Back in LA

We've been back in LA for about an hour now. We have unloaded the car and Tom is playing a video game he got from my parents for Christmas. He actually drove the ENTIRE way back because I didn't sleep well last night and I have to work tomorrow. Considering how exhausted I feel right now, I can only imagine how tired he must be.

Christmas day was great. We spent the morning at my mom's house opening presents, playing Mad Gab, and eating cinnamon roles, followed by the afternoon at my dad's house.

Tuesday was mostly spent running errands all over Salt Lake. Since many stores aren't very accessible to us in LA (because of traffic and because we hardly know where anything is), we were able to take care of some errands and pick up a few things we needed. That evening we had dinner with Tom's brother Brent and his wife Miranda and their two daughters. It was really good to see them since we haven't had a chance since our wedding.

The drive back today was okay. We left around 9:30am and only had to deal with a little rain and a little traffic. It was great to visit family, but it is also nice to be back in our own place. Here are a few pictures from the rest of our trip:

1. My brother (Chase) posing for a picture while we waited for my sister (Kara) to fix her hair before we opened pictures on Christmas morning
2. Tom posing for a picture while we waited for Kara to fix her hair
3. Kara making her grand entrance
4. Carly and Kelly opening presents
5. Tyson modeling on the couch
6. Girls playing Mad Gab
7. Guys playing Mad Gab
8. In front of my dad's
9-10. With Tom's brother and family
11. My silhouette in front of my parent's mostly-lit house

Christmas Eve

Well, we have had a very eventful last couple days. We left LA at 4am yesterday and arrived in Salt Lake at 5pm last night to a full house. My mom's family was having our family Christmas party and the house was packed with aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins when we arrived. We did a gift exchange and enjoyed a nice dinner. It was very nice to see my family. I feel like my little sisters have grown six inches since the last time I saw them.

Later that evening we got a call that my sister Aubrie was in labor. Since Tom and I were exhausted we went to bed instead of heading over to the hospital, but we were woken up around 5am to be told that she had given birth at 3:35am on Christmas Eve to Hailey Elizabeth.

Sunday we woke up early to go to my parent's ward. Afterwards we headed down to Orem to visit Tom's grandmother. We had enjoyed visiting her frequently while we were living in Provo over the summer, so we delighted to be able to visit with her on our brief little trip.

Afterwards we made our way over to the hospital to visit Aubrie. Hailey is sooooo cute. She was very still and quiet (but I'm sure that won't last too long). Pictures included below.

We then visited with my step-grandparents in Murray (which was near the hospital) and then came home for a lovely prime rib dinner. Tom and I have (essentially) given up eating red meat so we were a little apprehensive of the meal, but it was delicious

Now we are relaxing. My sister Kara (who just finished cosmetology school) just gave me a much-needed hair cut and she is currently trimming Tom's. The next couple days should be just as busy as the last so I will try to update this week after we get back to LA.

1. goofy picture of me with my mom and Eric (sorry, didn't take the time to fix the red eyes)
2. me with my grandparents (my grandmother fell down the stairs the other day, she doesn't usually look that bruised)
3. My cousin Hayley hugging a little Santa Claus
4. Tom and I with his grandmother in Orem
5. My new niece
6. Me holding my new niece

end of semester

Well, not quite. Tom has one more final on Monday. He is pretty much in agony at this point trying to prepare since he has been taking finals for close to three weeks. We're not sure when he will receive his grades, but I am very proud of how hard he has been working and how much he has learned. Also. . . . Tom's birthday is this Wednesday. He is so old. Practically ancient. Twenty-four.

We are planning to spend Christmas in Utah. We will be leaving LA on Saturday morning and will spend a few family-filled days in the Salt Lake area. I imagine that we will need to dig our coats out of storage since the temperature hasn't dipped much under 60 since we've been here. New Years, on the other hand, will probably be spent wandering around Westwood. Since all new UCLA employees are on probation for their first 6 months and can't take vacation days, we have to hurry home. Though while we are there, my sister Aubrie (who is about eight and a half months pregnant) may add a new member to the family. It could be a very exciting, short little trip.

Ketchup

Well, it is nearing the end of Tom's first semester of law school. At this point he only has two more days of class, but those two days are followed by three weeks of finals. He has started to study but the next three weeks should be intense and stressful. On the bright side, he already knows his schedule for next semester and he will be spending a little less time in class than this semester. Tom is also trying to figure out what kind of internship he will be applying for this summer. More information on that in the coming months. . .

My job is still going well. The department is hiring several new employees to prepare for the move to the new hospital next year. The current hospital (which is about 50 years old) is being turned into a lab/classroom building in order to move the hospital to a new building (Ronald Reagan Hospital) which will comply with new earthquake regulations. The new hospital was actually designed by I.M. Pei (who also designed the Louvre) and is the main reason why we're digitizing all of the records (there isn't much room in the new hospital for paper records).

We spent our first Thanksgiving as a married couple with Tom's parents in Bakersfield. We enjoyed a delightful dinner and did some visiting. We spent the rest of the weekend resting and eating leftover turkey.

