Good old Rexburg.

We've been here for about a week now and are really enjoying this little Idaho town! It's been a big change from Hawaii, but in a good way! I mean, milk is under $2 a gallon. Please and thank you. We have had a lot of fun with some of our married friends who were already up here. It's nice to move somewhere and already have friends! It's awesome that we all live in the same complex too... I think we are really going to enjoy the next 3-4 years we have here:) 

Anthony and I are still looking for jobs, mostly me. He will be doing the potato harvest for two weeks at the end of the month and already has a job lined up for after that. I found out some good news from one place I applied to, but I won't know great news for a few more days! Crossing my fingers and praying I get the job. I have been reminded how much I like to have a job since I have nothing to do all day everyday. And it's always nice to have some money... Other than the job hunt we haven't been up to much. I got really sick over the weekend and I'm still fighting whatever this is. Lets just say the BRAT diet is my best friend right now. 

On a side note, we saw these puppies on Saturday that totally stole my heart. We are in the process of finding out if we can have one here:) probably not, but a girl can dream! I think Anthony fell more in love with those pups then I did! I just keep telling myself that one day we can have lots of puppies on our ranch:) 

We are so excited about where we are now and the next few years we have here in Rexburg. It's a totally new experience here with a husband and I love it! I am so grateful to have a man in my life that loves me unconditionally. He is constantly an example to me of putting our Savior first and following in faith. I admire that about him. I've really loved having some extra down time to spend with Anthony these last two weeks! That is something I always miss when we are both working. 

Well, I should probably get to bed so this sick body can get better quickly. Sorry for such a boring post... I only have two photos for now, I will post some of the apartment later.

Xoxo

P.

Gotta love sunsets!

And puppies:)

Finals, Family, and Idaho.

Lots of things happening in our lives over the next couple of weeks. Well, not lots of things, mostly just one really big thing........

Anthony and I have made a final decision to pack up our lives here in Hawaii and head up to Idaho!

Oh, and we leave next Saturday. 

I know, I know. I swear we aren't crazy. It's been on the radar for months now, and after some serious prayers and research we know this move is right. 

Anthony has been working on a local ranch here in Hawaii and has completely fallen in love with the work he does there. Most days he doesn't even consider it work. This makes for one happy husband and an even happier wife! Anyway, one of the other guys who works on the ranch (the one who actually got Anthony the job) attended BYU Idaho and received an Animal Science degree from there. You probably see where this is going...to make a long story short, this job has been an answer to many prayers and has helped Anthony get a much better idea of what he wants to do with his life. So, off to Idaho we go! I will finish my degree in education and he will start/finish his in animal science! We are really excited for this new adventure :) It will be an incredibly crazy next couple of weeks....but mostly just right now as I try to finish my finals and pack/sell our belongings. Once we get to San Diego we will be staying with Anthony's family until we head to Idaho! It will be so weird not seeing my parents when we are there, but I will get to see my two little besties (Easton and Jude)! I'm excited to spend some time with my sister and her boys:) Anthony is excited he will finally get to meet Jude too, after only seeing the numerous photos I am always shoving in his face... Ha! I'm a bit obsessed....

It's funny how all it takes is your family to be spread all over the place for you to really miss them. I mean, I always missed them when I was away, but it's different now. We are all older and actually all enjoy each others company...weird how that works out ;) My siblings are some of my best friends, actually. I am so glad that my parents had enough faith to have a "big" family. I don't feel like we are that big of a family...but 7 kids is actually a lot. haha. Today I'm praying for some good news for Hayley. No answers from any doctors yet, so maybe today will come with some. I'm not one to usually talk about personal family matters, but it's hard to think of anything else when one of your best friends is so sick. I'm actually very eager to get to the mainland and get on the road. The twins have been taking good care of Hayley, but I'm anxious to get there and help too.


On a brighter note, like I said above, we have been pretty busy trying to move and sell some of our belongings here in Hawaii. I am also trying to figure out how to fit finals into all this packing....just kidding, it's totally the other way around. I haven't packed a single thing! AH! I'm glad I have become best friends with my suitcases over the last year, but I honestly can't wait to break up for a bit. I just keep telling myself that I will get everything packed, simply because I have no other option. Luckily, next week will be less work and class which leaves more time to pack and sell. Anyway, it's really nothing to complain about. We are healthy, happy, and ready for this next adventure in life. It will be really sad to leave our friends here on the island, but we cannot wait to see our friends in Idaho in a few weeks! Oh, and I am excited for Fall. I kind of miss the seasons!


