Montoya's Meaningful Memories and Musings

1 month

2011-09-30T14:43:00.000-07:00

I can't belive it's already been more than one month since Bradley was born! He is doing really well and is such a sweet little boy. At 1 month and 3 days he weighed 9 lbs 8 oz (two weeks earlier he weighed 8 lbs 2 oz...that's 1 1/2 lbs in 2 weeks!). People always say kids grow up too fast and I'm discovering that is so true. I can't believe how much bigger he already is. In some ways I'm very anxious for him to get bigger and more interactive, but the other side of me just wants him to stay small and cuddly forever.

It definitely took some adjustments, but after 5 weeks, I am loving being a stay at home mom. The hardest adjustment for me was going from working and school full-time to being at home by myself while Tommy is insanely busy this semester. But like I said, I am really enjoying it now.

Here are a few adorable pictures of Bradley at 1 month.

He surprisingly looks a lot like me. I wasn't expecting him to look anything like me. His eyes look a ton like mine though- even with the bags under them (poor kid). They are still a really dark blue and Tommy is hoping they stay that way, but we'll just see.

Also, our blog will be going private soon. If you are at all interested in continuing to read, leave us your email address and follow us so its easier to see when we update. Thanks!

Bradley

2011-09-06T15:20:00.000-07:00

So I've taken my sweet time blogging about this incredible and happy event in our lives, but I'd like to introduce our son, Bradley Thomas:

Born August 25, 2011

7 lbs 12 oz

19.5 inches

Like I've mentioned before, my due date was definitely off. I was expecting him to come before September 18th...but I was still definitely caught off guard by how soon he did come.

about 1:35 am: I woke up thinking I had wet my pants and was annoyed at how small my bladder had become

1:40 am: began to question if it really was pee when I noticed how much there was, but also started freaking out a little because I didn't want it to be my water broken.

1:50 am: had another gush and realized this was not pee (seriously...there is no way my bladder could have held that much) - definitely my water had broken.

1:51 am: woke Tommy up in a crying panic. He sat straight up in bed and was simply excited as I was freaking out. He just got a huge smile on his face and said, "babe, we're going to have a baby today!" He started packing our bags as I sat crying and not knowing what to do (yeah I was completely useless). I finally got ahold of myself and realized it wasn't a horrible thing that it was already happening.

2:22 am: left for the hospital

2:36 am: checked into our room

2:46 am: nurse checked and my water was definitely broken and was at a 4. Let the waiting begin...

3:27 am: first ice chips. :)

6:20 am: requested epidural and tried to rest

11:50 am: finally fully dilated and ready to push

about 2:30 pm: Dr told us he was a little stuck and it would take a lot longer to get him out unless they used forceps or the vacuum. He was down far enough that the vacuum was the best option.

2:50 pm: Bradley was born!

As soon as the Dr saw how big he was he agreed that my due date was off . However, Bradley was officially 36 weeks and 4 days on all the information, so they still treated him like a preemie. They ran a few extra tests and had to keep him in the hospital for the full 48 hours.

I have recovered fairly quickly and have really enjoyed not being pregnant anymore. I really didn't even mind being pregnant very much, but now that I'm not, it is so wonderful!

The timing ended up being quite perfect for us. Monday through Wednesday of that same week, we had been up at Aspen Grove for Tommy's big conference he puts on for his job. All along he had been praying that Bradley wouldn't come until after FOL and the whole time we were up there people were so concerned I was going to go into labor. I thought it was a little silly because I really didn't expect to have the baby for another 2 weeks or so. But Bradley decided to come the night we got back! It worked out really well though because Tommy wasn't working anymore that week and school didn't start until Monday. So Tommy was able to be with us the whole time and not miss anything.

Going home from the hospital!

We love Bradley so much and have loved the transition to this new phase of our lives. He is a fun and amazing addition to our family.

Moving Right Along

2011-08-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

Our Dr appointment today went great! My blood pressure is staying down and at a good level and they don't seem concerned about it. So the low sodium diet is working.

Also, they are finally listening to me and believing that I might be farther along than my original due date. First, she said my belly measurement was about a cm bigger than normal, but she said that maybe the baby had a growth spurt. Then when she went to find the heart beat, it was lower than she expected and she said it seems like he is already starting to drop. Then she checked my cervix and I'm already dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced! She was really shocked and said, "are you sure this is your first?" So then I told her about my ultrasound due date (which by the way is in exactly 3 weeks!!) and our suspicions all along that I'm farther along. They finally listened to me and she put a note about it on my records. So yay! It made me so excited and we have now scheduled the rest of our appointments. It's getting so close! :)

Stringham Family Reunion

2011-08-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

My mom's side of the family had a family reunion Monday and yesterday (and today too, but I wasn't there today) at the Heber Valley Girls Camp. It was a really nice place and in a beautiful location! Tommy and I worked Monday morning but then headed up to join in the fun. They did a challenge course which included a zip line and some team building activities. I obviously just watched, but it looked really fun. That night we had family night and smores around the fire.

Here are the pictures from the zip line.

Tommy going down the zip line

Andy (age 3) was the star of the show. The facilitators told him to climb up as far as he wanted and then they would just swing him like a big swing. But he was completely fearless and climbed the whole way up, walked across the pole like everyone else, and wanted to go down the zip line. Everyone at the camp was completely amazed by him and cheered him on. I think he felt like a million bucks afterwards from how much praise he got. He was adorable!

All smiles at the end

Nick decided to rest on Tommy's head.

Tommy and I actually drove home that night because when my bed is only an hour away, it is much more appealing than a hard bunk in a cabin with other people and a bathroom a good walk away. Tommy had to work Tuesday, but I drove back up for the day. We mostly just sat around and visited. Some people went on a hike, but I just hung out and enjoyed visiting with family. I enjoyed spending time with Melanie and Danny (my siblings who were there) and lots of cousins I don't get to see often. It was a lot of fun and the place was really nice.

Mini Sister's Weekend

2011-08-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

Okay so to be more accurate it was actually a very mini sister's afternoon with husbands and children included.

First of all, my sister Melanie and her family are currently moving from Yuma, AZ to Connecticut and stopped at our place for a couple of nights on their way. They have four kids ranging from ages 9 to 3 and they are awesome! Saturday we went to Seven Peaks water park with them (at least for as long as I could handle). Tommy enjoyed having someone to go on the slides with since I haven't been able to do them all summer and I hung out with Melanie and Andy in the kiddie section.

My parents arrived in town that evening and luckily my neighbors are sooo nice and let them stay at their place since they are out of town. So we all got to be at the same place. We stayed up way too late that night talking.

And randomly, my sister Julie and her family were on their way back from a trip to San Diego on Sunday with a 4 hour layover in Salt Lake. So of course, after church we headed up to SLC to pick them up and have a picnic in the park. Despite the park being crowded and a little too hot, it was really fun to see everyone and have us three girls and my parents together. And of course, we got to snap some more pictures of mine and Julie's growing bellies. Melanie was really excited to take a picture with us and not be pregnant. :)

I love my sisters!

Farewell Sodium

2011-08-11T08:53:00.000-07:00

Monday we had another Dr appointment. Unfortunately my blood pressure was borderline too high. It is not to the preeclampsia stage, but close to it. The Dr told me to cut out sodium as best as I can and to take it easy. If it keeps going up, they will have to put me on bed rest so he told me to get lots of rest and work less. I've liked the "more rest" part, but the low sodium isn't as much fun.

The saddest part was I had a bag of Cheetos I had gotten from a ward activity waiting for me in my bag for after the appointment. I was so excited to get to eat them (I love Cheetos! but don't get them very often) and I had to give them to Tommy. He said he felt like a bully taking a little kid's candy. But he also promised to buy me my very own big bag after I have the baby. :) So far the new diet hasn't been terrible at all, just different because I actually have to read labels.

Also, I checked my blood pressure at Walmart the other day and it was down from what it was at the Dr. It is still a little higher than I would like - but at least its not going up! That made me feel better and hopefully even just a few days with less sodium has helped.

Everything else is going well though. He's still head down and everything with the baby is good. And actually I'm kinda excited because the Dr now wants to see me every week - so my weekly appointments have begun! He also said the baby could come as early as next week and things would most likely be just fine and if he comes anytime after August 25th they will clap and welcome him. :) And my ultrasound due date is 4 weeks away. So we're getting down to the last few weeks. yipee! We're excited for him to get here.

$2 Tuesdays

2011-08-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving Point is doing a $2 Tuesdays deal in the month of August where several of their exhibits are only $2. We decided to take advantage of this great deal and visit the Museum of Ancient Life. I've always wanted to go and it was pretty fun. Tickets are normally $10 each so we saved a lot of money. It was pretty dang busy (which was to be expected) but we didn't mind since we easily got our money's worth. It's a pretty cool place and would be a really fun place to take kids.

They also have 50 cent ice cream cones - and who can pass up those?

It was a fun mini-date in the middle of the week! :)

Cache Valley Saturday

2011-08-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday we spent the day up in Cache Valley. We got up in the morning and drove the 2 hours to my grandparents house just south of Logan. We spent about an hour at their house and then went with them on a drive through the beautiful Logan canyon to Bear Lake. It was so nice up there! The water is really high and it was the perfect temperature. We had a picnic lunch by the lake and then indulged in the famous and incredibly delicious raspberry milkshakes. They definitely lived up to their reputation. Then we drove back to Logan and made a stop to visit my great aunt.

We spent another hour at my grandparent's house and then Tommy and I headed out to Clarkston for the Martin Harris pageant (with of course a stop at the cheese factory to get some "squeaky" cheese!).

Clarkston is a charming little town with nothing in it except farmland, houses, a church building, and a small cemetary with this prominent member of church history buried there. We enjoyed a roast beef dinner at the church put on by the locals and then watched the pageant telling about the life and story of Martin Harris. The weather was perfect and it was fun to just sit outside looking across the beautiful valley with all its farmland while we waited for it to get dark.

Little boys in pioneer clothes are so cute. :)

We really enjoyed the pageant and learned a lot about Martin Harris. It took quite a while to get out of the parking lot with so many people there, but then we finally made our 2 hour drive home (which actually took longer due to construction). We arrived home at 1 am, exhausted. Seven-ish hours in the car was a little hard for my pregnant body and my feet and ankles were swollen up huge, but it was a really fun day. We enjoyed getting to see my grandparents and do so many fun things. And I have to agree with my mom - Cache Valley really is one of the prettiest places!

Jupiter Bowling

2011-08-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

Last night we got to hang out with some great friends. My old roommate Lizzy and her husband had an awesome groupon to a bowling alley in Park City called Jupiter Bowl. We went with them and Melissa and had a blast!

First of all, this place is high class and way awesome. We sat on couches instead of the classic table and chairs, enjoyed the service of a waiter, and got to watch a ton of music videos on huge screens. Second it was an incredible deal. We got two hours of bowling, shoe rental, an 18 in pizza, a pitcher of soda, and a few arcade tokens for 6 people for $30. This morning I looked up how much their normal prices are and was shocked. For the time we were there (M-Th 5-10 pm) they charge $45 an hour! crazy! and it's even more on the weekends. So it really was a great deal!

Apparently 2 hours of bowling wasn't too kind on the left side of my pelvis. I guess the twisting and unbalanced weight distribution took it's toll on my late pregnancy joints. So I'm walking a little slower today and waddling a little more - but it was totally worth it. I love bowling and I love these awesome people! :)

We had a ton of fun with them. I love my friends so much! Thanks for taking us Lizzy and Spencer!

