Christmas!

It is that time of the year again and everybody is excited for Christmas. Thanksgiving was spent at my parents' house, partly because it was the year for a Messenger Thanksgiving and partly because Wesley had to work. How lame is that!? Only the technical support people had to work, not billing or on-site technicians or anyone else. I was not very happy. I am even less happy that he has to work on Christmas day. That is the worst! Anyway, the day after Thanksgiving is when all the decorations go up at my parents' house. I was there to help due to Wesley being at work. We didn't actually put up our tree and decorations until the day after the day after Thanksgiving. We don't have a lot of decorations, but we do have a tree. It has white lights due to Wesley's insistence. My family's tree always had colored lights, but his mom insists on white lights and so he did too. Oh well. I still love it. There are a few ornaments on it that I brought from my parents' house, specifically ornaments that I had made or been given. I think our tree is so pretty!

The tree skirt and presents didn't go up the same day the tree did. I had to go find a tree skirt and the presents will slowly accumulate. I am actually done Christmas shopping, but I haven't wrapped anything yet!

Our tree is too tall (or our ceiling is too low) to have a star, so instead I put up the Christmas spider that Aunt Lucy gave us last year. Wesley thinks it is funny because I really don't like spiders!

We are so mean to poor Wyn! I have a mini stocking and we were bored so we decided to put her in the stocking and hang her on the tree. She didn't like it much and kept jumping out. She is so small and fast that it is hard to take good pictures of her!

I didn't have a nativity set and was fairly distraught about it. I was actually pretty jealous of the beautiful nativity Brother Allred made for my family. I found this traditional set with the words painted on them and thought it was adorable. Plus, the price was great!This time of the year is so wonderful and we are so absolutely blessed. Happy Holidays, especially to our loved ones!

Sick of Being Sick!

Wow! I swear the sick season just started and I have been sick so much already! I am sick of it. First I get a sinus infection, then Wesley gets it. Then he gets the flu and then I get the flu. This is so lame! I really don't want to be stuck at home! I love teaching and I want to be at school with the kids. Instead, I am stuck at home because they don't want any sick people at school, and I am bored out of my mind! The worst part about the flu thing, for me anyway, is that it lingers in my sinuses. I can't sleep because I can't breathe and then I am grumpy because I haven't slept and I haven't been breathing. It is absolutely miserable! Grrrrr. I have been constantly cleaning my house with lysol and with bleach to kill the germs but they just keep coming back. This is so dumb. Can we just skip the sick season, please?

Our Newest Addition!

So last week Wesley and I were out on a Friday night with not much to do and so, in an impulsive moment, we decided to purchase a pet! Yay! Neither Wesley's mom nor mine were huge fans of pets, although my mom was a little more lenient (likely due to the fact that my dad had had pets growing up and so he supported the kids' desires for pets) and I had had a couple of pets. My very favorite pet that we had was a dwarf hamster named Gimli (from Lord of the Rings). Our impulsive moment was slightly propelled by my telling Wesley that I wanted to get a dwarf hamster. We went to Petco in Orem and were looking at the cute little hamsters. I showed Wesley what a dwarf hamster was and he said okay, we can get one. Yay! We had to buy the food and the fluff and a water bottle. and of course I wanted a cute little house, and he wanted to get a wheel for the hamster to run on....and on and on. My parents, or actually my brother who is on a mission, had a tank to use as a cage, so all we really needed was our hamster! We thus brought home Eowyn (another name from Lord of the Rings), whom we call Wyn, a female dwarf hamster. It took her a couple of days to get used to us and her new home, but she is so cute and lots of fun! We bought a ball for her, which mostly she just preens in, but sometimes runs around and Wesley has great fun creating mazes out of old shelves for her to run around in. She isn't very smart, as shown by the fact that she often dives off of our hands and can't stay on our arms as well as by the fact that she flips herself over sometimes when she is trying to dig her way out of Wesley's mazes. Still, she is adorable and we love watching her, especially in the evening when she has way more energy than we do and we can hear her squeaky wheel going in the living room (all night long!).This is her lovely squeaky wheel. I picked bright yellow to go against our annoying wood panels.

She looks so fat when she sits! I think she is actually fatter now than when we bought her a week ago. She eats so much!
She love to burrow down in the fluff! She has burrowed in three different corners now, but her favorite is the one behind her wheel.

