We Are Still Alive

Hello, Blog. We have not forgotten you exist, we have just been a bit preoccupied with other demanding tasks. Where do I even begin to update everything we have done in the past month and a half!?

Our move went well and we are so grateful for all of those that helped back in the beginning of August. We live in Archstone Desert Harbor in Peoria, AZ now. The apartment is cute and a HUGE upgrade from our old place, however our neighbors are a bit more questionable. We are in an amazing ward and we had to speak 6 weeks from the first day we moved in! It went well and gave us an opportunity to introduce ourselves to everyone. We have made friends with a few of the younger families in the ward but we still haven't been assigned our callings yet!

Matt is loving Thunderbird, however he gets tired of being one of the few who can speak English fluently. He is learning a lot and is is becoming superior to us less educated beings as he, "has to read Newsweek, the NY Times, and TIME magazine on a daily basis to keep up on the market flow and business direction of our economy". He works at the Alumni call center and is one of their best collectors (of course).

I am working at Ann Taylor Loft and get crazy people yelling at me or PMSing women telling me what to do. OK, it really isn't that bad but being stuck in a estrogen packed store 25+ hours a week can be a little draining. I really like it though. I am one of the sales leads (even though I am their youngest employee) and the discount is AMAZING!! School at GCC is going well. I am taking Pilates, Yoga and Chem and am doing well so far. Just found out that I got a B- in my online Algebra course! So relieved that ship has come and sailed! Phew!

Matt and I hang out with his mission buddy Baldo and his wife Lauren quite a bit. They are a lot of fun and we had numeorus pool parties with them for the last bit of summer.

It is finally cooling down here! Love that I can wear a light jacket now instead of sweating 5 seconds after stepping outside.

Every Sunday we go out to James and Ginger's house for dinner and hanging out. Camri, Troy and Bode are hilarious and we have had a blast hanging out with them. They ask if we can make cookies everytime and love to dance. They are the happiest little children ever and we like getting to know them better.

Dianne and Aunt Janice were out here this weekend as they helped Grandma Murray move down here for her winter "Snowbird" season. We got the VIP tour of the Monte Vista community and think that we should buy one of the little houses. Some of them are so cute! It's like one step up from every girl's dream play house. Anyway, it was fun to see them and watch General Conference at G-ma's place.

I have nothing left to report. So long for now, Blog.

Toll House Cookies Rock My World

Erin Tobin just gave me the most delicious ice cream cookie in the world. Thanks, Erin!

Our Lives in July

So much has happened! Where do I begin?

Matt and I went to my sister's house in Idaho for the 4th. It is tradition to go to the town parade and festival. We barbecued, played with fireworks and relaxed.

Last weekend we had a trip to Salt Lake and went to visit the Sandlot house and field. Matt was like a giddy little boy, it was so cute! We will post the pics later, we are just super lazy right now. We also went around temple square and hung out at the History Museum. We ate the Pi, which is supposed to have the best pizza around but I got sick. Not a fan really.

My mom and dad have had 2 barbecues this month and have been quite the party throwers. We have had all the cousins up here and have just hung out, catching up with everyone.

Matt was accepted to Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, AZ! YAY! He is going to be getting his Masters of Science in Global Management. The program is basically covering finance, accounting, entrepreneurship, etc. and Matt would like to work internationally. I will be going back to school to continue my pursuit of a nursing degree. Woo hoo! We have a very exciting life ahead of us!

We just barely got approved for our apartment in Peoria, AZ. It is cute and we will get awesome tans sitting by the pool! My sister, Ginger, was so sweet to drive an hour and a half to go check it out for us and hooked us up with a sweet deal! Thanks, Ging!

I am a little nervous because we don't have jobs but it will all work out. I think I might apply to Nordstrom. Usually the super trendy, fashion-type scare me but I figure it would be a great way to make commission, especially in Arizona. Why not try something new? Anyway, we move August 8th and Tim, Matt's dad is helping us drive down. It will be fun to see him.

My brother Todd came to Utah for a long weekend so we have been up in Heber all weekend. My sister in law, Caren, invited us to her Mom's birthday party up at Heber Valley Girl's Camp, a notorious church camp here in Utah. We did the challenge course zip-line (which I thought I was going to fall off of getting across the 25 foot high wire!) and then went canoeing and volleyball. Caren made tin foil dinners and it was an all around good time. Matt went shooting and golfing with my brothers, Todd and Tyler, so he had an extremely active day. Later on that night, Matt, Todd, Tyler, and I had a 2 on 2 volleyball match. I think Matt and I are going to start playing volleyball a bit, so we can throw down in our next family match.

Mom made her famous roast dinner today. Yum, yum, yum! Everyone is now watching the Sandlot, again, so I better go be a good family member.

