Jacob and Elise

Second, we found a praying mantis on our window one day after work! We think it was not very happy with the cold weather because, after we rushed to take a picture or two before it left, it didn't move for several hours. So Jacob took it out to the neighbor's garden so it had a better possibility of finding some food.





Third, we went on a hike while it was still summer and we found a huge beaver dam! and water skeeters. and some butterflies. and far too many pesky bees buzzing around the mud for my liking. However, the dam was cool enough by itself for a return trip next summer.




Fourth, We finished our curtains... a while ago. We like them.




Fifth, I made a french silk pie for Jacob's mission reunion, and it was delicious. So delicious in fact, that it was gone in the first 5 minutes they served it. Luckily, the people there like Jacob and so they saved us a slice :)




Sixth, my sister is an amoeba.




Seventh, I have a really cute husband.




Oh, and p.s. GO BYU!

Posted in: on Saturday, November 22, 2008 at at 12:45 PM 3 comments  

Jacob and I had an incredible experience this last week. Jacob is very good about getting the mail when he gets home from work every day (I would forget for weeks on end... so I'm very happy to have him around). Last Sunday, we didn't have work and so Jacob remembered to check the mail as we were leaving to go on a walk. There wasn't any mail in our mailbox, but there was a single key on a keyring. A bit puzzled, we examined it. The key chain read:




"Property of the U.S. Postal Service
Locker Number 1
If found Drop in Any Mail Box"
Then had our address written on the bottom








On the Opposite Side it read:






DIRECTIONS
Your mail is larger than will fit in this box. Insert key in same numbered locker and turn to left. Open door and remove all articles.
KEY WILL BE RETAINED IN THE LOCK






Naturally, Jacob and I were excited because this meant that the last of the things we'd ordered online in the last month had arrived! Of course it was too big to fit in our tiny mailbox, so the mailman must have put it in locker number 1 at the post office! All we had to do was run to the post office, and pick it up, right? wrong.

First of all, it was Sunday, so that meant that no one was at the post office to talk to. We realized this before we left, but figured the front of the post office where all the lockers are would still be open, and how hard could it be to find box #1 and open it up? So off we went to the nearest location, key in hand. When we arrived, to our dismay, there was already a key in box #1. That key's tag said something like ours said, then said to collect the mail in box 2P... so we looked for 2P for a while to no avail. We decided that maybe this wasn't our post office after all, even though it was only 4 blocks away. We checked in their phone book of post offices which proved to be little help since it listed nonsensical numbers for the post office locations and our zip code wasn't even listed... A little discouraged, we decided to run home and look it up online.

Turns out we were right, and it wasn't our post office after all! The only other post office I could think of was the one in East Bay, but the address we had seemed to be somewhere between us and East Bay... I was very interested to find this new mystery post office. We had a new address, and set out once again, key in hand. The new address seemed fairly easy to find... but after we hit a certain point in our journey south, it became apparent that the post office was on the other side of the railroad tracks. Luckily Provo is set up in a way that you can't actually cross the railroad tracks except in maybe 3 locations, the nearest one being University Ave. However, seeing as how we were "so close" to the address and we'd have to backtrack a long way to get there, we decided to press on eastward and surely there'd be another place to cross. Of course, being Provo, there wasn't. We wound our way through lots of tiny back streets that neither of us had been on, and eventually hit State Street and finally ended up in East Bay, kind of glad that we took the scenic route. Thinking it would be a good idea to check the address of the East Bay location, we started looking at street signs. It became quite clear that East Bay wasnt' as far south as I had originally thought. We pulled in the parking lot, and lo and behold, we were in the right place! wahoo!

We quickly went inside to retrieve our mail. Only, too bad for us, cause that post office only had letters on their lockers and there wasn't a locker #1 in that whole entire place! We tried locker A, L, I, heck, we even tried locker 2P. that post office was a dud I tell you. After several confused and exhasperated conversations, Jacob turned to look at me very slowly with a certain look in his eye. I recognized it instantly as the "oh my word, we are such idiots" look. In that very instant, I knew exactly why we were such idiots. And we both began to laugh hysterically.



