got to lead a meeting. He says he made some mistakes with the meeting, but it is his first time. He also made design recommendations on the project that he is working on; he likes to have some control over the things that he is working on. I worked on my newest cross stitch project and worked on things around the house.

All in all, we are having a fun time here in Texas! We don't really go outside because it is so hot, but we find lots of fun things to do inside. We drink lots of cold treats and eat lots of ice cream, but that is just to replace all of the brownies we used to eat.

Texas Adventures (and Regular days)

So far in Texas we haven't been on too many adventures. But, this week we did try an "Austin Original," Pizza Paradise. (The name made me think of Pizza Planet, and didn't help that they had a white pickup truck in the driveway to make deliveries.) I thought it was pretty good pizza. Daniel thought it was pretty good as far as I can tell. Coupons are a good incentive when we pick out something to try that is completely new. It gives us a good excuse to pick one new thing over another.

Since moving here, we also tried the famous Blue Bell Ice Cream. My personal opinion is that the stuff in the ice cream is what makes it awesome. If I had to choose, I would get BYU creamery Vanilla, but Blue Bell puts stuff in their ice cream. So far we've tried cookie dough, and dessert trio (it has real pieces of cookies, and brownies, and cake!) Anyway, ice cream is a great treat because it is so hot outside all the time! (It also tastes good). We have also made smoothies and orange julius because our usual treats, like brownies and cookies, make the house too warm.

Our day to day lives haven't been too exciting. Daniel did a little more training, and got his first project to work on. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it's a project for him to do while he is at work instead of more training. (Which is coming, but not immediately, so he gets to work on his project). We also got a pay check, which is better than paying to do work, for sure!

I've been at home mostly. I got lots of fruits and vegetables at the grocery store to eat. I used my skills from home to help pick out corn, and I like to smell all the fruits to decide which ones I want. Basically, it takes forever. (Daniel goes crazy, but he knows that I like to be out, when I get out.) I worked on my newest cross stitch project this week. It is coming very well, as far as I can tell.

Figuring Things Out

So, this is another week here in Texas! Daniel is busy doing work. He set up his cubicle, and his work computer. Today he had his second day of "BYU EE in two days." He is glad that he knows what is going on, but he is kind of bored doing review stuff. We both agreed that it is better than he knows what is going on; instead of him having to learn four years of material in two days. Either way, I think he is having a good time, and it is clear he learned the things to help make him successful at his job.

As for me, I've been home most of the week. I've seen lots of movies, tv, and documentaries now. I even saw a friend of mine on a show that they filmed in Utah. (I know that because they unabashedly used the University Mall in Orem.) Yesterday, I had a Relief Society meeting. We talked about finances. I was in the "investing and making money group." I learned a few things about investing. (the key thing, always take company matching or stock benefits.) Then, we talked about how women are more and more becoming entrepreneurs. I'm still not sure I'm going to be an entrepreneur, but it did tell me that I should find something that correlates my skills and interests.

I also started and finished this little cross stitch bear. That is how much time I've had around the house. Just me and this little bear project.

Graduation

This week was Daniel's second week of training; today he starts "real work."  As for me, I'm still looking for a job. I did apply for a job at NI (where Daniel works) as a technical writer. As far as I can tell they haven't looked at my resume, but that means they haven't rejected it yet! That has mostly been our week this week, so, like the post title suggests the rest of the post is going to be about graduation!

To preface, for anyone who didn't know, Daniel and I didn't walk at graduation because I had a friend getting married, but we did watch the commencement on BYUTV online. (If it is posted on their website, it was a pretty awesome talk by Elder Scott!)

We ended up going back to campus with my parents to take pictures later. (As a side note, it is really nice to take pictures when there aren't thousands of people trying to take the same pictures!) We got a few weird looks from spring term students, but I'm sure they've seen weirder things happening on campus!

Anyway, we took some of the traditional pictures. Here we are, "the world is our campus." We are pretty happy about it.

