Living in Utah (July to the present)

After our honeymoon, we drove across the country to get to UT. That was kind of a nightmare - being in the truck for so many hours in the heat of summer. We did drive through Independence, Missouri, which I thought was pretty cool. We stayed overnight in Council Bluffs, Iowa. We went to a restaurant that has such great food but was amazingly cheap. For $5 each, we had salad, chili, huge steak with too many fries, and desert. Absolutely delicious but more food than we could ever eat in one sitting.

Eventually we arrived in Provo after what seemed like an eternity. I was so tired! When we were in NC we found an apartment in BYU's married housing: Wymount Terrace. Even though we arrived really late at night we needed to unpack the truck because it was raining on-and-off and our things were being ruined (especially books). The next day we went to the store and bought a lot of the things we needed, such as cleaning supplies, ironing board, and so on.

Monday I was back in class and have been the whole time since then. However, I am about to take the final of my last class on Monday. Then I just have to work on my thesis. So I hope to be done by April 2010.

We did a bunch of fun things: we went horseriding with the Belts (Rob's first time on a horse), we went hiking up Squaw Peak (took about 3 hours up - I had been recovering from flu and so it was a hard hike for me), we went camping with our ward near the Scofield Reservoir, and we went canoeing in the UT lake. We had lots of fun!

Hiking up to Squaw Peak (one of the few places that was not at a 60 degree angle!)

The horse loved Rob!

At the ward camp-out!

Canoeing in Utah Lake

Elaine came to Utah and I saw a bit of her. Then my mom came to UT

and we spent quite a bit of time with her. One thing we did which was lots of fun: Val Bibb took my mom and I up the ski lift at the Sundance Ski Resort. Otherwise, my mom organized us a wedding reception here in UT which was very generous and kind of her. It was great - the Brummer family hosted it in their very pretty garden and there was tons of food, including many South African foods. A lot of South Africans came to it and were very generous with giving gifts. (I also had my hair cut in the mean time, as evidenced by the photo.)

We settled into our new ward (BYU 87th) and got callings: first, Rob got called as the Ward Family History Consultant/Teacher and I as a Relief Society Teacher. Then, Rob also got called as the Stake Indexing Director and I also got called as a Ward Family History Consultant. So, we teach Sunday School each week and I teach Relief Society once a month. We really enjoy our callings.

In September we found out that I am pregnant. We're both really excited. The baby is due on May 28th and we both think it's going to be a girl, but we'll see. We'll be happy with either a boy or a girl. If it is a girl, we'll name her Charlotte and if it is a boy, we'll name him James Thomas or Thomas James (we're not sure which yet). Anyway, the first trimester was really tough on me - I felt so tired all the time and I got really sick. I felt nauseous 24 hours a day and would throw-up frequently. (This is the most recent picture of me - 16 weeks.)

We had our first Thanksgiving together this year. We were invited to have dinner with the Belts and all their extended family, but we decided to make our own turkey. Rob brined it the day before (and left it for 24 hours) so it had great flavor and was really moist. We also made vegetables and then watched the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. That was fun! We then ate turkey for a week afterwards because we had so many left-overs. We're now both officially sick of turkey!!!

It is now winter and it started

really snowing a week ago. We have had about a foot of snow then then and although it stopped snowing for a few days during the week, it started again last night. So, there is snow everywhere. In the next few days we're planning on going snow-shoeing as Rob hasn't done it before.