Longest. Engagement. Ever.

Yep, we've been engaged for 4 months already! And still a month and a half to go. Why didn't we just have a traditional LDS two-weeker?! Fortunately, time is flying. Rob is busy with work; he got a second job at a Scripture Sticker kiosk in the mall. I am busy with trying to focus on school just enough to make sure I pass my classes so I can graduate. It's hard to concentrate when I'd rather just hang out with my fiance all day. Our wedding plans are coming along. My sister Katie came down to Utah a few weeks ago and her roommate took our engagemet pictures. She is also helping us make our announcements which we'll probably send out soon! Here are a few of our pictures.

In other news, I am marrying a five star chef. I took pictures of some of Rob's recent kitchen creations:We are way into salads these days.

Rob made a carrot cake from scratch for his cousin Justin's birthday, complete with homemade cream cheese frosting. It looked like it was difficult to make and it was SO delicious!

Our jack-o-lantern fruity pebble treats. This was pretty much the extent of our Halloween festivities.

We're really excited to get married. We have a place to live in Rexburg now and can't wait to move in! Let's just hope the next month and a half go by really really fast . . .

Two Year Celebration!!!

And why are we celebrating? That's a great question that I will answer NOW!! The reason is that I have officially been back from my mission for Two Years today, October 6, 2008. It has been 4 years to the date that I entered the MTC. Crazy, crazy, crazy! We decided to celebrate... sorta. First off, Rachel and I have been in the process of our wedding registry. We registered at Target and they gave us a free 6" sample cake! Here's the picture!


However, this cake did not look like a wedding cake, it was fairly ordinary. The frosting was a little cracked as well. But, what the heck, we're not getting our cake from target anyway and it was good and most especially, free.

We spent this weekend in Salt Lake. Katie and Cortney came into town and we watched conference. This weekend was also eventful because Rachel had Lasik surgery! She is a really good see-er now. The surgery went well. She started the weekend with 20/200 vision in each eye and now she's got 20/15 in each!!! That's better than normal. It was a super interesting process though. I had the opportunity to watch as they literally sliced her corneas open and then smoothed them out. She said it was scary and the only part that hurt was having these metal things holding her eyelids open. I felt a little helpless, because it was obvious she was going through some pain and they gave her a teddy bear to hold. She was squeezing it so tightly! :( But, the good news is, now she'll never be a nerdy four eyes again!


These are the eye protectors they gave her to wear at night. We got a more normal eye mask instead.

We were planning to have Katie and Cortney try taking some engagement pictures for us this weekend, but then found out that Rachel wasn't allowed to wear eye makeup for a while, so we decided to wait.

So in conclusion, I can't believe that I've been home for two years already, Rachel's eyes are super and target cakes are simply simple! It's a great day.

Fads

Looking back on past decades, they each have fads they were famous for. The 70's had bell bottoms and disco. The 80's had neon pants and crimped hair. I sometimes wonder what this current decade will be known for. It seems like in today's fashion, almost anything goes, so what will be our stereotype in 20 years? Rob and I did a little brainstorming today of the fads that we think everyone will someday look back on and laugh at. Here are a few . . .

1. Brightly colored shoes that clash with the entire outfit.

You have no idea how many of these we run into on our way to church. The only rule is that the shoes cannot even remotely match any other color the person is wearing. I am not claiming to be ahead of fashion (or even current with it) but I just can't see these things lasting very long.

2. Stereotypical "gangsta" pic (only taken by girls who are far from being gangsta).

The pursed lips, the hand signals, the optional flat-billed baseball cap. Don't feel bad; every teenage-t0-early-20's girl has done it. Why? Who knows. But I have a feeling this will be one of those things that people will make fun of in 20 years.
*These girls were kind enough to demonstrate the fad.

3. Skinny legged boys wearing skinny leg girl jeans.
This started out being mostly a trend for emo kids, but it has become a little more widespread. Come to think of it, emo kids themselves will probably be one of the major stereotypes of the early 2000's.

4.

5. Crocs
Almost too obvious to list. People already make fun of these.

6. Rappers calling their girls "shorty" in every song. Really, just listen to a rap station for a few minutes and you'll hear it. I don't even get it.

7. Gauged earsYou'll regret it someday!

8. Non-Polynesian men wearing sandals to church.Maybe not really a current fad, but something we noticed is an interesting fashion choice.

Don't worry if you're guilty of any of these. We're not trying to make fun of anyone... but we definitely will in 20 years. There's our list. Feel free to add.

Work and School

Rob's New Job
Not really... but kind of. Rob got a job working in the warehouse at the Sears Outlet store that just opened. It's just a small Sears that sells refurbished or returned appliances. Before the grand opening, Rob was joking around with the managers and said something like, "maybe we'll get more business if we have someone out by the street dressed up like a washing machine." They laughed, but then later in the day one of the managers took his advice and went out and got a gorilla suit. Of course they asked Rob to wear it for the grand opening, and he agreed (after making sure his face would be covered). He was a big hit!

Engagement picture

We have been busy here in Provo. Rob is working full time and is signing up to be a volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club. I am working part time at the MTC Cafeteria again and finishing up my last classes before I graduate in December. I have two classes on campus and two that I am taking online. I decided to focus on one online class at a time and I'm already halfway done with the first (the easier one). And of course, there's lots of wedding planning to do. Time is flying. We've already been engaged for over 2 months!

Rob's Ultimate Birthday!

