Halloween Time!

Me and Aaron didn't really have any plans for Halloween and were pretty determined to have some fun so we asked around to our friends, and no one really had plans...So we couldn't let a fun holiday go to waste! We had a bunch of friends over for some games and good food and we had a great time! The girls dominated Taboo and Mad Gab.. let's be honest: we were made for talking. We even got a few trick-or-treaters so I was glad I bought an emergency stash of milky ways.

Aaron as a North Carolina fan again, and I wore a Spanish dancer dress.. but was to lazy to accessorize to complete the costume.

Senator John McCain (Bennett) and Gov. Sarah Palin) Jenna. They were way cute!

Me and punk rocker Val being weird.. well, mostly Val being weird. I'm pretty normal

Val and Taylor, and their friend Aaron

On Monday, we went to a Halloween party with some of our friends from Apx that we met this summer. Aaron is beginning to see that I am like obsessed with holidays... I'm already looking at Christmas decorations and we haven't even hit Halloween yet, but too bad! We didn't wanna spend a lot, so we scrounged up stuff we aleady had, so Aaron went as North Carolina fan (he IS that in real life, so I argued that it wasn't really a costume), and I a pirate. And we happened to win the 3-legged race, so we're pretty proud of that. =)Me and cute lil pregnant Tash (I swear I look more pregnant than her.. And I'm not!!) The boys, Jason (aka Burger King) and Ryan (with Tasha's shorts on) haha The boys chowing down during the Donut Eating Contest.. the girls TOTALLY showed them up the next round haha!
Another pic of the donut race.. what was funny was that Aaron and Ryan, who are good buddies ended up getting a little too close to each other, looking like they were kissing, and then after the game, Ryan had Aaron's white make-up all over his face!! It was HILARIOUS, I'm getting a little worried though that they may be getting too close...

Brent the pimp and Aaron. Brent and Angela's dog even had a pimp costume on, it was AWESOME!

The Latest

I have good news! I just got hired as a personal trainer at 24 hour Fitness! While we were in Baltimore all summer, I had to get CPR/AED certified (which wasn't easy out there) and spent most the time studying for the National Academy of Sports Medicine exam, which I took after we got back to Utah, and luckily passed! After interviewing at different gyms and job searching, I had almost given up with 24 hour because they hadn't called me in a while, yet that was the place I most wanted to work. I know prayers are answered, even with the petty things.. when we do our part, the Lord certainly does his, because I really needed this job and had to put in the effort!

While I'm personal training, Aaron is working for Apx still, in the inside sales office, making outbound calls based on leads that they get. It can pay really well, and our goal right now is to pay down the Pleasant Grove house that we own and is being rented out. I'll be starting school at BYU again winter semester, trying to finish up my Exercise Science degree as soon as possible. I'm taking 3 online classes right now, so that helps, although I've never been one with great self-discipline! Aaron is good, though at getting on my case and making sure I'm making good progress.

Weekend FUN

Yesterday we got together with Val and Taylor to hike the Y and test our physical fitness. We've concluded that you're never in very good shape after you get married! It was really fun though and a gorgeous day- probably one of the last before winter hits. We packed up a picnic but ended up being too winded to really eat much at the top! The fall colors were so pretty! We're at the very top of the Y hereVal and Taylor just bought a piano so whenever we're over there, we have to take advantage of it! I'm a little jealous but at least they were nice enough to give us their keyboard that was replaced with their piano =)

Last week my family came down for the BYU game-- (against New Mexico, BEFORE the major butt-kicking we had against TCU). We also celebrated James' 16th birthday, so everyone headed to Cafe Rio then back to our place for cake & ice cream and opening presents!

Grandpa came with us, along with Valerie and Taylor. And somehow only Aimee knew we were taking this picture lol..

Baby Ali and me. She's so cute!

Getting settled in

Mission Reunions!
I had made Aaron promise me that we'd make it back to Utah in time for my first mission reunion, and since we had left a week earlier than originally planned, I was fine with that! Aaron also had 2 during Conference weekend with each mission president, so we were able to go to all 3 in Salt Lake.
President and Sister Aumeister from Aaron's mission (Rostov, Russia) came down.. they were so cute!

