Our New Home!

We made the journey from Utah to Portland, finally! We have been waiting for this ever since we found out Tyler had been accepted to OHSU. My mom and dad came to say goodbye to us on Monday before we left. Mom had to go to work (and she already put in her time helping us on Saturday with packing, thanks Mom! We couldn't have done it without you!). Dad stayed and helped us load the truck. It was very nice to have everything nice and packed in the trailer with his expertise organization skills from the years of moving, thanks Dad! We left on the 18th and spent a few days in Hermiston to hang out with Tyler's family and relax before the madness began. The trip to Hermiston was not too bad after we figured out the tarp on the trailer. We're lucky that Tyler's mom was able to come down and help us so we didn't have to rent a U-Haul, thanks Mom! We left for Portland on the 22nd. Tyler's mom and dad come over with us and helped us unload and start unpacking. After a couple days we finally have internet and cable! Our apartment is all unpacked and so I am going to post pictures for those who wanted them.

This is the view with our front door open. You can see the living room mostly and part of the kitchen.

This is our couch with some pictures (in our living room), and you can also see the kitchen off to the left. It has a little bar thing that's very convenient.

This is our TV/fireplace corner. We were pleasantly surprised when we realized that this was here because we did not need to buy a TV stand for our TV. Even though our TV is humongous it fit perfectly! We were very relieved.

This is standing at our back door looking at our kitchen. It's kind of small, but it actually has a ton of counter space and cupboard space to work with so it's pretty nice. You can kind of tell from this picture that looking in our back door (right where I'm standing) you can see all the way through our apartment out of our bedroom window... kind of weird, so I got some cute curtains to put over the door!


This is our little dining room and back door. So exciting, I know! (We still need to find chairs for our table, but our little card table chairs will do for now.)

This is what we made into our pantry. It's actually the laundry room, but is right off the kitchen, so we put in our shelves and made it into a pantry as well. It works out pretty nicely! And it gives us some extra room, so that's always nice.

This is standing at the entrance to our kitchen from our living room looking down our little hallway. The door on the left is our bathroom, the door on the right is a closet, and the door straight ahead is our bedroom.

This is our bathroom, standing from the door looking in. What a cute shower curtain!


This is also our bathroom, I was very successful in not getting myself in the picture through the mirror! :) The cabinet you see on the right is over our toilet. There is only a little cupboard under the sink. I built the cabinet! (so I am pretty proud of it!) It holds all of our stuff very nicely.


This is looking into our bedroom from the door. Our closet is sooo nice! I was nervous that it would be tiny, but instead it is the whole length of the wall, very nice.


This is the view from standing in front of our closet. Tyler's parent's gave us the dresser because it was broken, Tyler fixed it and it works very nicely!


This is the little study corner in our bedroom. We built the desk and bookcase! It's pretty exciting too. This will probably be where Tyler spends a lot of his time.

This is it! I hope you have enjoyed the pictures. Tyler started school on Monday (yesterday). It was a pretty long day for him. I tried to get him to let me take a picture of him for his first day of school, but he wouldn't have it. Little stinker. He comes home smelling of formaldehyde. Yummy!

College Graduates

Tyler and I both graduated from BYU on Friday the 15th of August! We are so glad to both finally be done with college (undergrad for Tyler). I graduated in Home and Family Living and Tyler graduated in General Business Management. My family was able to come to our graduation and share this special time with us. After graduation we are packing up and heading to Portland so Tyler can continue school for the next 4 years! Woo hoo!
Pre-graduating classic pictures.


We were so ready to be graduated already!


Us with my mom and dad!


Me and Ambria and Alicia. They coordinated so well with BYU colors!

My brothers and me. Again with the matching. I'm not sure if it was done on purpose, but it worked out nicely! :D


Me receiving my diploma!! (Or at least the case that holds it)...


Tyler getting his! Alicia stood next to the photographer to get the best pictures! Way to go Alicia!


Our diplomas and silly faces!


We're so happy to finally be done!

We're glad our family was able to come! Thanks you guys! We love you!

Moving

Yes, we are moving! We leave Monday, August 18th to start a new life in Portland, OR. My mom will be helping us pack on Saturday and Tyler's mom is coming down with a trailer to help us. We will spend a few days in Hermiston (where Tyler's from) before completing our trip to Portland. We are both excited and anxious to move. It will be quite an experience! We finally got housing yesterday! Good thing because it is coming fast. We will be living in an apartment complex called Loganberry Commons in Southwest Portland.


It's about 6 miles from the school, so not too bad. Unfortunately the website of the apartment does not post photos of the inside, so when we move I will have to take pictures (after we've unpacked of course)!! It was built in 2006, so we are hoping it still seems kind of new.

We both graduate on Friday the 15th of August! It will be nice to be done with school for me, and nice for Tyler to be done with his undergrad. We get to walk together for graduation, which I think is pretty neat! Tyler agreed to sacrifice walking with his school so that we could walk with mine. I really appreciate that! :)

Hiking a Mountain...

