Mele Kalikimaka 2011, December 20-21

So if you've read Alyse's blog, this may sound familiar.
So when Brandon and I were together in July, my parents pulled us aside and asked if we were comfortable spending Christmas in Hawaii with my side of the family. It took about .0000000001 seconds to decide... And it was so great. Like Alyse said, we won't all have Christmas together for a long time, if ever. Austin's turning in his mission papers (guesses?) like this week which is totally freaking us out. And Dallin will be gone before that Christmas after Austin gets back, so at least 4 years. And then there could be grandkids by then (not an announcement) and stuff.
So, Brandon and I ohhhh so reluctantly packed for Hawaii when our semester ended. I was more than happy to pack all my shorts and a bunch of t shirts, and pull my beloved Rainbows out of their corner in the closet. Here is a day by day list of what we did (with a brief description of each activity):

December 20th:

Pretty much just the beach. It was SO nice and the warmest, clearest water I had seen in an ocean ever.

December 21:

We went to Pearl Harbor. It was a beautiful and sad thing to see, but I'm so glad we got to witness it and see how it was a part of our nation's history. (Even though Hawaii wasn't a state at the time, just a territory. Like Puerto Rico.)
Some more pictures of that:

(part of the USS Arizona... that's how shallow the water was when it sank.)

Again, just how shallow the boat was when it sank.

Oil from the tanker still leaks up into the water... makes it so much more real.

In front of another battleship.

The weather was so nice... thanks Brandon.

Tired.
I have to say, one of the things that I liked so much about the Pearl Harbor memorials was that it did not just say "These Japanese monsters killed our totally innocent soldiers" etc. etc. etc. They told the story from both sides, and really made you feel for everyone involved. Japan was at their wits' end, and while that does not justify what they did, they did realize that what they had just done was wrong. It just made the Japanese soldiers look so much more human than our history textbooks ever have. It was very moving and sobering to see.

 then we went to the swap meet at the Aloha Stadium, and bought little souvenirs to our heart's content.

Afterwards we went to Giovanni's Shrimp Truck... I wish we had Sharpies with us to write on it. But it made the BEST garlic shrimp I've ever had. Brandon was excited for the hot dogs.

After that it was off to the world famous Banzai-Pipeline beach. Again, I've been spoiled by these beaches and I don't know if I can ever like California beaches again.

Gorgeous rainbow!

This is too classic... because of the rainbow. Nice abs Dallin.
After that, we had the opportunity to go to the Laie Hawaii Temple and do a session. It was there that I decided we were going to make a scrapbook of all the temples that Brandon and I attend together... so we're up to 3!

As you can see, we have had so many adventures that I've decided to break up the posts to a few days at a time. It was a beautiful trip, and none of these pictures do it justice!

Thanksgiving Review

Thanksgiving 2011 was a different one. I had never spent Thanksgiving apart from my family, and at first I was a little bit apprehensive about it. Luckily (as previously mentioned so many times) I have a great husband who is willing to deal with my neurotic tendency to sulk at random times when things make me sad, so it was a good time.
We started our Thanksgiving break by driving out to Jackson Hole, WY. We had gotten a hotel room at the Best Western Plus Lodge, just to chill out and have a night to ourselves. We hadn't had a night where we hadn't had to worry about school or work since school started. We might as well take advantage of these opportunities, right? First we went and checked out the hot tubs. There was one indoors and one outdoors, so I got to experience a hot tub while it was snowing for the first time in my life. They also had a sauna, and that was cool for about 5 minutes. Saunas are creepy, ps.
Well, Brandon was super excited about the fact that they carried ESPN (our cable company doesn't). So he spent a while watching the Duke Michigan game. I was super excited that our room had a Jacuzzi-sized bathtub, with jets and all. So you can guess where I spent a lot of my time.
We went to dinner at a place called "Bubba's", which had an amazing pulled pork sandwich and an endless salad bar for me. It was fun, because we just talked for a while after we had finished eating. We were in no rush.
Wednesday we began cooking for Thanksgiving. Brandon was brave enough to do the turkey, because I told him I wanted to be here only if we had a turkey. Did I mention my husband's really nice and puts up with my complicated moods? Still true. Anyways, I was in charge of the rolls and the stuffing. Brandon did the turkey. Megan and Taylor were in charge of the mashed potatoes, pies, and appetizers.
By the time we actually got around to eating, we were already full. Curse that homemade cheese ball with Ritz crackers and summer sausage! So I ate about half a plate of food and then took a nap on the floor while we turned on "Ocean's 11". The saddest part of the day was at 4:30, when Brandon left to go to work. The good thing was that he only had to work for 3 hours, as opposed to the usual 12. And this just goes to show that he's a great employee and hopefully they'll cooperate with him when he wants less hours. When he got back, however, we got in the car and drove down to Idaho Falls to see the Muppet Movie. Oh man it was hilarious! I loved it... I laughed the whole time. The best part was, it was a movie that I could tell my family was good, without the "except for that one scene...".
The rest of the weekend was used to procrastinate, and relax. Of course I'm paying for it now, but it was SO worth it. Especially because Brandon got to sleep in for 3 mornings in a row without having to worry about being late to school or anything.

