Harry Potter

After eating some yummy Thai food, Blaine and I went to the see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 last Friday. We had to go all the way to SLC to find a showing that wasn't sold out! We didn't get to go to the midnight showing due to work and class (boo).  Regardless, we loved loved loved the movie! I wasn't disappointed at all! Blaine and I got Netflix in June just to watch all 7 movies before July 15th. Blaine hasn't read the books and was never really into Harry Potter. To my surprise, my efforts to convert him were successful! After the movie was over, he said he was sad because his Harry Potter stage lasted a month in comparison to the 11 years that I had. I thought that was so funny. Poor Blaine. I think going to Harry Potter World in December helped him be more open to Harry Potter. His mom read the first book to him but that's about it.

Blaine rarely reads. I have subscribed him to some magazines (Fortune 500 and Golf Digest) just so that he can read something. We've read some books together in the past. But there is no way that he will finish a book by himself voluntarily. I think the best thing that has happened to me because of Harry Potter is that Blaine said he wanted to read the books! I couldn't believe what I was hearing. We're talking about a guy who has read a handful of books in his 23 years of life and who thinks any book over 100 pages is "huge." I can't wait till he sees the size of the Order of the Phoenix (870 pages!) hahaha. Anyway, he's pretty serious about this so we're going to have to buy a boxed set soon! I'm crossing my fingers that maybe, just maybe this will create the habit of reading in Blaine!

In The Daily Universe (BYU's newspaper), there was the cutest little cartoon of Harry Potter. It was simple and so accurate. It had two screens - one depicting little kids running into the theater with a sign that read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and the other showing those same kids all grown, (but with the same excitement) running into a theater showing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. I'm not one to clip newspapers (unless I'm couponing haha) but I had to save that! I remember when the first book came out Damaris bought the book and read it super fast. She was hooked. She's not one for reading either (she's always been into numbers more). Anyway after I was done with it, I asked her if my best friend Daniela could borrow it. After much hesitation, Damaris said OK. Daniela returned the book and it was all beat up. To make matters worse, she didn't even like it. Damaris was so mad at me for lending her the book! I had to go buy another one for her. Every book after that, we'd have to fight to see who would get to read it first and we'd bother the other about ruining the end or complaining that she was taking too long. It was ridiculous. This happened even when we were in high school. The last book came out a year after my sister graduated and we still acted like little girls. Anyway, Harry Potter was a big part of our childhood. It is such a great series. I hope that one day my kids will be able to enjoy it half as much as I did! 

Blaine and I in front of the Three Broomsticks (12/2010).

Cricuting

I mentioned in previous posts that Stacey gave me one of her Cricuts. I haven't used it much because I've been crazy busy with school. But this past month, I was able to play around with it for the first time. At work, we have this bulletin board right outside of our office. We use it to put helpful information for students about off-campus housing. For spring/summer, we had a sea-themed board. The office manager, Garry, loves Cars, the movie. So when we were thinking about a theme for fall/winter, he suggested Cars since the new movie was coming out. I thought this would be hard but we do anything to please the boss. So a light bulb went on in my head and I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to familiarize myself with my Cricut! I knew that Stace had a Cars cartridge and asked her to send it to me. As soon as I got it in the mail, I brought my little Cricut to work and started to play! (It was awesome getting paid to craft...)

My first successful cut.

At first, I was a little frustrated because I didn't know how to work it 100%. I'd press buttons and it'd give me some messages that I didn't understand. I was about to give up when Chris, the only boy in our office, decided to give it a try. He was great at it! Once he got the hang of it, he explained to me how it worked and I was so happy! It was so much fun to see it cut with such detail. It really is an impressive machine. 

The final product.
(Don't mind the ugly handwriting on the upper right hand corner).

So I thought that the board would take about a week to make. But with the Cricut, it only took a day! I never want to cut anything with scissors again! We made a mountainous background with a winding road as the setting. After we assembled all the cars and little figures (my favorite were the traffic cones), I realized that the board was more decorative than informative! Oh well. Hopefully it will grasp students' attentions! 

I'm now really excited to work on my own projects. I have a couple of wall vinyls that I want to make, a scrapbook about Blaine's mission, and some cute wedding gift ideas. I probably won't start Blaine's mission scrapbook until we return from our summer vacation (we are going to get some mission memorabilia when we're in Delaware). But I do hope to do something before our summer is over! If you have any project ideas, please let me know! 

My Jam Man

Blaine got a second job as a sales rep/inventory manager for a local jam company called Cornaby's. Random, I know. But it's been pretty good. The only down side is that I'm alone on Saturdays. But thank goodness that I have the Stevenson's around to "babysit" (as Blaine calls it). They hang out with me and take me places! :) Well,  Blaine is in charge of making sure that 8 stores in Utah County are stocked with Cornaby's products. It's pretty flexible. He also does 2 demos each Saturday. If you see him in a store doing one, taste his stuff...or else!  I'm not a huge fruit, and therefore, jam person but all of our friends are surprised at how good and fresh the jam is! I trust their opinions... Also, I thought Blaine would be sick and tired of jam by now but he isn't! He has it on his waffles, ice cream, toast, and everything else you can put jam on.

Two Saturday's ago, Blaine conducted a demo at the Reams in Springville. They were having a sale on their  Dole strawberries - $0.62 a pound. He said that people were just lining up waiting for the strawberries to come in. They were gone in an hour. That day he was demoing Jam in a Jiffy. It's this sugar and modified food starch mix that makes jam in a jiffy! Ha. Literally, it takes 5 minutes. You chop up 2 lbs of fruit, mash it a little with a potato masher, mix in this sugar mix, let it sit for a minute and you have fresh jam. It's healthier than most jams just because it's made with real cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. The cool thing is that you can combine different fruits and make whatever flavor of jam you wish! When Blaine saw all these people buying an unreasonable amount of strawberries, he saw the perfect opportunity to get people hooked on Jam in a Jiffy. He was so convincing that he sold about 110 pouches in 45 minutes. That's recordbreaking!