We Have A Blind Puppy

Yes, you feel bad, don't you? The sweet little baby chihuahua we bought cannot see! We took him to the vet for a check-up and his second set of shots and asked the vet about our concern with Benny's sight. Benny had been running into things and wouldn't follow toys or anything with his eyes, but we though maybe he was just unobservant. The vet did a few tests and confirmed that he was not visually responding to anything. I suppose it is a bit funny, because now we know why he uses his paws to feel everything.

We are still waiting on the reply from Thunderbird to hear if Matt got accepted. The anticipation is getting more thick because we have less time to act once we do receive a response. It will be exciting to find out and we sure hope the answer is yes!

My parents moved to Heber last week from Washington state. It was a very long move for them but we got them unpacked and fairly settled in no time at all. Having parents near is always such a comfort and we are extremely happy to have them here with us.

Matt's birthday was on Sunday, June 1st along with Father's Day. He got some awesome gifts (thanks to me ;) ). He finally got the black Air Force 1's he has wanted since he was 13 or something. The sales guy who sold them to me was hilarious. He told me that Air Force 1's are so special that they are in their own hall of fame category of shoes and that he could tell me facts about them for hours. I did not know that people were so passionate about shoes--I thought that kind of obsession was reserved for girls who believe in retail therapy and would rather skip a week's worth of meals for the cause of shopping. Anyway, I made a layered chocolate cake with sprinkles on Saturday and got him a shirt also. On Sunday we went to Heber to celebrate everything and we had a nice dinner and ice cream cake for Matt. He received lovely new scriptures and a movie from the whole family. Overall, I would say it all went over very well.

One more week down

So this week was uneventful until Tuesday when we decided to buy a puppy.  We found him on KSL.com.  He is a teacup chihuahua.  We wanted to name him Pepe, to keep a Mexican theme going with his breed and all but we decided on Benny because of Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez.  Most of you will recognize this name from the famous Sandlot movie, which is my favorite movie all time. I once watched it 20 times in one month.  But he was really shy and sad the first few days.  He still sleeps a lot but every now and then he wakes up and he goes crazy and jumps all over the place.  We like having him around. 

The window washing business was slow this week. It rained everyday this week. Let's hope this week is better.

Go Lakers!

29 Days

Abbey and I have been married for 29 days and it has been absolutely marvelous. We live in this little ghetto apartment but we couldn't be happier. We have practically nothing except a couch our friends bought us at a yard sale, a table from DI which we painted, and an amazing bed, but it's sweet. Today we went to our ward for the second time. We missed the last two weeks because we went to a missionary farewell and then we were in Washington for our Open House. Our ward is needless to say...interesting but we won't say much more than that. We have new callings; Abbey and I are on the activities council, which Abbey thinks is for people that the ward doesn't know what to do with. Washington was awesome. We flew in Friday night after my cousins wedding reception. We stayed with Abbey's friend Molly's parents. They were super friendly and took great care of us. They had an amazing view of the Puget Sound. We had the open house there the next night. My parents and my sister flew into town for the event so we had a lot of fun. The people from Abbey's ward who came to see us were very friendly and generous with their gifts. Some of her friends parents also visited us as well. The next day we went to church and we had a bbq at Abbey's house afterward with her family. Then we flew back to the amazing city of provo. Our daily lives haven't changed all that much. Abbey continues to work for Platinum Security doing payroll and I'm still teaching Spanish at the MTC and washing windows at the side. Its pretty decent money so I might be just doing that instead of the MTC. Yesterday we went golfing with Abbey's brother Tyler and her niece Maty. We played Soldier Hollow up in Midway. The par was 36 for nine holes, i was only 4 over through 5 but ended 14 over par and Abbey ended a whopping 37 over par with a few hand wedge shots along the way. Her round was hopeful when she drove the ball about 180 yards or more off the tee on the 3rd hole but she struggled throughout the day. She did well considering it was only her fourth or fifth time playing. Tonight we went up to Midvale to watch game 2 of the NBA finals with my sister. We had burgers and hot dogs. Tomorrow its back to the grind.

We're Officially Official

We are married! Finally, after the agonizing 1 and a half months of being engaged, we were married on Saturday, May 9th in the SLC Temple. It was wonderful because the sealing was at 3:40 so we had plenty of time to relax and get ready in the morning. After the sealing, we took pictures for about 2 hours and then had a dinner in the JS Building. Everything went smoothly (at least from our end of it) and it was absolutley beautiful!

We honeymooned to Park City for the weekend because Matt had class on Monday. Overall, it was amazing and we love being married!

We're Official

You know you're engagement is official when you sign up for a blog