Summer Vacationing

My, my. Has it ever been a long time or what? Not like anyone reads about our life anyways except Fern (Jess' mom). Well, since school got out we've been having our first true summer vacation. Here are some of the fun things we've done.

Towards the end of May we took a trip down to St. George and surrounding areas. We spent a lot of our time at Mark's dad's house in Enterprise. While there we played frisbee golf with Kai (Mark's brother). Mark and Kai bonded by playing James Bond and Mario soccer on the 360. Mark and Verl (Mark's dad) bonded by having Dr. Mario tournaments. This game goes way back in their family, so it was cool for me to see the masters in action.
The main purpose of the trip was to see Mark's best friend, Phil, get married for time and all eternity in the St. George temple. Congrats Phil. We also got to visit with a few of Mark's old friends, which was pretty great. I was introduced to skimboarding, which I had heard of but never seen. On my first try, I landed on the board wrong and fell down bruising my hip. Unfortunately, this has affected other vacationing time. More details later. And of course, we spent a large portion of our time playing board games with anyone who would join.
I took pictures, but they are not currently with me. Depending on my diligence they may be posted at a later date. Sorry!

On June 2nd, I was able to travel to Bountiful to witness the eternal marriage of MFA Aunt Shauna to Scott Slack. Welcome to the family forever Scott!

Our most recent vacation was a blast. We attended the Mark Anderson family reunion held in Florida. Many of you don't know this, but it was the first time I met two of Mark's brother's families. Luckily, they seemed to like me, and I sure liked them too.
Highlights of this trip:

Eating seafood by the sea. May I say the fish and shrimp were delightful!



Playing games in the hotel. Killer Bunnies is our favorite game.


Finally at the beach!


Playing with the kids was great fun for me. And good birth control too.





This is a fort in St. Augustine, the oldest English established city in America. The whole place is quite fascinating.




My first time seeing a lighthouse other than on tv. This one is landlocked somewhere in St. Augustine. Don't ask what good a landlocked lighthouse is..



Getting together with the brothers. There are 6 brothers total in this Anderson family.



Now, believe it or not, these pictures are from the Ripley's Believe it or Not museum in St. Augustine.

This little bit is quite interesting. If you can't read it let me know and I'll interpret for you.


This is a lock and key made completely of locks and keys found at the airport. Apparentely, the man who made this worked at an airport and took his job very seriously.


This is an actual egg shell that has been carved. Try this at home!


This is a really cool "building" made completely from matchsticks. Isn't that amazing?


This violin is also made nearly completely with matchsticks.


My new favorite person... Not really, but isn't this guy tall?! According to Ripley, this man is the tallest man in modern history.



So, there you have it. I'll try to be better at updating this thing. Good day.

Box Elder Battle

This is not a request to box "Elder Battle"...Just in case anyone was wondering. We don't even know an Elder Battle. The point is, we are in the midst of a war...and not with Box Elder county, but with the Box Elder bugs! EWWW!!!


Just look at them in their disgusting tribe of intruding fart-knockers.
I found these little buggers on my laundry room floor on an unforseen day when I realized the laundry needed to be done. There must have been at least 30 of them who had secretly snuck in to destroy our peace and happiness. Now, the picture only shows a few of them, and they aren't easy to see against the cracked-paint floor, so here's a professional picture for you.


Lucky for us, the tribe that tried to invade had mostly died before I got there to kill them myself. However, they are still attempting to overtake us little by little through different parts of the house: the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen, and even the bathroom. They're ruthless!

Speaking of ruthless, college professors are like Box Elder bugs. They poop on your furniture; they are a nuisance; they control your life. Well, not all are nuisances, and most don't poop on your furniture. But they sure do control your life. Thank goodness finals are over!!!

School Pains

All day long we sit through class,
While the sun shines through the glass.
The warmth outside I long to feel,
But in my seat I must sit still.

We get home and want to rest.
The moon starts to show its crest.
Homework still is piling up
While we begin to erupt.

Finals week is coming soon,
When we'll be free from all o' this school.
Summer will fly by too fast,
And we'll be back into the nast'.

Up-Dated

Mark and I had a triple date on Sunday afternoon. The other two couples were our dear friends Chris and Laura and another couple Shane (from Domino's) and his fiancee. We took a picnic lunch to the park by our house and played a little frisbee golf. It was great to just relax and spend a great Sabbath Day with our friends.

The night before (Saturday night) was my last night working at Macey's grocery store. When I got off, I found the bakery had made me a farewell cake! It was really tasty, and made a great end to a nice job.

On Monday, I started my new job at Domino's Pizza. As most of you know, Mark is a manager there, so yes, I will be working with him. So far it has been pretty great. It seems a lot more fun, and it's a better help with our finances.

We're both doing great, but can't wait for school to be over for the summer. Bring it on!

As a sidenote, for those of you who don't know, my brother Aaron has asked Danielle Schiker to marry him. As of now the date will be August 9th. Congrats to them! We're so excited!!!

