PUMPKINS!

 This last Sunday my family decided to have a Pumpkin Carving 'Contest'. It was so fun to have everyone all together having a good time and being festive. Naturally "Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin" was playing in the background.


Jacob wanted to help - - - - >

But that pumpkin was too big....

so we got him a  
Jacob Sized pumpkin.

< - - - - -

Jane's pumpkin was a Cyclops.... This is Jane imitating her pumpkin.

Right before we started, Mike picked Vanessa up at the airport... She spent a fun weekend in San Francisco with her sister Krista... and right after that plane ride she was such a good sport to come and carve pumpkins with us!

Jake took care of Jacob while Ann was hard at work on their family pumpkin.

The finished products: from L-R: Jane with her Cyclops, Me with my accidentally decapitated spider, Mike and Vanessa with the Man with a Knife in his Head (Don't worry- on the porch the knife is just a little plastic one rather than the real thing shown here....), The Despains created an Owl, and Drew showed his Utah Man spirit with a 
wonderful U of U! [Photos courtesy of the Parents]

Forgive the blur... My camera was having issues with the flash. BUT! Halloween night will be so fun and festive on my parents' front porch!

 It was so fun to have everyone there... to spend time with each of the family and to celebrate the Fall season! 

HAPPY FALL!

'... A very special day...'

Last night as we were trying to go to sleep, Drew asked me a question.

"What are you doing next Saturday evening?"

"Umm... nothing I think...? Why, whats going on?"

"I'm asking you out on a date, Ali.."

- a few seconds later-

"Its a very special day, and I want to take you out."

"Why is it such a special day?"

"Because its the one-year anniversary of our first date."


I love him. :)

   

BOOKS

Drew loves the look of books covering a wall. 

Like this ----->

Its one of his goals in life to have a study filled with books so that his study will look 

like this ----->                                                              

Collectively, we have a few books. We're getting there. By the time we have a study, 

we'll be there.

I love reading. I don't do it as often as I would like, although I constantly have a book with me that I'm 'in the middle of'- just in case I get bored enough to pull it out. Generally I choose Sudoku instead. I am currently reading like 15 books...

... among which are:

• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Lewis Carroll
• Beach Music. Pat Conroy
• Freckles. Gene Stratton-Porter
• Anne of Green Gables. L.M. Montgomery
• The Catcher in the Rye. J.D Salinger
• Mansfield Park. Jane Austen

Whilst reading a book, I tend to start out REALLY slow. This is the period when I choose Sudoku over reading. But then, the farther I get in the book, the more likely it is that I won't be able to put it down. Once the slow part is over, I finish books like mad. I could probably win a race. 

I've recently finished:

•  A Girl of the Limberlost. Gene Stratton-Porter
• Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte
• Emma. Jane Austen
• Persuasion. Jane Austen
• Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen
• Wicked. Gregory Maguire

..... All whilst reading all of the previously mentioned books. 

Among my favorites are:

• Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte
• East of Eden. John Steinbeck
• Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Thomas Hardy
• The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Heart of Darkness. Joseph Conrad

I am also looking for a list of great classics to read. On my list thus far:

• A Tale of Two Cities. Charles Dickins
• The Importance of Being Earnest. Oscar Wilde [Play]
• Gone With the Wind. Margaret Mitchell
• My Antonia. Willa Cather
• The Scarlet Pimpernel. Baroness Emma Orczy
• To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee
• Doctor Zhivago. Boris Pasternak 

 

Blog the First: INITIATION

Its the end of August- the sun goes to bed earlier and sleeps just a little longer, the leaves experience a color crisis, and school begins. With school comes that added stress to the work week, new acquaintances, and a completely new schedule. To add to the plethora of changes and additions, I have decided to create this blog. It seems almost every newly married couple has one, and, since we are a newly married couple as of two months and two days ago, I finally caved. Welcome to The Blog. 

A couple of my friends are very creative and have done a '100 Things About Me' for their first blog... One hundred is a lot. Of anything. I figure by the time I hit 100 items of information about us, you'll be grateful I didn't do the full One hundred on this first post. Allow me to steal my friends' idea and modify it just a little. We'll do Twenty things.                 