So, I have been loving the colors of food! During the summer, there are so many colorful ways to prepare meals. I know, I am kind of strange, but when I make something especially pretty, I like to take a picture of it and now I am going to share my random food pictures with all of you wonderful people who actually look at my blog! I invited my husband to help me blog, but he really didn't seem that interested (as in he said "yay" in a very sarcastic tone). That is sort of okay with me because it means that occasionally I can put up pictures of him that he may not appreciate all that much and I have control over what pictures of myself go up on my blog. :)So this is the marvelous fruit salad that I made. To be honest, some of the fruit was not quite as good as it often is, but it was so pretty! It had watermelon, red and green grapes, nectarines, peaches, blackberries, and blueberries. It was yummy but huge. It took us nearly a week to eat all of it!
This I made tonight. Our garden is producing an abundance of squash and we don't really know what to do with it all. I have lots of things to do with zucchini, but not a lot to do with squash. We also have lots of tomatoes. So, I threw them together and it looked pretty but needed something green. Therefore, I added green peppers! So pretty and SO YUMMY!This is not quite as pretty as the others but it still looked cool in the pan and was very yummy as well.
Now you have seen some of the yummy and pretty food we have eaten this summer and also something of my random mind.

Pan Dulce!

So, I have been craving pan dulce, or sweet bread forever, but since my sweet husband loves it too and can no longer eat it, I haven't purchased any because I didn't want to make him feel bad. Yesterday I was out with my siblings and they were getting ice cream and there just happened to be a panaderia next door. I couldn't resist any longer. I ran over and got some of my favorites. I was sad because they didn't have any with anise in it, but I did get some of my favorites. Eating pan dulce, of course made me think about Mexico and some of my favorite people. I can't believe it has been over a year since we got home. I miss you guys! And I miss all the yummy Mexican food that was so cheap there and is either not available here (like Manzanita Sol!) or is more expensive!

My Dad

As this last weekend was Father's Day, I just wanted to say how awesome my dad is. He has always been there for me. He is always willing to help his family, even if is the most inconvenient time for him, or if what we want is not so easy. He is always helping friends and family with computer problems, moving things, or anything else they need help with. This can include driving out to Michaels with the van to get our Christmas tree because Mom decided to take the Honda, digging in the tent trailer for a denim quilt (the one we wanted was of course on the bottom!) or rearranging the sprinker system a million times until it works that way Mom wants it to. He is dedicated to his calling as the executive secretary and serves to the best of his abilities despite it sometimes taking him away from his family. He works hard to provide a living and has good friends among those he works with and associates with.

My dad is the best dad in the world. He loves his family and he loves the Lord. Best of all, he shows that love through word and deed.

I am especially lucky because in addition to having a fantastic father, I got a great father-in-law as well!

Life is Good

Sometimes the repetitiveness of life can make us think that our lives are stuck, that we aren't moving anywhere, that we are boring. I've found, espcially through writing letters to missionaries (first Wesley, now Natalie and my brother), that there is always something interesting going on in our lives, even when we don't catch it at the time. For example, I am now working as a secretary for NuSkin while the regular secretary is out for surgery. I really don't do much at work. I basically get paid $10 an hour to read my book, play on the computer and occasionally answer the phone. I work 9-5 M-F. Pretty repetitive right? It is, but nearly everyday, there is something that happens that makes the day more interesting. The other day, I was sitting there reading, when we got half a dozen boxes delivered. The only markings on them said NuSkin. There was nothing to help me determine where they belonged. I called Benji (another secretary who is upstairs) to see if she could help me. Nothing. We called half a dozen different departments to find out where they belonged. We finally figured out that they belonged to the productions manager who had gone home two hours before. This really doesn't seem like that interesting of a story, but while called those people, I had a brief conversation with each one. I have only been here two and half weeks and yet I already know a bunch of people as well as a little bit about each. If you keep your eyes open, you can always find the progression and the blessings in your life, even when you feel like it is dull and repetitive.

Video Games

There are some days when I am absolutely opposed to video games/computer games. They take up time that could be used being productive, they can become addictive and many of them are simply mindless killing, which never did anyone any good. They take up all of my husband's attention to everything: the house, the garden, the dishes, the time and especially me. Of course there are also days when I love video games because they take up my husband's attention and I can do what needs to be done. This week has not been one of those weeks when I love video games. My husband stayed up way too late playing blow 'em up games when both of us were already tired, he wanted to play the computer as soon as he got home from work, while I was trying to get dinner ready, and today he has totally lost track of what time it is when we really ought to be driving home. I understand that he feels that they relax him and I want him to play and have fun, I just wish sometimes that he would choose a less stressful time for me, to focus all of his attention on the screen. I do admit, that there are a few computer games that I like, really just a couple and they are fun, especially when we play together. Really, I would just love a little bit more moderation.

