Castles and Lobsters

Ok, so I know it's been longer than a week. Sorry, nothing really big has happened, it's just been tons of little things. From Mark going for his interviews, to getting the jobs offers and then making the decision. From grocery shopping, only to realize we really have no idea what to make in the way of meals for the week. The month of September is the "December" for the sales deptartment at work for the girl, so the sales guys are booking as many projects as they can this month, in other words, it has been absolute madness. I found out that Tom was so glad when I was hired because he had the job that I now have, coordination, as-builts, shop drawings, and helping the PM's out with random things like printing, and CAD questions. It's no big thing really, it's just that everything takes up so much time, and everything needs to be done by the "end of today", of course.

This past weekend was the 3 month mark for us. So we decided to get away from everything, get away from the apartment, shut the phones off, and head out. So Friday night we stayed at a hotel, Graystone Castle. It's just a Radisson, and it's just 15 minutes away, but it was enough "away" from everything to be perfect. (And it looks like a castle, so it was totally worth it!!) But it felt good to be "not home" - to not worry about the laundry, or the dishes, or the neighbors playing Rockband so loud I can play the guitar notes and get 87%, to not worry about little girls knocking on the front door doing fundraisers, to not worry about dogs barking at 5:30am, to not worry about anything!! It was so relaxing.

We bought goldfish for our snapping turtle, and we can't put them all in with him or they disappear within 5 minutes, and we also figured out, the goldfish aren't safe in the tank with the painted turtle, Ham&Cheese, well, neither are the little catfish for that matter. So we got a tank divider, and after figuring out the crayfish, Lefty, and Ham&Cheese could climb it, and they could climb it so much that BOTH got to the other side with the goldfish, I put it at an angle, hoping that would deter anymore scaling of the wall. We awoke this morning to a Lefty-less tank. (Lefty is about 6" long, and big enough that I call hima lobster.) I checked for intruders on the goldfish side of the tank, and didn't see him, but then I looked in the general part of the tank, and couldn't see him in there either. So we went on an apartment-wider lobster hunt. We checked the sink, the counter, the living room, and finally found Lefty under one of the armchairs. After the breakout, aluminum foil was installed to keep the critters IN the tank. So far so good.

At church, me and Mark are in the Primary, and of course, for the past few weeks, the kids have been practicing for the concert, lots of singing, LOTS of wiggles!! Well, being in Primary means we're out of touch with all the adults, and being new to the ward, means it hard for anyone to know your name, let alone, your phone number. Well, me and Mark both have Utah numbers still, and I keep writing mine down and handing it out, but it seems like everyweek, a new odd number for me pops up and no one can find my real number. It's pretty funny. But I think we'll get things figured out. Things are good and we enjoy the people in our ward!! :) Anyways, We'll eventually get things all sorted out and organized, right?

Love always - Bry and Mark <3

Attempting the impossible (baking and crafty-ness)

Ignore the table, look at the MUFFINS!!

So, I got a bug that gave me this urge to bake. So I've got recipes for Zucchini Bread, and I've got tons of new recipes for meal and stuff. That means that I've been getting pretty creative with meals, which isn't always as good as it should or sounds to be. So, the kitchen of my one bedroom apartment is full to the brim: with appliances up on top of our cupboards, and our cupboards are stuffed with food, no sense of organization, just jumbled and stuck where ever anything'll fit.

But there are still things I'm learning, like how much do I fill my muffin cups, how to start the grill, and how much of something to cook. Mark has this thing where he sometimes can't stand to see food still left in the pan at dinner time, I'm trying to tell him he CAN leave things for leftovers, so he can take them for lunch the next day...Some days he's better at remembering than others.

Well, and along with the baking bug - there's the crafty bug that I've somehow caught, as well. Vinyl lettering, scrapbooking, making my DVDs labels, I'm also planning on making my own jewelry (cheaper!!), preparing our CTR 6 class, and my visiting teaching lessons, and preparing family home evening stuff. Yeah it's been allot of fun thinking up new things to do. Now the only thing to do is: finish up my Thank You cards. (Pretty soon, I promise!)

Oh, and there is also finding places for all the "pets" Mark brings home. We've got little catfish, a snapping turtle and a painted turtle, a bunch of gamboosia (not sure how to spell it..), two crayfish, a bunch of North American Koi (goldfish), and now two betas. The betas are mine, I bought them to put in the vases I have from the wedding. (I put some "lucky" bamboo in each of the beta vases! It looks so cool!) We'll have to see if his next job introduces any more pets into our home...

So far it's been pretty exciting, and it really has been a blessing to be where we are, both in the journey of our lives, and spiritually. I know I for one look at things from a different point of view than I ever have, and it really is refreshing. I understand a whole lot more now, and even though we don't have children yet, I know where you're coming from mom! Thank you so much!! But We feel truly blessed to be where we are, in general.

Oh and we've also got a photobucket! (Adding photos to the blog is sometimes hard, so we'll post a few on the blog and the rest will be on photobuscket!) Here's the link: http://photobucket.com/Team_allcollard To check out our other albums, click one of the links on the left!!

All our love - always, Mark and Bry