Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas! Santa definitely found the hubs and I and we were very spoiled. Patrick gave me my favorite gift of the complete series of Sex and the City (yessss) and Pat is in love with the Sanuk sandal/slippers I gave him. It was an incredible first Christmas together. Now, we're hanging out at the Salt Lake airport waiting to get on the plane to Cali to spend New Yeats with the in-laws. Hope your holidays have been as great as ours :) see you all in the big 2012!

Glad that's over.

So, finals are over. yessssss. So long Fall semester, and hello having glorious spare time in my life! Now we're just getting ready for Christmas.. Wahoo! (Below is a picture of our awesome Charlie Brown tree) And another thing we've been working on.. A few weeks ago we were asked to give a talk in Sacrament for this previous Sunday. The topic was "Keeping Christ in Christmas". Pretty simple yeah? Well, leave it to us to write and prepare the talks the Saturday night before. Yup, we're that on top of things. We also were asked to sub for our neighbors primary class. No big deal, I seriously LOVE working in the primary, but they asked us that Saturday as well... Which equaled in us not being able to use that Sacrament time to prepare our lesson :)

Well, fortunately for me, I was the first speaker and was asked to only give a 5-7 minute talk. Pat went right after me, and had the privilege of giving a 10 minute talk. When it all came down to it, I talked for about 4 minutes (most of it consisted of introducing ourselves.) and Pat talked for about 15 minutes. So it all worked out.The bishop came up to us after the program and told us we are truly "the perfect couple" which I already knew, of course.. But it was great hearing it from him.

Then. Over in primary, we walked in Opening Exercises  being told we were to sit with the sunbeams, which were ALL boys. Don't worry, our class was the CTR 7. Quite a difference there. So I sat with the 3 hyperactive ones, and Pat sat with the 3 angels. After that hour block, I've come to realize that primary is easily the best birth control. After Opening Exercises, we went to class with our real age group and I was incredibly surprised by how much 8 year olds know! They pretty much gave the lesson for us. It was such a great experience. We ended the class by frosting and decorating cookies. I know, I know. We're awesome.

Cookies, frosting, sprinkles, check.

Our first Christmas tree. Don't worry about the awesome quality that a BlackBerry produces.

I'm not cut out for this.

Hello all! So clearly, blogging is not my cup of tea, and I'd be lying to you if I felt bad for not updating it. But here I am, and hopefully we'll get some more posts going on this thing. Here's a few things the Mr. and I have been up to these past few months...

Working

School

Homework

Weddings

Family hang outs and visits 

Lots of Salt Lake trips

More school 

and this week...

FINALS 

That's right, we're almost done with our Fall Semester! I'm kinda having mixed feelings about this. I've really enjoyed my classes this year, but look forward to just being done. Pat is finishing his 1st course in O-Chem and now just has one more semester to go before he's done with that awful class. In T minus 3 days we will be school free and we are looking forward to the holidays :) This year we're spending the first half of the break here in UT with my family, and then a few days after Christmas we're heading to Modesto to hang out with the in-laws. So a little somethin' somethin' to help us look forward to the end of the awful week. Wish us luck!

Here's a few pictures from when Pats family came to UT for a family wedding. 

Jacob, Patrick, Pat and Me -Waiting for the happy couple outside the temple 

Camille and Me 

The whole fam- Minus Brenna and Nate. They're just living it up in Hawaii. 

Don't mind how white I am compared to all of them.. It's cool 

September 11, Remembering a Decade

I woke up today having one fail after another. I woke up late. I ruined the first batch of breakfast. I burnt the second batch of breakfast. I spilled a half a gallon of milk. I burnt my finger. I cut my other finger. And then of course, I made Pat and I late for church. As I threw my hissy fits, by slamming drawers, rolling my eyes, and feeling nothing but sorry for myself, I realized what special day it was. The 10 year anniversary of September 11. Suddenly, all of my so called "problems" were nothing. After church, Pat and I talked about where we were when we had first heard about the attack. He was a 15 yr. old sophomore, sitting in Chemistry, watching the attack on TV. And I was a 10 yr. old in 5th grade, over at my best friends getting ready to head out for school. Also, watching everything unravel on the television. I didn't fully understand what was happening in our county. I didn't understand why people would just fly a plane into a tower. I couldn't grasp the concept of  "terrorism". I watched the TV the following days, seeing people begging for help to find their missing loved ones. Hearing countless names of people who had died. Watching children asking for their moms or dads to come home, because they miss them. And seeing the pictures of the fear that struck so quickly across the nation. It was all such a whirlwind to me. Why had such a peaceful place all the sudden turn into this? It took me some years to fully understand how incredibly brave America is. That we have not only service men and women risking their lives for complete strangers, but also having your everyday citizen give a helping hand for those in need. So here, I wish to thank the brave people of America. I  would like to thank those who fought on that horrid day, and to those who still fight today for this great country. God bless to everyone for being able to carry out strong after such devastation, you are what makes America Strong. 

well, hello again...

