Anniversary/Honeymoon Round #2!

So last night Jord and I went up to "Johnson Mill" for our one-year anniversary!!! Our actual anniversary is this Saturday, but the bed and breakfast had 30% on Wednesdays, so.... we decided to ditch school! :) Actually I didn't miss any classes, and Jordan only missed one. We went up around 4 yesterday (it's in Midway, by Park City), and it was SO perfect! We checked into our "Waterfall" room, and then wandered around the grounds for a bit, enjoying the fresh snowfall! There was a lake, a waterfall, a movie room inside, a library with scrapbooks of how the mill was turned into a bed and breakfast, etc. It was so fun! After that we headed back to our room, where we had a bonified indoor picnic! We decided instead of spending wads of money going to dinner in Park City, we'd pack a picnic and enjoy our beautiful room! It was perfect-- we had two walls of windows where we could see the falling snow, a roaring 15-foot rock wall fireplace, and a really tasty spread of food! Jordan cooked a delicious chicken on a portable stove (out on the balcony) and I made garlic bread and a yummy salad at home. After we had milk and some pretty perfectly moist brownies, if I do say so myself. It was a wonderful evening!

This morning we woke up to about 4 inches of fresh snow!!! It was a gorgeous winter wonderland... nevermind the fact that it's March ;).

Our pretty room!

Our picnic!!!

Water Wheel

A sweet wagon we found :)

It started snowing!!!

A pretty view from the veranda on the lake

The waterfall!

Poster Party!

Here it is, the final product! I sent it in to be printed today-- 4 by 6 feet!!!! Wow right!!?? Wow.

MNCH Poster Presenter!

Good news! I just found out I've been accepted as a poster presenter at this years Mother, Newborn, and Children's Health Conference at BYU (MNCH)! The theme this year is Global Maternal and Child Health, so my research will be really relevant. I'm so thrilled! Now the only catch- I've never seen a conference poster before! Lol. So I'm exactly sure what it is I'm supposed make, so it's lucky I have my mentor! Her name is Stephanie Fugal, she teaches the Women's Health class and she's my mentor for the ORCA project I've mentioned before :). Hopefully she'll know what to do....

Also, tonight Jordan and I are volunteering at BYU's "Hunger Banquet"! It's this amazing event (I think it' in its twenty somethingth year) that helps people understand our blessing/open up their eyes to what's going on in the world. Tickets are like $6, which get you into the event. When you arrive you're taken by an usher (that's me and Jord) to your seat, depending on what color ticket you've been issued. Ten percent of the guests will be given a fancy catered dinner, and have the best seat in the house-- representing the 20% of the world's wealthy class. Another 20% sit on chairs and get pizza and a soda, and represent the world's middle class. The final 70% of guests sit on the floor on cardboard boxes, and have a plate of rice and beans to 5 people... representing those around the world in poverty. On top of dinner, there are dancers, speakers, and when I've gone in the past, it's been really inspirational. All the proceeds go to NGOs and other charitable organizations. My international development class will actually be presenting on which NGOs we think most deserve the proceeds from the event. Pretty awesome! As ushers, Jordan and I are supposed to dress up in international clothing. I actually have a smattering of international stuff, but one of my good friends spent her last summer in India, and lent me a realllly incredible Indian outfit. Here's a sneak peak:

More to come later! We also borrowed a sweet Mexican top for Jordan from our friend Aaron... we'll get pictures up with that later!!!

xo

Fun with Nathaniel

Well, I've mentioned Nathaniel on here a few times, and I figured I ought to actually introduce everyone to him a little bit! If you haven't read before, Nathaniel is the 9-year-old boy with autism that I do behavior therapy with :). Today we took a break after he did a nice job doing some math equations, and I rewarded (the actual term is "positive reinforcement") him with some fun picture-taking in "photo booth" on my new computer! So here are some of the fun results:

Too fun right?! He really loved it. He kept trying to touch the screen to excitedly tell me which setting to try next, haha, it was really hard to keep him from getting too wild! :) It's fun to see him get so excited about something!

Hope you enjoyed!

So happy! :)

Well, I got my new computer and it is wonderful! I can't say how nice it is to take it to class and use it for notes and be able to pull up readings and powerpoints that the professors are using. WOW!!! Also, not waiting about ten minutes between opening new programs or trying to get a new web page, etc. I can throw little post-it notes on my screen to remind myself of things, the new iPhoto is aaaaawesome... it's just too wonderful!

And, so that I don't paint myself as too materialistic, I'm even happier about other things :). But really, our life is just so wonderful right now. We're pretty busy with school, work, and church, but we still have plenty of time for each other and to do some of the things we love. Our house is old but great, we received all our furniture from family and friends and hardly paid a dime, we have every material blessing we could hope for, and we're just so happy and in love!!! lol. Am I disgusting anyone yet? But honestly, life is just good. We're so grateful for all our blessings, especially our opportunity to be here at BYU and for our wonderful families. Thanks to everybody for being in our life! We sure love you! :)

My new baby!

So my mother generously gave me her Powerbook G4 when I came to college 2.5 years ago, which has had a really great run, and is now on a bit of a last leg. I think it's 6 years old now, and it still works okay but it has to "think" for a long time (as we've lovingly dubbed it), especially if I'm running more than one program at once. And soooooo..... since I just recently got that ORCA grant for my research.... (which I know it sounds shady-- I am actually encouraged to use the money for whatever I need-- I can use it if my research requires, which it doesn't, or just for myself, as a compensation for the time I've spent researching!).... we decided to get a new computer!!!! Hooray!!!! And here she is:

Isn't she a beaut?!?! *sigh* It's a refurbished new macbook, so we got it for $200 cheaper than the typical new macbook. :D :D :D And below is the new macbook sleeve I ordered! It has SHERPA fur on the inside, crazy right? It's eco-friendly and, might I say, really cute!!! It'll help keep my new baby nice and new. :)

I got it at applesac.com, and it was $30, which is just about the cheapest price on most laptop sleeves that I could find. And so much cuter than the rest!

So, that's my wonderful new story. I am pumped. I'm excited. I'll get it in the mail between the 25th and the 3rd. Hooray!!!

Miracles, V-Day, a B-Day and more!

Happy Happy Valentine's Day!

And now here's a little more blog throw up... that's not a nice visual, but a pretty accurate description of what i'm about to do- throw up some life on this blog. SO. The last post was mostly about my hunky hubby, who by the way, lost his wedding ring while snow-shoing that day. After fasting, praying, going back up 3x and once with metal detector, we were blessed with a tender mercy and he FOUND IT, on a mountain, randomly on the trail, buried in snow and stuck in a chunk of ice. Miracle! We're so glad he was able to find it, he really loves it and of course, it has sentimental value! :)

Here he is while snow-shoing, what a stud!

So a little update on us... last week was my birthday and I turned the big 21!!! Legal at last!!! In celebration, we took the rest of the bishopric out and got totally sloshed! Ha okay jk, that's obviously a lie. No we pretty much had 4 big days of celebration- on my birthday i woke up to flowers and a card (jordan had left early for class) and then that night Jord made me dinner (belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream) and we opened presents (my favorite was Jord's surprise- a Costco box of Fuze! ha I love yummy drinks and juice but always feel bad buying them because they're not necessary, so he got me bunches for my birthday! Nice! Then on Friday our friends Katie and Cam took us out to P.F. Chang's for my birthday, which was really delicious and really nice of them! Snaps for cool friends :).

Here's one of me with Katie and Cam in Park City awhile ago... (I was cold)

Then on Saturday we went with some ward friends to Color Me Mine, one of those cute pottery places where you paint things and they glaze them. I made a big pretty vase, and Jordan made a red and blue spackled mug! It was a major success :).

The happy couple at Color Me Mine!

Then on Sunday Jordan's mom made me a REALLY amazing birthday dinner complete with pasta primavera, fresh bread sticks and a beautiful fruit salad. Jordan's grandma made me a delicious strawberry pie for dessert! Did I win with the in-laws, or what? Wowza. Not to mention the beautiful apron Jolynn (Jord's mom) made me for my birthday-- and I've been looking for a cute one for months! Thanks Jolynn!

So, it was a pretty successful birthday! Other than birthdaying, we've been just busy with school and work and such. The last two weeks I attended training to become a volunteer at the Shelter for Women and Children in Crisis. I'll start working there this Friday, mostly answering phone calls and working with the children, and then in a month or so I'll start going out to local high schools to give awareness presentations. I'm really excited about that because it's prevention, which is what I'm all about with my public health major! We'll be talking with the youth about domestic violence, how to recognize it, and how to have healthy relationships, etc. Very fun. And as I mentioned briefly on my last post, I've started some new work with Nathaniel! We're starting to focus more on social behaviors, and we're working on things like having a conversation and recognizing body language. It's a bit of an adjustment from the structure of doing homework like before, but he's doing okay. He always struggles a bit when we change to a new learning technique, but I'm confident he'll pick up after a little while. Just gotta perservere!

I also found out this week that I've been awarded an ORCA grant for my research! Very, very exciting! I handed in a research proposal last fall, and now I'll be the recipient of $1500 for having a great research idea! My research is focused on the incredible effects of literacy-- specifically the effects of female literacy on women and children's health in Sub-Saharan Africa. If you're interested at all in learning more about that, check out my research blog at girlsliteracyandhealth.blogspot.com. Also, you might consider reading "Three Cups of Tea," which is a really amazing memoir about a man and his recognition of the importance of literacy, and what he did about it. Amazing! People really can help themselves if you just let them :). So that's great news, especially since I'm hoping to be accepted into the Masters' of Public Health program in 2010, and having undergrad grant/research experience will really help set me apart. Hooray!

Also, as most of you have probably heard, my brother Trent recieved his mission call last Friday to be an LDS missionary in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil! We're so thrilled for him to have recieved his call, and I'm really proud of him for choosing something so valuable to do with his time these next two years! He's going to make a wonderful missionary.

Well that pretty much sums it up! We're just loving life and each other! PS I've stuck some extra pictures from the last little while below. :)

Here's Jord playin the piano with his niece baby Nora!!! What rockstars!

Here we are out in the snowy cold up at the Sundance Film Festival last month!