Our First Entry

Dan and I started this blog mainly to inform our friends and family of what is going on in our lives. Everyone says that married couples tend to disappear during their first year of marriage -- we did not want this to be true of us, so we'd like to make sure we keep people updated.

Dan and I are about one month into the semester at BYU. We've both been pretty busy with school, but we haven't experienced anything too crazy just yet.

This semester Dan is taking
Biology 100
Music 204: History of Jazz
Geology 101
Math 113: Calculus 2
Psychology 303: Writing within Psychology

I am taking
Linguistics 330: Intro to (Modern) Linguistics
Biology 100
Psychology 301: Psychological Statistics
Psychology 101: Intro to Psych Major
Religion 392R: Special Studies in Religion -- Hymns
Philosophy 305: Predicate Logic

We are happy to be taking biology together -- it's a bit of a change from last semester, though, when we had three classes together. We haven't decided whether it's better or worse to be taking classes together -- there are definite pros and cons both options.

This past week has been somewhat eventful. I had a Stats test on Monday, and I am happy to say that I did very well! Dan had a test in geology and a listening test in history of jazz this past week, too -- he also did well :). Other than that, school-wise we've just been chugging along and preparing for bigger tests and assignments to come.

On Friday we went to a BYU Young Ambassador's concert with my sister Richelle and a couple of her friends. The concert was a lot of fun! It covered several decades of popular songs from the radio and from Broadway shows, including some Abba songs, selections from You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, selections from Wicked, "Sherry Baby," "Footloose," "I Got Rhythm," and many more. The music and dancing were both excellent! After the concert, we went out for gelato, which was very delcious :). Overall, it was a fun night.

Saturday was a pretty eventful day, as well. Dan went out and bought himself a new desk (so far I've been the only one with a desk), a well-needed bedframe, and feet for the bedframe (to lift it higher off the ground). We've been wanting a bedframe for quite some time so that we could have some storage space underneath the bed. Once Dan came home from shopping, the big "project of the day" began -- we decided to rearrange our bedroom with our new furniture additions. It took quite a bit of work (especially moving the fish tank!), but we were able to get everything in order. It looks really nice, and we've been enjoying it -- the room seems a lot bigger now, and we feel like we have a lot more room. We still have a bit of organizing to do, but the majority of our work is done! After we had finished working on the bedroom, we went to a friend's birthday party. We also went out for burgers afterward. By the end of the day, we were exhausted, but really pleased with all that we were able to get done.

This morning we went to church and made it in good time, which has been a bit more challenging since the change in meeting time (last year we met at 1:00pm, but since the beginning of the year we've started at 9:00am). Dan now has Home Teaching assignments, which we're both happy about -- we have yet to find out who our Home Teachers are...we're not sure if we have any yet, but hopefully this is a sign that we will be getting some soon. Dan and I have also been asked to speak next Sunday in Sacrament Meeting, which should be interesting -- I haven't had to give a talk in quite some time! I'm a little nervous, but I think it will be a good thing for both of us.

This evening we went to Richelle's apartment and played a rousing game of Scrabble and a pretty intense game of Jenga with one of her roommates and one of her friends. We enjoyed delicious brownies and cookies as we played. Dan and I were on a team in Scrabble and won with a whopping 233 points :). We've been happy to have had a pretty social weekend -- sometimes we feel like we rarely socialize or see any of our friends, so we are pretty pleased with our socializing opportunities this weekend.

That's about it for our combined week. As for my week personally, I just have to mention that I am happy that I read two books this week! The first was a little book called One Bright Shining Hope: Messages for Women from Gordon B. Hinckley. I really enjoyed it -- it was very uplifting and inspiring. The second was our Relief Society's "Book of the Month Club" book called Rules by Cynthia Lord. I'm really excited to discuss it in a few weeks. One of my goals for the year was to read more for enjoyment/fun -- before now, I haven't sat down and read a "non-required" book in a very long time. I'm really enjoying planning out what books I want to read, and so far I've had really good experiences with what I've read so far :). I just started The Peacegiver: How Christ Offers to Heal our Hearts and Homes by James L. Ferrell today. My mom and dad gave it to me at the very beginning of my freshman year at BYU, but I never got around to reading it (like many other books I've wanted to read). It's really good so far -- I'm excited to keep reading it!

Well, that's quite a bit about our week. We have a pretty eventful week ahead of us, so we'll be sure to keep you posted on that!

Hope everyone else has a wonderful week!

-Sarah