December has been a fun and exciting month for us. It seems like big events are happening left and right! As of yesterday we have been married for 4 months! Yesterday was also the first time we forgot our anniversary. Usually we do something special on that day, but yesterday we totally spaced it until about 9:30 at night. So our celebration yesterday consisted of hot fudge sundaes (see below). I am definitely a list person (inherited from my mother), so I'm going to do another listing post. Here's what's new with us:
1. The first big thing in December was Ricardo's birthday! He got some cool presents: a fishing rod from me, a sweater, candy, and a Christmas movie from my mom (my favorite one, conveniently enough), and a nice dinner out from his parents (which we utilized during finals week). For lunch that day we went to this Thai place that I found online. We both love Thai food, but it's hard to find cheap, quality stuff. We went to this place called Spicy Thai in Provo and loved it. It wasn't expensive, it was delicious, AND we had leftovers for 2 days. Highly recommend it. That night we had a progressive dinner with a bunch of our friends. Our job was appetizers, so we made my dad's famous wassail and a Brazilian dish called coshinas (Ricardo's not here, so I'm not sure if I'm spelling that correctly), which is basically fried dough with chicken, onions, and spices inside. It was delicious! I was particularly proud because Ricardo had to work that day, so I had to fry the food in time for the party and it turned out great! Everything at the dinner was great, and the resting time in between houses was really helpful, because we still had room for dessert! Kudos to Carrie for coming up with the idea. We had a wonderful time! See her blog for pictures: thetoolsons.blogspot.com
2. The next weekend in December I flew down to Arizona for my interview at Midwestern University. I stayed with my Aunt Sandy (my dad's older sister) and we had a great time. We went to the Mesa temple and saw the Christmas lights and had some delicious Mexican food. It turns out that my brother who is serving a mission in Arizona went to see the temple lights the very next night! So we just missed each other. I did meet an Elder Wood, though, who my brother (also Elder Wood) saw when he went the next day. It was really cool to see the missionaries and know that my brother was one of them. The next day was my interview and it went great! I actually found out last week that I was accepted! I'm going to PA school! I kind of applied to Midwestern on a whim (because they had a dental school and it was in a warm place), but I really loved my visit there, so who knows what the future will bring? Perhaps we will have cacti in front of our house this time next year. Only time will tell.
3. Ricardo finished school for the semester with straight A's, which is wonderful. He is excited to take science classes again next semester, though, so the U will be a nice change for him. He has also been studying the DAT regularly (I've been quizzing him). We are hoping all of our hard work will pay off and he'll ace it next spring!
4. I took my last finals of my BYU career. I'm a college graduate! It's so surreal. An extra bonus is that I got an A in my last chemistry class. This is a HUGE deal, because Chemistry has been my nemesis throughout college. My GPA my freshman year was really not so great, and that was a direct result of all my Chemistry classes. It was just not my thing. So now I feel a little vindicated. :)
5. We have been getting ready for our first Christmas together! On December 1st, Ricardo picked me up from my pilates class and took me to get a real Christmas tree (his first one!). He knew I loved having a real one, though, so he was determined to find us a great tree. We scouted out three different places and it turned out that Lowe's had the best deal by far. The tree only cost $20 and it was the perfect size. We found some cheap ornaments and lights and decorated it that night. It looks lovely. Well...it did...it's kind of dying now. I think next year we'll wait until the second week of December to get it. Also, I'm not used to having a tree in such dry weather. It's a lot harder to keep the tree moist and fresh looking. Despite its droopiness, we love it anyway. My mom was kind enough to send us a cute advent calendar, so we put that up in our house. We also got a snowman rug for out front door and a cute thing in our kitchen. It's a frog that says "Watch out for the mistletoad." For out tiny apartment, those things are enough. We figure we'll slowly acquire more decorations as the years go by. Our biggest Christmas success story, though, is convincing my dad to give us his acclaimed hot fudge sauce recipe. For those of you who don't know about it, this stuff is like gold back home. If you receive a jar of it from my dad, it's a huge honor. And the recipe is top-secret. But we really wanted to make it since we're not going home for Christmas, so he was kind enough to tell me how to make it. It turned out great! We usually eat it with ice cream, but I've been eating it by the spoonful since I like it so much. Ricardo is a little appalled whenever I do that, but I'm confident he'll come around eventually.
6. We found a new apartment in Salt Lake! We (well mostly me) were a little worried, because we didn't have time to go look at apartments until last Saturday and we're moving in about 2 weeks, but we found a great place in just a few hours of looking. It's a little basement apartment on 6th S and 8th E right in the heart of Salt Lake. When I say little that's not very accurate, though, because it's bigger than the apartment we live in now. It's only 2 blocks from the Trax, which Ricardo will take to school and I'll hopefully take to work somewhere so we don't have to drive too much on the icy roads and we can save some money that we normally spend on gas. We're also 2 blocks away from the grocery store and just about as close to the temple as we are now. I'm excited that the Salt Lake temple will be our temple for a little while. I've only ever been there for baptisms, so it will be great to do more. We are sad to leave all our friends in Provo, but it will be fun to live in a city for awhile. And we found out that one of my friends lives 2 blocks away with her husband, so it will be fun to hang out with them. We'll also be a lot closer to both of our extended families that live here in Utah, so it will be good to spend more time with them before we move away for good. Yay for only one more Utah winter!
Well, as I said, a lot has happened the last few weeks! I think this is my longest post yet. We haven't taken a picture of our tree yet, so I'll put pictures of that up after Christmas. We are excited to spend Christmas together, but we will miss our family and friends back home. Don't have too much fun without us. :) Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday! -The Fontouras
Comments
Post a Comment