daniel & aubrionna

Well we just had a wonderful weekend! For the most part everything was great! We've had a good week spending evenings together, playing games and what not. One night I even made these delicious pudding cups for us. Ha I just remembered I haven't finished mine yet... it's still in the fridge oops! Then we had a burgers and swim night! At the pool there's a community grill so we grilled them up and they were delicious! Then we were excited to swim but when we felt the water it was A LOT colder than usual. So we jumped in for fun then got right in the hot tub. It was a fun thing to do out of the normal routine. Oh then Wednesday we went out to dinner at Chipotle- YUM! Dan has converted me. I love that place. This weekend had planned to go through a session at the LA temple before we went to the Baseball game but saw that it was closing early because of the General Relief Society meeting. So it was kind of a bummer we didn't get to go but we'll ...

I started writing this post a while ago but forgot about it until now! I reread it and added some more thoughts. Sometimes girls drive me nuts. This is probably why when growing up I had more guy friends than girl friends. I don't have any sisters so I've never been used  to that. I was also never used to the pointless drama that we all know occurs. C'mon, we all know it! :) One thing we were talking about in my Anatomy & Physiology class was girl's 28 day [approx] cycle of hormones. No worries, we're staying scientific here nothing to make you squirm. We talked about how the hormone, estradiol, peaks around the time when females have their monthly period. Estradiol among other things is a memory enhancer. Biologically instead of remembering the situation, girls often only remember how they felt. So combining those two (along with other things) offers a symptom of what they call PMS, Premenstrual Syndrome. During this time estradiol can enhance your memor...

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) we have our Sunday worship in meeting houses that are open to anyone and everyone. We also have Temples where we make sacred covenants and sacred ordinances are preformed. Temples are not open to anyone; only members with a current temple recommend (which is received by interviews with the bishop and stake president) can enter. But before a Temple is dedicated by the church and made a sacred place, it is open to the public . As the Boise Temple comes to the end of its renovations there will be an open house for anyone and everyone that wants to come. I want to stress that this is not a proselyting event . If you go you will not be attacked by missionaries and have a Book of Mormon put in your bag as you leave. This is an event in which we are just sharing this wonderful building.  I feel like there's a lot of mystery surrounding Mormon temples and after having the opportunity to ...

I surprised Dan with a picnic dinner in the living room. My penguin snuggie is the only blanket we have here. It was perfect. He loved it and we enjoyed ourselves. I forgot to take a picture until we were done eating haha oops. So this weekend we had panned to go to the Kern County Fair today (Saturday) and I was super excited because they had Wienerschnitzel Races. What could bring you more joy than watching wiener dogs race? Plus there's fair atmosphere, food and just a fun place. We were looking at the schedule and there's tons of things to do but I was really interested in the elephant rides. This isn't your average fair, this thing is huge! So we planned to go saturday afternoon. Often times I accidently forget to eat. I really do. I'd rather sleep than eat and Dan would rather eat than sleep. Anyways as I was making dinner Friday night I was getting a huge headache and after talking to Dan I realized I hadn't eaten enough that day. A hunger head ac...

I just realized I never blogged about our amazing weekend last week! Shame on me. LAST WEEKEND We decided to spend our Saturday in LA. Our plan was to go to the Temple, an Ethiopian restaurant then if we had time go to the Santa Monica Pier. The LA Temple is 2 hours from where we live but luckily, even with the traffic we made perfect timing! I was super nervous because this was only my second time doing this! I didn't want to get lost, do something wrong or embarrass myself. It's pretty impossible  (okay almost impossible) to do any of those, there is always someone to help you but still, I was nervous. We had a wonderful time at the Temple. It was special this time and we really enjoyed it. Then after looking at a bunch of reviews the day before we went to an Ethiopian Restaurant in LA. Dan served his mission in Uganda and Ethiopia. He ordered for us and said the food was pretty darn authentic! It was delicious though, I really enjo...

Man do I feel like a WIFE. Growing up I always remember my mom having a menu. She has notebooks and notebooks  full of calendar days and meals. She keeps them to look back for ideas. Dan said his mom did something similar and that he always likes knowing ahead of time what's for dinner. When we were dating we talked about both of us wanting to have a menu and meal plan to save time and money. I love this idea so now that we're married I said okay lets do this. After we did our first initial food shipping trip to get all the basics for us I started gathering old and new recipes from my head, pinterest and from things my mom has made. It was a little harder than I thought it would be but I think that's because (1) I really don't have a plethora of recipes to pull from and (2) I wanted to make and try new things. But I did it! I put old and new recipes on there, left over days and breakfast for dinner nights. It is easily movable and flexible if we decide we want to go...

To my surprised being married hasn't been that much of an adjustment for me. Okay so we've only been married for barely three weeks but everyone kept telling me it'll be a big change and right off the bat I'll find things about him that drive me nuts. Well I'm sure those things exist but I want to choose to not let them bother me. I strongly believe that because we dated exclusively for a year it has made this transition to married life easier for ua. For those of you who don't know, a year is a long time in the LDS community haha it's very common and almost a stereotype for Mormons to get married quickly as in a couple months- which isn't a bad thing either. Everyone is different; some people can do that but it wasn't right for us to get hitched so quick and for this I'm so thankful. We lived everyday life together and learned how to be happy with each other when we weren't doing anything. Here's what I mean- I've heard some person...

