Knitty Gritty

Jeff and I decided to make our own stockings. I never knew I was such a good knitter. We're excited to spend Christmas up north! I can't wait to see everyone.

Finals Week Returns

Well, in tradition of finals week, I have made myself addicted to a game. Freshman year it was Pac-Man on the Sega Genesis. Sophomore year it was Super Smash Brothers and Pokemon Snap on the Nintendo 64. Junior year...Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 on my computer. I do this. I get really stressed out for finals week, so instead of studying I become really good at video games to numb my brain and give me an excuse to do something else. I think I remember my brother Jacob once saying something like this regarding finals, "If you don't know it by now, why try?" Probably not the exact words, but that motto is ringing true in the Thomas side of me. 

Jeff is going to be done with his Bachelor in German in one week! Next semester he decided to start working for his Masters in Accounting. He was looking at job openings last week, and there were actually quite a few positions open in Utah where they need German speaking Auditors. My accounting teachers have all said there are a million jobs open all the time for accountants. Maybe that means one day we'll have a salary instead of hourly pay. That'd be the life.

It's getting kind of fun now that Jeff and I are starting to hit our one year of dating mark. We marked our 2009 calendar with all the significant events from the last year we could remember. I'm just realizing we forgot our engagement, though. This time last year Jeff was the one numbing my brain to finals as he was trying to sweep me off my feet. I remember I was studying for my Chemistry test in the Library, and Jeff convinced me to go to Denny's with him instead of study for my test. Guess what grade I got in Chemistry..."D" is for Denny's.

We are excited to have our own Christmas tree, and start some Christmas traditions. We went and cut down a tree about a week ago, and it is pretty obvious we are both amateurs at decorating a tree. Maybe we need to hurry and have kids so we can blame them for decorating it. 

Got Renter's Insurance?

A mere 4 months of marriage, and Jeff and I have already had what feels like a lifetime of adventures. It all started in church on Sunday. Priesthood and Relief Society was combined, and the topic was insurance. Jeff and I kind of zoned out because Jeff works at Allstate, so we figured we knew what we needed to know about insurance. The speaker mostly talked about car insurance, but for about 5 minutes, he really stressed that everyone needed to get renter's insurance. Jeff and I had talked about it before, but I didn't really think we would ever need it. 

Little did I know, the very next night at one o'clock in 

the morning, Jeff would wake up to banging on the door. He opened the door, and there was a cop yelling, "FIRE! GET OUT! YOUR FLOORS ARE CAVING IN! GET OUT, GET OUT! HUSSLE AND BUSSLE! YOU DON'T HAVE A LOT OF TIME." Jeff ran back to our bedroom to wake me up. When I woke up to the screaming, I initially thought our house was on fire, and we didn't have a way out. I grabbed my cell phone and ran for the door and realized the way was clear. I got to the bottom of our stairs, and the cop said, "Hey, go back up there, and get a blanket. It's cold out there." What happened to our "floors caving in, and get out as fast as we can?" 

Jeff and I ran across the street and watched smoke billowing right behind our apartment. I sat on the sidewalk and thought of every individual item in our house and how much money it would be to replace. Then we thought about our lesson on Sunday, and how Jeff was going to get renter's insurance on Monday at work, but he didn't want to do it without talking to me about it first. 

After we calmed down a little bit, we went to go see the fire and how close it really was to our apartment. This is what we saw. Our bedroom window is right above that fire truck on the right. 

We sat and watched 5 Buck Pizza burn to the ground for 3 hours just praying it would not spread two buildings over. They finally got the fire under control and contained to the one building, so Jeff and I decided to go grab some things from our apartment and head over to his parents' house for the night. Thank goodness they live in Cedar City.

We took these pictures as we were leaving. Yes, this is the fire under control. Notice the four fire fighters actually fighting the fire, and the other fire fighters putting the fire out by...standing around and looking at it. Gotta love the Cedar City volunteer fire department. 

The fire burned for about 12 hours, but we were able to get into our apartment the next morning. The first thing I saw when I walked in was our 5 buck pizza box from the Saturday night before. It has now become our shrine to 5 buck. Thanks for the good times, good food, and crazy adventures, 5 buck. 

We left our windows open all day on Tuesday, and then put our live Christmas tree in our house on Wednesday, so our house is losing its smokey smell. We're just happy that police man knew we lived up there, and that our things were all okay. And we decided it was probably better we didn't get renter's insurance on Monday since the fire was that night. With our luck, we would have been turned in for suspects. 

Well that's what we're up to. Pictures of our Christmas tree will be up soon!