Sisters Kailahi, Pieper, Muir (the President's wife), me and Whipple. I was companions with Kailahi and Whipple and love them to death, it was so fun seeing everyone again. My mission president and wife, after being home just 3 months are accepting another assignment now in Chile (learning Spanish from Portuguese) and Pres. Muir will be director the the financial program down there. They will now have lived out of the U.S. for 13 years, working for the church. They are AMAZING!

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!

This past Monday, we went over to Tasha and Ryan's for FHE and carved pumpkins! I haven't done that for a few years, so we had fun with them and a couple other friends. Ryan made us homemade ice cream and it was way good.

Our Orem Condo Beautification

We finally arrived back to Utah about 2 weeks ago, and it has been hectic ever since. We decided to tackle a bunch of projects before we moved all our stuff from the Pleasant Grove house, and it's still not even done, but it's looking lots better...

This was our main family room right when you walk in, and not only is it small, but it had this cheap ceiling fan, broken blinds, and dinged up walls, all from previous renters, so since we own it, we decided to fix it how we want it!! SOOO we took several trips to Home Depot for paint and whatnot.

We painted the walls a light brownish color, and this is Aaron and Bennett trying to take the crappy fan down, which they replaced with a nicer wood one. And OILA, we have a new family room. This green looking dresser holding the TV really is a dresser from Aaron's childhood, it was bright blue, and we tried to at least fix it, and it works, so we were glad to not have to spend ANY money whatsoever on new furniture in our place. Aaron also put up these blinds. We had some difficulties with projects as almost everything Aaron attempted ended up not working right, and we made SEVERAL returns to Home Depot and Walmart.Our kitchen was kinda blah, so we ended up painting that too and getting some stuff on the walls.

We copied our friends, Ryan and Tasha, and got this massive mirror form IKEA this week, and we love it. We're just missing chairs, so we ordered those also for our kitchen yesterday.
Our blue bedroom.. we had some issues with the paint, since it was the first room we did and we didn't know we were supposed to pull the tape off right away, and the paint peeled in spots. Unless you look up close, it still looks pretty! I never was a fan of blue but somehow I don't mind our new room.

On the way home...

Once the summer ended and we were able to take our little season-ending New York trip (which I had ALWAYS wanted to do), Aaron, was able to do what HE most wanted to do: see Chapel Hill in North Carolina.

The trip from Baltimore to Utah takes about 3 days at a steady pace, traveling just through the days. We, on the other hand, chose the long route, and had driven from New York basically, so our return trip was 44 hours long, crammed in our little Honda civic! But we figured there wouldn't be any other time in our life that we could actually take our time seeing things on the east coast that we otherwise probably wouldn't. We took the southern route, stopping in North Carolina to see the Tarheels campus. Aaron was pretty much in heaven, since he is obsessed with their basketball team and blew a good amount of money in the gift shop! Aaron snuck into the basketball court while I sat in the car, protecting it from getting a ticket. I guess he tried asking to meet the coach, but that didn't really pan out. Too bad...
Yes, Aaron did buy this hair.

University of North Carolina campus, in front of the football field.


As we were leaving the gift shop, I spotted this picture of Tyler Hansbrough, and Aaron wanted to stalk him.. or at least find out where his classes were and get an autograph. That didn't happen either.

After North Carolina, we headed down through South Carolina where I hoped my brother Craig's mission president would let us see him, but he didn't. So we continued on to Atlanta. My cousin, Amber & her husband Brandon live just outside of Atlanta so we stopped and said hi to their family for a bit then headed to one of Aaron's best friend's house, Sam, whose family actually helped him get baptized. It was really good meeting them. We stayed the night there, then took off to Memphis.

We love Mississippi for this reason: we were looking for a bathroom break as soon as we crossed the state line, so we get off on the exit that says Rest Stop... and I have never seen anything like it. As this sign says, "Mississippi, the south's warmest welcome," they don't mess around. The "rest stop" was almost like a mini museum, with the cleanest bathrooms ever, and little old ladies inside, offering free soda! It was beautiful in that state too, and Aaron even entertained the idea of us moving there... but I don't see that happening.