And now for something completely different... (Bennett should get that)
Sunday night I realized I needed something from Brandon's car, so I drove to his work to pick it up. As long as I was there, I decided to stick around for a little bit and help. That was a pretty big eye opener for me. I finally got to see what Brandon does on the weekends, and trust me, I was NOT that envious of it. It was just a nice thing for me to see just how hard Brandon works to support us, and sacrifices so much of his time. And now that I know, I can really appreciate it and try harder to do my part to make our place run smoothly.
So my thankful list now has Brandon's job at the top of it. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
Here are a few pictures from our trip down to Jackson. Of all the things to forget, we forgot our camera. So these were taken from my phone. It was such a pretty drive, the pictures don't really do them justice.

Thanksgiving Review Preview

This is a picture of our Thanksgiving dinner, which pretty much sums it up:

We wore ugly sweaters and Brandon had a mustache. He shaved it off this morning, which ended the almost-4-weeks of back and forth teasing about it.
I'll update more when I upload my picture to my computer. It was a pretty good experience, and Brandon got 3 mornings to actually sleep in. It's been a good break!

Thankful List 2011

I figure since everyone's doing it, I should. This might be extensive.
1. Brandon's job.
2. The comfort that we are allowed to enjoy because of his job.
3. Our great 2 bedroom apartment that we can live in.
4. Our 2 cars that keep us from having to walk to school when it's 25 degrees outside
5. The school that we can go to without breaking our bank.
6. My family. It was so fun to be with everyone for the wedding, and getting the overwhelming support from both sides of our family.
7. Our good health. Considering our crazy schedule, it's a miracle that nobody's sick.
8. The chance Brandon and I have to spend time with each other during the week.
9. Having family up here. Sometimes I feel a little left out, since I'm not involved in all the cousin gossip down in Provo. However, I love having a brother-in-law and sister-in-law here that we get to spend time with.
10. Modern technology. I don't know what I would do without my phone. I know I know, everyone says that. But with Brandon working all night, I wouldn't be able to sleep not knowing if he was doing ok. I'm very concerned about him like that.
11. The Gospel. I was just thinking about a conversation I had with my good friend Bekah when she was investigating the Church, and I said something that I have thought about ever since. I told her I wasn't an expert in pretty much anything, but I knew the Church was true. And if for some reason we die and I find out my whole religious core was not correct, at least I did things that made me a good person and it made me happy.
12. Little kids. I'm the Primary Music Leader in my ward right now, and I love it. The kids in the Primary and Nursery are so funny, and they are exhausting but make my life a little bit better. I've always known I've wanted to work with little kids for my job, and I don't regret it at all.
13. The friends I've made. Sometimes I get sad when I think I won't be home for a long period of time, so I won't be able to spend as much time with my friends from back home. But again, modern technology makes it easier to stay caught up with those people.
14. How I get to spend forever with Brandon. Yes yes, cheesy cheesy. We've been married for 3 months, big deal right? Well, we've already outlasted Kim Kardashian's second wedding, so it must be meant to be. In all seriousness, the more I thought about "eternity" the more it freaked me out. The only thing that kept me from freaking out  was knowing that I was with Brandon. We spent a long time dating, and got to know each other so well that it hasn't been that big of an adjustment so far living with each other. Besides the whole "hitting each other in the face while sleeping" thing. We're learning to talk about the little things now, which hopefully means we will talk about the big things when they come around in a few years.


This is not the best list, I will come up with more later. I'm just feeling thankful right now and trying to express it.

Probably of no interest to anyone but me...

