The visitor(s)- An update

If you have been following the story of the visitor in our apartment, there has been no sign if him since Sunday morning.  Not a scratch or a squeak.  He has obviously been scared away by my throwing open the laundry room door, tennis racket in hand, screaming, "I know you're in there, where are you?!?"

In other apartment mishaps, our sink has sprung a leak.  Again.  I think this time we are supposed to get a whole new sink, so that's a plus.

For a laugh

If you haven't, go check out Mega shark vs Giant Octopus.  Actually, don't.  Just watch the trailer.  That's plenty.

At the 26 second mark you may have wondered, "Why are people on a plane screaming?  I thought this battle was underwater!"

You thought wrong.  They were trying to get you to watch the whole movie so you could see the best ever scene ever!

Mega Shark just needed to fuel up for the next stage of his battle.  That's all.  And if you are wondering how in the world that could be possible-  This guy has the answers for you!

Mega Shark is Megamazing

Visitors

A few weeks ago, Evan thought he heard some crinkling noises in the laundry room.  At first, he just looked for what could be rustling (possibly from air coming out of the vent or something).  A few days later he was convinced there was an animal crawling around and scratching.  I never heard these sounds, but I went along with it and looked for traces of animal visiting.  But nothing.  No presents left behind, nothing chewed, clawed, or scratched.  I was starting to think it was part of a plan Evan was cooking to keep me out of the laundry room.  But I couldn't for the life of me figure out why he would do that.  Unless he was hiding my Christmas presents in there, but he hadn't started shopping yet so I ruled that out pretty quick.

Yesterday I was baking up some cupcakes for our ward party and heard a strange noise.  I turned my music off and realized there was SQUEAKING coming from the laundry room.  I ran to get Evan and told him to go find it.  I don't know what I expected him to do with it when he found it (especially considering the roach he found was simply relocated outside our apartment and will no doubt be back later this winter), but I didn't want to be the one to find it alone and I wasn't about to ignore it.  Well, by the time Evan put shoes on and armed himself (with a wooden tennis racket.  "I'm not gonna use my nice one!") the creature had disappeared.  And still, no sign that a visitor had been there.  We can't find any 'evidence' to speak of.

This morning,  I was just eating my breakfast and listening to Christmas music (this seems to be the one thing that guarantees he comes out) and I heard it laughing at me.  Maniacally.  So, I opened the laundry room door, stood on the step ladder and started yelling at it.  This does not encourage the thing to come out where you can see it.  Nor does it stop it from reentering.  So, I barricaded the doorway, but left the door open, turned the lights out and finished my breakfast in the dark, waiting for a chance to get a picture.

My trap.  With the tennis racket just in case it tries to get me.

See, Evan is convinced that we cannot call the landlord without proof. And scratching and squeaking apparently doesn't count.  So, I was set to get a picture of it.  Because I don't care if it hasn't started chewing on my stuff yet, it's gonna happen and I would rather not wait until we are pushed out by the critter.  

About ten minutes later, Evan walked into the room and started talking.  I shushed him of course.  But he had stirred the visitorS.  There was definitely more than one this time.  I whipped my camera out and started recording.  Of course, the lights are out so you can't see anything.  But they weren't out anyhow.  You can definitely hear them though.  In case you are interested:

If you can tell us what is making that noise you can have a high five.  And you are welcome to come hunt it down.  

The reason we are calling them visitors - for now- is that they don't seem interested in finding our food, getting into our trash, or chewing on our boxes/laundry/wires.  They just come up, laugh at me, squeal, and run away.  I'm thinking maybe they haven't found a way to get all the way into the apartment.  They are in the walls, or vents, or something and are still working their way through.  But it's enough to make me want to wear boots and long pants when I do the laundry.

I think after hearing this Evan is willing to call the landlord in.  I certainly don't want them partying in here while we are on our two-week super vacation.  Who knows what they will find to indulge in?

I would like to end this blog by saying, we keep a tidy apartment.  Much more so than we did when we lived in Richmond, on the ground level, and never had so much as an ant inside.  I was certain if we kept our counters clean, took our trash out regularly, did the dishes, and so on- we wouldn't have any of these types of problems.  I was wrong.  When the weather gets cold and wet, the critters get resourceful.  

This apartment.  I'll say.

It's that time of year, when the world falls in love

I love Christmas time.  There are so many things about it to love, and I love every bit of it.  Every time I sing a Christmas carol, or wrap a present, curl a ribbon, see a snowflake, or wear a scarf and gloves for that matter, I just get all warm and fuzzy inside.  I can hardly stand it.  How can you look at a tree all lit up and decorated and not smile?

