Good News

I guess I wrote that last post too early. I wore my contacts yesterday with no problems, no redness, no irritation. And I even accidentally feel asleep in them for like 20 minutes. I decided to wait to go to the doctor until after break. Hopefully my eyes will be fine over break!

I think the difference might have been the contact solution. I had been using the expensive Opti-Free Replenish kind, but Rich uses the Costco brand. (See this post.) I tried using his yesterday, and my eyes felt fine. So, Costco's Kirkland brand pretty much rocks.

Done

I just wanted to say that I am done with finals. And I love it. Rich still has one more to take, so I'll try not to rub it in around him. That's why I'm writing about it here. I've already told Rich once, and I don't want to make him jealous.

Oh, and I tried to wear contacts last Saturday, and things did not turn out so well. I'm going to the ophthalmologist once again on Friday, and he can hopefully figure out what the deal is because the SPK problem should be gone by now. At least, you'd think it would be after 2 months of drops and 4 months without contacts. I hope he has some answers because I really hate wearing my glasses. I've gotten to the point where I take my glasses of for almost every picture. Some days I'm tempted to just not where glasses at all. I can at least see well enough not to run into trees.

This is what I feel like doing to my glasses sometimes.

Christmas Season Happenings

Christmas season is here and we are enjoying every minute of it! Even though we have been busy with school, we are still trying to do as many Christmas activities as possible. Out tree is up and lookin real good, we went to Temple Square to check out the lights, and we made some Christmas sugar cookies with the soon to be Provo Wings (Cami and Ethan). We are excited for finals to be over so we can enjoy it without worrying about grades!!

Hip Hop Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

26-20, OT

As always, the BYU-Utah game was a thriller!! What a fun rivalry! I must admit however...I HATE Utah. Probably at an unhealthy level, but there are many of you who understand!

The game was awesome right from the opening kick as the Cougars donned their royal blue throwback jerseys to honor the 1984 national championship team. We jumped out to a 20-6 lead, but let those pesky Utes back in it. Utah hit a field goal to tie it with under a minute left and we headed to OT. Utah scored a field goal on their opening OT possession, but it didn't take long for Max Hall to hit Andrew George for a 25-yard touchdown pass to seal the victory! The crowd erupted and IMMEDIATELY rushed the field. It was a beautiful sight for those who bleed blue!!

Final Score (Notice Andrew George crowd-surfing on the video screen)

Nationals

(Image from the BYU Cross Country Online Media Guide)

Cross Country Nationals are this coming Monday in Terre Haute, Indiana. For once, the weather seems like it will be pretty nice there (as opposed to freezing temperatures of past years for Nationals).

The race is on Monday at 11:45 AM Eastern Time. It's going to be live on TV on Versus this year, so tune in if you can! If you don't have that channel, it will also be broadcast live online, and you can find the link on NCAA.com. You should watch if you can. It's going to be a great race! BYU is ranked #5 right now and has an awesome team.

It's going to be great to see the race live! Thanks for everyone's support this season!

ESPN College Gameday @ Provo

This weekend was pretty exciting because ESPN College Gameday was broadcasting live from Provo, Utah in LaVell Edwards Stadium. It was a really cool environment and brought out a lot of people! I ran down to the stadium and took a few pictures. So here are a some of them. Maybe you saw it live on ESPN on saturday. LaVell Edwards made a guest appearance. It was great.

Hilarious

This is Halloween

We are really getting excited for Halloween!!

P.S. For all of you who need Halloween decorations and accessories...it's all about the dollar stores!! (Thanks for the tip Christine!)

BYU Football

Each year there is one football game where all of the other "non-football athletes" get to go on the field and make a tunnel for the football players when they enter the stadium. Well this year we decided to sneak Shara on the field too! We just hung out around the rest of the athletes and no questions were asked. So we got to go down on the field together and take these pictures before the game...

On the "Y" at midfield!!!!

What is SPK?