Yes, 12 inches away from our very own mailbox, were two large lockers: 1 and 2. It explained why OUR address was written on the key instead of the post office's, it explained why we'd get such a simple number like '1' for our locker, and it explained why our key chain looked just a little different from all the others at the post offices (which were the biggest questions we couldn't find satisfactory answers for). So, after we took our key on the biggest adventure of it's life, we returned it safely home to locker number one, and took our package inside.

Posted in: on Sunday, October 5, 2008 at at 4:17 PM 2 comments  

Today, Jacob skipped out on the BYU football game against UCLA (in which we crushed them, 59-0) to go to Lagoon with Sage, Skyler, and me. We had a lot of fun! We went on lots of rides, played lots of games, and spent lots of money on food and parking :) Jacob was such a good sport when I was steering like a maniac on the flying aces and kindly informed me that we were going to die. Luckily for us, I calmed down, the ride ended, and we're still here. It was a lot of fun to spend some time with Sage and Skyler, whom we haven't seen since their wedding in July! We all went on the newest ride, Wicked, which was fun. We were all screaming our heads off... but not Jacob. He didn't make a sound. Intense concentration, perhaps? We also waited in the longest line ever and went on Rattlesnake Rapids. It was hot enough that getting soaked was pretty nice, and Jacob found his voice again! He and Skyler used their wonderful voices to make sure Sage and I remembered how funny they are. Turns out, saying anything loud enough is quite hilarious. Our friend James was kind enough to keep us updated via text message of the BYU score, which was most helpful. Before we left, Jacob decided to "win me stuff" and he turned out to have quite a knack for it! First, at the fast-pitch booth, he pitched a 65 mph ball, and then a 71 mph ball, reaching the total of 2 'big prizes' able to be won per person, per day (the baseball hats). Next, he knocked a bunch of metal milk jugs off a big stool and got me a little white monkey. He came back and did it again to trade in the monkey for a big black monkey. Finally, he beat a bunch of other guys at a water shooting game and won another monkey (the purple one. he thinks it's ugly, but I like it :) He also was awesome at darts, but their prizes were not as awesome and he gave them to a little kid. About this time, we were pretty tired, so we decided to head out. We left just in time to catch the after game show on the radio! so Jacob listened to that on the way home while I slept :) What a great husband I've got! and what a great day!

Posted in: on Saturday, September 13, 2008 at at 6:29 PM 1 comments  

This past week, and especially few days, Elise and I have had some awkward luck fall our way. The following are real stories, and are not meant to frighten anyone of the real world, but just in case a small child is present, please read these first and summarize the stories in a nicer way.

It all start last week at the mall. We decided to return a particular Victoria's Secret outfit that Elise received at her bridal shower, and it was easiest if I just went to the mall straight after work one day to do the deed. So there I was, walking through the mall, not knowing where Victoria's Secret was, with a lovely pink bag in my hand. When I got there and returned the outfit, I thought it would be nice to get some nice smelling soap for the Mrs., so I did, and so of course I walked out of Victoria's Secret with yet another pink bag in my hand. I almost escaped the mall, but right when I almost got to the exit, someone I recognized in a shirt and tie walked by, it was President Monson!! Well, not quite, but it was my MTC teacher, who might as well have been in my books. We talked for a few, and to my surprise, he remembered me quite well. However, at some point his curiosity took over and he asked, looking at my bag, if I was engaged. As quickly as I could I lifted my hand and showed him my wedding ring. NEVER in my life was I more glad to tell someone that I was indeed married (and also that I remembered my ring). Not only that, but I was able to tell him truthfully that I snagged the best one out there.

