Some pictures… finally!

So, yah! We went to Disneyland!! …like, a month ago. But that’s okay! I have pictures! :D Here is a mini photo diary of our fabulous vacation:

We left on Sunday morning (our anniversary) from my parents house. The car is a 2010 Mitsubishi Galant I think… a rental car (Mark didn’t think either of our cars would make it without dying). It was a sweet ride :) That night we checked into the hotel – a Sheraton just a couple blocks away from the park. It was very spiffy! And we even got a complimentary $100 gift card to use for any of the hotel eateries. With this, we ordered room service. Twice. It was deluxe :)

And so, here we have day one at the park. Here we are in line to get into Disneyland on our first morning! There were quite a few people there while we were… Mark says all he can remember about the trip is standing in lines! But don’t let him fool you… he had fun :)

One of the first rides we went on was the Thunder Mountain Railroad. Mark wanted a picture with the dinosaur bones. (As a side note, Splash Mountain was closed for renovation… lame).

This is us in the very last seat before we took off on Thunder Mountain. Another time we went on this ride we were very near the front. The back seat is way more epic, for sure!

I insisted we go on the carousel. What’s more romantic than a carousel, I ask you? Mark took a picture of me and then…

We took a picture of both of us. My horse went way higher than Mark’s. Ha ha ;)

This is a random picture of Mickey leading a little brass band of sorts. Gotta love those old time bands playing the good songs from the old days! Well, at least I did. Mark was looking for a hat to buy because he was afraid his head and neck was getting sunburned. As the pictures go on, you will probably notice the epic sunburn I got. It just figures that we would forget sunscreen…

Mark’s new hat that he got in a shop by the Indiana Jones' ride :)Here we are in line for the Haunted Mansion. Behind us is the little family graveyard you walk by while in line… except you really can’t tell. Oh well. And I noticed for the first time on this trip the ultimate creepy-ness of the bride that beheaded like, 6 husbands. I never realized before that that’s what all those weird pictures were with headless grooms… My favorite is at the end when she says “Come baaack, come baaaack! We’re just dying to have you!”

And again on Thunder Mountain. I wanted a picture in front of the train :)

At the end of the day, we went on the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters! Mark wasted me on this game. I think he got to one of the middle rankings and I was definitely on the bottom.

Day two. We got out our camera for the first time to take a picture of me with a side view from the castle. You can see a little of the Matterhorn in the background. So much fun rides! We went to California Adventure this day and rode the epic roller coaster. I was terrified. It was actually pretty fun, but something that I would only ride once a trip. We never got enough courage for the Tower of Terror… Unfortunately much of California Adventure was under construction while we were there. They are building a Cars land that looks like it’s going to be awesome!

The only other picture of our second day… In the California Adventure park you can get tickets (only in the morning – until they run out) for a show called the World of Color in the evening. Here we are before it started. The Ferris Wheel was all lit up and pretty… and when the show started, it was AMAZING! Sorry, no pictures of that, but if you’re going to Disneyland any time soon, DO NOT MISS IT!

Day three and our last day at Disneyland. We rode the Mark Twain around Tom Sawyer’s Island. I really wanted to ride the other ship, (there were so many people there, both were running non-stop. I’ve never seen the ship in motion before) but waiting for those things takes a long time. We got to the Mark Twain close to when it was leaving again and decided after the ride that we’d seen what’s to see, so no need to go again when it takes so much time.

Here’s Mark on the same ride. The trees and flowers were beautiful and the weather was perfect the whole time we were there! It was a lovely break from snowy Cedar City.

This is our last picture. By the time we left the parks, we’d been on pretty much every ride except Dumbo… because we went on the Rockets in Tomorrowland instead! Yes, we both squished into one car. I was scared it would break haha! But we made it around safe and sound, if not a little dizzy… :S

Overall, this was the best vacation I’ve been on in a long time. I think our favorite rides were Indiana Jones (we went on that one a lot), Soarin’ Over California (in California Adventure…another one not to miss if you’re going anytime soon!) and Thunder Mountain Railroad. In case you’re curious, overall we stayed four nights in the hotel (Sunday through Wednesday) and spent three days in the park (park hopper passes, MTW). We got a pretty good package deal for all of this from Get Away Today Vacations. You can find them online, if you’re interested. Since our hotel was so close to the park, we walked there every day so we didn’t need to pay for any kind of tram ticket. We ate mostly food we had bought before we left (cup noodles, pastries and yogurt for breakfast, granola bars, fruit leather, fruit snacks, that sort of thing). There was a great restaurant at Disneyland that was pretty reasonably priced that we went to once and I wish would have gone to more often. It’s called the Bengal Barbecue and it’s across from Indiana Jones… or at least in the vicinity. They had some great kabobs and that type of thing (We shared a veggie skewer, Mark had some kind of chicken, and I had bacon wrapped asparagus…yum!)