Happy Holidays everyone!

Decorations

I love putting up my Christmas decorations.  Yesterday afternoon we put up our tree and what other small decorations we have.  It felt good to put on Christmas music and just be merry.  Then I decorated our blog for the holiday as well.  And looking back on it during previews, I decided there aren't nearly enough pictures.  So this is my promise to be more active in picture taking.  It is important to me to have pictures of all our fun times, and I used to be really good about taking pictures (read: Had the camera attached to my hand and took a bajillion pictures of everything.)  My goal is to take more pictures, but not be so picture obsessed as I was years ago.  There is a balance in the middle, somewhere between pictures of everything and pictures of nothing.

An Anderson Thanksgiving

It just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a 15 hour car ride.  So at the last minute, we decided to make the drive to Richmond.  And I didn't take a single picture, so I hope you enjoy reading!  We packed up the car and left Tuesday afternoon, landing us in Richmond at 5am.  YEEHAW!  Overall, this was my favorite time frame to travel in.  We've tried a bunch of different ways in making these long trips:

1) Leave at 3am get in at 6pm - you lose an entire day driving and feeling gross.  You eat dinner, talk a little then fall into bed.  Plus, the driving is super hard because of the whole getting up at 2:30 part.
2) Leave at 9pm get in at 10am - You have already been up all day then try to drive all night.  We tried this our first time to Arkansas and could only do 2 hour driving shifts, barely staying awake.  Not recommended.
3) Leave at 9am get in at 10pm - you get a full nights sleep and aren't so groggy, but you lose a whole day driving which just feels wasted.
4) Leave at noon and get in at 5am.  You get the full nights rest, and have the whole morning to yourself to get things done.  I took the first shift (since I am nearly useless after bedtime) and drove for the first 7 hours. I was fine for the whole drive.  Evan had gotten up early and gone to class already so he was able to get a good nap in while I drove.  He took over after dinner and drove til 3am.  Apparently he got a second wind after midnight.  I slept the entire time.  So I drove the last two hours.  We got into richmond in the wee hours of the morning and took a nice nap.  But we were up and ready to go by 10.  I felt like this was the best use of time of all the options in long driving trips.

In case you were interested in that.

Wednesday I went to the Y and visited with my little ones.  Who aren't so little anymore.  One of my girls came running out the door to give me the biggest hug.  It felt good to know I was missed

Thursday was Thanksgiving of course, and it was delicious.  We ate dinner with Evan's extended family at his Uncle's house.  The college girls were missed, but it was a packed house all the same.  We also went to see the Muppets that night and it was well worth the trip to the theater.  I am definitely liking this tradition of going out to the movies together for the holiday.

Friday the men folk went out to the driving range/batting cages and the women folk stayed home and rested.  We went out to dinner at El Paso then broke off for a few hours to go visit our friends who had lots of exciting news to share.  We also introduced the family to Dominion that night.  And made an attempt at Bad Movie Night- an Anderson sibling tradition. But we were all pretty tired and only made it halfway through. Busy busy!

Saturday there was a lunch with the whole family at the park followed by kickball, then we broke off again and went to visit with some other friends for a round of frisbee golf, which we have severely missed.  I may not be that good at it, but I do enjoy playing, or at least having the option to play :)  Evan's mom took the ladies out to see the Help after dinner, then another round of Dominion.

And Sunday we left in the wee hours of the morning to drive back!  And a long drive it was too.

We spent a lot of time with the family, A lot of time playing wii (Mario Kart and Just Dance especially) and a lot of time having fun.

Overall I am glad we went.  There was a lot of back and forth before we finally decided to go, but I think it was a good decision and well worth the drive.

I've been waiting to be inspired about this post so it wouldn't be so boring.  Then I decided I didn't care because if nobody else read it I could come back in ten years and remember what we did for Thanksgiving 2011.

The End!

Angry is an understatement.

So, to get my teaching license I have to submit a full background check to the state police.  Well, I got a letter from them Thursday and thought, "Oh, this must be the results."  I opened it up and much to my surprise, it was someone else's background check, fingerprint card, and money orders.  Ummm... what? If I got this guys stuff in the mail, then where is my stuff?  Is my identity about to be stolen? This is a HUGE MISTAKE!!!

So Friday, I get a call from someone in MISSOURI and she tells me she has my information and when she called the ID Bureau, they didn't even have a record of me.  So we chat a little, I tell her thank you for mailing it back, and sorry that I didn't get her stuff and there are more people involved.

