Hello all! I hope your days have been merry and bright, I know mine have been.

Tyson and I have been pretty busy, keeping up with all the "House" marathons and "Treeman: search for a cure". It's a hard-knocked life my friends, hard knocked. We're doing what we can to survive.

Christmas was great I must say. We got some sweet presents this year including PHOTOSHOP. Yeah, you heard me. When you are a BYU student you can get the full monty for just over $300 so that was the parents' gift to us. Thanks! I'm sure that someday I will figure out how to use it and decorate my blog with pictures of beauty and glamour. But until then all you get is this.

"Merry Christmas, Love. If you take any more pictures of me at this frightful hour I may have to eat you with my pearly whites, all of which I am showing you now. Or maybe I'll just get you back with an early morning snapshot of yourself."

Tyson gets a Nerf gun every year for Christmas, a tradition which I happily uphold. However, his sister Emily may not be as thrilled with this tradition as she is usually at the receiving end of the spongy missiles. Watch out!

Another thing we got to do was play in the snow! We made Mr. Googly McSchmoogly on Christmas Eve and I'm sad to report he met an untimely death when the temperature hit almost 50 degrees (+rain) three days in a row. R.I.P. Googly.

Oh, and guess what! I totally made a friend. I've been so worried that I wouldn't meet anyone out here and I would live the rest of my life friendless and alone. ESPECIALLY because after living in Utah for so long I'm afraid of people who aren't Mormon... Just kidding. But seriously, how else was I going to meet anyone?

Anyway, we finally got to go to church (it had been cancelled the last couple weeks because of the weather) and I started talking to a girl in relief society. We chatted a little bit about this and that after church when she said those 5 little words I'd been longing to hear.

"Do you like to scrapbook?"

SOLD.

Numbers were exchanged and bonds were made. Who knows, we may end up with a relationship like what my friend Brittany and I have (we have been shopping for scrapbook supplies many times together, and yet have never actually scrapbooked together) but that would be ok.

A friend, a friend! La di da!

It doesn't snow in Vancouver

It doesn't snow here, Tyson said

As he took the hat off of my head.

No big drifts or flakes galore,

No scraping windshields anymore.

Things cannot freeze, it's much too warm,

Driving will not do you harm.

It doesn't snow, we're so convinced!

Our budget for plows has been minced.

And as for salt we don't have any,

'Cause we are environmentally friendly.

(sorry that one didn't rhyme so well)

There'll be no alerts or frosty bite,

No Bing Crosby dreaming of white.

It doesn't snow here, was the warning,

Is it something I'll be mourning?

No that's ok, I like the rain,

I can live without seeing snow again.

And that's the story of how I know,

Here in Vancouver, we get no snow.

We made it!!

After a harrowing drive and a lot of unpacking,

Washington... We HAVE arrived.

We didn't make the trip all in one day though, we made an overnight stop in...

CHRISTMAS CITY!!!

Isn't is so Christmasy??

Loved it.

This is actually Rupert Idaho where Tyson's grandma lives. She was nice enough to let us stay the night so we didn't have to make the 14 hour drive in one day.

Oh, did I say 14 hours? I meant 18 hours due to the cruddy road conditions that prevailed.

This was actually the best part of the trip where the sun was out, the road was pretty clear, and the landscape was beautiful.

And here's what we saw the rest of the time.

Poor Tyson.

But eventually we made it to the apartment!

Here's a couple picures of it.

It's a little bigger than our old apartment which is nice and it has TWO whole bathrooms. An excellent upgrade I must say. This way when Tyson and both have to go potty we dont' have to ro sham bo for the bathroom!

We even have a mantle to decorate which I just love.
Don't mantles just seem so festive!?
Anyway, we're trying. We only had a couple days to decorate after all!

Goodbye

Well, I was going to write this whole post on a bunch of random stuff that I was thinking about but I just didn't have time.

So instead I'm just gonna say; we are moving tomorrow (AAAAHHH!), I'm not sure when I'll next have internet (WWAAAAHHH!!), and I'll miss all my Utah peeps!!

The winner takes it all

The loser standing small.

So Tyson had a graduate luncheon/pizza party/giveaway thing to go to today, however, since we had movers at our house he didn't go.

I mean, we never win stuff anyway, so we figured he'd just miss out on a couple slices of pizza.

His friend just called saying he won 500 bucks. 500 lonely bones. 500 opportunities.

Wasted.

On someone else.

He wasn't there to claim his prize. We all know what happens when you aren't there for your prize. I feel like such a schlub!! It is my fault after all that he didn't go. He could have left me alone with the movers but I felt awkward about it and so he decided to stay with me.

