A Completion and Addition

January has been quite a fast month. Getting underway with school, Mark working, and now our favorite weekly shows are on to give us something to live for again. (Just kidding!) My classes this semester are not that difficult. But the readings are time consuming with plenty of papers and projects to complete in the next 2 1/2 months. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude: Once it's done, I'm DONE and free to enter the adult world where I don't have projects....okay just not 10 page research papers hopefully!

The 2nd weekend in January was quite a busy one for us. Friday night was Mark's work party. They had some pretty sweet prizes. It was set up so that once 1 person per couple won something, they were disqualified for any other prizes. It spread the winnings out nicely. Despite my luck in Vegas, I was ready to leave with nothing...maybe movie tickets. Much to my surprise, we walked away with a brand new I-Pad. It's awesome. The screen is so clear, and even though it's a little "Mac-ish" for me, I love the touch screen technology.

Saturday and Sunday we were together with my family to celebrate my niece Alexis' baptism, and my nephew Brighton's blessing. Both gatherings had a lot of people, noise and some cramped spaces. Needless to say, we were happy to come home Sunday evening to just us and our new I-Pad. =)

We also had some friends over another weekend. A friend of mine who went to Romania with me came over along with her husband. They were married 2 weeks after us and we've had a few adventures/double date nights together. We had stuffed french toast for dinner, and skookie pan cookies for dessert. (Thanks Martins!) We played Mario 3 on teams with the new controller Mark bought me for Christmas. We stayed up pretty late (for us) talking to them but it was a lot of fun.

I meant to post this in December but the post got too long...and I was hoping to have it framed by now. As I write this, it's still sitting unframed. But I finished my first cross-stitch over the

holidays. I started one about 2 years ago and I had mixed up too much, I just decided to throw it out. This one has a few mistakes, but I was determined to finish it and hang it in our house. It only took me 12 months (almost to the day) to finish it. I have plans to start another one, but I don't really have time so I'll keep my eye out for one to start after school is over.

We are doing great and still love being married. Definitely beats 2 years of letter writing, long distance, and being engaged. We are looking forward to next month when my oldest sister and her 2 girls will be coming to stay until mid-summer with my parents. My sister's husband is in the Air Force and being deployed this weekend. My mom is flying out President's Day weekend to make the drive from the east coast to here with the three of them. This also means that a "Mom and 7 daughters" getaway is very soon up and coming. We (okay me mostly) are very excited to have some extra family around for a while.