Sorry for this really random, bouncing around, ADD post. I know a lot of people have been wondering why we are selling our lives on Facebook so I thought I better let whoever reads this blog know.


Love you guys!
P.

One Year!

Saturday was our one year anniversary! Can't believe how quickly it crept up on us! Anyway, I thought I would post about how our day went (for anyone that even cares). I'm going to apologize ahead of time for this post since it will most likely be a long one. I will try to keep words to a minimum.

So Saturday we were both supposed to have the whole day off just to hang out and do whatever we wanted to celebrate our anniversary... Well, that didn't actually happen (and that's ok!) because earlier in the week Anthony was scheduled to work in the morning since they were desperate for someone to help with a big field trip. I was a little bummed since I love lazy Saturdays, but it was actually a good thing he was scheduled to work so I could get some stuff done around the house, haha! I hadn't made any plans for the day (Anthony's orders) so I had all morning before he got home to clean and tidy up the house and do laundry (we are both so busy during the week that it gets a little messy around here). Naturally, I woke up and decided I wanted to spend my morning at the temple instead of clean for 5 hours. ha! I got up with Anthony, got ready, and sent him off to work before heading to the temple at 8:45. I ended up just hanging out on the grounds until 10, stayed until 12, and walked home to finally start cleaning. It was actually a really nice morning and I'm sad Anthony couldn't share it with me! I then started cleaning and as I'm trying to figure out where to start (getting distracted) I hear Anthony call into the window for me to open the door. I was pretty excited that he surprised me and came home early! I then enlisted him to help me clean before we took off for the afternoon! At this point, all I knew was that we were going on a horseback ride at 4:15. We finished cleaning and headed off to the ranch for our ride. I was especially excited because Anthony had reserved my favorite horse for me :) We got to the ranch and I (sort of) helped Anthony put the saddles on the horses...I mostly just talked to him and followed him around watching...hahaha story of his life. Once we got on the horses we headed off on our adventure and almost immediately Anthony starts trotting off. For those of you that have gone horseback riding, you know this is not the smoothest way to go. We then started loping and it was super fun, but I definitely need to work on my form and not being so tense haha. There is proper form for everything, folks. We rode to the lookout and as we were riding up I saw a table set up (they do sunset dinner rides so I assumed it was for the people that were arriving when we left on our ride) and asked Anthony if that other ride was coming up for a dinner ride. He turned around and looked at me with a big smile on his face and said "Nope"! haha it was pretty cute :) So we sat up on the lookout and had a nice little picnic, laughing, joking, and feeding our horses papaya for about 45 minutes. It was perfect. So much fun to get away and be alone in a quiet place together! We rode back in the rain and then helped turn the horses out into the pasture and feed them all. We eventually made it home and decided we were pooped and wanted to get to bed early. So that's what we did! It was great!

My handsome date :)

Standing in a weird pose...

Dante, my fave, stretching it out before the ride back

Trying to capture the rainbow but his horse kept walking away. hahaha!

Again, it was such a fun, perfect afternoon! Anthony is such a good surpriser! :)


Warning. This may get sappy. Apparently I'm a sap sometimes ;)


This last year has been full of achievements and trials, happiness and sadness, and lots of adventures. I am grateful I get to have Anthony next to me through it all. I am so grateful for the love and support Anthony gives me every day. Even when I come home and burst into tears about something totally stupid he is always there, ready to cheer me up. I have learned what it means to love someone unconditionally and to have that love grow stronger every day. I have loved growing closer to my Savior as a couple and an individual. This has been one of the best and most challenging years of my life so far and I wouldn't change a thing about it. Marriage is hard sometimes and not everything comes naturally to me, that is for sure, but Heavenly Father is constantly helping me become a better person and wife. I wouldn't be where I am today without His help. I am excited to see where this life takes us and the adventures that are thrown our way! 

I love you Anthony!

Xoxo,

P.

world's worst blogger....

That's me.


I swear I will get better.