Cue Monday morning when I call them back.  First, I'm told to tell it to the fiscal department.  Then I'm redirected again to a specific person in charge of that.  And she's gone so I leave a voicemail.  Finally I get a call back and she asks if I have Elaine's (the girl who called me) paperwork.  Nope.  I have the paperwork for some dude. So they still haven't located poor Elaine's stuff.  And they were talking about a "group" so how many of us are there?  She asked if I'd be able to send it back, I said yes, and she hung up. REALLY??  No apology, no "we'll keep an eye on your identity for you" no nothing.

So I called back.  And I wanted to to know what they were going to do about it.  She said, "I don't think you have anything to worry about.  Nobody has your information."  "YES. They do.  Cause she called me and told me.  And I have some dude's stuff.  What are you gonna do about it?"  And she said, "I don't know what to tell you.  I guess the address labels got mixed up. I'm sorry, I'm only human, I make mistakes."  WHAT?  YOU MAKE MISTAKES?  HOW OFTEN DOES THIS HAPPEN? You don't accidentally send sensitive, private, personal information to the wrong person.  That should not even happen.  You sent my social security number to some random lady!  Why are you not double checking? How did you even get this job?  Did someone accidentally confuse you for a competent worker and send you the job offer by mistake?

I am so angry.  I expected more.  I expected my information to be safe.  I cannot believe this.

Totfest 2011

Was a success.  This is the third year we have celebrated Totfest.  To look back on Totfest 2010, just follow the link!  I very quickly went over how it all came to be, but I think I will give the extended version here.

So, the origins of Totfest:

Once upon a time there was a girl, and there was a boy.  This girl and this boy had dated, then stopped dating, and then slowly they were able to become friends.  Except then the boy thought maybe he would like to date again, and the girl said no.  Then the boy asked again, and the girl said no.  This continued for a while until the boy started to date a different girl.  The girl was also dating someone new.  The girl put space between them because her new date was not a fan of the girl and the boy spending too much time together.  And then the girl came to realize that she missed her friend and wanted to see him again.  She didn't know what to do about it except ask.  So she sent him a friendly message suggesting they spend time together in the near future.  The girl expected to hear back "Yeah ok, we will."  Nothing definite, but something to work with.  Instead the boy asked, "Doing what?"  The girl was surprised and didn't know what to respond with and for some reason the first thing that popped into her head was "Tots."  And the boy agreed.  The girl knew then that there was something special about this boy she may have overlooked in the past.  On a typical Thursday night, the girl went to the boy's apartment and they began to cook some tots.  Then the boy wondered, "What would these taste like fried?"  So they tried it.  And totfest was born.  To make the evening more exciting, the girl brought many sauces to dip the tots in, some delicious, some surprising, and some downright gross.  But they enjoyed each other's company and a tradition was born.  Shortly after the first Totfest, the boy and the girl dated again, and then they got married and vowed to celebrate Totfest together every year.

So, it may seem on the outside like something completely unhealthy, and overindulgent, and strange, but deep down, there is a story behind Totfest that is very important to us.  And really celebrates an important day in our life together.  Plus, we both really like tater tots.

Totfest 2010 introduced hot wings to the menu.  2011 brought us fried mushrooms and twinkies.  I only fried one twinkie because, well, it turned out gross.  You have to freeze them before hand, apparently so they can't soak up so much oil (being spongecake).  And I didn't freeze them long enough.  So we just ate regular twinkies for dessert.  This was also the first Totfest in which outsiders were invited.

Evan said this about the future of Totfest:  Totfest should be like MTV.  It started out as just music television, but now it has branched out to much much more.

So, Totfest will branch out to become more like friedfest, and will be amazing.  He also said that one day he wants to have so many people over he has to contact food vendors to buy tots by the boxful.  We'll see about that one!

Our original fryer (which Evan found in a foreclosed house when he was cleaning out foreclosed houses) died and we had to rush to get a new one.  Luckily they are not expensive.  Also, we have an outlet on the patio so we could fry OUTSIDE and not have to have our apartment smelling like hot oil for the next month.  HOORAY!

Isn't our new fryer perty?

And the poster for Totfest 2011, complete with Sigmund Freud mascot:

Until next year!

Sunday

While sitting in Sunday School, the teacher was talking about a scripture story and saying something along the lines of, "They didn't get it all at once.  They didn't just wake up one morning and stop being hungry. It came little by little."
Evan then leaned over and said, "I'm still hungry."
As he often skips breakfast, especially in the pre-church scramble to get out of the house on time, I asked skeptically if he had eaten anything this morning.  Thinking, if he didn't eat anything then can't be still hungry, just hungry.
He answered, "Yes!" meaning of course.  How could I ask such a silly question?  "Oh!" I said, surprised because I didn't remember him ever stopping in the kitchen.  I was ready to drop it when he smiled and said, "Two cookies."  Of course he ate the last two cookies on the pan from last night.