We also took some less traditional graduation pictures.

We thought it would be fun to have a pictures at the Maeser building because if any building at BYU looks like a building of higher learning, it would definitely be the Maeser Building. It is a pretty awesome building to visit!

Little known facts about the Maeser Building:
(1) the Maeser building is a high ranking contender for "hardest building to get a cart into" (what I learned from work)
(2) Maeser was buried below the basement at one point. (what I learned from New Student Orientation)
(3)One of the most photographed spots for BYU engagement pictures (Complete conjecture on my part)

We also took one of the Clyde Building with Daniel because he spent most of his years at BYU between its walls. I told him he couldn't have "if found, return to the Clyde Buildling" shirt because he needed to be returned to our apartment. Either way, he spent a lot of time there on the fourth floor.

I took a picture at the JFSB because I had a fair number of my classes in the basement (or as I refer to it, the bunker). And, it is a pretty cool looking building to take pictures. Also, the English department in based on the 4th floor, so even though English classes are spread around campus, this would be the department's home.

I had lots of fun in my classes, at work, and doing stuff on campus,  but on the top of my list of awesome things about BYU is meeting Daniel!

So, we had a wonderful experience during our time at BYU. We took fun classes and hard classes. We learned a lot about different topics. In short, we had a good time and the BYU experience was a great experience!

Work and Stuff

So, this was Daniel's first week of work. He went to work Monday and did the "welcome to work" stuff. And now, for the next two weeks he is taking a training course. I don't think he really likes being stuck in a classroom for eight hours everyday, but I also think that he will enjoy solving problems instead of just learning in a classroom. He will survive, of course -- he is already half way done with training!

As for me, I've been doing projects and work around the house. Nothing too exciting nostly making food and doing laundry. Today, I organized our food storage so I know what is in our pantry. Before this, everything has been in boxes so I have had to search to find anything to make food. Now I can find things, and I know what I have (or don't have). Hopefully, that helps me figure out what to get for food storage, and what to buy at the store. I've also been busy sending out job applications, and looking for things to do. Hopefully something will pop out at me soon!

To be honest, I'm a little jealous that Daniel has something to do all day, and I don't yet. But, I'm sure I'll find something to do soon, and Daniel is excited to get to work!

Happy Birthday!

This week there isn't a lot to post about. Daniel and I have just been enjoying our last few days of vacation. We have watched TV episodes on Netflix, and we even tried out my new roller blades early one morning. They were pretty fun! Tomorrow or the day after we are going to go on a bike ride in the morning before it gets hot outside.

One morning this week, we spent a few hours helping at the Bishop's Store House in Round Rock. We got to bag up broccoli, grapes, cabbage, and oranges. It was fun to help, and they even fed us lunch (chili dogs with cheese). This is our second time going to help up there -- we figured that while we have time that we can help out. This time we got more colorful food because we got oranges instead of potatoes, but other than they were the same. We had a good time helping out there.

For my birthday, we decided to go to the San Antonio Temple. The temple is beautiful and even though it was 100 degrees outside, it was nice and cool inside. I even got asked if I wanted a shawl. (I didn't need one, but that shows how air conditioned it was.) Then we came home and relaxed, not super exciting, but a good birthday!

Daniel starts work on Monday. He says that he is excited and nervous. Our vacation ends when he heads to work, but I still need to find something to do with my time. I'm hoping to find a job that I want to do. I've sent out some resumes and applications, but no bites yet. It is still early in my search. We are still having a good time here in Texas, and we are not dead! We do miss everyone back home, though.


Elissa and Daniel

The New Apartment (with pictures)

Since we've moved into our little our apartment, we have been busy trying to make it look like a little house and not like some sort of storage locker. I think we've done pretty well so far. We have everything out of boxes and things are put away now. We can even find our basic stuff like food, games, and clothes. This is what it looked like before we decorated or moved in or anything.