Today Dan and I went to church at our new ward! It's like right across the street from our apartment and it's at 9am. We love church in the morning because we like being up in the morning, getting things done then being able to relax the rest of our Sunday. It's nice. After enduring 2:30 church in rexburg for two semesters we are excited for the change. We walk in and it's an old building! It has that scratchy wall coverings that look like carpet from ceiling to floor in purple! It looks exactly like a church building I went to in Canada. It's not a bad thing, I like it's character. We walk in and I shake hands with one Elder then turn around to shake hands with his companion and look who it is. The one and only Wade Smallwood . We both just stood there like.. uhh...wait.. what's going on?! The crazy thing is he's know me and Dan but independently from each other. I met Wade when he roomed with some of my closest friends at BYU Provo. Dan knows Wade an...

So after a wonderfully lazy and relaxing Saturday morning full of cuddles and football, Dan and I decided to go for a swim at the pool. We went to the pool on the other side of the complex to see what was over there. When we got there, there seemed to be a group of neighbors that knew each other pretty well. We started talking to them and they were nice and funny people. All drinking and no filter but they weren't too bad of a group to meet. Then out of no where we hear this sound that sounds like a seal trying to sing. Like off key moaning. I was thinking what happened who died? All the people at the pool were like "Oh noooo... look who's up" Knowing that we were knew, they turn to us and explained that that is their drunk neighbor. I can't see him, but I can hear him. He finally yells something I can make out, "HONEEEYYYY BOO BOO!" The other neighbors explain to me that they call him Bubba Boo Boo. He finally stumbles over and talking through the gat...

I saw a lady walking her cat on a leash. Dan and I were walking to the fitness room and I didn’t know what to even do. At Wal-Mart they check your receipt like Costco does I saw a Chihuahua almost get hit in the road! It was so scary! I saw a man get arrested It’s never a good thing when your phone says ‘GPS signal was lost’ while you were using it! I got lucky and found where I needed to go. Gallons of milk are rectangular shaped, not the square ish shape I’m used to. There’s a lot more Spanish influence here that I expected. There’s both English and Spanish on everything. I don’t know where my mailbox is still. I can’t find it. But I did find the dumpster! I love making breakfast for my husband. Because he is gone all day I love to get up with him in the mornings, spend some time and eat breakfast with him. I feel like it’s the least I can do plus is makes me feel like more of a wife! We have new neighbors. I went to offer to help unload his car but he was actually done. I...

Well we indeed made it to Bakersfield in one piece and found our apartment. As we walked in my first impression was wow... this is nice! After finding a couple of apartments that one or the other of us didn't feel right about we finally found this option through mention of a friend. They offer fully furnished corporate suites which is exactly what we needed. We don't own a bed, a couch, tables, chairs, washer/dryer-nothing! So the first option was to live in a completely empty apartment and buy and air mattress or to spend a little more money to have a place to live. This was really important to Dan especially because where I won't be able to find a job and be home all day, he wanted me to be comfortable. So we have a wonderful apartment that is a place we can actually enjoy living at. I don't think we have any neighbors downstairs most people probably live in the normal apartments. We have two pools and a fitness center. A pretty ...

We obviously slept in after driving all day and late into the night. We spent the morning getting ready and organizing all the things we need to take to Bakersfield. We ran some needed errands to deposit all the gift money into the bank, moving my money to Dan’s bank account and getting me a debit card for his account. We picked up Chinese for lunch for everyone at the house and soon after my parents arrived. We went through the gifts from Boise and spent the rest of the afternoon getting everything ready for the reception. It had started to look really windy and cloudy but in the distance the sun was totally coming out. As we got into the car to drive to the community park it started raining. I was just praying the weather would get better. I personally didn’t care that it was raining but I didn’t want all the hard work that went into this open house to go to waste! It was breaking my heart and we were all praying it would pass. The wind was insane but within 10 minutes the rain sta...

When we got to our hotel room it was beautifully decorated thanks to Ally, Cesar (and my mother) with tea lights, rose pedals, sparkling cider and tons of snacks. It was awesome and so nice of them! We left the next morning to make the first leg of our long drive to Vegas. We stayed in the stratosphere then finished our drive the next day to Long Beach. The drive wasn’t too bad because it was just the beginning of all our driving. Get got to the Cruise Terminal and checked in, went through security and boarded the ship. We easily found our room and dropped all our stuff off before we ate lunch. The first exposure to the cruise ship food was amazing. I was like… there is so much food! All you can eat ice cream? Room service? Haha it was great. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the ship trying to figure out where everything is. We put on our swim suits and tested out the pool, hot tub and water slide all which were fabulous then went to dinner that night which was an exp...

Our wedding day… holy cow. It was amazing! Dan and I still talk about how we can’t believe how perfect everything went! It really was a perfect day. We drove to Twin Falls Friday just before noon, checked into the hotel and I got to see Dan for the first time in a MONTH. It was so wonderful to see him again but it was a realization to be like oh, I’m marrying him tomorrow! Soon after, we left to go to the Temple to take out my endowments. I remember being anxious but feeling just so ready. It was a wonderful experience and I really loved it. I truly know now that what goes on in the Temple isn’t a secret, it’s sacred. The things you can learn there are things you need to prepare yourself to learn. It was simple, wonderful and I can’t wait to go back. That night we went to Chili’s for dinner with both of our families. It was fun as our family’s met and interacted and found lots of things in common. That night I tried to sleep. Although I did sleep I was constantly ...