See, I managed to hurt myself yesterday in a friendly game of volleyball.  So I put myself in bed for a few hours when we got back, then moved to the couch for the rest of the night while Evan cooked dinner, and dessert and worked on his schoolwork.  And since I was laid up and not planning to do any housework, the dishes sat there.  With the last two cookies out all night, making the perfect breakfast for my husband to eat while he ran to throw his wrinkled clothes in the dryer.  We own an iron, but rarely does it get used.  Another story.

And that is a typical Sunday morning for the Andersons.

Are all Arkansans this personal?

Side note before I start, Arkansas is pronounced are-kin-saw.  I'm sure you know this.  The term for people from the state, Arkansans is pronounced are-can-zans.  You might have known this too.  If not, it was an educational experience. Now on to my original thought.


Dear random person from Arkansas I met three minutes ago,

Sure, we are still kinda newly weds, we've only been married for 18 months.
No, we don't have kids yet, we've only been married for 18 months.
If and when we do plan to have kids, I promise you will not be the first person we tell.  There are at least a dozen people ahead of you in that line.
My husband is in school, I work.  In fact, I have a degree. A Master's Degree.  Crazy world isn't it?  Women going to school and then working and supporting their husbands while they go to school.  Crazy.
Yes, I nanny.  Yes, it's a big family.  Actually, it's a lot of fun.  They are well behaved and fun to be around.  And, they pay well.
Yes, I like Arkansas.  It was hot, but it cooled off and now it looks lovely outside with all the trees changing color.  Also our bowling team won the tournament last night.  The UCA Graduate students finally dethroned the UCA psychology faculty as bowling champions.

Thank you for chatting with me, it was nice getting to know you.

Sincerely,
The Andersons

Updating

I have lost the blogging inspiration.  I'll try to be better.

Evan is still going to school and working as a graduate assistant.  I'm still a nanny.  We are slowly but surely adding life to our little apartment.  We add something new to the decor every few weeks. It's more fun this way.  At one point we were trying to decide on color schemes and themes for each room and trying to find things that all went together so that we could do it all at once and put it up. What I've found is that this is much better.  Everything has fallen together nicely without any strict rules about what is/isn't allowed in each room.  Maybe I'll post pictures someday.

We got callings at church (Woohoo!) Evan is Elder's Quorum Secretary, and I am Relief Society Secretary.  Apparently this was not planned, it just happened this way and was seen as a funny coincidence.  It does make it easy to collaborate though, if the need arrives.

As part of turning out apartment into a home, I got a tablecloth and napkins to use when we have guests over.  We have a bar/counter we eat at, no real room for a table.  So it's nice to be able to change it a little and make it look different than the rest of the kitchen counter.  And I learned how to fold the napkins into a cool silverware envelope (thank you google) so it looks fancy.  We've done that twice now.

Now that you are updated on the mundane in our little life, I will leave you with a trinket from my childhood.  I learned this song in elementary school, and occasionally will sing it and get strange looks.  Thanks to Dirty Jobs, there are many more people around the nation that have heard of a geoduck (pronounced gooey duck).  However, I will bet there are 2 states tops that would ever play this song.  And really, I think Washington is the only state you can find them so that number should be 1.

Proud to be a Washingtonian!

I've been waiting for something before updating our blog.  But really, lots happens all the time, I just don't sit down to write it.  And then I think, 'Well, once I put the pictures on the computer I'll do it.'  Then I don't. Then the stories pile up and I don't want to start because I'm, afraid I'll forget a good story.  So I'm starting now!

So here is a little of what we've been doing:

 Evan has been watching College Football, and the US Open while playing The Legend of Zelda.  I came home one Saturday to this.

 We bought Dominion!  We have definitely missed game nights, and our friends in Richmond.  Evan traded in a bunch of his super nintendo games and got a surprising amount of store credit.  So we were able to get Dominion as well as TWO new Wii games.  Exciting.

 I've been baking- a lot.  Here is a carrot cake I made. From scratch. 

 It was delicious too.  This is an after dinner shot.  (We had the missionaries over, so don't think we ate that all by ourselves.  Though I would have.)

 And some cupcakes I made.  Again from scratch.  With buttercream icing.  I didn't like the icing, too light or something.  I prefer the thicker sweeter frostings. But still good.  Those would be vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate.  And it was a good excuse to use the cupcake stand we got for our wedding.  

