Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

What an awesome time of year to be able to show your gratitude to all the wonderful people who bless our lives, and for the opportunities and blessings that our Heavenly Father has given us.  I got the idea to have both me and Ben share what we are grateful for individually

Britt- I'm so grateful for the missionaries that taught my family and that I have been baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I'm extremely grateful for the knowledge that Heavenly Father loves, and cares about me and any trials that I face .  I know that Jesus Christ died for me, and that through the Atonement and the sacrifice of my Savior and Heavenly Father I will have an opportunity to return and live with Him again.

Without the gospel in my life, I would be empty and wouldn't know true joy.  I don't think I would be nearly as happy as I am now, and have a wonderful husband.  I'm so thankful for missionaries who are spreading the word of God to all of His children around the world, and I love having missionary opportunities.  I love the temple! I'm so happy to have made covenants with God, and learn His doctrine and strengthen my testimony.

I'm so lucky to be able to get such a great education and to learn!  I actually really enjoy school, and it feels so good to work hard and see the outcome.  I hope that one day everyone will be able to gain a good education and use it to better their lives.  I'm so excited to see where my degree takes me, and to have the opportunity in life to work hard and help make a good life for our family.

I'm so grateful for my job!! Thank you good people of rexburg, who love tacos and burritos.  Without your desire I wouldn't be able to work and pay for school, and just life!  HATS OFF TO YA!

Lastly, I'm so thankful for my husband and my family.  I'm grateful for all of the fun experiences we've shared and the trials that we have faced.  I know that everything really does happen for a reason, and all of our trials have a purpose.  I was completely heartbroken when we miscarried and I felt I would never overcome my grief.  I thought about it everyday, but then one day I didn't.  Then that turned into a few days, then a weeks, then a month.  It get's easier.  I know it has because I feel so much comfort when I pray and ask for help.  This trial has strengthened our marriage, and it has made me so excited to add a little bundle into our family!  I love my family and I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful mom and dad, and sisters that love me, and the cutest niece in the whole world. 

Ben- Thanksgiving has always been a day of gratitude and thanks for the blessings god has given me.  This year a huge thing that has stood out to me is seeing the Lord's hand in our family.  Because we are both in college, and work on a tight budget, I have seen the insight and protection of the Lord over and over.  One very recent example is when our car broke down.  The timing was absolutely perfect, the repair costs were minimal, but we found several key problems with our car that we would not have known if it had not been worked on.  These problems would have caused an accident on the already dangerous roads of Idaho, and I can't reiterate how lucky we are to have those problems found so quickly.

The second thing I am grateful for is Brittany.  She is my everything.  I have never loved somone so fully in my entire life.  Everytime, I see her face, my heart literally swells, and I get so happy.  Usually this gets expressed in a fit of kisses, random songs about her, or something annoying, but I can't help it, she makes me happy.  One of the things I'm grateful for in Brittany is that she is a good manager of our home.  She has beautiful decorating sense, something I could never get.  She is hard working and smart, she's been getting great grades this semester!  When we go to bed, we usually have 5 minutes of tormenting each other with tickles, cover hogging, and teasing--my ideal way to go to bed :-).  She and I have joy in our life together, something that is essential for me. Lastly, when we have kids, I know without a doubt that she will be a perfect mother.  I have already learned from these 7 months in our marriage that she has the motherly instincts to raise them in a home with peace, joy and the spirit. 


I love her because she makes my heart sing, and sometimes its annoying for her to endure my bursts of song, but she's learned to smile and cope with it.  I love her because she makes my life complete, and that is what I'm most thankful for this thanksgiving.

 We had such a great thanksgiving! We weren't able to be with family down in Utah, but we celebrated with my Taco-Bell Family instead! It was so nice just to get together, and there was an insane amount of food.  I brought a couple of dishes, funeral potatoes, an apple pie, and a spinach and strawberry salad....Which is delicious by the way!

Spinach and Strawberry Salad
Bag of spinach
1 quart strawberries, halved
Glazed walnuts
Slivered almonds
Handful of craizins
and some Raspberry Vinaigrette

I'm going to try to make another pie on Sunday, and hopefully it won't get burnt ;)

Carrer Changes and Ker Plunk Goes our Car!