Since being back in Hawaii not a lot has happened. Anthony and I have been insanely busy with work (me with school too) and we are always trying to find little slots of time where we can see each other. I hate that part about working and being in school. I feel like we hardly see each other anymore! So, after being married almost a year, we have finally established a date night that stays the same every week. I love that it always gives me something to look forward too during the week! Dating your husband is THE B.E.S.T. I highly recommend it.

Even though we don't have a lot

of extra time in our week, we did manage to socialize last weekend! We did our date night with another couple and went over to their house for dinner and had so much fun! We celebrated some kind of western cowboy appreciation day (I can't remember the complete, official name) by eating a "cowboy" meal and peach cobbler and watching an old western movie. There was a lot of cowboy talk over dinner that I didn't entirely understand but it was really fun seeing Anthony so enthusiastic about it all:) I'm starting to get a very good picture of what our future looks like!! ;) 

Also, Anthony has been giving me horseback riding lessons and I love it! I always wanted horseback lessons and I'm so glad I never paid for them because now I get as many as I want, for free!! It's awesome (even though I got really upset last time when my favorite horse wasn't available). I have gotten 1,000 times more comfortable on a horse and I totally love everything about it (which I didn't before, I was always nervous). Perks of having a wrangler as a husband, I guess!

Anyway, there really isn't a lot going on over here. Our one year anniversary is coming up on the 17th though and I still can't believe it's been a whole year!! Crazy how much has changed (for the good) and how much we have grown! This has been such a crazy year! I will post more on that later this month...

I promise to try and get better at blogging every week! 

My new best friend, Dante. (Did I mention he is one of the biggest horses they have??? I love it!)

Oh, and I came home from my trip only to find that Anthony had bought me some new cowboy boots! (I think he was trying to tell me something...but look how cute that stitching is! How could I resist???)

Whirlwind

Well, it's been awhile. Again. I guess I can fill whoever reads this in on our lives! I am currently sitting in my sisters apartment in San Diego holding my new baby nephew while he sleeps. In other words, I am a very happy auntie right now. 

I have been in San Diego now for 4 weeks without my other half (my husband). It has been a complete whirlwind of a trip and I will probably sleep all the way back to him tomorrow. I came to help my parents move/say goodbye to them, be at my brothers wedding, and help my sister with Easton and Jude. Anthony was supposed to come for three of the four weeks but when he got the job he has now (and loves!) they needed him to stay all summer. It was a very sad day when I found out he wouldn't join me. But life went on, I got on a plane by myself on June 10 and here I am on June 8, holding a precious baby, emailing my parents in Mexico, and anxious to get back to the man I love. I cannot believe how quickly a month goes by. I will be sad to go but happy to get back in my own bed;) 

Most of you already know this, but my parents have moved to Mexico where they will be mission presidents for our church. This means they are in charge of a large group of missionaries (you have probably seen those before- white shirts, ties, nametags, bikes, etc) for 3 years. Right now I feel like 3 years is forever. When I think of the next three years of my life, there is a lot of uncertainty and many changes that will happen. It feels like so much will be different when they get back! While this may be true, I know time will fly by faster than I can imagine. I am so excited to hear about all my parents experiences down there that I don't even have time to be sad they are gone! I know our Heavenly Father will protect them and I know so many people will be blessed and find peace because of the work they are doing. They are the best parents I could have ever asked for and those missionaries are lucky to have them there! With that being said, I'm not going to lie about how stinkin hard it is to say goodbye to your parents for such a long time. It's really hard. Even though I haven't lived at home in a year, it's still weird sometimes that they are gone! Anthony and I will definitely be taking a trip or two to Mexico to see them!

In other news, Reid got married and I couldn't be happier for him and Malinda! They are perfect for each other (meaning she doesn't put up with his crap) and we get to be Hawaii neighbors! Also, Maren had her baby (obviously, I'm holding him while she naps) and I'm in love all over again. Both he and Easton stole my heart (sorry Anthony). Baby Jude is a dream, let me tell you. He eats, sleeps, eats, sleeps, eats, opens his eyes for a bit, then sleeps again. Literally all he does (with some cuddling in there) every day and it's awesome. He never cries, unless he's naked and even then it's not really a cry. Anyway, I'm in love. I've been in desperate need of a baby fix and I've definitely gotten one (as well as a 2 1/2 year old fix). I've loved every second with these boys and will be so sad to leave them. :( 

I am excited to go back to Hawaii. Not necessarily because of the state itself, but because my husband is there. Probably the only reason I'm getting on that plane tomorrow (Hawaii is great, but definitely just for vacations). I was technically supposed to go home today but because of the weekend events at the San Francisco airport, my connecting flight from there was getting way too delayed so I switched my flights, for free, to tomorrow with a connecting flight in LA. I would rather wait a day longer to go home than sleep in an airport due to delays all night. It's going to be a long day regardless, but I'm excited to get home and get things rolling again!