It stands for superficial punctate keratitis, and it has something to do with spots on the cornea from wearing contacts too much. Whatever it is, it means I have to put these eye drops every 2 hours for at least a month.

This little guy costs about $20 a bottle and only lasts about a week. Not fun for a poor college student.

The whole every-2-hour-eye-drop-thing gets real fun in my 4-hour class on Tuesdays. I can either put them in in class (awkward) or go to the restroom every 2 hours (still awkward).

SPK also means I can't wear my contacts until it goes away, and that could be a very long time. I hate wearing my glasses.

SPK, please go away. I want to wear my contacts again.

Anticipation

It's exciting to wait for your siblings to have a new baby.

It's even more exciting when you get to read their blog for updates because they don't have a cell phone.

Good luck and congratulations, Scott and Karolyn!

This Is Just Wrong

I looked in the corner of our room, and this is what I saw. A stack of 5 pairs of EXACTLY the same shoe. Rich's shoes. All of them paid for BYU. And there's another pair in his locker. Oh, and I don't know how many pairs of shoes he's given away, too. Again, the same pair. Should one person have this many pairs of the same shoe? Rich doesn't know how lucky he is. I would love to get free shoes.

Cross country season has started, by the way. Here's a picture from the BYU meet a couple weeks ago. Rich placed 5th and BYU dominated the race. BYU dominated again this week at UC-Riverside; Rich got 13th overall.

Oh, and Rich is Mr. August on the BYU athletic calendar. That's probably every BYU athlete's goal. Rich can get you a calendar if you want.

Hogle Zoo

A couple Saturdays ago, Rich and I took a trip to the Hogle Zoo. Amazingly enough, this was only the second zoo I'd ever been to (not including Sea World, if that counts). Rich LOVES animals, so he'd been wanting to go for a while. Here are some pictures from our trip. My favorite animals were the red panda, the baby giraffe, and the kangaroo.

I Have the Best Husband

This is true for many reasons, but here's one thing that he did that I just loved.

For a couple months, our dryer was making this really obnoxious squeaking noise, sort of like metal grinding on metal. Our neighbors must have hated us every laundry day because the it was not a quiet noise. After getting some tips from his parents, Rich decided to see what he could do about fixing our dryer situation.


I came home from work one day to this:

I think a lot of people might have been a little upset to their dryer completely torn apart, but I was so excited because Rich was fixing the dryer, partly for my sanity (I couldn't stand doing laundry). He's going to be a great fix-it hubbie!

Even more exciting, he fixed the problem, although he doesn't really know what he did. He tore it all apart, put a little oil on something on the inside, and put it all back together. Voila! No more squeaking! Our neighbors don't have to hate us every time we do laundry!

Farewell Spicy Valencia

The time has finally come to say goodbye to my faithful (well, at least it has never really died on me) blue beast, the '91 Chevy Blazer, lovingly known as Spicy Valencia (my old roommate helped me come up with the name).

On Monday, Rich and I will be traveling Spokane, Washington, to spend some time with this family. While we're there, we're going to buy a car from a man in Rich's family's ward who owns a car dealership. This means that the Blazer is going back to my parents on Saturday.

This was the car I drove in high school, and then it came down to BYU with me. This really has been the only car that I've considered mine, and it's been mine for over 5 years.

And yet, I'm not really sad to see it go.

Why? Well, the picture might say enough. But, to back up my case a little better, here is a list of just a few of the things I am NOT going to miss about Spicy Valencia:

• The complete lack of air conditioning. It is the worst car to drive at 3 PM on a 97 degree day in stop and go traffic.
• Along with no air conditioning, the necessity of driving with the windows down on the freeway in the summer.
• The way the windshield wipers turn on when I signal. It always happens more often in warmer weather.
• The way one of the headlights points almost completely sideways and is threatening to fall out.
• The passenger-side speaker in the front seat only working about 25% of the time.
• The oil leak and how much oil the engine burns.