Well,

We have been having a very eventful weekend! I'm a total planner and I can't stand not knowing where we are going to be a year from now for school and work.  Ben is doing his internship next semester (we find out in a couple of weeks where he'll be!), and then he has about 2 semesters left till he graduates!  Oh, and if you haven't heard the big news.  Ben is not applying to a any physicians assistant programs, but is continuing his education in clinical psychology.  We'll be in school forever!!! But it's all good, because this is what he loves and has so much passion for, and is insanely brilliant and it's pretty much just his niche.  So we are looking all over the place.  Except Idaho, I told Ben that he can go anywhere in the world for school and I'd follow him, except Idaho.  I'm over it! Nothing against anyone, I just need a change of scenery :)  I'm trying to convince him to seriously consider schools back in NY, because we will be starting to add to our little family in not to long and I really want to be closer to my family.  I miss them so much! I almost started crying the other day, because I missed my 3 years old niece's birthday party.  Anyone he seems pretty interested in the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, so who knows where on earth we'll end up.  All I know is I'm so excited for our adventures! Ben is going to get his PhD in Clinical Psychology, he wants to teach at a university and do counseling with more severe mental illnesses as well.  It's funny though how we came back to this.  Originally when I first met Ben his was his goal, his desire.  But after we got married he started to get worried that he wouldn't be able to make a lot of money doing it, so he decided to go into the health field as a physicians assistant.  I started doing all this research about schools, programs, requirements, the whole nine yards.  I noticed something though when I talked to Ben about all this on multiple occasions that he didn't seem to have the same excitement like he did with psychology.  Finally a few days ago, I was looking at schools while he was at work.  He called me on his break to say hi, and I just flat out asked him Do you really want to be a physicians assistant?  haha well, he had some surprising news for me, he said that he'd been really thinking about it the last few weeks, and was so confused, so he thought about it some, talked about it with people, and about a week ago he got the strong impression that he should follow his passion in psychology!  He said that he didn't want to tell me until he was 100% positive, because he didn't want to seem like he couldn't make up his mind!   Surprisingly, instead of me freaking out, I was sooooo HAPPY!!! I know that he is going to be a great psychologist, as long as he doesn't practice anything on me haha. 

Another crazy event happened on saturday.  I driving to work I pass the round about and I'm about 2 minutes late,  all of a sudden the car starts to slow down and I can't believe it! I start pumping the gas thinking that i was just running out of gas, and I was 2 blocks away but I didn't have a gas gallon thingy in the trunk to walk to get gas.  I'm able to make it to the gas station, and I was like "thank you!!!", I'm rummaging  through my bag trying to find my wallet, and of course I didn't bring it with me! I start to cry a little, trying to find money somehow in the car! NO LUCK!!!!! 5 mins late for work....I very bravely in my opinion, walked over the the guy pumping his gas next to me, and I used my charm and my watery eyes, and he put $5 of gas in my car!!! YOU ARE A VERY GOOD PERSON GAS GUY!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH! Well I thought that was the end of my problem, so I drive off and I get like 20 ft.  and it starts to slow down again! CRAP!  I start to cry, get to work and I'm beyond upset...I don't have a very good track record with this car so of course I think that this is my fault.  I'm work for like an hour, then a co-worker comes in and I tell him what happened and I beg him to let me go home and get my wallet to put gas in it, or drop it off with Ben to get it looked at.  So I can barely start the car, and I'm pumping the gas the whole way home trying to get the car to accelerate...By now, I'm pretty sure it's not out of gas because I put like a gallon and a half into it.  Well I'm holding my breath the whole way home, make it into our parking spot and the car just dies, and there is all this black smokey exhaust like stuff coming out of the back of the car.  I walk Ben up freaking out and we call Alan our friend and ask him to pick me up and bring me to work.  HE'S AWESOME!  Turns out we had like a billion things wrong with our car, some belt broke, only the back left brake was working, a couple of weird bolt things were broken, something happened with the spark plugs in something, and we were out of brake fluid. 

