Traveling...

October has been a traveling month for us. The first weekend of the month we headed to Oregon. Patrick is interested in Amazon which is based in Seattle so he set a lunch meeting with a guy there for Friday. So we drove up to Devin's house and spent time with him and his family. We got there Thursday at dinner time. After eating chicken fajitas I went with Bridget to her friend's house for bead night where I made these.

Pretty cool, right? I was pretty impressed with her bead group. They get together every couple of months and the lady in charge finds a project for them to do, learns how to do it, and then creates little kits with everything you need to make it. Then you go to her house and make your bead project while talking with the other girls and eating whatever delicious dessert she made. Needless to say I want to live closer and join bead group. While I was getting my bead on Patrick got to hang out with Devin and the kids. Krispy Kreme donuts were involved so they had fun.

Friday Patrick drove the 3 1/2  hours to Seattle for his meeting. I stayed with Bridget and the two youngest kids. While Patrick was driving and talking with the Amazon man, I spent my day playing legos, sword fighting, going to the rose garden, walking around the grounds of Pittock Mansion, eating macaroni and cheese, and talking with Bridget.

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Saturday was filled with watching soccer games, eating Del Taco, playing outside, chatting, and eating dinner from the food carts in town. Devin and Patrick went to pick up dinner and we ate sushi,chicken marsala, lemon chicken, pumpkin curry, another curry, a Hawaiian dish, a Thai noodle dish, and more. It was delicious. Later that night we played a few games including pass the pigs and charades. It ended with the kids having a dance party.

Sunday we drove back to Utah. We stopped in Boise to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Hoopes. It was nice to see them and visit for a little while. It was especially nice because Patrick had never met them before. After eating dinner with them we headed back to Provo. Patrick drove almost the entire trip. We got back close to 11pm and went right to sleep because we both got up close to 5am the next day to start the week.

A few weeks later we headed to California for Braden's baby blessing. We left Thursday afternoon and stopped in St. George to visit Danielle and Chad. It was so fun to see them and to their cute apartment. I think their dog Rukia was the most excited of us all. She loves Patrick and they used to play together every Sunday at my parent's house. After catching up a bit we ate mexican food and had ice cream. Then we hung out and talked and watched the show adventure time. We spent the night with them and headed out the next morning.

Friday afternoon we arrived in California. We talked with Linda, picked up Burrianos (pork burritos with a chile rellano inside) and headed to Stephanie's house. We chatted and took turns holding our new nephew.

Saturday was the blessing day. Linda and Stephanie had ordered a cute outfit for Braden to wear but when it arrived in the mail it looked like it was sized for a toddler, not a 8-15 lb baby like it was supposed to be.  So after Linda ran errands and cooked, Patrick studied, and I slept? or ate cookies? we called stores and were on the hunt for a new outfit. We got one at JCPenny's on the way to the Carr house for the blessing. Scott's parents and a couple of his sisters and their families were there. It was neat to be a part of their special day. We had lunch afterwards and Linda, Patrick and I headed to Oak Glen. It was a cool touristy apple orchard dreamland. We sampled cider and apples and had a fun time.

It is nice that we've been able to visit some family on both sides. We have decided that we are going to take a few weeks off  before heading out again.

My morning surprise...

I walked outside today to find this...

 Yes, snow in October. I couldn't believe it. And then I found my car...

...also covered in snow. I actually had to get out my scraper from the trunk to clean it off. It didn't matter though because I planned to make freezer meals today. I've made a few in the past with my mom and decided it was time again. That way Patrick and I don't spend our money eating take out burritos and Chinese food, or worse Totino's frozen pizza when we are short on time. So this afternoon I spent three hours and made:

-Pasta Bake

-Sweet and Sour Meatballs

-Chicken Fajitas

-Shepard's Pie

-Peachy Balsamic Chicken

-Cranberry Dijon Pork

-Cheesy Spinach Burgers

-Orange Chicken

 Here they are in our freezer.

I'm excited to start using them. Especially the recipes that are new. And it's nice because we'll be able to eat multiple meals from all of them.
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NBMBAA Conference...

This past Wednesday I boarded a plane to Indianapolis. Right about now you might be saying, "What? What business would Patrick have in Indianapolis?" Well, the answer is the National Black MBA Association Conference! And now you might be asking, "what business would Patrick have at a Black MBA conference?" Well my great, great, great... was Adam so I figured what the heck, why not?

BYU actually pushes the diversity conferences pretty hard. A lot of large companies set up booths and both first and second year students can go to talk with the companies their interested in and if selected have a chance to do a first round interview there at the conference. I felt a little weird about the whole thing until I got there and realized that maybe only 40% of the students were black.

