Late Night Fondue...

Jake and I spend a lot of time together late at night. Usually we're just working on projects - Kyra on homework (no surprise there) and Jake on his own personal projects. We sit on the couch together, or across the table from each other, and occasionally exchange smiles in each other's direction. Romantic, eh?

Sometimes we get hungry though... and sometimes our desire for healthy food gets pushed aside as a longing for chocolate slowly creeps in. And because of that, we compromise...

Say hello to our midnight snack two nights in a row. Chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, and pretzels. Quite delicious and surprisingly low on the calorie count. Definitely not something I should get used to...

Halloween Milestones...

Fun Halloween activities that Jake and I enjoyed included...

 Painting a pumpkin together. One pumpkin, each of us on either side of the table. After a few minutes, we turned the pumpkin around to see what each other had drawn. Can you guess who's side is who's?

On Halloween night we drove up to Logan to hang out with our friends Dan and Sharli. Jake and I put our awesome hunger games costumes to good use and dressed up as Peeta and Katniss in their training uniforms.

We tried to take a serious photo but of course I did nothing but smile and laugh because no matter how hard I try I will never be able to hold a straight face when I want to. Regardless, I'm loving this candid shot of us laughing at each other. 

And of course we had to play the archery game on the Wii to see if I really fit the part of Katniss... turns out Peeta and Indiana Jones (Dan) did much better than I did. It was a fun night!

The best part? Halloween is Jake and my one year of dating anniversary :-) (our first date was back in August, but we didn't go on a second date until October). Now of course I was thinking about this all day, remembering how last year Halloween was our second date but our first kiss, but at the same time, I know that girls are generally the ones to remember dates like this and guys find it silly. So I didn't ever bring it up - not expecting him to remember or planning to be disappointed when he didn't remember, I just chose to enjoy the day with him and not worry about it. But then he ended up surprising me. We made it back to my apartment late...2:45am late. He said he wanted to run and pick up something to eat and I decided to get ready for bed. When he got back, he came and got me out of my room and had a beautiful rose, a lit candle, and chocolate covered goodies set out on the table :-) It was absolutely adorable! Jake is sooo incredibly sweet and I'm so excited that we have been dating for a year! I love all the time I get to spend with him!

Slacklining and Hiking...

Ever heard of slacklining? It's one of those things that Jake and his friends do together but just recently did I learn what it was. Don't tell any slackliners that I said this, but it's the same idea as tight rope walking. Although if you call it that you'll offend a lot of guys. Apparently a lot of people use it for meditation and stress relief. Basically we just tied some webbing between two trees and did our best to walk across (don't worry, we protected the trees first).  

 Jake can make it all the way across, turn around in the middle, and is working on being able to lie down.

I barely made it halfway. It's tough! But it was a fun challenge. 

And one more fun activity we did recently. Jake and I hiked the "Y" down in Provo. Even though I went to BYU for a little bit, I never went on this popular hike, so Jake and I decided to do it together. It's a short but very steep hike and the view is gorgeous!

Fall Football...

Jake and I enjoyed the BYU vs. Utah State football game last weekend :-) It was fun to see how "excited" fans got - Jake and I had a hard time not laughing at some of the comments we heard. And here is a lovely picture of the two of us at half time...

New Home...

I moved up to Ogden last week to be closer to school and work. The 3 minutes commute to class (15 if I'm walking) and 8 minute commute to work is absolutely divine! This is my cute little house...

Isn't is just so quaint?! I have one roommate, her name is Madi - she's been great! We each have our own room and lots of empty space. I'll take you on a quick walk through...

This is our very empty front room. I will eventually buy some furniture for here, but I spent enough on my own room this month so it will just have to wait. Also, be prepared for very barren walls... art needs to be purchased.

Next we have our nice white kitchen complete with empty cupboards. Madi and I really only use 2 cupboards and 3 drawers... Our old wooden table is behind me in this picture as well as a washer and dryer! Right on site! Hoorah!

 Here we have our newly remodeled bathroom. It's actually quite nice. My only complains are the nonexistent counter top (how is a girl suppose to get ready?? although this does help keep it clean... hmm...) and the fact that the fan turns on when the light turns on. I've never quite understood why someone would think this was a good idea. The bathroom is not only for the use of the toilet.

I don't have a picture of Madi's room so I will just move on to mine. First we have the before pictures. Notice the lovely blue green carpet... (it's not quite as bad in the pictures)

And of course, my favorite: peach and green wallpaper chair rail...

I HAD to come up with a way to cover this up - without clashing with the carpet. So this is what I did...

You will have to image the colors a little bit better than this pictures portrays. I used a blue-green slate for the wall fabric, chocolate brown for the bed, and rust accents on the shelves and pillows. A few things you will have to overlook: the throw is suppose to match but doesn't right now, the unpainted side of the bookshelf (I may get around to this, I may not), and the missing art. The plan was to have three pieces of artwork hanging above the bed on top of the fabric so as not to overwhelm anyone with fabric everywhere, but it turns out the off center window I was covering up (yes, there is a window hidden behind all that) got in the way of picture hanging. I'm now in the process of looking for a new piece of art. Aside from that... what do you think? Much better than the chair rail, for sure!

I love this cute new home and already feel so comfortable in it! You will have to stop by sometime and visit me, but plan on a lack of seating for awhile ;-)

Leonardo and Deep Fried Twinkies...

On Friday, Jake and I explored The Leonardo; a contemporary science and art museum in Salt Lake, right next to the library. We've been wanting to find a fun museum in Salt Lake (our half-way point) to explore and this one was definitely a good choice. After enjoying the contemporary art and installations, we wandered over to the science side...

We had a lot of fun in this area as the camera picked up on our movements and reflected them as a skeleton on the computer.

One of the greatest pieces of art we saw was a wall of photos where people recreated pictures of themselves from the past. See exhibit A below.

Sooo funny. This one was one of the best. Jake and I may try this sometime with some old photos from our childhood... stayed tuned.

On Saturday we went on a double date with Jeff and Katy. Jake's first time at a State Fair. He was so excited to try the famous deep fried Twinkies. We tried a deep fried Snickers instead - not too bad actually (taste wise, that is. Definitely very 'bad' in the health aspect I'm sure). We had a fun time exploring and playing some of the games and we finally have another picture together! Yeah us!

White Rock...

Another rock climbing / rappelling extravaganza. We went out to White Rocks on the Dugway proving grounds (ya, we're probably getting radiation poisoning or something...). We climbed up the cliff about 200 feet and slept under a cliff overhang.

Of course we chose the weekend of the big thunderstorm that hit Utah - I heard there was golf ball sized hail in Davis county. We experienced the lightning closer than I've ever been. So close, in fact, that we couldn't see the "strikes" of lighting, or a flash of light in the sky. So close that our entire field of vision went stark white and we couldn't see for a moment afterwards. So close that the lighting and the thunder were instantaneous and shock the ground and the rock above use. So close that Jake was afraid we were going to get struck.

The next morning the weather was absolutely perfect. Here's the awesome group getting ready to head down (aside from Christin and I).

If you want to see a fun video compilation of our pictures and videos, click on this link Rappelling Trip