That pretty much sums it up! I’ll have to get Mark on here to write about his experience… except he’ll probably just tell you how crowded it was, which definitely was the case haha! :)

Fun stuff!

So this last week was a pretty tough week. I had a 10-12 source annotated bibliography due the same day as my history 1700 test. :( However I was able to get the annotated bibliography handed in on time which made me really happy, however, I'm still waiting on the results of the test. That was the not so fun stuff. Now for the fun stuff! On Thursday, I was able to buy a new gun. It's a Stoeger 9mm pistol. It is a fun little gun that shoots really well. To add to the excitement, Mike and I both took and completed the Concealed firearms permit course. This course was very informative. So it takes around 60 days for you to get your card in the mail and then you can carry concealed. I'm excited for all of this, however the thing that is the coolest and that is the most exciting is: Maddie and I are going to Disney Land for spring break. Can you believe that it has already been a full year since we have been married? In fact, we are going to Disney Land for our anniversary! :) Well, Chou for now. :)

I feel fine!

Happy Beatles Tuesday, y’all! My good sister Cammie and a friend of hers started this thing where every Tuesday has become Beatles Tuesday and therefore is to be honored by wearing a Beatles t-shirt (which I am) or listening to some of their awesome tunes (which I will be doing shortly). I’m now spreading this love with you, because in the band’s own words, that’s “all you need” :)

So now lets move on to an update, what you’ve all been waiting for for forever probably…

Good news! I’ll be able to update more frequently soon because we’re getting internet in our little apartment! Hooray! :D

Christmas has come and gone and thanks to Santa, Mark and I are now official members of the vast assemblage of Costco shoppers. That is one fun store, let me tell you. Plus you get free samples all the time. You could practically have free lunch on all those wonderful goodies :)

The rest of our Christmas gifts consisted of various new items of clothing and pairs of shoes (I got the best shoes ever! Sparkle Converse and princess flats… could life hold any more bliss?) and also a fabulous gift from our Hulet parents… an emergency sanitation kit and various food storage items! :D However, I really hope Mark and I never have to use the sanitation kit… :S Maybe for camping… haha :)

School has started up again, thank goodness, because I really needed something to take my mind off my woes… you know, the woes of daily life and responsibilities of someone who’s not dependent on their parents anymore. Life’s great, but it’s not so easy anymore :) Anyway, Mark and I both have full loads (Mark’s is always more full, though). I am taking many music classes, as per usual, and have 17 or 18 credits. Mark has… I dunno how many credits but I think about 5 classes. This semester, he has school 3 days a week, works 3 of the other days, and then we have one blissful day off together. Unless that day falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, because then I have school. Bummer.

We got our school refund checks yesterday (thank you Pell grants!!!) and are now deciding what to do with our newfound riches. Probably we will just pay off debts and then be poor again, but at least we’ll be able to save money for our own enjoyment rather than be a slave to credit card payments. Ugh. Either that or save a large portion of the money to go somewhere exotic for our anniversary coming up! :D I’d like to go to Disneyland, Mark wants to go to Peru… um, as much as I love that man, I don’t know if a Peruvian anniversary would be exactly my cup of tea… :S The third money-spending option would be to buy a nice TV and other toys like an itouch for me or something, which would be nice :) or maybe an ipad. That would be cooler! But probably, we’ll just spend the money on immediate necessities, like textbooks and doctor bills and stuff. It’s not fair how money always just seems to slip out of your hands, no matter how hard you try to hold on to it… :( But we always pay our tithing! Good thing too, or we’d probably be in huge troubles… such is the exciting times in the life of newlyweds :)

Mark and I are in good health (relatively… I have recently had a cold, but am feeling better :)) and are making a good (albeit slow on my part) recovery from our family tragedy last November. It’s very cold here in Cedar…pretty much between –2 and 5 degrees yesterday…and I hope the spring comes soon! So far I have only slipped once, and no one saw but Mark (whew!) and therefore it wasn’t too embarrassing :) I always tell Mark how much I want out of this small, miserably chilly town. Then, whenever we’re in St. George, Mark tells me how much he can’t stand all the traffic of that “awful” place. It’s too bad that we can’t stand each other’s hometowns. I guess I’m more of a city girl than I realized… but more accurately I’m just a NO SNOW girl :)