My Beef

So, I biffed on the scooter about a week and a half ago. I haven't had time to post about it until now, and my legs are looking much better. My pants have a hole by the knee now, but other than that all is well. I'm just glad I had the helmet on or else I could have been seriously hurt. The scooter is fine. It got a little muddy and a bit of the plastic cracked, but it's still rideable. Hope all is well for everyone!

Homework Day

Today I will be spending my whole day in the USU library. My work only scheduled me for one day this week, Saturday, instead of working me on my usual Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Plus, my only class that I have on Tuesdays and Thursdays was canceled for the week so my teacher could have surgery. So instead of staying home being lazy and not doing anything all day, I've decided to come here, to the library, to force myself to suffer through my homework all day long. For those who know me really well, you know I actually sometimes enjoy doing my math homework because it's fun (and you all are welcome to think I'm crazy). Sadly enough, for as long as I'll be here today and as hard as I work, I still doubt I will finish a single assignment. That is the sadness of math homework.

Would you like to biggie size that?

Yes, I would. This is a biggie-sized blog. I've heard a bunch of you complaining that I need to update my blog. Even Uncle Sam went as far as to leave me a comment about it. Well, if you insist, then here's what you asked for.

First of all, one day I came home from school or work or wherever I was, and sitting in the living room was a dozen dried roses, with a love note underneath them. I have a stud for a husband.


A couple weeks later, Mark was at work and I was bored. It just so happened that my best friend Steph Fisher was coming up that night, so we called up our other high school friends and got together. The plan was to go up the canyon and roast marshmallows over a fire. However, we forgot wood, and the firepits were all frozen over. So, we roasted our stuff over a small barbeque in a student housing parking lot. Great fun!


Just the other night, I sold my shoes. These weren't just any shoes. These were my ballroom dance shoes, ordered from London. Obviously, since I'm not on the ballroom dance team anymore, it was pointless for me to have them anymore.. But they had so many memories attached to them. I wouldn't have sold them, but this year's team was leaving for a competiton in California the next day and that day in practice one of the girls' shoes broke, so I did her a favor and sold mine to her. What a sad day. I'll miss those shoes and the memories they held. Thank Heaven I have Mark in my life to create new memories with.


I've had several requests for a virtual tour of the house. So, here it is.
This is our living room. Can you guess a color theme?



These are a few of our favorite things - the game shelves.


This one is Mark's personal favorite - the entertainment center. Notice that all of the nintendo games are labeled and very well organized.


These next two pictures are leading up to something awesome. This is a mask I bought when I was in Venice, Italy.


This one is a picture I bought at the Louvre Museum in France.


These are in our bathroom, which makes our bathroom a European bathroom. It's European because when you go in there "Eur-o-pean".



This is our lovely little kitchen in all of it's glory.




Here is our great bedroom with all of the wonderful things that were given to us.


Finally, my favorite part of the house (mostly because I did this) the storage room.



Pretty much, this is the biggest blog ever posted on my site. Hopefully I'll get our latest adventures up soon, but I'm waiting to get pictures from our friends - I can't believe I forgot my camera!

Happy Heart-Day!

Granted, today isn't Valentine's Day, but I figured I could share what we did this year. First off, we went to school and spent most of the day doing homework and going to class. (How romantic.) After classes were over, we went home and Mark prepared a yummy fruit salad while I worked on an english paper I had due the next day. Then we took the salad over to Chris and Laura's house to have a nice Valentine's Day dinner with them and Chris' parents. It was great! After dinner we played a couple of card games called 'Quiddler' and 'And It Came to Pass' (which is, of course, an LDS game). It was great fun and we really enjoyed ourselves. I can't seem to put up the picture of us all enjoying dinner, so when I post later tonight I'll be sure to do that. Hope all of your Heart-Day's were nice!

Randomness

Sitting here thinking about things I feel like sharing, I remembered that I made banana bread today! Here is a picture.


I wish I could attach the smell as well, because it smells so very delicious. The batch made 6 of these cute little loaves, but i've already given 3 away.

I also remembered as i was sitting here that I haven't yet mentioned the new Macey's. It's pretty sweet. I'd suggest to anyone not living in Logan to come visit, if only to see the new store. We have a Flying J gas station in the parking lot, owned and operated by Macey's. Inside the store is way amazing. It's 3 times as big as our old store, and 3 times more organized. It's pretty great.

That's all the time I have today. I know it's kind of lame, but one day something worth putting up here will happen...

The Time Has Come...

...to create a new post. Yes, I know it has been a while since the last one, but I'm a newly-married woman and I've been busy. Busy with school, that is. This semester I am taking 3 math classes and an english class. Can you say "homework"? I can, just about every singly day. It's surely a good thing that my major is statistics and I actually enjoy this stuff. Occasionally I look forward to having homework.

The inversion in Logan this winter is more than twice as bad as it was last winter, and it's getting depressing. I keep thinking of how it was this past summer with the sun shining and old people walking around everywhere. During the summer Logan gets a lot of old folks from Arizona living here to cool off. They're so cute, and the old men are so nice. I think about laying on the green grass and reading a good book while getting a tan. Then I look out the window or walk outside and my thoughts crash and burn.