The prize ruiner.

Queen of loss.

Mistress of anguish.

Tyson decided to race to BYU to see if there was any chance he could still redeem the gift. My hopes are not high...

But wait...

He's calling me...

...

WOO HOO!!

He still gets it!! Turns out it wasn't a drawing, it was actually an award from the faculty for being the most outstanding grad student. He missed the speech all about how awesome he is, but the check will be in the mail.

YAAAAAAAAAY!

I love you all,

Your queen

of happiness and joy

HELLO, My name is...

Mari.

And I live in a land of boxes.

The packing guys came today and tomorrow the moving guys come. I sort of feel like I'm homeless... but with a home. Tomorrow our apartment will be an empty shell, just waiting to be cleaned.

Sounds fun, don't it?

Only one casualty so far though!! Too bad it was Tyson's favorite Mason jar.
And it wasn't us who broke it.

It was the moving guy.

I was just grateful it wasn't a vase.

'Cause I like my vases.

Even though they're not made of crystal.

Amen.

Things that are weird

1. Toe socks. I wore a pair of these yesterday (yes, I still have not one but THREE pairs of these) and they were just as uncomfortable as I remember. I wanted to amputate my foot after about 5 minutes of having it stuffed into my boot with that sock on. But then I didn't and I ended up wearing the socks all day long. I swear it will never happen again!

2. Seahorses. They look funny. And only a little bit like horses. I'm pretty sure I would still like to hold one though. And the men carry the babies. Hmm... Men carrying babies reminds me of...

3. This guy. Have you seen this guy? Uh, girl, uh guy/girl? He's pregnant. For the second time I think. And he lives in Portland, NEXT TO WHERE I'M GONNA LIVE!!!!

4. Older women laughing and... and... I'm not even sure I can say it... tooting on either side of me in a public restroom. Awkward!! This was another event from yesterday. What a day. What. A. Day.

5. Crazy space stuff. Like nebulas. Tyson tells me these are light years across. Whoa, they are crazy AND pretty.

Hey! Kinda like me! Heh heh, j/k friends, j/k.

6. Crazy space food. I love this space ice cream. I remember getting it at the planetarium and feeling like I could eat it FOREVER. Do astronauts really even eat this? It seems like such a novelty that they wouldn't stoop to it. But what do I know? I'm just a lowly earthling.



7. Being finished with school. Yes, it's true, I turned in my last assignment ever yesterday and so I am done! Done done done! Hee hee! I can't even believe it; it is pretty much the most awesome thing ever. And guys, the movers are coming tomorrow to pack up all our stuff. Holy moly, we are actually graduating and leaving. It is seriously the strangest feeling knowing that we are leaving in less than a week.

Goodbye Utah! Goodbye UVU! Goodbye little apartment!

Pictures courtesy of google images

Crazy

Blog content has been deleted by author for fear of offending anyone. If you missed it... sorry charlie.

They like me, they really like me!

So I'm supposed to be working on my senior project but I'm just not in the mood! I've been totally procrastinating and now as punishment I'm going to have to spend the next 4 days completely consumed by it. The problem is that I'm really in the mood to write... just not for that. I'm hoping that if I get this out of my system I'll be able to go back to my heinous horrible paper.

Well guys, yesterday marked the last day of student teaching. Ever. Forever ever.

I still can't decide if I'm sad or happy about it.

I will not miss all the stress that comes with being a student teacher, but I will miss the kids!! I liked them so much. They were funny and clever and talented and sweet (sometimes) and dangit I miss them.

And I'll miss Tracy, my cooperating teacher.

We got along really well, better than I ever could have thought.

I ended my final day with our Christmas concert which was totally successful and super fun. The kids even got me stuff! They got me two bouquets of flowers, plus a card that a ton of them signed plus a bag of m&ms. Tyson also got me a bouquet of flowers and some chocolates (10 of which I ate in one sitting today. It happens.) So grateful!!

Near the end of the concert they did this cheering thing for me and clapped for what felt like 10 minutes and I stood there feeling like a dork. Kind of like when you have to stand up in front of a room full of people while they sing happy birthday to you. You know? And you can't exactly sing to yourself or sit down so you just stand there smiling 'til your cheeks start to twitch. Yeah, it was like that. Really nice of them though.

The signatures on the card was probably my favorite part of it all. There were so many "I'll miss you's" and "you were the best student teacher ever" and "you are so cute". It made me feel really good. Never mind that half the boys told me they loved me and would date me if I wasn't married (good thing they don't know how old I REALLY am).