I love you all! Sorry for the super long post!

a little bedtime story..

I hope you are all ready for a good laugh. Last night was one of those nights where something big/traumatic/gross/exciting happens and you only get an hour of sleep after its all over so you wake up feeling like it was all a dream. Ok, maybe I woke up feeling like I had had some kind of sick nightmare....

The worst part was that it wasn't a dream. At all. It was very much a real experience. 

Let me tell you about it.

First of all, there are all kinds of creepy crawlies here in Hawaii (cockroaches, centipedes, spiders, etc) so I have developed a very real and intense fear of stepping on something in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom. It's always been in the back of my mind that this could happen (not to mention I have always hated stepping on live creatures- ex: fish in the ocean, yuck) but since coming to Hawaii, where sometimes I feel like bugs crawl out of everything, it has become a full blown fear. I know, kind of silly. Well, wait until you hear this story.

So Anthony and I were pretty sure we had a little mouse or two in our apartment and had bought some traps to catch the buggers. We have been setting them the last two or three nights but they kept getting licked clean. I know from past experience that mice/rats/rodents in general can be very sneaky when it comes to traps so we were just being patient. We hadn't seen the mouse so we figured it was coming out at night when we were asleep. Two, I repeat, TWO bags of rice had gotten chewed open before we decided it was urgent that we get some traps. So we had the traps set with a peanut butter rice mixture and like I said, they were being LICKED (I mean completely licked) clean. Not being super familiar with rodents and honestly just not thinking much about it we never even considered the pest might be something a little bigger than a mouse.

Anyway, we reset the traps last night and I was heading to bed pretty late (11:30ish) when I thought I heard something. I didn't think much of it because I knew the traps were set and there was really nothing more I could do about it. I just prayed they wouldn't find a way into our bed. That's a whole new level of fear for me. Anyway, I went to bed and around 3 am I got up to use the restroom. Here is where that fear I mentioned above became a startling and terrifying reality. So I get up, walk out of our room towards the bathroom and my foot brushes/hits something. Something that should not be in the middle of the floor. Immediately I feel little nails/claws all over my foot. Well, you can probably guess what happens next. I obviously scream bloody murder. I did not care what time it was, there was a furry something running all over my feet. Not ok. I then flipped the bathroom light on and continued to scream louder than I have ever screamed before. There was a GIANT rat/mongoose/rodent (I wasn't sure what it was at the time because I was still half asleep and completely terrified and they have had mongoose problems in TVA) JUMPING and scurrying around the floor between the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. I jumped up on the toilet while screaming and trying to get some words out. Poor Anthony is sitting straight up in bed thinking there is another person in our house attacking me. I somehow get the words "rat", "jumping", and "help" out of my mouth and slam the bathroom door shut- leaving Anthony and the rat on the other side. hahahaha. I am laughing now as I write this, but trust me, it was one of those moments where your heart stops but beats really fast all at the same time and all you can do is scream. It was scary. So there I was, screaming, crying, and  yelling for Anthony, all while standing on the toilet with the bathroom door shut. Now Anthony was on the other side of that door thinking "I am not getting out of this bed until she opens the door and sheds some light on the hallway so I don't step on it!" hahaha and I was thinking "I am NOT opening this door until Anthony does something about that rat!" ha! Finally I opened the door only to see the rat STILL JUMPING and trying to figure out exactly what happened! Naturally, I slam the door shut again. haha! Anthony finally convinces me to open the door and I do right as the rat runs into the kitchen/living room and disappears! Now that Anthony can see, he is being paranoid about seeing the rat (I find out at this time that he has a pretty serious hatred and fear of rats). He heads out to the living room, jumps on the couch and announces he cannot see it anywhere. He has no clue where it has gone. I start to relax just a little as I watch Anthony look around (with a machete in hand I might add) searching for where the rat could have gone, both of us were thinking it had run back to its secret "safe" hiding spot. Then all of a sudden I see out of the corner of my eye and hear the stupid thing run BACK  into the bathroom where I am still stranded standing on the toilet. Again, I start to scream the same "I can't escape" kind of scream. Anthony got spooked and jumped up on a chair as I was trying to tell him between sobs and screams that the rat had crawled onto the lower half of the toilet and that I could see it's tail and that he needed to come get it before it got me. Just as I looked down, it lifted this little metal cover that covers the piping from the toilet and proceeded to crawl through a hole in the wall. I didn't hesitate a second to jump and run to the bed. I was careful to kneel on the bed with my contaminated legs hanging off though. Anthony made his way to the bathroom and back to the room while announcing that the rat was probably scared to death and not going to come back out for awhile. After a very emotional conversation about how the rat was scratching at my feet and legs Anthony talked me into building up the courage to go back in the bathroom and wash my legs off with soap. I knew I had no choice, I was more scared of the nasty diseases that thing might be carrying than I was of running back into the bathroom. After I cleaned up and made it back to bed we stayed up and waited for the rat to come back for quite awhile before I fell asleep. Anthony didn't ever go back to sleep and even went to another building to use the toilet, hahaha!!!


