...And the "Best Husband Award" Goes To...

I graduated in April, but for the past few months I've been looking desperately for a job. I found a very part-time job teaching Spanish at a troubled youth facility. And I learn much everyday I go, but I'm really fired up about it.

Last week, I got another part-time job as a receptionist at a doctor's office. So, of course, this week I'm training all week. And I'm working full-time just to train. As you can imagine, this week has been very busy and crazy ... which is new and exciting for me!!

As you can also imagine, I'm pretty wound up right now ... and tired. So, last night, when I got home at 8:00 pm after teaching Spanish, this is what I came home to:


Daniel cleaned the bathroom (YEAY! I hate cleaning the bathroom ... it's the only chore I really have to make myself do. Sometimes it just doesn't get cleaned ... ). And, he drew me a hot bubble bath, lighting the bathroom with candles.


I'm pretty sure the last time I took a bath I was 5. I just have never done it. But when I came home, Daniel said that I needed to relax and take a little break. In the bath. Reading my book. I've decided now that it's my favorite thing ever! Any of you sisters out there with me?

And look! He even provided me a bowl full of CHOCOLATE! I was so surprised and delighted with the whole thing. I don't think I thanked him enough ... and I did it several times! I'm sure he got sick of me saying thank you.

So ... who does the "Best Husband Award" go to? DANIEL HOLBROOK!!! A MILLION TIMES OVER!!!

Halloween

Our ward had a big Halloween party. Chili cook-off, costume contest and all. I spent all day making chili, trying to make it perfect. And then we had to figure out costumes. Due to lack of imagination and funds to buy a costume, this is what Daniel and I did:

We dressed up as Cowboy and Cowgirl. We even went all out and splurged to buy little toy guns and sheriff badges! Let's be honest: we were adorable. But we didn't win the costume contest.

And, when we got to the party, Daniel put the pot of chili on a burner to heat it up before putting up to be taste tested, and .... yep .... it burnt. There goes our chances of winning the chili contest. Oh well! We had fun!

Here's the costume that won:

SOOOOO CUTE!!

Here is the costume I voted for: Leonardo Da Vinci and his lovely Mona Lisa.Look at how AWESOME my braid looks! I was so impressed with myself. It never looked this good before or since!

Birthdays, Updates and More

Well, the Fall season is nearly over, and much has been happening. Daniel is almost done with his last semester of school and has been hard at work looking for a job. I have also spent much time looking for a job. I recently landed a very part time job teaching Spanish, which is exciting and scary.

Fall carried with it beautiful weather and colors and two wonderful birthdays: Daniel's and mine. For Daniel's birthday, we did a variety of activites, which included a picnic and a games night with friends and family. I bought for Daniel Settler's of Catan, which was definitely a good investment. We play it ALL THE TIME!

For my birthday, Daniel took me up a lovely canyon for a drive, and then we had a Halloween party, complete with Halloween party music, a pumpkin cake, and pumpkin carving.

Daniel and I in the canyon. Aren't the leaves gorgeous???

A bunch of people I like a whole lot: Me, Kathryn, Alison, Alicia, Cara, Naomi, Brian, and Stephanie.

Same people, only with Rayna, too...

Brian, Cara and me carving pumpkins.

Hooray for Halloween!!

Back home: Time to hike Timp!

Leslie and he siblings had never hiked Timpanogos so we decided we had better get around to it. We had a great time even though we were all sore and in pain by the end of the long treacherous hike. We even saw a mountain goat!

Look how excited we look to hike a mountain. (The Fernandez had know idea what they were up against.)

The road back home: Chicago

Leslie has a brother, Adam, that lives in Chicago so we decided to stop to see him on the way. I had never met Adam so it was good getting to know him. We had a great time talking and catching up. Adam even walked us around downtown Chicago the next day.

Since we were stopping in Chicago we decided we had also better see our good friends Adam and Elizabeth McMurtrey. They are always fun to be around, and we were just sad that we didn't have more time to hang out.

We couldn't leave Chicago without having a "Chicago Stuffed Pizza." It was delicious!