Baby Update

2011-07-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

We had our 32 week Dr appointment today. I love getting to go to the doctor! Its never been so fun before. I also really loved the doctor we saw today (we go to a group of doctors so I'm making my way through all of them). Everything seems to continue to go well and his heartbeat is still really strong. I've been a little paranoid about the baby being breach because I haven't been able to tell where he is positioned, but the doctor was able to tell us what each part was and his head is down and in the right position....yay! And what I thought was possible gallbladder problems is more likely the baby's butt jamming up into my ribs and causing everything to squish and be painful. So that is also happy news because there is nothing actually wrong with my gallbladder. :) I've also only gained 1 pound since my last appointment which was really shocking to me since I feel about 10 pounds heavier. Now we are on to appointments every 2 weeks! I think that will help the time fly by.

I'm still feeling pretty good. I'm definitely feeling pregnant and starting to get uncomfortable and tired of being pregnant, but I can't complain much. I've managed to not get too hot, despite not having A/C and I'm still sleeping pretty good (other than the typical 2-4 bathroom visits in the middle of the night). The doctor congratulated me today on still being able to smile in the last trimester.

32.5 weeks

We are also almost ready for the baby in our preparations! We've had our carseat and stroller for a while and have started accumulating stuff bit by bit. My old roommates Becca and Lizzy threw me a baby shower a few weeks ago and it was really fun. I got some really cute stuff! Instead of playing games, we decorated onesies with paint pens. I thought it was a great idea and now we have some adorable/personalized/funny onesies. :) So thanks to them!

We decided to go cheap with storage and get two sets of plastic drawers to stack for all his stuff. So far it's working perfectly. On Friday we rearranged our room to make space for the crib (we only have 1 bedroom) and I actually love our room so much more now. I think we should have rearranged it a long time ago! We got our crib on Monday and now it is all set up and ready to go! It's really fun to walk into our room and see a crib. :)

All put together with the mattress!

With the bedding I made as a teenager for all my babies

I have a few sewing projects to work on such as finishing the car seat tent, making a nursing cover and some burp cloths. Only 6-8 more weeks, depending on which due date he comes closer to! We're getting close and really excited!

4th of July

2011-07-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

We went to Boise for the 4th of July this year to visit my brother Danny and his family and my sister Julie and her family, who came down from Spokane. It was so much fun! I love my family so much and I especially love my nieces and nephews...they are all just so stinkin cute!

On the way there we stopped in Twin Falls to visit Shoshone Falls and walk around the Twin Falls temple - both were beautiful!

We had a ton of fun with my family. We ate a lot of really yummy food, played with the kids, talked a bunch, went on a few outings, and watched fireworks.

The Boise Zoo

All the kids waiting for their fruit snacks

so cute!

Tommy spent a lot of time playing with the kids and watching movies and reading books with them. Playing with Nick and Michael made him excited for our boy.

We went to Settler's park to play on the playground and at the splash pad.

I was so excited to get to see Julie since we are both pregnant. All weekend we kept saying we wanted to take some cute pictures together...leave it to us to wait until the last day when we don't look cute. Oh well, at least we got some. These baby boys are due within a week of each other. :)

Love these boys so much!

We had a blast and I'm so happy we got to see everyone!

My Mommy Chair

2011-06-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

My parents have bought a rocking chair for each of my siblings when they have their first baby. My mom always says "every mom needs a rocking chair". She didn't have one with their first 2 kids because they were too poor so she decided that would be their present for the first baby in each family.

I was really excited to go chair shopping. I had always wanted and assummed I would get a glider type chair. However, when it came time to acutally shop for one, they just weren't that comfortable to me. Tommy got bored and started sitting in all the overstuffed recliners. He kept saying, "oh you have to come sit in this one" to every one he sat in. I wasn't interested at first because it's not what I wanted. However, one of them caught my eye because it wasn't so huge and didn't have the in-your-face-I'm-a-comfy-chair-look. I sat in it and fell in love. And I'm still in love cause it's now in my living room. :) Baby and I will spend lots of time together in this chair...when we can kick Tommy out of it. Best baby present!

Tommy's Birthday/ Father's Day

2011-06-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

Tommy's birthday fell on Father's Day this year. To celebrate we went out to eat on Saturday night (thanks to his mom) and then went shopping for some new tennis shoes for him. I'm pretty sure we went to every single shoe store in both the Orem and Provo malls and weren't successful until we were walking through Sears on our way out (at 8:55...5 mins before they close) and they had 2 pair he liked, in his size, for the right price! Finally! So he picked his favorite and has been very pleased. :) We also ate yummy dessert at Kneaders.

He was gone most of Sunday at church meetings, but we had a yummy dinner and then had a few friends over that night for chocolate cake and games.

I'm so grateful for him! He is such a good man and I'm so happy I'm married to him. And he will be a fantastic dad. I'm so excited to see him with our little boy...even if he does hog him anytime he's home. :)

Manti Pageant

2011-06-27T12:39:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we went to the Manti Pageant with our ward and we took Jason and Jocelyn with us. For those who don't know, it's a play they put on after dark at the Manti temple grounds. It is about the history of the church, including some Book of Mormon stories.

We drove down early with our ward (the singles went to a fireside while we saved seats) and ate a delicious BBQ turkey dinner. We packed blankets, popcorn, and all the stuff for strawberry shortcakes (random, I know). We had a good time visiting and eating while waiting for it to get dark. It rained on us though and for a few minutes we had lightening dancing all around us. It made me happy since we don't get very many lightening storms here. We were glad we had umbrellas and blankets to hide under, but we still did get pretty wet.

The pageant was really good...though perhaps a little long and the acting was a bit too dramatic, but we really enjoyed it. The drive home seemed long as Tommy and I fought to stay awake. We got home close to 1 am, which is waaaaaay past our bedtime.

It was a really fun evening though and I'm so glad we got to go while we still live here.

Man Camp 2011

2011-06-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

By Tommy

To all who know me well, a week of camping, rafting, and high adventure is a dream come true. However last week when I spent five days in the north Georgia woods hiking and rafting, it was my father-in-law's dream come true. Click here for the whole story on my mother-in-law's blog. For years Jill's dad has looked forward to the day when he could take all his sons and sons-in-law on this trip, and last week it happened. Not only was it a trip to be dreamed of, but it will be a trip to be remembered.

Day One - Blood Mountain

Stream running through a hollow log on the trail to the top of Blood Mountain.

View from the top of Blood Mountain. Believe me - this picture hardly does it justice. Absolutely beautiful!

After we finished the hike we went to a local swimming hole called Dick's Creek. The water was wonderful and we had a good time playing in the waterfalls and jumping off of rocks.

Day Two - Nantahala River

We sure had a lot of fun on this river in North Carolina. The water was a little bit chilly, but after being thrown (by people, not rapids) in several times your body gets used to it.

Day Three - Tallulah Gorge

Absolutely beautiful view from the top.

Slide rock at the bottom of the gorge = best way to spend 2.5 hours on a hot/humid June day. There were 20-30 people at the bottom of the gorge, but we had the most fun by far. There were a few sunbathers from other countries who delighted at our craziness - including trains down the rock. Lesson from today - when you are in the front of the train, and you hit the water there are still 7 more people immediately behind you coming fast; your options - move or get slammed repeatedly to the bottom of the swimming hole.

Day Four - Ocoee River

We had a lot of fun on this river in Tennessee. At one point the four rafts with our company (ours and two others) tethered to a large rock with a gentle slope into a mild rapid. We then flipped one of the rafts over and pulled it a ways up on the rock, creating an awesome slide into the rapid. This was the site of our only casualty this trip (a pair of glasses), but other than that we could have stayed all day. Lesson learned from this day - don't prank others rafts if you are not 100% certain of whose raft is which.

Overall we had a great time. Jill visited her mom in Houston while we were camping. She also attended a good friends wedding (future post coming). I was delighted with the fun we had on the trip, but was grateful to return home to showers and a consistent daily schedule (I am my mothers child). We drove back to Houston and Jill had made me an early birthday cake (she was getting some decorating lessons from her mom). It was delicious. We flew home Sunday and have been catching up since then. Looking forward to my real birthday this weekend. Happy Friday!!!

Man Cub

2011-06-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

Our little man cub is doing great! We had a doctors appointment yesterday and it was extremely uneventful...which is a good thing. It's still always really fun to hear his heartbeat and to know everything is okay.

He moves a ton! Of course, I have nothing else to compare it to, but it seems like its a lot. Sometimes it feels like he's having a dance party in my belly. It makes me smile. There have been several mornings I wake up to it between 4-7 am and he's very calm at night....so it seems like he might be taking after his father in being a morning person (Tommy is really excited about that). The ultrasound technician mentioned how much he was moving when we had the ultrasound and yesterday the doctor took a while to get a clear sound of his heartbeat because he kept kicking right where he was trying to listen. So he might be an active little guy. :)

I have been feeling great. Not much to report on except that the other day I opened my third bottle of Tums during my second trimester. They are like candy that make my esophagus sigh in relief. What did people do before Tums?

I've had a few requests to see my belly, so here I am at almost 25 weeks.

Memorial Day

2011-06-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

Our Memorial Day weekend was rainy and wonderful. We spent a lot of time with our good friends Jason and Jocelyn playing games and chatting and had a lot of good us time to shop, sleep, and watch movies.

I had to go to a cemetery on Memorial Day for my floral design class to see the flowers. We went to Provo cemetery on Monday morning and wow, I have never seen anything like it! There were soooo many flowers. Utahans definitely do Memorial Day differently than anywhere else I've seen. Instead of just decorating the veterans' graves, basically every grave had flowers on it. It was really cool.

I called my mom to see if we had any ancestors in that cemetery and she helped us figure out where they were. It was a really neat experience.

This is my great-great-grandmother

These are my great-great-great-grandparents

That afternoon we met up with Jason and Jocelyn for dinner and bowling. Jocelyn and I stopped off by Bowen Hall (our freshman dorm) to say our farewells. It is being torn down to install a hot water pipe. Lame. It will get its own post...it's that special.

Then we went bowling. BYU does an awesome deal on Monday nights where shoe rental is $1 and each game is only $1...so for 2 of us to play 2 games it cost $6! That's a steal! I now want to go a lot more often.

My belly matches the bowling ball. :)

It was a very nice, relaxing weekend. Now we are getting ready to go to Texas and Georgia next week! yipee!

Provo City Easter Egg Hunt

2011-05-10T13:02:00.000-07:00

I completely forgot I had started this post several weeks ago! On Saturday, April 23rd I did my last project for my internship: the Provo City Easter Egg Hunt. This event = absolute craziness. Seriously. There are so many kids and crazy parents who think they deserve something special. However, it was successful and fun. The most stressful part was that we were supposed to have 45ish volunteers and only about 5 showed up (we had a high school group that completely fell through). Luckily we have awesome family members and few others who randomly showed up to save the day.

We had 4 different age groups and all of them were packed. We gave out 15,000 eggs and there were still some kids who didn't get any. Then after the hunt we had activities: balloons, bunny ear craft, coloring pages, face painting, pictures with the Easter bunny, inflatables, and a baby animal petting zoo. Even though it was crazy and exhausting, the event was overall a success.

Helping distribute eggs in the 6-8 age group

the crowds lined up ready to go

Absolute chaos.

Some eggs had grand prize coupons in them. Tommy and I worked this booth and gave out the prizes. Some of the kids were so excited by what they won.

And luckily my brother David, Liz, and Jessica were able to be there.

With the baby animals. She is so cute!

Bunny Ear Craft

My internship was such a great experience. I loved working with Provo City and putting on events. I especially loved the people I worked with and how much fun we had. I am so grateful I was able to work there and get such good experience. So fun!

Oh Boy!

2011-05-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

First off, with a combination of graduation and Mother's Day, I got a sewing machine! I have known that's what I wanted for graduation for several months so when my parents were here we went looking around. It took me awhile to decide what was best for my budget, but I got this machine at The Cotton Shop in Provo.

So far I am loving it. I haven't done much with it because I'm waiting to take the classes they offer on it, but I was so excited the night we got it. I learned how to do the bobbin and thread it - which for me was a big deal! I was always so stubborn about learning those things on my mom's machine because it is complicated and she was always standing right there, so I never really learned how. I was extremely proud of myself for learning quickly.

