Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Last night, Brandon and I had the chance to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform live. For students, the tickets were $6 each. It was a pretty great experience.

 Our seats brought us this close to it.

Brandon dressed sharply for our date night out.

We had Lloyd Newell, the announcer for "Music and the Spoken Word", announce the songs to us. He said he had been with the choir for 22 years, and I thought, "That's a really long time!" Then I realized that was how old I was.... ouch.

The guy who sat behind us kept singing pretty loudly along with the music. I learned that if I turned my head a little bit then I couldn't hear him.

They sang a lot of songs, and it was great. Some highlights were "Welsh Hymns", "Music of the Masters", "American Folk Hymn and Spirituals", and some international songs of "rejoicing" from Russia, Spain, and Nigeria. The Nigerian song was crazy, not what you expected from the MoTab. They then sang some classic American showtunes. "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep", "It's a Grand Night for Singing", "Sunrise, Sunset", THEN the surprise of the night was the organist breaking into this stunning rendition of "I got Rhythm". Seriously, he was all over the place. He played better with his feet than I did with my hands. The final song from that category was "Seventy-Six Trombones", which of course was great.

Their final category was signature hymns. They sang "Come, Come Ye Saints", which was so beautiful. I got a lump in my throat from listening to it. Then they sang their famous arrangement of "Battle Hymn of the Republic". It was so great to hear the songs live that I listen to on my iPod all the time. Then, they encored with "God be With You 'til We Meet Again". That was when the tears really started to flow. It was so powerful, and reminded me of Austin. I had a hard time getting myself back under control.

I think that if you ever have the chance to go see them live, do it! It was beautiful and I am so glad I got to go.

Yes, that's a leather jacket. TARGET!

Kids Say the Darndest Things

More quotes, this time from Toddler Lab:
Me: "Hey look I made a pirate Potato Head! Arrrrr!"
Girl: "Arrr! Me hearties!"

Me: "Look it's an owl! Hooo Hoooo!" (showing the owl swooping and diving)
Girl: Walks over to a boy who's crying and says: "HOOOO HOOOO! CRASH!" And throws the owl on the ground.

Me: "Do you want crackers"-- signed "cracker"-- or banana?" (signed banana)
Girl: "Now you're just being silly."
(the best way to get this is to see how banana is signed. You hold up one index finger, and use the other hand to "peel" the banana)

Girl: "Hi what's your name?"
Me: "Camille, what's your name?"
Girl: "No, your name is PinkPurple Lipstick! And I'm Mom, I'm in charge of you!"

I loved my little kids.

Dane

Alyse had her baby! I can NOW finally say I'm an aunt! He was born on September 15. Couldn't be more excited for the little family. He was 7 lb 12 oz (good sized baby) and 20 1/4 inches long. They decided to name him Dane (after Dana, and Tommy served his mission in Denmark) Gregory (after Tommy's dad) Leininger. I know everyone else is stealing pictures from Alyse and Tommy's emails too, but I just wanted to document this.

My mom says he's advanced for his age after opening his eyes so much... it's already begun.

We are all already obsessed with him. It's surreal to see that baby and know that it's a part of our family, as close as it is to being our child (without actually being our child). Grandma Murphy (Mom) is on her way now to see them and help Alyse out. We can't wait to meet him in December!

Synopsis of Summer 2012

So, summer is coming to a close. The more I think about it, the more nauseous I get. The only thing keeping me going is 1) knowing I get to see "baby boy" after the semester ends; and 2) it's my last semester of classes! I'm sure that my Kindergarten Practicum teacher (despite the fact that he is what's making me nauseous) will help me get ready for student teaching in January.

Anyways, just to sum up our experiences in the summer, I will list off the things we did with pictures. The italicized one are from our "Rexburg Bucket List"... we're almost done with it!

1) "Dark Knight Rises" midnight premiere

(Our only picture from the night. The flash was really strong.)

Then Dallin came into town! And while he was here...

2) Wind caves hike with Mikey

3) Big Judd's

 4) Saw Ririe, Idaho

 5) Rexburg Rapids (for free, which made it better)

6) Twin Falls, the temple, falls, and Grandma's childhood homes

 7) Rigby Lake... we didn't get a picture but we will!

8) Family Reunion in Aspen Grove... just some highlights.