Well...if that wasn't awkward enough, Saturday night decided to bring the awkward to us...literally. There we were, minding our own business and getting ready for bed at 11 o'clock, and we both thought we heard some sort of water running in the bathroom. We didn't mind it for a minute, but I eventually went and decided to check out what it was, and as I turned on the light in the bathroom, we were delighted to see that lemonade was pouring from our bathroom light. Before we could thank our neighbors upstairs for this wonderful delight, Elise got a glass and soon discovered that it wasn't lemonade at all! We soon had what seemed to be a couple toilet bowls full of nappy water all on and over everything in our bathroom, bleh! To say the least, we had some acrobatic 'going to the bathroom' experiences that shortly followed. Elise was kind enough to laugh hysterically and still capture one of these amazing moments on my camera (see picture at right). After much debating we went upstairs to make sure that our neighborino's knew what had happened. Luckily she did, and was very nice about it. In fact, the same thing had happened to her about a year ago. Her toilet bowl and tank overflowed, and she had to scoop tons and tons of it into the bathtub. Elise wanted to yell at her and tell her to come clean up our bathroom, and she was going to, but I, being selfish, didn't want to babysit her brand new baby. So long story short, we cleaned up the bathroom the next morning (we know it was the sabbath, but c'mon, wouldn't you do the same). The landlord also came on Sunday and fixed the problem. Next time, maybe we'll ask him to fix the huge hole that the water came through...but that's for another blog.

The next morning....after we cleaned up our nappy lemonade water...Betsy called us up and invited us over to church to hear Erynn speak that afternoon. What a delight! We were excited to not have to go to church till 1...er...hear Erynn speak, and we decided to stop by the William's a good 30 minutes early to give them some jam and say hello. However, we were Doomed. Not only did Elise take about 6 and a half hours doing her hair that morning, but we had some minor obstacles as well. So we went outside to elise's car, and she realized that she had put the jam in my car the night before (we originally were going to bring it the night before). But of course it was a hot Sunday morning, so by the time I got to the jam, the seal had broken and half of it lay there in my car on the floor. Luckily, the jam had hardened for some reason, so I just picked up the hard stuff on the floor and layed it outside. When we went inside to get new jam and to put the rest of the jam that was still good from the car mishap in the fridge, Elise noticed that I had tried to burn the house down with a candle. We had put a candle on a candle warmer, and much to our surprise, it had cracked and melted all over our counters etc... Good thing wax is easy to clean up...NOT. After about 15 minutes or so getting all that cleaned up, an earthquake of all things shook our house violently...ok ok that's a little extreme, but it felt like it. So we finally made it to church and heard Erynn's wonderful talk, YAY!

Or...not yay quite yet... On our way home from church, we talked about our 3 misfortunes of the last 24 hours, and figured because Betsy always told Elise that bad things always come in 3's, that we were done for at least a couple days. But no, when we were leaving to go to the Bell's for dinner and to finish up some laundry, we so cleverly decided we could probably start the cars with no keys. Then we realized not only could we not start the cars, but we couldn't get back into our lovely home with no keys either. So there we were, stranded far far away on what seemed to be a very distant planet, with no hope for the future. We decided to use our lemonade friend's phone upstairs to call the landlord and of course with our luck he didn't answer either of his phones that he has listed. So we did the next best thing and called my mom to come pick us up.....and she left. Our fine neighbor then offered a Safeway card to try and break in with. Because I had already tried this obstacle on our other neighbor's door about a month ago, I didn't exactly have much hope. But much to my surprise, about 8 seconds later we were inside our apartment again calling my mom, with a slim hope that for some reason she hadn't left quite yet. Rats, she already had. So there we were, with keys in hand, ready to go, but couldn't. So she pulls up a few minutes later and sees us sitting on Elise's car with her keys around my neck. I told her we'd just follow her home and sorry for making her come all this way. But, alas, it was worth it, as we had a lovely roast and veggies for dinner, and we were able to clean our lemonade towels and bath mats :). We thought we were really home free then, but when we got home the most dreadful thing of all was awaiting us, WE LEFT THE COOLER ON! At least 35 cents on our gas bill, oy. I turned the cooler off and had a wonderful evening with my wonderful wife. The End.

Posted in: on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at at 6:28 PM 2 comments  

So, it turns out it's a lot harder to find time to update this than we thought, but we figure 'better late than never,' eh? And I have some pictures, so I think we'll let them do most of the talking :) Last weekend we went to Castle Dale for the Williams Family Reunion. We had a lot of fun going out on the desert and showing Jacob around a little. We also had fun spending some time with our family :) We didn't get to see everything we wanted to, but we decided we'd try again a little later in the season when it isn't so blastedly hot outside.


