Another More Exciting Life Update

Ryan and I took our Christmas Family picture early and decided to just post it on here instead of mailing it out to everyone.

What do you think? :)

Baby is due May 16, 2018 and we are very excited. :) And only slightly overwhelmed.

I'll write a more detailed update next week.

Love, Kinsey

Life Update

(Forward: this post is going to just be a vomit of everything that I haven't written on here in the last month or so. Feel free to stop reading anytime. There really isn't any point to this post, except to have an outlet for some of my thoughts.) 

Hello Again!

This semester has probably been the busiest, most exhausting semester I have ever had! I say that every semester, and I'm not lying, it just gets worse every semester! It gets easier to write papers in a day, but the amount of papers just keeps increasing (11 papers total, ranging from 4 pages to 11 pages each. and 27 papers that are only a page long... you can just consider that one 27 page paper.). The amount of reading for my classes also drastically increased this semester...but I have kind of stopped reading for my classes, because there just isn't enough time in the world. My original plan was going to be to count how many pages I had to read for my classes total this semester, but because I stopped reading I gave up on that... but in case you are curious, by week 2 of classes I had read 258 pages total, that's when I stopped counting.

Next semester will probably be worse. I'm supposed to keep a positive attitude about it, so that it doesn't end up so bad, but I don't know if I can trick myself into loving all these assignments for another semester.

Big news though! Ryan and I figured out that if I practically kill myself for one more semester, then I can graduate in April! (Instead of next December!) Instead of working two jobs and taking 5 classes, next semester I am going to work one job, have one internship, and take 5 classes, and one class online. If I'm really awesome, I'll finish most of the online class over Christmas break, and then I will only have to focus on everything else until APRIL! When I'm graduating! I have officially applied to graduate and everything! I just have to find an internship and sign up for my online class and then pass everything. That's it! The end is in sight! :)

Exciting things are happening around here!

Other fun things:

Last weekend, Ryan and I went on a REAL vacation! :) It was wonderful. Normally when we take a "vacation" it is either to see his family members or mine. Which is fun! We love visiting our families! However, when I pictured our first summer together married, I pictured grand adventures. Camping, road trips, spontaneous trips to explore Utah, etc. And then we both worked full time jobs at opposite times of the day for most of the Summer. Our few times off were spent with family, because that was important to us. With holiday season coming up, I started to panic because we only get the day of Thanksgiving off, and Ryan only gets the DAY of Christmas off. (Becoming an adult is a rough change sometimes...) Before we know it, the next semester would be here with my job, internship, classes, and his full time class schedule and full time job. Pretty soon we'd be dead, and all the time to go on grand adventures will be over! .... annnnyyyyyways, I looked at EVERY Airbnb in the state of Utah that was under $50 a night and searched for one that specifically had no security deposit (I don't know about you, but we don't just have $250 to hand over to just anybody), and a small cleaning fee, that was cute, in a fun place, and maybe even with a fun benefit like warm chocolate chip cookies, hot chocolate, or breakfast or something. I love "free" things. :) I spent a couple of hours that could have been homework time to look for the best deal. Ryan of course chose the one that was in Manti, rather than one in downtown Salt Lake City. We decided on this cute gueshouse/loft type thing that a family owned in Manti, UT. They had a real wood burning stove in the kitchen area. Upstairs turned out to be a lot shorter than we thought it would be, but that didn't bother us. They had a bed, with a fancy electric heater that looked like a pretty fireplace, they also had a couch and a tv for watching movies. AND the lady that owns it made us a delicious breakfast every morning we were there! It was perfect. We got to Manti on Friday night and went to one of the few local restaurants. On Saturday, we had NO plans. It was the most peaceful day I have had in AGES. We walked around, window shopped, bought cotton candy, walked around the Manti temple, played at a park, looked at the old houses, read the historical markers, ate pizza at Roys, and finished the day off with spending time in the Manti temple, which, by the way, looks like a castle on the inside! The sun was shining and everything. On Sunday, we went to church at the old tabernacle and then headed home.

Phew! Read all that without taking a breath!

The height I mentioned. (: It made me laugh because it made Ryan look like a giant.

This is the fancy fireplace heater I mentioned. :)

Cotton Candy, one of my many weaknesses.

Roy's Pizza, Ephraim, UT

Monday was kind of a blow after that fun weekend, but we are at the final stretch of this semester, so it is doable. (Did you know that doable is a word but accomplishable isn't?)

I have been resisting decorating for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. But you can bet that I will have some snowflakes made and hung everywhere by November 24th! Also, my grandpa carved me my very own beginning of a Nativity last Christmas (which I have been waiting my whole life for!) and I have been waiting all year to be able to put it up for the first time! I also have a snowman that he carved me on my mission that has been hiding in Texas for 2 years, that I will also be getting out. I have my mind set on being creative this year, so I will probably make some Christmas pillows to put on my couch. We don't have a ton of money to spend, so I even considered stealing fir needles to make a wreath out of... but I think that I may pass on that one. I also notice all the little pine trees and chuckle to myself as I picture myself sneaking out at night to cut one down to bring home. BYU would probably notice if one of their trees was missing huh?
(Can you see now what I mean by resisting to decorate for Christmas? It is obviously on my mind, can you tell?)

Nothing to do with Christmas, but do you want to know what annoying things happened to me last night? First of all, I wasn't very tired and I was having trouble falling asleep. THEN, there was a cat outside meowing. It was quiet at first, and kind of weird because we literally have never heard cats from our room before. I have an overactive imagination, so my first thought was cat, but my second thought was evil madman/gang member trying to lure us outside so that he could kill us. (My brain escalates quickly at night.) But then it got louder and it was super annoying. After about half an hour of loud cat meowing, Ryan banged on the wall, which gave me a heart attack, but also stopped the cat noises. It was very effective. I mentioned it to Ryan this morning and he informed me that they were getting it on. Very inconsiderate of them. They probably think the same of Ryan scaring them away though. You don't have sounds of cats making love to lure you to sleep often do you? (Except they were doing the exact opposite, because they did NOT help me sleep.)

Then I had a dream that Ryan fell in love with someone else, which was pretty heartbreaking. But when I told him he hugged me really tight and told me all the reasons why he loves me more than anyone else in the whole wide world, except for Jesus, of course.

I have really strange, unreal dreams though, so I wasn't really worried. I've been chased by murderers multiple times this month, and I had a pet miniature hedgehog a couple weeks ago, my car fell into a pot hole that turned out to be so deep you couldn't see the bottom, and I have conversations that I have to clarify with Ryan didn't actually happen in real life. And, if anyone knows how to interpret dreams, if you could tell me what it means to dream about heights that'd be great.

Well. Now that I have shared all my innermost thoughts and feelings. I'm impressed that you made it so far.

Thanks for reading, I hope it wasn't a complete waste of your time.

Love, Kinsey

This is what we wore to our ward Trunk of Treat. He was really proud of his axe. The head belonged to his grandpa, and he found the closed axe handle that would fit at the store and then spent an hour making it fit. The kids at church were really impressed. Also, he grew out his beard for a 6 weeks for this costume.

Celebrating Dia De Los Muertos.