I'm super happy to have a sewing machine and am excited to begin a couple of new projects.

And the big news is we had our ultrasound yesterday and we are having a BOY!!!!! We are so excited! I went in yesterday having zero idea what it was and being completely fine with either, but I am so excited its a boy because I've always wanted a boy first. Tommy said he was fine with either, but now that its a boy he can admit he was really really hoping it was a boy.

I really loved the entire ultrasound. It was incredible to actually see the baby and to see all his organs and parts. He was moving around like crazy and kicking at my bladder. Technology is absolutely amazing!

And I'm actually a little farther along than we originally thought. All the measurements were putting me at 21-22 weeks (instead of 20 like I thought). The date the ultrasound said was September 7th. The technician decided not to officially change my due date because she didn't want to change it and then the baby not come that early because that would be depressing. She said it's much better to plan on September 18th and have him come early. So we're still planning on the 18th but with the understanding he will probably come early.

I have felt him a ton the last several weeks kicking, punching, and a few times what feels like a somersault. Tommy felt him for the first time a week and a half ago. He got really excited about that. Everything is going really well!

Graduation

2011-04-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

I graduated from BYU! I was expecting graduation to be boring and I wasn't looking forward to it, but it was actually really fun! On Thursday, April 21 we had commencement with all the graduates. We all walked across campus in a procession and Elder Richard G. Scott spoke. I got to sit with Matthew, Casey, and my best pals Jocelyn and Melissa. It was actually really fun just to be with all of them.

Love them! I was so happy to get to sit with them. :)

Then on Friday morning I had my Marriott School of Management convocation where I actually walked. Once again, it was surprisingly fun. I loved sitting with all the RMYL students. It was so fun to see and talk to all the awesome people I've had classes with for the last 3 years. I especially loved graduating with my internship friends. It was a little bittersweet because it was so fun to see everyone, but I also knew that I will most likely not see most of these people ever again...and that is sad. Overall though, it was an awesome day!

Danica and Lauren - the other 2 Provo interns. They are so awesome!

It feels weird to be done, but also really awesome. I have absolutely loved BYU, my experiences, and the incredible people I have met here!

Baby!!

2011-04-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

Yep, we're having a baby!!!! We are so excited! I am 16.5 weeks along and due on September 18th. So far I have felt great and it has been a pretty easy pregnancy. I've just been insanely tired, but had very minimal sickness the first trimester and even less now.

positive pregnancy test on January 19th. :)

I can't sleep on my stomach anymore cause it feels like I'm sleeping on a baseball. I've slept on my stomach my entire life, so I've been trying to adjust to side sleeping this week, which has actually been a lot more difficult than I anticipated. I'm sure I will get used to it though.

I didn't really start changing much until about 2 weeks ago and I feel like I've changed a lot since then. People who know me can tell I'm pregnant now and not just getting fat....strangers probably still just think I'm fat though.

I may have felt the baby move for the first time this morning. I'm not completely sure cause I've never had a baby before, but it was definitely a different feeling than I've ever felt before. I was sitting still and felt something like a bubble, but in my belly. It happened four times and then stopped. It made me happy. And even if it wasn't the baby, I'm still excited for when I will feel it.

Anyways, we are super happy and excited! We've been to the doctor 3 times and everything seems to be going well. We will have our ultrasound on May 2! Can't wait!

Kid's Science Palooza

2011-03-18T09:08:00.000-07:00

All semester for my internship, I have been part of planning the 4th annual Kid's Science Palooza for Provo City. It has been a blast! This past Saturday, March 12th, was the event. Everything turned out so good! It is basically an event for kids in the community to come and have fun doing hands-on science activities. We had 23 different activities, 6 BYU science clubs, Coke-Mentos explosions, Sub Zero ice cream demonstration, and a live animal show. We each had our own assignments to take care of. I was in charge of the Bubble Room (which had 3 different bubble activities), Magic Sand, Cloud in a Bottle, and Quicksand. For my capstone project for my internship, I was in charge of volunteers and the BYU clubs. I had to do the recruiting, communication, and training of the volunteers. It was a really good experience and I learned so much, not to mention had a lot of fun! :)

I apologize for so many pictures...its more for my sake to remember it all and for my mom who didn't get to see it.

Here is the decorated Bubble Room a couple of days before the event.


Me painting my water cycle backdrop for the Cloud in a Bottle. (and Lauren falling asleep...we put in a LOT of hours that week)

These are all pictures at the event.

These are Boo Bubbles. They were one of the activities in the Bubble Room. They are bubbles filled with dry ice fog (carbon dioxide). The kids can hold them with gloves on and when they pop, fog comes out.

This is Mega Bubble. It's just a big bubble...but people thought it was really fun. I love Lauren's face!

This little kid got really excited. :)

The other activity in the Bubble Room is hard to capture on camera. It is called Bouncing Bubble. We made a bubble solution with glycerin in it. When the kids wear cotton gloves, the bubbles don't pop, they bounce! It's pretty cool and goes against everything you've ever known.

My jungle decorations for the Quicksand (cornstarch and water mixture which acts like a solid when it has pressure on it and a liquid with no pressure. It's pretty dang fun to play in)

The kids LOVED it!

This was Cloud in a Bottle. It's just made by pumping up a bottle with rubbing alcohol in it. When you pull the stopper out, a cloud instantly appears. You can also see my finished water cycle in the background.

This is Magic Sand. It is just sand that has been dyed and sprayed with a substance like Scotchguard to make it hydrophobic. The kids could play with it and compare it to regular sand to learn how hydrophobic things work.

Coke-Mentos explosions - they are pretty awesome. We had some hit the ceiling of the gym.

This is the front entrance. We had a fun robot recording going with instructions - it was like Disneyland.

My co-workers - Eric, Lauren, Whitney, and Danica. Lauren and Danica are the other interns. They all did their hair like mad scientists.

The rest of the pictures are all other people's areas.

Black light Space Room - they made Galactic Goo (Gak with glow stuff), space volcanos, and coloring with highlighters (which surprisingly looked really cool!)

The 5 Senses Room

Operation Game

Stomach Bag. Disgusting, but a very good way of teaching how your stomach digests food.

Panning for Gold

We also had a forensic science room, edible blood, magnetic car racing, kids in motion room, martial arts power (kids break boards), plus all the awesome things the BYU clubs brought.

It was such a successful event. We estimated we had 1200-1500 people come. It was so much fun! Have I mentioned how much I LOVE my internship?

Y-ball and Arizona

2011-02-25T13:57:00.000-08:00

Wow, I haven't updated in a long time. Things have been good. We are half way through the semester now. I am loving my internship so much! I love the people I work with and I love getting to do something that I've gone to school to do. It's so much fun. Tommy is still enjoying school and work. He is working on BYUSA elections right now. He's enjoying it, but I think he'll be glad when its over.

At the beginning of February, we went with a group of friends to the Y-ball. It's a free dinner and dance for married students. They also had limo rides. The food was delicious and we had a good time with our friends.

For our long President's Day weekend, we unexpectedly got to go to Arizona to visit Tommy's family! One of Tommy's good friends from home was going, so we hitched a ride. It is always so fun to see them. We had a blast playing with the kids. It was a really fun, quick trip.

Tommy, Sam, and Sariah built "Batman's Lair"

Not much to report on, but life has been really really good. :)

Back to Reality

2011-01-07T10:44:00.000-08:00

This week has been a little crazy as we have been trying to get back into a routine and starting new things.
But here are the final stats from our Christmas holiday:

played 20 games in our tournament (more on this at my mom's blog)
watched 15 movies
ate at 4 restaurants
went on 4 big outings and lots of little ones
ate a 5lb bag of peanut M&M's
made 5 batches of homemade candy
took 3 freezing cold showers (the hot water heater died a couple days before we left and they had to order one)
watched 1 big thunderstorm
had 3 sewing projects
talked and made a whole lot of memories

It really was such a wonderful trip. I just love my parents and it was so great to spend so much one-on-one time with them.

We have been thrown back into the cold weather and I haven't really liked it much. I got spoiled with great winter Houston weather. When we turned on our space heater in our apartment it said it was 43 degrees...yeah that's too cold to live in.

Tommy has started classes again and is enjoying them so far. I have started my internship and I think I will really like it. It has been fun so far and I really like the people I am working with. So hopefully this semester will be successful and happy.

Golf

2011-01-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

New Year's day we had Texas waffles for breakfast. Pretty cool huh?

Then, we began our golf tournaments for the day. We had a double elimination string-golf tournament.

Mom and Dad started

Tommy kept score

We spectated

This is my kitty in the garage. I like her lots.

Then Tommy and I played. The rules are that the winner is the first one to 21 and at one point Tommy was beating me 17-1 but I made an AWESOME come-back and beat him! :) He wasn't too happy about it. But I lost the next time we had to play.

My dad and Tommy played in the finals and dad won.

Then we played frisbee golf. We have an 18-hole frisbee golf course in our yard. It consists of trees, telephone poles, the chimney, mail box, front door, etc, and we all have it memorized. We've been playing for as long as I can remember. Dad won that one too.

It was a pretty fun day and weather was absolutely perfect!

New Year's Eve

2011-01-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

I started sewing a nursery set for my future children when I was a teenager for a Personal Progress project. I got my required 10 hours on the project and put it away unfinished. On new year's eve day, I finished it! I love how it turned out and I think it is adorable. I can't wait to actually use it. BUT no, I am not announcing anything.

There is a sheet, bumper pads, quilt, and little bag. I have enough material to someday make a ruffle for the bottom of the crib and curtains, but I will wait until I actually have a crib and a window to make them for.

I really love the material. Makes me happy. :)

New Year's Eve is really fun at our house. It is probably one of my favorite holidays. We live outside city limits where it is wet enough that we can do fireworks. We do our fair share of black cats, roman candles, flowers, sparklers, and bottle rockets, but we also do the big fireworks. Recently a firework warehouse opened about 5 minutes away with very reasonable prices. It must have enticed all our neighbors because there were so many more fireworks this year than normal. People were doing fireworks periodically throughout the evening, but at midnight there were fireworks in every single direction from our house, including on our driveway. It was really cool to see so many beautiful fireworks over the trees and houses in every direction.

We also play a ton of games on New Year's Eve while eating M&M's, chips and dip, and soda. We will play games for about an hour, then go out to "blow up the world", as my dad calls it, for a little while and then go back in to more games. This process is repeated all evening until midnight.

We also always blow up the ginger bread house.


Tommy doing a roman candle.

The Water Wall

2011-01-01T21:05:00.000-08:00

The water wall is a giant half circle water fountain wall in downtown Houston. We were in the area yesterday and stopped by. It's pretty cool. And it gets you wet, especially when it's humid.

When you lean back and look at it like this, it trips you out. It feels like you are falling backwards.

USS Texas Battleship

2010-12-31T16:08:00.000-08:00

We visited the USS Texas earlier this week. It is a battleship that was commissioned in the US Navy in 1914 and fought in WWI and WWII. They have it set up as it would have appeared when in use. You can explore it on your own. It is a fun place and Tommy thought it was pretty awesome.

Watch out Dad, we'll blow your brains out!

Christmas

2010-12-28T15:03:00.000-08:00

My family has a tradition of going somewhere fun on Christmas Eve. It started just to get us kids out of the house so we weren't so crazy all day with the excitement of Christmas.

This year we went to the zoo. We had a lot of fun and had a great day. Tommy hadn't been to a zoo in a really long time, so he was excited.

This was the lion show where they pull down a metal door and expose the lions with just this grate in between us. They were feeding these young females milk with the spray bottles.

This is the male lion named Jonathan who had no interest in the milk

This is the baby elephant we saw who was soooo cute and curious!

Tommy and the chimp. :)

yikes!

We have lots of traditions on Christmas eve that I love! We had a lot of fun. We also had a great Christmas morning and day.

Tommy has wanted a rob for quite a while and he got one!

