FAILURE...

I have failed at being a good blogger...I do so well for a couple months and then months go by with nothing. So for those of you who've asked me to keep up I'll try to do better. Since I'm so far behind I won't go into great detail about anything but here's a whirlwind tour of the last 2 and 1/2 months.

First, Thanksgiving in Oregon with the Tolley Family.
Here's a lovely picture of the happy couple in the annual Family Turkey Bowl. We were on opposing teams (My team won!)

We took some family pictures, including all but Jeff (he's busy in Samoa). Shortly after this Matt stopped shaving.

Here's me and my brand new niece (she's only 12 days old here) Addyson Patricia Lowe, she's so tiny and cute!

After Thanksgiving, we move on to the old man's 26th birthday!

Next, Christmas in El Dorado Hills. This is our 3 year old nephew Shane, so cute!

I took a little jaunt up to the Great White North for a few days after Christmas with my family to visit my Grandma and had a grand old time....except for the being sick part!

When I returned back to EDH we celebrated a very uneventful New Years and shortly after I turned the old age of 24...

Matt and I have had a wonderful past 2 and 1/2 months and the most exciting thing that happened was we got to tell all of our friends and family that we're having a baby in July! Sorry no pictures yet, but I'll try to do better! We hope everyone else's holidays were just as much fun!

ACH-TOE-BEAR!!!!

Brace yourselves, we've got a lot of pictures coming up! The following events all happened within four days! But a great four days they were!
Friday the 19th Matt and I went to Cutting Edge, one of the biggest Haunted Houses in Fort Worth because our friends, Shayla and Jared, invited us to go. Shayla goes to med school with Matt.

The following morning, Saturday October 20th, I had a Relief Society Blitz, and made the following crafts (mind you I chose any one that did not involve sewing).

Then I raced home to go with Matt to his White Coat Ceremony! It was long, but all the speakers did an entertaining job, and Matt finally got his White Doctor Coat! And there was a delicious reception afterwards.

Us with the other BYU couple in Matt's first year, the Walkers.

Us with Shayla and Jared.

"Someday when I grow up I'm gonna be a doctor!"

Then that night, it was a Halloween Party with some friends from the ward. Matt and I went as Mrs. Salt and Mr. Pepper (we borrowed the idea from some friends, Scottie and Angie, who used it last year).

Friends, Eric (Joe Dirt) and Laura Ryan, and the awesomest baby costume ever...NACHO!

Our party hosts wanted to play the "Donut Eating Contest on a String" game, but Matt decided that it would be much more exciting to tie the donuts to the fan, turn it on low, and then see who could eat their the donut the fastest...it was hilarious, only Matt, Eric and Joe did it, but I had tears in my eyes!

Monday night, for Family Night, Matt and I decided to make Halloween Sugar Cookies, just like we did when we were dating.

These are the finished products (we made cupcakes for the party earlier) the cookies on the counter weren't cool enough to make it on the plate.

It was a very busy four days, and I didn't do a single thing for school, but it was a lot fun! Hope everyone is having lots of fun too!

PUMPKIN GONE

Matt here. When I was little I would say "pumpkin gone" when ever I saw a pumpkin. Apparently, I would also say "football gone." I guess I just wanted fall to end so I could go skiing. As a two year old. I'm really looking forward to world famous ski season this year in Dallas.

Thanks to Denae for the most awesome apron ever. I think the only way an apron could be manly is to put a bull on it, I'm glad those Spaniards got it figured out.

She's pretty cute.

We had a lack of quality pumpkin carving knives in our house, so I went a little traditional and easy this year. Also I have an attention span worthy of making only the easiest designs. That probably won't come back to haunt me later as a doctor.

"All right nurse, I think we're done here."

"But you've only cut him halfway open."

"Yeah, I just don't really feel like finishing right now. He'll live."

Meagan posseses more fine motor skills and patience than I do, so her spider is pretty awesome.

I wish I had the skill to carve a matching double chin in my pumpkin. That would be awesome.

Our little pumpkins just enjoying the 80 degree Dallas Autumn air.

Little blast from the past when Meagan and I were in the same ward in 2004. She's not in this picture.

It's all fun and games until you go behind the concession stand at the dollar theater without permission.

On a totally unrelated note, there are a couple of words and phrases I wouldn't mind ever to hear again. I don't know why, I just can't stand them.

1. Blogosphere (or any play on the word blog)

2. Grass roots

3. Jazzercise

4. Ad nausem

5. BYU get crushed by TCU 32-7.

YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME...OH WAIT YOU JUST LOSE!