 The biggest news since our last update?  WE HAVE FURNITURE!  We were waiting and waiting for the funding and to find something we loved- because, we plan to keep it for at least the next five years.  Hopefully longer.  And guess what?  I even did before, during, and after pictures.




BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

I'll say, having furniture turns the whole place around.  All of the sudden we have a home, not a room.

A Saturday with the Andersons

As regular party people, we keep ourselves pretty busy- with all the partying and all.  Like, last weekend, Evan managed to shoot the ceiling fan with a Nerf gun and get three consecutive darts to stick.

I was impressed.  I was even more impressed that the camera was able to capture the magic.

 One Dart

 Two Darts

Three Darts.  Or it should be, one fell off before I got it on camera, but since two darts were on one blade and now they are on different blades I hope you can find my story believable.

You know, Evan is pretty skilled with a Nerf gun.  I never really thought of them as a weapon of accuracy, but dear Evan has made it into one.  I can't tell you the number of times I've come home to find all of our darts unloaded on a single target in a straight little line.  Especially once he mastered hitting the lamppost from across the room.  Six little darts evenly spaced in a column down the post.  Amazing.

Of course, we do occasionally do fun things.  Last night we went to the first football game of the season. GO BEARS! I didn't get any pictures of that unfortunately.  We also play volleyball on Friday nights with the spanish branch at church.

 Central Arkansas may not be the most progressive city in the nation (I mean, honestly, there is no law requiring any type of headwear for motorcycle riders, the ATMs still have black and green screens, and you can pump gas before you pay)  but it is homey!

New Things

I was reminded that I haven't updated since our AC was out.  Since then, the AC has been fixed, we've been staying every night in our apartment and we even got CURTAINS!  It is super exciting.  We still don't have any furniture, but that's ok.  It will come.

Evan started classes yesterday, and he said he liked it!  He is also working for the department as a graduate assistant, mostly making copies and shredding papers for now.  He will get to teach a few times (yay!) and he is looking forward to that.  Evan also wants to get into some research with another professor, so overall looking to be extra busy this semester.  I think he is just overjoyed to be back in school and not working part-time in a position where his day was dictated by the mood of the 14-year-old he was assigned to.

I have been just working with my family.  They get cuter every day.  Tonight is the birthday party of the second child.  She is now officially 8 years old.  And full of the diva attitude.  So I will be attending as designated ice skating adult.  Mom cannot skate, dad is out of town and girl #3 (who is just shy of three years old) is fearless and ready to run across the ice.  So I get to be catcher.  YEEHAW! I think it will be great fun.

We are settling into the area nicely, starting to make friends, and regular appearances at events.  It is wonderful to finally beginning to feel like we are home.

The New Place!

Ok ok, no pictures.  Whatevs.

We moved all our stuff in last weekend, and have finally been able to get settled.  We really like our apartment, aside from the fact that our A/C has been out for the entire weekend.  When it is continuously 100 degrees with a heat index of 110, it is not a comfortable place to be.  Plus, we don't have curtains in the living room yet so the sun just beams in from about noon til 4. 

We got home Saturday night and discovered it had not been working, and could barely sleep because it was so sticky.  So Sunday after church we called the landlord and he said he'd get someone over soon as he could, but probably not til Monday.  To escape the heat we packed some stuff up and went back to the Professor's apartment (we had been squatting there until we found our own place.  He's still out of the country so we just went on back over).  While there I experimented and made an eggplant parmesan.  Overall good, but I think I overcooked the eggplant, it was a little too mushy for me.

Monday we headed back to our place and worked on cleaning up.  We were hoping to have our first shot at hosting, so we were aiming to have everything put away, or at least out of sight.  They fixed out AC and we were running it on full blast to get the place cooled off before our friends came over.  Well, then, I walked into the second bedroom and a puddle of water came up under my feet.  Evan took a look and sure enough the AC thingy was leaking.  The whole closet was wet.  And back off it went!  After an hour the apartment was up to 90 degrees- and we left, once again, for the Professor's.  No hosting for now.  Thank goodness we have somewhere to go, because I don't know what we would do otherwise. 

I was trying to think what I did back when I didn't have AC. Well that was in Vancouver, and 1) it doesn't get nearly as warm and 2) we could open the windows at night because it cooled down.  Here, not so much.  Hopefully, we will get everything straightened out soon. 

PS- Happy August folks!!

Good News!