The road back home: Kirtland

Our fist stop on the trip back to Utah from Virginia was Kirtland, Ohio. Neither of us had been there before and it wasn't that far off the road back home. We enjoyed getting a tour of the LDS restoration site, and of the Kirtland Temple. Although the temple is now owned by the Community of Christ, we could still feel the spirit and dedication left by those faithful saints who worked so hard and sacrificed so much to build a Temple. I am thankful for the legacy that they left. Last week in regional conference President Packer said that the early saints had the easier part, which is hard to believe. It makes me think we are up against a lot.
















Look how cute Leslie is!

Newel K Whitney home:

Kirtland Inn:

DC Adventure: End of summer

Living with Martina:

We rented Martina Sabo's basement for the summer. One of the best parts of the summer was getting to know Martina. She was a blast to be with. We had no idea renters could become such good friends with their land-lady. She would come down to eat with us and we would go up to eat with her. We enjoyed listening to her singing from upstairs. She was always so kind to us throughout the whole summer. Martina is AWESOME!

















Disney World:

Near the end of the internship Ernst & Young sends almost all of their 1,400 interns to a Disney World resort for an intern conference. Some people had a hard time believing that I would have an expense paid trip to Disney World and get paid to go, but I did. Unfortunately Leslie couldn't go, which is too bad because she probably would have enjoyed it so much more.














What surprised me the most was that at every meal they had Mickey Mouse shaped butters at the tables.

DC Adventure: Annapolis

Ok, this is the fourth time I've tried to post this to the blog so I hope it works. The reason we went so long without blogging is because we've had so many problems posting things. So quite a while ago while we were still in Virginia, we went with Bowman and Stephanie to Annapolis, MD. They suggested we go crabbing since they had learned while in Texas. After a lot of driving around we finally found a place. Apparently the best bait is chicken. So as soon as we got there I dipped my chicken, tied to a string, in the water. After only about 45 seconds a crab grabbed on and I pulled him out of the water. Below is a picture of my price crab!

Unfortunately that was the only crab we caught that day. Others would start eating the chicken but wouldn't hold on when we pulled it out of the water.

After crabbing we head to the tourist part of Annapolis. We had fun walking around and looking at all the shops.

DC Adventure: Gettysburg

We had a good experience visiting Gettysburg about a month ago. A co-worker of mine let us use his car audio tour CD. We don't have any great pictures because Gettysburg is now just a bunch of fields, but we did take some fun pictures of us at the gift shop. There were a lot of cool monuments throughout the area. Doesn't Leslie look cute in a top hat?

Happy 4th of July!

Daniel and I went to the National Mall on Independence Day after church in the morning, just for the experience of it. It was CRAZY! There were thousands of people there, waiting to see the fireworks. We sort of wondered how long they'd all been waiting there.

After a while, we took the metro to the Iwo Jima Memorial to meet up with Bowman and Stephanie there to watch the fireworks. The memorial is on a hill over the city, so when we found a good open spot (there were hundreds of people staked out there as well), we were sure we would be able to see them. The fireworks were shot right over all of the monuments, and it was so neat to see the fireworks and the monuments in the same view!! It was wonderful!


At the mall; there were SO many people!




In the metro station, waiting to go to Iwo Jima.


Up at Iwo Jima; you can't see the memorials very well, but they are in the background.


Lincoln and Washington Memorials, and the Capitol.


Fireworks over the memorials ... kinda blurry...

Tour of the Monuments

A few weeks ago, Ernst and Young took all of the interns on a tour around DC to see all of the monuments. Daniel asked if I could go with them and they said that I could! We all got on a bus, with a tour guide to tell us stories as we drove around the city. When we arrived at a monument, we got out to look around and take pictures. It was really fun!

Afterwards, they took us to a ritzy bowling alley for lunch and bowling. I felt a little out of place, being the only one not with Ernst and Young. But I had a lot of fun, and I thought it was great they let me go!


The National Marine Memorial, AKA Iwo Jima.


In front of the Lincoln Memorial.


Daniel, in the Memorial.


Daniel in front of the Vietnam War Memorial.


Daniel and I in front of the White House.


This is me, waving a hello to Ol' Barry!


In front of the Capitol Building.


In front of the Korean War Memorial.