The conference was actually pretty fun. I failed completely at the first booth, American Express. I was mechanical and it was a bust. The rest of the morning went pretty well. Unlike most of my peers I was only interested in a handful of the companies; just the ones located in Southern California, Oregon, or Washington. With the exception of Microsoft there wasn't to my knowledge any representing Oregon or Washington.

To the disappointment of me and my peers most of the companies were not there for interns. They often had information about the different internships but weren't interviewing. Bummer. That said, I made some good connections with three companies: Toyota (Torrance, CA), Amgen (Thousand Oaks, CA), and Life Technologies (Carlsbad, CA). I really hit it off with Toyota and was invited to their mixer that evening, which I attend for a couple of hours. It was fun and there were about 8ish Toyota employees there and only between 15 and 25 students. So it was nice to be able to chat with them for longer and more intimately than at the conference.

Overall, I had a good time but am glad to be home and with Ashley... for a few days at least.

The week in review...

Patrick came home Saturday night from Portland and by Sunday morning we had no hot water! Patrick called the maintenance number during the day while I was at work and could only leave a message. The emergency number they gave was for the police. So Patrick decided he would just skip a shower that day. Because he is so sweet he warmed up water on the stove for me to use for a bath when I got home from work. Monday morning Patrick went to shower at school and I went to the apartment office to get this water problem solved. A couple hours later a man came and lite the water heater. I showered shortly thereafter and thought all of our problems were solved. He also showed me the numbers we should call for apartment problems in the future. I was glad that if we ever had a problem again we could actually get a hold of them instead of just leaving a message that I'm pretty sure no one listened to. Our refrigerator was also making a loud weird noise that would wake us up at night so that got fixed too. Tuesday came and the water was cold again. So I called the number. The guy came back over and fixed a part. This hot water problem went on all week and poor Patrick had cold showers and was showering at school. But Friday we got a new hot water heater and everything has been good since!

Patrick's super busy with school but things are going good. He went to a information session hosted by Intel and thought it went well. He also was able to practice his elevator pitch several times on Friday at a mock career fair. The second year MBA students represented different companies. I think it's nice that he is able to get practice in before the real deal. Pretty soon Patrick will go to a career fair in the Midwest.

Work for me is interesting. Some days are good and some are bad. I'm still trying to get the hang of things.  I picked up an extra shift on Friday and it was CRAZY!  I was there for 15 hours with no lunch break. I was more than happy to have the weekend off. I came home to Patrick waiting for me with beautiful flowers and pizza.

It was nice to spend some time with Patrick this weekend. I think it is going to take me a while to get used to working every other weekend.  He went up to campus to study and meet with his group until noon. So I slept in, did dishes, and cleaned up a little. When Patrick came home we ate lunch, took a nap (we both have sore throats), and did some grocery shopping.

We met Carolyn for dinner in Provo.We enjoyed catching up with her and as we walked towards our car afterwards it was gone. Yep it had been towed. I'm usually pretty good about reading signs, especially parking signs but Patrick and I both missed this one. We saw that there were rules for parking in the lot but thought it was only during business hours. After a phone call we found out it was going to cost $129 to get the car back and that they only took cash. We drove through the bank and when we got to the impound lot the man said that no it was going to be $229. So we went to a nearby grocery store to get more money. Patrick and I were both upset because they could have put a boot on the car instead of towing it. That would have been cheaper. But the towing man said that that didn't solve the problem so they just tow instead. Although the amount of money we had to pay was ridiculous we are just trying to forget about it and do better reading parking signs. We still went and got ice cream with Carolyn after we got the car back and it was great. We went to the creamery and then back to our place to play quelf.

 

 Today instead of regular church we went to the stake center to watch the Brigham City Temple dedication. Patrick had forgotten all about this and was super excited when we talked about it last night. Everyone in Utah had their normal church cancelled and instead watched the dedication. It was especially nice because you had your choice of three different times to go. We decided to sleep in and go to the noon session. We really enjoyed the dedication.

Although this picture isn't from today we've spent the rest of our day cooking, doing laundry, doing dishes, and Patrick's been studying.  It's been a good Sunday and we've been able to relax a little too.

It will be interesting to see what surprises are in store for us this week!

Crafting...

When Patrick went out of town when we lived in Michigan I would go hang out with my parents and spend the night at their house.  It worked well. I could catch up with my parents, sleep in my old bed or the awesome couch, and not worry about being alone in a dark apartment at night.