Tyler and I decided that it would be fun to hike Mount Timpanogos with a group of people from our old ward (the 22nd ward). So... we left at 12:30 am on Saturday and returned home very exhausted at 9:30 am on Saturday. We hiked over glaciers, streams, and rocks. There were many waterfalls and such. It was a very pretty hike. At night we couldn't see nearly as well as on the hike back down during the day. We made it to the top at about 5:30 am and stayed almost long enough to see the sunrise.
This picture is what it looked like at the top before we started hiking down...


We decided that we could be able to see the sun rise on our hike down just as well as sitting there waiting for it. We got some beautiful pictures! I think it was a pretty cool experience, but one that is the kind of thing that I would only do once in my lifetime.



The sun was just barely starting to come up... It was really very pretty.



If you look closely at the top of this picture you can see a little peak in the middle... we were in the basin to the right of it. I took this picture when we were about 3/4 of the way down the mountain... so you can kind of get an idea of how far we hiked. It was a total of about 12 miles.


This is a pretty waterfall on our way down... the sun was kind of in our eyes. It started getting very hot at this point. During the night when we were hiking it was the perfect temperature. We were able to just wear short sleeves and pants. However, when we got to the top it was a bit windy and we had to put our sweatshirts on.



These are mountain goats that we saw on our way down. There were baby mountain goats too. You probably can't see them very well, but they are the white specks in the picture. I think we should have rode them down the mountain. It would have been much easier on our legs!


Another waterfall along the hike. This one was probably a mile and half or so from the beginning of the trail. Very pretty!

It was a great hike! We are still recovering from it, but I guess that just shows how out of shape we are.

4th of July

We had a fun 4th this year! Neither one of us had to work so we really did have a nice 3-day weekend! It was so nice to have extra time together. In the morning we got up kind of early and went to the parade in Provo. It is supposedly the largest parade in Utah. People are so crazy! Many camp out overnight to save their spot for the parade. We went the morning of and got a fairly decent spot. Xan and Jeremy accompanied us to the parade. We had fun!



Here are a few pictures from the parade. Some of the floats were really cool! Tyler was pretty excited because he got a picture of Glen Beck(he's a radio talk show guy)! After the parade we went home to relax for a little bit. We got ready for our cook out and ice blocking at Rock Canyon Park. It was super windy up there, but still lots of fun! We have tons of pictures from this part, so I will just post a few...


Me and Tyler! =)


My sister and me!


Barbequing at Rock Canyon!


Ice blocking train!
Very Dangerous!

Me Ice Blocking!

Sparklers!!!!

So, this is it! It was a really nice time! I did miss shooting off our own fireworks, but this year was pretty good as well.

Birthday Time and Kite Flying!!

Birthday!
I am kind of behind on this, but I figured better late than never. We celebrated our first birthday being married on June 13th. It just so happened that this year our birthday was on Friday the 13th. I got home from school and Tyler had put up streamers around the apartment and decorated with balloons. It was really cool! You can see some of the streamers in the background. For my birthday Tyler got me a cute "flirty apron", a gift certificate for tanning, and a sewing machine! These were all great gifts! He picked the perfect presents for me!













For his birthday I got him Mario Kart for the Wii, socks, Yorks, a Mika piano book, and the 3rd Pirates movie.











We went out to Chili's for dinner and then watched Surfs Up! It was nice to go on a date and just spend time together.
On Saturday we had a little party with friends. We went to 7 Peaks Water Park. It was great weather! A very hot day and it was fun to spend the day in the sun! After the water park we came home and had pizza, played Mario Kart, played a few other games, and watched Enchanted. It was a great day and so fun that some of our friends came and celebrated with us!

Kite Flying

A weekend before we decided to go buy kites from Wal-Mart and fly them in the park. Our friends Spencer, Emily, Sam, and Tamsen came with us. It was super fun! However, my kite did not fly super well even though it was cute. Oh well. We need to try again when it is windier.

<--This is Spencer trying to fly my kite.





<-- This is Emily and Tamsen! Emily is winding her kite.


<-- This is Sam with his new friend!


<-- This is Tyler and Spencer with Tyler's Spider Man kite!


<-- And of course this is us.

To hybrid, or not to hybrid... not such an easy question.

It seems that lately everyone has been turning to hybrids and subcompact cars to help with the cost of gas. That seems like the most logical thing to do in the face of $4/gal gas. It seems like a no brainer, right? Wrong! You have to look at all sides of it. Hybrids do save some people thousands of $$$ in gas every year vs. driving an SUV, but it's not the best solution for everyone. I was talking to my parents about a week ago about how they're handling the high gas prices. They seem rather indifferent towards the price even though my mom drives a Chevy Tahoe. I asked if she was going to trade it in for a smaller car. She says, "No way." The Tahoe is already paid off and a new car would just add another car payment. Besides, SUV's are very undervalued. So it's either pay $600/month for a new hybrid, or save $70/month on gas. I know toyotas are great and everything, but hybrids can't haul trailers. But what about the impact on the environment? SUV's pollute so much! While true, I don't think adding a hybrid to the streets is going to help. They don't exactly excrete roses out the tailpipe. If my parents sell their SUV, someone else will be driving the polluting hog. So, while you may brag about your 35 mpg hybrid, just look at your monthly car payment and that should bring you back to reality.