Other than the weather, life is great here in Logan. I'm looking forward to the end of our schooling so we can move out of this town, but that won't be for a while.

When I finally get my wedding pictures back from my photographer I'll be sure to get them up here.

Wedding Pictures!

So, it would be quite impossible for me to post all of the wedding pictures, but there is a way to see the ones from Mark's brother, Scott. He did a great job. All you have to do is click on the link to "Scott and Chris". That will take you to their blog. On the right side there is a link in the art galleries to "Mark and Jess Wedding". He's a great photographer, so go take a peek!

The Novel

Intro:
Where to even start? I know, I know. I've been a slacker, but cut me a little slack for getting married and that sort of stuff. People ask me everyday: "So, how is married life?" How am I supposed to answer that? Of course it's great. Most of the time I reply, "It's great. How was high school?" They're the same type of question that everyone knows how you'll answer. If I were to say "Well, it's mostly good, but we have had a few rough times," the person to whom I were talking to would think, "Oh no. Jess' married life isn't good. I don't think I'll ever get married because it's probably worse than being single." Now, I know I used to ask that question, but never again. That question is the only bad part about being married.

The Reception:
The wedding reception was so beautiful. I want to thank everyone who helped out in any way, and also thank you to those who came to the reception. A lot of people came and it was great to see them all. For those who don't know, the reception was the night before the actual wedding, and I would definitely recommend that to any of you who are getting married in the future. It saves everybody a world of stress. The reception day was fairly relaxing because we had all day to get ready for it; there was time to go get all of the things we may have otherwise forgotten. My favorite part of having it the night before is that the wedding was the big and final "sha-bang". Too much emphasis is put on the reception when they are the same day, in my opinion. And thanks to Aunt Carrie for putting these pictures on her blog so I could use them too. For some reason I don't have any pictures from that night just yet.




The Wedding:
Though the wedding reception was beautiful, the wedding was better than anything I could have ever imagined. My Grandpa Bob sealed Mark Allen Anderson and me for time and all eternity in the Mt. Timpanogos temple on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007. I have never been more happy in all of my life than I am right now because I know that I am with the man I love, and that I will always have the opportunity to be with him. What an amazing concept. I love you so very much, Markus Tay.




The Honeymoon:
Mark and I went to St. George after the luncheon on Wednesday. We spent a couple of nights at a condo there (thanks to Tio Jaime aka Uncle James) and had a great time in the area. Thursday we were able to hike Angel's Landing in Zions National Park. It was a little scary because of all the snow and ice on the trail at the top, but it was very fun. Here is a little picture story from that day, including the part where Mark slipped off the mountain because of the icy conditions and barely caught the chain and I thought it was amazing so I pulled out the camera and took a picture before I hoisted him back up to finish the hike with me:







Friday we spend rock climbing in St. George's very own Pioneer Park. It was really neat and we liked it a lot. We both decided we'd like to live in St. George when we're done with school. It's such a beautiful place and we'd have a great time down there. After the play was over, we left St. George and headed up to Brianhead Ski Resort near Cedar City to spend a couple nights in a different condo (thanks to Levi and his family).






Saturday was snowboarding day (thanks to Vic and little brother for letting us borrow boards), my first time ever and Mark's first time of the season. It was great fun! At first I was way scared of actually going down the hill, but once I got the hang of it, it was quite fun. I had to faceplant first (which kept me on the ground in pain for at least 5 minutes) but of course, I'm okay. It's too bad I like snowboarding because it's kind of an expensive activity for the two of us to try to enjoy more than once a year right now. I can handle not going for a while; I was sore for at least 4 days after.




Church at Brianhead was interesting. They have a few men from the closest ward called to be the "Sacrament meeting coordinaters for Brianhead Mountain". We had Sacrament meeting in the Town Hall. Mark and I were wondering why they have a town hall when it's not even a town. There are only condos and a ski resort down there. But hey, whatever makes them happy. We drove back to Logan that day, with a nice stop in Salt Lake for a wonderful dinner with my family.

The New Home:
First of all, Mark and I thank those who came to Logan while we were on our honeymoon to move our furniture and wedding gifts into our house. We are so very grateful for you and for your generosity. Our house is a cute little place in Logan. It's got one bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen, living room, and a whole lot of storage space. My favorite part of the house is the food storage room, which I took a morning to organize. In a close second place comes the washer and dryer. What a blessing! It took us a while to organize everything, but we're pretty much to where we want to be in our house. We love it. Below is a picture of my first load of laundry! How exciting.


The Ward:
We decided to be in the married student ward instead of a family ward. Today was our first day in our new ward (which isn't technically our ward, but we're going to stay in it because we like it). Our good friends Chris and Laura are in the ward, so it will be nice to have friends there. Basically, we like the ward and are excited to start a new life here.

The End of the Blog.