But then the icing on the cake was this:

Oh yes, one of my students found out I liked to scrapbook. Her aunt is Lisa Bearnson who owns/founded/something Creating Keepsakes. So this student, I shall call her "M", hooked me up with some sweet stuff. *sigh* and I thought only elementary teachers got gifts from their students. What a good day.

In case you were curious what we sounded like (and how my backside looks in black) here's a little video from the concert. This was the last choir which actually combined the A Capella and the Chamber choir. There are about 150 singing right now which I thought was way fun. I love huge choirs! We are singing Fum Fum Fum by Mack Wilberg.

p.s. this was my 100th post. yay me!!

Thanksgiving Tag!!

Okay, this tag actually has nothing to do with Thanksgiving other than I am doing it on this blessed day of gratitude. And by the way I am really REALLY bad at doing tags and I sorta feel like I've been tagged a lot lately. Oops. Jessica reminded me with a comment on my blog and that just might be the only reason that I'm doing this one.

Anyhoo, here it is!
The Rules:
•Mention the rules on your blog.
•Tell about 6 things people don't know about you.
•Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them.
•Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

1. I've always wanted to have a collection of something. Like clocks. I'm a little bit obsessed with clocks but I feel like having 35 of them in one room would just be too weird. Is it though? If you tell me it's okay I'm totally gonna do it.

2. I rock at Amped, a snowboarding game for xbox. I pretty much beat Tyson all the time. Not every time, but a lot.

3. I've always wanted to write a book of poems for kids. Kinda like the Shel Silverstein ones but me instead.

4. I would illustrate the book myself because I am actually a fairly good artist. I took an intro to drawing class at BYU and really enjoyed it. I can't paint though.

5. I was on not one, but TWO billboards around town my senior year of high school. One for the musical and one for marching band. The billboard people gave me a little replica of the billboards with my picture on it for my home. I still have one of them.

6. I kinda like Britney Spears. Not like I want to be her friend or anything but I am totally drawn in to every detail of her life. I like seeing what her hair looks like for the day, her makeup, her weight, her clothes, her latte, her new music videos, everything. I don't search her out on the Internet or anything but if I "accidentally" come across details of her life I am totally interested.

And there you have it. Did you know any of those things already? Hopefully not.

And I tag any 6 of you who want to do this. Because I am currently obsessed with the intimate details of your life.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!! I hope you all gain more weight than I do this holiday season :) j/k... sorta.

Detox

I am addicted to the Internet.

I confess. And don't even pretend that you're not addicted too! I see ya'll on facebook all the time.

Don't lie.

However friends, I'm in Michigan. And:

Internet Addiction + Small town Michigan = Rehab

AND the cell phone service is spotty at best. And by spotty I mean that I might get one bar of service if I stand on my head with one hand in a bowl of water, one foot against a northeast wall and the other foot stuck in a light socket.

I am having a really good time though. It's so fun to see my family and get to spend time with them. It has been especially fun to have some quality girl time with Mom and Emily.

Emily and I had been talking for a couple weeks about dying our hair together when I finally got there and after a little convincing we got Mom to do it too!!

Here is the preview of our colors:

Emily is on the left, then mom, then me. Aren't we beautiful??

Here's the before shot...
And here's the after!! Don't we look so amazingly different and gorgeous!!?? Ok, well maybe I needed better lighting to show the actual differences in our hair colors and I suppose going from brown to brown isn't the biggest change ever, but oh well.

We had a fun time putting the actual dye in our hair. I had the most experience dying hair (since I lived with roommates and all I'm practically a pro) so I got to put the color in Emily and Mom's hair. They watched what I did and copied it on me. Good thing it turned out!!

My hair is darker than it was which nicely covered the leftover highlights at the end of my hair from like two years ago. Mom's hair no longer has any gray in it (not that it ever did of course) and Emily's hair is... purple. No it really is!! You just have to see it in the light to get the purple hues showing.


At any rate, the best part was doing it all together. And I can't wait to see what our next adventure will be!

Salt in the wound

Awkwardness.

That is my life.

So, today after spending a fun morning with the girls in my ward doing a super saturday activity I went to a special store to get some special underclothes for my mom. ;-) While there, the humiliation ensued. I was just finishing checking out (keep in mind that the counter was very tall) when the worker looked at me and said:

"So... when's the big day?"

Me: "???" (blank stare/what in the heck are you talkin' about?)

Lame Worker Dude: "Oh, well, um, I thought, that you..."

Me: "What?" (Do I know you?)

L.W.D: "There are just a lot of, um, and I thought, well, are you pregnant?"