• The clear coat coming off the paint so that it looks like the car has leprosy.
• Never being able to roll down the backseat windows since the day my family bought the car.
• The window to the back hatch squeaking so obnoxiously that you just want to tear it out, also a problem from day one.
• The back seat's squeak that developed in the past year.

• The complete lack of a rear bumper. I am not exactly sure what happened to it.
• The way you run out of gas at 1/8 of a tank, or somewhere around there. It's never the same everytime.
• How the tinted windows just trap in the heat in the summer, making the car an oven.
• The glove compartment front that falls off when you try to open it. Every time.
• The spare tire sitting in the back, rather then underneath where it belongs.
• The way that it sounds like the engine is going to fall out when you go over any sort of bump, even bumps that you don't notice at all in other cars.
• The handle to roll down the window on the driver side falling off when you pull on it too hard.

This car has been through a lot. All of my siblings drove her car at some point, and it was both Tyson's and my first car. It has been backed in to a lake, driven cross country from Kentucky to Utah, towed our boat countless times, and been through who knows how many trips back and forth between Ogden and Provo. Really, it's just been a well-used Fredrickson family car. That's enough life for any vehicle. And still Spicy Valencia has not gone kaput. Rich and I are getting rid of her while we can.

She's putting up a good fight. I don't think she'll ever die.

A Little Laugh

I love finding random websites that make me laugh. It's the best. You might have noticed that some our "Favorite Links" happen to be such sites. My newest find, thank you Facebook, is AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. Always good for a laugh. Here's why I find it so entertaining.

Anyone know of any other good sites?

Happy Independence Day!

Our 4th of July weekend started early Friday morning laying sod at the grandparents Fredricksons' house. That project turned out pretty well considering that only one of our group had ever laid sod before. We finished their backyard in about an hour and a half, which is pretty good considering we thought it would take about 4. I have to say that sod is amazing. At 7 AM there was no grass on the ground, but by 9:30 my grandparents had a beautiful green lawn that looked like it had taken months to grow. It's nice to see the product of your work so quickly.

Friday night, Rich and I went out to eat with some friends of mine from high school that I haven't seen forever. Brianne Eyre and her husband Tim were up in Ogden from St. George, and we met up with Trevor Barker and his wife Blaire for dinner. It was great to see those guys again.

Friday night, Tyson and Krystle came over for the Fredrickson family fireworks show, where we all got eaten alive by mosquitoes. You should see the bites I have on my legs, my toe, my finger, pretty much anywhere they could get me.

Tyson and I have this tradition of doing a tank war with those little firework tanks. We buy a bunch of them, put armor on them (aluminum foil), put extra guns on some (taken from other tanks), and line 'em up to fight each other. We only fought with four tanks this year, and we tied. There seemed to be equal damage to our tanks.

Preparing the tanks (with cute pregnant Krystle!)

These were my tanks. I named them after Mariners' players for Rich (he thought Tyson and I were nuts).

Getting ready for war

The aftermath

We ended with a wonderful display of fireworks from Costco. Nothing too huge because they were all legal. Tyson and Rich were the official fireworks starters because they love fire. I thought it was funny when my dad realized he was missing out on the fun and went to join them at the end. We also had sparklers, on my request, because I feel it is not really the 4th of July without them.

Saturday, the 4th, started with a breakfast with my parents' ward. I felt a little goofy there because Rich and I don't really know anyone. This isn't the ward I grew up in, so I couldn't talk with old leaders or anything like that. But there was good food and fun times. I got to ride in their childrens' parade on the back of my dad's motorcycle. This consisted of a bunch of primary kids riding their bikes around. Think that's awesome? We just rode around the church parking lot. Now that's awesome. I got to throw candy to all of the adults because the children were in the parade.