Update

Well, I haven't posted anything for a really long time, so here is an update on the Johnson family! Wesley is working for Teleperformance in Orem. He just got a shift change so he will now be working from 7am to 6pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. We are very excited that he will have Saturdays off so we can play like normal people. We live in Provo and just finished planting our garden. We are looking forward to zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, cantalope, carrots and onions. I would have loved to have had peas, but I didn't get it together in time. I don't have to plant any flowers, because those who we are renting from have a million flowers planted. We also have five fruit trees and lots of grapes. Hopefully we will have a good harvest; it is our first time doing this, so we will see. This week I made a rhubarb pie for Wesley who has never eaten it. I got the recipe from my grandma and with a little tweaking (to make it gluten-free!) it turned out great. Our car works great, though we aren't fond of the car payment and in general life is pretty good. We are not sure how school is going to work with Wesley's job and paying tuition, but we will see. We applied for Federal Aid and are now in the process of jumping through the hoops to get it. Overall, life is pretty good. We see our families at least once a week and often more than that. Last week, we babysat my siblings while my parents went to San Diego. We had a pretty good time, but were happy to be back at our house where the bed is not so big, although I am pretty sure Wesley misses the fact that my parent's bed is adjustible.

Finally!

After three years, I am no longer employed by Maceys Grocery Store. I have had three front end managers, many front end supervisors, been a front end supervisor and worked there longer than most people. There are some people that I will miss not working there, but as it is the grocery store that I know best, I will likely continue shopping there. I am very happy to be done working at Maceys. I desperately need something new. I am now employed by SOS Staffing, which is really just a temp agency. I am hoping to get a decent amount of work from them between now and the end of August when I will begin student teaching at Elk Ridge Middle School in South Jordan. It is something of a commute, but the teacher will basically give me free reign and we will see what happens.

No more snow!

Okay, I am officially done with Utah weather. I am done with the cold and the snow. I am especially done with the snow and cold following the warmth and sunshine that we love. All done! Even this week, it is supposed to alternate snow and sun. Utah used to be so nice with the seasons. December-February had snow, March/April were rainy and cool, May was fabulous with warmer spring, June-August was summer and September-November was fall. Now everything is messed up. We have winter from December to April, very little spring, long summer and practically no fall! This is dumb. I have decided that we are moving to Texas. (Not really, officially anyway, but right now anything is better than Utah!) I am ready to be warm!

Mallory had to hide behind me to keep my veil in place. It wanted to fly up, up and away.

The lighting makes this one not quite a cool as it could have been, but you get to see my train! It was way longer than I had planned on getting, but I love it!

This one is Krista's favorite!

I was cleaning up my flash drive today and found some of my bridal pictures. Originally I had no intention of doing bridals, but Wesley asked me to and so did his mom and his sister. What was I to say? We didn't hire a photographer, they just took the pictures, so it really didn't cost me anything! We went to the American Fork amphitheatre, which is beautiful stone. All of Wesley's sisters came, along with both of our moms. I like them! I can't wait for my wedding pictures!

Well, I posted pictures of my new hair on facebook, but neglected to do so here. On President's Day, Wesley had to work so I went to my parent's house at seven a.m. (Yuck!) Both of my brothers needed haircuts and as I just learned how to cut Wesley's hair, they let me get some practice in. Katelyn decided that she wanted a haircut too and so did my mom. I had been thinking about cutting my hair for a while and since my friend who has cut my hair for the past year and who did it for my wedding was working, we decided to all go get our hair cut too. I sat down in her chair and said, "Melanie, I am donating my hair! What can you do with it?" She got all excited and showed me how much ten inches was. I actually wanted my hair shorter than that, so she ended up cutting off 14 inches to donate plus more to style my hair. I now have an A-line that goes a little past my chin. I love it! It is a million times lighter, (even though it is thicker again) and takes half the time to do in the morning. I can't french braid it anymore when I don't feel like doing anything, but I can do two short little ponytails. It is great. Wesley always told me he liked my long hair because he could play with it, but he has played with my short hair more in the week and half that I have had it, than he played with my long hair since I got home from Mexico. Go figure!

Here is what the car is supposed to look like...

...and here is what it looks like!

So, about a week after we got married, Wesley was in a car accident. Some 16 year old girl tried to cross all lanes of traffic without looking. She ran right into him. He wasn't hurt, but the front right of our car was crushed in. The turn signal is gone, the headlight doesn't work and the wheel grinds against the casing every time we turn left. It was clearly her fault, (despite her trying to convince Daddy it wasn't) and we got her insurance information. Turns out, she gave us the wrong information. We thought it could be an honest mistake, so we tried calling. Again. And again. And again. We talked to them twice and each time they told us that the car wasn't there and they would call us back. So, we would wait. And then call again. We called the officer who took the accident report and he called them with no results. Finally, we got Wesley's uncle involved and got the information directly from the insurance company. That took three weeks. They sent out a claims adjuster who discovered far more damage than we had thought. The car is considered totaled because the damage is 3,200 dollars and they were willing to give us 2,800 dollars. So, we went out yesterday and bought a new car. It is sad, because a) we loved our little car with manual gears, sun roof and v-tek engine and b) now we have a car payment. I do like our new car. It is a gold 2000 Honda Accord. It is a bigger car and had four doors instead of two. We like the space, the turn radius, the headlights and the CD player that actually works!