 1. One year ago I met my best friend. Drew and I got married in June. And we're happy.
2. We are both music majors at the University of Utah.  Drew is a vocal    performance major, and I am a choral education major.
3. We recently were called to be our ward choir directors. I guess they figured that since we both 'like' music we'd do a good job... I hope we prove them right!
4.  Drew only reads non-fiction books. books like SOCCERNOMICS that disects sports teams and explains why they are good and win or why they need help and lose. Right now he's reading 3 sports books, but he consistently ignores my promptings to read a "classic" novel. 
5.  After I read a book once, if I read it again I skip the sections that don't coincide with my favorite story line. For example: Jane Eyre. Probably one of my favorite books ever written. But I have the hardest time reading the section where she grows up, so I skip to when she starts working for Mr. Rochester. Also the section where she is with her cousins... I skip to the part where she hears His voice in the wind, calling her to him. Granted this leaves out half the book (if not more)... but I feel justified in the fact that I have read the whole thing once.
6. Confession: I have read the book ELLA ENCHANTED over twenty times. I should say 19.5... the last time I read it I did what I do with Jane Eyre and skip all the parts that have nothing to do with Char. I may be secretly in love with him.
7. Drew is very thoughtful, though, when it comes to my taste in reading. I love Jane Austen and the classic love stories. We were at Deseret Book a few months ago and I noticed a gorgeous box set of the wonderful books in it: Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Emma, Jane Eyre, The Secret Garden, Anne of Greene Gables, Little Women. Can you honestly say that you would not want this set, too? Friday night I come home from work, and guess what is sitting on the table, waiting for me? Yes- the gorgeous book set from Deseret Book. From Drew. Just because. 
8. I am a hopeless romantic. Thank you, Jane Austen.
9. Drew's left leg is 1 1/2 inches longer than his right leg. Also, his right foot is 2 1/2 shoe sizes smaller than his left foot. Despite this fact, Drew is incredibly active in all sorts of sports- cycling, hiking, golf, gymnastics, tennis, soccer and football... He never lets anything stop him, and he absolutely amazes me. 
10. The color yellow used to be my favorite color because it was no one's favorite color. Then it was lime green because my best friend's favorite color was lime green. Since then, I got my own opinion of the colors and discovered that my favorite color is actually navy blue. Ironically that is also Drew's favorite color. 
 11.     I have always wanted to be blonde. My sisters are both absolutely gorgeous, and have blonde hair. This may be a subconscious attempt at trying to look more like either one of them. Drew made a list of attributes he wanted in his wife, and one day he let me read it. I pretty much fit everything on his list except for one factor: my hair. He listed specifically that he wanted his wife to have blonde or brown hair. Clearly I have neither of those. I think he's becoming more o.k. with it though... 
12. We are German/British car snobs. I drive a Jetta (German). Before that I drove a Passat (German). The first car Drew bought was a 1966 Karmann Ghia (also German). Currently he drives a MINI Cooper (originally British, but was bought by BMW, so is now German as well). And we're proud of it. 
13. When it comes to dessert, I am easy to please. Anything with Chocolate will satisfy. Drew, on the other hand, will always choose some sort of fruit something. 
14. While on his mission Drew had the same dream two times. He had a dream that he and his wife had triplets. Three blonde, tiny, darling little girls. A couple weeks ago he had the same dream again, except this time they were blonde boys. We both would like three children, but I wasn't ever planning on having all three at the same time!
15. Crunchy leaves are the most amazing things in the world. Fall is my favorite season for not only the colors it brings with it, but the actual leaves themselves. The dry, crisp, curling leaves provide the most delightful, intoxicating sound my ears have ever beheld. Those groups on Facebook about stepping on crunchy leaves were made for people like me. 
16. My biggest fear is grates in the ground. I am absolutely terrified that I will step on one some day and fall through it or break my leg or have some horrible accident. As a result, Drew walks on each and every grate we see and stands in the very middle of it until I notice what he is doing. I've already warned him that, when he falls through one day, I will not try to save him.
17. I work in the service industry, and I help dozens of customers every day. Some customers are very polite, and its a joy to help them. Others..... well, they just kind of bug me. Either they are extremely rude, totally clueless, or just not very personable at all. I have this internal fear that I am sometimes the type of customer I hate helping, so I try to be overly polite and prepared when I am being helped. 
18. I am quite the home-body. When I was going to EFY, I would call my mom every day to tell her what we did, or just to talk. On choir tours throughout high school I would also call her frequently. Then college hit and international choir tours made it a little more difficult to communicate, but I try! Drew's goal is to go to Law School in New York City.... I'm rooting for business school because he can get tuition reimbursement through his job at Key Bank, and we can stay close to our FAMILIES. 
19. Drew served in the New York City South Mission, Spanish speaking. He just got business cards for his job, and he is so proud of the fact that they say 'Hablo Espanol'. It must be a relief for his spanish-speaking customers to know that they can speak comfortably with the associate they are working with. Go Drew! 

20. Drew is absolutely amazing. Frequently I come home from work to find my incredible husband doing the dishes his neglected wife left dirty in the sink. If I am the one doing dishes, he sometimes surprises me with sweet kisses on the back of my neck. He often irons my dresses for church because I'm still doing my hair due to lack of time management on Sunday mornings. He makes the butterflies in my stomach flutter with excitement every time I see him after long periods (4 hours) of time. He is always there to greet me with a hug and kiss whenever we get home from work. He is my best friend, and I love him with all of my heart.