You probably can't see this very well, but this is also at the rest stop, Aaron is gesturing at our EXCEEDINGLY full car, with all of our belongings crammed into the back and trunk! After that road trip, I didn't want to sit for 2 days.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

The summer has finally ended!!!
Aaron had extended so we were in Baltimore an extra month, and then after 3 weeks, Aaron came home from knocking and decided he was done selling and that we should take off that night and go to New York!! And I did not hesitate. We drove the 3 1/2 hours to New Jersey, stayed the night in a crappy, smoky hotel, then took the train into the city 10 minutes away the next morning. We ended up staying right in Manhattan at Aaron's friend, Sara's apartment the rest of the time, and it turned out so nice! Here's some of our adventures to mark the first 5 months of our marriage, and the end to an Apx summer!!

The first night in NY, we decided since the Yankees (who Aaron hates) were playing the White Sox (who Aaron loves), we bought scalped tickets once again and were able to see one of the last games in the old Yankee stadium. Yankees won and Aaron was pissed.Here was Time Square, I was loving all the shopping and how everything was so bright and crazy down there! More of Times Square... I thought of how cool it would be to be there for New Years when the ball drops!You can't go to New York without seeing a Broadway play, so we decided on Young Frankenstein, since I'd only heard of it but never seen it, plus I thought it wouldn't be too obnoxious for Aaron. He actually really liked it! It was funny and entertaining although the play started an hour late because of technical difficulties and everyone was annoyed and wanting their money back...
We took a double decker tour bus around all over Manhattan and Brooklyn and learned about some of the cool sites. This building is where Ghostbusters was filmed, at the end with the crazy, scary lady that used to freak me out as a kid.
We were on the bus in the middle of the busy city, and as we were passing, I saw The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on a building, and I'm like.. "Aaron, there's a church!" And then we realized, oh wait, that's the temple!! We barely snapped a picture of it before we barreled down the street.
This is Seaport, the dock that has a little shopping mall, and where boat tours take off. I liked this fancy little Statue of Liberty =)The real thing, from our boat tour! It was really cool seeing the Statue of Liberty, I felt patriotic.
With so many restaurants to choose from, we settled on Bubba Gumps one night, and Aaron is posing in front of a mural of the Jenny boat.

While at Seaport and killing time before our boat tour, we found a Halloween store and messed around.
V for Vendetta... this movie was weird and I didn't get it, but apparently Aaron liked it!
The Empire State Building by day, from the ground...On top of the Empire State Building at night, with Sara, Aaron's friend we stayed with.Gorgeous view!! The city is SO HUGE.Ground Zero: where the World Trade Centers used to be. There is construction going on, where they are leaving a void of where the towers used to be and putting fountains instead. There was a Memorial/museum that we went to, and it was really sombering to be so close to where 9/11 happened, and it felt more real to be with New Yorkers and the fast paced way of life and to realize how recent of an event that was, that it's still a sensitive issue for so many people.While taking our 3-day bus tour, we meant to go downtown, but ended on the route to Brooklyn which we hadn't planned on, but it was fun nonetheless. We ended up hopping off the bus and walking back across the Brooklyn Bridge. I love MACY'S!!! This Macy's in New York is the largest store in the world and it's where they have the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade every year. I was determined to buy some boots while I was in New York and I spent a good hour or 2 trying on tons at Macy's, with Aaron even looking at prices for me! I couldn't justify paying $500 for boots (everything is more expensive in New York) so I came home with clothes instead.. no complaints from me =)Just lovin the tour bus!Beautiful Central Park: New York is soooo busy and has people everywhere, and as soon as we got to Central Park I realized, wow this is the first time I've seen grass anywhere. It's so relaxing and the only getaway from city life.Aaron in front of the famous bridge we saw pictures of all over the city that peddlers were selling and suckered us into buying.Sportin the I love NY t-shirt in front of Central Park with the city skyscrapers in the backgroundThe Bull in the Financial District, by Wall Street I insisted on finding F.A.O Schwarz just so I could play on the piano from BIG! Apparently it's a popular spot- there was an obnoxious lady with her 3-year old that kept taking up the entire keyboard and all we wanted was a few pictures but she was always in the way!! Yup, that's her on the side..Harry Potter made totally out of Legos!! This was pretty sweet.. I wonder how long that took
The little square/fountain outside Sara's apartment where we would buy breakfast and eat it every morning. This was our last day in New YorkGettin ready to leave and catch the train back to New Jersey to get our car. I kept making fun of Aaron because he would carry his duffle bag on his bag like this, like a back pack. How embarrassing! But he wasn't huffing and puffing like I was, hauling my bag around normally so I think this little idea worked.