Good News #1!  I got a job.  YES.  It's not full time, it isn't with a school district, but it is enough to support us and I think I will enjoy it.  I will be a nanny for a family with five kids.  They are very active and involved in lots of extra-curricular and last fall brought twins into the family, so they are looking for 'extra hands' basically.  I feel blessed to help mom out with all of her daily mom duties and hopefully she will relax once we get started and see that I can do all the nitty gritty so she can do the fun mom stuff.  She still seems hesitant and I think she feels like she's handing her kids off on a stranger.  Dad described the position as "Alice from the Brady Bunch."  I think it will be a fun year.

Good News #2!  We found an apartment!  It's so close to the campus, we can see the football field.  It's small, only 16 units, and mostly occupied by professors and other upper classmen.  Pretty much, parking doesn't get any better than our parking lot.  Also, it's only two years old, and the landlord just LOWERED rent by 50 dollars.  2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, washer, dryer, open and spacious kitchen.  The landlord has been in the apartment business for almost 30 years, his family owns most the apartments around campus, but this one is his alone and seems to be his little pet project.  Everything is in great condition, and he shows a lot of care for keeping it looking nice.  Also, this isn't his sole income.  He has a job with the state forestry and his wife works for the university, so he's not looking at this like dollar bills.  We both feel he is very genuine in his intentions to keep happy tenants.  We put a deposit in it last night and can move in once he cleans the carpets.  Or, we can wait he said.  Good Guy.

To think, we weren't even planning to move down until next week originally.  Then we got the urge to move sooner and get ourselves down here.  We ended up sitting around a lot, and feeling a little uncertain, but then things just fell into place.  I know my humility was tested, and once again, I have seen that obedience opens the path to many blessings and opportunities.

Good News #3!  HARRY POTTER.  We are among the masses that have been awaiting this final installment.  We also have our first double date tomorrow (good news 3.5) to see the movie.  We wanted to go to the midnight, but passed that to go with some new friends.

Good News #4!  Evan's sister returns from her mission tonight!  He is excited to talk to her I'm sure.  I know he was very disappointed he'd be missing out on her home coming, but that's why we have phones and skype :)

The Andersons are starting to feel at home in Arkansas!

Celebrities

I don't knwo how, but somehow we got on the subject of celebrity look alikes.  So I ran to the computer to see who mine was.  And then Evan wanted to know his.  And then there was this cool morph video you could make.  And now you have, me morphing into Michelle Rodriguez and Evan morphing into Josh Duhamel.  It was fun.  Go check out MyHeritage.com to try it for yourself!



MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities


MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Ancestors - Familytree

Diary of a Pretzel

I love those big soft pretzel you get at the mall, so a while ago I looked up a recipe on my fav recipe website allrecipes.com and tried it out.  Super easy, super delicious!  Wehn we moved to Arkansas, we went to the grocery store, but ddin't get any snack/dessert type items, both because we don't really need them in the house, and because we are trying to keep a tight budget.  By Friday we were ready for a little treat, and we had to use whatever we had on hand, so we did sugar cookies.  Butter, flour, sugar.  They were good.  The next week I found a box of cake mix in our 'food box' so we made some cake.  This week, I got out my pretzel recipe.  I had been moving my yeast around whenever I looked through my spices, and it inspired me.

So, pretzels!

After mixing all the ingredients, (mostly flour, sugar and yeast) and kneading the dough,  it sits for a while to rise.  Then you get this!

 Okay, this is half the dough.  And it isn't as light and fluffy because it sat in the fridge all night.  But it still worked.

 Then I took a strip of dough and rolled it out long. This may look like it's sticking straight out, but if you look at the background it's just the picture on its side.  I haven't figured out how to rotate images on Evan's computer yet.  Mostly because I haven't tried.

Make a loop with a twist at the bottom...

Flip it up and press the ends! TADA- pretzeled.

A little bath in water and baking soda

Then put it on the pan and sprinkle with salt.

Bake it about 8 minutes and they come out golden brown like this!

These were delicious too.  Today I tried putting salt on the pan first to keep it from sticking, which it did, but it also absorbed all the salt from underneath in addition to what was on top, making them almost unbearable.  I think I'll go back to just pan and having to scrape them off.  They taste better even if they are more hassle.

Hopefully I get a job soon- then I won't be enticed to blog about every. Single. Thing. I. Do.  Until then expect to see more amazing entries about the excitement that is Arkansas.

Hiking, in Arkansas

We found ourselves a trail to hike along, thinking we had better get to know the area, and what better FREE way to do it, than to go on a little hike?  So we set out for Woolly Hollow State Park, where they have the Huckleberry Trail.

 The Huckleberry Trail.  Yup.  I took this picture by myself too, set the camera on something, set a timer, and then ran to my place.  This was  captured on the first try!