Brandon and I are violent sleepers. I thought I'd record some of our funnier moments before we learn how to not hurt each other in our sleep.
The second night of our honeymoon, Brandon woke up to hear me saying "No, no, no, no, no!" in my sleep. He woke me up and asked what was wrong, and I Asked him if he had a brother named Angel. He said "umm, no. You just saw my whole family this weekend." I continued to tell him how he had a brother named Angel in my dream, and told him about the dream. He told me to go back to sleep, and I did. A little while later he woke up to me saying, "No no, I just had to tell him about his brother named Angel..." and describing the whole conversation we had just had. Needless to say, he was freaked out. That was only the beginning.
Since then, we have had plenty of fun. Both of us have rolled over in the night and hit each other in the face, leading to a few tears (from me). Or there was the time Brandon tried to reclaim some sheets from my burrito wrapped body. He started pulling just a little bit, and apparently I just lit into him. I told him if he wanted sheets he could ask, and not be so mean about it... Naturally I remember nothing of this.
Fast forward to November 1... We were going to sleep and he conversation went something like this:
Me: good night
Brandon: good night
Me: sweet dreams!
Brandon: you too, hope your clarinet piece goes well!
Me: ....... What?
Brandon: yeah I just had a dream about it while we were talking.
#thingswewishweknewbeforewegotmarried



Ps Brandon's going to be embarrassed when he reads the last story, because I'm sure he doesn't remember it.

Our Fall Happenings

So I thought I would update everyone (who actually cares) about our fall semester so far. In case anyone thought we died after our wedding.
As mentioned before, it's been kind of an unorthodox semester, with Brandon working all night on the weekends. However, I love it. Since he's gone all the time on the weekends, we love spending time together during the week. We've had a few highlights of the semester so far, and with some pictures.
For Halloween, we weren't really going to dress up. All the parties were the weekend before, and we hadn't actually planned a costume. However, last night at about 9:30, i started feeling badly that I didn't have a costume and everyone else was running around in theirs. So Brandon, being the guy he is, told me he was going to make a costume for me. He also let me come up with a costume for him, provided that I wouldn't put him in a dress... it was tempting but he won't fit into any of them. Here's how it turned out:

Yes those are my jeans he's wearing... we're pretty petite. I like that we've got our costumes without exposing 90% of my skin or being totally nasty and gruesome.
Some other highlights have been going to dinner with Brandon's aunt Linda at Buffalo Wild Wings:

Brandon running his Temple to Temple Relay:

And other exciting moments. We never went to a haunted maze or a haunted house because i'm too afraid of being alone all night long when he's working. We are going to spend Thanksgiving here with Megan and Taylor, and it will be AWESOME. We're going to run a 5K and have a full-on dinner. It will be legen- wait for it- DARY!

Couple's Photo Shoot

Forgive my vanity, I love these pictures and want to post as many as I can. So this will be a series of pictures.
Kellie was an excellent photographer, and she caught all the moments I wanted. So, here's how it went down!
As I mentioned before, I had one idea of a special moment we could take pictures of. We blindfolded Brandon and took him to a walking trail by our house. He had not seen me in my hair, makeup, and dress combo, so I wanted Kellie to get his reaction. Here's a series of pictures showing his reaction.

It was very tender.

Next, we walked around the walking trail taking random pictures... there were some gems in this photo shoot. If I could I would put every single picture on here, but I can't and nobody really wants to look through all of them anyways.

Brandon dancing...

This face most likely means "what did you just say?"... I doubt I"m actually mad though.

I could go on... but I have quite a few more posts to post. Kellie is so great! I love these pictures!

A little Note from Murph to Giull

This note is for posterity, so that we can remember how our first married semester went.
Dear Giull,
I hope you know how proud I am of you for working as hard as you do every weekend. Even though my "sacrifice" of the weekend means I spend nights in the front room doing homework/crocheting/being a bum, yours is so much greater. I know you do not like sleeping all day on the weekend, and I start to get teary eyed every time I see you get dressed to go to work, but I know it will be worth it in a few years when we can have some savings for a hard time. You've already given up so much, even a weekend with your mom in Jackson, so that we can have money to pay rent and keep ourselves afloat while we wait for our financial aid to come in. I wish I had a job so that I could help you out and that you don't have to do this every weekend. You're so great, and I wish I could help you out more. Just know that every time you come home and the kitchen's clean, or there's homemade bread or cookies on a plate for you, I'm doing it to try and make your life a little bit easier. You're doing this, and keeping up your grades in school, and still being a great husband and putting my life in a higher priority than your own. I will make sure to work for you while you're in PA school so that I can repay you somehow. You're my best friend, and I love you for everything you do. We will have a great life someday because of the work you are doing for us!!
Love,
your Murph

Gabrielle's Take

Did I mention I have a very talented best friend? It's not like it was that long ago, but I do get nostalgic when I see these pictures. I was sooooo off in La-La Land that day, it was great.
She took pictures in our pre-reception photo shoot, which was taken at a walking trail that was just built by my house. It was GORGEOUS.

The rest was cheesiness.

LOVE IT!!!