We woke up this morning and got rat traps to set while we are out all day. I really really hope it gets caught. Oh, also, my friend who lives below us with her husband texted me around 4 am to make sure everything was ok because she heard me screaming. I felt so bad for waking people up!! AND we went to put in a maintenance order to get the two holes in our wall fixed and our buildings RA was working. He said he got a text message about someone screaming at 3 am...oops. Our neighbors were all worried and I seriously felt like a big weenie. But it really was so frightening. That rat was a big boy. They are supposed to fix the holes today so we will see what happens. I don't know what I am going to do tonight when I have to go to the bathroom though......



Hopefully we come home to a nice, dead rat. hahaha! gross, I know. Hopefully you guys enjoyed reading this story more than I enjoyed living it ;)

Love you all!! Can't wait to see my San Diegans in 17 days! :)

The best orange chicken I've ever had!

So last weekend we had a stay at home date. I decided to try out an orange chicken recipe that our friend Andrea made while she was here. She got the recipe from pinterest, so to pinterest I went! I found it and somehow convinced Anthony that it would be fun to make it together... So that's what we did! We stayed home, made orange chicken together, ate that orange chicken, walked to the local ice cream shop, and then went down to the beach for a little walk. It was one of the best dates ever and we hardly spent any money! I'm pretty sure it was because of the awesome company I had all night ;) So back to that orange chicken....Seriously, not to toot my own horn (because all I did was follow a recipe), but that was THE BEST orange chicken I have ever had. So much better than Panda Express or any other takeout I have ever had. Even my food critic of a husband (I mean that in the most loving way) said it was the best orange chicken he has ever had! That is success if you ask me! So anyway, I posted a picture of it on my Instagram and got a few people asking for the recipe. So here it is:

Ingredients

Chicken Breading:
3-5 chicken breast
salt and pepper
1 cup cornstarch
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup canola oil

Rinse chicken, trim off fat or extras and then cut into 1 inch cubes. season with salt and pepper. Dip chicken into cornstarch and coat all the way and then into eggs. Heat oil in large skillet. Cook chicken until browned. Place in baking dish. 3 chicken breasts can be in a 9x9 but 5 chicken breasts fits better in a 9x13. 

*I didn't use salt and pepper to season I just did it plain and it still turned out delicious

Sauce:
3/4 cups sugar
4 Tablespoons ketchup
1/2 cup white distilled vinegar
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic salt

Whisk until smooth. Then pour evenly over chicken. Turn chicken so the sauce gets on both sides and then put in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. turn chicken and then cook for 15 more minutes. 

 

There it is. Get ready to have your mind blown (I'm being a little dramatic. It WAS good though!)  This is the blog the recipe came from: http://madeitateitlovedit.blogspot.com/2012/03/sweet-and-sour-chicken.html

There are probably more good recipes on there, I haven't spent any time looking though.

Hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as we did!