Getting ready and excited for our yummy Christmas dinner!

We love Christmas!!!! :)

Texas Living

2010-12-24T15:35:00.000-08:00

We have now been in Texas for a week and have loved relaxing! We've had several days of doing nothing, which is exactly what we wanted. We've also gotten to do some fun things with my parents. The weather has been surprisingly warm. I wasn't sure if it was just because I forgot how warm it is here since I now live in Utah, but they have actually reached some record high temps for this time of year while we've been here. I'm not complaining though...I love it.

We've done the usuals: watch lots of movies, play lots of games, eat lots of yummy food, etc. On Monday we ate fajitas at a local restaurant. I have missed Texas fajitas and Tommy got to experience how much better they are than anywhere else.

We went to the Houston temple

Last night, we had a classic Texas experience. We went to this hole-in-the-wall BBQ place (which is sooooo good) and had their Thursday night all-you-can-eat ribs special.

They were AMAZING! and ginormous. This dinner had to weigh at least 5 lbs. And of course they had the potato salad, beans, and plain old white bread.

Just look at how big those ribs are! Tommy was in heaven. :)

And some of the mess afterwards. We had already wiped our fingers and face a couple of times.

It's been so fun! And the best part is that our trip isn't even half way over yet!! :)

I'll Be Home for Christmas!

2010-12-16T09:26:00.000-08:00

I am done with finals! And now I can't wait to go home tomorrow! It has been too long since I've been home. I love my house, Texas, my parents, and old friends. Unfortunately none of my siblings are able to come this year, so it will just be us and my parents. I'm still super excited though cause my parents are awesome and I won't have to compete for my mom's attention! (Because after all, she is MY mommy! - inside joke with family). I think one of the things I am most excited about is having Tommy all to myself with no school or work for 2 1/2 weeks. :) yay! I just can't wait!

So Texas, here we come!!!!

We will eat lots of this. :)

We will come here to do fun things like the zoo and museums

I realize we will be there in the winter, so everything will be dead...but just look at how GREEN it is!

And of course, the source of my greatest childhood fear. (luckily we probably won't see them since it is winter)

And bluebonnets, the state flower. (which also won't be there in the winter...but they are too pretty to not brag about)

I realize I am being the typical Texan by posting this blog full of Texas pride - but I just couldn't help myself. That's what happens when I am separated from home for a year and a half and can't wait to go home!

*All photos (except blue bell) are courtesy of my mom's blog and my dad's superb photography skills :)

Meet the Mighty Makis

2010-12-13T11:50:00.000-08:00

Written by Tommy

These last four months have been some of the greatest of my life. I am married to one amazing woman:

I am studying at the most incredible university,

and I have been blessed to work with these great people.

Meet the Mighty Makis. When I started the Masters of Public Administration program back in August, I knew that a large portion of my work would be done in teams. What I didn't know was that I had been put into a team that would thrive and excel, time and again. We got along from the beginning. We worked hard and performed well. I appreciate their constant support and encouragement. We are friends who were brought together (not by chance) for one purpose - to succeed in all our endeavors. And we did just that. We derived our name from the Lemur species native to Madagascar (think "I like to move it, move it"). Together we became decision analysts and economists. Together we studies organizational behavior and communication. Together we learned more about public service.

This team has taught me so much - about life, learning, the gospel, and more. I will miss spending time with these amazing individuals. I look forward to working with them throughout the rest of the MPA program, and am excited to watch them change the world.

Thank you Jini Suttner, Dominique Andriamanantoa, Hugh VanWagenen, and Starlee Holman. Long live the Makis!

It has truly been an amazing semester, and I thank the Lord for his never-ending flow of blessings.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-29T14:36:00.000-08:00

We had a great Thanksgiving break! My sister Julie was in town and luckily they were here before we left to go to Arizona. They came over on Monday night and it was so fun to see them. I really miss living close to them!

I love them!

We were originally planning to leave on Tuesday morning, but a snow storm was coming and we decided to leave Monday after my family left so that we could get through Spanish Fork Canyon without snow. We slept at a rest stop outside of Moab for about 4 hours (until it was too cold) and then went the rest of the way. It was so fun to spend time with Tommy's family. They are awesome! And his little siblings just keep growing up so fast!

We woke up one morning to find two bulls in their yard. As soon as Sam found out about them, he dressed up in his cowboy gear and made sure to not wear red. :) Then he watched them from his bedroom window all morning. He and all the little cousins got excited when they did anything. I never knew cows pooping and moving could be so exciting.

The bulls (sorry not a very good picture)

We had Thanksgiving dinner with Tommy's grandparents and family and enjoyed seeing everyone. We had fun playing with the kids, seeing Harry Potter 7, playing games, and visiting. We also got to see his Montoya grandparents and spend some time with them. And we went to Flagstaff to watch his brother Andrew play in the AZ football state championship game.

Here are just random things from the rest of the trip:

Tommy and Sariah dancing while home alone. She is so funny.

Sariah and her new outfit.

"Look Mom, it's the heart Jesus gave me"

And our awesome, trustworthy Saturn hit its 220,000 mile birthday on this trip. :) We love our car!

We did experience some weather problems on the way back. We went a different way home since we were already in Flagstaff. We had snow coming out of Flagstaff and had to go really slow, but then it cleared up until we had to go through a mountain pass to get over to I-15. It was BAD and scary. As we were coming up to the summit, there were about 6 cars that had slid of the road or were stuck. We were okay but were sliding around a little and had a hard time getting going, but we made it. We were pretty scared there for a minute though. Tommy's legs were shaking so bad and I don't think I moved a muscle. Then for about 2 hours on I-15 we had to go 30 mph, but luckily we didn't have anymore problems. We felt very blessed. Tommy was exhaused by time we got home from the tense driving. His neck was so tight and sore and he fell asleep on the couch by around 8 pm.

It was a great trip! And as always, it was so nice to see family. We have 3 more weeks of school and then we are off to Houston for Christmas!

Flash-forward about 60 years...

2010-11-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the future. Tommy and I just celebrated our 60th anniversary!

see??? :)

Happy Halloween!

This is Melissa who did our make-up and hair. She's awesome!

At our ward Halloween party. It was pretty dang fun and so many people in the Wilkinson center kept telling us how cute we were and that they want to be just like us someday. We definitely acted the part...and my back was so sore afterwards from hunching over so long.

We went to another party with some friends and our friend had no idea who we were. She stood staring at us at the front door for a good 30 seconds before she realized it was us. She thought I was the old lady next door coming to tell them to stay quiet. hah! Her reaction was hilarious.

And I tell you what, it is WEIRD to see what you are going to look like someday (except the fact that my skin is still tight to my face and not droopy yet). Aging is supposed to be a gradual process...

We had a ton of fun. :) Costumes are so much more fun with a spouse to dress up with.

Fall Fun with Perfect Pumpkins

2010-10-14T09:58:00.000-07:00

Last night we did a really fun group date with two of Tommy's best friends and dates. We went up the canyon to eat chili in bread bowls and were planning on carving pumpkins there, but decided it was getting too dark and cold, so we went back to our apartment for that part.

Here is our beautiful and perfect pumpkin! I loved it so much. It was just absolutely perfect and I almost didn't want to carve it.

Melissa (my old roommate who went with Jake) with our perfect pumpkin

Eating the chili and bread bowls....it was SO GOOD!

And the pumpkin carving begins...

The finished product! :)

Melissa and Jake and their pumpkins Melissa did the theater masks, so one side is happy...

And the other side is sad

Ken and Michelle and their pumpkin

All the pumpkins together! Aren't they cute?

Then for dessert, I made witch hats! They are supposed to be chocolate cones and chocolate cookies so that they're dark, but I couldn't find chocolate cones. There is ice cream inside (and some leaked out because I was rushed making them). Yum!

It was such a fun evening! A perfect fall date with good friends. :)

And how can I not smile with this face sitting on my counter?

Crunchy Leaves

2010-10-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

It's that wonderful season again!!! I love everything about fall and I especially love crunchy leaves! I purposely walk where I will step on the most or the crunchiest. I will even turn around and go back if there is a particularly crunchy looking one I missed. It's true, ask Tommy. This has only been true since I've lived in Utah. There aren't as many trees that lose their leaves in Texas because they are all evergreens. I especially began to love them my second fall here, which is the fall that I met and started dating Tommy. :) When we first started going on walks together and I did my crazy foot placements to step on the leaves, he thought I was just silly. And now he joins in. :) It is one of my favorite things...among a gazillion other things I love about fall.

We went on a ton of dates last week. We went to Mr. BYU (a male pageant and our first date 2 years ago), Homecoming Spectacular (which was AMAZING), Divine Comedy, the BYU homecoming-blue-pancake-breakfast and parade (super fun), a carnival stake activity, and the football game. That was all between Wednesday and Saturday...crazy, but so so fun!

We are looking forward to a fun group date tonight with some of Tommy's friends and going to Park City this weekend with my old roommates! I'm so excited! :)

Have a wonderful day and enjoy this amazing time of year!

School is Cool

2010-09-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

Man, life is hectic! Pretty much life has been: school, school, and more school, work, church, and trying to find every possible second to spend together. We have adjusted well though. Tommy is loving his masters program and always has new and exciting things to share. It makes me happy to see him loving it so much. I am pushing through my last semester of classes. :)

Football has started!!!! It always gets us excited. This is us at the first game, which was a really good game.

Labor day weekend we spent one night with my grandparents in Logan. It's always fun to see and chat with them. They took us to see Martin Harris's grave.

Sunday we had Regional Conference so I had Tommy to myself all day on a Sunday!!! I also got to sit by him in church. I was pretty dang excited about it! That afternoon we decided to take a drive up the canyon, which is one of my favorite things to do.

Now back to homework...

For Mom Montoya

2010-08-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

Some things just never change...

(Tommy's clothes laid out like he's done the night before the first day of school since Kindergarten...at least he has stopped laying his underwear out on top of the outfit as well.)

...Like Tommy's excitement on the first day of school.

Happy first day of grad school for Tommy and happy last first day of BYU classes for me!

Tommy Graduated!

2010-08-16T09:27:00.000-07:00

Tommy graduated with his Bachelors degree this weekend! It was exciting, even though nothing feels different since he starts his masters program in 2 weeks.

The night before we celebrated by going up on campus to one of his favorite spots, eating cheesecake, and talking about his favorite BYU undergraduate moments. :)

Thursday was commencement. None of his family was in town yet so it was just me there for that. I really enjoyed the speakers, but I never did find Tommy cause there were just too many people and they all looked the same.

In his office before heading over.

Those windows are where Tommy has spent probably 50% of his time at BYU.

Friday was the individual college convocations where they walked. His grandparents, an uncle and 3 cousins came from the Montoya side and his mom, grandma, and sister came from his mom's side. It was fun to see all of them.

Tommy and his mom

Grandma Cox

walking in...kinda hard to see

Graduating!!!

Us with his Montoya grandparents

The Montoya side

And then Tommy and I ran off to try to find his favorite professor, Brad Harris...which we did. He is an awesome guy.

And it is a tradition at BYU to light the Y for graduation and homecoming. Tommy has always loved this tradition, but it was even more exciting since it was lit for him this time! (it is really hard to take a picture of it with a point and shoot camera...you still get the idea)

It was a great weekend! And we really enjoyed having his family here. I know it meant a lot to him.

Hooray for having one degree under his belt...now our full attention is on the Masters!

Sisters

2010-08-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

I have had the chance to live close to both of my sisters at different times. Melanie lived near us when I was a teenager and I loved it! We had a great time and I loved having her and her kids close. She helped me a ton through those years and I had a really hard time when she moved away.

Julie has lived here in Utah, about 30 mins away, the entire time I have been at BYU and it has been awesome! I was excited to get to live near a sister again. She has been such a support to me and I feel like I have grown a lot closer to her because of it. Her husband Mike recently got a job in Washington and they are moving today. This is actually a huge blessing for their family and I am really excited and happy for them...but I also don't want to give them up at all.

