Monday, June 25, 2012

Cars n stuff

This weekend was strictly business.

For the past month, every time we push on the brakes when we're going slow, the car sounds like we're dragging half of the bottom of the car on the ground. (and when I say "we," I mean "Jason," because I basically never drive except twice a month when we pretty much pretend I have my drivers permit again and let me drive to refresh my memory so that someday when we have two cars, I don't kill myself or somebody else with my lack of driving practice. I like it.)

Anyhow, we took the car in and it was going to be a lotta money for them to replace the brake pads and the rotors. Yayyyy for broken cars!

And yayyyy for Jason, because he studied up on YouTube and googled a lot of stuff and decided he was going to buy some brake pads and rotors and do it himself!

And he did!!

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My job was basically the tool girl/sit-on-the-soccer-ball-er/water-getter/cheerer-onner/chocolate-milkshake-drinker. So that was nice. I was so proud of him for figuring it out all on his own and saving us a bunch of money!! 

It kinda feels like this week is going to be really long. It feels that way because it's 11:00 and I've been at work for only two hours in real time, but I feel like I have been at work for about twelve hours. Hooray.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Things I am happy about

Things I am happy about right now:

 1. Having a clean apartment! Having a husband who helps out around the house (without even being asked!) is the best, ever ever ever. Last night we deep cleaned and it's all so sparkly and shiny and clean right now and I love it.

2. Going to the gym. I had an awesome workout last night. My legs are hurting more and more as the day goes on and I love that feeling and I can hardly wait to go to the gym tonight. (Who am I? That is not normal.)

3. Writing thank you cards! Because a) it gives me something to do at work (hallelujah), and b) I am so sincerely grateful for every single person who thought of us during our wedding!!! So I'm actually fer real having fun with it.

4. That one of the faculty members offered to help Holly and I move out two giant bookshelves and two metal lateral files from the office we're putting a new professor in. Seriously saved us like two hours of trying to figure out how to move those babies. I'm glad I'm Relief Society, not Elder's Quorum.


Other things of note:

1. It's hot right now in Utah. Today it's 99 degrees, and I just ran an errand across campus. I always struggle to decide whether to walk really slow so that I don't sweat, or walk really fast so that I get outta the heat asap. I still don't really know which is best.

2. This sign was in the bathroom today.

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It sincerely concerns me that it's necessary for signs like that to exist. But I can testify: it is important.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

That's that

Yesterday was Brianna's golden birthday. Apparently most people don't celebrate golden birthdays? But it's on Wikipedia for it, so it's a pretty real thing. Bri turned 19 on June 19. Golden birthday. I'll turn 27 on July 27, someday. Golden birthday. Easy peasy!

But Bri has escaped the heat of Utah for the summer, so Cristina and I had a birthday dinner for her on Friday before she flew home. Grilled chicken, ribs, smashed potatoes, grilled vegetables, spinach strawberry salad, rolls, and crepes for dessert. Freaking love dessert crepes.

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In other news, Jas and I went to our first movie together, ever, last weekend. We went to The Avengers, about a month after the rest of America went to it, but you know what? We were just proud we went to a movie. Jason leaned over to me once and said "Amy! We're doing it! We're laughing! We're fitting in!" It was silly. I liked it.

That's really all that I have to say right now. We need to take more pictures. The end.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Thoughts on Marriage

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A lot of people are married. A lot of people that I know are married. I don't just mean people my age, I mean at church and in my home ward and at work and at school. A lot of people are married. And I've received a lot of advice about marriage, and about how to make my marriage the best it can be. I'm grateful for all of that advice, and I know I've only been married for a month and there's going to be a lot more to learn, but I think it can all be summed up in two words. Be nice.

Jason's best friend Egan married his cousin Megan (Jason's cousin, not Egan's cousin) the week after we got married. We went to a barbeque the night before they got married, and while we were there, Jason said to Egan's sister, "Your husband is looking so good! He's lost a lot of weight, hasn't he? He looks like he's been working out." Egan's sister got really excited and said, "You should tell him that! He's been working so hard! He would be so happy to hear that you noticed." I thought that was the sweetest thing. His wife was so proud of him, was so excited for him, and wanted him to be complimented and to feel good.

