I Married a Nerd!

So, to boast a little, I married a nerd! Mike this weekend was inducted into the Honors program in the School of Pharmacy at UF. He is in the top 20% of his class and is actually more in the to 5%. They had a little program where he had to sign a book and then light a candle and stand with his other classmates. A little cheesy I must admit, but I was a proud wife! Mike does not really get into these types of things, but whatever helps with post-graduation life we will do. Great job babe!

Mike with some of his classmates also in the top 20%

They had everyone sign the book with their backside to the audience, so sorry for a little backside shot.

This weekend we also bought a snorkeling set for our upcoming cruise with the Holmes! Mike originally had it on but refused to take a picture with it on. Therefore, you get me!

Change isn't always better- Tale of the Chocolate licorice

So I was at Wal-Mart last night buying a few things and decided that I needed some chocolate licorice since I have not had any in a really long time (Christmas).  Chocolate licorice is something that brings dear memories from Grandma Shaws to Family trips, etc.  Not everyone likes it and some think it is weird, but in my family, chocolate licorice is the best.

Anyways, I get home, sit down on the couch and open up the bag of licorice to only be sorely disappointed:  They have changed the formula of chocolate Twizzlers!  I don't know how many people had had the twizzlers licorice that is rainbow colors and has tropical flavors and such.  It is more red-vine textured but not as good as red vines.  It is softer and quite frankly is not licorice.  Well, they have now changed the chocolate licorice to be like the open-ended softer rounder type and it stinks!   I used to love to texture and the pliability of Chocolate Twizzlers and now they have ruined it!  Unless they change back I am not going to buy chocolate licorice ever again.  I hope this is just an East-coast thing and those of you who are out in Utah can still enjoy real chocolate licorice. 

 As for me...  I am hoping Twizzlers will come to their senses and in the mean time I will write them letters asking them to change back.  I hope it will missserably fail and go back to the original formula.  So long Chocolate Licorice.

Praise to the Man

Last night we received a call from our friends telling us that President Gordon B. Hinckley had passed away that night with his Family close by his side.  His attributes that stand out to me most are his vigor and humor in and for life.  He always had a smile on his face and even through his 90's could  do more in one day than most of us do in our 20's.  

He has been the Prophet our the Church since I was 10 and is all that I really know as a prophet.  He was a great teacher and example.  I am so grateful for him and his service and am glad that he can now rest from his labors with his wife back by his side.  

We had our regional broadcast from the conference center yesterday with Pres. Monson and Elder Oaks.  We all noted that Pres. Monson was a little more reflective than normal and a bit more solom than his usual perky self; he was probably feeling the mantle of the Prophet.  We will miss President Hinckley, but his legacy will live on through the many temples that dot the earth and the many lives that he touched.  

E is for Elephant

So last night I finished my Elephant block of my alphabet quilt.  For those of you who don't know, I have been working on an Alphabet quilt for about a year and I finished the letters and now am to the object part of the quilt.  For each letter I am creating something with that letter to put next to it.  I have never really done appliqué before this quilt so it is kind of a learning process but is absolutely fun!  It allows me to be creative because I am don't have any form of pattern and I just get to make it up as I go.    Quilting is something that I can do while Mike is studying and since I am doing it all by hand, I have it by my couch and whenever I have time I can do some stitching or ironing the pieces into shapes.  Now I will just have to figure out the rest of the quilt shapes and I am sure that I will get better as time goes on.

Christmas in Utah

So every time I look at someone's blog I feel guilty that I have not updated mine, so here is the past month in one blog.  We will start with Christmas.  For Christmas we were able to go out to Utah for over 2 weeks!   We left on the 14th of December and spent the first couple of days with all the siblings and nieces and nephews  having our Christmas a couple of days early since Jen and Jake were going to Oregon.  It as a lot of fun to be with everyone and a couple of the little ones even remembered who we were!  Yea!  

Mike's Family caught up with us midway through the vacation and we went up to Ogden and Roy to visit family up there and I was able to experience a part of Utah that I have never been to before.  Got to love it when you see more Trucks in the parking lot than cars.  

Mike and I both ended up getting sick  so we were not able to do a whole lot outside, but Mike was totally okay with that since he prefers weather that is above 70 degrees.  We totally loved being with family and taking a long awaited break.  Below are a couple of pictures from our adventure and I'll explain a little for each picture.  

This is Mike's sister Melanie (an Audiologist) checking out our ears to make sure that we have healthy and clean ears.  I won the battle for cleanest  ears!   I do have to say that this was while Mike was sick so he has kind of a pathetic sick face on for a reason.   This was a sledding adventure with Kevin and Aubrey with Ty and Jordo too.  We had a lot of fun and eventually, Tyler did too after much convincing that sledding was fun!   This was "Shorty's Enchilada Diner"  crew.  We have perfected the art of Christmas Enchiladas Shorty's style with Grandma doing all the prep work (the biggest part) Mom cooking eggs without even breaking a yolk and I was taking orders and putting the enchiladas together.  We had everyone (30 people) fed in about an hour short order style.  I would say that I was quite impressed.  Dad and Grandpa were the Dish crew and as always do an awesome job!  

These are my Gangsta' Cousins who have all grown about a foot since I saw them last.  It is a bad sign when you cousins you used to babysit are almost graduating...man I'm getting old!

On that note, I had my birthday and had a great one!  My work game me flowers, cake, gift certificates and took me out to lunch.  Mike got me a way cute purse and I also got a duvet cover, 2 cook books and some money.  I loved it and felt very loved.  I do have to admit that I feel "old" now in the sense that I am not in the college age range anymore.  I actually have to be  a real adult now.  Man, who knew 23 would be the defining age.