Julie and I have seen each other almost every week for the 3 years I've lived here (sometimes it's more like every other week) and we have had a lot of fun together. We've done lots of shopping, making cookies, playing games, sleepovers, watching chickflicks, playing with the kids, and talking and more talking! I have loved getting to go to her house and have her pamper me by making me dinner and letting me do laundry. She really is just amazing and always willing to help out where she can.

I have also been here for the birth of both of her kids and have grown really attached to them. They are so much fun to play with and I love them so much!

I will miss their family a lot!

Here are some pictures and highlights of my time living near them:

Birth of Isabelle

BYU campus

Visiting me at my apt

This is what Isabelle would do when you said "touchdown!". It was adorable!

This was just an absolutely hilarious few moments when she went crazy on the horse.

At Grandma's house

At my wedding with THE scowl

The birth of Michael

All the hours of playing

Babysitting. Michael was reeeaally happy about this.

Dinosaur Museum

We will miss them so much! I will miss getting to skip out on work to hang out with Julie, singing songs to Isabelle before bedtime and laughing at all the hilarious things she does, rocking Michael to sleep (it is seriously one of my favorite things!), and all the other things we do together. I'm so glad I have gotten to live by them. We wish them luck at their new home! Love you Julie!

Boise

2010-07-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

For our three day weekend we went up to Boise to visit my brother Danny and his family. We had a lot of fun! Even though we got sick for part of the time, we were still able to do lots of things. We went to an awesome water park (definitely put Seven Peaks to shame), went rock climbing, did downtown shopping, walked part of the Greenbelt by the river, played at a park, ate at Jack in the Box twice (Utah doesn't have them), visited cousins, talked, and played with their adorable kids. It was fun!

Rock climbing

Tommy and Nick love each other. Tommy has been obsessed with him since he first met him as an infant and they are really cute together.

Sydney is at a really fun age and was so cute to play with.

Playing in the backyard

We also stopped to see the Boise temple

It was a really good quick trip and its always fun to see their family!

Campfires, Friends, and Food

2010-07-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night we got to hang out with some good friends up the canyon. We went with two of my old roommates, Jocelyn and Melissa, and Jason (Jocelyn's husband) and Jake (Tommy's good friend). Before we went up the canyon we found out another roommate, Lizi, was passing through town and would only be in Provo that night. She now lives in New Mexico and recently had a baby and we hadn't gotten to meet him yet. So we were all really excited that we got to go see her and her adorable baby Zachary! We love and miss her a lot so it was really happy to see her!

Then we drove up the canyon and found a nice secluded spot to build a fire to roast hot dogs and smores. We had a great time sitting around chatting and enjoying the perfect weather. We also played 2 truths and a lie (you tell 2 truths and a lie about yourself and people have to guess which one is the lie). It was tricky since us girls know each other so well, but it was fun to try to come up with things that no one else would know. (our spouses weren't allowed to answer since they would obviously know the right answer).

Melissa didn't want her marshmellow completely melted because it was too messy but she wanted her chocolate to be soft so everyone pitched in to help her warm her entire smore.

And she was happy about it.

Jocelyn and Jason

We had a great time and love our friends!

Introducing...

2010-07-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

Felix!!!

This is what I got Tommy for our anniversary. He was really really excited. In fact, I'm really sad I didn't take a picture of his reaction. So why on earth did I get him a garden gnome?

Well, when we were registering at Target last year, he saw the gnomes. We talked about how funny gnomes are and he asked if we could have one. I said sure and he scanned it. Of course, no one gave us a garden gnome for our wedding. But it became one of our jokes that we really wanted one someday. So I bought one for our anniversary and let Tommy name him. He chose the name Felix because it means good luck. Felix sits by our door and everytime we leave or come home Tommy says hi and bye to him. Tommy also informed me that if you touch the tip of his hat it will give you good luck. :)

We like him.

One year ago...

2010-07-08T10:01:00.000-07:00

this happened:

And it was amazing.

It has been the best year ever and I have no doubt that the years to come will just keep getting better. :)

4th of July weekend

2010-07-07T13:28:00.000-07:00

Tommy's family came to town for the 4th of July and we had so much fun with them! We spent the majority of the time with his immediate family, but also a good amount of time with extended family. We did lots of things like eating good food and a lot of ice cream, swimming, shopping, arcading, watching fireworks, talking, playing King of the Bed (my personal favorite...and a great way to get to know your in-laws better), and going to Bridal Veil Falls and Salt Lake City. We also got to do a few things one-on-one with his siblings. Sam spent the night with us one night and we attempted to go see the hot air balloons in the morning, but it was too windy. We took Joslin to Seven Peaks water park and had a great time there and Sariah wanted to ride in our car everywhere we went.

We went to the Mayan Restaurant in SLC which was fun because Tommy and I went there on the field trip that we started liking each other on. This picture is a re-creation of another picture from that field trip.

Sam and Sariah at the Mayan

This was the day Sam spent the night with us. Tommy told him it was a rule that you have to dress up at our house. :)

One of the many times Sariah rode with us. She is so adorable!

Bridal Veil Falls

Tommy and Sariah swimming at the hotel.

Waiting for the fireworks

Tommy was so excited to have his family in town and we had a lot of fun. His family is awesome!

Robin Hood Night

2010-06-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

We rented Robin Hood Prince of Thieves from the library a while ago and decided to have a Robin Hood themed Family Night. It was so much fun!

We had a simple meal of chicken, cubed cheese, green beans, pears, and bread. This was probably much more like how Prince John or the Sheriff would have eaten, but I wasn't about to make porridge for dinner.

We made hats and swords. Tommy made a Robin Hood hat and I made a Maid Marian hat. And we dressed up, because dressing up makes everything that much more fun.

Then we played a few games. First we had a coin toss using some awesome coins we have from one of our games (like real coins...not the dinky plastic things). Tommy won. I was very bad and learned there is a reason I don't play basketball.

Our second game was a relay race where we had to balance a gold coin on the end of our sword, carry it down to the basket and drop it in and then race back to get another coin. And if we dropped it we had to start over. We did 3 coins for each game but we played like 3 different times. It was hilarious and by the end we were hitting each other's swords to knock off the coins.

Tommy gave a short lesson about law and principle. And we took more pictures.

Apparently Robin Hood picks his nose with his sword.

Then we popped some popcorn and watched the movie.

It was so much fun!!! I love themed nights!

Tommy's Birthday

2010-06-21T09:41:00.001-07:00

We had a great weekend!

Tommy's birthday was on Saturday! We had such a fun time celebrating. I hid hearts around the apartment with notes on them that he found throughout the day. Then I made him dinosaur muffins. His dinosaurs ate the heads off of mine...how rude.

He was very excited for his birthday!

It was such a beautiful day so we went on a walk up to campus and to the bookstore so Tommy could decide what he wanted to buy with his birthday money.

When we got back we went to Seven Peaks water park because we have seasons passes there this year. We had so much fun!

We went out to eat at Olive Garden (thanks to Mom Montoya) which was delicious! Tommy bought an awesome book at a bookstore and then we went to the dollar theater and saw Alice in Wonderland.

On our way home, it was just so nice outside so we rolled down our windows and took a drive up to the fancy neighborhoods at the base of the mountain. Sometimes its just nice to dream. :) It was seriously such a fun day...mostly just because we had nothing we had to do and got to be together all day.

On Fathers Day, (after I tricked him to think I was pregnant for a minute...hehe) we finished our celebrations with a yummy pork chop dinner and birthday cupcakes. We decided to do the cake on Sunday since we went out to eat Saturday.

Then we watched The Count of Monte Cristo (one of his birthday presents).

It was an awesome weekend! We just got to celebrate Tommy the whole time...and if you ask me, he is definitely worth celebrating. :)

How to Survive Scout Camp* (from the wife's perspective)

2010-06-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

*may be applied to anytime your husband is gone

1. Cry
It's okay to just let it out and even though you feel miserable while doing it, it always makes things better afterwards...especially if followed by a piece of chocolate.

2. Watch the long Pride and Prejudice

This is seriously the BEST thing in the world. Helped me sooo much and gave me something to smile and giggle about.

3. Allow yourself to eat your favorite bedtime snack

mmm chips and salsa

4. When you haven't talked to anyone else for extended periods of time, don't feel weird about talking to yourself

No, I am not crazy. I am just the type of person who needs to talk a certain amount of time everyday and without a husband around, it is just not met.

5. Facebook stalk your husband

I am really good at this. Makes the time at work pass as well.

6. Make sure you give yourself extra time in the mornings to take care of the things your husband normally does

This was a little bit of a struggle since Tommy makes our lunches, breakfast, and the bed. Thank goodness for leftover Pop Tarts from our last road trip that I could grab to take to work. But getting out of bed was much easier since I didn't have anyone to cuddle with, so I was successful.

7. Talk on the phone with your high school best friend

And remember how much you love her.

8. Go to Cafe Rio with a friend

And make sure you laugh a lot.

9. Talk to your mom...she understands

She's pretty used to her husband having to leave for various things and she's good at it. She might think you're a little silly for how much you're struggling, but she won't tell you that.

10. Stop worrying!
If you haven't heard from him in a while, most likely he has NOT gotten eaten by a bear, fallen off a cliff, or gotten in a car accident. MORE likely, his phone is almost dead, he's busy, or out of service.

11. Give yourself things to look forward to
Today I am looking forward to being done with work and going to my sister's to play with her and her kids until he gets home tomorrow!

12. Remember how much you love and adore your husband.

And be prepared to see him with lots of facial hair after a week of not shaving

(and more than just a mustache)

Robertson Family Reunion

2010-06-02T11:21:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we got to go to Island Park and Yellowstone for our family reunion. It was so much fun and I loved getting to be with my whole family. All of us were able to be there, along with both sets of grandparents. We stayed in an awesome cabin in Island Park and went to Yellowstone on Monday.

We had a surprise joint birthday party for the 4 grandparents. Their combined age is 340! Danny had a cake that said, "340 is old, even for a tree". We made party hats out of bowls and pipe cleaners. Here are my adorable Roberston grandparents. They are both 90 and such troopers.

Sydney and Isabelle being adorable.

Tommy and I matched our clothes every single day just for fun. We have so many clothes that are the same so we decided to match....we have the same t-shirts, hoodies, sweat pants, and basketball shorts (almost all from BYU). It was pretty fun.

Hiking in Island Park

Tommy and Nathan climbed to the top

My mom and my 2 sisters

We had a talent show which was pretty awesome. Tommy and I decided we had to do something cultural since we are the Montoyas and Tommy is the only one in my family who is not white. So we did the Mexican Hat Dance.

Isabelle and Nathan with the Mexican hat.

All of us girls did a skit where we dressed up and acted like our husbands.

We went on a scenic drive on Sunday and saw a couple of waterfalls.

Cave Falls

Yellowstone
Old Faithful

Yellowstone Falls

Sooo beautiful!

We had a great time! Its always so fun to see family and to have everyone together...even if it means no sleep. We had a ton of fun playing with all the nieces and nephews and visiting with everyone else. We played lots of games including a pool/air hockey/foosball tournament. We also ate a ton of chocolate! But that's what happens when the Robertson grandparents are in charge of bringing it...definitely a chocolate family. I love family!

Tut Tut It Looks Like Slush

2010-05-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

Last night starting around 8:30 it started to rain. I was actually really excited about this because one of my absolute favorite things is sleeping to the sound of rain. We always crack our window open so I can hear it. It reminds me of home and makes me all kinds of giddy.

It rained all night. And I slept great.

I could still hear it this morning and as we walked out to our car to go to work we found this in our parking garage:

I laughed because our car is in the middle of it all. Normally when it rains, our garage floods in certain areas but we have never seen it like this. Tommy strapped plastic bags to his feet and waded through it (it was pretty dang deep, especially over by our car) and then drove to a spot that I could get in. It was pretty hilarious to watch him.