 The one picture of us from the week.                    4 Murphy girls... and baby Austin!

Dad being a balla. Obviously.

Then Bethany came back to Rexburg with us!

8)  Bear World

9) Drive-In Theater... Bethany and I did not get pictures but it was great.

10) St. Anthony Sandbar

11) Birthday party for this little guy:

12) Celebrated one year of marriage together in Logan.

13) Job hunted (and finally got one, thanks to Dianne!)

14) Celebrated my birthday, and made it great thanks to Brandon.

Dinner:

 Cake:

 15) Finished my baby blanket for the little guy.

It's going to be a great semester! Terrifying, but great. And Brandon put in his 2 weeks notice, which is a miracle. I get my husband back, and it means we can actually go places now on the weekends if we need it.

A blanket for "baby Austin", part 1

So, Alyse is having her baby soon. We have all been anxiously awaiting this day, and it's coming up soon!
Austin dubbed him "baby Austin" at his mission farewell, and so far that name has stuck. I started a baby blanket a while ago, and this is what I have:

I love it. It was a free pattern online, and I would only do it with two colors for a niece or nephew again. If anyone wants one, let me know! I'll do one color, but whatever color you want. Just give me a few months to get it done.
It's part 1 because I have a border to put on... it's going to be blue and fluffy (but tough, obviously). Part 2 will come up soon.

The Big 2-2

So, Friday was my birthday. To explain how this went, I need to go back a little bit.

Fun fact: the 10th will be my 18th and final first day of school. And in all of those 18 first days of school, I have not once been in school on my birthday. WHAT. UP.

My mom and I were the two summer birthdays in our family. She understood what it was like to have all of your friends out of town on your birthday, so she always made sure we did something special on my birthday itself. The rest of my siblings have had birthdays during the school year, which meant a lot of times their birthday parties weren't until the weekend of their birthday. As a result of being able to celebrate on my birthday every year, I've become a little bit spoiled with that.

Fast forward to this year. As we know, Brandon works on Friday nights. When he told me that we would probably have to celebrate on Thursday, I burst into tears (without even meaning to)... I think he got it then. I like doing fun things on my birthday itself. As fate would have it, his coworkers fell through and didn't cover his shift on Friday. Anyways. So he made sure to put a ton of time into making sure I had a great birthday anyways!

On Thursday, we did birthday dinner. Brandon made sure to get all the things I wanted, and even surprised me with deviled eggs. My birthday dinners are usually eclectic, because I want lots of different things. Like the year with shark and corn chowder..

 We grilled steak out on the barbecue, and it was amazing. I haven't had grilled food in a while, and I loved every bite.

The dinner was Guarana (my favorite soda, besides that Ironport that I had in Logan), steak, asparagus, rice, and deviled eggs. It was so good! We sat at the coffee table, since we don't have a dinner table yet.

After that, we went to Fat Cats in order to try and get free games of bowling. We had tokens for it, but I grabbed the wrong tokens. As a result, we got free flavored cotton candy. Pretttttty gross. So we played at the arcade like a couple of kids. Brandon got this attractive picture of me playing Fruit Ninja (I dominated, so the stance works)

Afterwards, we just went to Dairy Queen and got Blizzards. Because who doesn't want those?

The next morning, Brandon made me wait in our room until he was ready for me to come out... I didn't mind. He was working on a secret mission, which we'll get to later. First, we had birthday cereal, as always.

Then, he told me to get ready for something, but not to put on makeup. Instantly I was suspicious. But, I had no idea where we were going. It wasn't until we pulled up that I realized what was going on:

Brandon, being the thoughtful gift giver that he was, had called the school and reserved a facial and pedicure for me. It. was. HEAVENLY.  The facial was amazing. I didn't realize how relaxed I was until I woke up when she said I was done. I didn't even recall falling asleep. Brandon pulled through yet again with another great gift!

After that, Brandon had to sleep for work, which was fine. He had done enough for me for the last two days, so I gave him a break. Then, he went to work and I hung out with Mikey. I should have gotten a picture of us, but she did give us these sweet shirts!

Awkward self picture on my part. But how did she know that we would drive through Preston a month after she did? Who knows. But we now have sweet Napoleon Dynamite shirts!