Here is our finished living room. We decided that it would be fun for it to look coordinated so we have blue curtains and blue blankets and stuff. We also decided to use one of our book cases to put our games on so that they are easy to get to and see. The picture under this is just another shot of the living room so that you can see all of Daniel's hard work putting up the pictures

more living room with pictures!

Well, Daniel says that he doesn't want to take credit for all the work he did putting up the pictures and dealing with me as I made him move pictures back and forth several times. So, I guess this is me not giving him any credit for the time he put in. If he asks, just say that you heard that it took ten minutes or so and that it wasn't that difficult. Or better, say, I heard you didn't do anything at all; isn't that why you are sitting on the couch in that picture?

This is our game bookcase. Don't be offended if your favorite game isn't on the shelf. There are some hiding on the bottom shelf you can't see, and we will probably get more in the future. We even got a new game, Carcassonne; it is pretty fun. This is a closer up picture of our little picture section too, in case you were wondering.

Well, this is the break between our dining room and our living room. Basically they are the same room, but we decide to split them up with the couch and then decided to make them different colors so you can tell the difference -- the dining room is yellow and the living room is blue.

This is the dining room with our table, our pineapple and our front door. Oh, and to the left there is a water heater and past that the washer and dryer. You know, it's an all service dining room --eat a snack and clean the stains off of your clothes when you are done.

This is our bedroom which is pretty self explanatory.

We put up pictures on the wall, and then we made our bed. We even hung curtains for this pictures so you wouldn't think we live in squaller or anything.

What you can't see in this picture is the closet (which has two doors, but is one big closet), our dresser, and our table of random stuff.

 We are also having lots of fun getting to know the area and our new ward. It has been good so far, but it has been warm! We helped at the bishop's storehouse and have gone on several walks.

So, we are out for now! Just thought we'd give you a glimpse of our new apartment.

-Elissa and Daniel

Moving to Texas

     So, for all of you who didn't already know, Daniel and I moved to Texas this last week. We packed up all of our things and put them in a moving truck, with lots of help from family and friends. I ended up renting the moving truck, and it was pretty crazy. But, we must be sort of real grown ups if we rented a moving truck all by ourselves and packed up all of our things into boxes.

This is a picture of our stuff all packed up in our second bedroom.

     Then we drove, and drove, and slept, and drove some more. (Yes, in case you were wondering, I drove the moving truck too.) Driving through Utah was interesting; we saw orange rocks and cool formations. Then, Colorado had trees and fields, but as we drove into New Mexico we realized that the most interesting thing to see was that the road was red sometimes. (and we followed and followed and followed the red pavement road) No offence intended to you native New Mexicans out there, but what we saw of New Mexico was pretty boring.

This is a picture of the red road.

I thought it was interesting that we were right next to Route 66 for part of the time. I felt bad for the original road trippers driving through New Mexico. I guess it was flat, so good gas mileage, right?

    Then we got to Texas, and the barrenness turned back into fields. I know most people wouldn't be excited about it, but once a farm girl, always a farm girl I guess. (For all of you farm boys and girls there were pivots and wheel lines and tractors and pretty much everything else farm like out and about.) We got to see some friends in Abilene, and that was fun.

Our "Welcome To Texas" sign picture

     Besides just having "Welcome to Texas" signs they also have "drive friendly" signs which we didn't get a picture of. (But, I think there is one of them down the street from us, so maybe all of you will get to see a picture yet, maybe). But, remember, drive friendly everybody -- especially if the person near you is driving a moving truck because they need all the help they can get.

     Finally, we got to our apartment and with the help of a few new ward members and a little neighbor we managed to get everything inside. For the last few days we've been sorting out everything and getting things out of boxes. Hopefully everything will be unpacked soon so we can take some pictures of the apartment to show all of you our hard work! Until then, enjoy our new blog and our pictures!

Elissa and Daniel

P.S. I'm not sure it has totally sunk in for us that we are moved in to Texas yet. I'm sure it will feel more real soon enough though, but if anyone would like to try and convince us that we are somewhere else, you may give it a try.