On our way to work it was starting to turn into slush and now it is snowing. wow.

And on a completely different note, Tommy was sustained yesterday as the second counselor in a BYU singles ward bishopric. So we will now be attending a singles ward again, which will be interesting seeing as we are the same age (or younger) as everyone. But we are excited for the opportunity and think it will be fun (especially because we will now get to go to singles ward activities again...like waffle parties, BBQs, cow branding, break the fasts, ward prayer, water sports...you know, all the things family wards don't do). So it will take some adjusting but we are excited. :)

Some of my family is flying into Utah today which means our family reunion is almost here!!! I'm so excited. And I will get to meet my newest neice Jessica and see my parents and grandparents tomorrow!

Have a happy day! (And a wet one if you're in Utah)

Stewart Falls

2010-05-18T12:28:00.000-07:00

We hiked to Stewart Falls on Saturday. It was our first hike of the year and we were excited. Stewart Falls is a pretty easy hike, but it was the perfect first one. There was still some snow on the trail in a few places that made it slippery, but it wasn't bad. I love the mountains!!!

An avalanche went through this area this winter and completely wiped out the trees. It was crazy.

This is the remnants of the avalanche. I am the queen of it. And yes, I am creating that large rain cloud with my super powers.

The falls

Tommy was the king of the falls. It's hard to tell how far up he went in this picture...but it was farther than I wanted to go. Thoughts of slipping on the loose rocks and falling to my death kept flashing through my head, so I decided to sit on a rock and watch Tommy climb up the rest of the way. I think I'm going to drive my children crazy someday with my worrying. :)

We ate lunch at the falls and it was just a really fun day.

At the end of the hike I went ahead of Tommy for the first time and of course, there was a snake right off the trail. It freaked me out and I screamed and ran back to Tommy. He laughed and went up to it (which was surprising since he hates them too) and then said, "It's probably a good thing you saw it first because I probably would have screamed too, and it would have been a bit more embarrasing for me to scream like that". True. But doesn't change the fact that I hate seeing snakes.

In other news, I got new glasses! yay!

It was about time. I have had my others since I was 14 and the perscription was really bad. I've been having eye problems and the doctor said I need to wear my contacts less and update my glasses. So we did and I like them much better than the old ones.

Have a great day!

Oh What Do You Do In The Summertime?

2010-05-06T08:18:00.000-07:00

Since our return from our awesome vacation we have settled into our summer routine which consists of:

Mostly working.

We work from 8:30 to 4:30 most days and get to each lunch together.
Tommy has been having fun planning for the leadership conference they put on at the end of the summer and the added responsibilities he has since this is his senior internship.
I enjoy the paperwork and parts runs I do (when I have them). The rest of the time consists of reading books, finding new blogs to read, chatting with co-workers, eating snacks, and checking facebook and email about 20 times a day (it's pretty pathetic when I get excited to see new status updates).

To cure some of my boredom we have discovered the Provo City public library and its treasures.

I've always liked libraries, but I only ever get novels. My mom suggested I look in the nonfiction and learn something new every week. So the other night, Tommy and I wondered upstairs to the nonfiction section and I was shocked and excited to see how much they have! They have books on everything. I was impressed and started by getting some art books. I'm excited to see what else I can find.

We have also set up some summer goals for us and if we do them for the week then we get to go out to eat for lunch one day the next week (like Taco Bell, Subway, or J-Dawgs). It may not sound like much but it's a pretty exciting break from the sandwhiches we eat the rest of the week.

One of our goals has been to run 3 times a week and we've done it! I'm pretty proud of us because we aren't super althetic and we have tried to start running a few times since we got married and we only ever go about twice before it just gets pushed aside. We even went one night at 10:30 after a really long day when it was raining and his little sister was staying with us. So I think we're a little more dedicated this time (probably because I was dreaming of the wonderful J-Dawg I will get to eat today while we ran).

Our favorite things to do in the evenings have been:

It's fun to not have homework. :)

We have also had lots of family time because Tommy's cousin got baptized so his grandparents and little sister, Joslin, came up from AZ. Joslin stayed with us and we had lots of fun with her and we got to see a lot of family at Troy and Heidi's house.

I also plan on seeing Julie and her kids as much as possible this summer because I've been pretty obsessed with them lately. They are just so fun!

We are excited for summer and when it gets a little warmer we have lots of plans to swim, hike, camp, family reunion, go to Seven Peaks water park, take a river recreation class, play outside, etc.

So what do you do in the summertime when all the world is green?

Dreams Come True

2010-04-26T13:56:00.000-07:00

We had a blast on our vacation!
On Tuesday afternoon we each had a final at 2:30 (which we really rushed through...I'm not sure if we fully read all the questions, but we were so anxious to be done and get to leave that we didn't care much) and then we rolled out at 3:45. We stopped in Vegas for the night, which was fun enough, but I think we were much more excited to get to CA. My favorite thing in Vegas is still easily the Bellagio fountains. They amaze me and I would be content to watch them all night and see nothing else on the strip.

Wednesday we drove to our hotel in Anaheim and relaxed a little bit and then went to Downtown Disney to walk around and go in all the shops there. Then we met up with Jocelyn and Jason for a while and went to Jason's house for dinner where we got to meet his family.

On Thursday we went to Disneyland! We had so much fun! It really is the happiest place on earth and you can't help but just feel magical and happy when you are there. :)

This is displayed as you walk into Disneyland and onto Main Street. And it is so true!

This is just classic. Tommy loves tortillas and would be content to eat them at every meal. He was excited to go to the factory.

Friday was Jocelyn and Jason's wedding at the Newport Beach Temple. It was so fun to be there with them and it was all so beautiful! Somehow I managed not to get a picture of them together or one at the beautiful reception. How does that even happen? Well, take my word for it then...they were adorable and so happy!

We had a great day with them and enjoyed spending the day with Melissa and Christian. April 23rd was a big day for our roommate bunch because Becca and Trevor also got married here in Utah (I was sad to not get to be at both, but am so happy for them!) and Lizi (Dorff) Blacker had her baby!!!! They named him Zachary Thomas and he is adorable. :) So what a happy day for everyone!

I also got a mega sunburn that day. You would think I would get burned at Disneyland, but no it was just outside at the temple while taking pictures. Those are going to be awesome tan lines.

Saturday we returned to Disneyland for another day full of fun, laughter, and magical feelings.

For Isabelle who loves Mary Poppins (ignore girl in middle)...

One of my all time favorite things we did was the Animation Academy in California Adventure. It's just a 15 min session where they teach you how to draw different Disney characters. I wasn't necessarily that great at it, but I had SO much fun doing it. I went 3 times. :) I stayed there while Tommy went and rode Tower of Terror again and then he made it back just in time to do another one with me. The bottom ones are mine and the top ones are Tommy's and then Daisy Duck is mine.

We got turkey legs for dinner and they were delicious....and very messy. I felt like a carnivore. Also, anyone who knows me well knows that Jill + messy, greasy food + no table = a big mess and very dirty pants. Oh well, it was worth it.

Sorry dear, you're just not quite strong enough.

Disney seriously was amazing! The fireworks show was awesome and we both loved it! It gave me those tingling, cheesy, I-might-actually-get-a-little-choked-up kinds of feelings. It was definitely my favorite thing, along with the animation stuff. Tommy's favorites were the fireworks and Tower of Terror.

Everyone needs a good dose of Disney often enough to boost up your imagination and childlike happiness. I love this quote from Walt Disney, "Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world." :)

Sunday on our drive home we stopped off at the St. George temple for a pudding stop. It was beautiful.

yay for pudding cups!

Vacation is always so much fun and it is made even more fun with a spouse! We had so much fun together, even just in the car chatting and listening to music. Coming home is always hard and we get a little bit of separation anxiety after being together 24/7 for a week (we had the same problem after our honeymoon and every trip we've taken together). Anyways, we had so much fun and now have the summer to look forward to with lots of work but no homework! yay!

When you wish upon a star...

2010-04-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

Due to the end-of-the-semester-craziness, I am just now blogging about these. To end our cultural month, we went to the BYU Passover service that is put on every year. Dr. Ludlow, a BYU professor, has been putting them on for a really long time as an educational tool for his students and it has just developed into a pretty big thing every year. I was a little leery of it before we went, but it actually was really fun and very interesting. We learned a lot, including that bitter herbs, or horse radish, is absolutely disgusting! The other food was really good though (thank you BYU catering)

We have also been to a couple of baseball games which has been really fun. We each got a coupon for a free hotdog, churro, and drink...so that definitely added to the excitement.

We are finishing up finals today and tomorrow (YAY!). Tommy is happy to be done with undergraduate classes. And tomorrow afternoon after our last scheduled final we are hitting the road headed for:

Las Vegas for one night.

Then on to California for Jocelyn (one of my old roommates) and Jason's wedding!

So excited for them. :)

And while we just conveniently happen to be in LA we are going to one of my all time favorite places EVER:

DISNEYLAND!!!! :) We are so so so excited.

And we are praying that The Saturn survives all of this.

Cultures

2010-03-24T15:43:00.000-07:00

We've had a culture filled month.

BYU Culture

Divine Comedy. We love Divine Comedy and it has played a special role in our relationship. :) I love when we get to go.

The Cost is Correct. BYUSA put on an event this year that copied The Price is Right. It was pretty awesome and a ton like the real show. We felt like we were actually at a game show.

Irish Culture

St. Patricks Day. I think it is such a fun, random holiday to celebrate. So we did. We dyed all our food green. We had pasta, broccoli, applesauce, and milk. Then for dessert we had chocolate pudding with green cool whip on top. It tasted much better than it looked...promise.

LDS Culture

Draper Temple. We had the chance to go through the temple with my old roommate Becca for her first time. It was fun to be there with her. And the Draper temple is beautiful.

Us Culture

Picnics. Since spring has arrived in Provo, we have enjoyed spending time outside. The first day that it was nice was conveniently a Friday (which means we are done with work and school by 11ish) and we went and bought yummy sub bread and deli ham and cheese and had a picnic at the park just a block from our apartment.
Sunday after church we wanted to use our leftovers from Friday's picnic to have another one, but the weather wasn't nice...so we had a picnic in our living room. :)

This past Saturday was really nice again so we headed up to campus to lay on the grass and read/nap. I love spring!!!

Exercising. Or at least our attempt to. The warm weather has inspired us to get off our butts and go running. Hopefully it will continue to inspire us.

Fort night. We built a fort on Saturday night. We first built it (it took a few tries to get it how we wanted), then played Skip-bo (our latest game obsession), ate our yummy homemade pizza, and watched The Princess Bride in it. It was great fun.

P.S. this was the first time I have watched the Princess Bride since we got married and it was just really weird to me to keep hearing 'Montoya' in it because it really isn't too common of a name. But at the same time I felt very proud to be associated with such a classic character. :)

Polynesian

Luau. BYU Multicultural Student Services puts on a luau every year and we went to it last night. We got to eat delicious Hawaiian food.

And we enjoyed an AWESOME show! They highlighted cultural dances from Tahiti, Hawaii, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji. I loved it! People have amazing talents.

We've enjoyed some pretty awesome things this month and we actually have more cultural things to go later this week...so I'll probably do a cultures part 2.

Masters of Public Administration

2010-03-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

Tommy has been accepted into the Masters of Public Administration program at BYU!!!

We actually found out last Tuesday because Tommy's online student information had changed to include the MPA program and the next day he got an email informing him that he had been recommended for admission, but the university still had to approve it. Yesterday he recieved the official email from the university congratulating him on his admission.

We are SO excited! This will be a great opportunity for him and he is excited for the things he will get to learn.

So yay! I'm so proud of him! We are glad to have some questions about our future answered and are thrilled at the great opportunity this will be. We are also excited that our time at BYU is not over yet because we love it here. :)

Hooray for Tommy!!!