After the beard I made Matt try a goatee for awhile, and I liked it better. Anyway, being the great BYU fans that we are Matt and I got tickets with some friends to go to the BYU v. TCU game here last Thursday. It would be one of only two chances we had to watch Cougar Football. So although Matt had an anatomy test the next day, and I had school bright and early the next day as true blue Cougar fans we really wanted to go. Unfortunately the Cougars decided not to show up at the game and we watched a pitiful and embarrassing loss, and couldn't help but think, "We paid money and time to watch this? Come on Cougars!" It was a sad day in Cougar Football, goodbye BCS...

This is us before the game... (note how happy Matt is)

Our friends, Edward and Tracy Haws
This is during the game.... (note the fake, me telling Matt he has to smile in the picture face)
Sorry Edward but this is the only I have of the four of us.

YEAR OF THE BEARD II

In our rebellious after BYU stages of life Matt decided to grow a beard (and I wanted to see what it would look like).

Here we are at a Texas Rangers game a few weeks back. We went with a bunch of other married couples from the med school, and it was a lot of fun. The Rangers lost to the Angels but it didn't really matter to me because I don't really care for either team.

Because my new calling is CTR 5 teacher in the Primary I got to help out with the Primary Quarterly Activity a few Saturday ago as well. Hurricane Ike hit Houston, not too far from here, so for our Primary Activity the kids made candy necklaces to send to the Primary kids in Houston. It was really cute, and I was surprised that the kids managed to make all the necklaces without eating all the candy.

Here's a few pictures of Matt's beard. It's not a very full beard because Matt's not really a man yet, maybe when he stops acting 5 sometimes it'll grow thicker but I don't think that's ever going to happen :)

MED SCHOOL/HIGH SCHOOL

I realize that time must be going by pretty quick because I haven't posted in over a month. So here is a run down of what we've been up to. Matt is kept busy every night for Med School, studying away. We are now in what the med students like to call Death-tober because they have a number of hard tests this month. We've had 3 BYU students come and stay with us while they were here interviewing at the school for next year. So we're hoping that there will be more LDS students coming in next year.

Matt is currently taking Anatomy and gets to completely dissect a human body, which when he tells me about it I'm definitely glad its not me doing it. He held a human brain in his hand just the other day. Because the Anatomy Lab smells so bad they wear scrubs, but I can still smell it on him a little bit when he comes home.

While Matt is studying away each day I am trying to teach U.S. History to a bunch of high schoolers. School in Texas is a lot different then Utah or Oregon, but I am getting used to it and the good days still out weigh the bad ones. I really love teaching and most of the time my students are really great. And I love the other teachers, they're all really nice and we have a good time teaching together. Even though I get paid more here in Texas, they definitely require more of my time so I'm not quite sure if it was a fair trade off. But Matt and I are both happy and doing great. Besides school I teach CTR 5 on Sundays and have the cutest little group of kids, poor Matt doesn't have a calling still and is feeling a little left out I think. Other than that now that it's not so hot (only in the 80s each day) and I haven't seen a cockroach in weeks I'm liking Texas a little more each day!

HOME SWEET HOME

Well I've been meaning to put pictures up of our new little home in Texas for some time now, so here we go. Here is our living room, with the tree I really wanted, so it traveled on the outside of the Penske truck all the way from Utah.

This is our dining area. My parents graciously gave us the table and chairs, which coincidentally fit perfectly in this amount of space. I also really like the mirror on the wall. (It actually reminds me of my Grandma Stevens house).

This is our kitchen (obviously) with Murray the Moose cookie jar on the counter. Unfortunately he's empty at the moment. But if anyone wants to come visit I promise I'll fill him up for you.

This is one of my favourite parts of the house. Last year I hated not having a washer and dryer, so this year it was mandatory that we have them.

Here's the hallway, I really like the built in shelf on the side of the wall too.

This is our den, or study, or whatever you want to call it. Matt does a lot of studying in here...well maybe not A LOT, but he does study in here.

Bathroom, nothing fancy.

Last year our bedroom basically was just our bed, but now we have a little more room to move around in which is really nice. Matt and I put up the curtains by ourselves too.

So we live just a few miles from DFW Airport. Most days the planes are taking off over our house and its not as loud, I really don't even notice them anymore. But every once in awhile they switch directions and the planes land over our house, like in this picture, and its significantly louder, but still not too bad.

Overall we really like our new little home. It's much bigger than before, and if only someone could promise that I would never have a cockroach in it ever, it would be perfect!