Now being in the MBA program Patrick will be gone for the night more frequently. He already had a finance overnight activity and went to Portland to check out Intel for a couple of days. On his first overnight absence I decided that I needed to set up a nice routine for when he's gone so I don't miss him too much. I decided on crafting and mexican food.

There was this awkward space over the stove and so the first time Patrick was gone I decided to tackle that. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to hang there because there was already a nail. I was looking through our pictures then I decided I'd look on my Pinterest boards. I found this and decided to make one.

I put ours behind glass because I thought it could get splattered if it was left open. I was also worried that steam might make the "F" fall off since it is only glued on. So the glass will protect it and keep it in place.  I chose the colors to match our table, kitchen towels, and stand mixer.

I recently decided that I like wreaths and like making them. So I decided I'd make one for Fall when Patrick was in Portland. I'm hoping that in the future I can have a wreath for every season. I guess I'm getting closer. I have one for  spring/summer, fall, and Christmas. I copied one from Pinterest again. I think it looks better in real life than the picture.

Here is what it looks like on our door.

Settling in...

Patrick and I are trying to get used to our new routine. It basically consists of us not seeing each other very much compared to what we're used to. Patrick's keeping really busy with school and looking for an internship for the summer. So our goal during the week is to spend two hours together each day including dinnertime. Most of the time we're able to. When we have a little more time on the weekend after Patrick's done with homework for the day we try to get out of the apartment. So here are some things that we've done recently:

 

 -Ate at one of Patrick's favorite places. He's been talking about it for a while so it was nice to finally eat the best sandwich ever. We also bought little chocolates from the store to try. When we left the shop there happened to be a farmers market across the street that we wondered around in.

- We hiked the "Y"! We split a breakfast burrito before we went on Labor Day.  Tons of people were out hiking since it was the holiday. Some people hiked in their normal clothes and looked like they were just walking. We were in our athletic gear and I has red and sweating the whole time. It was fun and we hope to hike the "Y" a few more times before winter comes.

-Went to the nickel arcade. Patrick and I had a lot of fun playing the games. My favorite involved throwing balls trying to hit little kids in a winter paintball type scene. Patrick liked the deal or no deal game. After we had our fill of games we traded in all of our tickets for candy!

-I got a nursing job!  I was and am still so excited to be working as a nurse. This week was busy and I got in some overtime hours, quite a few overtime hours. I started orientation on the floor Sunday. I quickly learned that a perk to living in Utah is that some YM come to visit and bring the sacrament each Sunday!

-I took Patrick on a date to see Men in Black 3 at the dollar theater. We started off the night by having dinner at our ward BBQ in the quad.

 -We tried a few new recipes for lunch today after church. Shrimp enchiladas and refried beans. We decided the enchiladas were okay but the beans on the otherhand turned out great. We used a recipe I repinned from Sunny on pinterest where you cook the beans in the crockpot. We plan on making ours like this from now on. Patrick threw them in the food processor and it made them smooth and even more delicious.

Our first visitors...

Danielle and Chad came up the week we moved to Utah to spend the weekend with us. Because they have a super fancy camera I was not able to view the pictures taken over the weekend but now I can. So here is what we did with the Lewis Family.

We started our visit with dinner. It took us a little while to decide what we wanted but after some driving around we all decided on Mexican food. We stopped at Patrick's favorite place in town. Maybe Patrick and I have been there a handful of times since moving here.

After dinner and we decided that Crispy Cream sounded good. We were talking about how cool it would be if someone made a app that told you if the hot and ready sign was on for your phone. Turns out there is an app. So we each got donuts, energy drinks, and headed to campus.

The energy drinks were for the "Rockstar Challenge". Patrick had long been wanting us to do this so it was our chance. But we used Monster drinks instead. The goal of the game is to see who can drink their energy drink first without burping. Chad barely beat Patrick and was the winner. All of us finished without burping. I thought we did pretty good considering we all just ate two donuts. I did feel like I was going to throw up so I walked over by the trash cans just in case. Thankfully I didn't.

On Saturday we went to Kneader's for brunch. It was my first experience there and I now understand what all of the french toast hype is about. Danielle and Chad also shared the secret that Saturday evening all of the baked goods sold in the case are sold for half price! So of course we returned in the evening to buy some.

We hiked Bridal Veil Falls in the afternoon. It was a super short hike to the actual falls and easy to do. We got to walk around in the falls and look at the awesome view. I am loving the mountains here. Patrick and I are excited to do more hiking.

We had a GREAT time with Danielle and Chad here! We had a great time and hope to visit them in St. George sometime!