Cha-Cha-Cha-Chia

Remember a Merry Infomercial Christmas? I thought I'd give the update on what we got. Jeff's sister Laura gave us a Chia Gourmet Herb Garden! 

I don't know if she also bought one for a friend and herself, but we're sure glad she gave one to us. Jeff takes good care of our gourmet garden every day.



I am an avid chap stick applier. But not just any chap stick, it has to be Natural Ice. The only problem is, they only sell it at select gas stations. It is so hard to find! My mom seems to come across it a lot more than I do, so I always tell her to stock up for me. This was one of my Christmas presents from my mom:
Now, you might think that's a lot, but mere weeks after Christmas Jeff and I were leaving the house and I realized I was chap stickless. My hands were full so I made Jeff search the house for one. He was wandering around the apartment saying things like, "How is it so hard to find one of these? You just got like 6 of them. Where'd they all go? There's NO WAY you have gone through all of those already!" I hadn't gone through all of them, but I do lose track of them pretty easily. They eventually showed up, though, along with the other 8 my mom got me for my birthday. That should last me another month.

One night Jeff was wondering why I love Natural Ice and only Natural Ice, so he looked up some reviews on the internet to see if I was the only crazy addict out there. It was so funny. There was not one bad review, and every one of them was like, "I have to stock up when I find it because they don't sell it anywhere anymore." "I always have to carry Natural Ice with me wherever I go." and this was our favorite because it's me in 30 years...
"I have used this product since I was a small girl and I am now 50 yrs. old. The packaging has changed over the years but the product has changed very little. I am a very faithful daily user. I can't go to sleep at night unless I put a heavy coating of Mentholatum Natural Ice on my lips. I also use it in the summer sun for protection especially when we are going fishing or near water. I love the cooling feeling your lips have when you apply it. I hope they never quit making this lip balm or I will go crazy."

Here's to a great year of gourmet herbs and chap-free lips!

Twenty One

I was excited to see what Jeff would do for my birthday. We had agreed the Wii was going to be both of our Christmases, Birthdays and Valentines Days, (I'm becoming more and more like my mom every day) so I was not expecting much. Last month I won dinner for two and two movie tickets from a work competition, and we had been saving those for this weekend. We don't have a lot of money to spend, as you know if you've been keeping up with our blog, so I figured dinner and a movie would be the extent of my birthday weekend.

Friday night we went to dinner at Rusty's Ranch House where Jeff and I each ordered Filet Mignons. (Free present #1) We wanted to be as eccentric as we could with our empty wallets. Then we headed over to Jeff's parents' house for Jeff's mom's birthday. We had cake and ice-cream while we played around the horn.

Saturday was stake temple day, and the stake provided pizza from The Pizza Factory afterwards. (Free present #2) We got back to Cedar just in time to catch the 7:00 showing of "Mall Cop." Let's just say it was a good thing we didn't pay for those tickets. (#3) As Jeff put it, "we knew it was going to be a really cheesy only see one time kind of movie." It is still fun to go see a movie in the theater though.

Saturday night Jeff abandoned me. The night before my birthday at around 9:00, he said he had to go "do some things." The upside: I finally had some time to play the Wii. He got back at around 9:30 and then said, "Sarah, tomorrow is your birthday, so I want to take you somewhere." I was quickly blindfolded and escorted down to the car. He mindlessly drove around Cedar City for about 10 minutes to make sure I didn't know where I was. Then he walked me up some stairs while convincing me I was at a park. I finally got to take off my blindfold to find he had brought me to Abbey Inn's Honeymoon Suite with a little birthday cake and sparkling cider alL ready for us in the room. (#4) Thanks to a few connections he has with some people over at Abbey Inn, we were living the high life. It could not have been better.

Sunday I got to sleep in (#5), we went to church (#6), even Abe remembered my birthday (#7), and I got to play Rook with Jeff's family (#8). It was the most perfect birthday ever. And you can check out my parents' newly created blog for super embarrassing pictures of me. And you can check out The Golden Family Blog for another birthday tribute. (#9 and #10)

Thanks everyone for a rockin' twenty first birthday!

The College Blues

We made it through another Christmas break, and it's back to the books. I had a bit of an emotional breakdown the last day of the break because I was not excited to go back to school. I decided to tough it out and wake up for class Monday morning. Surprisingly, I am enjoying my classes and my new schedule this semester. I am finally in two marketing classes, and they are keeping my interest so far.

Jeff has joined the Accounting Club. This club sets up activities for accounting majors, and it gives them the opportunity to meet with different accounting firms. He went to his first meeting last Thursday. He is working on the prerequisites for his Masters now. We are both so busy that it's even getting hard to find time to play our Wii. I can't wait for summer!

We applied for Grants at the beginning of Fall Semester, and we were anxious to see if they would still give Jeff a Grant for Spring semester even though he technically graduated in December. I was so excited when he told me over Christmas break that the Grant did go through for this semester. Then the other day Jeff checked to see how much he owed after the Grant, and saw that the school had caught us. They took the Grant away, so we're stuck paying the whole tuition.

The Government also caught us using my parents' health insurance for birth control, and they took that away as soon as 2009 rolled in. $62.00 a month isn't going to fly for a few pills. Let's see...Nine months of pregnancy would save us $558...Hmm...

I guess we're going to have to start being responsible for ourselves, and stop relying on the government. I told my mom and sister right after I got married that we were going to try to take advantage of all the government programs for poor people while we could. Looks like that isn't going to work for us for very much longer.

On a lighter note-Jeff pulled a muscle in his back by trying to lift me up off the couch. Ha. I tried to warn him I'm a lot heavier than I look, but he didn't believe me. All day in church today he was grunting any time he had to move. Grabbing the hymn book seemed to do the most damage. Oh, my little muscle man.

Double the Christmas Double the Fun

It was such a good Christmas this year! Nobody told me that one of the benefits of being married is getting to celebrate Christmas twice as much as I celebrated it before. We started out on Jeff's side of the Family with Christmas Tea and Recital. Everyone performed a "talent" and then we drank wassail and played Christmas songs on the bells. A few days later Jeff and I went over to Jeff's parents' house to have our own little Christmas before Christmas with his parents. Jeff's mom gave me some toe socks that I promised to wear on Christmas Day. They were comfy, Mary!

Then it was up to my parents' house for a few days. I decided to clean Hank's tank the morning we left. To make a long story short...I killed him. I wanted the water to be nice and warm for him while we were gone and...well...I might have made it a little too warm because he was dead within about 10 minutes of transferring him to the new water. Sorry Hank. My sister told me about this YouTube video when I told her about poor little Hank.
 
We had the traditional Ward Family Christmas Eve Party followed by playing a lot of Wii with my cousin Bryce. And my mom let me and Jeff do the shopping for our Christmas morning candy this year.

After opening presents Christmas morning, we played games the whole rest of the day. It was the perfect Christmas. And it was so great to see my family. My dad cooked prime rib for Christmas dinner, and my mom cooked us some of her famous home cooking.
When wii got home, wii decided there was something else wii really wanted for Christmas. So wii gathered up all of the money wii had been given, which was just enough money for one of these: