Halloween Fun

Apart from Christmas, Halloween is my favorite holiday. It's so much fun if you don't get caught up in all the horror/gore stuff!

I'd realized the last 2 years Jonathon and I had been pretty boring around Halloween time. The year we dated, I made him go to two haunted houses with me: This is the Place's Haunted Village (which was lame-o) and Nightmare on 13th (which scared Jonathon with a fake spider dropping down on his head!).

I tried to convince Jonathon to do something festive with me and I finally convinced him to do one of the tamest events we could find: the Haunted Lift Ride at Sundance.

It was freezing but we had a lot of fun seeing different Halloween themes on the mountain as we rode along. Jonathon was scared he was going to fall off the lift, so I bravely laughed at him the whole time. We ended the night with delicious cups of hot chocolate from the Cocoa Bean (seriously the best place ever).

In preparation for Halloween, I started shopping for Halloween costumes to get some ideas early in October. I couldn't find anything we both liked, but I finally came across one that I loved and convinced Jonathon to go along with it. He told me he was approving my choice because he "knew how much I loved Halloween." He later told me how much it surprised him our first Halloween together how much I was into it. He thought I went "all out" in my costume just to impress him.

I'm a doll. He's 3-hole punch Jim.

The next year he realized how serious I was into the holiday when I made us have matching costumes:

A gangster & his flapper

Last year was a lazy year where we got costumes at the last minute but still managed to match. In our lackadaisical nature, we also failed to take pictures of our costumes (though my sister-in-law got some). We were Waldo and Wanda--like from the "Where's Waldo?" books.

And this year. Oh, this year I was so happy when Jonathon's costume came in the mail. I immediately made him put it on:

Olaf Jonathon giving everyone a "warm hug"

You can imagine how excited I was, then, when I discovered we would be attending 3 Halloween parties this year. The first was our ward party on Thursday, October 29th:

Our first public appearance

The food was scrumptious. We had lots of soup, candy, desserts, and a delectable green salad (kinda weird my favorite part was the green salad...)

The next party on Friday, October 30th, was hosted by some friends in our ward. It was a Haunted Halloween themed party where we were supposed to dress up as our favorite movie star or character--with a spooky twist! Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say Anna and Olaf are our favorites but...the costumes fit the theme! To add to it though, I made us into zombies. Well, Jonathon was a zombie who liked "warm blood" and I was him victim:

Have you ever thought Olaf could be this creepy?

I dyed my hair red for this costume!

Then, on beloved Halloween evening, we attended the annual Hansen Halloween party:

Love me some Halloween!

The food, as always, was spectacular:

Our snake cal-zone entrees and delicious spinach dip!

I made a graveyard chip dip and put guacamole in a carved pumpkin.

Amber's amazing cake. Everything on it was made by hand (except the pumpkins).

The kiddos couldn't be cuter:

Dinosaur Grahm (who attacked while veraciously
exclaiming "I'm a dinosaur, RRRAHH!" 

Princess Harlie - she was so proud of her jewelry

Dinosaur Parker (Thanks Carrie for the photo!) - who
loved petting the dogs and was obsessed with holding
Uncle Tate's hand while trick-or-treating

Each party was fun in it's own way, but I was glad we could end the festivities with family. Part of what makes it so fun is that my brothers enjoy the holiday as much as I do. I guess we can credit that to a mom who never let the holiday go half-done. We always had lots of decorations, candy, and awesome homemade costumes. In essence, the holiday reminds us (at least me) of my childhood and all of the wonderful memories associated with it. I hope to keep the up the tradition of a fun- and candy-filled holiday with my own kiddos someday.

Why is It Ok?

When it was announced that the First Presidency wanted to read a letter over the pulpit after same-sex marriage had been passed nationally back in July, I saw many negative things about the Church.

Yet again, this past week I have continued to see many negative things about the Church in regards to the new addition to Handbook 1.

That's all good and fine. I expected as much, especially from those who are not members or active in the Church. But what baffles me is why, when we have issues arise, do we active, proclaiming-to-have-a-testimony-in-God's-Church-and-His-living-prophets have to suddenly sling mud at the other side?

I recently saw a friend post this article: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/blairvandyke/2015/11/ssm-conservative-mormons-dont-you-dare/

Now maybe I just have a really good group of conservative friends. And maybe I'm biased. But I have no where seen what this person describes as a "victory dance." This is obscene, horrendous, and cruel.

To the liberal Church members I know, why is it ok to speak about conservative members this way? Why are we constantly painted us as racists, bigots, homophobics, un-Christlike haters of everyone who's view differ from the liberal view?

I don't say these things lightly. The majority of my graduate program was very liberal. I remember one class period in particular where the whole class except for me and a 50-year-old mom bashed on anything conservative--this discussion led nonetheless by the teacher. I was astounded. If I disagree with anyone about something, I will explain why I believe what I do, but I never say why the other side should believe my way of thinking. That accomplishes nothing. Yet, over and over again, I've been told how my view was wrong, close-minded, not loving, etc. Why is that ok? Why are conservatives always called upon to be tolerant of others' views, but that same level of tolerance is never shown towards our beliefs? Why is there always so much finger pointing about how wrong our views are instead of kindly accepting our opinions for what they are?

Now, I no way condone those conservatives who are truly un-Christlike towards opposing beliefs. If there truly are people who are fist-bumping and doing victory dances towards the other side concerning this policy or anything else, that is sad and I no way support those actions. However, I feel as though the people who do behave that way are the minority. It's not fair that just because a couple of idiots act that way the rest of conservative Church members are lumped into that group as well.

My conservative friends are all trying to do the best we can. We believe in Christ and we try our best to act as Christ does. If our testimony doesn't shake or suffer the same way yours does, that in no way makes us any less understanding or compassionate of your situation. We try our best to show you our support when you experience these things; however, I have a hard time seeing the same kind of support or respect shown to us.

There are two strongly liberal women I can think of who these judgmental behaviors do not apply to. One I knew during my undergraduate education and is no longer an active member of the Church and the other is a former roommate of mine. Both women have exhibited the up-most respect and understanding to others who view things differently, and I will forever admire their examples to me. Those women are incredible and I wish everyone could be more like them, including myself.

So perhaps instead of being so quick to judge how the other side is thinking/feeling next time, how about we take a step back and assume the best in people. I'll be the first to admit that the things I say sometimes come out wrong, but that doesn't mean my intentions are such. Please quit painting me and others like me as some sort of unfeeling monster.

The assumptions made about my conservative friends are hurtful, cruel, and downright wrong.

Summer Fun

The last blog post seemed kind of like a drag, but we did do some fun things this summer that I want to remember.

Right after graduation, I undertook a little remolding project. I inherited yellow dressers from my grandparents (bless their souls) that looked atrocious with anything we owned, so I spent almost a week spray painting them to better match our home decor style. Jonathon had the car at work, so I made quite a few walking trips to Lowe's about a mile away from our house. It was good exercise. Below are before & after pictures. I still would like to put a shiny gloss on the dressers, but that is project for another time.

Before

After

To really kick off the summer, Jonathon and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary at a medieval themed bed & breakfast called Castle Creek Inn near SLC. We stayed in the room "Canterbury," reminiscent of one of our favorite places we visited in England last year. Of course, a fake English room in the middle of Utah can't make up for the real deal, but we had a nice time.

The middle of May, my first college roommate, Whitney Carrizales, invited me to go to the Tulip Festival with her at Thanksgiving Point.

I had a nice time catching up with her and really need to do better at catching up with all of my college friends. I didn't even get a picture of Whitney...

The end of May I went home to help my mom, and I planted the flower beds and flower pots for her. I was very proud of my work!

I knew I didn't like gardening before, but I remembered just how much I did not like gardening then. It was good for me to learn and practice though.

I forgot to include pictures in the last post of us moving into our new apartment, but below is a picture of everything I took out of boxes to put in the kitchen. We hadn't unpacked any of the gifts we received from our wedding because Tyler and Carrie had everything we needed. I was surprised by how much kitchen stuff we had, and needless to say, this mess took many trips to the dumpster.

Also, here are some pictures from our family reunion. I really should invade Jonathon's pictures next time before writing a post.

The Alpine Coaster

My parents' anniversary party

The Heber Creeper

Grahm stealing all the balloons

 

The awesome view from the back of the cabin

The 3rd of July went to the balloon festival and Kneader's for breakfast with Tyler, Carrie, and Parker, and then had a nice BBQ with them that evening. 

 

Jonathon totally geeked out at the Star Wars balloons and being able to take a picture with Star Wars characters (especially Chewy).

The 4th of July we went to Centerville to spend time with Jonathon's family. We watched the parade in the incredibly hot sun and then went to "Inside Out," which was super cute. I ashamedly fell asleep for about 10 minutes in the middle of it, which made me really sad, but I just couldn't keep my eyes open. Then that evening we went back to Provo and played games and watched the fireworks, as well as did a few our our own, with my cousin and her fiancee, Heather and Robert. Again, I don't have pictures of Heather or Robert...

Happy 4th of July!

In the middle of July, we went to Blackfoot to attend an extended Wheelwright family reunion, to which Jacob (Jonathon's brother), Jonathon, and I were the only attendees apart from Jonathon's other immediate family already in Blackfoot. It turned from an extended reunion to an immediate one, but it was fun spending time with Jonathon's family on a more intimate level. I just feel bad for Jonathon's parents and all the planning they did.

On the 24th of July--Pioneer Day (or if you're not Mormon, Pie & Beer day, hehe)--we went to Seven Peaks in SLC for the first time. It was fun, but definitely not as good as the Provo Seven Peaks. We then had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, which was fab-u-lous. Around that time, we also received callings for our new ward. Jonathon is the assistant executive secretary (again) and I am the choir director. Say what? I'm all for playing the organ and piano, but leading a choir is a new beast. It's been a challenge so far, but I've picked out some beautiful arrangements that have been fun to sing. Now I just need to learn how to lead better . . . .

Jonathon made fun of me one Sunday. My heels were killing my feet, so after church I put on my running shoes because they were much more comfortable.

On July 31st, we celebrated Harry Potter's birthday on campus. We ordered butterbeer and a chocolate frog sundae (which really wasn't that good). Jonathon also played Muggle Quidditch!

Butterbeer!

Chocolate Frog Sundae

Jonathon throwing a Bludger at someone

He was a Beater

The middle of August, we drove with Tyler, Carrie, and Parker to Parker, Colorado (close to Denver) to attend Heather and Robert's wedding. The food was delicious, hanging out with family was a blast, and we were glad we could be there to celebrate Heather and Robert's special day. In spite of watching "Horton Hear's a Who" 3 times during the car ride, it was a fun trip and a very nice getaway for Jonathon and me. 

I'm sure there was other fun stuff we did during the summer, but this has been the gist of it. Hopefully it will hold us through until our next little vacation or getaway. 

New Apartment, New Jobs, New School Year

At one point during the summer, I thought it would never end, and now here we are already two weeks into the semester. Where did the time go?

This summer was pretty tough, to say the least. We found out some difficult news (which I don't want to share publicly over the net), and finding a job after graduation was a beast. In the three months I searched for a job, I was plagiarized, lied to, ignored (after several interviews, mind you, from multiple companies), offered a job only to have it rescinded, and even criticized by one grumpy HR lady. The process was awful.

May came and went. I was promised to start working at a company by June 1, but they changed their mind last minute. I wasted 2 weeks of job hunting on that job because I thought I had it in the bag already.

June came and we had a wonderful family reunion by Heber. We spent a day in Park City and rode the alpine slides. We also went on the Heber Creeper and celebrated my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. It was fun talking, relaxing, playing, and eating.

We moved to our new apartment just before the reunion. We spent the whole week prior to the reunion deep cleaning our apartment. It was disgusting! We even stayed there until 2 in the morning one night working on things trying to get it ready before we moved everything over. After the reunion, I spent the next week putting things away and cleaning. It took a couple weeks to get used to the new place, but finally it started to feel like home. Now, whenever we go over to Tyler and Carrie's, it's not the same; it's not our home anymore. But we love our new apartment, especially after we were finally able to get rid of all the bugs that invaded every night.

After the reunion, I hit job hunting hard again. Somewhere in the middle or end of June (I can't remember anymore, it's all blurred together) I hit a really low point. I was a finalist in every job I interviewed for, but I just wasn't getting any of the jobs. I felt so discouraged and frustrated, it got to the point where I didn't even want to get up in the morning. I finally asked Jonathon for a blessing. Let me tell you, priesthood blessings are amazing! I did not find a job the next day or anything, but I felt so much peace and comfort that everything would work out. I was promised God had a special place he wanted me to be, so I held onto that whenever things got tough.

The beginning of July I received an email from the Writing department at BYU asking if I'd be able to teach 3 sections in the Fall. I had applied to teach as an adjunct halfheartedly; it was my back up plan. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching. I just wanted a more stable career. You know, one that comes with benefits and such. But I told the Writing department that if I were hired, I could do it. The next 2-3 weeks I interviewed with a LOT of places. I wanted to keep my options open and see if anything better came along. The end of July came and I was offered 2 different positions--one at an insurance company and another at a loan management software company. FINALLY, after more than 100 applications and 40 interviews, I was offered jobs; real jobs! They both came with benefits, but the pay was not great...

After weighing all the pros and cons a million and one times, I decided not to accept either position and instead work adjunct at BYU in the Fall. I was assigned to teach Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, so with Tuesdays and Thursdays open, I decided to find another part time job to keep me busy while Jonathon worked through his busiest semester. I had started looking for a part time job the middle of July and by the first week in August, I started my new job at Murphy Business and Financial as an Administrative Assistant.

Life definitely didn't go as planned. By this point, I wanted to be working full-time as an executive assistant. But things worked out and God knows what he's doing. We've been incredibly blessed. Teaching has already had its challenges, but its also been very rewarding. And I've learned so much working at Murphy already, which has also been a challenge at times, but in a good way. It's pushed me to do things I didn't know I could do and help me refine some useful skills.

I'm still not as busy as Jonathon at this point, but let's see if that changes once the big papers hit and need to be graded :P

Writing the Thesis and Current Life News

Jonathon asked me how long it's been since I wrote a post. He encouraged me to write another post, so here I am. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what to say, cause life feels kind of bland.

First things first, at the end of April, I graduated with my Master's. Woo-hoo!

Officially a Master

My parents, my siblings & their families all came to my graduation. Jonathon's parents and brother also came. I am so grateful for everyone's support that day.

Getting a Master's was definitely a hard process, but it hindsight, it didn't seem that bad. I breezily could say, "I can do that all over again!" But then the thought of going back to school stops me in a my tracks and I realize just how ready I am to be done with school. Probably forever.

Graduating didn't feel like that big of an accomplishment. Probably because the real accomplishment was passing my thesis defense, which occurred the first week in March. After the defense, it was almost smooth sailing to the end (minus a final paper that took more thought and effort than I expected). Getting to the defense, though, was a hard, hard process. I started writing the introduction of my thesis the 2nd or 3rd week in October. I finished the intro by Halloween--a good 4.5 pages long. My thesis chair told me to cut it down, but otherwise it would be good. I spend the month of November working on the first half of my argument. I finished it before Thanksgiving so I could enjoy the holiday with family. Upon returning to school, my thesis chair told me the argument looked great, but my introduction needed to be completely revamped. That was incredibly disheartening. He gave me the go-ahead and then came back and told me to pretty much completely redo everything. I was very frustrated. I may have even cried. However, I persevered and diligently spent the next week working on a new introduction. It was better, but still not up to par.

My thesis chair told me to work specifically on three paragraphs--in any order--and send them to him in the next 24 hours, to which he would respond in the following 24 hours. I neglected my other responsibilities and researched and wrote like a mad woman to get those three paragraphs perfect. His feedback: FINALLY my introduction was on the right path. It was pretty solid (with a few minor issues) and I could continue working on the rest of my paper. By that point, it was a couple days to Christmas vacation. I was burnt out. I didn't want to touch my thesis. Ever again. And I didn't for the first 10 days of Christmas vacation. I seriously contemplated giving up because, as silly as it sounds, having to rewrite something that I put so much time and heart into was so discouraging. I felt like a part of me died and I didn't want to go through that again. However, Jonathon helped me realize that my chair thought my argument was solid--he had no complaints about that part--so writing the rest of it shouldn't be too bad.

Around the 29th of December, I started working on my thesis again to finish the last half. I finished the argument and only had the conclusion to do by the end of the year. My goal was to have the whole thing done by the 1st. I didn't quite make it, but I had the finished the product done by the 6th of January, which was good enough for me. I was the first, maybe the second person in my program to have a completed draft to my chair by that time. My chair was impressed with how on top of everything I was. Which meant he took his jolly time getting his feedback to me. That made me nervous, because the date to schedule a defense was coming up fast. Fortunately, he didn't push the time too much and I got my draft back in time to make the revisions and send to the rest of my committee.

My committee made me anxiously wait for their feedback and I was able to schedule to finally schedule my defense 2 days before the deadline. I wished it could have been earlier, but when you're working with three other busy professors, life doesn't always go as planned. It worked out though.

My defense happened on March 4th. Jonathon came and supported me, which made me very happy :) I also had a few classmates come...not so much to support me, but to see what they could expect in their own defenses. I was ok with that. I didn't want to appear as a loser and only have myself and my committee in the defense, so I was glad other people came, no matter their motivations. While all my other classmates were freaking out about their defenses, I was a cool as a cucumber. I was so calm and relaxed, not at all worried about it. However, the moment I stepped into the defense room, anxiety took over. I thought I was going to die (not really).

The defense started out pretty good, but the deeper we got into it, the harder it seemed to be. I was asked some really difficult questions to things I had never even thought about. I felt like I was blowing steam pretty much the whole time. My favorite strategy was when they asked me multiple questions, answering the easier of the questions and pretending like I forgot the other questions. It worked like a charm. When we were finally dismissed from the room while my committee stayed inside to decide whether or not I would pass, I felt a bundle of nerves. I knew I would pass, but I did not feel calm and collected like I had leading up to the event. However, when we got out in the hall, one of my classmates asked me how I was feeling. I said I was terrified, and everyone said I didn't look it. They said I looked very calm and relaxed. That made me feel good and I realized just how awesome I can be at putting on a show ;)

When we got back in the room, my committee informed me that they could make three decisions. The first is that I failed--I had a significant amount of work to do and was not prepared to graduate. The second was that I passed, but with some major revisions needed before I submitted it to the university. The last was that I passed with no extenuating qualifications. My committee informed me that I passed with flying colors and they were all happy to let me proceed and let me graduate. They were all happy with my thesis and thought I did a solid job. Phew! That was such a relief to hear. I was so happy!!! But I still felt a bundle of nerves that didn't disappear for a few hours afterwards...

So, that was the process of writing my thesis. It was long. It was hard. It was 32 pages long with 69 sources and lots of references to Sense and Sensibility and Emma. It was brutal. But so rewarding. I was so terrified going in the program at having to write a thesis, but I'm glad I had to do it. It was such a growing experience, and I feel much more confident in my writing abilities as a result.

I still haven't found a job. I'm looking and have what looks like some promising opportunities, so keep your fingers crossed! Jonathon did not find an internship like he wanted to, but he's working full time on campus this summer as a research assistant in the DIPPR lab. It's through the chemical engineering program, where apparently the AIChE spends thousands and thousands of $$ for this lab to research properties in different chemicals. Jonathon hasn't worked on that side of it though. Currently, he's working on programming. His job is to rewrite the program their using for the lab. I don't understand all the details behind it, but suffice it to say, it's been a growing experience for him. He hasn't had much experience programming, but he told the professor over the lab that he was interested in learning it, so he was put in charge of this project. He's checked out a few books from the library and slowly is learning different aspects of programming. I think it's been a bit frustrating for him at times, but he's also learning a lot and he enjoys it. He's happy, which makes me happy--even if I don't understand everything he's doing.

At the Payson Temple Open House

This post has turned into a novel, but one more note. Jonathon and I found our own place and we'll be moving into it the beginning of June. We're really excited! We've loved living with Tyler, Carrie, and Parker, but we are ready for our own place. I have a long list of everything we need to buy for our new place. We all have the big stuff already, but there are lots of odds and ends we need to get. It's exciting! But will also be costly... And I'm sure going to miss hanging out with Parker every day. Who couldn't resist this face?

Parker's Fish Face