Anyway, Blaine decided to take advantage of this crazy good strawberry sale and bought a whole flat. Yes. We had 8 lbs of strawberries in our fridge at one point in our lives. Ridiculous. So we gave some to the Stevenson's (as payment for their babysitting services) and still had a ton left over! I made chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry lemonade (twice), and we finally made some of our own Jam in a Jiffy. We now have strawberry jam in our freezer for a whole year. I don't know what we're going to do with it. If you ever crave or absolutely need strawberry jam, please come over. Please. ( I need my freezer back.)

Blaine knows his stuff. It's hilarious. He can talk to those intense, canning grandmas all day long about pectins and whatnot (those are his prime customers). At first I thought this was a little bit weird but he is learning a lot about sales, pushing a product, and how a business runs. It's a lot more challenging than it sounds and I love seeing him grow and progress. I'm really proud of my Jam Man! 

The Future

As the anxious person that I am, I worry a lot. I stay up at night thinking too much about the future. Most of the things I worry about are insignificant (really insignificant). Then there are the big things like school, family, finances, spirituality...etc. I think this is hereditary because my grandma was a big worrier. Anyway, sometimes it's silly to worry so much because everything always works out for our good in the end. We really are so blessed! I know that when we worry too much about the past, we become depressed. It's unhealthy! When we worry too much about the future, we experience anxiety. But when we live life in the present, doing what is right, we have peace of mind. But I believe that it's also motivating to have things to look forward to. There is this quote about the future and worries by former prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, that I just love. "Increase our faith to bridge the chasms of uncertainty and doubt. . . . Grant us faith to look beyond the problems of the moment to the miracles of the future. . . . Give us faith to do what is right and let the consequence follow.” So here are some of the miracles that I look forward to in our future! 

Passing summer semester: Human Anatomy is great. Love the class. Love the teacher. Love the material. Love learning off of the cadavers. But it's a super hard class! But I just recently took my first midterm exam and I am confident that I will do good in this class! 

Our summer vacation:  Seriously, how is this not a miracle? We were both able to get time off of work and, thanks to our loving family, have the finances to go on the cruise and for all of our flights! (Only 30 more days!)


Fall semester: After fall semester, I should only have about 11 classes left to graduate! AH!


Graduation: We are both SO excited to graduate. If everything goes as planned, we should graduate December 2012. Hopefully, we will be moving back to the East Coast (I'm crossing my fingers for Florida). The best part about all of this is that we will be graduating without any debt. Blaine has been blessed with supportive grandparents that value education. Poppy was a principal and Grandma Sepulveda was a teacher. They saved money to pay tuition for their grand kids. I have been blessed with jobs, scholarships, financial aid, and a supportive family that has helped pay tuition so far. Above all, we attend a university where our tuition is paid for by the Church so that it could be affordable for students. If this weren't the case, BYU would've never been a possibility for me! 


Having my own car: Having had a car since the age of 15 (my dad bought me a car before I could even drive!), it has been hard to share a car with Blaine. Our schedules don't always coincide so it can get tricky! It's harder to run errands and sometimes I'm just stuck at home because everything isn't at a walking distance. I miss my Mini Cooper but I probably won't get a Mini any time soon (I love the new Countryman). I just want a functioning, quality car! 


Moving: As much as Provo has been good to us, we are excited to move. Hopefully, we'll be closer to family and be in a bigger place! I just realized the other day that we don't have a hallway in our entire apartment! It's just so tiny. But I love it cause it's our first place, clean, and cute! I'm also looking forward to all those things that come with a house. More space, different types of rooms, more space to decorate, a garden, a garage. It's funny how I never cared for any of these things before. I never really appreciated them! Now I appreciate the simplest things, like a functioning can opener, a dishwasher, shower curtains, good internet, and mixing bowls! (All of these have stories to them. Ask if you'd like to hear :]) Also, I look forward to not paying rent! I'm glad that we have the money to pay rent to have a place to live but I would rather have that money go to a mortgage! 


Completion of the Fort Lauderdale Temple: I still remember when this temple was announced in the October 2009 General Conference. I cried, shouted and jumped for joy! It really was an answer to so many prayers and the deepest desire of so many faithful saints in South Florida! The groundbreaking was the 18th of June and it should be completed in 2-3 years! Damaris sent me a picture of the projection of how the temple is supposed to look when it's done. It looks so real that I framed it and put it in our room :) I have always wanted to go back home and live there but I didn't like that the closest temple was 4 hours away. Having a temple near has always been a priority of mine. Now that this will be 5-15 minutes away from the area I would like to live, my dreams can come true! :D


Parenthood: I don't know when this will be happening, but the more I think about it the greater of a miracle it seems to be! One of the first things that we studied in anatomy was fertilization and how babies are made! It is just so perfect and amazing. Also, it is just amazing to think that Heavenly Father trusts us enough to allow us to be parents! It's such a big responsibility. I am so excited for the day that I can be a mom and watch Blaine transform into a father. I know he will be the father that I've always wanted my kids to have. Since the very beginning, it was one of the things that I liked about Blaine the most! 


Anyway, these are just some of the beautiful things in life that I can't wait for! Life is great and it only gets better day by day. We're trying to make the right choices and let the consequences follow!