So, I turned 23 on Wednesday the 27th. I am currently in Provo to be with Rachel for the Fall Semester and to work. Money is important, ya know. Before I left for Provo though I spent a little time with my family. They gave me some early gifts. Tiff and Jeff and their family got me a package for my PSP. It had a hard case that carried games and memory cards. That will be nice and useful. Dan and Kim got me a Canon Printer/Scanner/Copier. It's really nice. It has a screen on it that shows the pictures on it. Mom and Dad got me a portable battery that I can use to jump start my car. That's handy, because I've been having tons of crazy car problems lately.
So then I left for Provo with a stop in Holladay to spend the weekend with Rachel and her parents. They got me a cheesecake for my birthday. Here are some pictures!

Rachel's Parents got me a Lord of the Rings book. I've been slowly collecting the series. I plan to read it someday. Not sure when... a long time in the future. It was fun. Rachel's parents were very nice to have a small party for me.
On the day of my birthday, I helped to move Rachel into her new/crappy apartment. We'll make a blog later about our new Residences. Anyway, then Rachel and I went to see the 2nd Chronicles of Narnia movie with Kjirsten and Kayla. They are some of Rachel's old roommates. They're our good friends. It was funny at the beginning of the movie because as we got into the theater it was so dark that we couldn't really even see each other in the blackness. So we were trying to find a place to sit because it was really packed. I went into an aisle and heard a guy say, "Uh... Hey?" That was awkward. Afterwards, the girls and I went to Olive Garden for Dinner! It was really good. I got Apricot Chicken with asperagus. Rachel got Chicken Alfredo. Rachel got me a present as well! It was an external harddrive. I guess that was practical, because we can both use it! Later that night 'the cousins', Kjirsten, Kayla and Natalie came over and we watched X-files. It was a good birthday!

Rob's Current Status

Well, I'm off track now and I'm living in Sunnyside with my parents for a few weeks. I spent some time down in Provo/Orem looking for a job for when I move back for Rachel's Fall Semester at BYU. My plan while I was here was to help my dad work on some construction on our house. We're building a breezeway between my old room and the house.

My brother Dan is due for a vacation in a couple days. He'll be here on Monday with his wife Kim. I'll probably only see them for a couple days though because they're planning on going to the Twin Falls Temple dedication. We still have good plans to do stuff though. Amber wants to float the river. So we'll probably do that. There's a bunch of other stuff that I've been doing. Rachel has assigned me to find pictures for a wedding slideshow. That should turn out nicely.

I've been reorganizing my room that I live in. I still have a lot to do, but it's nice to have my room attached to the house. My dad and I did a bunch of electrical work in the breezeway so now I can turn the lights on in the room and in the breezeway.

Rachel is living in Murray with her parents until the break is over. I'm going to work down in Provo while she goes to school. I wanted to be near her, because I love her!!!! I'm going to be living with my cousin Justin Grimmer. He's got his own place. He's a great guy, I'm sure we'll get along well. I might not even be there that much.

Rachel has had crazy problems with her computer and she's been very irritated about it. But, apparently Rachel is a really good negotiator(or complainer?), because they consented to just give her a new computer. It's really small, has a touch screen, fingerprint reader and you can write on it! It has a 12.1 inch screen, the screen pivots and folds flat. It's worth a couple hundred dollars more than her original computer. She's not quite sure if she likes it yet though, so she's going to call in and ask if she can have a couple days trial first. We're excited for the deal. When I move to Provo, I'll probably have her call and "negotiate" for fixing my computer too. My touch pad mouse is breaking.

Besides that, I'm excited to be with my family. I'm also excited to go to Provo, live with my cousin and be with my fiance for the semester until we get married. Maybe we'll do a wedding plan blog sometime.

Addicted to Reading

Rob and I have spent a lot of our time together reading this summer. Since I have hour-long lunch breaks in Idaho Falls, I spend most of that time reading, and then I get so into my books that I want to read more when I get home. Rob is fine with that, because he also loves to read. The picture above was taken when we went to Monkey Rock with a group of people, and just couldn't put our books down. My summer roommates always comment on how cute it is that we read together, but I think deep down they think we're boring old people.

Anyway, we decided to blog about the books we are currently reading. I started out the summer reading the "Hearts of the Children" series by Dean Hughes, which is a sequel series to the "Children of the Promise" series, which I read last summer. I think I liked the first series better, but they are both good, and I feel like I have learned a little bit about the historical time periods in which they take place.

When I finished that series, I didn't know what to do with myself, so Rob got me "Twilight." It was just the kind of book I wanted to read, and I am a fan. However, after buying both the first and second books in paperback, Rob found out that the third book isn't going to come out in paperback for another year! I didn't want to buy the third book in hardback, because that would ruin my collection. So I'm waiting to read the third until I can borrow it! And I'll probably have to wait to borrow the fourth as well... Meanwhile, I borrowed a Nicholas Sparks book from Katie called "True Believer." It's getting me through my lunch breaks.


Rob has been reading a series called "The Wheel of Time" for a while. He is on book 6 out of 13 right now. The author, Robert Jordan, passed away before he could finish the 13th and final book. Luckily, he had chosen someone to finish the series for him, so Rob won't have to be left without an ending to his series. Rob likes reading fantasy books, and I have decided that the next series I read will be "Fablehaven," because I've heard it is good, and to make Rob happy. Who knows, maybe I'll become a fantasy fanatic and stop teasing him so much.

Rob gave me a copy of "The Screwtape Letters" for Easter, and we decided to read it together. It's not a quick and easy read, and it's helpful for us to be able to slowly read one chapter at a time and talk about it. So far, it's been really interesting and insightful.

That's our reading blog! If you have any book suggestions, let us know!