The next day, we got to what Brandon's surprise was... the cake I asked him for!

It was a toffee cake, and was just what I wanted.

I so appreciate all the birthday wishes. It was great to get to Skype with my family on my birthday, and to celebrate it. I appreciate all the work Brandon put into it, because I hated not having him with my on the night of my birthday. He was great about it though, and made sure I wouldn't forget it. To another year!

A Year Ago.

I can't believe it's already been a year. This is so crazy! I know that in 10 years that will seem like no time at all. It just doesn't really feel like a year since we were surrounded by so many friends and family in the sealing room of the Newport Beach Temple. It has brought back memories. I couldn't make eye contact with Brandon during the whole ceremony, because I was trying so hard not to cry from the overwhelming emotion I felt. When I think about those days of receptions and the wedding, I'm so grateful for everyone who made it possible.

I didn't really know if I would get married at 20. (True, it was 11 days before my 21st birthday, the day of the Vegas fiasco... another story) I remember when I met Tommy, my brother-in-law, I didn't think I could find anyone who was as nice as him. I dated a few other guys after their wedding, but nobody lived up to that expectation. When I met Brandon, I couldn't believe how nice he was. That's actually what attracted me so much to him at first.
Our marriage has been different from a lot of others that we know. I know everyone says that, so hear me out. We are the only couple I know that dreads Fridays and looks forward to Mondays. On top of that, many people don't know how to spend the night away from each other. To those people who complain about having to spend one night away from each other after being married a year without doing that, I don't have much sympathy. About half our married nights have been spent apart, and I think it helps us like each other more.
One of our habits that I've loved is reading part of the Book of Mormon every night. We haven't missed a night, and the night before our anniversary we had made it to Alma 47. Not bad at all. We have also said prayers every night as a couple. It's kept us going sometimes... even the nights when the wife is in a bad mood. Because it's never the other way around.
We have also (to date) been to 9 temples.. 8 in our first year and started off the second year with the 9th. At this rate, we will have gone to every temple in about 20 years. But that probably won't happen. In our first year, we've gone to:

Newport Beach (August 2011)

 Rexburg (November 2011... we're never going that long without going again)

Laie, HI (December 2011)

Mt. Timp, Utah (February 2012- with Austin!)

Idaho Falls (March 2012)

Oakland, CA (April 2012)

Salt Lake City (May 2012)

Twin Falls, ID (July 2012)
We've gone in between some of those pictures... it's just a picture from the first time we go to a temple.

In honor of our first anniversary, Brandon has even agreed to post on the blog! I decided to keep a humorous theme here, and post about the top 10 things we have learned about each other this past year.

Camille:

1) I never thought I would marry someone who was so self-sacrificing for the two of us. He has given up so many hours of sleep and weekends he could have used to spend with his friends who are now moved away to work, so that we could have an income.

2) Brandon gives very good advice with anything, but packing. When we went to Oakley over spring break, he told me that it was going to be in the 70's all week so I only needed to bring one pair of long pants. Welllllll, it was in the 40's the whole week and I wore the same pair of pants all week.

3) I love that I married someone who thinks I'm so funny. I mean, I've always thought I was funny, but the fact that Brandon laughs at the weird things that I say and do has helped me to open up to him so much more in this first year of marriage.

4)Brandon is so not sentimental. I'll find something that has a significance to our relationship, and he's like "Cool, but it takes up space right now." So, we're working on a compromise as I am completely oversentimental about everything.
5) Brandon is very logical about everything. When I come to him with a problem about something a girl said about me or whatever happens in my major, he listens for a minute, then says, "Ok, well what we can do to fix it is..." I've learned to tell him beforehand to just listen to me, and he's learned to not automatically jump to helping solve a problem.
6) Brandon is so helpful with everything! I'll be doing a homework assignment, and look up and see that the whole kitchen was cleaned. He won't even say anything, he'll just get up and do it. It's so nice, and makes me feel bad at the same time.
7) Brandon would never admit this, but he's definitely more of a cuddler than me. When he gets home from work, I'll be asleep and he'll come in and try to cuddle with me. I'll usually growl something unintelligible at him.
8) For someone who has short hair, he spends an awful lot of time cleaning long hair out of drains, vacuums, and everywhere else. Probably because he married someone who is half human and half lion.
9) Brandon loves to cook. Ok, maybe he doesn't. But he does cook a lot. This is usually due to 2 things- Rule #6, and the fact that I get stressed out when I am doing homework and rule 6 comes into play.
10) Brandon is quite simple in what he wants in life. If he has food in his stomach and has the chance to go to the gym, then he will be happy in life. I've learned to go through with this and "let" him go to the gym a lot, because he is happy and mellow throughout the entire rest of the day.
Brandon

Things I have learned after having lived with Camille for a year/things I love about her.