Later on Saturday, Rich learned to drive a motorcycle. I was a little scared at first, especially when they were just going for a ride around the block that took like 20 minutes. My mom suggested that we call to see if they were okay. Finally, they got back, and we eventually took a drive out to Little Mountain, pretty uneventful because you have to stop at a random point in the road where it becomes US Air Force property.

Saturday night, we didn't really get to see a big fireworks show. We were just going to see what we could see from my parents' backyard, but everywhere there was a good show there was a bunch of trees or a building or a hill in the way. Oh well. There's still the 24th of July to look forward to.

Okay, that was a long post. Sorry. I'll try to keep them shorter. But anyway, hope you had a happy 4th of July weekend!

Is This Weird?

Rich and I have our own separate bathroom items. Things like toothpaste, floss, and contact solution. When I run out of toothpaste, for example, I can borrow Rich's for a little bit, but I still feel like I need to buy my own. I guess it kind of makes sense for when Rich goes on trips. He has his own stuff that he can take with him, and I have some at home with me.

But when we're both home, we make no effort to combine our items. I have my own drawer, and Rich has his own drawer. Some of our items go into our medicine cabinet, but even in there we have our own shelves. Our items just don't mix.

Maybe we do it because we're used to this from having roommates. I don't know.

Are we odd?

Last Track Update

Well, the last one for a while, anway.

As you probably know, Rich raced at USA Nationals last week. It was a really good opportunity for him to be racing with all sorts of professionals. He placed 16th overall in the semifinals, only 2 spots away from qualifying for finals!

Two of Rich's former teammates were in the final round, Josh McAdams and Kyle Perry, both running for New Balance. Josh placed 1st, making him a two-time National Champion in the steeplechase. Kyle placed 4th, which is pretty amazing for someone who just finished winning the NCAA National Championship. Josh will be competing for the USA in Berlin at the World Competition in August, so that's going to be pretty awesome.

And now, Rich's track season is officially over. It has been a long one, going from January until last week. I will be very glad to have my husband home with me for more than two weekends in a row! Next up is cross country season, starting in the fall.

This is Rich jumping a hurdle at USA Nationals.

Here is Rich with Kyle, Josh, and coach Ed Eyestone.

USA Nationals

Here's a little more info about Rich's running to add to the blog, maybe to Rich's dismay.

I just wanted to let people know he is running at USA Nationals tonight. The race will be broadcast online. Here's a link to the race. The first heat of the steeplechase is at 7:25; Rich is in the second heat.

http://www.usatf.org/events/2009/USAOutdoorTFChampionships/streaming.asp

Rich's Update

Ok, so I guess I'm supposed to give an update of what I am up to. Though I think that everyone is a little Riched-out because it seems this whole blog has been about my running so far...which is pretty much all I've been up to! This long track season that started in January is just about over. I will be relieved at the end of the week when my season is officially done, but also excited for cross country that is just round the corner. Running keeps my busy 360 days a year!

I'm also taking independent study courses for BYU which has turned out to be a real bummer. If there is anything I hate more than homework, it is homework in the summertime! But fun is on the way because I get to work the BYU track and cross country camps in July and then Shara and I are going to Washington for a little bit in August.

Sidenote: I went into the MTC 5 years ago today...time really flies.

Rich's Article

Last week, Rich got a call from this man who wanted to write an article about him for The Latter-day Sentinel, an online magazine for the Spokane Temple district. He talked to Rich for about an hour and half in all, plus all of Rich's coaches since high school and his parents. Here's a link to the article. Some of the information is a little off, but it's a pretty good article.

http://spokane.latterdaysentinel.com/archiveEmail.asp?theEmail=6

Shara's Update

Rich has been teasing me that this blog has pretty much become devoted to his running. True... but that's what's interesting in our life right now. However, I guess it's time we updated a little on other parts of our lives. Here's what's going on in my life right now. (I'll see if I can get Rich to do his update; I don't want to mess anything up.)

For those of you who don't know, I am studying history teaching, with a minor in psychology teaching. Someday, when I'm finally out of school, I want to teach high school, preferably European history or psychology. Right now, I am taking a break from classes, which has been really nice. I had a busy winter semester and a crazy class schedule for the first block, so I wanted some time to just relax.

Instead of classes, I am working full-time (well, sort of) for BYU Housing. I say sort of because I am yet to work 40 hours in one week. I'm what's called a student coordinator. During fall and winter semesters, I work with the Residence Halls Association, or RHA. Basically what I do it advise the student RHA council in Heritage Halls as they plan activites like dances and talent shows for their fellow residents. It's a different kind of job: I buy 20 cans of insulation foam to use to make a tree for a homecoming float, I supervise Mr. Heritage pageants, I rent dunk tanks and popcorn machines from Partyland, I use acronyms like NRHH (National Residence Hall Honorary) and IACURH (Intermountain Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls) daily, and so on.... I really enjoy it.

During the summer, though I techinically hold the same position, I do much different work because there is no RHA council. Instead, my fellow coordinators and I basically do whatever the housing managers need us to do. Currently, we are working on doing apartment inventories in Wyview Park, which is pretty tedious work that we've been doing since the beginning of May, but it can be fun because I work with great people. I get to choose my own hours, which made it easy to take time off to go to Arkansas with Rich. However, sometimes it can be difficult to stay at work because my hours are not set in stone.

Since I am not taking classes, I am excited that I can read what I want with no due date. I enjoy always having a book to read, which is kind of a Fredrickson trait (Grandpa Max, my dad Craiggers, Carrie, etc.) Rich makes fun of me because I can pick up my current book and read only a paragraph at the time (while brushing my teeth, for instance). I am currentrly re-reading Harry Potter because I knew it would keep me busy for a while. I'm on the 5th book right now. My goal is to finish the 6th one before the movie comes out.

Rich and I are looking forward to the Nelson Family Reunion at the end of July and going to Spokane in early August. He wants to show me Spokane when in the summer, when there aren't 6-foot snow piles on either side of the road (like the Spokane I saw for our open house last winter). We are looking forward to spending some time with his parents, Cami, and Andrea while we're there. Another plus about going to Spokane - we are going to get a new car! Our '91 Blazer will finally be put out of its misery (a little overdue).

So, this is my life right now. Nothing too exciting. Oh, except for the fact that my husband is an All-American steeplechaser and is heading to USA Nationals this week! I guess I can have some excitement in my life right now, via Rich.

Duck Pond

Rich and I often go for Sunday walks, and one of our favorite places to go is the Duck Pond just south of campus. It's fun in the spring and early summer because there are so many new ducklings swimming with their moms, and there are so many little kids who are so fascinated with all of the ducks.

Today, we went for our walk, and we saw the funniest (and cutest) thing. First of all, when we got there, all of the ducks were all cuddled up taking naps on the shore of the pond. We've never seen so many of them out of the water at once. Then, we got a closer look at the pond and saw this:

In the middle of the pond on this log were these ducklings and turtles taking a nap together. Not only that, some of the ducks were sleeping right on top of the turtles!

These were our favorite ducks. So funny! And then, one of these two ducks fell off of the log and tried to scoot in with the three on the other side, and that started a fight because there was not room for four.

Oh, the duck pond. The water may look gross, but the ducks sure are entertaining.

All-American

Well, it was a long trip to Arkansas. We had a lot of fun, but we're glad to be back home.

Rich raced Friday night, and he placed 10th. He ran a time of 8:50.08. He put a lot into semifinals, and he didn't have much time to recover before the finals. He ran a really good race and put everything that he had into it. His 10th place finish means he received all-American honors, which has been one of his collegiate running goals. He is excited about the next track season because he will be one of the top returning steeplechasers.

Rich's teammate, Kyle, won the race with his new PR of 8:29 and became BYU's newest national champion. That was really exciting, although I have to admit I wasn't paying that much attention to Kyle during the race because I was focusing on Rich. It was a strong finish for BYU!

