Green Eggs and Sausage

For St. Patrick's Day I planned on making a green breakfast for Rex. Somehow my alarm didn't go off so I couldn't make it before he left for school. So we had "shamrock" pancakes, green eggs and sausage for dinner that night. (We decided to save the ham for Easter).

Bits of Berkeley

Rex and I live in Berkeley, California where we found a good deal managing our apartment complex. I have enjoyed exploring around the area and seeing different ways my new neighbors like expressing themselves. It sure makes life interesting! Here are a few examples...
There are many signs like this around town. I also found this house on the same street...
With a matching car of course!
That's Berkeley for ya!

First Date Anniversary

My first date with Rex was exactly a year ago today! Here is the story...we were both living in Provo at the time. I was teaching 2nd grade in American Fork and he was finishing up his last semester of his Neuroscience degree. I was serving as the Relief Society President in my ward and he was serving as the Elder's Quorum President in his ward.

On the weekend of Stake Conference the Stake Relief Society organized a huge Enrichment activity at the church. The Enrichment counselors from my ward were in charge of setting up blind date for the session of Stake Conference that evening. So a few weeks before the activity they contacted all of the EQPs in the Stake and got some brave guys willing to do the task. They each filled out a little anonymous info sheet about themselves for the girls to choose from.

So the morning of the activity I was at the temple doing my temple shift. After I got home I decided to run over to the church and see how the activity went. I found the room of the girls in my ward and they were really excited about all of the blind dates they had set up. They still had about 20 info sheets left and talked me into choosing a blind date for myself that night. I was debating between two of them and finally decided to go with the guy from Tempe, Arizona (about a month before that I had decided to move there during the summer).

About an hour before conference I headed over to the church to meet my blind date. I have to admit I was a little embarrassed to be doing something so silly. It helped to think that over 100 other people in the Stake were doing it also. I walked in and found the foyer packed with people and quickly found a friend to talk with. Eventually my name was shouted out and I was paired up with Rex Kimball. We quickly found out that he knew my relatives in Arizona and we headed off with another couple to Stake Conference at the Provo Tabernacle. We sat about 5 rows up from where this picture was taken.


I wouldn't say that a church meeting is an ideal first date because we really couldn't talk to each other much. The topic of our Stake President's talk was dating and he had about 20 girls come up and read questions that we should ask ourselves about a guy we are considering. I went up and read a question about fasting. When I sat down Rex assured me that he is a faithful faster. Now I know that he is the most dedicated faster I know! We finally got to ask each other a few questions on the car ride home. He walked me to the door and we were still talking so I invited him to come in. I had never invited a guy to come in after a date before (but thanks to my roommate Kat I had the guts to do it!) We talked for a few more minutes and he asked for my phone number. The rest is history!!!

Happy Valentine's Day

On Valentine’s Day Rex surprised me by having two dozen red roses sent to our apartment. I was a little confused when both of the cards were the same. It turned out that the computer processed Rex’s order twice and they sent me two dozen instead of one. Rex had to spend awhile on the phone to get a refund, but I was grateful for all of the beautiful flowers! I made him one of his favorite dinners (his mom’s enchilada casserole) which we ate by candlelight. I was so happy to have a Valentine this year! The day after Valentine’s Day I was trying to help Rex be motivated to study and this is what I came up with...

There's no pulse!

Since school started Rex has been busy with classes and so far he really likes his Neuroscience class. He has gotten 100 percents on his first two quizzes and he loved his assignment to draw the parts of the brain on a swim cap. He has also had fun hiding his skeleton feet around the house to scare me with. For one of his breaks from studying Rex has found a new hobby of looking on Craig’s List (a website where anyone can post things for sale or things they are giving away for free). So far we have gotten a bunch of free 5-inch binders, a bookshelf, a filing cabinet, and a coffee table. Don't worry, I cut Rex's hair soon after this picture was taken! (I spiked it up for the mad scientist look).

Honeymooners

Our honeymoon started at a nice place at Lake Las Vegas which I was very grateful for. I told Rex I preferred to be away from downtown and he did a great job! The next day we came back to my house and opened gifts and finished loading up the truck. It was a miracle that everything fit in there. We stayed the night and left the next morning on our journey to California. We found out that we wouldn’t get the key to our apartment until Monday morning, so luckily my cousin let us stay in his apartment that night while he and his wife were still with family in Arizona. So Monday morning we got the key and started moving in. We had to do some tricky maneuvering to get the couches and mattress around the turn in the stairs. We were also blessed to have an elevator in our building with the door right next to our front door. It made moving some of the other items a lot easier. It took us all day to unpack the whole truck by ourselves. That night was New Year’s Eve but we were too tired to do anything to celebrate.

The next morning we repacked our bags and went grocery shopping and headed off for the rest of our honeymoon. We drove about an hour North to a place called Dillon Beach. Rex found a perfect little house for us to stay in for the week. (If you want to see pictures you can go to www.dillonbeachnest.com). It was dark when we arrived so I didn’t know until the morning how close we really were to the ocean. Rex opened the window and there was a beautiful view of the ocean at sunrise. That day we had a picnic at the beach and tried flying a kite. It started getting really cold so we decided to go back and get in the hot tub on the house’s deck. While we were in there we watched the storm clouds move in. The next day it rained all day long so we stayed in and watched movies and worked on a puzzle.

That night the rain continued and it was hitting the glass windows so hard I thought they were going to break. I didn’t sleep all night because of the storm. The next morning we woke up and the power was out and water had leaked in through all of the window sills both upstairs and downstairs. We went out into the storm and tied down the hot tub cover that was flapping wildly in the wind. After calling the owners we found out that the storm had winds up to 70 miles per hour. We decided to take a rain check on our honeymoon and the owners said we could come back for a weekend in the spring when the weather is better. We are excited for that!

The Big Day

Rex and I were married on December 28, 2007. It was a wonderful day and we were so glad to share it with so many of our family and friends. Now that we are settled in I decided its time for me to start a blog. I'm really excited about it. Here we go...