Justin & Erin

What should my name be?

2012-02-15T08:37:00.004-07:00

As many of you are aware, for some time Erin and I have been debating on what to name our son. June is quickly approaching and we are still in limbo. We have narrowed the options down to either Logan or Mason. Justin prefers Logan and Erin prefers Mason. We like them both, but are still not really leaning one way or another so we thought we would open it up to all of you to cast your votes and see what you think. Please take the poll and let us know.

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Halfway there!

2012-01-19T19:28:00.001-07:00

Happy 20 weeks to us! This was a fun week for us and I wanted to share along the way instead of playing catch-up in 3 months time :) And this update is complete with a picture!

Pregnancy Highlights:
How far along? 20 weeks

Weight Gain: 10 pounds* - adjusted after Friday's doctor's visit (including ONLY 4 pounds over Christmas/New Year's!! My mom's jaw dropped when I told her and she said "but I saw how much you ate!" - yay!!!)

Maternity Clothes: Yes, especially pants!!!! (Shirts and skirts are still too big)

Gender: Boy :)

Movement: Finally started this week!! I was sitting in Sunday School and felt a rumbly in my tumbly that I knew was NOT gas and it was really cool. Since then I've felt baby boy some every day. He's even been felt by Justin, my mom, and Aunt Claire. This is the coolest thing ever and brings a smile to my face every time. I want to shout at my classes "HEY! My baby is moving!" every time he moves or kicks during class but think they'd get tired of that pretty quick...

Sleep: Sleep is still okay as long as I don't get too hot... Thank goodness for fans and a husband who likes them as much as I do. Trying to stop sleeping on my back - is it really that bad for me/baby? :(

Symptoms: None really, just an amazingly working nose!

What I miss: being less emotional? Tears come far too easy over everything.

Cravings: Not as much lately, but for a while there I loved citrus (grapefruit and cuties = heaven) and good ol' hamburgers. Salty things are yummy too. I have not enjoyed sweets as much - they just don't sound appetizing.

Best moment this week: Feeling baby move!

What I am looking forward to: Official 20-week ultrasound tomorrow followed by doctor's appointment. Really excited to see baby again and compare his growth to a month ago. Excited to have the day off with Justin and to do baby stuff!

December 2011

2012-01-08T18:30:00.002-07:00

I can't believe December came and went. It was busy and loaded with lots of friends, family, and fun!

I was blessed to see each of my besties over the break, and had only planned on one! Amy showed up at our house to play games and visit in PTC and I was shocked - such a pleasant suprise! When Justin and I flew out to Utah, he had to work the whole day and did so from the SLC base in the airport. So I had arranged with Ashley to spend a few hours together. She pulled up to get me and who was in her car - AMY! Poor thing was stuck trying to make it home to HI for Christmas after her quick GA visit. So we got a quick picture and then left Amy to make her way home. (which, apparently, took another 36+ hours and a purchased plane ticket, poor thing). Then Renae (no pic) was at the ATL airport to pick up her sister Jocelyn & Garrett when we got back from ID. So I got to spend 5 min with her until Joc came along. Yay!

We went to lunch at CPK (yum!), watched the new Mission Impossible movie, did some Christmas shopping, and then I got to spend a little time with my cousin Ashlee, who I haven't seen in almost 3 years!?! I can't believe how big her kids are getting, time just flies too fast.

Then we flew up to Pocatello, ID for our Christmas vacation. We went bowling and Reese loved getting help from her aunts and uncles.

Sam learned that honking noses can be fun, although I'm sure Josh disagrees.

We went to the church on Christmas Eve and played kickball, then realized we'd lost Reese and Sam! Oh where could they be?!?

Blair showed off his double dutch skills...

We played lots of Minute to Win it games and enjoyed the family fueding.

On Christmas Day we sang in Grandma's ward as a family, came home to Huevos Rancheros for lunch, then opened Christmas presents and spent the rest of the day visiting and playing with each other.

I think the highlight of Justin's trip is always how much time he gets to spend with Reese and Sam. We had a WONDERFUL trip and played our guts out, staying up way past our bedtime and I think we went home more tired than we came. It was so fun to visit and catch up and spend time with the Badger Clan. SO glad I ended up with such amazing people as in-laws. I count myself really really lucky!

We returned to GA two days after Christmas. Justin had to go back to work :( But about 90 min after our plane touched down I was on the road with Scott and Kelley headed to Hilton Head to join the rest of my family. We got a few days at the beach and then a few more together at home. It was fun to be all together for the first time since our cruise last year (although we were a lot less tan!). There was (strip) beach 4-square - ask Claire, pool volleyball, board games and movies galor (including one of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - life changingly horrible). Pictures are on facebook so go check them out there (didn't use my camera).

One of the highlights of our Christmas was getting to have a really early ultrasound (Christmas present to ourselves). It was only $50 at our doctors office, and WELL worth it! It was amazing to see our little baby move around so much. He had the hiccups and we got to watch them. Then he rolled over and crossed his legs and all kind of stuff. Claire loves this one b/c he's making The Claw for her.

Look at his brain! And his spine! What a smart, handsome young man already! And his tiny little nose. Awwwww.

Wait... his? Yep, it's a boy! This is a picture from below him - he's kind of sitting on his legs and there in the middle is are his boy parts.

This one's even easier to see his boy part. I was only 15 1/2 weeks when we went in for the ultra-sound, so he was still small enough to stretch out.

This is Justin's favorite - he'd rolled over and looked really comfy and cozy. Justin says he likes it b/c he can imagine a little baby curled up on his shoulder with his little bottom just needing to be patted and his legs tucked up underneath him. For sweetness!

We have our 20-week ultrasound next week, so we should have more pictures. That will be exactly one month after the pictures posted here. I'm interested to see if we'll be able to notice any changes or if our untrained eyes will think he looks the same. I'm most excited to just see him again and get a sneak peek at what's going on in there.

The ultrasound tech said that my placenta is actually on the front, which is no problem but means I won't be able to feel movements until later than most.

Went in for my 18-wk check-up this week and am thrilled that I only gained 4 pounds since my 14-wk check-up. That INCLUDES all the Christmas eating I did (which was a lot). That's 11 pounds total and I am so happy about it! At the check-up the CNM said she was impressed with my abs (well, thank you) and that it'll make labor easier. Justin and I laughed when I got home b/c we both know I haven't exactly been working out for the last long time, including pre-pregnancy.

No real morning sickness. During the first trimester I did have a sensitive gag reflex, especially when I looked at something slimey (used tupperware was the worst) - I had to stop taking leftover for lunch because getting the tupperware home was gag fest. But the hyper-sensitivity has greatly diminished since getting into second trimester.

Cravings: nothing really strong. I have particularly enjoyed/wanted to eat hamburgers and citrus. Definitely more so than normal, but not in a "it's midnight and I need THAT right this instant" kind of way. I do get hungry more often, and when I'm hungry it feels "emergency feed me now" - I eat 3 meals plus two medium snacks every day and that still means that I feel kind of hungry when I go to bed.

Baby bump is definitely there and noticeable. It's nice to finally have maternity clothes to wear, although the shirts are still too big. Maternity pants are my saving grace, however. A huge thank you to my cousin Lindsey and coworker Ashley. Thanks to them I have a mostly stocked maternity wardrobe. I literally only need a few skirts to wear to church/work and I'm completely done. THANK YOU!

Most fun thing: this week I rolled over onto my stomach on my bed and felt kind of uncomfortable. Then I realized it was b/c I didn't fit the way I usually do. Then I realized IT'S MY BABY! I'm thrilled to say that the top of my uterus is now almost to my belly button and you can totally feel it. Grow baby grow!

Lots to look forward to in Jan: 20-wk ultrasound, Britney's wedding, 3-day weekend (although Justin works Sun/Mon but at least he doesn't go in until later = sleeping in and big breakfasts!). Yay!

Oct and Nov 2011

2012-01-08T17:50:00.002-07:00

Yep, it's UPDATE TIME! Fingers crossed that 2012 is the year when updates are shorter and more frequent...

Well, October started off AWESOMELY! After trying for a few short months, on 10/3 I peed on a stick and it said "pregnant"! I was a little bit shocked and didn't know what to do, so I woke Justin up and said "I think I'm pregnant" - which woke him up immediately.

As if it would somehow change over the course of the day, I wanted to double check with the remaining supply of at-home tests. Out of the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses, right?!?

For dinner that night, Justin made an amazing "baby" dinner. Baby back ribs, baby carrots, baby red potatos, and we had the baby Simply Lemonades to drink. SO FUN! (And totally his idea).

We went to an improv show with a big group of friends mid-October, including some of the guys from Whose Line Is It Anyway. I don't know the last time I laughed so much. Lots of fun. AWESOME people!

For Thanksgiving this year Justin and I did our own thing and went on a Babymoon Cruise! We were able to find one over the exact amount of time Justin was able to get off work and LOVED it! We were so excited to get on the boat!

Justin loves to wear "old man" outfits to dinner. Thankfully he only took one this time.

Yes, those are our feet. That is the ocean. This is my happy place :)
*sidenote: while we were in the Bahamas, Justin was offered weed by the locals at least 3 times. He wondered what he needed to change about his appearance that would make him look like less of a weed smoker. Suggestions are welcome - haha.

The Promenade had these BEAUTIFUL lights that just hung from the ceiling. They changed colors and were so gorgeous to look at.

We were in Nassau for almost 24 hours, so after everyone had left the boat, we played some put-put after breakfast before hitting the beach. We had a lot of fun (Justin schooled me both times), and this shot I hit the ball really hard, it bounced 79 times down the L-shaped thing and came BACK to exactly where you see it. I am a-ma-zing.

Justin did the same thing, except it wasn't quite as funny b/c it didn't go through the whole entire thing. I think he just bounced it off a rock and straight back. Still, it was funny to laugh right back at him!

The beach in Naussau was WINDY that day!

Yes, that's my Baywatch husband, walking toward ME in the sand. So glad he's mine! :)

Justin took the towel-making class our last day and brought back the towels to show me his new friends. This was my favorite, and I made them pose together.

Then I went on the waterslide, which was COLD by the time the sun was so low. And yet fun. Who ever gets tired of waterslides? (And don't worry, this pregnant lady was very careful and went so slowly that I didn't even glide into the water at the end, it was less of an impact than walking down pool stairs - SO slow)

Our darling wait staff. We heart them, especially for not judging us by the amount that we consumed.

Yay for cruises! Not sure when we'll be able to go again, but we hope it's not too far in the future!

Dear Smoker...

2011-10-09T11:29:00.000-06:00

Last week I was sitting in the underground pick-up place at the airport, waiting for my husband who'd gone to get the car to come get me. I was enjoying the beautiful weather, refreshing breeze, and the glory of sitting outside away from most of the traffic and listening to the roar of planes taking off. And playing Sudoku.

You walked up and sat down next to me, looking as ordinary as I, seeming to enjoy the weather as well while waiting for the bus or your ride or whatever it is that you were waiting for. Suddenly, without warning AND WITHOUT EVEN ASKING, you whip out a cigarette, light up, and start puffing away as if you were the only person within a 30 yard radius.

So I got up, dragged all 4 of my bags (briefcase,purse, and 2 roller bags) far enough away to where I couldn't smell you - literally dragging a bag b/c I couldn't carry/roll everything. There was no bench. I sat on the concrete surrounded by bird poop and bugs.

Thank you for being so selfish that you didn't even ask if I minded. Let's not forget that I was there for a full 5 minutes before you arrived. Let's not forget that the air was made sans smoke to begin with. Let's not forget that smoking is actually harmful to others. Let's not forget that NOT EVERYONE SMOKES!!!

I think this is what bothers me most about "tolerance" - you expect me to let you do your thing. And I will. I didn't start shouting or quoting health studies. But why don't you show some respect and tolerance towards the rest of us and let us do our thing. In this case they CANNOT coexist. I don't appreciate you ruining the wonderful outdoors that I was enjoying at the moment. You are selfish and I did not enjoy being subjected to your nasty smoke.

Too bad you'll obviously never understand,
the person whose 10-minute wait was rudely interrupted by your smoking last week

I'm a big girl

2011-09-25T18:42:00.001-06:00

This week I did something that I actually found really difficult to do and feel so proud of myself that I want to share. Plus it's almost the end of the month and I owe two posts :)

The volleyball team does "Secret Panther" gifts for every home game. My sister (on the team) asked me to swing by Claire's and pick up some cute studs for her Secret Panther gift on my way home and then bring them to school on Thursday. We live right next door to the shopping area that has Claire's so it was going to be no problem.

Wouldn't you know that I found the CUTEST set of studs that was EXACTLY what my sister was looking for. Of course earrings were buy two get one free, and hair accessories were buy one get one 50% off, so within a matter of minutes I had two more pairs of earrings and cute hair accessories - I've been loving the cute headbands and hair clips that everybody's wearing these days. Plus I haven't bought new earrings since I got married. So I figured that I DESERVED it and told myself that it'd been so long since I had bought hair accessories and earrings that I really NEEDED to do so.

Almost immediately, I thought of the budget we're working so hard to keep and wondered what envelope the money would have to come out of - there wasn't any money left in our "blow money" or "clothing" envelope. The only money we have left is dedicated to food or gas. I thought of the notes I'd just looked over from conference and remembered President Monson's talk where he said that it was easier to obey 100% of the time than just 98% of the time. Now, this may be a little bit of an abnormal application of that concept, but it makes perfect sense to me.

So what did I do? I placed that darling headband, the cute hair clip, and the two sets of darling earrings down, paid for the earrings my sister asked me to get, and promptly left the store.

Saying no to those accessories was hard - I LOVE me some cute earrings and have been wanting cute hair stuff for a while :)

As I drove away, I felt an immediate sense of accomplishment and pride and a renewed sense of gratitude that I was exercising the self-control to say no to such a frivolous thing. We've been SO blessed these last few years as we're working so hard to be better with our money. It feels good to have zero debt and a 6-month emergency fund in the bank. It feels great to have, on top of that, a car fund for the car problems we seem to have every 4 months on the dot :) It feels wonderful to have things that we're working for and saving for and knowing that we're doing everything we can to be wise stewards of the financial blessings God has given us. We've seen blessings in SO many forms (including almost $5000 of money that's been placed in our laps at key points in our journey) and I love feeling like we're working hard for something worthwhile!

Anyways, I know it's something little, but I felt awesome about it and wanted to share my pride and gratitude for the financial choices we're trying to make!!! We feel secure, happy, and oh-so-blessed :)

Rio

2011-08-31T20:29:00.000-06:00

We just watched another fabulous kids movie, RIO. Set in Brazil, it made both of us laugh and yearn to visit Brazil (Justin lived there 2 years while serving a mission for our church).

The "bad guy" in the movie had a really familiar voice and when he sang his bad guy song we figured out exactly who he was. Happy guessing :)

Be Prepared

2011-08-19T20:59:00.001-06:00

We just finished watching the old movie It Happened to Jane and have a new favorite song. Enjoy the following clip - you want to start at about 1:00 and it ends at about 3:20. We're not sure why they made the clip so long and we only care about the song!!! But we have a new favorite theme song for our future children and especially for den meetings in cub scouts.

Life Update

2011-08-14T17:49:00.000-06:00

Back on the grid! Sorry it's been so long. I keep thinking "when I'm less busy, THEN I'll have time to blog" and as the time absolutely flies by, I realize it's always going to be busy and that's just the way life is.

Spring flew by. I coached lacrosse this year and loved being outside every day. At the beginning of the season (February) it would take hours to warm up from being outside for so long, and then at the end of the season I had the start of a farmers tan. I love sunshine. I don't think I could ever live somewhere like Alaska where they literally don't see the sun for months at a time. Utah winters were hard enough - no green, no blue, no colors... Pretty bleak. I love my green Georgia and my blue sky, thank you very much!

The summer was full of wonderful things that of course made the time pass all too quickly.
Before our school got out: Holly graduated from HS, so we went to Springfield to celebrate! Highlight of the trip: homemade Qdoba style salads!!!
Week 1: Post-Planning
Week 2: Girl's Camp Mon - Fri!!! LOVED going. LOVE my YW.
Week 3: Justin was part of a small group that sang the National Anthem at a Braves game. Go honey! I prepared for the family reunion. Left on Friday for NC.

Week 4: Houghtaling Family World Summit - YAY!!!! Highlights include: the beach, Austin's family history highlights, Beach Olympics, Weenie Mania, daily trips to the grocery store, yummy food, lots of games, playing with cousins, watching family videos, and just relaxing!

Week 5: leave on Thursday for LA where we spent a romantic Thurs - Sat in LA for Justin's birthday. Went to see LES MISERABLES, walked around downtown, ate delicious food. SUCH a relaxing vacation. Then headed down to San Clemente for the weekend with many of Justin's friends. Beach + amazing fun people + lots of laughter = wonderful weekend. Including capturing our host's baby and doning the official Old Navy onsie despite there being an official ban on such t-shirts :)

Week 6: return from LA to go to Scott's Basic Training graduation in Ft. Jackson, SC. He is now stationed in Ft. Lee (VA) doing advanced training in Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD - aka the bomb squad). Then Fri/Sat Justin and I were both at youth conference as chaperones. One really fun thing about both serving in the youth program is that youth activities can almost double as date nights :)

Week 7: nothing except for Harry Potter midnight premiere and Zumba classess with friends and sister Claire.

Week 8: I re-read all 7 Harry Potter books after being inspired by a Lifetime bio on J.K. Rowling.

Last week of summer: Watched the other HP movies and got stuff ready for school. Justin took a day off work to take me to Whitewater for my birthday. Then my friend from high school got married and it was WONDERFUL to see so many old faces and remember how things used to be. Then we celebrated with family and again with friends. Yay for birthday weekends!

I think this may have been the best summer ever. It was a wonderful mix of vacation, new places, things to look forward to, LOTS of memories made, catching up with old friends/family and making new friends... I love the people in my life and love that they inspire me and make me want to be a better person.

And here we are, back in school. Teachers went back (and volleyball started) Aug 1. Justin went to some of the scout lake campout and had a BLAST. The kids returned last Monday Aug 8. This year I'm the assistant Varsity vb coach - which means a much busier fall. I forget how busy it is to work 12 hour days... especially after having free time all summer. I find myself resentful when other teachers say how busy they are after school that their kids didn't get in bed until 8pm b/c it was such a busy day. I feel "excuse me - I don't even eat dinner or get home until 8pm or later sometimes... What do you have to complain about?!?" But then I remember that I signed up for this and I love it and busy or not, I wouldn't choose something else.

So: I will try to blog maybe twice a month? Not sure I can do any better than that, but that's my goal! And see below for pictures from our various summer activities!

26 reasons I am SO glad Erin Nicole Houghtaling Badger was born 26 years ago today!

2011-07-29T05:22:00.014-06:00

1. Her constant and unconditional patience with me and love for me
2. She has super-human reading powers that allows her to read the entire Harry Potter series in one week
3. Her high-pitched, cackle-like laugh and snorts when she watches America's Funniest Home Videos
4. She loves musicals and loves me for loving them
5. Her infectious and inspiring love of the Savior and the gospel
6. She gets giddy over DQ blizzards or Costa Vida
7. When she talks baby-talk to all cats
8. The fact that when we went to pick out a movie the other night she picked an action thriller
9. She LOVES watching football games
10. Her unyielding drive to stand up for what is right, even if it isn't always fun or easy
11. Her incredible musicality - seriously, it's almost annoying how good she is sometimes
12. Her boarder-line obsession with all things Disney
13. When she gets so excited about something that her voice gets high pitched and she jumps up and down clapping her hands
14. She is a great judge of character and picks wonderful friends
15. She is passionate about the importance of family and family time
16. Her wonderful family
17. She is low maintenance - her idea of the perfect vacation is on a hot sunny beach with a book
18. She has an infectious zeal and love for life
19. The goofy look on her face when she thinks that she is dancing well - but at least she has a lot of fun trying
20. The fact that she will chase down a parade float to get another cheap Frisbee
21. Her knockout good looks
22. Her amazing teaching ability
23. Her ability to immediately connect with people and make them feel special and welcome
24. Her desire and ability to have fun in almost any situation
25. She is my best friend
26. The fact that she married me and made me the happiest man and luckiest man in the world!

I could come up with 26,000 reasons, but on her 26th birthday I will stick to these. Happy birthday sweetheart. I love you!

Seriously, you can't help but just love this girl!

Garden 2011

2011-07-20T16:10:00.005-06:00

Well I guess it is time we start blogging again. I will leave the long and detailed updates of what we have been up to to Erin, but I thought I would share with you our garden update for this year.

This year we actually have two gardens, one on our deck and we also have a plot at out ward garden. Since our zucchini and squash really didn't do great in containers last year, we did the squash at the ward garden and kept the tomatoes, peppers and beans here at the house. Erin makes INCREDIBLE zucchini bread and wanted to be sure we had plenty of zucchini. I tried to warn her that two plants would give us more than enough, but she wasn't convinced so we ended up with FOUR zucchini plants, two yellow squash and a pumpkin at the ward garden and needless to say, we have zucchini coming out our ears. The other day I picked a MASSIVE zucchini so Erin decided she would grate it to make some bread. Well when all was said and done she had 18 cups out of ONE zucchini! So you live and learn, but it has been fun and quite humorous to have so much zucchini. Anyone have a good zucchini recipe?

Our container garden on our deck is also doing well. We have picked a bunch of tomatoes and okra, and our peppers are doing really well, which is sadly more than I can say for our green beans. However, regardless of how much fruit it all produces, I still love to see what can come from a little seed and some TLC. It is a neat feeling to watch life happen right before your eyes and extremely fulfilling to pick a bright red tomato and know that you had a part in helping it grow.

Here are some pics that were taken a few weeks ago. Best of luck to all my fellow want-a-be gardeners out there.

Bucket List, check!

2011-02-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

I've never actually made a bucket list, but in my head is a list of things I know would be on it. Today, I accomplished one of said things.

I beat the expert level minesweeper.

How did I become such an expert? Well, lots of practice. When we got new computers at school this summer, I soon realized that they didn't uninstall the factory games :) Sometimes my brain gets overloaded and it's nice to be able to take a very short break (5 min or less) and play a mentally challenging game. It reminds me that I'm capable of higher level thinking. In fact, I encourage my students to play chess/minesweeper/mahjong titans (the tile matching game) because all of those require higher-level, deductive reasoning - very important in math and life.

After getting good at the "intermediate" level, I decided it was time to play expert. Mind you, this was back in last semester. Fast forward 85 games, and I am proud to say that on game #86 at the expert level, I BEAT IT in 8 minutes, 18 seconds. My winning percentage is 1%. I feel like Ben Franklin or any other genius who tried a million times before succeeding.

And knowing how they feel, I can definitely assure all dreamers out there - IT IS WORTH IT.

Never give up, never surrender!

Would you like to change your life?!?!?!?

2011-02-04T17:13:00.000-07:00

So I'm trying to find out how I add the "follow me" link to our blog (you tell me, is it there? I haven't done anything to put it there yet... maybe I'm so good I don't have to try).

Anyways, I'm messing around in blogger clicking on all the tabs trying to find one that will do what I want, and I click on the link "Stats".

Wouldn't you know, but it will tell you how many page views you've had today, this week, this month, or all time (complete with graphics)!? NOT ONLY THAT, BUT YOU CAN SEE WHERE THE PEOPLE LIVE THAT ARE CHECKING OUT YOUR BLOG. You can see what kind of device they're using (mac, pc, ipad, ipod, etc...), the internet browser they used, and the most common referencing sites. For example, I know that my sister looks at my blog more than anyone else! And we've had 22 visits from people in Denmark, 15 from Brazil, several from Russia and other parts of the world. How cool is that?

1- Go check it out for your own blog and prepare to be amazed.

2- If you are reading this and you're not currently in the US, will you pretty please with sugar on top leave a note saying how you found this happy place and tell us your blog that we can become blogging pen pals?

January Update

2011-01-30T16:52:00.006-07:00

I am so glad to see January ending. That means we're one more step toward warmer weather and all the happy things that come along with it!!!

January has been a blessed month for us. We finally bought a new bed!!!! And we paid cash for it, which feels almost as good as sleeping on our new pillow top :) We also hit our 3-months savings in our 3-6 month emergency fund (Baby Step 3!!). We are going to continue to keep saving that up, Justin wants it to be a 10-month stockpile fund just for safety. Once we finish that then we'll start saving for a downpayment for a house. One day we'll get there. For now we just LOVE our apartment and are happy to stay put! It's fun to own everything completely and to not have a mortgage hanging over our heads. We love being out of debt and loved putting in the work to get here.

Now that we've hit our 3-month emergency fund mark, we're going to start Baby Step 4, which is investing!!!!! We've been so excited to start doing this. We met with our financial planner last Tuesday (one of Dave Ramsey's ELP's in Peachtree City) and will meet again with him tomorrow to actually open our Roth IRA accounts and sign forms, etc... SO EXCITED. We absolutely love this guy and love Dave and highly, highly, highly recommend all of you to this plan. LOTS of hard work and some sacrifice, but TOTALLY worth it!!!

New Year's Resolutions: some are going well, like making new dishes. We had some really yummy new food in January. Lots of things are joining our family favorites list. Working out is going great for Justin - Delta's new gym just opened and so he enjoys going before/after work. Working out for Erin is not going as well, but I really think I'm ready to commit :) At least I'm eating super healthy and getting plenty of veggies - that's all I eat for lunch :) Plus a little peanut butter ;) We're both staying healthy busy and being productive with our down time.

We're really feeling blessed with having some amazing people in our lives. There's a wonderful family we have just fallen in love with. They are truly uplifting and brighten our spirits every day. And while we know that technically we're giving service by being their ride to church/ youth group each week - WE are the ones who feel blessed beyond measure. I don't know how that works but I'm so grateful it does. You would never realize their situation because they are so happy and positive all of the time. It makes us feel much more grateful for all of our many blessings and want to do more to help others out.

In other news, we found out this weekend that...

the Atlanta Temple is reopening!!!!

The rededication will be Sunday May 1, 2011. The Open House, which is for ANYONE who would like to tour the temple before it's been dedicated for worship, will be April 9 - 23. We are SO excited to have this opportunity to share our beautiful temple with our friends and family, especially those not of our faith. Yes, that's what I said, you don't have to be a Mormon to take a tour of the temple during the open house!! So, for any of our friends who would like to check it out, just let us know and we'll be sure to get you tickets to one of the tours. We don't know anything else about tour times/ticket dates right now, but I'll be sure to keep you posted.

In the meantime, if you have questions about Mormons or our temples, there are answers on this website.

YAY JANUARY! Thanks for being a fan-tabulous month!

The end of Les Miserables

2011-01-23T10:45:00.004-07:00

In March of 2009, Justin and I set out to conquer our own Mt. Everest. We wanted to read the complete, unabridged 1463 pages of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.

(Note: NOT our table cloth/pet hair. Only a depiction of how big this book is.)

Fastforward 9 months to December 30th and 31st, and we completed the book (Justin - 30th, Erin - 31st).

We could not complete such a life-changing, MARATHON of a book without expressing our love and gratitude for Victor Hugo and for the amazing spiritual upliftment that is Les Miserables.

I received my copy of the book in high school when my parents gave Katie and I the book for Christmas (with 2 tickets to see the broadway show tucked inside). The show was AMAZING. I really can't describe how touching it is. To me, when discussing Broadway shows, there are the fun ones like Mary Poppins or Lion King (ground level), and then there's a step up to Beauty and the Beast or Aida (top of Empire State Building), and then there's a step up to Wicked (top of the Burj Khalifa). And then there's a giant leap learger than the distance from the Sun to Pluto, and that's where Les Mis is sitting.

I always wanted to read it, but never did. When Justin first started with Delta Oct '09, he was throwing bags and had a LOT of down time. He read several books and then decided he wanted to read Les Mis. So he goes out and buys the book, brings it home, and then I remembered that I had a copy too. So I dig around a bit and find it, and we decide to start it out together and that when we finish we'll go see it on Broadway in Europe (the only place it was playing at the time).

Now, word to the wise: choosing to read Les Mis is like committing to run a marathon. Not kidding. 1463 pages is a LOT of pages, especially when the print is not very big. But I promise that if you will stick it out, it will be worth EVERY minute. I'll definitely read it again in the future.

I'd heard that Victor Hugo can be wordy at times, or describe things that are seemingly unimportant for pages upon pages... Rather than be annoyed with this, I let myself be submerged completely and in the process found out what it really means to be a hopeless romantic. Stop and smell the roses doesn't begin to express the love affair Mr. Hugo had with his characters. By spending so much time in every detail of his story, I felt like I really got to know these people (plus I had the songs they sing in my head). By the middle/end of the story when people start dying, it was tragic and sad and I cried like my own friend had died. At the very very end when our giant angel dies I wept.

If you would like to immerse yourself in a book that will literally change your life, that will touch the spiritual and human side of you, that will teach you how to be better than you ever thought possible, how much you could do for someone you truly love, that people are human and can be cruel and unforgiving, that God is merciful and kind and full of grace and truth, that there really are angels in human form among us, or that God's love and forgiveness apply to ALL of us, then I recommend you read Les Miserables.

In Victor Hugo's own words (p.1242):

"The book the reader has now before his eyes - from one end to the other, in its whole and in its details, whatever the omissions, the exceptions, or the faults - is the march from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from the false to the true, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from rottenness to life, from brutality to duty, from Hell to Heaven, from nothingness to God. Starting point: matter; goal: the soul. Hydra at the beginning, angel at the end."

Amen.

New Year, New Goals

2011-01-12T16:53:00.003-07:00

In all the excitement of going on our cruise, planning our next one, and having FOUR SNOW DAYS (I wish they'd just cancel Friday too instead of doing this day-by-day thing... Definitely getting old by now), I have neglected to share our Goals for 2011. For some reason sharing them to anyone who could possibly read makes me feel more accountable and thus I think I'll have a higher likelihood of achieving them. Justin and I made a huge list with goals for lots of things (physical, financial, spiritual, homemaking (me not him), spouse, personal, professional, and "other"). Since it's a pretty detailed list, I'll share the most important/difficult ones.

1. If you've ever been my roommate, you know that I can sit on a couch and watch tv with the best of them. Really, I love to veg. I don't know or care about Kim and Khloe, but as soon as I flip on E!, I get sucked in and can't cut it off. Please say that this happens to some of you? My husband calls it mindless television, and that's exactly what it is.

Recently I've been reading this talk called "Reflections on a Consecrated Life" by one of the big leaders of our Church. Whether or not you belong to our church, I highly recommend this talk! In it, Elder Christofferson talks about how a consecrated life is a life of purity (as demonstrated by Jesus Christ), a life of labor (again, we have a perfect example in Christ), a life that respects the gift of one's physical body, a life of service (Christ = example), and a life of integrity.

Anyways, coming back to my love to veg. While reading this talk, I stumbled across the following quote (in the "life of labor" section):

"Having spoken in praise of labor, I must also add a kind word for leisure. Just as honest toil gives rest its sweetness, wholesome recreation is the friend and steadying companion of work. Music, literature, art, dance, drama, athletics - all can provide entertainment to enrich one's life and further consecrate it. At the same time, it hardly needs to be said that much of what passes for entertainment today is coarse, degrading, violent, mind-numbing, and time wasting. Ironically, it sometimes takes hard work to find wholesome leisure. When entertainment turns from virtue to vice, it becomes a destroyer of the consecrated life. "Wherefore, take heed...that ye do not judge that which is evil to be of God" (Moroni 7:14)"

I italicized the part that stood out to me. He was talking to me!!! It's amazing how every time our church leaders talk, they talk to me as an individual. So cool. Anyways, it hardly goes without saying that I am resolved to spend my time more wisely. In the same talk, Elder Christofferson quoted Richard L. Evans by saying "Life offers you two precious gifts - one is time, the other freedom of choice, the freedom to buy with your time what you will." I'm not exactly maximizing either choice when I choose mind-numbing and time wasting television over more productive alternatives. So, this year I will be using my time more wisely and come December will let you know how it goes. And feel free to ask/prod/give ideas on how to do this. My ideas: cook more new things, finally finish the 2 quilts I started last year, learn how to do other crafty things, be a better housekeeper so it's always 100% straight, read more books, blog more, keep in touch with friends, read scriptures/journal (I count blogging as a journal), exercise/learn tennis, etc...

2. Other than using my time more wisely, I would like to be more healthy. Eventually, I would like to enjoy running. My friend from high school LA did this and I really admire her for it - she's even done a 1/2 marathon. Another friend did a 10K. I'm thinking maybe I'll set a goal to run next year, but for this year I'd like to get back to eating healthier (for a few months in the fall I ate 100% veggies for lunch and I felt SO good) and just good old exercising. Justin and I bought P90X in November. I started it and lasted a few days, but allow myself to whine and take a few days off... I'm still on that little break and feel the athletic angel on my shoulder saying to buck up and just do it. I love exercising, really I do, but I don't like hurting and boy does P90X hurt :) So my goals were to eat healthy and do P90X twice this year. Maybe not in 180 days, but to just get through the program to where the push-up/pull-up workout doesn't make me cry anymore and I can honest to goodness do EVERYTHING in the workout 100% like they do.

3. Build a better relationship with Christ. In church on Sunday I taught the 14-15 year old young women for the 3rd hour (it's like another Sunday School but the youth split up for this one). The topic was on Building a Relationship with Christ.

This picture was part of the lesson. Something compelling is that the outside of the door has no handle. Reminds me of Matthew 7:7 "...knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Of course Christ wants to be in our lives, but it's US who has to invite him in. It's ME who has to work to cultivate that relationship. I can do SUCH a better job of this, and so one of my resolutions is to improve in all of those things that can build a better relationship with Him. This is definitely the one I'm most excited about.

*I'm super pumped about my major goals this year. I feel like they all tie in together really well. As I build a better relationship with my Savior, I will naturally choose more uplifting leisure activities. and vice-versa. As I do a better job taking care of this wonderful gift of a body, I will fill my free time and come closer to Christ, etc... How fun will this be?!?*

Wish me luck! And ps - I'd like to point out that I have already surpassed the total number of blogs we posted in all of 2009 and I'm one short of 2008. I guess it's easy to improve when you have SO MUCH improvement to make. Hopefully that's how I'll look back at this year when all is said and done :)

What were your New Years Goals?

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-01-09T19:53:00.001-07:00

And we are SO excited :)

Day 8: Arriving in Tampa/going home

2011-01-06T15:55:00.008-07:00

Day 8: Arriving in Tampa :(

Day 8 began less pleasantly by the other days because we jolted back to the reality that our cruise wouldn't actually last forever. Dang it! (see Claire's farewell video at the very bottom - it accurately expresses how we all felt having to say goodbye for the final time)

We went to our sit-down breakfast one last time with Sariyono (LOVED him). Then we waited for our group to be called. We were one of the first ones off the boat b/c we were trying to catch an earlier flight. .

We took a quick taxi to the airport. There was zero traffic and zero wait at the airport. We were off the boat and at our gate in no more than 20 minutes NO KIDDING. Then, to continue our magical experience, not only did we make the flight but we were in first class. YAY!.

We returned to Atlanta and it didn't feel too cold, but there was snow on the ground! It was the first white Christmas since the 1800's (Claire was sad to miss it). Justin had to scrape our car before he could drive it back to get me (he parks in the employee lot when we travel so we don't pay for parking).

Here's a picture of the parental's house: Now, for Georgia, this snow is really exciting so you Northerners are not allowed to bash it!

Got home, took a nap, unpacked, etc... We've been drinking our juice out of wine goblets and wearing tropical colors ever since. It's been a hard adjustment back :(

Things we loved the most: chocolates and animal towels EVERY night (always SO fun to plan for the next day's activities on a freshly turned down bed), taking showers every day that were the PERFECT temperature and the PERFECT pressure, fresh towels once a day, having the bed made twice a day and turned down each night, not having to make dinner or clean up after it, just showing up and eating as much as we wanted (which was usually a LOT - we basically paid for our dinner - the room/entertainment/etc... was all free!), soaking up the warm Caribbean sun, having zero responsibility besides getting to the next meal on time :), it was so romantic!!!, and lastly and most importantly, we had so much free time to just spend together - so much time to bask in our love. SO MUCH FUN.

We're seriously trying to plan our next cruise and are 95% committed to the week of Thanksgiving 2011.

One other bit of happy news: Justin is on his way home from work right this very minute via the Original Mattress Factory to purchase our BRAND NEW BED!!!!! Yes, that's right ladies and gents, we finally saved up enough in our savings fund that we are allowing ourselves to get a bed! The bedroom furniture is right behind it - we'll get that hopefully by the end of the month. The bed should get delivered on Saturday and our lives will be changed forever. YAY!

Cruise Day 7: Christmas at Sea

2011-01-06T15:04:00.007-07:00

Day 7: At sea

Day 7 was a nice, lazy, Christmas day. We were able to sleep in because there was nothing we had to get up for. Justin had a migraine the night before, so we'd actually gone to bed relatively early. Now, I'm usually a pretty light sleeper, and all night I'd been up to the bathroom a few times (I drink too much during the days :), so imagine my GREAT surprise when there a full Christmas stocking next to our bed the next morning. I was SHOCKED. Totally didn't expect anything, but somehow Santa and his helpers found us all the way on our boat in the middle of the ocean! So that was a fun, magical start to the morning.

We met up with everyone at breakfast. I think we all felt like Claire at the thought of leaving the next day :(

But before I can truly begin with the rest of Day 7, let's rewind to the wee early morning hours of Day 7. (Maybe even all the way back to the end of Day 6 - I don't know, we were sleeping!)

There was an adult air guitar contest. Scott really wanted to do it, and finally convinced Katie to do it. Good thing he did, because they BOTH won another trophy!!! This was #2 for both of them! Way to go kids! There they are with Carnival Cruise Entertainment friend Jonathan.

Katie's only a little bit excited to have 2 of these, don't you think?

Anyway, so back to Christmas breakfast. The following picture is just to let you know how indulgent we really are on a cruise, because I don't think you're understanding what I'm trying to explain. Every morning for breakfast we get to order juice. I think we all order 1-2, but Christmas morning I'm not sure what happened, we ordered and drank more than what you see below (the rest of us still have at least one glass in front of us):

Love this pic :) What more could a girl want that a fun, handsome, wonderful, WONDERFUL husband with her on Christmas day... on a big boat... in the middle of the warm ocean... in the warm ocean sun... with unlimited food... *sigh* I've found the REAL heaven.

Yes, we like our grapefruit juice!

Throughout the day everybody spent time with the friends they'd made during the week. Scott and Claire were nowhere to be found, but here's Katie with Team Michigan, playing putt-putt. Good thing she had practice during the Amazing Cozumel Race!

Dad took his shirt off to lay out and ended up with a "fanny chest" - it's a cousin to the "bro" (a bra for men). It's all the rage these days.

There was an ice sculpture demonstration that was SO cool. Just before the ice sculpting, there was a men vs women synchronized swimming competition. Of course me/Katie/Dad/Justin entered (along with the 2 boys and 1 girl in Team Michigan, plus one other new cruise friend) - nobody was there to take pictures. Mom video taped the whole thing (PRICELESS), and she doesn't have 3 hands, so we have a great video (I'll try to get it from them) so you can see the winning routine. The boys won by a LANDSLIDE, and also meant that Justin and Dad each earned ANOTHER trophy.

Celebrating the win with some chocolate/fruit sushi. YUMMY!

Nursing the loss with cups upon cups of the strawberry bisque I mentioned earlier. They had it at the lunch dessert buffet the last day! SCORE!

The sun is lowering for the last time :.....( (that's a lot of sobbing teardrops)

Dad doing his favorite activity (say it with me, you know it by now!): NAPPING. See what I mean about the drooping arm? You can see where he just closed his eyes mid page, and the book fell down.

Because it was Christmas, there was organized Christmas Caroling in the main lobby between dinner times. SEVERAL hundred people showed up. This was the best picture I could get (sorry - crappy flash), but it was really a one-of-a-kind, wonderful experience! And the coolest part: we sang real Christian hymns too - not just wintery songs!

LOOK WHO WE SAW THERE! I know him! We were sure to thank him for the stocking and were grateful he stuck around. After such a long night, a cruise does sound like the perfect vacation. Hey, if the big guy is on a cruise, isn't that a sign that it really is the best vacation ever?

At dinner we had salmon for the (count it) fourth time! Each time seemed better than the last. SO DELICIOUS.

Now, you've heard me mention these little Carnival Legend trophies that we'd won throughout the week. By Saturday night, the count was up to 9. So we decided to bring all of our trophies and our medals (there should be 7 there - K/C forgot theirs) to make a Winner's Circle Centerpiece for our final meal.

Breakdown of the final count:
Dad won 2 trophies, one for winning the Hairy Chest Contest, the other for winning Synchronized Swimming)
Erin and Justin combined for a total of 3 (Erin's Minute to Win It, Justin's Synchronized Swimming, and combined effort to win Name That Tune in the piano bar)
Katie won 2 trophies, one for winning the women's division of the Air Guitar Competition, and one for winning a Karaoke competition
Scott won 2 trophies, one for winning the men's division of the Air Guitar Competition, and one for performing with the live band during a Karaoke event.
7 medals: 1 per person for taking 2nd at the Amazing Cozumel Race.

Again, I hope you've been listening: we're THE Coolest Family EVER. I think we just proved it.

As if that wasn't enough, as the family's walking off the boat, our friend Jonathan asked Mom and Claire how many trophies we ended up with. They said 9. He said that we were just so awesome we needed another as a tribute to our awesomeness. So M/C were awarded another trophy as they walked off the boat. We're so cool that we get trophies just for being cool. Final total = 10 trophies.

Here's a picture of our wonderful wait staff. They were such a joy and delight, we really looked forward to seeing them every night. We love you Rex and Santos!

I just thought this was so funny I had to include it :)

Mom and Dad with Nancy - THE hostess with the absolute mostest. She was a JOY, delight, and pleasure every single time. She brightened our day each morning and evening and if you are able to go on the Legend between now and May when her contract is up, PLEASE take the time to meet and get to know her just a little bit. SUCH a darling, precious, sweet young woman!

Sorry we didn't do a great job of taking pictures of food. Like I said - weird flash. Plus we forgot a lot :) But here's the Christmas dessert. Justin could tell you more about it.

Our last animal. I think it's a puppy? It was almost as much fun trying to figure out what they were as it was to come home and find them :)

Home Sweet Home. I miss it already...

Cruise Day 6: Cozumel

2011-01-05T16:04:00.007-07:00

Day 5: Cozumel

Day 6 began a nice, lazy day. Our excursion wasn't until 11:30, so we got to sleep in and have a nice, big breakfast. When we did make our way off the ship, we found out we were parked to the Allure of the Seas. This is THE newest (just started sailing Dec 2010), biggest boat out there (6 inches longer than its twin - the Oasis of the Seas). She was MONSTROUS. I can't decide if 6,000 guests on one boat sounds like fun or craziness. I guess we'll have to go and find out!

We were SO excited about our excursion in Cozumel. We signed up for The Amazing Cozumel Race. We LOVE the show The Amazing Race, so when we saw this listed as an option we just HAD to sign up for it. Let me tell you, it was probably the most fun thing you could ever do. Almost.

Along the way Katie had to get a dragon Henna tattoo for us to find our next clue. The dragon had 4 dots on it, which correlated with a certain Mayan number, which was the next location on our map!

Rather than have detours and road blocks, etc... it was really just a scavenger hunt. The picture below is when we were the first to check in for the halfway point. That's right, first. By this point we'd already been running all over town and even got to go see a museum. Not that we looked at much more than the words we needed to find, but it was still really cool :)

After the halfway checkpoint, we hopped on a boat that was moving a LOT.

Why is Scott wearing a mask? Because he had to SNORKEL to find our next clue!!!!!!!

Then Claire had to get a bracelet, which doubled as one of our clues.

We also had to play 3 holes of putt-putt. If we couldn't make the hole in the given par we could choose to do it over or purchase water/tequila. We played them over and only had to buy one water. At the last hole Mama made it on the par shot!!!! Again, we were first to EVERYTHING we got to.

That's right, we were the first to finish. We had to wait about 45 minutes for all the rest of the teams to arrive. (These are our Amazing Cozumel Race id badges)

We were so dedicated that we put our blood and sweat into it. Yes, that's blood dripping down Scott's leg. His wet bathing suit chaffed the inside of his knee and when we finally stopped to breathe we realized we had a battle wound.

Don't ask any of us how we were first to EVERYWHERE and somehow ended up second? Doesn't make sense to us... (the "winning" couple's snorkel boat got stuck and so they took away 40 minutes of their total time. But here's the thing... the other people stuck on the same boat with them ended up 6th. Does that sound weird to you?)

However you cut it, we had SO much fun and walked away with some sweet medals. Go us!

This is right before the policeman came to yell at us for climbing on the letters. But seriously, how could you put such perfect climbing letters in such a perfect place and NOT expect people to climb on them? Somebody wasn't thinking that one through...

It was Christmas Eve and it was fun to see a local, life-sized Nativity. Complete with pigs :) (and I'm not talking about my Dad/Scott/Justin - haha)

Right at the end of our pier there was a FANTATSTIC cantina called The Three Amigos. Everything had to do with the movie and it was done to a T!

And of course there's always time to wrestle an alligator (sp?)

Nameless...

Didn't get any pictures from back on the boat, but we were pretty tuckered out from running so much. I think they said that total it's a 3-mile course? It was SO FUN. If you're ever in Cozumel, I highly highly highly recommend that you do this. You will LOVE it!

Cruise Day 5: Belize

2011-01-03T16:05:00.009-07:00

Day 5: Belize

Day 5 began medium early? We had to wait in line for tender tickets, and we're lucky our cruise director knew Katie or we may not have made our excursion in time. If you're ever going to Belize, skip the big breakfast and get in line for a tender as early as possible. There were SEVERAL people who missed their excursions b/c they were too late/ the system didn't work as good as it could have/ etc...

When we did get on our tender, the drive in was a few miles. We were REALLY far out there. As we got closer to land, the seagulls swarmed around the tenders. It was really pretty, actually. And we were under shelter, so nobody got any surprised from above :)

K/M/D on the tender.

C/S/E/J. Can't you tell we're getting tanner?

While waiting for our excursion, we spotted a George Lucas (right Scott?) look-alike and Scott wanted to take a picture, so we had to pretend to be the subjects of said photo while pointing to the real subject. I feel like he can see right through us...

Claire. What a joyful child.

We went ziplining first. Justin tried to film a few times, but we ran out of tape and he couldn't brake so he was going to fast. Oops.
The other women. I think Katie is caught in a yawn?

Scott did take some video, but it's at the bottom of the post so scroll down to see those!

After ziplining we went cave tubing. Again, we're so on with the matching bathing suits. And my new water shoes are so cute!

Carrying the inner tubes - it was about a 15 minute walk/hike through the Belizean jungle.

We took pictures of the caves with our water camera, but they didn't turn out b/c it was so dark (duh), so here's a few floating down the river afterwards.

We floated down the river linked up together so our guide could guide us better.

And from the back...

The best one at the end of the cave tubing while still inside the cave.

Video of me ziplining. We were doing Tarzan yells, then I was having fun and kept yelling.

Cruise Day 4: Roatan

2011-01-03T15:33:00.009-07:00

Day 4: Roatan

Day 4 began as a nice, lazy day. Scott began it a little too lazy and was 10-15 min late to breakfast. While he was gone, we thought it'd be a good opportunity to order something *special* for him. A lucky charms omelette. Serious. Our waiter couldn't understand what we were asking for and kept laughing about it. He said that when he took the order to the kitchen, the cook said that in all of his years he had NEVER had such an order.

Of course nobody said anything to Scott himself. So as he's eating a piece of bacon he looks to see what kind of omelette we got for him and he reacted thus:

Laughing as he tries to eat some. Gotta try it, right?

Hmmmm, not so bad...

Haha, poor thing. I don't think he was every late to breakfast again. (and we did order him some normal french toast so he'd have something real to eat).

In Roatan we decided to just go lay out on the beach. We're SO glad we did that - there's a beautiful beach with chairs and everything that's only a 5-10 minute walk away. Yay for being on a cruise!
Justin's feet got a little burned...

Excited for the beach...

I looked this up after we got home, but Roatan is actually a small island off the coast of Honduras. It's not actually part of the mainland of Honduras. I was also impressed with how far south it actually is! I guess it's no wonder the weather was SO warm and beautiful! Hot even!

Claire and her darling new friend Hazel. Hazel and her family live in Orlando, which is our second favorite city in the world, and we're excited to see them soon!

There were some fun picture opportunities on our way to the beach.

Yes, we're bursting out of a cake. Like I said, coolest family ever. Getting in/out of it was a little tricky though :)

Laying on the beach was SO NICE. They had chairs we could just use with lots of palm trees for shade. The shade actually didn't last long, and it was a HOT day.

Jumping off the end of the pier. We did this using a water camer with one exposure, so we didn't really have any practice or feedback as to how it went. Besides the fact that you can't see Katie or Justin's faces, I think it turned out okay. Yay for fun jumping pictures into delicious tropical water!!!

Did I say this cruise was bliss? Sunshine + food + Justin (+Justin in a bathing suit all day) = all I ever need in life. I LOVED taking this trip with Justin so much. It was fun to kick back away from work and responsibility and to just indulge in fun and food and each other. We're already planning our next cruise. Maybe Thanksgiving... We'll keep you posted and you're all invited!

Dad's favorite thing: naps!

Justin followed suit and actually took a good, long nap here.

The view from our beach chairs. Don't you want to be in this picture?

Us in front of our ship.

We got back on the boat and went straight back to our pool. We got to watch a BEAUTIFUL sunset. While taking pictures of the sunset, this sweet older man came up and offered to take a picture of us too. Yay!

So we went back to our room and go ready for dinner. Before dinner, they were playing Minute to Win It games in the main theater. We stopped in to watch and I found myself on the stage playing one of the games. The contest was to put a Reese's Cup on our forehead and then WITHOUT HANDS get it into our mouth. If you know me, I know you're already thinking "Challenge Erin to eat a Reese's quicker than anybody else... that's gonna be bad for the other guys." And it was. I was the only person to finish and I did it quite quickly too. I was rewarded with a trophy! And I didn't realize that the chocolate did get all over my face during my efforts. The after pic:

Dad got the warm chocolate melting cake EVERY night (literally - and one night I think he got two?). Mom got it most nights, and everybody else had it 1-4 times. Dad liked it so much he wanted to use it as toothpaste!

And when we came home that night we had a bat? We weren't sure what it was, so if you have a better guess please let us know!!!

Cruise Day 3: Grand Cayman

2011-01-03T15:06:00.007-07:00

Day 3: Grand Cayman

Day 3 (Tuesday) began with a really early morning. We went to our fancy breakfast again (we just had to have our same waiter for breakfast every morning!), and then hopped on a tender into port. Yes, we're excited for the wonderment that awaits. Especially Scott.

Dad decided to try to get in one of his favorite things: a nap.

The whole family.

We got off the tender, onto a bus, and then onto a catamaran. It was a BEAUTIFUL boat and we got to be the cool people who sat on the top part. Go us.

Basking in the sun with the wind going through our hair. *sigh*

Claire and Scott doing the same...

Dad REALLY doing one of his favorite things: a nap. Again with his shirt up over his belly. I really think he only wants his belly tan?

Regardless of what Dad's going for, he started a trend with the rest of the family...

Yes, we all have matching bathing suits. Yes, it was on purpose. Yes, we match the water. Haven't you been listening? We're the COOLEST FAMILY EVER :)

At first Claire was a little afraid of the stingrays.

But if you kissed a female (the big ones), it was 7 years of good luck. If you kissed a male (the little ones), it was 14 years of good luck.

We tried to do an underwater photo shoot.

And of course we tried kissing. It was hard to not be able to see anything (I didn't want to open my eyes). You can tell we're trying to see with our hands, haha.

The fam (minus Justin who was taking the picture) - I love this b/c everybody looks so excited and b/c you can see how BIG these creatures were. They really were SO friendly and curious.

Baywatch? We invented Baywatch. Plus who doesn't want a bathing suit jumping picture in beautiful water?

On the catamaran on our way back - everybody took a sunbathing nap. Dad's a good example!

Drinking green coconut. Quite delicious!

Wanted more coconut and sun so when we got back on the boat we headed back to the pool. Got our favorite drink (strawberry daq/pina colada - VIRGIN)

At the show Tuesday night.

Eating salmon - YUMMY!!!!

First salmon experience of the cruise. It was DELICIOUS. Every single one of us (7 people) got the salmon for dinner. Then we felt a little bit bad b/c at the table next to ours one lady's salmon took 20 extra minutes to come out. It was so good. Like I said, we had salmon on the cruise 4 TIMES and each time seemed to get better than the last. YUMMY!!!

Full, content, tired, ready to be rolled into bed...

When we came home tonight we had a MONKEY in our room! I think this was my favorite towel animal.

Cruise Day 2: At Sea

2011-01-03T14:44:00.007-07:00

"Day 2": At Sea

Well, first full day on the boat was WONDERFUL. It was Dad's birthday (52 years young) - so we took him out for breakfast. We even let him order whatever he wanted :)

Then we hit up the pool. We wanted to be right in the thick of things and boy were we ever. We were right by the chips and salsa, feet from the hot tub, yards from the mellow band, and a run/jump/splash to the pool. And we started in the shade for about 15 minutes but then had GLORIOUS sun. I've gotten a few questions about the weather. Except for the first night in Tampa, WONDERFUL WEATHER. Temps in the 70's and 80's. Perfect to lay out in. In the evenings, if you were wearing only a bathing suit and were in a breeze (which moving ships usually have), then it got a little brisk. But I took a nap with my towel on me one day and loved it :) PS - note Dad's position. He wanted to tan only his belly and legs?

Dad's first official nap on the cruise (out of MANY).

Katie and I nominated Dad for the Hairy Chest Contest. For the first round the 10 contestants had to dance with each of the 3 judges. As you can guess, our dad was the classiest one (and yes - he's dancing with Katie. She was one of the 3 judges!!)

Katie's "Tarzan" as he rescued her. He took 3rd.

May I present the WINNER of the Carnival Legend Hairy Chest Contest: As his award he got a t-shirt and canvas bag from Del-Sol. He also got a Carnival Legend Trophy! A little golden ship on a stick. He started somewhat of a tradition for our family (see the post for Day 7 - dinnertime - coming soon).

Do you like strawberry daquiri's? (Virgin, of course). We do!! My favorite was the strawberry/pina colada mix. Especially when they poured both at the same time so the entire left half was red and the right half was white. Beautiful and oh so yummy!

Titled: "Glorious Ice Cream Cone"

I know we look washed out in this picture (don't know why), but I know it's a falsehood. We got pretty tan by the end of the cruise and looked every minute of it.

Haha, this picture is one of a sequence. Mom wanted a real picture, and Dad wanted a smoochy one, but he just kept going in for the kill and mom was trying to talk to him and kept laughing. Perfect pic!

Katie with "Team Michigan" - her new friends on the cruise.

Another favorite cruise hobby: reading. We'd often find Dad trying to do both: read and nap at the same time. The book would be in his hands but his hands would be limp against the deck.

We too read on the cruise. We started/finished A Christmas Carol. *Highly recommend* It's quite a short book, actually, and made for VERY easy reading. While reading we also discovered how TRUE to the book all the movies are. I guess if it's a short book it's easy to be true to. (If you wondered, our favorite version is Disney's Muppet Christmas Carol). And yes I cried at the end.

Monday night was formal night #1. Justin got a new tux vest/tie and I got a matching dress. We looked sublime :)

In fact, we were so in love that we were invited on stage to dance as a lovey dovey couple during the performance. It was fun to bask in our love. The flash was too far away to work well, so here's the best one we've got. It was us walking onto the stage.

So of course while we're on stage Katie and Claire had a mini photo shoot using our camera.

At dinner after the show. SO GOOD. We ate so much all week long that it's hard to remember what we had on what nights. But here's a list of my favorites: all the fruit soups/bisques (strawberry, mango, cherry, peach), SALMON (4 times, thank you very much), all the seafood, the duck, some chicken dishes... Like I said, we ate so much. We literally had 3-4 appetizers, 2-3 entrees, and 1-2 desserts EVERY night. No exaggeration. We didn't really gain that much weight. Maybe 3-4 pounds? And I'd do it again baby!

Dad at his birthday dinner.

It was probably one of the most fun birthdays Dad has ever had (according to me). Relaxing by the pool, reading a book, kisses from mama, good music performance, YUMMY dinner, and family time. Can I go on a cruise over my birthday this year? :)

Cruise Day 1: Leaving Tampa

2010-12-29T12:09:00.007-07:00

Day 1: Leaving Tampa!!!
Let's recap: Ashley's wedding was Saturday. The reception was Saturday night. I left the reception at 9 to drive to the SLC airport where I caught the red-eye back to Atlanta (left 2:50 GA time), got into ATL and then tried to catch the earliest flight at 7:20 to TPA (I had a ticket on the 8:40 flight, but wanted to get in asap). So Erin arrived in Tampa around 8:45ish dead tired. Justin drove down with Mom/Dad/Claire, and Katie and Scott both flew in to Tampa Saturday night. Anyways, M/D/J had errands to run, so they dropped me off with the other kiddos and the girlies took a nap to get ready for all the fun they were about to have:

We finally got the car loaded and ready to go. We had the trailer hitch thing on the back with all 6 roller carry-ons, threw Scott in the very back with luggage beside, on top, and behind him (see his hand waving from the back), and put the four of us across the middle. We just hoped no cop would pull us over :)

So finally we park the car, drop off the luggage, wait for D/J to return from parking the car, wait in line to check in/go through security etc.. and are about to get on a boat! Justin's first cruise:

It felt like coming home ;) PS - my favorite part of all these pictures is the look of excitement in everyone's faces. Even if they're waiting for their turn to walk across.

We get on the boat, and everything was decked out in Christmas stuff! There was even a darling little Christmas village in the main lobby. I wish we'd gotten more pictures of the inside of the ship. We were on the Carnival Legend and it was SUCH a beautiful boat! I've only been on 3 cruises, but my parents are now in the teens and kept saying how the Legend was the most beautiful boat they'd ever been on. The theme was "legends" - so there were statues and paintings of famous legends like Hercules, Colossus of Rhodes, unicorns, fair maidens, Gulliver, etc... Very cool.

Since our staterooms were not yet ready, we hopped in an elevator to go get some lunch and then do some exploring of the ship. Can't you tell we're happy to be here?

One thing we found was SUSHI! They had 3 different kinds every day. We usually forgot to come, but we did hit it up a few times. Bless Katie's heart, she keeps trying sushi hoping she'll fall in love with it, but every time she tries it she doesn't like it. Justin and I did, although we have a great sushi place here that was probably better. Still: free sushi? Yes, please!

Katie and Claire were quick to find the ice cream stations. Katie said her total was somewhere between 24 and 25 chocolate frozen yogurts. Yum!

As we explored the boat, Katie found the opportunity to take some fun pictures. The rest of us followed suit.

This is dad's ANTM audition picture.

In front of the iconic Carnival steam thing (what are they officially called?) What's cool about the Legend is the smoke stack (is that what's it's called?) was see-through and from the top floor on the elevator you could look right up into it and see a BEAUTIFUL painting. Did I mention what a beautiful ship it was?

Scott found the hot tub but had a hard time adjusting from the cold outside air to the hot water.

We decided to get a head start on our tanning while we could. Unfortunately it was FAR too cold to take any more clothes off.

At the mandatory safety drill. Now on the other cruises I've been on you actually wear your life jacket, which turns into a wonderful photo shoot. Not today :( So we just stood on the deck with our fellow cruise passengers. We were just down the row from K/S/C...

...who apparently DID try to wear their life jackets. They were stopped before getting too far and so they returned the life jackets to their stateroom. But who says you can't have a photo shoot anyways?

SO HAPPY TO BE HERE!!! (Although I am tired)

Somewhere after 6 we passed under the Sunshine Bridge. This was SO COOL to see. The boat clears the bridge by mere feet. If you cruise out of Tampa, I recommend you go watch this. I only wish it was light outside so Justin could see the Sunshine Bridge. It's a GORGEOUS bridge. The Travel Channel actually ranked it in its top 10 bridges in the US. I've been over it (EFY St. Petersburg, yeah!) and know how gorgeous and big it is. Still, going in night was fun.

Crem-brulee for dessert. Claire and Justin enjoyed it.

And when we came home we had a pet walrus waiting for us. Such a fluffy comforter and pillows, such a good night's sleep!!!!!!!! Stay tuned for Day 2... AT SEA.

We are the Champions!

2010-12-28T12:36:00.006-07:00

Our football team made it to the state championship game this year. SO EXCITING. Our team lost :(, but in the week leading up to the big game, the school had a door decorating contest. Ms. Emily Woodward and I (teacher next door) decided to combine forces and create one monster, award-winning door by combining forces. The result was life-changing. And yes, we did win the competition :)

And in picture form:

yes, we went on the ceiling!

(if we had won, our record would have been 15-0, thus the score) The students who put the most work into it Mrs. Badger and Ms. Woodward - door decorating CHAMPIONS!
ps - it was a REALLY fun day and it made me feel so cool when so many kids would come by and gawk at it and say "Oh man, that's SO cool." I swelled with pride each time. By the end of the day it was hard to get out of the building because my head had gotten so big!

Ugly Sweater Party/Ashley's Wedding

2010-12-28T12:07:00.006-07:00

Before I feel justified in posting about the cruise, I must first blog about the Ugly Sweater Party we threw and my best friend's wedding.

Ugly Sweater Party: we had LOTS of yummy food and played some very fun games. I think we all laughed so hard we cried or snorted or both. It was SO fun to do stuff with other couples in our area. It was the first party we've hosted and I think I sense an annual tradition. Plus a lot more fun in store with all the people who came. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and loved making more friends. Yay!

Played a game called "warewolves" - like Mafia but better

Laura skinned a Sesame Street animal to make hers. And Amy's blinded you it was so sparkly with sequins and her necklaces. Kristin... love it.

Our official Badger Christmas Card picture. :) Maybe next year we'll do real pictures that are less cheesy. And hopefully we'll send out a lot more. It was our first and trial year, so we didn't send very many.

Best friend's wedding: My best friend of 20+ years got married!! I can honestly say that she was the MOST beautiful, happiest bride I have ever seen. Her dress was GORGEOUS, her husband overjoyed, and everything all day went off without a hitch. WONDERFUL DAY. I was beaming like a proud parent all day and am SO thrilled for Ashley and Brian.

Highlights of the weekend: getting nails done with all the bridesmaids, eating Cafe Rio (SUCH a treat), wedding day breakfast of chicken biscuits from CFA and toaster struedles (sp?), and of course all the wedding day magic. *sigh* I love LOVE!

Ashley's excited face when she woke up :)

Eating our YUMMY breakfast. And yes, all 6 of us slept in one hotel room (thank you dear inventor of roller beds)

Eating lunch before the temple with my other two best friends (all from PTC, GA). We've all been bridesmaids for each other and I LOVE them! We're the 4 Muskateers.

So many people love Ashley and flew in for the wedding :)

Yeah, we're cool and we know it.

Back view of Ashley's AMAZING dress. Sorry, didn't get one from the front.

Amy + Tanner = crazy dancing fun. Love that family

Congrats Ash!!!! Love you SO much and can't wait to go on couples cruises and to Disney with you!!!

*Marriage = LAST GREAT HOPE*

;)

Festive Holiday Update

2010-12-19T06:11:00.005-07:00

Well it is that time of year again to reminisce and share our highlights and downfalls and make resolutions to be even better next year. For us, this year has been FULL of blessings mixed with car problems, a dash of sickness and one not fun funeral of a very loved grandpa:( but overall we have been blessed beyond what we could have hoped or imagined. Let us give you a little update on how we are doing...

Erin
Erin is in her second year of teaching at Starr's Mill High School in Peachtree City, GA and is LOVING it. She teaches freshman math and is pretty much the favorite teacher. There have been a lot less tears and trials this year than there were last year, for which we are both very grateful. She also finished her second year of coaching the JV girl's volleyball team. They had a FANTASTIC winning season, also a great improvement from last year. However, teaching full-time and coaching one sport was not enough for our Erin so she is going to start coaching the girl's JV lacrosse team starting next month, which she is nervous and excited about.

Erin is serving at church as the first counselor in the young women's presidency. She loves her girls, LOVES the women she serves with, and is especially excited for the Disney-themed Girls Camp in June :) Serving in the program definitely makes for a busy Wednesday and Sunday, but it is all worth it.

Justin
Justin is still working for Delta Airlines, but has been extremely blessed with two job promotions in the last six months and is currently working as a Program Manager for In-Flight Service Communications, which is basically internal corporate communications, but specifically for the In-Flight Service department. It is a great place to work, great people to work with and he is learning a lot and loving it. (definitely better than throwing bags)

Justin is serving at church as the first counselor in the young men's presidency. Which he absolutely loves. He teaches and works with the Teacher age boys and has a GREAT group of guys. Again, it also makes for busy Sundays and Wednesdays, but it is fun we are both in the youth program together.

US
We have been blessed beyond measure this year, with a great apartment, fun trips, new jobs and thanks to the help of Dave Ramsey we are DEBT FREE! We have been working hard and saving up and only pay cash for EVERYTHING! Because of this it has taken us a little longer to furnish our house, we still eat on a card table and sleep on a double mattress on the floor, but we are working to remedy that soon. We have seen so many blessings as we have worked to follow the prophet's counsel to get out of debt and stay out of debt and it has truly changed our lives. During this process we have had some struggles and challenges with our cars and feel like the shop is where we park our cars and we are just use them for a couple weeks. However, these challenges have only made our successes and blessings more sweet.

We have had some fun trips throughout the year to DC, NYC, Utah, Idaho, Las Vegas, Disney World and North Carolina and we will be going on a cruise later this month, more to come on that when we get back. Overall 2010 was a fabulous year and we look forward to another great year together. We love you all and wish you the best, thanks for reading and have a very merry Christmas!

We may have overdone it...

2010-12-09T18:33:00.004-07:00

Every year the SMHS choral department has a candlelight processional Christmas concert combined with a silent auction. The money earned goes towards choral student scholarships (of which both my sister and I partook).

Being adults who actually have money, last year I thought it would be fun to buy something. There were some GREAT decorations and it was our first Christmas and I was so excited. Well, wouldn't you know but everything I bid on was something that this lady Jana also wanted. She was such an animal! I'd outbid her, she'd outbid me. I think she was hiding in my shadows! Much to my disappointment, she beat me on EVERYTHING and we walked away empty handed :(

This year, I was going to get SOMETHING. I don't like losing, especially not when cute Christmas stuff is on the line. So this year, Justin and I spread ourselves out and did two things: 1- we outbid others by only $1 (ex: if the last bid was $20, we bid $21), and 2- we bid on a few more things than last year. We figured that combining these two would result in our spending as little money as possible but actually walking away with something.

Wouldn't you know it, but we won EVERYTHING we bid for. Even though there was a full 10 minutes more of bidding left when we wrote our names down. And, of course, it ALL had to do with food. Needless to say, lots of comments that night and at school the next day.

The bounty: mini-Christmas tree (not edible), Snowman cookie jar (I OUTBID JANA THIS YEAR for this one, but kind of accidentally - I was only trying to drive up the price b/c I knew she would get it b/c she's so hard core. oops), Fondue Fun Basket, Cookie Basket (BEST COOKIES EVER), Fudge Brownies, Dining In and Dining Out Basket, and a cake. We gave the cake to one of my student's younger siblings. But here's our loot:

Only In High School

2010-10-30T14:09:00.002-06:00

I don't have any biological children at this point. But I do have 125 students and feel like they count for something, right?

The other day in class, a very eager young man who NEEDS A BELT was at the board doing a problem in front of the class. As he's working, he's getting lower and lower on the board. Yes, he needs to bend over to get closer to the bottom of the board. You can guess what is happening to his pants.

Another student in the class decides to inform our friend about the situation by saying, "Your trousers are descending."

Did you really just say that? Oh my word, couldn't help but burst out laughing. Love my kids.

A few of our FAVORITE things...

2010-09-19T19:25:00.005-06:00

Watching hummingbirds in our garden (there's 2 in the picture)

Visiting family and then picking/smelling flowers with sweet Reese.

Then putting them in her hair.

Then watching her eat a tomato we picked.

Going on a 4+ hour drive with my honey with no music or radio. Just talk :)

Driving through beautiful southern towns where Great Oaks are covered in Spanish Moss.

Sleeping in the BEST bed invented: King-sized Sealy Posture Premiere. Best. Sleep. Ever!
Going to the FSU stadium - it was ridiculously enormous.

Watching BYU football (even when it was bad, it was still fun to cheer for our cougars)

Being struck with fear by the FSU Mascot. Osceola (the seminole indian) on Renegade (the horse). At the game Osceola is on the field ON RENEGADE. That's right. Real, live horse on the football field with a crazy Indian on its back. With a sharp spear.

Awe inspiring.

Eating yummy food.

(while putting to rest our wonders of what was better: Carrabba's or Macaroni Grill.

The answer: CARRABBA'S)

Staying in a lovely inn in downtown Tallahassee. The beams are original from the 1800's.

Getting to visit with FAMILY over amazing food!!

Ahhh... back to normal life :)

Lifetime Achievement

2010-09-02T20:21:00.002-06:00

This morning I'm in the car on my way to work listening to my radio. A car commercial comes on and FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER I understand

every
single
word

*Including the fine print at the end!

Garden Update 8/8/10

2010-08-08T13:29:00.010-06:00

Well, I know the two of you who have been dying to know what is going on with the our garden have been deprived for some time, so I thought I would give you an update.

About a month ago I got tired of our zucchini, which were doing poorly to put it nicely, and decided to rip them out and add a couple new things. Well...that turned into a four hour project planting and transplanting a bunch of new stuff. We have added a cucumber, planted some more green beans, a yellow squash and gave the zucchini another shot, this time in a Topsy Turvy planter. Oh yeah, and we got rid of the old flowers and added some new ones. The results have be pretty good and the tomato and peppers continue to do well.

We did have a surprise and let down with a cantaloupe though. We started it from seed months ago and gradually moved it into a bigger pot as it slowly grew. Well it took off and grew quite a bit but never really did well. Last month, when I was tossing out the old stuff, I was just about to yank it when I noticed a quarter sized melon starting to form. After that I tried my best to save it but it only got about the size of a softball and fell off the vine. We tried to eat it, but it was pretty bland. However, other than that and our zucchini we have been pretty blessed.

We have more cucumbers than we know what to do with, which isn't good because Erin doesn't like them. Dozens of peppers and a bunch of new blossoms on our tomato plant. Here are some pictures for ya'll.

Topsy Turvy Tomato

Red and green bell peppers. The two on the left are falling over because they are so heavy.

Red bell peppers

Flowers with Topsy Turvy zucchini behind it

Green beans with yellow squash behind them. The squash grew off the deck to get sun.

Cucumber, from the top of the bucket to the top of the trellis is about 6 or 7 feet.

Side view of most of all our garden. It is still incredible to me that so much comes from such a little seed.

More Summer Fun

2010-07-28T16:32:00.008-06:00

Warning: LONG POST

With pre-planning starting again on MONDAY (shouldn't it be a CRIME for teachers to work so close to July?!?), I realize I need to finish posting on our fun summer activities. Where to start?

When I went out to Utah for Shannon's wedding, I went a few days early so I could stay with two of my favorite friends ever. You know those kindred spirits that Anne talks about in Anne from Avonlea? Yep, Allison (and Alex - her hubby) are definitely some of mine. We spent three glorious days eating our favorite foods, laying out, loving their precious dogs, going to the temple, and hitting up the car wash. Yes, the tri-color foam is as amazing as it looks :) At the end of our time together my mom/sister picked me up so we could join the wedding festivities.

The morning of the wedding we celebrated my Houghtaling cousin Quinn's birthday by going to the BEST DINER in all of Utah: the Sunshine Cafe. EVERYTHING there is amazing. I'm not kidding. When Justin and I are in Utah we try to do three things: temple, Costa Vida, Sunshine Cafe.

I already posted about the weddings. Most of the rest of it doesn't have pictures to go with b/c I'm still learning to use a camera as often as I should. About mid-June Justin's mom, Kathy, came to visit us for a day and then we rode to the airport with Justin the following day to catch a plane to Utah. In that one day she was here we did SO much!

9 mini-loafs of homemade zuchinni bread
9 jars of homemade strawberry jam
8 jars homemade strawberry freezer jam
2 strawberry pies
1 loaf homemade wheat bread

Our house smelled SO good. And I was able to share the fruits of our labors with family/friends/visiting teachees. YUM! Never have I ever felt so domestic. UNLESS it's this past Sunday when we had my family over for a roast. We made more wheat bread, served it with our jam, and I MADE A PIE FROM SCRATCH. Two of them actually. Justin and I picked the blueberries. I made a filling. Made a struesel topping. MADE A PIE CRUST. Justin loved it. I think it wasn't quite perfect, but am very pleased at how well it turned out.

Anyways, so when Kathy and I got to the airport, because I'm the Delta employee's spouse and she's his mother, we fly on different priorities. So we waited around until about 3 or 4 until we were both cleared for a flight. I can honestly say that miracles happen when you fly stand-by. What a blessing!! We were able to go spend time with the MARVELOUS Badger women. We went to Costa Vida and played scattegories (sp?) and the next day went to Molly's baby shower. It was a wonderful, relaxing few days and I was reminded again of how much I love my in-laws and how great they really are. I would totally choose to be friends with each and every one of them, so it's just PERFECT that we're family and get to be close friends for forever!!!! :)

I also got to spend some time at my sister's house in St. George. It was tons of fun to play in her pool - half of it is a kid's water park type thing. We definitely made up our own obstacle course and giggled like we were 3 years old again. Thank goodness the fun-loving side never leaves us. She showed me a lot of St. George and introduced me to the Sweet Tooth Fairy little shop. AMAZING. I got the coconut cupcake and was reminded of our wedding cake. In love. Unfortunately we did a bad job of taking pictures (slash I'm still waiting on the ones she took on her camera), so I don't have anything to show for it.

Justin's birthday was July 2. We went to a Braves game for his actual birthday. We won bottom of the 11th inning. Great game. Fun seats. Then on Saturday the 3rd we went out for a sushi dinner - AMAZING rolls. And afterwards went into Atlanta to the Fox Theater to see Phantom of the Opera. It was SO good. Yay for birthdays!!!!

And yes, we did eat some of that octopus :)

Our cousins Holly & Brandon Cox are doing a long summer traveling across the country and back with their 5 kids. They were in PTC for the 4th of July and we LOVED spending time with them. It's fun to have such great cousins and to build relationships with them. I'm sure getting more and more excited for our Houghtaling Family Summit that's next summer.

The next weekend we went up to North Carolina to surprise Grandaddy (my mom's dad) for his 80th birthday. His birthday was actually in June, which added to the surprise :) But all his kids and 2/3 of his grandkids were there. Again, I didn't take tons of pictures, but I did take some of Dad, Claire, and cousin Lauren playing in the creek/the SC welcome sign.

This past weekend we took a short trip down to Orlando to visit our cousin Kendall who is working for the Disney College Program. She's SUCH a wonderful, kind, generous cousin that she gave us tickets for the day - PARK HOPPERS! We started with Hollywood Studios at 8 am, hit up Epcot for lunch around 1 or 2, then Katie and I went home around 5pm to rest while Justin/Claire hit Animal Kingdom. We all met back up at Magic Kingdom around 8pm and partied until the park closed at 3 am. Claire and I left just after 2, but what an amazing, magical place. It's fun to be at a place that celebrates families and dreams. I eat it up!

While the family was driving back on Friday, Justin and I went to Downtown Disney to get another Disney Christmas ornament for Christmas (annual tradition for 3 years now) and eat at the Earl of Sandwich. We kind of lost track of time and got to the airport in time to board a plane - FIRST CLASS. So it was fun that the magic extended throughout our journey home. Thank you Disney!

Phew! As you can imagine, it was a fun yet exhausting summer. After so much fun I feel like I need a vacation before school starts up again. What - you're saying that WAS my vacation? Dang it... I guess I'll have to hold out for Christmas when we're going on our family cruise!!! :)

Season of Love!

2010-07-14T10:50:00.009-06:00

Sorry for the delay in posts - it's been a BUSY summer with lots of traveling. The most important events: WEDDINGS!!!

One of my best friends Amy got married in Orlando over Memorial Day weekend in the Orlando Temple. SUCH a beautiful temple.

The day before all the bridesmaids got mani/pedis. LOVED the massage chairs.

Renae and Amy:

Kelsey and Ashley:

Then we went to Downtown Disney for dinner. Did you think we'd be in Orlando and completely ignore the Disney magic? (I went by myself for lunch while others were still traveling, we went for dinner on Friday, then went back to window shop on Saturday after the happy couple left for their honeymoon).

Look who else came! SO good to see Joanna (Tolsma) Fountain. And YAY for Sarah and Brett!

What a BEAUTIFUL couple! This was their slow motion walking while smiling pose.

Like her hair? You should. Ashley and I did it. :)

Yay for being bridesmaids!!

And back to Downtown Disney for window shopping. What a MAGICAL weekend!!! (The only way it could've been better was to eat a Mickey Bar or actually see the Mick-ster himself.

The reception was two weeks later, post-honeymoon. I love my best friends for several reasons, one of which is that they are SO fun and love to have fun/dance, regardless of what other people are or are not afraid to do. Yay!!!

And yes, we are doing an EFY line dance. Can you move it like this? We can!

3 o r 4 weeks later I went out to Utah to visit friends and go to my cousin Shannon's wedding. It was in Sandy on a BEAUTIFUL Utah summer day.

Riley and Lauren were the cutest flower girls EVER. Riley kept HURLING the flowers to the ground.

As Greg is their bishop, he got to perform the ceremony!!!

Our camera stitches together landscapes. I think it turned out okay, but it is a little small. It was a BEAUTIFUL property and such a glorious day!!!

Our camera is also cool enough to zoom in enough that I could take pictures of them holding each other's wedding bands.

SO fun to see Abbott cousins! It's been a while since our last reunion, so it was lots of fun to go visit.

Water anyone?

Congrats Amy & Lorrin!

Congrats Shannon and Preston!

Love you all!

Vanilla Twilight

2010-06-17T21:30:00.007-06:00

So, with working for Delta comes the blessing of flight privileges. Traveling becomes so easy that there is no excuse not to go places and see people. However, this blessing isn't so fun when Erin and I don't get to travel together. Right now Erin is in Utah visiting friends and family for her cousin's wedding. She is having a great time but it is not fun to be apart.

A few weeks ago Erin was in my current position(home alone and missing my spouse) while I was in Idaho over Memorial Day weekend for my Grandpa Badger's 85th birthday. On the flight from Salt Lake to Atlanta I was missing Erin quite a bit and a perfect song from Owl City came on the in-flight radio I was listening to. I found out it is called Vanilla Twilight. I have attached the video below. Check it out and listen to the words and you will see why it is a great song when you are away from the one you love. I love you and miss you honey!

I GOT HIRED!

2010-05-26T21:28:00.002-06:00

So as many of you know for months now I have been applying and interviewing for full-time position at Delta. I have been working for them as a baggage handler and feel so blessed to have any work, but have been anxious to get something that pays a little more and has benefits. Also, crouching down while trying to cram 170 bags into the belly of a plane when it is 90 degrees outside isn't the MOST fun. Well today all our prayers and hard work paid off. A few weeks ago I interviewed for a position as an administrative assistant in the in-flight service department. The interview went well and the job sounded like it provides a lot of variety and would be a great place to work. They called me back this afternoon and offered me the job, which of course I accepted. I will start on Tuesday, June 1st. It is full-time with benefits and vacations and EVERYTHING. We are so excited and feel so blessed. Thank you all for your prayers, love and support I will give you more details after I start.

More Gardening

2010-05-10T07:34:00.023-06:00

Well it is that time again for the garden update. I hope someone out there is following this and enjoying watching things grow as much as we are. So a few updates. We went to the store the other day and bought a bulb of garlic. As many of you know often there are litte green shoots coming out of some of the cloves. I have always heard you aren't supposed to eat those(I don't know if that is true, but whatever) anyway instead of cooking with them I wondered if they would grow if I planted them and sure enough within a few days they were poking through the dirt and are now 6 inches tall. I also planted some marigolds at the top of my tomato planter, they are huge but no blooms on them. Anyone know of a weird marigold species that grows tall but doesn't bloom?

Another addition to our garden family are some yellow supper squash and ANOTHER zucchini. Erin LOVES fried zucchini, grilled zucchini and she makes AMAZING zucchini bread so she wanted LOTS of zucchini. As anyone who has grown zucchini before knows, typically you get so many zucchini and they are SO big that by the end of the year you can't give it away fast enough. Well Erin was concerned that we would only get a couple and they would be the cucumber sized ones like you buy in the store, despite be trying to convince her otherwise we planted another so if any of you would like some zucchini PLEASE let me know. We added a summer squash cause we realized we eat it a fair amount. But now, as you can probably imagine, the entire length of our deck is lined with buckets and plants.

We are very excited about everything and have tomatoes on our plant (LOVE the Topsy Turvy p.s.) and have dozens of green beans and radishes. Our only disappointment is that one of Erin's flower planter baskets is doing awesome and the other one hasn't quite figured things out yet. Look at the picks you will see what I mean.

Just...a little... farther...

2010-05-09T13:09:00.004-06:00

There are technically 15 more days of school left and I think I'm more excited than my students. We took our EOCTs the last week of April, which means the last 4 weeks of school consist of review/preview for next year. We're all stir crazy and I wish we could just say "well, we've taught you everything the state said we had to, have a great summer. Peace."

Unfortunately we'd probably not have jobs anymore if we did that :( At least there are exciting things every week/weekend to look forward to and help count down the days!

Upcoming excitements:
This week: Thursday is yearbook day, which means the schedule is weird and there's one less period to teach. Friday is Career Day, which means NO MATH CLASSES! This weekend is busy: Sat I have an all-day volleyball coaching clinic at Emory, afterwards is a student's eagle court of honor. Sunday our darling friend Allison is getting baptized.

Next week: Seniors' last day is Wednesday. I don't teach senior classes, but it makes the rest of us excited. Saturday is Amy's college friends' bridal shower, hosted by me. Way excited to use a lot of the funner serving stuff we got for our wedding.

Week after that: Tuesday is the last day I see my students as they all get to exempt EOCT classes' exams. Thursday is MY last day of school b/c I'll be going down to Orlando for AMY AND LORRIN'S WEDDING! Friday is hanging out/rehearsal dinner etc... Saturday is the big shebang. We drive back Sunday.

Monday is Memorial Day. Post-planning is Tues/Wed June 1/2. Volleyball open gym is Tues - Thurs.

The next week is Open Gym Mon - Thurs.

Next week: girl trip to Utah. Cousin Shannon's wedding is that Friday the 18th. Then back to Georgia.

Rest of the summer: rest, relax, poolify so I can get tan for the first time in a few years. Justin's birthday is July 2nd. Going to a Braves' game that day - you're all invited to join! It's a Friday night Fireworks game. Then Saturday we'll do our romantic birthday dinner going out for Sushi. Yum!

Luckily we have flight benefits. Poor Justin works 6 days a week, but I'm happy to come visit people who need visiting! We'd also love to let our guest bedroom get some use, so if you wanna come visit GA we promise you'll have a great time!

Ode to Utah

2010-04-26T11:35:00.036-06:00

As Erin mentioned, I was in Utah last week for my older brother, Ryan's, graduation. Although it was not so much fun to be away from Erin I did have a blast and LOVED seeing my family. The week was mostly graduation commencement, a really long convocation, awesome food(thank you Molly) and lots of fun with the fam. It is sometimes hard to be away from the place that I called home for 24 years and the fond memories I have there so I decided to put together a little tribute to Utah and some of the things I love about it.

But before I do I want to say a big CONGRATULATIONS to Ryan for graduating from BYU in history and Britney for graduating from cosmetology school. I am so proud of you both and know how difficult it is. Love you both.

OK so now to what I call "Ode to Utah"

First off...The beautiful mountains

Next..The Mountain of the Lord. I miss having a temple so close.

Friends and COSTA VIDA!

The recent addition of In N Out Burger. Double double, animal style with fries and a strawberry shake.

Macy's grocery store and GRANNY SYCAMORE"S BREAD! YUM!

And of course FAMILY!

Here's to you Utah!

Garden Update

2010-04-26T11:25:00.008-06:00

So as near as I can figure the last pictures of our garden were taken on April 9th. I just took these pictures so you can see exactly how our garden is doing. We are obviously having so much fun with it and are just now beginning to reap some of the fruits of our labors(literally). I would encourage everyone to start a garden if you haven't already it is so easy and so rewarding.

WEEE'RRRRRE DEEEBBBBTTT FFRRRRREEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

2010-04-25T14:45:00.004-06:00

For those of you who don't know, Justin and I have become big fans of Dave Ramsey. Who is that? Only the second best thing to ever happen to us. Dave Ramsey is an advocate for financial fitness. My dad bought tickets for Justin, Katie and I to go to one of Dave's Total Money Makeover Live events in SLC last April. We went - and it was LIFE CHANGING.

Dave has a few taglines. One is "we tell you the same thing your grandpa would, except we keep our teeth in." He's formulated a series of baby steps that, if you follow them with GAZELLE INTENSITY, you will quit throwing out your money and can instead be building wealth/college funds/retirement. These steps are based on common sense rules like "don't spend money if you don't have it" and prioritizing appropriately between needs and wants. There are rainy days, and you need an emergency fund for when that happens. No, Christmas or new tires do NOT count for emergencies. Stuff like that.

Well, between the two of us we estimate that we had about $10,000 in debt (mostly student loans/the rest of my wedding ring). Since neither of us was making any money until September, it wasn't until then that we could really throw money at this thing. We've been taking every bit of available money to do it. We have a card table for a dining room table, we don't have a tv, we only have one car, we just inherited my parents' old computer so we wouldn't have to buy one, we're sleeping on a double bed inherited from my old bedroom set so we wouldn't have to buy a new mattress/bedroom furniture. We did purchase a couch (and paid cash for it, thank you very much) so we have something to sit on, but we've been trying to "live like no one else so later we can LIVE like no one else."

So we've been hucking tons of money at this debt. When Justin's car was in a wreck, the money we got from it went towards the debt, our tax returns = debt, etc... Hope you get the idea. We've been getting excited because we both get paid at the end of this week, and we knew we'd be able to finish the last $630 dollars on the $5,500 student loan and then we'd be DONE!!

Received the following letter in the mail from Justin's student loan people:

Why we are contacting you
We are pleased to inform you that the remaining balance of your student loan has been forgiven. This is our way of thanking you for taking care of your loan obligation in a diligent manner.
What this means to you
Within 2 to 3 weeks we will send a document confirming the paid in full status of the loan.

What?!?!?!? Did we really just read that right? WHAT A BLESSING! What a wonderful, wonderful letter to open! We feel like we've been working hard for the right thing and praying that we'd be able to push push push, and then this happens! Prayer works! Miracles happen!

So for all of you who know the Dave Ramsey radio show (talk radio, in GA it's 640WGST on AM radio), Fridays are always Debt Free Fridays, which are the days when people who've been working the baby steps get to call in and scream as loud and proud as possible, "we're debt free!!!". Everybody listen up, because on Friday May 7th (we have Relay for Life this Fri-Sat and can't call), the Michael/Andrea Houghtaling and Justin/Erin Badger family are going to be doing the first ever 2-generation phone call to scream "WE'RE DEBT FREE!"

And then we're going to dinner at Carrabba's :)

You can do it too! You're going to LOVE it! Go to http://www.daveramsey.com/ for more details.

PS - Dave's coming to Atlanta in October and Justin, myself, Dad, Mom, and Claire are all gonna be there!!

Distance makes the heart grow fonder

2010-04-24T20:35:00.003-06:00

Or is it stronger?

Not sure, and not really sure how I feel about that phrase. Justin's brother Ryan graduated from BYU this week. Yay! So Justin went out to celebrate and support. He left early Wednesday morning, and is currently in the air on his way back to me. Having him gone for a grand total of 96 hours has not been the most fun I've ever had. Luckily I have a full time job and have had lots of extra stuff going on this week after school, so I haven't even gotten home until between 8- 10:30 each night. You'd think that you'd be tired after such long days.

Unfortunately, I can't sleep :( The best part of every day hasn't been there, and I think I just felt restless without my favorite friend. So I decided to do a shout-out blog to my dearest, darlingest sweetheart.

I know a lot of you may know Justin. Let me tell you, if you ever thought he was a great guy, if you ever thought he was a hard worker, if you ever thought he was a fun friend, uplifting, charismatic, talented, etc... I can assure you that he's all those things and more.

A lot of people say the first year of marriage is very eye-opening and even a difficult adjustment. Let me say that it's been eye-opening, but an absolute pleasure! I've realized that Justin is not only as good and wonderful as I expected he would be, but he's been so much more. He's a very kind, caring, compassionate husband. He's so thoughtful and patient and works so hard to do sweet things for me on a daily basis. He constantly surprises me with sweet things and takes time to do little things like pack my lunch, do the dishes, take out the trash, move the laundry through, or just text me to say he loves me.

We've talked a lot about how fun marriage is. Sometimes it feels like we're playing house, sometimes it feels like a dream, sometimes we're the best of friends hanging out or playing games or watching tv, sometimes we're an old couple just snuggling or holding hands, sometimes we feel like parents who get excited when their kids (our plants) start sprouting or blooming or who feel sad when other plants seem to struggle with their growth, sometimes he's my late-night talker or my problem solver, sometimes he's my therapist, sometimes my cheuffer, sometimes Justin's the best chef I've ever had, my housekeeper, my garbage disposal, my cheerleader, my leading man, my partner in crime, my comforter, my dream maker, my comic, my muse, my handy-man, my gardener, my competition in Settlers or Backgammon, my inspiration to be kinder, my mail man, my carpenter, my shoulder to cry on or the one who picks me up when I'm down.

i LOVE being married to this man. I absolutely think I get to be touched by an angel every single day. I'm so grateful that we belong to a church that teaches that we will be able to be husband and wife literally for forever. What an absolute blessing.

I'm sorry to be so sappy. It wasn't until I realized Justin's coming home that I realized how much I've missed him :(

I like to say that sappiness is happiness.

Clearly, I'm a happy girl!!! :)

Quick yet vital blogging question

2010-04-20T16:45:00.002-06:00

So, obviously I'm not the world's best blogger. Getting better though! So to all of you out there more well-versed in blogging than I: HOW DO I MAKE MY FAMILY/FRIEND BLOG LINKS SORT BY HOW RECENTLY THEY POSTED? That would make my life so much better.

In advance, I thank you SO much for answering this question. And if somebody already answered it, well I want your comment too! I might be too much of a novice to get their idea and yours might actually work for me!

THANKS!

We LOVE gardening!

2010-04-15T14:53:00.001-06:00

About a month ago Erin and I decided we wanted to try to have a little garden out on our balcony. However, we ran into a little problem...we hade never gardened in containers before. So we got a little creative and purchased a few bins and topsy turvys and a LOT of soil and started off. We now have 7 different vegetables, 3 different fruit, 2 different herbs and 5 varieties of flowers.

We have loved planting the seeds and watching them grow and just ate our first strawberry the other day. We practically treat the plants like our kids and hurry home from work each day to see how they are doing and water them.

Here are some pictures for you and we will be sure to keep you posted on their progress.

Last 9 Months...

2010-04-08T17:47:00.006-06:00

So to catch you up on what we haven't been posting: Erin teaches math. Some days are great, some are not. And some are really not. Definitely more difficult than she anticipated. Weekends and holidays are wonderful. Justin is enjoying his work at Gallopade and Delta more and more, but is still searching and applying for every relevent full-time job.

In the fall: Justin was the lead in a local play. He was Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun. It was actually b/c of the show that he got hooked up with Gallopade International (thank you Mr. Delorenzo!!) Erin coached jv volleyball for SMHS. For Thanksgiving we went to Hilton Head Island with Erin's family. Tons o fun! Over Christmas we flew out to Utah to go to a friend's wedding and to see family and friends. After a quick 3 day stay, we flew to Missouri for Christmas. Again, tons o fun! Yay for having such fun families!!! (and families-in-law!) For winter break we tried to go back out to Utah again but the flights were terrible b/c of 2,000 cancellations in ATL from snow, plus the holiday weekend, so we ended up in the Seattle airport for 13 hours on Valentine's day, and finally got on a flight to SLC and immediately hopped the last flight to Pocatello to visit Justin's grandparents. For Spring break, we have done a lot of resting and went to DC for one day. School gets out May 28th, Erin is excited, and we both miss the days when we both got to sleep in together or stay up late b/c we knew we could sleep in. Ahhhh, to be an adult... Here's some pics of the highlights of the last many, many months (in reverse order b/c I'm too lazy to rearrange all the pictures):

For our 1-year anniversary we went to an AMAZING seafood restaurant in Atlanta. SO good!

Post-dinner: yummy!

Eating crawfish in Savannah GA

More crawfish On the plane to Savannah, most AMAZING stand-by story ever and we ALL made it and sat next to each other: miracles happen!

Happy Valentines Day from Justin. Delivered during school while I was teaching, I started to cry and my students' lives were changed. The girls wanted husbands to do sweet things for them, and the guys wanted to be those kinds of husbands:)

Justin and Reese at Christmas. She definitely remembered him!

Fishing over Thanksgiving. Didn't catch anything, but had fun trying!

Trying to learn to cast :)

At the beach over Thanksgiving

Annual first day of school tradition: Chick-Fil-A breakfast in pj's!

Part of our birthday present to Katie on the last night we saw her before our move :(

We're cool.

Me and Reese before we left (she didn't quite remember me at Christmas)

Justin graduated in May
Yep, we're the fun couple!

Museums, memorials, and monuments, OH MY!

2010-04-08T17:16:00.006-06:00

This week is Erin's Spring Break, and we decided to celebrate our 1-year anniversary by going to DC for a day trip. (Oh the blessings of flight benefits).

We got up bright and early, headed to the airport, flew to DC, took the Metro into the city, and walked over 9 miles checking out the monuments, memorials, and museums. It was a glorious, splendid day and we had a lot of fun walking all over the place. Here's some of the highlights:

Waiting for the Metro outside the airport

Vietnam War Memorial (Justin said at night it's cool b/c there's metal slabs that reflect the light and make it look like the soldiers are walking through rice paddies)

Washington Monument (WAY taller and wider than I ever thought)

Jefferson Memorial (Monument?) across Reflection Pool

Lincoln - GREAT man!

In front of the new WWII Memorial right in between the Washington and Jefferson Monuments
Justin is an ant compared to this monster.

Arlington Cemetery

Hope Diamond (this was the BEST Smithsonian!)

A 30-room dollhouse. It was ridiculously huge and meticulously detailed.

The Fonze's (sp?) jacket

Kermit the Frog!!!

Some beautiful building in downtown DC.
We saw this house and realized we'd forgotten our eggs and t.p. Shucks. Maybe next time...

Overall, SUCH a fun trip. We were definitely tired after walking around all day, but it was good exercise and good practice. We're hoping to do the Susan G. Komen 3-day (you walk 60 miles over 3 days as a breast cancer fundraiser), and it was a huge reality check of what it'll take to walk 20 miles a day. Augh! Made me think twice about it... Has anybody ever done the 3-day? Advice?

Back in Business!!

2010-04-08T10:33:00.002-06:00

WE HAVE THE INTERNET AT OUR APARTMENT!! That's right folks, we are back online! And, since it's my Spring Break, once I finish cleaning the house, I plan on doing a full update on including pictures!!

In short: we're happy, can't believe we hit the one year mark, and loving our apartment. School's going well for me. Justin's enjoying his work at Gallopade and Delta and still searching for a full-time job. And we finally have a computer and internet. YAY!

The Move

2009-07-27T10:00:00.003-06:00

Let's be honest: blogging is not my forte. I know I saw that everytime I blog, so I think I'll just trust that the rest of you have already realized this and quit stating the obvious. Once again, I blame it on lack of pictures. Actually, we have tons of pictures to post, but I feel lame blogging without them and as our camera cords are somewhere in the stack of boxes in the garage...

What has happened since last I posted? Oh so much! First of all, we left Utah June 19th to begin our first move/trek across the country in Justin's non-air-conditioned car towing a little trailer. To prepare ourselves for the anticipated heat, we bought two little fans and a pack of 18 washcloths to keep damp in the cooler on the ice (for our necks/heads if needed), lots of water/gatorade, and we bought do-it-yourself tinting at Wal-mart. Day 1 was pretty good. The weather was nice, it was driving through Utah and Wyoming and we didn't ever have to break out the washcloths. That tinting CHANGED OUR LIVES. We were doing really good driving-wise, so we ended up driving to Omaha in a long, 14-hr day. Spent the night at a hotel there, but when we left in the morning we realized we were definitely in humid, mid-west country now. The rest of the way to Willard, MO (outside Springfield, where Justin's family lives) was hot, humid, and we were so set on reading Harry Potter that we didn't want to roll the windows down as it would hurt our ability to read out loud and also that it might mess up the tint. Anyways, that was a pretty miserable day. Thank goodness for the wonder that is ice in washcloths, cold beverages that replenish fluids and quench thirst, and the glory that two fans can provide. Plus a loving, patient, thoughtful husband who is more concerned for my own comfort than how hot he might be. That's some serious love. Anyways, got to Willard, took showers, and suddenly birds were singing and flowers were blooming again. Had an EXCELLENT visit there. Stayed Saturday afternoon through early (4 am) Thursday morning. Stayed for Father's Day, went to Andy's custard place, Lambert's Cafe (AMAZING), and the Bass Pro Shop headquarters. SO much fun. Unfortunately, all good visits must come to an end, so we woke up super super early Thursday morning after deciding that we would rather die than drive the 12 hours to Peachtree City, GA entirely in daylight hours. And after chastisement from both sets of parents, decided we'd also roll the windows down.

Oh my goodness, parents are so wise! You know how you go through phases in your life where you say "oh, I'm a college graduate (with two degrees, thank you very much), I'm married, we hitched up this trailer (Justin did), I have a grown-up job, I can figure out what's the best way to stay cool as we move across the country while still being able to read Harry Potter aloud..." Well, then you have a miserable day and realize you should listen more to the adults around you who have been saying something else all along. Yay for humbling, learning moments. Plus they make good stories to tell to future generations, right? My grandkids will say "tell us the story of when you and Grandpa moved across the country without airconditioning" and their eyes will go wide and they'll be so impressed that we had the strength and courage to do that. They'll probably call us modern day pioneers. Cool.

So the last day of driving was bearable. Hot, but bearable. SO glad we left so early in the day. We definitely drove through the Ozarks of Arkansas and saw tons of little po-dunk towns. We stopped for gas at this one place where it literally took 20 minutes to pump 3 gallons. The numbers literally crawled. Funny, but not at the moment. It was pretty scenery though!?

Anyways, so we get to GA and take a shower and eat and enjoy playing with my family. We unloaded the trailer into a nice little spot my mom cleaned out for us the in garage and returned the trailer. Went to the pool with Claire, got fried, then left on Sunday morning for our long-awaited, much-belated HONEYMOON at Disney World!!! Yay! The post on that will be coming next. I need to take a break first.

purple background and flowers?

2009-06-14T17:29:00.004-06:00

So... As Erin mentioned we are not the greatest at blogging and I am definitely the worse of the two. So I recently looked out our blog and found a purple background and flowers. I had not minded previously since we had just gotten married and it "matched" the theme or whatever, but purple backgrounds and flowers? Seriously? So I made a slight change to make it more masculine without going over the top. I guess this is just my way of trying to delay the life and style makeover that is inevitable. Good luck all you men with blogging wives. Hope you like pink bunnies.

We move in 9 days!

2009-06-10T15:33:00.002-06:00

That's right folks, the Justin and Erin Badger clan are moving out in 9 days... crazy how time flies!?!

Well, by now you've figured out that we're not very good bloggers. I attribute this to a lot of things. Here's my list of excuses:
1- Busy! I know you all agree that life gets busy and blogging falls down the list of things to do.
2- We don't have the internet at our apartment. Therefore, when we're doing nothing but watching the Food Network late at night, we can't blog at the same time. So when we do have the internet is when we're at work and should be doing other things.
3- We don't have the internet. Meaning that it's a pain to get pictures posted. And let's be honest- blogs are best with pictures.
4- We haven't even loaded our pictures onto our laptops. So even if we had internet, we wouldn't have pictures to post.
5- I'm finishing my thesis. Meaning that I'm losing my mind. And my eyesight. Staring at a computer screen for 7 or 8 hours a day isn't exactly healthy in my opinion.
6- Justin's working and applying for jobs. Another 7 or 8 hours on the computer for him. Ditto.
7- I tried using our local public library to post on our blog, but they don't have blog access. As in the library blocks it. So a lazy day at home can't translate into a day to catch up on blogs.
8- Once you get so far behind, you reach the stage where you think "what's the point? Might as well not try to catch up now..."
9- I wish I could come up with other fun, cute reasons why we haven't been blogging. To be honest, we're not very good journal writers either. We definitely do want to improve though.
10- what would any kind of list be without a number 10? And for the excuse that is number 10- we don't really have one.

Here's a reader's digest version of what's been going on in our lives since the last post, and we'll just put a bunch of pictures up later:

We've now been married for almost 2 1/2 months. Man does time fly! We LOVE being married and definitely recommend it to anyone seeking fun and adventure.

Speaking of adventure - remember the fun we had moving into our cute little basement apartment? Well, we have a spider problem. A major spider problem. As in we've caught over 100 in the past month. We have two basic varieties: skinny yellow ones that are on the walls/ceiling for the most part, and thicker black ones that can get to quarter-plus size. Justin killed a black one on Monday that was larger than the circle of touching the tip of your thumb to the tip of your pointer finger. LARGER than that. GROSS. Now we've started seeing a more disturbing variety that are red. It's like they're the devil's personal spider assistants. They're really disgusting. Yesterday morning Justin killed one that was slightly smaller than that one humongous black one. I'm getting really tired of them. We're getting more and more excited to move out.

We've taken to sleeping in the living room. We dragged our mattress out there one day about 5 weeks ago to have a slumber party in front of the beautiful, massive flat screen in our apartment (not ours, the place came furnished), and we've taken up a permanent residence there. It's away from most of the spiders, it comes with a huge tv and a fan. The fan is the kicker, as it's started getting hot and our apartment doesn't have it's own a/c. So to sleep at night, we crank it up really high and just don't think our room could get as cool.

So that's our adventure. We're spider-fighting, slumber-partying animals.

In other news, I defended my thesis in May, passed with revisions, and am on the verge of being done. I'm getting really tired of it and just want to be done so I can move on with my life. Especially since we're moving next week, it'll be a huge push to finish before we go, but I think it's possible. I hope.

We're getting VERY excited to go to Disney World for our official honeymoon, which is more of a 3-month anniversary/first vacation than a honeymoon since it's so far past the wedding. But we're excited anyways. And it worked out perfectly that we'll be going over Justin's birthday (July 2), which is fun b/c this year you get in free on your birthday! So we'll be there for 5 1/2 days, will go to two parks, one water park, and have the rest for lazy days in the sun. We will DEFINITELY post pictures of that. Look for the after the 4th of July.

We've decided that moving is very bittersweet. We're excited to leave our spider-colonized apartment, looking forward to actually getting our own apartment where we'll be for an indefinite amount of time, wanting to break in to our wedding presents (most of them we actually haven't touched yet), thrilled to be going to WDW, anxious about starting new jobs and making new friends... But we're also realizing that we're leaving a lot behind us. Utah has been Justin's home for his whole life. It's been mine for the last 6 years. There are so many people that have been such an important part of our lives, and now we don't get to see them. Yes, we know that the most important ones will keep in touch, and we'll see the ones we make an effort to see, but it's been AWESOME having so many family members so close, and having so many friends that we love. It will just be a little more sad without being able to call friends and play or talk or go out to lunch or shopping or camping or whatever... And yes, we know we'll make new friends that we can do all that stuff with, but this is a shoutout to our friends in utah that we love dearly and will miss very much. Thank you for being such a part of our lives. You've helped define who we are as individuals and as a couple. We've had so many wonderful, amazing experiences with you and we are so grateful to have had you in our lives. We're anxious to continue friendships as we move forward in life, and hope to be Christmas Card friends, cruise buddies, and Disney maniacs with you!

We don't actually know where we'll be living, but for the first little while we'll be living in my parent's basement. So our mailing address will be 180 Jefferson Woods Dr, Peachtree City GA 30269. We still have our same cell phones until further notice.

Moving plans: our target departure day/hour is next Friday, June 19, at 8:00 am. We'll get the uhaul trailer (attached to Justin's car) the day before, have all our stuff boxed up so we can load it on Thursday and clean the apartment Thursday, so all we do on Friday is roll out of bed and go. We're planning on getting almost to Omaha (11 hours-ish) on Friday. Then Saturday we'll go the rest of the way to the Badger's house (Justin's parents/family) in Willard, MO (just outside Springfield - SW corner). We'll spend a few days with them and then probably make the 12-hour drive to Peachtree City on Wednesday. We'll be at my parent's house for a few days then leave for Disney World. We'll check in on Sunday afternoon (june 28th) and check out Friday a noon-ish. We'll be back to PTC just in time to wake up early on Saturday for the 4th of July parade. We'll definitely post pictures of that, if only for pure evidence of the sheer number of golf carts that actually exist in PTC. Some family friends will be driving my car from Utah to GA as their daughter just finished college and is moving back to GA. We definitely lucked out with travel plans!

That's all for now. We might not get to post again until after everything settles down (aka after July 4th). If so, we appologize. Know that we love reading your posts and ours will eventually get to a once-a-week basis. Or almost once-a-week. :)

Yes, we are MARRIED!!!

2009-04-20T15:39:00.018-06:00

Happy three weeks and 3 days to us! Yay! So we did get married, and lots has happened since then. Enjoy our update/pictures!

The wedding week was super busy and fun. We flew to GA Tuesday night. Wednesday consisted of getting our marriage license and then various interviews to teach math for me, airport runs for Justin, and then his family also got into town and the boys did tux fittings, the girls went to a hometown bridal shower. Thursday was the day before, and was filled with more airport runs, picking up flowers, setting up the clubhouse for the rehearsal dinner, etc. Again, BUSY! The bridesmaids came over to make bouquets, which was tons o fun. Then we headed over to the family dinner, which was Cafe Pig and SO delicious. It was a nice, relaxing end to a few stressful days, and the first time we'd actually seen each other since getting our marriage license Wed morning. After spending quality time with our family, talking/laughing/crying, we went home to go to bed. At our house I got lots of help with hair/nails from my mom (hair), cousin Shannon (toenails), and cousin Austin (fingernails). Then all the girls at our house did their own nails while I tried going to sleep. Took a while, but finally made it. Justin - I think he was chatting it up with his family at their hotel, not sure what else they did.

We woke up to a thunderstorm on Friday morning, and I faced the disaster that my hair didn't have time to dry in the curlers, and so it didn't take ANY of the curl it was supposed to. Didn't exactly wake up with lots of extra time in the case of such an emergency, so ended up needing and receiving AMAZING help from Katie and Shannon in the make-up department, and then mom finished up the hair. Got to the temple right on time to lots of rain. By the time we got out, it was still pouring, so we decided to just take a few pictures there, and would take lots (hopefully) before the reception, and maybe return to the temple Sunday afternoon.

After the temple, Justin and I went to lunch at Sweet Tomatos, one of our favorite places, and saw our photographer and friend there! Funny :)

Luckily the rain stopped long enough that the patio at the clubhouse was dry enough to use for the reception, and we were able to take lots of pictures! It was very surreal, it was OUR reception! It was a lovely reception, and we actually found time after the line ended to sit down and EAT! Yay! The food was FANTASTIC, the cakes were divine, and everything was just perfect! What a wonderful day! We really feel blessed to have had the perfect, amazing day that was better than either of us could've imagined. Here are some of our favorite pictures - enjoy!

I love ads

2009-04-09T13:23:00.004-06:00

So for a while I have been wanting to create a blog dedicated to creative marketing or pr campaigns or ads that I have come across and today I did it. The address is, http://howdidtheythinkofthat.blogspot.com
I just have a couple postings but they are a couple commercials and stuff that I think are pretty creative. Check them out and let me know what you think.

Life after Disney World

2009-03-16T11:52:00.007-06:00

...is not as magical, but pretty close. We realize we haven't blogged since Christmas Break (sorry!), and that life is happening way too fast for us to be allowed to get so far behind. So here's the last few months in a few paragraphs (pictures to come later when I have more time):

The rest of Christmas Break: yes, there was a whole other week after Disney that we haven't talked about. It was a busy, good week. Tuesday was Adam's birthday, and to celebrate we all went to the temple, me and Scott included :) What a wonderful place to be to celebrate family! On New Year's Eve my dad was the DJ for a super swanky party in the Four Season's Hotel. Did I say swanky?! Justin, Mom, and I got to go help, eat food, and help people dance. Once they got enough alcohol in them, they were quite the party animals and it was SO fun to be there. The food was also FANTASTIC - I recommend the Four Season's Hotel to anybody who would ask. The rest of the week was spent playing with family, looking for internships, doing some wedding prep (centerpieces, florists, etc.).

Got back to Utah and I started school again. This semester I am teaching MathEd 306 again (Mathematics for Elementary Ed Majors - we cover algebra, fractions, and probability) and loving it. I'm also working on my thesis full time, which is nice b/c I don't have other classes to worry about, but bad b/c there's nothing to break up the monotony of working on one thing, all day long, week after week... Luckily at this point I'm very near the home stretch and life is much happier :) Justin is doing two internships: one for an experiential marketing agency in Riverton (south of SLC) and enjoying himself there. Our favorite thing he's done so far was Disney On Ice, which we got to attend and loved. His other internship is teaching seminary as a student teacher for 9th graders in Riverton. Not as fun as the high school, he says, but it's getting better with most every day. January 14th, Mom and Scott were here and we all took Scott to the MTC (pics to be uploaded later). Update on him: this morning he was in the airport on his way to Columbia (yes folks, he'll be there by the end of today!) and I got to talk to him via mom holding two phones up to each other. He sounds fantastic and wonderful and it was delightful to talk to him!

At the beginning of February a lot of the Houghtaling cousins/aunts were in town for Kendall's play - Beauty and the Beast (yes of course she was Belle and she ROCKED it). That weekend we had a family bridal shower, which was so fun. There are pics to be uploaded, but I'll save that for when I have more time. TONS of fun, amazing food, the best people, the best a bride could ask for! :)

The semester has just flown by, and now we find ourselves with only 11 DAYS left until we get married!!! We are beside ourselves with excitement and definitely ready for next Friday to just get here already :) One thing we were talking about the other day is how much we've loved being engaged. We'd heard SO many people tell us that being engaged was so stressful and not fun and that they hated it. We've actually really enjoyed it a lot. We think that a lot of those people hated being engaged because A- they were so stressed with planning a wedding in a few short months that their lives were overrun with wedding plans and school and other stuff and their relationship wasn't as fun b/c of it, and B- they were so anxious to get married they forgot to stop and smell the roses and enjoy their life in the moment. We decided not to let wedding plans overrun our lives by not talking about them constantly, and we tried our best to continue going on dates and having fun together amidst all that was happening around us. As a result, we've learned tons of new card games from friends, been able to go to the temple as a couple almost every week, had fun experiences trying out new things together in the kitchen, and luckily we've had 5 months for all the wedding plans and have been fortunate to be able to spread those out so there wasn't really a crunch time that caused lots of stress. I will say, however, now that we're down to 11 days, I find myself just wishing the days would fly by and we could go ahead and be married :) So maybe I'm a hypocrite, but I stand by the fact that being engaged can and should be a wonderful, happy, delightful time in every couple's relationship and that it's their perspective and choices that will determine their experience. So good luck, make the most of it, and be sure to ENJOY it!

The next 11 days will definitely be full enough to keep us busy. My schedule is pretty packed, which means that the days WILL fly by. Today is Monday, I have meetings and lots of thesis work to get done b/c I'm taking all of next week off, and the following week is when my final FINAL draft is due to my advisor. Augh! Wednesday is BYU's teacher fair, which means that hundres of school systems from across the country will be here looking for teachers. Katie and I will both go, and I'll try to get as many contacts, interviews, and offers as possible. Last time I walked away with three job offers on the spot. Hopefully we'll be so lucky this time. Then Thurs/Fri I finish moving out of my apt and into our little basement apt (that's for another post - we'll attach pics and stuff once we're all moved in). Fri/Sat my cousin Kendall is in Utah's State Junior Miss competition, so we'll attend that in support of her amazingness. Saturday morning I'm presenting twice at BYU's CPMS Spring Research Conference, which is fun but stressful. Justin has to work that afternoon. Sunday is our last day at church as single people :) Monday is last minute wedding details, then on Tuesday we fly to GA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We're practically there already - how awesome is that?!?!? Yay for being busy so much that it makes time go a little bit faster.

Honeymoon plans: we'll spend the weekend in Atlanta and then come back to Utah Monday evening (missing more than one week for both of us would be suicide). Then at our 3 month anniversary we're going to DISNEY WORLD (can you honestly say you were surprised?) and are SO excited about it! Obviously we've never been just the two of us on a romantic, magical vacation, so if any of you have input on what to do when you're doing disney the romantic, magical way versus the crazy, magical Houghtaling way... please let us know :)

This may be our last post as single people, if so, chiao!!!

Christmas Break

2009-01-11T16:31:00.015-07:00

We've been meaning to blog about our Christmas break for some time now... Warning: only so much can be said in a blog about two weeks of fun, and then we cross into the book-writing territory. So here are the highlights:

It all started the end of finals week when Justin went home to GA without the rest of us (reason: bought flights at different times, it was over $100 less for him to go one day early). He got to GA and partied with the Houghtalings until the rest of us got there. Katie, Scott, and I flew out on Saturday morning, the day of Dad's 50th birthday. Our trip was dramatic and stressful, starting with a cab that didn't show to take us to the airport at 4:15am. We made all our flights, thank goodness, and arrived in perfect time to meet some of our favorite family friends at Carrabbas for a surprise birthday dinner for Dad.

Sunday morning we set out for Disney, 8 people in one Explorer. Lots of fun :) Got to Disney, checked into Old Key West, unpacked, and set out to ride the bus and the monorail around the Seven Seas Lagoon at Magic Kingdom and around Epcot, to preview the Disney magic. It was, of course, SO magical - mostly because we got to ride in the front of the monorail with the driver, who let Justin ring the horn!!! Very cool! That night our family reunion t-shirts were unveiled, the glory of which can not humanly be described. I had to include this picture of Scott sleeping because of the angle his head is at - unhuman and rediculously hilarious.

Monday: Epcot. We worked it hard and did most everything we wanted to do. Favorites: where do we start? Test Track, Soarin', the countries (given), The Land, Turtle Talk... The one thing we didn't like was the cold. Good thing mom had the foresight to make one of our shirts be long sleeved!

Tuesday: Magic Kingdom. For those of you west-coasters, Magic Kingdom and Disneyland are practically the same thing. It started warming up in the day (70's), and was SO nice. Highlights: Dad got to sing with his dream-retirement-job-quartet-singers, Laugh Floor (like Turtle Talk with Crush, but times 100 in size and funniness b/c it's with Monster's Inc. monsters), the mountains with brave Grammy, and especially the fireworks when Justin gave me an early Christmas present of the other Cinderella's slipper I've been missing since my parents gave me the first one when I turned 16. Yes, I cried. Yes, Justin's amazing and the best EVER.Wednesday: Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios) This park is dedicated to the big screen and so so much fun. Highlights: Tower of Terror, Rock N' Roller Coaster, Lights Motors Action Stunt Show, eating a Mickey Bar, the Pixar Parade, Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playset, the boys and Grammy being in the stunt show, and of course Fantasmic. It was in the 80's and so we were hot, baby!

Wednesday night was Christmas Eve, which means, of course, PAJAMAS!! Since we were at Disney, mom just had to go with the theme :)

Christmas Day was relaxing. We slept in, had Christmas breakfast, took family pictures, went shopping, had dinner, went swimming (because it was, of course, 80 degrees again)... Good Christmas! So my dad had a goal this year to lose 50 pounds by his birthday - "50 by 50." He TOTALLY reached it, and so decided to show off his new figure by stepping behind the light pole so everybody could have something to compare to. Way to go dad!

On Friday we went to the Animal Kingdom. Perfect park for the last day, when you've been running around like crazy people all week. Highlights: Lion King Show, Grammy riding the craziest ride ever (Expedition Everest), Claire taking a million pictures everywhere, Justin getting SOAKED on the water ride, and the safari.
We stopped at a hotel halfway back to GA and finally returned home on Saturday. WHAT an AMAZING trip!! A HUMONGOUS thanks goes out to my parents, without whom this trip would NOT be possible, who are the teachers and believers of Disney magic, and the most generous people I know. Yay for you!
And here are a few (ahem, a lot) more of my favorite pictures/memories!!!

Wedding Countdown

2009-01-11T16:08:00.006-07:00

So, as can be expected we are both getting pretty excited for our wedding. I am hoping that knowing exactly how much time is left until the big day will help me see the time passing and feel like it is coming faster. So if you are wanting to know exactly how much time is left check out the widget on the right hand side. Get excited ya'll!!!

Help?!

2008-12-16T21:36:00.002-07:00

To all of you who are better at blogging than I am (ahem, all of you), answer me this: how do I get my friends/family's blogs to show when they last posted? I would love to do that so I know when you have new posts so I can read them! Thanks my favorite people :)

Getting Excited!!

2008-12-04T14:34:00.006-07:00

So I just got off the phone with my mom, talking about our Disney trip over Christmas, and just had to share with the world. For those of you who don't know, my family is going to Disney World (in Florida) for Christmas and I'm SO excited. One, because it's one of my favorite places EVER, Two, because Justin has never been there, Three, because I get to be there for Justin's first DisneyWorld experience, and Four, DW is one of my family's favorite things to do together, and I'm utterly thrilled to do so one last time before life gets crazy.

For those of you west-coasters who have never been to DW, let me assure you, it's no DisneyLand. No offense, I've been to DL twice and LOVED both times - there's something wrong if you can't love Disney. And while DL is definitely the happiest place on earth, DW is somehow the happiestest place on earth. I think it's b/c it's just bigger, better, all of the greatness of DL and then some. Example: the castles.

Sleeping Beauty's castle is GORGEOUS. It's every girl's dream. I love it. But would I rather live there, or in Cinderella's Castle:

I picked these pictures because they both have people in front of them, so you get an accurate idea of how they compare to each other. Seriously, which one is bigger, better, more Disney? That's what I thought. Note as well that the Cinderella one is taken MUCH farther back than Sleeping Beauty's, which only means that it's bigger yet! This is but a fraction of all the glorious wonder and excitement that lies in store for us over Christmas Break, and I canNOT wait for it!!!

Thanksgiving

2008-12-03T10:32:00.009-07:00

Erin and I just got back late Sunday night from a very long and very fun trip to Missouri to visit my family for Thanksgiving. Aubrey, Blair, Ryan, Erin and I all rented a van Tuesday night and drove the 21 hours out to Willard Missouri. Molly and Reese flew out and met us. It seemed the drive out wasn't too bad, however the drive back was. The weather through Cheyenne was looking sketchy so we went through Oklahoma, Amarillo (Texas), down to Albuquerque- which has some pretty sketchy people at the McDonald's there, p.s.- then up through Moab and back to Salt Lake. It took about 23 hours. Of course I am a retard and live in Logan so I still had another hour and a half to drive. The drive was definitely exhausting but it was worth it. We had a lot of fun.

Neither of us brought our cameras, I'm not sure why, but we didn't :( Hopefully Ryan and Molly will send us some of their pics and we'll get those up asap. While we were there we did as much as we could in the little time we had.

Thursday was spent cooking and eating of course and we did a lot of both.

Friday some of the fam got up early and went Christmas shopping and apparently got some great deals. Later that day we all went to Lambert's Cafe. It is one of the funnest restaurants ever. We always go when we are back there. Their motto is "Come hungry, leave happy." So their portions are HUGE as you can see in some of these pics from my phone. The ribs were the length of Erin's arm and that thing in front of Reese is a chef salad that is absurd how big it is. They have fresh rolls all day and a kid walks around with a cart and if you want one you raise your hand and he throws it too you. It is pretty fun unless you catch a really hot one and burn yourself or try too hard to catch it and crush it in your hand. We all had a blast!

The rest of Friday was spent lounging and watching family videos where we enjoyed laughing at ourselves (especially our dad) and playing games. Technically the girls won our little guys vs girls pictionary/charades battle, but I am still skeptical cause we were slaughtering them at pictionary and some how the score was closer than I thought it should be... oh well.

Saturday we went to Bass Pro Shop, the King of sporting goods store. If you think Cabela's is big you really need to check this place out. It was so fun to just walk around and drool over all they had. After that we went to Andy's frozen custard, which is hard to describe - it is just really really good ice crea. I guess technically it is custard? After that we ate took some naps and hit the road. The drive was long and the trip was short but it was great to spend time with family and all have Thanksgiving together, especially since it had been seven years since we've all been together for Thanksgiving.

Scott got his mission call!

2008-10-30T12:05:00.002-06:00

My brother got his mission call last night - he will be serving in the Columbia Bogota South mission and reports Jan 14th to the Provo MTC! How exciting! It's really weird that precious little Scott who used to want me to watch him blow bubbles has since "grown a foot or two" and is going on a mission!

Halloween Fever

2008-10-27T02:22:00.016-06:00

This weekend was pretty exciting for Erin and I, besides getting engaged we also carved pumpkins, one of my favorite Halloween activities. Here is what we came up with. I don't really know what I was going for. I saw this pumpkin not too long ago that a guy actually sculpted and not really carved,(which you can see here to your right) which I thought was so cool so I have been goofing around with that concept. Erin was just still so excited about her ring that she carved that, it was a lot of fun and we are excited for the many more pumpkins we will carve throughout our future together.

Getting engaged according to him

2008-10-26T23:07:00.003-06:00

So if you are reading this I am assuming it is because you didn't want to read Erin's novel, I don't blame you but for all you hopeless romantics her version is incredibly specific so if I don't give enough details refer to hers.

So all the information about me surprising her is right. I went down on Thursday instead of Friday to surprise her. I stopped by Sierra West(great place to by a ring p.s.)and picked up the ring. I wasn't sure if I was going to propose Thursday or Friday but I thought I would have it just in case. Since I didn't know when or where I would propose I put the ring in its box in my inner jacket pocket and went to surprise Erin. I went to her office because I thought she was there because she is the slowest texter EVER. She wasn't so I called and went to her house and she was on her way to the store and I suggested we go talk first since we hadn't seen each other in two weeks. We went to Kawanas Park which is where we always go to talk and I first told her I love her and all that sappy stuff.

I wanted to get her in a sappy mood and so I casually brought it up. While we were talking I decided I would ask her but wasn't sure how exactly to get the ring which was in my jacket pocket in my trunk. So I suggested we sit in the grass and talk for a bit, but right as I was about to open my trunk to get my jacket and a blanket I realized the bag with the jeweler's name on it was on my blanket so at the last minute I had to think of what I could tell her I had that she couldn't see so I told her I got us something for Halloween, she said, "did you get us costumes?" and taking the easy out I said, "um...maybe" I told her to close her eyes and put out her hands, but knowing that she would peek I had her turn around, so I got out the ring and got on one knee. When she turned back around her jaw dropped and she said, "shut up!" If I had my wits about me and wasn't so nervous I would have said OK and shut the box but of course I was too nervous. So I between getting choked up and being nervous I tried to say some cute sappy things and proposed and she said yes so then we just hugged and kissed and cried a bit. It was a very fun and exciting weekend.

Getting Engaged According to Her

2008-10-26T20:55:00.004-06:00

Justin and I were on the tail end of 2 weeks of not seeing each other. We had, during the course of the day, debated on whether or not he should skip his class on Friday to come down early so we could have a few more hours together. Just before my class (that goes from 4:30 – 7:15), he’d told me he decided to be wise and go to class. I thought, “boo” but supported him in that decision.

So class ends a little late, around 7:25, and I catch a ride home with a fellow student, Susan. I get home and am getting ready to go to the grocery store when Justin calls. This is unordinary because we never talk before 9 in order to save minutes. So I answer and he says, “Where are you? What are you doing?” I tell him that I’m in the middle of something and ask if I can call him back in a minute (I figured I could call him from the car on my way to the store). He sounds hesitant and tells me that’s fine.

We hang up and I keep getting ready to go to the store. A few minutes later I walked outside of my apartment and started toward the east stairs to go to my car. I heard a whistle from the parking lot on the west but kept walking. When I realized there wasn’t anybody else in my part of the building, I turned to look down the west stairs but didn’t see anybody it could’ve been. I continued down the east stairs and to my car in the underground parking lot. When I arrived – who should be standing there but Justin!

I was so surprised to see him! He seemed a little chilly and nervous and I asked him if he was okay. He assured me that he was, he was just anxious to find and surprise me (apparently when he called me he’d been at my office on campus waiting for me to get out of class). I asked him if he’d like to come with me to the store to get groceries and then make dinner. He said of course, but that first he’d love to just be with me and hug me – two weeks is a long time to not see each other.

We decided to go to Kiwanis Park, a place in Provo that we love going to and have for a while. It’s where Justin first told me he loved me, where we’d go to read books together, to play password during the summer evenings, to stick our feet out the windows of our cars and just talk. We love that place. We get to Kiwanis, and, like we do anytime we’re at the park or anytime we do when we haven’t seen each other for a while (so basically every weekend), we will bask in our love. So we’ll talk about the first time we knew we were really interested in each other or when we first thought there might be long-term potential… We laugh about how we didn’t talk about “us” until a week before I went home to GA when we decided that he needed to come too. Gooey, romantic stuff like that.

After basking in our love for a while, the car’s heat has been on, we’re still in our coats to go to the store, and needless to say the car has gotten pretty toasty. So we decide to go sit on the grass for about 5 minutes, and because it was so cold outside, by the time we’ll be sitting that long we’ll be cooled off and ready to go to the store and make dinner. As we’re heading towards Justin’s trunk to get a blanket, he tells me that he bought us matching Halloween costumes and asks if I’d like to see them. I clapped my hands and said “of course,” and he told me to close my eyes so he could get them out and hold them up. I did. Then he tells me to turn around and close my eyes because he doesn’t trust me not to peek – this is so wise of him because I certainly would’ve peeked.

Justin tells me to turn around – when I do, I see him on one knee with a ring in the ring box. I was so surprised – he has done an amazingly consistent job of convincing me that he wouldn’t be proposing for another month or so. I thought he could be trying to throw me off and figured he would propose sometime in the middle of November, but never did I ever imagine we’d be getting engaged in October!

After I got over my shock came the tears. Justin said “Erin” and then became emotional himself. He told me how much he loves me, that he can’t imagine a happy life without me, and the proceeded to tell me how amazing I am and that he never dreamed such a woman existed, let alone could have loved him. He got to the part where he asked me to marry him, like the smart girl I am, I said yes, and then we embraced and kissed and hugged until we’d regained our composures. Very tender, very emotional, all I ever hoped and dreamed of in a proposal and so, so much more. Justin asked if I wanted to see the ring, to which I definitely said yes to, and then I put it on and have been on cloud nine ever since!

I can’t imagine anything being more perfect. Nothing was missing, nothing could have been taken out; it was perfect. The Atlanta temple has been booked for March 27th – we’ll know for sure if we’re keeping that date once Scott gets his mission call, which should be in the next week or two. We are so excited and thrilled to be officially official!

More of "Our Story"

2008-10-26T20:45:00.003-06:00

I don't have much to add to what Justin said, but I'll fill in a little of the rest... After Deyton introduced Justin and I we went out to lunch, went out a few weeks later, our students encouraged us to chaperone prom together (we didn't), and we'd go out every so often. That summer (2007) I was a BC for EFY all summer in Provo. Justin asked me out a good bit, but I couldn't go every time because I was busy, busy, busy. Then in August Justin moved up to Logan to finish his Bachelor's at Utah State, and I was still in Provo. At the time neither of us thought it would work out because who on earth would start something long distance? Justin still came down to Provo about once a month, and whenever he did we'd typically go out. This whole time we'd always just had tons of fun. I remember almost every time coming home and thinking, "good gracious, he is AMAZING - somebody remind me why we're not actually dating?" Then in March 2008, suddenly things were different and Justin held my hand. In April he kissed me, and then he moved down for the summer and it was golden from there! Some of my favorite things we've ever done: Josh Groban concert, Bees games, hiking Bridal Veil Falls, playing with friends/family, playing at Salem Pond, going to Georgia, Journey in concert, reading travel books in Borders, and of course GETTING ENGAGED!

How we met according to him

2008-10-26T19:23:00.003-06:00

I was student teaching seminary and Erin was student teaching math both at Lone Peak High School. For a couple of weeks one student named Dayton Killian had been bugging me that he should date his math teacher because I was single and and she was single and I was a student teacher and she was a student teacher. One fateful day I was in the faculty room doing his role when the secretary came in a told me there was someone out in the hall for me. When I walked out there was Dayton standing next to a cute girl and grinning ear to ear. I walked up and he said, "Brother Badger, this is Miss Houghtaling. Miss Houghtaling this is Brother Badger. I have to go to lunch." To add to the awkwardness the other student teacher at the seminary knew Erin from EFY walked by and said, "She is cool, you are cool just get her number and go." As we started talking we found out that we literally lived across the street from each other and I knew her cousin, who was her roommate at the time, and she knew my roommate. I figured I couldn't escape her even if I wanted, which I didn't, but I got her number and the rest as they say is history I guess.

Testing testing...

2008-10-25T14:33:00.001-06:00

Is this working?