In two weeks, Rich will be running at USA Nationals in Eugene, Oregon. He's really excited for this because he's going to run as fast as he can in the prelims and try for a new PR. He and Kyle will both be there, so it will be fun for them! We're excited to see how things go!

This picture is from the prelims. Rich saved it on his computer as "nicehurdle." I thought that was funny.

Race Time Change

There has been another rain delay, so my race is going to be a little later tonight. It will be at 7:45 PM CT if you want to watch it!

Good News from Arkansas

It was a wet day here in Fayetteville, Arkansas, at the NCAA Track and Field Nationals, but it was well worth it. Rich had an amazing race in the semifinals of the steeplechase, after a rather long wait.

The steeplechase was originially supposed to start at 8:30 PM, but there was a long rain delay. First there was rain, then thunder, then lightning, and finally a tornado sighting (not near us, but near enough to move everyone inside). Eventually, after a three-hour wait, the meet resumed. Rich's race didn't take place until 11:30 PM.

There were two heats of the steeplechase. Rich ran in the second one. He needed to be in the top 5 of his heat to qualify for the finals, or have one of the top 4 times overall after the top 5 of each heat (sorry if that's confusing). Rich knew he could qualify for finals somehow, but he didn't know just how well he would do. 

He was around 5th and 6th place for most of the race. Then, he started to pick it up in the last few laps. He pulled into first, backed off a little, then pulled back again around the last lap and a half. He stayed up there and finished first in his heat, with a new PR of 8:41.85, about 3 seconds ahead of the guy behind him. This means that he is advancing onto finals on Friday, and he has also qualified for USA Nationals in a couple of weeks (which is where you try out for the world team). Way to go, Nelly!

Rich's mom and I were yelling so loud for him, and I probably looked a little ridiculous with how excited I was. But I don't care! I was so nervous, and he was running so fast! The home stretch was amazing. Rich turned to look at his mom and me and gave us a thumbs up! I started to cry when he crossed the finish line. He was so nervous for this race, and it all paid off!

Rich's teammate Kyle won the first heat of the steeplechase, so BYU definitely stood out in this race! It will be a good race at finals with Rich and Kyle running together.

If anyone wants to watch the finals, they take place at 6:40 PM CT. They will be broadcast on the CBS College Sports Channel and online, too. This website has a link to the video feed if you can't get the race on TV:

http://www.ncaa.com/loc/ncaa-c-otrack-loc.html

Hopefully there won't be a three-hour delay this time.

Nationals

Rich and I are really excited for Nationals this week! We leave tomorrow and will be traveling pretty much all day to get to Fayetteville, Arkansas, home of the University of Arkansas and the 2009 NCAA Track and Field Nationals.

The semifinals of the steeplechase will take place on Wednesday at 8:15 PM (central time). We're going to be cheering for Rich to have a second race, the finals, on Friday at 6:40 PM. The Friday race is going to be broadcast on CBS College Sports, but no one really has that channel. We've heard a rumor that the race is going to be on ESPN360.com as well, but that may not be true. Hopefully if you want to watch it, you'll be able to find some way!

Rich is going to have quite a bit of family support at this race, which is great. I am flying to Arkansas with Rich and the rest of the team. Grandma Nelson and Aunt Marj live about half an hour away in Rogers, Arkansas, so they're going to be there. Rich's mom is also flying out on Tuesday and staying with Grandma Nelson, so she'll be able to be there, too. If Rich makes it to finals, then his dad is going to come down for the race on Friday. Rich will have a pretty good cheering section, and we're excited to see some family! This is going to be a pretty fun week for the Provo Nelsons!

Pictures from Regionals

Running.

Home stretch.

Victory.

Celebration.

Tired.

1st Place.

We're Going to Nationals!