I guess that’d be about all. Off I go to enjoy some sweet Beatles tunes! So “Hello Goodbye”, “Love Me Do”, and all that jazz :)

Chillin’… Like a villain >:)

Yeah, just sitting all alone at my parents’ house, plotting the end of the world hehehe >:) …just kidding ;) you know I couldn’t pull that off, especially since my companion in all things is working… all weekend… as per usual. Any my lovely family is having the BEST VACATION EVER!! without their daughter and son-in-law. We have to go to school and work instead. Ultra super mega lame. :(

So what is with this no fall break nonsense at SUU anyway?? It makes me a little irritated.

By the by, in case you wanted to know, my family is at Disneyland for 3 days of park-hopping bliss and then they are going on to party like there’s no tomorrow at Universal Studios. *sigh* Mark and I are hopefully planning to go to Disneyland for our anniversary though, so that will be fun :) …Also since I am obliging him and going to the deer hunt this year and also since we missed Gershwin musical of the year at Tuacahn :’( he owes me anyway haha…

Wait… let me rephrase a little. You know, I really love my husband a lot and want him to be happy too, but sometimes we don’t have the time or the funds to do everything we would like to, unfortunately… Ha, story of the life of newlyweds. Let’s just say after all the school and work stress of the year, we both deserve a super ultra mega deluxe vacation! :)

Do you realize that as of 3 days ago Mark and I have been married for 7 months? So crazy how time has just flown by… :)

Life has been going well for us, overall :) We are happy, although at times rather stressed. Sometimes it is easy to be discouraged by life… ha, I am easily discouraged I should say. That’s why I am so glad to have Mark in my life. He is always optimistic and helps me to keep my mind on track to what is really important, like the Church and family… That is the beauty of life, that you don’t have to have a lot of money or a lot of extra time to be truly happy. All you need is a knowledge of the truth and the will to carry on through your life doing those things that you know to be right, all the while spending time with those that you love :) Boy am I glad to have knowledge of these truths…

Mark and I love you all, dear readers :) Until next time…

Oh life :)

So I had the strangest experience on Tuesday… I usually get pretty tired in the afternoons with a full schedule of classes (pretty much from 7 am to 4 pm almost straight) with not much time to eat and not a ton of sleep the night before. So I decided on Tuesday afternoon that I would take a little nap. Mark was doing math homework in our room for his class that started at 6 and I fell asleep next to him. The next thing I knew, I was waking up thinking that it was probably around 8 or 9…

It was midnight.

Oops! Haha it totally threw off my groove. So after that, I got up and did my homework and then went back to bed again. It was pretty interesting, but I was still tired that day and still tired today. There’s just too much to do with not enough hours in the day. Of course, if there were more hours in a day, I would spend them sleeping and not trying to do other things haha :)

Mark and I got released from one of our callings because we received two other callings. In our ward, we were Sunday school teachers, along with another couple, of the Marriage and Family Relations class. Then we were called to be the Ward Institute Representatives and the Stake Institute Representatives for the married stake. Mark blames me for this, but I totally think it is his fault…

Last school year, Mark was on the Institute council as a vice president or something. After we got married, he was released from that calling. Well, a few weeks ago, our bishop asked during Sunday School if there was anyone available to take a class on Tuesday and Thursday morning at 7 am. Now, let me take you into my brain for a short moment… Tuesday and Thursday? Mark and I don’t have classes at 7 that day. And anyway I have class at 8 already. What difference will one hour earlier make? And Mark doesn’t work that day. I guess we could do it if no one else can. And such were my thoughts when I raised my hand. Mark just kind of looked at me in semi horror wondering why in the world I was volunteering for a 7:00 class.

It just so happened in that meeting that Mark and I were sitting in the front of the room facing everyone else due to lack of seating. The bishop could see us clearly from his seat on the front row, but no one else that might have raised their hand (which I don’t even know if anyone did…). So from this incident, we became the Cedar City University 5th Ward’s Institute Representatives. We found out that same day that we didn’t have to go to the 7 am meetings (whew!), just to a meeting once a month with the other ward reps. Oh but then guess what happened the next week? (This is the part where it’s Mark’s fault). Mark and I are asked to meet with a member of the Stake Presidency where we are asked to be the Institute Representatives for the Cedar City University Stake. You see, Mark has had previous experience with this, which is why our required attendance at early meetings is not my fault.

Anyway, I was very relieved to be released from our teaching calling because I was getting really stressed out by it and all the other stuff we have to do.