The Saturn

2010-03-04T09:58:00.000-08:00

The Saturn is our car.

It is old and has had a long good life.

It's not the type of car you can name, it's name is simply The Saturn. Always has been and always will be.

It is a 1996. I remember when that sounded like a new car, but being 2010 now means it is old.

It has served us well.

My family bought it from another family in our ward when they moved and it was still fairly new. It was THE car then, but over time as we upgraded and bought new vehicles it got demoted to The Kid Car. It was actually the perfect Kid Car. Matthew and I had so much fun using that car, with our friends and with each other. Parts of my relationship with Matt developed through The Saturn. When Mom would send us to the grocery store to get milk or ice cream, Matt and I would go together and listen to our favorite music. We had lots of fun with The Saturn. Matt enjoyed showing his friends that he could kick it as hard as he wanted and it wouldn't dent because it's plastic. We also drove off the road once in The Saturn into a huge ditch (scared me to death...luckily Matt remains somewhat calm in situations like this) and had to have a tow truck come and get it out...and it survived just fine. I also learned to drive stick shift on it and have been so grateful to know how.

In 2001, we had a major tropical storm hit Houston. My dad was out of town on a buisness trip and had parked The Saturn at the airport. When his plane arrived, he carpooled with a co-worker who had a truck because the roads were completely flooded. The parking garage at the airport had flooded and when the storm was over we went to see the damage done to our poor Saturn. The car had been parked on a slight hill and wasn't as damaged as cars around it. But the entire back seat and car had been filled with water up to the dash board. If it had been any higher, the car would have been totaled. But being the wonderfully sturdy and reliable car it is, it was repaired and completely fine...minus the lingering mildewy smell that was pretty bad for a long time.

When Matt and I came up to BYU, my parents had no need for it anymore so we towed it up with us to college behind the van (it probably would not have made the trip had we driven it). Matt mostly used it the first year since I lived on campus, but when he got engaged and Casey had a better car (no offense to The Saturn), it became mine.

Matt and I happened to be together in Julie's neighborhood when it clicked over to 200,000 miles in March, 2008. It was an exciting event and we filmed it. :)

It struggled for a while and we thought maybe it would die. It liked to purr (like almost die) anytime we were stopped and the "service engine soon" light was on often. But luckily since Matt is a mighty BYU mechanic, he has been able to nurse it back to life.

Tommy also learned to drive a stick on The Saturn. I don't think the The Saturn, in it's old age, enjoyed the jerking and stalling that were involved in that activity, but Tommy learned quickly and drives it better than me now.

Tommy and I drove away on our wedding day in The Saturn. Thanks to my wonderful siblings, I'm not quite sure The Saturn has ever or ever will really recover from that decorating adventure.

Lately it has been running great (*knock on wood*). We have been so grateful to have a car that has been reliable, despite it's old age. It has made two successful trips to AZ and one to Boise since we've been married. Our hope and prayer is that it will last us another good 2 years. It is definitely not a luxurious car - it has a funny smell, stinky exhaust, the material on the ceiling is shredded and falling apart, our only option for music is the radio, there are stains on the seats, no power windows or locks - but you know what?
We love The Saturn. :)

The Y-ball

2010-02-25T09:22:00.000-08:00

We house and dog sat for my sister Julie and her family for 12 days when they went on vacation to Texas and Mexico a few weeks ago. We just commuted back and forth everyday. It was actually really fun though! It was fun to be at a house and it seemed a little like a mini vacation. We were there for two Saturdays and since they live so close to 3 temples, we did sessions in two new ones. We went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple the first Saturday and it was sooooo pretty! We loved it!

The second Saturday we went to the Jordan River temple and sadly I forgot my camera.

Every year BYUSA puts on a free event for married or engaged couples called the Y-ball. We got 4 tickets and invited several of our friends to come. The ones who came with us were Lizzy and Spencer, Jocelyn and Jason, and Cami and Ethan (a couple in our ward who we've become friends with). We had a lot of fun! They had catered Kneaders (yum!!), a picture booth (we haven't gotten that picture yet), drawings for date packages, and dancing. It was so interesting to watch the dancing becuase everyone was in couples instead of groups like at most college dances and since everyone was with the person that they feel most comfortable with, the dancing was hilarious. People just let loose because it just didn't matter. It definitely beat the awkwardness of most dances when you're trying to impress someone.

They are adorable.

Sorry it's blurry.

Since we don't necessarily love dancing, after a while we decided to go play a game in Tommy's office. Spencer and Lizzy left and us other 6 went up. We played a super fun game on the ping pong table. We took off the net and each person had a portion of the table to guard. We knelt on the ground with our hands behind our backs and the goal was to blow the ball off someone else's side. If it fell off on your side you moved down to the lowest position (kinda like 4 square). It was so much fun and hilarious to watch people's faces when they were trying so hard to blow the ball away from their side. We had a great time! I love the Y-ball and hope we'll get to go again next year.

Dates of Late

2010-02-04T14:46:00.000-08:00

We've been on lots of fun dates lately. Last Thursday we went and saw the BYU production of Tartuffe. It was sooo good and we had a lot of fun there....it was hilarious. One of my friends from my freshman ward wrote the music for it and did such a good job.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I've gotten to see my old roommates a lot lately and it has been so fun! Last Friday, we went on a group date with them (minus Christian and Melissa because he is in Tartuffe...we missed them). We ate dinner at Wendy's...yay for the dollar menu (since all of us are poor newly married or soon to be married couples). Then we went ice skating at Seven Peaks. Trevor showed off his amazing hockey skills while towing Becca along, Jason and Jocelyn danced in the middle and spun in circles, Tommy and I shuffled along trying to skate, and Spencer and Lizzy filmed it all. It was pretty fun!

Tommy looking secure on the ice...I decided not to post the pictures of him almost falling. :)

Spencer and Lizzy filming

Jason and Jocelyn being crazy and adorable together.

Becca and Trevor being super photogenic as always.

Us! :) Oh yeah, I had crazy eye pain, maybe infection or something else weird last week and it HURT. Anyways, I had to wear my glasses for several days but I am now happily back to contacts.

Afterwards everyone came over to our apartment to have hot chocolate, talk, and play a game. We had a lot of fun. Friends are awesome!
One of mine and Tommy's goals lately has been to be more social because we were basically newly wed hermits for the last 6 months. :) I think we've been doing a much better job this semester.

Saturday night we wanted to do something but didn't really know what. Tommy decided we should go walk around the mall with a $3 budget each. It was pretty fun...but you can't buy much at the mall for that and we didn't really have anything in mind so we went to Walmart. We combined our money and bought a 10 pack of Playdough! Then we used our remaining $2 for ice cream cones at McDonalds. We had a lot of fun just wandering around the stores not looking for anything in particular.

So Monday night we played with our playdough! We each took half the colors and made characters out of them.

These are Tommy's. The yellow one is a banana and you can't really see the face on the red one or the purple one.

These are mine. They're kinda hard to see too...but the lime green one is an angry man and the pink one is a girl.

Then we made a bride and a groom out of the black and white. I made the dress look like mine...but Tommy did not have a top hat like that at our wedding.

We've had fun and life is great! :)

Catch-up

2010-02-02T16:41:00.000-08:00

This is late, but we had a great Christmas break! We were in Pinetop with Tommy's family and had a lot of fun! We had fun playing with the kids, visiting with family, watching movies, playing games, going to Taos, NM (minus the ride home when mine and Sam's relationship was almost damaged :/), playing in the snow, and tons of other things. I really enjoyed getting to know the family better and meeting more of his extended Montoya family. It was a great, much needed break!

I won a puzzle at their ward Christmas party and I enjoyed doing it. I felt like my mom who always does puzzles at Christmas time and ignores everyone while she does it...which I did. :)

It snowed a bunch (nothing compared to how much they've gotten lately...but still a lot) and we had a lot of fun playing in it. I had never played in snow with ski pants, good gloves, and boots before and really enjoyed not being soaked when it was all over. It was probably the most fun I've ever had in snow. We created an awesome sledding route behind their house on the hill and had a ton of fun (which I didn't take pictures of).

Tommy shoveling

He wrote me a message on the van.

We were able to do a session at the Mesa temple with Kim when we went back to Phoenix. There were a TON of weddings going on. I guess Mesa is a popular place in December.

Since we've been back, we have started school and things are going well for us. Tommy is in his last semester of classes and enjoying it and I am in my "I just have to get these classes over with" semester...so nothing too fun. I do have a lot more free time than I did last semester though and I am really loving that!

One of my old roommates, Lizzy, got married on Jan 15th and we got to go to that. All 6 of my roommates and our boys got to be together and it was so much fun! It seems like between the bridal show, the wedding, and the reception (all on different weekends), I have gotten to see them a lot and am loving it! I have remembered how much I love them all and how happy they make me. :)

This is all of us, minus the bride and groom and Jocelyn's fiance, Jason who was working.

It was fun to be bridesmaids together! And Lizzy was beautiful!

:) It was such a happy day.

The boys took our bouquets and showed off their great looks. There were several of these shots and they were hilarious.

I have more to post of more recent things that I will do on another post...I just wanted to get caught up on this stuff.

Hello Mr. Turkey, How Are You?

2009-12-11T09:40:00.000-08:00

Due to an insane two weeks after Thanksgiving break of trying to finish up classes, I'm just now getting to this.

Our break began with us picking up my parents from the airport who were here to visit my sister Julie who just had a baby. We spent the night at Julie's and had a good chance to chat with everyone there. Then on Tuesday afternoon we flew to San Diego where my sister Melanie picked us up and drove us to their house in Yuma, AZ. We had a great time! It was sooo fun to be with her kids and to just relax and have fun. We tickled and wrestled with the kids, played lots of games, watched movies, ate yummy food, went on walks, and Melanie and I talked a ton. It was a great few days with them.

We also went to the camel farm that is there in Yuma. It was pretty random, but they have lots of animals to feed. They of course had the regulars like sheep, goats, pigs, horses, etc. but then some really random animals like a half donkey-half zebra, some weird desert animals, and CAMELS! They actually had a lot of them and we got to feed them. They were pretty disgusting and our hands were nasty, but it's not everyday you get to feed a camel...so it was also pretty dang cool.

The half donkey-half zebra Andy

Another day, we went to an AWESOME park! Seriously awesome. I won't be able to do it justice, but I'll try. It is a giant castle that actually looks like a castle even from the inside. It has a ton of different passage ways and crawl spaces. We played tag in it (because it is huge and perfect for tag) and I think by the end I still got a little lost inside of it. It was amazing!

This is what the passage ways looked like. It's kinda hard to tell, but you get the idea.

Beautiful Jane

And, of course you can't go to Melanie's house without playing in her awesome dress up box. :) Hopefully someday mine will grow to be as big and awesome.

All of us who played

Tommy forcing Samuel to dress up like a girl since all he wanted to wear was Star Wars stuff.

Nathan in his flight commander gear with a touch of grandma.

We really had a great time there! The Jarvis family is so fun to visit and are great hosts. I wish we lived closer and got to see them more often.

We flew back early Saturday morning in time for the BYU vs. Utah football game. It was such a GOOD game!!! We just about froze, but had an awesome time! We went into overtime and I think my blood pressure was at an all time high. My legs were shaking so bad I had to start jumping to make it stop. Our cougars pulled through for an amazing ending and it was so exciting!!!

Whoot!The fans rushing the field after the game.

We finished up our break with more visits with my parents and baby Michael's blessing. We had a great Thanksgiving! We have now finished our classes for the semester (yay!). And now on to finals...

:) Have a great day!

Temples :)

2009-12-10T13:05:00.000-08:00

I (tommy) just updated my other blog: tommystheologicalthoughts.blogspot.com with a post entitled "The Quintessential Temple."

Check it out!

Also - we will post more on the last part of our semester, once we have made it through finals.

~ciao

The BEST Weekend!