Disclaimer: I don't drive an SUV. My little 4 banger gets about 33 mpg on the freeway. Almost as good as a hybrid :) This is the article that got me thinking about this topic. My favorite quote is, "...She gets tired of the glares she gets from hybrid owners."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/06/12/suv.irpt/index.html

Our Honeymoon

As many of you know, we went to Disneyland for our honeymoon. We really had a blast and did not want to leave to come back to Provo. We got there on Wednesday night, checked into our hotel and then headed off to the happiest place on earth! Since it was a Wednesday no one was there. We got to ride so many rides all in the 3 hours or so that we were there. We rode Indiana Jones, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Matterhorn to name a few. It was so nice to pretty much have free reign of the park and wait only 5 or 10 minutes in every line. Thursday we got up early and headed to the park. We rode some more rides and just had a blast. We were able to go back to our hotel for lunch and a nap. It was nice to go to our hotel and rest so we didn't wear ourselves out. We went back to the park at about 6 pm and rode some more rides. We got to ride the teacups, which was Tyler's favorite and Dumbo! Dumbo is apparently one the most favorite rides at Disneyland that everyone has to ride. We rode Dumbo on our Magical Morning when we got to go in early to the park. There was no line and I'm glad we were able to ride it. On Friday we went to California Adventure. This had rides geared more towards older people, like us! Our most favorite ride here was California Screamer! We rode in the very front every time, except once. After riding in the very front you could not go to the back. While we were riding it our eyes would tear up from the wind in our faces. One of first times on the ride they were having "technical difficulties" so they had to stop the ride. We were almost to where they let us off, but not quite. So, we had to sit on the track in the little car for about 10 mins. They came and let us off right where we were so we got to go behind the scenes of the ride to get out. It was pretty cool! Plus they gave us a free fastpass for any ride we wanted. This is one of our favorite pictures from the trip. You can see the outline of the California Screamer on the left side, the Ferris Wheel, and the orange (on the right) has swings inside. Plus the picture was taken at sunset. It's beautiful.

These are some of our favorite pictures from the California Screamer. We liked to make faces at the camera. Sometimes we made the same face on accident, it was kind of weird. We took pictures of the pictures so we wouldn't have to buy them. Sneaky! :) We rode the Hollywood Tower of Terror a couple of times. One time when we went on it there was a little boy about 5 or 6 and he did it! I was amazed! A man was nice enough to take our picture in front of it and he did a great job! Friday night we watched the parade at Disneyland. It was really neat! I enjoyed it and I think Tyler did as well. We forgot our camera that night, so we don't have any pictures of it. After the parade we were going to go back over to California Adventure so we could ride some more rides. We decided to get a fastpass for Indiana Jones before we left and come back to Disneyland during that time. I sent Tyler by himself and waited for him on a bench (big mistake!). He did indeed come back with fastpasses for Indiana Jones, however, these fastpasses were for 11:20-12:00 pm. We were planning on leaving the park at 10 at the latest. So, we laughed pretty hard about it and he know has a new nickname of "Fastpass". It was very entertaining. We were able to watch Fantasmic while we were there. It was an amazing water show that they do with Mickey and it's themed around the different Disney Princesses. It was really neat! The effects were amazing! We also watched the fireworks, which were sooo cool! I am just amazed at how extravegant they are. We decided that we had to get something to remember our trip to Disneyland. We got this really neat wooden picture frame. It will look great in our living room. We still need to develop a picture to put in it. We also got a Christmas tree ornament that has a bride (Minnie) and groom (Mickey) sitting on an engagement ring. It's cute. We were tempted to buy the bride and groom ears becaues they were so cute. However, we were practical and thought about how often we would wear them. Probably never after this trip. So, we just took a picture with them on instead. Which is all we really needed.

We also went to Huntington Beach for a day. It was great weather! The sand was hot to walk on, but the water was freezing. We took our cooler full of snacks and drinks. We enjoyed being in the warm 90 degree weather while knowing it was snowing in Provo. Tyler played in the water a little bit, but it was a little too cold for me. I went a little bit in, but not far. We played in the sand and I made Tyler into a mermaid! Doesn't he make a great mermaid?! hehehe Here are a few pictures.

We came home on Monday. Nothing too exciting about that. On the way home we did see a huge dessert tornado. It crossed the freeway right in front of us! It was scary. But luckily, we survived.