1.  Growing up I had parents that would remind me constantly of things that I needed to do.  My Father is infamous for giving up a pack of note cards for Christmas so that we can make “to-do” lists throughout the year.  I thought that marriage would bring freshness to my life of not needed to be reminded of everything…but I have learned this year that Camille loves to remind.  “Brandon did you do this?...and don’t forget…”  She has been great and in all seriousness it is her reminding that has helped us to reach our goal of reading the scriptures every day since we have been married.  We have not missed a day because of her!

2.  I have a plethora of married acquaintances that are men whom some might refer to as “whipped.”  I am so glad and thankful that I found and married a girl that understands that my happiness is positively correlated with gym attendance and working out.  I love that she allows me to play sports with my friends and pursue my hobbies!
3.  After spending a whole year with Camille I can’t think of a single day in which I did not laugh because of something she said or did.  She is the funniest, quirkiest person and I love that about her.  Life is not boring or stagnant living with Camille.  She cracks me up daily!  Sincerely, she is one of the funniest people I know!
4.  I married someone who has made me feel so good about myself!  Camille is great with handing out compliments.  She is constantly complimenting me and telling me how proud she is of me.  Not only does that make a guy feel good about himself, but in the last year I have found it to be very motivating. It makes me want to live up to those compliments and strive to be a better me.
5.  Camille has inadvertently expanded my cooking skills over the past year.  I still can’t tell if she is using Jedi mind tricks to get me to cook all the time and be the “domestic” one in our relationship.  Perhaps she’s a reincarnated Darth Maul!  Maybe she has just been so busy with school over the past year she has not had much time for the kitchen, but I am pretty sure she is using her woman powers to “train” me.  When she does cook it is delicious!!!!  Especially her chicken parmesan!
6.  I have learned in this past year of marriage that living with Camille can be very scary!  First of all, I never knew my sleep could be disturbed so much by someone.  Many a night this past year I have been rudely awakened by Camille and whatever crazy dreams she is having at the moment.  Also, she hides behind walls and doors and jumps at me and scares me.  I am pretty sure she takes pride in seeing my frightened reaction because every time she scares me she laughs uncontrollably and cannot contain herself!  I am ashamed to say that just the other day she spooked me and I let out a girly shriek!  NOT GOOD FOR MY MANHOOD!
7.  I am not a sentimental person.  Many times in my life I have thought that I need to be more sentimental about things, but I still have a looooonnnnnggggg way to go.  Camille is extremely sentimental about everything!!!!!!  She is helping me to learn how to me more sentimental, which is a good thing, but I think she is finding it harder than she thought to bring out my sappy side.  I don’t know if it’s because I am a guy or a heartless nincompoop.  Camille is great about documenting and taking pictures of important events in life and that is great for future generations and for us. 
8.  Camille has really helped me understand the importance of slowing down and taking time to enjoy the moment.  It has been a great lesson for me to start learning.  Many times I like to get things done and I rush and rush until the task is completed.  Camille has been great for me because she helps me to slow down and it really has helped me to enjoy the little things more than I ever have before.
9.  I never thought in a million years that I would marry a girl that did not love watching sports with me.  I am still working on her!  I think I might need to summon the Force to accomplish this feat!
10.  She liked my mustache….or at least she let me grow one!

Long story short? We're still enjoying ourselves and have loved this past year. People seem to enjoy telling us that it will get harder, to which I say... "Seriously? Can't we just enjoy our newlywed time?" I know it will be harder in the long run, but I like that we're developing a good base for our marriage.
But I certainly do love this boy man. He's great for me. By our second anniversary, we might be living anywhere else in the country. So cheers to this next year, I hope it's just as good as this year has been!