You can tell by my description that I know EVERYTHING about cars!! hahaha

Well, Our awesome home teacher's brother is a mechanic and he looked at our car and total cost was like $325, for all the labor (pretty much the whole day) and all the parts! We also lucked out because our car is really old and not common, so when something broke they thought that it would take at least a week for it to get here, which would mean no Thanksgiving in Utah :(

We sure did luck out though, turns out someone ordered this part a year ago and they never came to pick it up! So we bought it and our car is fixed!!!! YEA! The timing was just perfect because it was on a day when Ben didn't work, the mechanic was completely free, and before we headed down to utah.  The mechanic said that if we had driven on the highway something would have snapped when we tried to acclerate that much and we probably would have gotten into a bad accident. 

A terrible day turned into a happy day!

“A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.”

Sorry this has taken forever!! I know how anxious you all were JK ;)

Here is a little tour of our home.  We live in Rexburg ID in a complex called Hyde Park, close to the Middle School and Worlds Gym.

We keep on talking about how excited we are to move out of Idaho and move on to another place, but we always talk about how much we are going to miss our little apartment.  You know the saying "home is where you heart it", yea that's true and I totally agree. HOWEVER, I love my home here :) and I'm going to be a mix of happy and sad when we leave in less then a year.  Where are we going your probably wondering??? Yea, when we find out we'll update you!  Right now we are just focusing on school.  Ben is looking at different colleges that have an accredited physicians assistant program, but before he can be accepted he has to have 1,000 hours of working in a patient care/hospital like setting.  So it really depends on when he is able to do that.  BUT we will NOT be in Idaho in a year, I can promise you that! :)

Anyway onto the long awaited and highly anticipated tour....

Home Improvements

I've been meaning to post these for a while but I just haven't been happy with any pictures that were taken...The pictures just don't do them justice for all the work I put into them! :)

Decorating and making our home a comfortable and happy place to live in has been another really great thing about being married.  I remember the first time we saw our apartment and I was so excited!  I couldn't believe how happy I was about having this little 2 bedroom apartment in Rexburg Idaho.  It was so surreal to know that we were going to have a little home of our own.

Here is my latest project

FAMILY sign on shelves

I got a bunch of different sized picture frames and vinyl letters that spell family.  I took the backing off the frames and applied the letters.  After that I hung up the shelves, which probably took me about 30 minutes.  My poor neighbors are probably constantly hearing me hammering a nail into the wall to hang something up.  Then I just hung up the picture frames and decorated with some candles, flowers, and a cute jar.
 

Next is a few little updates to our bathroom :) Nothing big just a little prettying up

I put up a candle wall sconce, and got pretty shower hooks

I added some vinyl letters to the wall...For some reason it looks like it's crooked, but it really isn't!
Maybe my eyes are crooked??

Final Project!

There is it...our small almost claustrophobic bathroom. But it's all ours and I love it!!!

 

 

 

 

 

I'm an Old Lady!

So last night I'm walking around our living room and I get into the hallway and all of a sudden I had this terrible back spasm and I dropped to the ground is SO MUCH FREAKING PAIN!! It was probably one of the worst pains I have ever felt.

Ben came out to see what was going on because he heard me wailing, and he tries to pick me up, and I nearly died.  Just kidding about the dying part, but I wouldn't let Ben touch me and we sat on the ground for about 15 minutes.  It hurt to inhale which completely freaked me out, so I started crying.  That definitely did not help!

So Ben finally picks me up, because obviously I couldn't spent the night on the hallway floor haha.  He puts me in bed and calls Rich to find out what on earth to do.  So we elevated my feet and put and ice pack on me, but I barely slept at all because it hurt so bad.  I wasn't able to move at all without feeling like there was a 100 lb. milestone on my back holding me down.

I wasn't able to work today, which is a definite bummer because we need the money.  But I went to the chiropractor Dr. Egbert (who we've known for about 2 years, because he was in a leadership position in our stake before we got married and moved) today and got some very disappointing news. 

Turns out I somehow pulled the muscles surrounding my rib!!!! Ahh that makes sense why I couldn't breath well at all.  So I spent the afternoon getting my whole back realigned, and got some lovely electroshock therapy.  I feel so much better!!!! Not 100% but enough that I hit the gym tonight.

A little pulled rib muscle won't keep me out of the gym :) I did 45 min. on the elliptical (605 cal burned), 4 sets of weighted hip lifts, 4 sets of crunches, 4 sets of hammer curls, 4 sets of tricep kickbacks, and cooled down with a nice 20 min walk. 

I'M SO SORE!!! And in a little pain lol

Anyway....that's our exciting news!

Have a great night!