Wesley got a job!!!!

Yay! Wesley finally got a job! He began training yesterday at 7a.m. Last Friday he got a phone call asking him to come to an interview at a place called Teleperformance. It is a fiberoptic support center, where people call in for help with their internet. Wesley didn't even remember applying there, he had applied at so many places. He had two interviews and they hired him right then. He then spent another forty-five minutes filling out paperwork. He has five weeks of training from 7a.m. until 3:30p.m. and then he officially starts. It is good pay, plus benefits. He does have to leave around 6:30a.m. That means that we have to wake up at 5:30a.m. Wow, that takes me back to high school. I haven't gotten up that early consistently for a very long time! He drops me off at BYU and then drives on up to Lindon, where the call center is located. I spend 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours doing homework in the morning and he picks me up on his way home. We are very, very, VERY grateful that he now has a job. Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us! We love you!

Well, we still don't have any wedding pictures, but we can skip that and come back to it. We are living in a house in Provo while the owners are serving a mission. We actually live in the basement, where we have a living room/office space, full kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. We have a HUGE closet and lots of storage space. When we first moved in and brought our wedding gifts, they took up the whole living room. We pretty much just left them there for a while until we had time to sort things out. It has been a lot of fun for me to decorate and arrange our own place. Wesley was so funny about arranging furniture. He was the one who kept moving things around so that it was "our" place instead of how the owners had arranged things. We do have yucky wallpaper that we can't do anything about, so a lot of my pictures and decorations had to go back into storage for later. Our house is finally all clean and mostly decorated. We are just waiting for our wedding pictures to display.

Our engagement pictures were taken by Sister Oliver, my old Young Womens president and a sweetheart. She took them in her basement. Aren't they amazing!?

Yay! Engagement stuff! We got to campus early and so I have time to blog. Here is how Wesley proposed:
On Sunday, August 24th, less than a week after his first shoulder surgery, Wesley decided not to take his pain medicine, despite the fact that we had three sacrament meetings to go to, two missionary get-together meals and a family dinner. I kept trying to get him to take it and he kept saying, "I'll take it later." So, in the middle of one of the missionary things, his sister called and he tells me that they want to take us for a drive. Okay...so we went. We drove out to a place called Salem Lake Park, where we wandered around for a bit. Wesley and I walked over to a bridge and were talking about how my grandpa always threatened to throw us into the water. Then he tells me to close my eyes because he has something for me. My first thought was that he couldn't be proposing because he hadn't talked to my dad yet (he was supposed to do that while I was at band camp the coming week). My next thought was to wonder if he was giving me a bug or a fake spider or something because of our conversation. Then I heard his knee hit the boards of the wooden bridge. I gasped (I am assured that it was a very cute gasp) and my eyes flew open to see him holding a ring. He then asked me to marry him, to which I said yes. He claims that it was barely audible, even though it was just pitched slightly higher than my normal voice. When we turned around, his sister and brother-in-law had a camera and had been taking pictures. It was incredibly sweet, especially considering that he was hurting due to lack of pain medicine. We drove back to his grandparents house after calling my parents. Everybody had known he was proposing except for me. He had wanted to surprise me, because I claim to not like surprises. My husband is the best ever!

So I know that technically I am supposed to be putting up our cute engagement pictures and telling about our engagement and then after that it is supposed to be wedding pictures and such and then I am allowed to complain on here, but I didn't feel like being conventional. Being the girl part of the marriage really bites. The girl has to change her name, her social security card, her license, her name and status at BYU (if that is where she attends, like I am attending), the name on the joint bank account which has to be set up, which the setting up of can cause issues with dumb things like insurance, etc. There is so much more a girl has to do. It is especially stressful to try and do when I am going to school and working two jobs. It is hard to be a grown up! I was so looking forward to having everything set up. We finally got our debit cards, although I have to change mine because my name is changing. We have things changed and are just waiting on my new cards to change more things, but then we had a little hiccup with our car insurance. It has been one thing after another! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my husband and I LOVE being married, but I am not such a big fan of the everything changes and I have to be an adult now. Okay, rant is sort of over. For those of you who actually look at this, I promise that I will post engagement stuff soon, just as soon as my brain can handle one more thing added to it! Love you!