If you don't understand the title of this post, you might want to stop reading because things are about to get REAL nerdy.


Darth Vader: "I sense the force is strong in this one" (points at Everett)
Everett: "......." (nods head, wide eyed)

And as if the surprise visit wasn't enough, Taisley also made the most freaking amazing R2D2 cake. Awesome party, Taisley, we're hiring you to plan Josh's party in April! (sadly, I don't think he'd be even a tiny bit disappointed). Here's the website of the group, in case any of you decide to host your own Star Wars party. http://alpinegarrison.com/

Well, aside from handing them out at parties, we didn't exactly distribute our Christmas cards like we'd hoped. Here it is! Print it, put it on your fridge, or leave it be. And before you question, yes, we are "that" couple who puts a santa hat on our dog.

Christmas this year was incredibly busy. We spent the first few hours of Christmas Eve with Josh's extended family. We played games and exchanged gifts. Josh and I ended up with candy, a water bottle, and an electric toothbrush (which I was especially excited about!). After the party, we headed over to Warren and Taisley's for the Weston family pajama party.

We did our traditional white elephant exchange and Josh and I got the size 68 jeans. We fit the two of us, Bentley, and Everett inside of them and still had room to spare. They're outrageous!!! I have to say, though, that my mom got the best gift. I custom made a calendar featuring refridgerators in scandalous poses, and we rigged the exchange so my mom could end up with it. My favorite month is Miss February. Oh baby! After the white elephant exchange, and a boys vs. girls round of Twilight Scene-It, everyone pooped out and wanted to go to bed. Warren, Taisley, Josh and myself were troopers though and played a round of Settlers.

Christmas morning was really fun, we loved watching the boys with their toys! We couldn't stay long, though, because we then spent the rest of Christmas morning with Josh's family. We mostly just relaxed until evening, then the Jarman friends and family came over for dinner. It was an exhausting day!

We've had some pretty exciting changes in our lives over the past month. First, I lost my job at the piano studio and then it was offered back to me. Roger felt that he wasn't making enough money from lessons alone, so he wanted to put more effort into the publishing side of the business. Because of that, he needed a teacher who could put in extra hours to help with those projects. Of course I didn't have an extra minute to give so he needed to replace me. After a week, however, Roger realized that he didn't have enough space or computers for all the teachers to be working at once and he told me I didn't need to go if I didn't want to. Buuuut I'm exhausted, so I told him thanks but I need a break from working so much. I don't know what to do with myself now that I have an extra 12 hours/week! So far I've rediscovered quilting, cleaning, studying, and The Bachelor (ick!).

School has started again, and with that comes grant money (yay!!!). We were able to pay off all of our debt, so we are now working to save as much money as possible so we can go to Taiwan next summer. Josh is incredibly busy with his 18 credit hours. I'm happy to report, however, that he will be graduating with three bachelors degrees next May! I'm only taking three classes again, but this semester is turning out to be much more philosophical than I expected. I have to read all the time, and my classes only consist of group discussion on what we thought about the reading and how it made us feel. Pretty weird for business classes...

I know this post wasn't very exciting, but that's just how we roll! We're a boring old couple who sits at home, complains about the government, watches movies, and eats hamburger helper. Maybe my next post will be about quilting...

I haven't posted since, what, June? Ridiculous! It's about time I update the blog.

JULY: Busy month, but I went to Boston to finally meet some of my best internet friends- Shada and Esmat (from Dubai) and Nikki (from NYC). Everyone thought it would be dangerous for me to go alone, but I defied all warning and had a BLAST! Although, I did feel so sick the entire time I wished I were dead. We look like a bad joke don't we? Two Arabs, a black girl, and a Mormon walk into a bar...



After Boston, we went to Colorado for Pioneer Days and my birthday. I don't want to talk about it.

AUGUST: Josh and I took our annual family vacation to Oregon. Joe and Mary Jane met us there and little Emily is ADORABLE! She sure loves her Aunt Sara and Uncle Joshy!It pretty much solidified my goal to one day live on the Oregon coast. We went to the Tillamook cheese factory and bought enough cheese to last a lifetime. We also went to an air museum that was pretty amazing. We played at the beach, hiked to see waterfalls, shopped our tails off, toured a lighthouse, and I saw my first WHALE from our condo balcony!!! They came up to shore around 5:00 every evening that we were there. All in all, a great trip!

View from our condo:


And us with Em:



School also started in August, and even though I only had 3 classes, I had more on my plate than I was ready to handle this semester.

SEPTEMBER: no news...

OCTOBER: Our 1 year anniversary was great! We wanted to take a trip but didn't have the money, so we stayed at Hotel Monoco downtown and pretended to be tourists. :) We ate great food and saw "Forever Dead" at the off-broadway theater. Of course I also have to write about Halloween because it is our favorite holiday! We decorated our apartment like an apothecary shop again, with all the old bottles and candles and test tubes we could find. After seeing that play on our anniversary, Josh decided that we should be Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.

After countless hours of wig hunting, I finally found this little gem!


We had a Halloween party, and I'm happy to say that it was probably our most successful party ever! Our apartment was packed, almost everyone came in costume, and our food was AWESOME! Great night!

NOVEMBER: The only exciting thing about November was Thanksgiving, which really wasn't very exciting. We had two meals, which was a bit overwhelming. But what's our favorite thing about Thanksgiving? SALES!!! The morning after, Josh and I hit the stores. We didn't have any big items to buy, so we spent nearly all of our budgeted $100 on movies. Harry Potter on blu-ray for $10? It doesn't get any better than that. :)

DECEMBER: The end of the semester!!! Josh's teachers thought it would be a great idea to have about 50 pages worth of papers due this week, so he has been busy busy busy! The best part of my semester was finishing Chinese and I GOT A B-!!! Normally I would be pretty upset with that grade, but I actually left Chinese crying a few times because it was so hard. I'm ecstatic about a B-!!! Josh is hoping to boost his GPA this semester and I hope all his hard work pays off! We'll know his grades in a couple of weeks.

After working both of my jobs and going to school, I'm REALLY excited for the next two weeks because I don't have to teach piano. I can actually go home while the sun is still up!

That pretty much sums up our year. Lots of traveling and school work! I'll try to be more organized and post our family Christmas pictures soon. Until that time, here's a little sneak peek of the pup:


Yeah... she really hates the hat! But we bribed her with treats to keep it on for pictures.