Some of the gang at the reunion

Some more of the gang

Uncle Richard reading his quiz to see how much of a "Williams" you are.

Jake and Lacey. Just being in love :)

Trying to wake up in the morning

Jacob found a new pillow

Becca and Kimberlyn thought Jacob was a lot of fun!

Becca's turn!

Trying to turn my car around...

Jacob throwing rocks at my family... namely Ethan.

Dad.

Being silly at pancake rocks

Lacey and I found this little cave at pancake rocks a long time ago. I was glad to see I still fit inside! and Jacob too.

Jacob decided to scare me to death and climb down the wedge...

He finally made it! I wish I was brave and acrobatic enough to have gone down there too :)

Back Safe! :)

Some of the scenery at the Wedge. It's beautiful.

Erynn and I enjoying the view and waiting for Jacob to climb back up.

Posted in: on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at at 5:44 PM 2 comments  

My wrist has been bothering me for several months, and I've kept thinking that if I take it easy and don't use it much, it'll get better... and it will until I make the mistake of, say, moving the coffee table, or wrestling with Jacob. Then I'm back to square one. Well, last night at kung fu, I did something wrong and it started hurting worse than usual. My sifu took a look at it and said it was inflamed and needed to be rubbed out. He asked me before he started "This is going to hurt. Do you want something to squeeze or bite on to?" I said no. Lets just say that I'm pretty sure my fingernails are still embedded in the arm of the couch I was sitting on and my arm now looks like a ripe plum. Needless to say, despite feeling better in some ways, my arm is pretty useless today.
When I got to work this morning, I was walking to clock in, and this crazy bird came out of the blue and swooped at my head, chirping like it was trying to attack me. It tried to peck my head off 3 times on the way to clock in and twice on the way back to the office. I found out later (though I figured this was the case as soon as it started) that it has a nest in one of the trees in our retail center which is, consequently, right along a major pathway.
After my bird attacks, I was asked if I could stay till 6:30 and fill in for Robyn in the retail center (who is sick all week apparently). That will be a little over a 10 hour work day for me. The best part is that I think they want me to do it all week. That means I get to be out in 90 degree weather watering plants with a gimpy arm and being attacked by a killer bird all afternoon. AND I don't get to see Jacob (or eat) till 7 :(

wish me luck!

Posted in: on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at at 1:18 PM 1 comments  

Well, this has been a crazy, but fantastic weekend; and as such, we decided it would be a great time to start our blog.

It started out with Jacob's interviews. Friday morning he had an interview with Parentlink for a support technician position that's opening up in 3 weeks. He would be getting a $2 raise, and their building is located 3 blocks from our apartment, so we'd be saving a ton on gas (he's going to American Fork every day right now). The interview went well, and this sounded like a dream come true. However, later that day, Jacob was offered a sales position at the company he is currently with, RFP Depot. He'd get a raise and make commission on what he sells. As he figured it, this would be far worth the drive every day. So he decided to stay with the company that has treated him well for the past 5 months.
On a different note, we're pretty much all moved in now. On Saturday morning, our house looked like a house...except the living room, which was much too bare. So on our way over to Jacob's house to get our laundry done, we saw a yard sale with a leather couch set that looked pretty promising. After 2 times just driving by, we decided to stop. We eventually bought the couch set for 50 dollars. With thanks to Steve and Richard Williams, the couches got into our new place, dirty as they were. So off we were, determined to find some couch covers that would turn our average apartment into our dream home. Our first shot at it was Bed Bath and Beyond. We picked some out and headed back home. After we gave our two new couches a much needed washing, we tried our new covers. Suddenly, our living room had 2 very saggy, baggy creatures in it that slightly resembled our new couches....long story short, we returned those right away. Next stop, our neighborhood Wal-Mart. After about 10 minutes of trying to find the things, we actually found some that we thought just might work. Ta-da! With the pillows we got from BBB and our wonderful green couch covers we got from Wally World, our living room transformed our apartment into our beautiful home. Now...if we can just get a taker for our blue love seat that is crammed in the corner...

Posted in: on Sunday, June 15, 2008 at at 9:05 AM 0 comments