So. I realize that I have totally forgotten about this for over a month now. It was my cousin, Ashley, who reminded me of having one when she e-mailed me asking for the link. So, thanks Ash! A few things have gone on since my last and only post. Such as... WE GOT MARRIED! I am now Mrs. Elisha Rhoades. And I am totally loving it! Our wedding day could not have gone any more perfect. I'll post pictures of the whole event later on during this next week (I promise). We just got the pictures back this week from our photographer. So they will be up for your viewing pleasure shortly. We had an amazing two week honeymoon. The first week was spent on an incredible Mexican Riviera cruise. If you would ever like to spend your day relaxing in a warm water beach. Go to Mexico, seriously. So fantastic. On the cruise we met tons of fun couples, including about 5 newly weds from Utah. It was great getting to know and hanging out with all of them. If you've never been on a cruise before, you're definitely missing out. People wait on your hands and feet. Pretty much, whatever you want, you get. It's such a great time. When the time came to leave all the pampering, food, all the pineapple juice you could drink, and just good times. We made our way down to So. Cal where we spent 3 days in the wonderful world of Disneyland. Nothing like spending 3 days in the "Happiest Place on Earth" with your husband and being able to act like kids. We also got these great little button pins that said "Just Married". So even though we weren't technically "just married", we wore them and people treated us so nice! Even people who swept up the trash were congratulating us. It made us feel pretty special. As our honeymoon was coming to an end, the Mr. and I headed North to Modesto where Pat's family is from. Nothing quite beats hanging out with the Rhoades, I seriously married into one of the greatest families. There in Modesto Pat's family threw us an open house/fiesta for all the people from California who couldn't make it to the Utah reception. The fiesta was complete with a full mariachi band, tres leches cake, rice & beans to go along with incredible tacos, and great company. As the partying came to an end, Pat and I headed to our hotel to get ready for the long 11 hour drive home back to Utah. Nothing says personal bonding like driving that long of distance with each other :) Now back in Utah, we've pretty much just been setting our apartment up, starting up school, and throwing in a date night (my favorite) here and there. Pretty much we've been trying to adapt to real life. Haha. We've had a great time so far, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Moving furniture, opening gifts, watching movies, is all so much more fun when you're doing it with the person you love. Yes. Corny. But I just don't care. Until next time... Which will be sooner than over a months period of time... :) Happy Thursday! 

Here's a few pictures we have to share with you...

 The awesome mariachi band that played at the open house

Don't mind our squinty eyes, or how dark Pat is compared to me. Just take in how cute we are :) 

Such. Good. Food. 

Camille and the Tres Leches. I just love this picture.

 The in-laws. Such a beautiful couple. 

First date after being home: Spanish Fork vs. Springville High football game. We had to sit on Springville's (visitors) side because we met up with some of the guys Pat coaches with over at Springville. I wasn't happy about that, but Spanish Fork killed, so no worries. 

And... I'm blogging.

Welp. I decided to start one of these bad boys up. Mostly because everybody's doing it... So why not be apart of the in-crowd :) So now everyone will get to know all of the fun things Mr. Pat and I do. I know I'm not technically a Rhoades yet. But don't worry. In 9 days, that'll all change. Yup, 9 days! That's single digits my friends, but who's counting?
So this week Pat and I spent our first Pioneer/Fiesta days together. I know it's only a Utah holiday, but it's my favorite one. Spanish Fork always has a parade to kick off the start of the 24th  (25th this year) and for the past few years my family and I have been in it, riding in the Cosmomobile. Pretty much I sit in the passenger seat and smile and wave while Cosmo (BYU's mascot) is outside walking/dancing around. It's a pretty sweet deal. As for Pat, he decided to stay home and sleep... Party pooper.

After the parade Pat came down and met me at the fair that goes on downtown. So we endured the 105 degree heat, ate overpriced fair food, watched Spanish Forks talent show, and ran into about a billion people we knew. Not too shabby of an afternoon.

Latter that night we went to the famous Spanish Fork Rodeo with our really good friend, Leah. The weather looked promising, kinda overcast, but it cooled everything down. So no complaints. As soon as we got to our seats, however. The rain broke lose. And pretty much never ended. 

So we stole some garbage bags from a concession stand and watched the whole thing sporting off our new black plastic dresses. It was fantastic!