 One of the first things we found was a teeny tiny frog.  It looked like those little rocks, I'm not sure it if is actually in this picture.  Turns out, these teeny tine frogs were EVERYWHERE! 

 Evan on the trail

 Me on the trail!  Notice all the growing stuff?  This was the more clear part of the trail.  The whole things was branches smacking us and bugs flying into us.  Not pleasant for me, who does not like bugs so much.

 

He said this was poison ivy.  Then proceeded to worry about how much he had passed and possibly rubbed up against.  As of yet, neither of us has any signs of it, so I think we are in the clear.

 There's a bench down there.

 One of the few times we had a view of anything besides tree.

 This was my favorite part.  It was open and there was this little bridge running over the creek.  The bridge was super tilty, but we didn't fall in.

 These were everywhere.  Or this one followed us the whole time.

Overall, we rate this hike with two thumbs down.  Evan said it best when he said it was "untamed."  Bugs are gonna be there no matter what, I will take that.  But there was a lot of foliage growing over the trail, and not a lot to see.  We spent so much time watching our footing we didn't really look around that much, but it was all trees and shrubs anyhow.  Also, it is an incomplete loop as it drops you off on the road about a quarter mile from the trailhead.  Oh well, we'll try another one some other day.

As a bonus, we saw this crazy big bug in a hole in the ground.  We have yet to identify it... so if anyone is a bug expert let me know.  We didn't get a picture because someone may have squealed when she saw a grasshopper on her husband's shirt.

What exactly have we been doing in Arkansas?

Well, I finally took my camera out and have pictures!  So what have we been doing?  Aside from applying to jobs and having the freedom to do laundry WHENEVER I WANT we have been very productive.

For example, we have watched the first 2 seasons of  this great show --->

During which I not only revisited the art of the Starburst wrapper chain, but mastered folding said wrappers while sitting cross legged on a balance ball.  No pictures of me balancing, but here are the end results of the chains.









Yesterday was the Fourth of July and we ventured out of the house to find a celebration of Independence, Arkansas style.  There was a pancake breakfast and flag raising ceremony at church in the morning, which was fun, but short lived.  After dinner we drove out to Maumelle (a small town 20 minutes east of us) for a little festival.  There was a parade (which we missed) and awards for those.  Then there was some music, with covers of some great songs. Country music of course, this is the south after all!

Then there was the firewoks show, complete with locals hollerin off their balconies.  Anytime something was really loud we'd hear a "YEEEHAW!"  And as a testament to how flat Arkansas is, ever bang and crash echoed for ever. It sounded like there was gunfire in the next city over.  I don't know how well it is caught on the video, but you can take my word for it.

This morning I cut Evan's hair.  My first haircut.  Scratch that, second.  Once upon a time my dad wanted us to go get family pictures, but didn't really tell us ahead of time and Matt had REALLY long hair, so he asked me to trim his side burns.  I used a pair of kitchen scissors and got to work.  I cut one and then the other then took a look.  one side was higher than the other so I trimmed up the longer side, and ended up going too short.  This went on until he had virtually no side burns.  Poor kid.  Lucky for us, we ended up not getting pictures taken that night and he had time to grow them back.

I waned Evan of this when I started and he said it was hard to screw it up using clippers and a guard.  So I gave it my best try!  He had wayyy too much hair.  I told him it looked like little mice were falling off his head.  So, we'll us a picture from the fireworks show as our before, as I didn't have the thought to do a before picture.  I do have an after though!  I think I did a pretty ok job, don't you?

 It's dark, and hard to tell how long the shag is, it was pretty long though.

 The bathroom floor once we finished

 All swept into a pretty pile

Fills the dustpan nicely

New, clean, and cut!  Look at that enchanting smile!

Arkansas, so far

A little over a week has gone by, and I have not taken a single picture.  Literally, my camera is in my backpack where I put it Tuesday night before we left.  I feel like a slacker- but don't worry.  You aren't missing much. 

We've been spending a lot of time getting the clerical part of moving done- changing our address, registering for classes, looking for jobs, looking for an apartment, getting a bank account, etc.- so we haven't spent a lot of time having fun.  The other day Evan said, "Let's go find Toad Suck Park!"  Yes, that is the real name of the park.

There are signs for it everywhere, so we figured it must be a pretty nice park.  So we set out to find it and hopefully throw the frisbee a little.  Well, we found it.  It's comparable to ... well I don't know.  There's one side with a boat launch, and another side with maybe 15 campsites all crunched in.  It's not horrible, but not what we were expecting.  We found a soccer field near the campsites and threw the frisbee for a while and went back home, not completely satisfied and feeling dubious about ever having fun in Conway. 