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On the other hand, a lady and her friend just walked past my office a few minutes ago. One of them was ranting, loudly, about how difficult it is to have to support her husband when he's lecturing their teenage son, when she wants him to deal with it differently and she just wants to "hit him across the head." I hear women complaining about their husbands a lot, about how they wish they would do something differently or act differently or be different. And I get that marriage is two imperfect people trying to be a team, and that it can't always be easy, and that you're going to see things from conflicting perspectives and want to do things in ways that just don't agree. But I don't think that's an excuse to trash-talk your husband.

I think it's perfectly, perfectly possible to never, ever say anything negative about your husband to him or to anybody else. And that's my goal. That's not only my goal, but my promise to myself. It's just not right. It's just not right because we are sealed for time and all eternity, and I don't want anything to ever, ever, ever get back to Jason that I don't mean for him to hear. Because I think he's wonderful and I want him to know that.

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And when it all comes down to it, I think the advice my Grandpa Jensen always gave is the best advice of all. A marriage, he would tell us, is for two people to both give one hundred percent. It's not fifty-fifty. It's not about "well, he did that so I'll do this.." It's just about treating Jason the way that I know he deserves to be treated, to make him feel like the happiest, most spoiled, well-taken-care-of, luckiest man alive.

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That's  marriage.


All photos via Angela McAllister Photography

Monday, June 4, 2012

D.e.l.i.s.h.

After a loooooong week of work, this weekend started with a very grumpy Amy, which Jason dealt with like a champ (as always). I am seriously the luckiest, he is so good at being patient with me! He picked me up from work Friday afternoon bearing three gluten-free Sweet Tooth Fairy cupcakes. Under normal circumstances, cupcakes would win a husband major brownie points, but yummy gluten-free treats are a rarity and Sweet Tooth Fairy really knows what they're doing, so Jason's points tripled. In fact, they taste exactly like regular cupcakes. Needless to say, I was one happy camper.

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This picture's old, from the last time Jas got me gf cupcakes, so it might appear that the focus of the picture is the granola we had just made. Just ignore that. There's cupcakes down there.

And those cupcakes turned the weekend right around and I wore a smile the rest of the time. It was such a fun weekend, between wandering the shops at Riverwoods, driving around fancy neighborhoods, yummy yummy dinners, an awesome workout (I still can't walk straight), boating/skiing/wakeboarding under the only storm cloud of the weekend, family dinner, and, of course, chillin' in our 9000 degree apartment.

Yay for no air conditioning!!!!!

Friday, June 1, 2012

That time we went on our honeymoon

Our wedding day was absolutely perfect. If anything went wrong, I didn't know about it, and I don't want to know about it. I'll put some pictures up soon. It was really the happiest day of my life. I hardly stopped smiling the entire day. My face hurt from smiling so much. It was beautiful.

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We stayed at the Zermatt in Midway on our wedding night. They upgraded us to the sweetest room ever and we were absolutely in love with it..

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Sunday morning we hopped in the car and drove to Vegas. Jason's brother-in-law and sister offered us their timeshare at Westgate Flamingo Bay for our honeymoon, a resort a few miles off the strip. It was incredible. It had a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, a huge bathroom, a king-size bed, and a jacuzzi. Everything was granite and leather and enormous and we were so, so grateful that Annie and Joe offered it to us!!! 

Our honeymoon was the single most relaxing vacation that I have ever been on. Fer real. There was nothing to do and nowhere to be and the only word I could think of to describe it the entire week was BLISS. It could not have been better. 

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Enjoying our huge slab of yummy yummy YUMMY gluten-free cake from our top tier on our drive down :)

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Jas found this cool car....

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Tasting pop from all around the world...or was it just an excuse to sit down for a few minutes? All I can say is, I'm supahhh glad we live in America and have yummy pop...

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Sometimes we just have to take a break from shopping and eat some frozen yogurt. YES PLEASE.

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And our excursion of the week...the Hoover Dam!

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Jas being a rebel

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Uhhhh we asked some lady to take our picture at the resort. It would appear that she was unaware of the function of the zoom button...

IN SUMMARY....
I love Jason and our honeymoon was the greatest week ever and I am so, so, so happy.