This is going to be a pretty short post, but I just wanted to share some really exciting news:

Rich won his race at regionals today, which means he is going to nationals in two weeks! (Oh yeah, I get to go, too!) He ran a time of 8:47.98, his personal best. I don't know much about the race, except that both of us were crazy nervous for it. This is so exciting for us! We will hopefully fill you in with some more details soon.

Rock Band

We gave in. We got a Playstation 2 and Rock Band. We found a good deal on them, so now we have a new guitar and drum set gracing our apartment. We just started our first family band, at least Rock Band band. I wonder how long until our neighbors tell us that our band is too loud.

Conference Championships

Last weekend (May 14-16), Rich raced in the Mountain West Conference Championships in beautiful (well, maybe to someone...) Laramie, Wyoming. The best part, for me at least, was that I got to see the race! This was my first time seeing Rich race his race, the steeplechase. It was a long process for me to get there, but things really worked out well. I am so thankful to our family for all that they did in the long process to help me see it! To Pops Nelson for getting me to Denver. To the Kidds for letting me stay with them in Denver and then driving me up to Laramie for the race. To the Topeka Nelsons for taking me from Laramie to Salt Lake. And finally to my brother Skyler for the ride from Salt Lake to Provo. A long process, like I said, truly a family affair, and all well worth it!

Rich ran really well in the race, despite windy Wyoming conditions. He placed 2nd and got a pretty good time. Because of this, he was named to the 1st team, All-Conference. Another really cool part about the race was that BYU runners placed 1st (Kyle Perry), 2nd (Rich), and 3rd (Reagan Frey) in the race, sweeping the medals. The BYU men's team easily won the conference championship title.

Up next for Rich are Regional Chamionships in Eugene, Oregon, this weekend. Rich's parents and sisters Cami and Carolyn are going to be able to see that race, so he'll have more family support. Hopefully, Rich will make it to Nationals at this meet, which I get to go to if Rich makes it. I'll be cheering hard for him from Provo!

It's Become an Addiction

Rich and I borrowed our friend's copy of 24, Season 1. Bad idea. Of course we're addicted. We watched an entire disc yesterday (only possible because both of us are on our summer break and now have the time to do things like this). But now we're stuck. Disc 4 is missing from our friend's copy, and we can't watch anymore until we somehow get our hands those episodes (12 PM to 4 PM). If you can help us, please let us know. We have to finish now that we've started! 

Our Newest Addition

Finally, Rich and I have a TV stand. If you have been a visitor to our apartment between January and April, I am sure that you noticed our TV sitting on the floor, with the speakers next to it and messy wires and cords showing from behind. It's not how we wanted it, but we had no choice. In all of Utah we could not find a TV stand that we liked (or could afford). We seriously looked for four months, and all of our options were either too expensive or falling apart (we diligently, and perhaps desperately, searched the DI). We did not think one of our hardest decisions in the first year of our marriage would be choosing a TV stand.

Well, we got lucky. About a week ago, Rich was looking online to see what he could find. He came across a promising candidate and phoned the owner. Lo and behold, the owner was moving to Oregon that day and needed to get rid of his TV stand ASAP. He volunteered to drive Rich to his apartment to look at it because the car was with me. Rich felt a little guilty for having this guy that he's never met pick him up, so he sort of felt he had to say yes to the stand. We got lucky that it was a pretty good one. It even matches our bedroom set.

So, we got a TV stand. Which means even better news - our TV is not on the floor anymore! No more messy cords showing. No more moving the coffee table out of the way to see the bottom of the screen. This is the life. Our apartment looks a little more civilized. Four months of searching finally paid off.

(Yes, that is Seinfeld on our TV screen. A gift to us from the Easter Bunny.)

Shara's New Look!

Shara got a new haircut and she looks adorable!!! She didn't even tell me that she was going to do it today. She had talked about getting a haircut and we agreed that it would be fun to get a short cut, but then today I came home and she opened the door and...BAM! Shara was there with her new haircut looking better than ever! :)