Sleeping Well Tonight

The last few months, weeks and especially days have been a whirlwind! Nearly a year ago, we started figuring out what we would be doing for grad school. Where we would go....when we would go...if we would go at the same time...etc. We visited a few out of state schools, did alot of research for various programs and came to the conclusion that we would try to stay in Utah for school so that we could both get our masters degrees at the same time. Then came all of the applications complete with essays (tons of them), recommendation letters and alot of waiting (4 months to be exact, ah!). I am happy to announce that we finally, finally, finally have all of our plans finalized....(a good way to kick off our One-Year-Anniversary-Weekend).

....Don will be doing a MPA (Masters in Public Administration) at the U (contrary to the original plan of law school)....
....I will be doing a Masters of Education through the Educational Psychology department focusing on Instructional Design and Educational Technology which includes a Multimedia Endorsement (kind of a mouthful!)...
....and the best news of all, we have full-ride scholarships! (Don received an amazing scholarship called the FLAS which is a foreign language scholarship that allows students to do an intensive study of a foreign language and Asian culture alongside their normal course work.).

We are extremely blessed. Extremely!! And, we are looking forward to a good's night sleep! (The first in many weeks). We are now gearing up for moving in 2 weeks, which is another story for another night. It involves a crumbling balcony and our relocation 200 feet away.

Gardening...

For whatever reason, I have become obsessed with the idea of gardening. Apparently when you get married you all of the sudden become domestic and like to do things such as cooking and gardening--both of which I had absolutely zero interest in growing up. Our apartment complex has a community garden that you can rent a space in for the summer. Last summer we couldn't do it because we were in DC for 3 months, so I have been looking forward to this for nearly a year! 

Luckily, my mother-in-law and I have been taking a gardening class at Red Butte Gardens, which has been helpful. However, you know its bad when you are in the beginning gardening class and still at times don't know what the teacher is talking about! I have started the "early crops" in trays in our kitchen. I won't mention that it has taken up half of our counter space, and at the moment just looks like trays of dirt soil. 

This is going to be a grand adventure! And for those that know me, a great exercise of patience!! More to come on that...once the seeds decide to sprout. (They should hurry up already!)

Happy planting!

a look back on february

Last time this year I was up to my eyeballs in stress getting ready for our upcoming wedding...and moving...and getting my ESL endorsement, so I am happy to report that this year's February was quite uneventful! Don and I both submitted applications for graduate/law school programs and applied for scholarships. Collectively, I think we have written about 15 650,000 essays this month. We are keeping our fingers crossed (and stalking the mail man) while we wait to hear back! We can say that no matter what, we will be in Utah for at least two years! 

Valentine's was nice and relaxed this year. Because our anniversary is in March, we opted to go smaller for Valentine's Day and bigger for our anniversary. We enjoyed candlelight Chipotle (we may or may not be a little obsessed with Chipotle). Don gave me the cutest black and white polka dot pencil skirt (oh how I love polka dots) and I gave him some new dress pants. Aren't we romantic? :) Don was sly and had a dozen roses delivered to work, that was romantic! Plus my kids were totally intrigued. 

In addition with being obsessed with Chipotle, we are slightly (which means alot) obsessed with Granite Bakery...especially their sugar cookies. I gave them to my class this year as a little valentine treat (they must be introduced to the finer things of life, such as Granite Bakery, at a young age). We got a dozen cookies for ourselves and they may or may not have been finished off by the end of the weekend...

We did attempt to make our own homemade Granite bakery cookies...not as good. You can't repeat the real thing. But they turned out cute and we had fun doing it!

Our attempt at homemade Granite Bakery cookies. Just not the same!

Candlelight Dinner of Chipotle.

With March well under way, we are looking forward to....

• Our 1st wedding anniversary
• Don's spring break
• Warmer weather
• Green Great Harvest bread for St. Patrick's Day (seriously)
• And some fun and exciting changes to be announced later....(no, not a baby)