I'm sure many of you will be delighted to know that Tom shaved his beard a couple weeks ago. It had gotten kind of long so he decided to change things up. I thought I liked the beard until he shaved it. Now I'm pretty sure I like the clean shaven look. Here is a picture somewhere in between:

















In conclusion . . . . here are several photos. Some were taking with our new cell phones and are a little blurry.

Here are some photos that Tom took in and around the law school:































































Here are some of the view from my window at work, of the scanners that we use, and one of my desk:































































And a couple of post-Thanksgiving pictures:

Warm November Weekend

Tom and I spent this warm weekend trying to relax before law school gets crazy. The next month is going to leave Tom little time to do anything other than cram and sleep. And probably not much time for sleep. We actually both got new cell phones on Friday (they're the same phone) because we switched to a family cell phone plan, and the phones take decent pictures so I'm going to try to add to the blog more often with pictures taken from my cell phone. Tom changed his phone number to a local number (310-880-5866) and my phone number will stay the same (310-691-9966).

Saturday we went to a nearby outdoor mall and wandered around for a while. I actually wanted to go to The Container Store (which recently opened), they also have an Apple store (which we both enjoy), and while we were there we were starving and decided to eat at the food court (which we didn't expect to be anything special). It was actually the fanciest food court either of us have ever been to. All of the food court places were like nice little restaurants. We ate at a delicious Korean BBQ restaurant. Yum. Anyway, here are a few pictures from my cell phone on Saturday:

Stranger Than Fiction

At times we forget that we aren't in Provo anymore, but then we wake up. Below is some proof that we have left the bubble.

A couple weeks ago Bill Clinton came to UCLA in support of Proposition 87 (some of this speech was made into a commercial which airs regularly) and Tom was able to attend. Bill was almost 90 minutes late, so Tom only got to see the the first 5 minutes of the speech before he had to leave. But at least he got that blurry shot.

Also, we made our way down to Westwood Village this evening to gawk at celebrities at the Stranger than Fiction premiere. There were less people there than we thought there would be, but it was still way cool. Below are several pictures (many of them a little blurry) from both events. It's hard to focus a camera when people are thronging all around you. See if you can guess who they all are.

the near death experience of tom and four strangers

Below are the pictures of Tom climbing all over his parent's roof (his near death experience).

The other near death experience was a car accident that happened right in front of our apartment at 2am a couple days ago. A car full of drunk people smashed into a pole and rolled three times. It was incredibly loud. And horrific. And it involved a lot of screaming by the people in the car. It was terrible.

It's been a little while

We haven't been doing anything exciting lately, so I have gotten lazy about updating the blog. But, I got an email from my friend Billie-Jo who I have known since I was 4 years old and whom I haven't heard from in a very long time, and I told her about the blog so she could see some pictures and I figured I better give some sort of update. Here's a little about what little we've been doing:

School has really picked up for Tom. We were in the habit of walking home together at the end of the day, but Tom is staying at school until 7 or so most nights. Unfortunately, he also appears to be coming down with a cold and has been unhappily congested all day. I think that I probably also caught the cold, but instead of causing congestion, I have a sore throat and I could probably sleep 16 hours a day.

I was "hired on" a couple weeks ago and am still enjoying my job. It is a little monotonous, but my boss has stressed to me several times that I should use this job as an opportunity to advance to other positions within UCLA so I doubt that I will stay in my position the entire time that Tom is in law school.

We made the trek to Costco today for the second time since we moved to LA. It's quite the event because the only day we have time or energy to go is on Saturday and the place is a zoo. When we got there this afternoon there wasn't a single parking spot and once we actually made it inside, we spent the majority of our time in little traffic jams with our cart.

We spent conference weekend in Bakersfield. Tom's dad needed help installing new windows and and I have a couple pictures of Tom climbing on his parents' roof, but blogger isn't letting me upload them right now, so I'll have to add them later.

we are very thirsty

Since we moved to LA we have been buying our drinking water because our tap water is very suspiciously brown/yellow. In fact, if you fill a glass with tap water and let it sit for a couple hours, a brown/yellow layer will form at the bottom of the cup. And it doesn't taste very good.

In honor of our thirst and our late night run to Chevron to buy a gallon of water, here are a few pictures:

wonderful labor day

Tom and I had a very enjoyable labor day weekend. We took it easy Saturday and Sunday (Tom has been sick), and I had to work this morning, but we spent the afternoon wandering around Hollywood. It has been VERY hot and our apartment seems to be at least 10 degrees warmer than it is outside at any given point, so we decided we had to get out of here.

In other news, we are battling a smoker who lives directly below us. He is Turkish and he chain smokes. The smoke goes directly out his window and into ours and, since it has been so warm and our apartment is unbearable if we shut the windows, our apartment is frequently filled with smoke. We have recently been blowing air out of the window instead of in which appears to be helping, but the smoke combined with the heat has been quite unpleasant.

Here are a few pictures from today: