happy half-birthday to me!

As many of you know, I celebrate my half-birthday. Religiously. I mean, come on, who doesn't want an excuse for an extra fun day during the year?!

For family home evening tonight, Ben helped me celebrate!

He prepared this nice platter with halves of our favorite candies:

And we played half a game of Pass the Pigs. I scratched out a win - 106 to 105!

Yay for being twenty-one and a half!!

computer issues

Dear Devoted Blog Readers,

I have some bad news. My trusty, old, and red Sony Viao has finally bit the dust. I am now the proud renter of a fairly old BYU owned Dell. Some business items while I've been away from the blogosphere . . .

A HUGE thank you to Grandma McKen for knowing that I was totally serious about wanting more caramels and being just the best. Now, Ben and I each have our own bag of caramels in the fridge. Can you guess who's eaten more so far?

On our MLK holiday from school, we made crepes in the morning and Ben was introduced to fabulous world of Nutella. Of course, he loved it!

Then, I completed that "elderly simulation assignment" for my aging class - see post below. It was . . . not my favorite class activity ever.

And now, intramural basketball has begun! I think I am loving it almost as much as Ben!

A New Semester

We've already dug our car out of the snow once and received our flu vaccinations (don't worry, I just almost passed out) and a new semester is upon us!

A run-down on our new classes:

Karin

SFL 334 Adult Development and Aging - We will read Tuesdays With Morrie, lots of touching Gospel articles and lengthy research articles, and have several assignments - one of which is to put moleskin on our fingertips, tape on our knuckles, cotton in our ears and noses, and sunglasses smeared with Vaseline over our eyes and then do one 30 minute activity at home like cooking dinner and one 30 minute activity in public like going grocery shopping. This is supposed to simulate being "elderly." We will also complete 4 hours of community service with the aged.

SFL 461 Family and the Law - This class is taught by an attorney and she is full of life and great with words. She said this class will have a lot of reading - fortunately a lot of it is Church and other such articles about important issues, but unfortunately a lot of it is from a family law book that is difficult reading because we are not lawyers! I think this will be a tough class but I'm excited for it because it's different from anything I've taken before. We will also do 10 hours of community service.

SFL 480 Moral Development - I'm not really sure what this class is about. Our teacher is very enthusiastic but also very random and I didn't really follow him during the introduction today. I don't think anybody did. So . . . we'll see. I have to take it.

SFL 498 Family Life Education Methodology - I never announced this, but, I have decided to graduate next December instead of this April. This will be because I am taking some extra classes and doing an internship next semester to earn my provisional Family Life Educators Certification. I'm not really sure what exactly that means, but it's good and it will help me to work with just my bachelors. This class will teach me all about it.

Dance 231 - This is a jazz class and I am very excited for it! It is going to be challenging and jazz is not my "forte," but I am excited for the stretching and growing! I think it will be a ton of fun!

Exercise 181 - This is beginning tennis and it will begin second block. Yes, I played on my high school team for three years but that by no means means that I am good. Because I am not. At all. So, I'm taking beginning tennis so I can play with my naturally athletic (and good looking, I might add) husband. Scott and I have talked about taking intermediate tennis together next semester when he is a freshman!

Ben

Ben is watching the BYU - UNLV game so he has politely and respectfully declined my invitation to be a guest blogger. Here is a list of his classes and what I know about them:

Advanced Chinese Writing - This class is going to be very hard! There will be lots of writing and the teacher speaks only in Chinese and assumes everyone understands. But, one of our best friends, Ben Van Noy is in this class, too!

Chinese Literature - This class is a lot of reading, but it's all in English. It's basically like a humanities class about China. The first unit is Chinese drama and the third unit is Chinese movies and those sound fun!

Financial Planning - Ben thought this would be a class about learning to help other plan financially, but it's more of a personal finance class, which is very helpful because I don't remember anything from Family Finance.

Strategic Management - Umm, I'm not really sure. The teacher is funny.

Executive Lecture Series

Skiing - Ben will go skiing every Tuesday for the first block of classes! He is going to be great and have so much fun!

Ben is also a teacher's assistant for Management Communications 320, a business writing class. The teacher just loves him because he is so great and so smart - but who wouldn't?! It is also convenient for me because I am taking this class through Independent Study!

Ben is feeling quite relaxed this semester because we already have a job! Wahoo!

We are excited to be back at BYU and we love being married! This semester we are excited for intramural basketball, March Madness, the NFL Playoffs (GO COLTS!), BYU Basketball, going to see BYU Ballet's Cinderella, the return of my cousin Michael from his mission, eating Grandma McKen's homemade caramels (my half birthday is January 31st if you would like to send some more), exercising more (too many caramels), working hard in our classes, and enjoying life!

Indiana Christmas

If I could use three words to describe our time in Carmel, they would be relaxing, belly-filling, and wonderful.

After a delayed flight in Las Vegas causing a miserable five hour layover (don't worry, we rode the tram to the different concourses, walked in lots of circles, and got headaches from the gambling machines), we made it to the Myers' household at 4 am!

Ben and I had an absolutely wonderful time! We slept in, ate large meals and lots of Christmas goodies, went shopping, went out to eat, watched lots of sports (I read), napped, talked, laughed, and ate lots more.

Our first Christmas as a married couple was basically perfection! Being married makes everything wonderful 1000 times more wonderful! We are so grateful we had such a long break from school to spend with both of our families whom we love oh, so much!