Me: "No..." (uncomfortable smile)

L.W.D.: "Yeah, I guess I just saw a pregnant girl in line earlier and then thought it was you."

Me: "Oh." (that's right you did because I look darn good and not prego at all (unfortunately))

L.W.D.: "Um, sorry about that."

Me: "Right, ok" (and thank you for asking if I'm pregnant at this time in my life)

Sigh.

I was able to laugh it off for a couple of minutes but then I started to feel bad. That dude totally salted my wound.

Oh well. Tyson gave me two double stuffed chocolate filled oreos when I got home and that helped a little.

Let's talk about happier things... like CRAFTS!!

I love crafts.

I've been able to make a few cute little things this week which has made me totally happy. Please allow me to flaunt my crafty skillz.

My neighbor Amy and I make these cute letters after we got the idea from what our ward was planning do on super saturday.

When we saw the samples we figured we could totally do it ourselves so we turned on the finale of America's Next Top Model and crafted away.

I should have taken pictures as I was making these so you could have had a tutorial. Sorry, but I didn't want you all to see the murderous look on my face as I sanded the edges of these things for an hour and a half.

It was fun.

My other craft this week was learning how to etch glass to make cute ornaments at super saturday.

I admit I had no idea what the actual etching process would be. I was picturing myself with some sort of metal tool scraping the surface of the bulb while I struggled to not cut myself and/or crush the thin glass in my bare hands.

Turns out it's just a paste you apply to a stenciled area. Who knew?

And that concludes my complaining/craft time for the day.

I am off to Michigan tomorrow (hurrah!!!) to spend Thanksgiving with my family. I am super excited to go and will let you know all about our festivities there!

Best compliment EVER!!

While riding in the car on the way to the grocery store I may or may not have been rocking out (sound effects and all) to the sweetest rendition of Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer ever made when Tyson said;

"Babe, you are Mannheim (Steamroller)."

Well, THANKS love!!!!!!!!!

I'll take that as a compliment.

Moab!!!! Part 2

Well I couldn't leave you hangin' out there with only part 1 of our fabulous Moab trip. So here's some more for ya.

Tyson and I found this charming little starter home as we began our hike to the delicate arch. We knew it was perfect the minute we laid eyes on it, but then we noticed something...

It comes with a Mother-In-Law suite!!!!!
Do you see it back there? So excellent you guys, if only it was in Washington. So sad.

But alas, Tyson and I were not here to look at real estate so we continued our climb in search of the most delicate of all arches.

It was about this point that I considered sitting on my bum and sliding down the slick rock back home. So tired...

Tyson and I hiked and hiked and hiked and hiked....

Until we reached an impasse.

A GIANT gorge.

Clearly we had lost the trail at some point and were now HOPELESSLY LOST WITH NO HOPE OF GETTING TO THE ARCH OR GETTING BACK HOME!!!!!!!!!

Just kidding.

We could actually see the arch from our perch atop the cliff, we just needed to find a way to get there...

Which is how I ended up clinging to the side of a mountain with every fiber of my being and every fingernail on my body. Felt like nails on a chalkboard. But the vertigo didn't really set in until I leaned back so my love could take a picture of me. Awesome.

And it only got worse as I looked up to take a picture of my sweet punkin' of love.

But never fear! It all turned out okay as I army crawled the last little way to the arch.

And then we found the real trail back to our car. The super easy trail that no one else had trouble staying on. The safe trail that did not include a death grip on slick rock in order to stay alive. The trail that had signs the whole way back showing us the way.

Huh.

Anyway, on our way back we were able to see some petroglyphs which were pretty cool.

The extremely informative and clever sign informed us that these petroglyphs dated back to sometime between 1650 and 1850.

Oh.

I was expecting something cooler... and older. Like 1350 or 1050 or, well, 50. Oh well, 1850 was still a long time ago.

And as a summary of our trip I leave you with this photo of some crazy yahoo who climbed to the top of a gigantic stone pillar. I was hoping he would cliff dive of that thing but he didn't. Just stood with his arms raised in the air.

I would never do that.

And that stone that you see behind him is not the ground but the top of another pillar.

Moab!!!! Part 1

Young McLowders went to Moab,

E-I-E-I-OOOOOOO.

And on their trip they saw some stuff,

E-I-E-I-OOOOOOO.

With an arch arch here,

And an arch arch there,

Here an arch,

There an arch

Everywhere an arch arch...
What? WHAT!?

We had to eat. Don't judge me!

(Okay secretly we actually had Burger King. Mickey D's is kinda icky.)