Apt Apartment

So... I forgot until just barely that I was going to update the blog with our recent happenings... and it's kind of late. My brain is starting to shut down so for now I'm going to spare you and not write much. Luckily not much has changed since the last post. Josh is still studying his brains out, and I have been working, stressing over YW's and trying to finish putting together our apartment.

Our first completed room is our living room, pictured here. Notice the fabulous couch. Thanks again everyone who donated to my giant birthday gift!!

On the wall not pictured Josh and I decided to do some bright green artwork. And now that I think about it, our living room isn't completed because I still have to cover up the Merry Christmas picture. It's ugly. The picture frames and their details are pretty sweet though so I hope you can see them.

Another almost completed room is our bathroom. We apparently use a lot of stuff to get ready in the morning (me so probably a bit more than Josh) and our bathroom void of medicine cabinet was suffering when we had to pile all of our stuff on the small counter. So, I thought I'd try my hand at a little carpentry. I started out with this...

And ended up with the worst shelf ever made by human hands. :( Thankfully I'm married to a man who has the handiest hands of anyone I know, and he fixed it up for me. We need shelves in our kitchen too, but I refuse to make them. Anyway, it still looks cluttered, but at least we have room around the sink.

Also, what would a post be like without a picture of our dog? Sometimes when Josh and I are busy, which seems like all the time now, Fiz tries everything to get our attention - including faking rigor mortis in spots we are most likely to see him.

The Skinny

I know it's been forever, but here's the skinny.

I'm studying for boards. It's what I'll be doing every day for more than a month for 11 hours a day. Buji. It better pay off!

Sydney is working a ton and busy with YW and girls camp stuff.

This is a functional HDTV antenna I built out of coat hangers. Yeah. That's right!

This is my moped project. It's getting closer to completion. I drive it to school!

This is a video of Fizgig watching a video of himself on our TV. The look on his face is priceless.

Just finding a comfy spot.

We also moved, once we get everything situated, we'll take some pictures of that too. Maybe we'll make a video.

These shoes were donated to my YM along with a MILLION pounds of clothes. We're selling the leftovers on Ebay to finance our summer camp. Anyone need some shoes?

Camping!

This last weekend, Sydney and I went camping with a few families from the branch to celebrate Josh Souter and Cassidy Stewart's birthdays. It was a bunch of fun! We went to Pocahontas State Park, and I forgot to really take any good pictures. Enjoy what a did shoot with my Iphone.

This is Ellie, the Souter's daughter, just sitting and looking at the lake. Cracked me up! I had to take a picture.

Syd and Fiz. He doesn't look happy, although he was having the time of his life.

Just my beautiful wife.

I like these pictures. Fiz and Syd were racing to the top. Now you see him.

Now you don't.

It rained pretty much all of Friday night, but we didn't mind. We had delicious food prepared by Crystal (ribs, corn on the cob, chicken, hot dogs, salad, fruit, YUM YUM YUM!) We went back to camp and pretty much went to bed.

The next morning we went for a hike and hung out around camp trying to conceal our illegal daytime fire. (Apparently fires aren't allowed except 4pm-midnight until May)

Sydney made me film the previous video, and she'll be so happy that I'm putting it on here. Fizgig really didn't like the spontaneous dancing that I did at the end of Slumdog Millionaire. What can I say? I was feeling Bollywood fever.

School is winding down, which means board prep is gearing up. I have 3 more weeks of official class, then it's 1 month of insanity. I hope I make it. Many before me have.

We are moving this Friday. There is still a lot of packing to do. Barf.

If You Didn't Already Think I Am Weird...

Sorry for the absence of the YW birthday surprise picture. I (Sydney, yes I'm FINALLY blogging) had it on my phone so Josh couldn't put it on. So, here it is!

For those of you who don't know this story I will tell it now. About a month ago Fatima (the woman in plaid in the pic) asked me when my birthday was. I was picking up her girls for a sleepover at the time and she was saying, "You do too much. Ah. Too many girls at your house."(In a Nigerian accent.) I had only been YW president for about a month so I thought it was funny that she was saying this. Maybe her love for Josh was rubbing off on me. In any case, I told her my birthday was in April and she went to work planning a surprise birthday party for me. Thanks to secret phone calls to Josh and help from a friend, Crystal, I walked into the church to all my young women shouting, "Happy Birthday!" Fatima snapping pictures of me with a disposable camera, balloons, a feast that Fatima had made for me, a cake, and a card signed by everyone with a $40 money order inside. Needless to say, I was blown away. After receiving hugs from everyone Fatima wanted me to sit down in front of the table to take pictures. I was more than willing, but had to laugh when she kept telling me, "I want you to hold your babies for the picture." Apparently "my babies" were actually Crystal's kids Ellie and Solomon and Fatima even made me pose for a picture with just me and Ellie. She's too funny.

And there you have it. My Birthday surprise. I really do feel lucky.

Happy Birthday to Syd!

It's been awhile for a post. Sorry. It was Syd's birthday this past Tuesday. Kinda unfortunate, since that's our activity night, and we both have YM and YW to do. That's okay. We just celebrated on Wednesday. That didn't stop Fatima (the mother of 1 of my YM and 2 of Syd's YW) from organizing a huge surprise for Syd at the church. I'll have to let Sydney tell the story (since I wasn't there), but apparently she went all out. She loves Sydney, and so do I!

This is my famous falling/tripping bowling shot. It usually ends with a strike.

We're getting pretty excited to move. It's set for the 29th. In preparation, Sydney really wanted a new couch. So, we drove up to IKEA and got ourselves a couch! Thanks SOOO much to my parent's contribution to a present that really made my Sydney's birthday great!

Don't mind the mess on the table (mostly instructions from putting the couch together - gotta love IKEA!). We'll take a better picture later. Just Syd taking a Sunday nap on her new couch.

The best Strawberry Shortcake birthday cake ever!

A helmet for her moped. We'll do a photo-shoot later.

Elijah's Baptism!

Yesterday was awesome! Elijah (one of my young men) decided to get baptized. Sorry the picture is a little blurry. I'll get a better one from the elders. And I got after Eli for not smiling. :) And Raul is giving the camera quite the face. Love these kids.

Left to Right: Elders Zobrist & Duke, Raul, Elijah, Yusu, Tay, and me.

Elijah has been coming to church every week since before Christmas. He is always the first one ready when I go to pickup, and he was a force to be reckoned with in church basketball. He is a great kid and we're so excited to have him "officially" a member of our quorum.

My wonderful Aunt Claudia sent us a gift card in the mail for one of our favorite restaurants "The Black Sheep." Not sure what the occasion was, but we took her there when she stayed with us for a few days back in the Fall. We appreciated it!

Sydney looks disapprovingly at what is leftover from my sandwich. YUM!

This is one of my new favorite faces from Fizgig.

Please play with me.

Also, we will likely be moving in the next month. We've loved living in our house, but are thinking we're going to try and save some money this next year. We've found an awesome apartment. It is a lot closer to where the YM and YW live (right now we live close to the church, so we drive out 15 minutes to pickup youth, and back 20 minutes to the church), and it really has about everything we need. There's a backyard, a dishwasher (which we don't have now), and lots of stuff! Not only that, but when Sydney was talking to the leasing company, they decided to give us $25 off a month because of the work we do with the youth. Yeah! Go Richmond Branch!

Bad picture of the outside. See the slideshow here.

Some may say I'm addicted to change. Sydney would agree. She would also agree that the desire for change is contagious!