Life is going really well for the most part. School is usually bothersome, but when isn’t it? I am taking lots of music classes (music history I, 20th century music theory and history, woodwind methods, choral literature, concert choir, symphony orchestra, and the chamber choir called Opus) plus an education class – secondary educational psychology. Then I am enrolled in two institute classes (Book of Mormon and leadership something to do with our calling). So needless to say, I am one busy little chickorita (if you know what a chickorita is, I congratulate you although chickorita has little to do with what I am talking about…I simply like how it sounds haha). Mark is no less busy, working a full time job and being a full time student (12 credits). Three days of the week he works 12 hour shifts in St. George. Tuesdays and Thursdays are his school days (he takes English 1000, English 1010, Psychology 1010, Math 1040 or statistics, and a weights class).

We are still alive though, albeit negligent bloggers. :)

Before I sign out, here is a shout out to Squeather Ann! :D You are so awesome! I will miss you while you are in England, but I hope that you have the time of your life!! I love you! :) p.s. don’t forget to write or something ;)

Ha! I bet you thought we died or something… but you were wrong, we are still alive :)

Wow, it looks like Mark and I aren’t very good at keeping a blog haha! Of course, it gets a little difficult when there is no internet available at home… But for the few of you who may actually be reading this blog, here is a probably long awaited update :)

Mark and I are still in Cedar, but since he works at the hospital in St. George we spend a lot of time down South (actually, where I am right now as I type this). I never thought I’d like living in Cedar City, but when we come back and forth, I am so grateful that I no longer live in this excruciating heat! We have been having lots of fun together this summer, visiting our families often and still going on dates and stuff :) Mark is a wonderful man and always treats me like a queen… I am so blessed! ^_^

Yesterday was my birthday. I am now 20 years old. Whoa.

Actually, I don’t feel very old, but I guess I am married and stuff so I must be starting to reach adult maturity level (although between you and me, I think it’s more fun to act like a kid sometimes haha).

Pretty soon we’ll be going on family reunions, first in the Hulet family and then with the Clarke family (which is my mom’s dad’s mother’s family. A large group of people who are mostly strangers to me haha). Next weekend, my parents are going to bring an exchange student into the family for almost a year. It’s part of a scholarship program where our government pays for kids from other countries to come to school here. His name is Bakai and he is from Kyrgyzstan; he will be going to Pine View High for a year. Haha I think he’ll be coming to the family reunion with my family… that should be interesting! Also, he is Muslim (though he told us not very religious) and doesn’t eat pork. My mom has been fretting a lot over that… apparently, they eat a lot of pork haha :) But I think it will probably be a very cool experience for my family to be exposed to a little of his culture and for him to experience the way our American LDS family lives here in Utah.

Anyway, Mark and I are both well and happy! Work is going well for him; he loves working at the hospital, despite high stress situations. His existence would be unfulfilled if he couldn’t help people like that every day, saving lives and restoring health. I don’t know how he does it haha but he does get pretty tired some days. Right now I can hear him talking to my brother about being a missionary and bearing his testimony. Every day I am so impressed by how close he is to the gospel and I am so grateful for that and for the effect it has on me and even on my family for the better! It is so wonderful :)

My Sweetheart

There have been a lot of new and exciting things that have happened to me these last few months. First and foremost, I have never written on a blog until today, and the other new things that have happened are a new job at Dixie Regional Medical Center, and of course getting married to my sweetheart Madeline! Today is a sunny day probably in the mid 50's and it's looking like it's going to be a beautiful Sunday. Last Sunday Maddie and I spoke in church, "Overcoming trials through the grace of Christ." Maddie's talk was very well given and as for my talk, it was okay. :) This last week has also been such a crazy week with finals, but we have made it through the week and have done well. We still even love each other after such a stressful week Ha ha ;P

Since I'm writing this blog, I must brag about Maddie for a minute! She is such an amazing person! When she smiles there are these cute little dimples that come up around her mouth and her eyes twinkle! After it has been a long day, she cooks for me, by the way she is an amazing cook, I think that I have gained 10 lbs since our wedding! :) Good thing I go to the gym or I would puff up like a fat balloon! Maddie also has such a fun laugh, the high pitched laugh always makes me smile and laugh along with her! She is so fun to talk to, we always talk and joke around, however when I try to tell Maddie my war stories she just rolls her eyes and says, "whatever" ha ha.

Well, I love being married to Maddie, she is my sweetheart and we are enjoying all of the time that we have together! I don't have anything else to say so Peace!