There's always Little Rock! 

Also, I promise to start taking pictures.  I know you are dying to see Arkansas!!

Whistle while you work

It is very hot in Arkansas.  Upper 90s everyday, and HUMID.  Delicious.

Us Andersons have committed to not watching television / playing Wii until after 8pm to help us be more productive and proactive in getting things going here in Arkansas.  For the first couple days that was fine, we had a lot to do.  Now, not so much.  Even if we each spend an hour every morning filling out applications, then an hour to clean the house (which isn't big enough to take an hour) we are done by noon.  Because the sun rises at 5:30 right into our bedroom.  So we are up by 6.  Take a nap at noon, wake up at 1, then what?  We are definitely running out of things to do.  And we can't get a library card until we get mail here... soooo yup.  Luckily, Evan can check books out at school, but he can't get his student id until he registers for classes, and he can't register for classes until his adviser does something, and so we are waiting. 

And then I got yet another e-mail today telling me I had not received a teaching job.  I'm pretty sure that takes me up to 14.  They are all from the same district, so I suppose they are still working on interdepartmental transfers, but I'd rather not be notified that I didn't get every. single. position. I applied to.
Oh well, such is life.

There is a plan in store some where and I'm sure we'll begin to see it soon!

We made it

We packed up our entire house, put into a truck, and drove to Arkansas.  We don't know anyone, we don't have jobs, we don't even have an address yet-  but we are continuing on in faith.  This may be one of the biggest trials in our married life.  Not may be- it is.  Never before have we been asked to drop everything and go to a new place.  I trust my husband, I believe in the priesthood, and I have faith in Heavenly Father's plan for us.  I know that things will be worked out in time, and until then we are to work on bettering ourselves.  We have been so occupied with work and school the last few months there is a lot we have let slide.  We are taking this opportunity to set personal and spiritual goals and really live up to them.  I know this will help us long term, and I look forward to seeing how our life unfolds. 

Check back to see what exciting adventures we have next!

Pressing Forward

After some serious consideration, and lots of talking, and crying (on my part, oh to be a woman) we decided to change our move date.  By a month.  So we'll be heading south in a few weeks.  Abandoning everything we have here in hopes of setting up some roots down in Arkansas.  Evan says it isn't abandoning, it's moving on, letting go, starting something new, but it felt strange for me.  I had commitments, and plans, and a timeline I could deal with.  A slow, easy pack up, a few more months to see my friends and say goodbyes.  And now I am down to what, 9 days?  Now that we've both quit our jobs the announcement can be official.  Of course, we told our FHE group on Monday, barely a full day after the decision was made.  As the days go by, I feel better and better about the decision.  I'm grateful to the priesthood holders in my life for helping guide our little family in finding the right path for us.  And you know what? Evan was right, we aren't abandoning our lives in Richmond, we are changing them, moving them to Conway and making the best decision for our future.  The sooner we build our foundation, the sooner we can add on accessories.

Notice the new blog title?  'AR we there yet' seemed like the easiest way to play off of Arkansas, and it also reflects that this is just another temporary phase of our lives.  The newlywed phase, isn't forever.  Graduate school, isn't forever.  Moving around from apartment to apartment to house to house and state to state, isn't forever.  One day we will find permanence- until then, we are enjoying the journey!

The Andersons go outdoors!

Memorial Weekend means a three day weekend which of course means camping!  I hadn't been camping in years, but I sure did love every minute of it.  We went with three other couples and I had a blast with everyone, I hope everybody else did too!  Saturday was spent mostly in town (see my post "Year One" for details) and then Saturday night we watched a bluegrass band perform at the visitor's center for the campsite.  It was ... excellent.  Evan especially enjoyed it- I think his exact words were, "I would trade in my PhD to play banjo for a bluegrass band."

Sunday we hiked, and it was a toughie!  It was well worth it though, we got some beautiful pictures, which only capture a part of what it really looked like.  It was amazing.

 So foggy!  Candice needed a little rest after getting to the top, it felt good up there though, fresh air, calm breeze, ahhh.

The men posing atop some more rocks

The lake across from our campsite, and then of course we had to pose all muscly... yeah!

Then we went to the 'swimmin hole' as Evan called it and swam in the river, played bocci ball, read, and just relaxed.  I great activity to cool down after a long hike!

There were cows in the river, just cooling off.

Then we washed off in the river.  Of course, I had the camera so the men got their pictures taken.  All in one kids shampoo, conditioner, body wash makes for a great river bath! And it was COLD! But felt so good after being extra sweaty.

Camping was so much fun!  I can't wait to do it again!