Logan, Utah- Celebrating One Year of Marriage

So, the mystery place we went? Logan!

As mentioned before, we changed our location. As we were using less gas to get there and back as it would to just get to Vernal, we had more money in our budget for a place to stay. I looked up hotels in Logan, and I didn't think any of them looked that cool. Brandon suggested a "Bed and Breakfast", which I thought sounded kind of yucky. However, we found this sweet deal.

I have a strict "Taking pictures of Hotel Rooms is Gross" policy, so I'll just show you the website's version of the room we stayed in. Not bad, eh??

http://www.anniversaryinn.com/logan/room/16-pyramids-of-egypt

I've always wanted to check out a themed suite. If we had wanted to pay more we could have gotten a "Swiss Family Robinson" suite. But that's not necessary for one year.
I will say that when we got there we had this:

 complimentary chilled cider (because we're in Utah, obviously)

 and cheesecake! (The water was 1.50 a bottle so we didn't touch that)
The only thing about our room was that it was unnerving to walk into the bathroom and have a panther staring at you... go look at the website to see it.
So I'll back up to that morning. Brandon got home at 3, which was about the time I went to bed. I was so excited to go! It was like Christmas Eve or the night before my birthday all over again. So neither of us had slept much that night. I loved it though. Brandon then got up earlier that morning though, and made me breakfast. Just because he's the best.
(Note: I don't eat a lot of breakfast ever, and he knew that. So he just got a little bit of what he knew I would like.)

Asiago bagel and bacon... two of my favorite breakfast foods!

I didn't want him to spend a lot of money, but I love that he still was thoughtful enough to get me a rose.
Then we were on our way!
We got there about 12:30, and we couldn't check in until 3. So we got some lunch at good old Panda Express, and sat at the Logan tabernacle's lawn... I didn't think to get a picture of the outside but I did get a picture of the impressive pipe organ inside.

The room was sweet that we were in! But I was tired (neither of us had slept the night before, I was too excited to go and Brandon was working, obviously) so we napped there. Then, we walked to a cafe that Alyse had recommended to us through Tommy and his family. It was the Bluebird cafe.

It's an old style cafe, and has some GREAT food. We got rolls, cheese sticks, Chicken cordon bleu soup, steamed vegetables, and I got salmon and mashed potatoes. Brandon got chicken alfredo. I've been cutting back on not drinking soda, and have been doing pretty well. However, they have an old fountain with a type of soda that is no longer produced called "Ironport", so I decided to try it. It was SO good! I recommend it to anyone who gets a chance to try it. Our waitress was kind enough to take a picture for us, and even gave us free cheesecake because it was our anniversary.

We left her a big tip. We left so full we could hardly roll back to our place.
 The next day, we got woken up by this:

Complimentary breakfast? Yes please! We even were able to choose our own breakfast. We both got ham and cheese croissants, hot cocoa, and juice. He got apple and I got orange.
When it was time to check out, we went over to the temple (.3 miles away, by Google Maps calculations). For anyone who's keeping track, that's 9 temples for us. While we were in there, we told them it was our first anniversary. They gave us the "multiply and replenish the Earth" talk. I just smiled and said "Thanks!"
Funny story about that... as we were leaving, I was walking out to the front because I had to meet him. I knew he was going to be out front, but I wasn't expecting to see him surrounded by 6 giggling women who looked about the age of his residents. I saw him, and he said, "Well, there she is!" He told me later that they wanted him to drive them to the Brigham City temple open house. He just attracts those women.
We finally got a picture. Unfortunately, our "photographer" was about the age of those same women so he didn't get the whole temple in the picture. But it's fine.

My hair is so long... Just saying.
It's such a beautiful temple!

I love it.
After the temple, we were thinking of other things to do. We drove up to the Utah State campus, but I was immediately confused by how many students were running around. I did get one picture of the tower on campus as we were driving away, however:

We drove there and back through Preston, Idaho. However, it didn't REALLY look like Napoleon Dynamite. Ok, yes it did. But I didn't get any pictures. However, I did get this one:

If you zoom in...

Cool, huh? I thought it was at least. It's right outside of Preston.
Overall, what a great way to spend our first anniversary! We've loved this first year, and I can only hope that the second year is as good as this one. And now it's back to real life... dang it.