2009-11-16T11:01:00.000-08:00

Tommy and I had an awesome weekend! We just keep talking about how much fun we had and how perfectly everything went.

On Friday, we bought this on KSL:It adds a lot to our apartment and we were able to fit all our movies and games in it. We also went shopping that night. We bought some Christmas decorations, church pictures for our wall, and a new clock. Our apartment is really starting to look a lot better and I love it! :) This is the wreath we bought. Hooray for Christmas coming!That night after an exhuasting shopping trip, we relaxed and watched Up. I thought it was really cute.

Saturday, we got to go up to Salt Lake City. We did our first session in the Salt Lake temple and we both really loved it! We had great experiences there. Then, we went and watched the Joseph Smith movie in the Legacy Theater. I always love getting to see it and it always reminds me of how great of a man he was. Afterwards, we went to the gateway mall, walked around browsing a few stores, and ate dinner at Costa Vida.

Then we got to go to Disney On Ice: Princess Classics. Now I know that it is mostly aimed at 5 year old girls, but any of you who know me well would know that I LOVED it. :) Of course, Tommy knew I would, so he took me (and enjoyed it too). There were little girls in princess dresses everywhere. It was really cute. The show was awesome and pretty much Olympic figure skating: Disney style....how could it not be enjoyable? Here are some pictures...sorry some are blury, it was hard to take them with the lighting. We had a great time!

Sunday we enjoyed a relaxing, slow morning and then church. After church we had family dinner (my side) up at my sister's house. She had been having contractions all day and throughout the evening they were getting more painful and closer and closer together. By time we were finished playing our game, they were about 2 mins apart and they decided it was time to go to the hospital. We played with Isabelle while they finished getting all packed up and ready. It was really exciting to be there when they were leaving! She had her baby boy this morning around 1 am and they are both doing great! We will hopefully get to visit them in the hospital tonight. I'm so excited and it was a perfect end to the perfect weekend.

Warm Days in November

2009-11-09T10:25:00.000-08:00

For some reason, last week really stressed me out. I didn't have much school work due or anything, but my internship, playing the piano, lots of projects coming up, and a ton of serious talks and thoughts about the future were really freaking me out. Normally, I can handle it pretty well once I make lists and prioritize what I need to do, but that tactic failed last week. On Friday, I had a melt down. After chatting with my wonderful mom, crying, and making a plan I felt a lot better.

Then Tommy came to the rescue. I had talked with him through it all and he had been great, but didn't quite know how to make it better for me (I think the crying helped the most...dumb emotions). Anyways, he picked me up from work, and brought me creamery ice cream. :) We walked to a park, enjoyed the wonderful warm weather, and ate our ice cream while chatting and allowing me to calm down. He gave me a blessing (another HUGE help) and then came with me to run my internship errands. We planned a date that night using some of our wedding gift cards.

We ate dinner at The Pizza Factory. Funny story: We planned on eating dinner around 5 and after running the errands, we looked at the clock in our car and it was 5 so we went. The place was empty though and we just thought they must not pick up until later. After ordering, Tommy went to the bathroom and I checked my phone.....and noticed that the time said 4:10. When he came back I asked him if he knew it was only 4 and his face was hilarious. We forgot to change the clock in our car after daylight savings changed. We had a good laugh about it and enjoyed a very early dinner. :)

Then we went and saw the new movie The Box. I can't exactly say if we enjoyed it or not. It was definitely intriguing, thought provoking, and intense. There were several times during the movie I had to consciously make my muscles relax and a few times I jumped. I did like it, but it freaked me out a little and the end wasn't satisfying for me. So basically, if a weird guy shows up at your door with a box...don't push the button, it will turn out a lot worse than you think. It gave me really weird dreams that night and I didn't sleep well....so I'm not really sure how I felt about it, but I enjoyed my time with Tommy.

Needless to say, Tommy really helped me feel better. Great guy. :)

Saturday morning, I went to my first RS Super Saturday. I feel like a true woman now. I actually really had a good time and feel a little more connected to our new ward. Even though it was after Halloween (it was originally scheduled for before), I made this:
For the rest of Saturday, Tommy and I finally got our joint bank accounts (we can now be officially married finally), went to the temple, and visited my sister Julie. We had a really good time there chatting and playing with my niece Isabelle. She is hilarious and so fun! I like days that we get to go play there. :)

And I have now played the piano twice in RS and have survived and my confidence level is slowing increasing...so that is really happy!

We celebrated our 4 month anniversary yesterday. It doesn't sound like much to people who have been married for years, but it's fun for us and has been the best 4 months ever! Hooray!

So I had a really great weekend after a stressful week. And how could I have not had a great weekend married to a guy like this? :)

A Nobel Peace Prize? Really?!!!

2009-10-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

Alright. Sometimes I can just let bad news disperse over time, but the news this morning that United States President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace prize this year simply made me livid. Not that he's not a great man, or inspirational leader, or anything like that. But the Nobel Peace prize is supposed to recognize accomplishment in furthering World Peace, not just a fancy allusion to such. Barack Obama's "Yes We Can" has obviously captured the world, but until it becomes a "Yes We Did" a Nobel Peace Prize is completely inappropriate, premature, and totally uncalled for. He might be able to do it - I doubt it, but he might. If he does, in that day, maybe, he should be considered.

Furthermore - in order to make the nomination deadline for this years award someone must have nominated him within the first 2 weeks of his Presidency. This is straight up Liberal hodgpodge and I think its pejorative to the Nobel institution, demeaning to the American people, and an outright mockery of peace. I honestly think the Nobel council hated George Bush and are trying to make one last slam on him. The world ought to revolt!!! All we've seen yet of Barack Obama are empty words and hollow promises. I mean really, is he on the same level as Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Schweitzer, and Theodore Roosevelt?! I didn't think so.

Mr. President - you know as well as any you don't deserve this award - moral and ethical duty calls you to respectfully decline this politically fueled propaganda!

Phew - my day can go on.

We Didn't Start the Fire

2009-09-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

We had an interesting thing happen at church yesterday. We had two baby blessings and at the end of the second one, a man walked up to the front and started talking to our bishopric member who was conducting. The counselor then got up to the pulpit and said, "There seems to be a small emergency in the building. There is a smell of smoke that is getting stronger and the Stake has asked us to cancel the rest of our meetings and evacuate as quickly as possible". It was kinda funny to see how people responded. Everyone was kinda confused and saying things like, "we really just go home?" and "are they serious?" and "what do we do with the rest of the day?". Then you had the people who were supposed to give talks or lessons (or play the piano...like me) who were so stinking relieved. Tommy, who had been asked to help pass the sacrament, immediately came up to me and said, "Did you pray for this to happen??". He couldn't believe that I was actually getting out of having to play. I was just so happy!

We never did find out what happened. Tommy had to help clear the building and he said it didn't seem to be anything obvious, so we think it may have been something electrical. Anyways, it was actually quite nice to all of a sudden have an extra 3 hours of the day. We were loving the fact that church was only 20 mins and Tommy jokingly said that it makes him consider converting to a Protestant church.

So for our extra time we decided to take a drive up the canyon since it was such a beautiful day. We went to Bridal Veil Falls and then up to Squaw Peak. The fall colors haven't started changing down here, but they are beautiful up in the mountains.

Warning: for anyone who loves mountains and doesn't live near them (Mom), these pictures might make you really jealous.

view of Provo

I love this one. The colors were amazing.

It turned out to be a great Sunday! And it was definitely a nice way to get out of playing the piano...at least for this week. I better not count on an emergency every week though. :)

I will go, I will do

2009-09-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

After 2 months in our ward, we finally received callings yesterday. We were excited when we got the phone call on Saturday from a member of the bishopric wanting to meet with us.

Tommy has been called as the Scout Committee Chair. He is super excited. He loves Scouts and loves delegating so it's perfect. The bishop has asked him to be as involved as he can instead of just sitting back and planning. So he will get to go on camp outs and activities. He is taking this to mean go with the young men on Sundays as well, so he doesn't have to sit through Elder's Quorum. He will do such a great job and is ready to get to work.

I have been called as the Relief Society pianist. YIKES! I think I was using every method I know not to burst into tears when they asked me. Explanation: I play the piano....barely. I am the youngest of 6 kids whose mom taught us...doesn't that explain? She got tired with me and didn't push piano as much. To be honest, I was always very happy about that as a kid. I played the piano all my years in Young Womens, but I played the same 15 songs. No one else could play, so it didn't matter if I wasn't very good. I haven't really played much at all in the last 3 years. I was really shocked they even asked me because I don't even claim to know how to play here in Utah where everyone plays. I know I will be fine. I can rely on my 15 and then work on learning others. My problem is that is scares me to death. I hate performing and it just really makes me nervous. After fighting back tears for half of sacrament meeting and talking to the RS president, I have come to terms with it a little better. I am kinda excited for the opportunity to improve. My mom is really happy about it and laughed really hard when I told her. It will be good, I know it. Overall, I am excited it for it (I might not say that right before RS every week) and am glad that I will have the chance to get better. I just have to control my nerves.

This weekend we had the chance to go up to a cabin at Brighton for an officer retreat for the non-profit organization Tommy is a part of. We had a good, relaxing time and got to go on a couple of hikes.

We also went to the BYU game. It was actually really sad since we lost pathetically to Florida St. BUT we still love our cougars and managed to still enjoy it. Tommy's voice is gone and he is sqeaking a lot.

I Gotta Feeling

2009-09-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

We've had a busy, fun-filled month! I apologize for how long this post is...I guess that's what I get when I don't update. But here is what we've been up to:

I had a great birthday, thanks to Tommy. He made me my favorite breakfast, brought me lunch, took me out for dinner, and made a round (my favorite) sprinkle birthday cake. Plus we had a party at work. Needless to say, I was extremely stuffed that day. :)

We have started school again and are happy to be back. It was really nice to have a relaxing break after the wedding, but both of us were ready to start again. It's taken some adjusting but we've seem to find somewhat of a routine and schedule again.

Labor Day weekend we got to go visit my brother Danny and his family in Boise. We had a great time! On our drive, we stopped in Twin Falls for a quick dinner, but got distracted by how pretty it was.

On Saturday morning, Danny took us rock climbing at the "Black Cliffs". It was really fun! It was nothing for Danny who goes pretty often, but Tommy and I (especially me) were pretty sore and tired afterward.
Tommy belaying me.

Proof I made it to the top

Danny belaying

Saturday night we watched the BYU-Oklahoma game! GO COUGARS!!! :) We celebrated with root beer floats. Sunday we went to church, took naps, and went over to my aunt and uncle's house for the evening. That night Danny, Karen, Tommy, and I played the newly wed game. It was pretty entertaining. Monday morning we went to this awesome park called Settlers Park. It is designed for children with disablilites, so everything is wheel chair accessible. It also has other things like music toys, rocks to climb on, a fountain play area, huge fields, horseshoes, and tennis. Seriously it was like the coolest park I've ever been to. We had an awesome time there. We played for a while, played bocce ball, string golf, and had a picnic. Plus the weather was absolutely beautiful and borderline cold. Perfect fall day.

Danny and Sydney

hmm...I sure do love pirates.

King of the rock

After our picnic, I picked up Baby Nick to play with him. It was kinda cold so I was trying to put his jacket on him and then I looked down at my arm in horror. He had a huge blow out all over me. This is actually after I had started to wipe it off. Tommy wouldn't touch me for a while. That's when we decided it was time to leave the park. Good thing Nick is absolutely adorable. We had a really good time in Boise. I love getting to see family and play with neices and nephews. :)

Last week, for one of our classes we got to go canoeing in the Provo River. (Yes, we are in the best major)

Our whole class

This past Saturday, after another awesome football game, we went roller blading. Neither one of us have been in like 8 years. It was probably a hilarious thing to watch, but we didn't fall and we had a lot of fun...that's all that matters, right?

Anyways, that's what we've been up to. We have seriously had so much fun lately. Life is great! :)