I did it!

I think I've finally made some decisions about internships! I've been letting the stress of Aaron not hearing from all the dental schools yet get to me...It hasn't been going according to plan!! We were supposed to KNOW already! Aaron has been accepted to the Virginia Commonwealth University Dental School in Richmond, VA, which is awesome!! but it is not our first choice. AND they want a decision and a non-refundable deposit by January 16th...

Anyways, I decided yesterday that I can't get bogged down by it anymore, and realized I still have some options available to me. SO, I made the executive decision yesterday to apply to the Utah State University DISTANCE Dietetic Internship. I have to find my own preceptors and everything, but I am up to the challenge. I'll set everything up for Phoenix (Aaron's first choice dental school is in Mesa/Phoenix), and then if our plans change, I can switch preceptors, cities, etc! It's not as easy as I'm making it sound, but I'm excited to make it happen.

I'll also apply to the 6 month University of Houston internship (living apart for 4-5 months isn't that bad - airplanes may just be the greatest invention ever), and I'm considering a 7 month internship in Phoenix too. I may consider some internships in Virginia too if we end up taking the offer from VCU but still wait to hear from others.

The USU internship requires that I take the GRE - I haven't studied so I'm headed for some major cramming in the next 2 weeks - I'm taking it January 13th and hoping my results will come in time!!

Christmas Break

We've had a really fun Christmas break so far. It's been filled with adventures and probably a little bit too much traveling. We're in Texas now and I accidentally left my camera in our car at the airport in Salt Lake soooo so far I only have pictures from my mom of our time Park City.

We started out the break in Park City for a few days with my fam. We skiied, explored a little bit of PC, got manicures and massages (just the girls), and played lots of poker (I was the big winner of $1).

Here's the group of us taking our lunch break after a hard morning of skiing...lots of powder!!

All of us at Ghidotti's
How cute are we?

Next, we drove up to Idaho Falls for the week of Christmas. We did the majority of our Christmas shopping and also visited my grandma and grandpa for a bit. Christmas Eve we headed up to the Lairds cabin for two days. We chopped down on our own Christmas tree and decorated it. (How harcore!!!) We also did a fun Christmas program and played lots of games and cards. Christmas day we opened presents and woke up to about 2 feet of snow on the ground! Aaron spoiled me and I like to think that I spoiled him. He bought me an ipod shuffle among other things!! I got Aaron a new daypack. I'm so excited to upload songs to my shuffle (shuff for short) and ski/work out with it. The Lairds bought a Wii for the family and we played a lot of games on it in addition to just lounging around. The snow just kept falling, too. The day after Christmas, we got packed and ready to go as best we could before the snowplow came to plow out the roads. We were snowed in! That night we went on a sleigh ride/dinner theater thing that was a lot of fun.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to drive down to Salt Lake for our flight to Texas. All the snow has really made the roads awful, but we made it in plenty of time! My parents waited to celebrate Christmas until we came and we had a great night. We had dinner at Babin's and Aaron got to experience Cajun food for the first time! Then we came home and opened presents. We all got a copy of The Broken Heart and some other great gifts. In addition to our PC passes, I got some sweet coach shoes and new Seven jeans. My parents also got a Wii for the family and we are having a ton of fun playing!

So no more pictures for now...not until we get back to provo for our last semester at BYU!!

Bus Adventures

As many of you know, I ride the bus to my work everyday. I've definitely had my share of interesting experiences. One guy is in a wheelchair and everytime he rides the bus he shouts the whole way about how he has a different woman every night and how Mormons are crazy, etc. It's pretty funny.
Today though, was my big bus adventure. I had to work in the morning (I usually work afternoons but my schedule was switched around because of finals) and last night it started snowing A LOT and it didn't slow down at all this morning. I was riding the bus when the bus driver stopped to let someone off. The bus apparently pulled too close to the curb because after he got off, the bus tried to pull away, but he kept swerving and slilding back towards the curb. He kept trying to move the bus, backing up and then swerving more. Finally, he called for help. 45 MINUTES later, help finally arrived! Good thing UTA busses are heated! Luckily, I had my backpack with me and was able to study for finals during my downtime. It didn't matter that was I late for work - my boss thought it was all pretty funny.
I am so grateful for all the snow thought ! This snow is probably perfect for a great weekend of skiing! Woohoo!

Thanksgiving

I'm a late blogger...maybe one day I will post things the day they happen..hah.

So we went to Texas for Thanksgiving and we had a blast! Aaron and my dad worked on Wednesday while my mom and I did girl stuff...shopping, etc. We all met up for dinner and ate at this amazing restaurant at the galleria. We debated between Pappasito's and Gigi's Asian Bistro and Dumpling Bar. We chose Gigi's. It was so delicious. We were going to sit outside but then I saw that they had these individual rooms with curtains and I had to sit there. Here we are after stuffing ourselves full of delicious asian fusion food.
Afterward, my mom and I saw The Secret Life of Bees (soooo good) while the boys saw the new James Bond movie.

Thursday, we had thanksgiving dinner at the Olsen's with the Olsen's and the Swan's. I got updates on my awesome missionary friends (Tonya in France and Megan in New Hampshire). We had a delicious dinner with good company and fun game of cranium afterwards. We split up the families and my team won! Woohoo Merv and Gail!

The table set for dinner!

The whole group...Steve running in and not quite beating the autotimer...
Aaron obviously ate too much turkey.
My fam.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we went to Canyon of the Eagles, a lodge in Burnet, Texas. It was in the beautiful hill country, near Austin. We "roughed it" with no TV and made all our own meals in our rooms with a microwave, a george foreman grill, a griddle, and a panini maker. We did a lot of hiking and it was a lot of fun. Aaron got to see some foreign Texas creatures he'd never seen before, like armadillos and cactus.
Friday night, we were supposed to go to a "star party." The Austin Astronomical Society has an observatory at Canyon of the Eagles and we were excited to actually maybe recognize constellations and use a super huge telescope. It got cancelled sadly, but we hiked up to the observatory anyway with blankets and laid down and just looked at the stars.

Us at the observatory

The CLOSED observatory

We also went on a lot of hikes...Saturday night we went near sunset and there were so many incredible photo opportunities, but I forgot my camera! Sad day.
Aaron got some pictures one day though...
Anyways, a really fun trip, despite the all the bug bites we got!

Mason Jennings

Sooo about a week and a half ago, I went to see one of my FAVORITE artists of all time in Salt Lake. I discovered Mason Jennings about 2 1/2 years ago by mistake while I was downloading some other music. I downloaded an acoustic collection. I LOVED it and was hooked. His lyrics are thoughtful and meaningful and his music is chill yet upbeat.

So, I convinced my brother, Colby, to go with me. (Aaron was on his way back from a dental school interview in Arizona) We stopped at Chipotle (of course) for some delicious dinner on the way. Props to my bro for sitting through a concert with an artist he'd never heard of.

Anyways, I loved the concert, probably the second best I'd ever been to (behind Kanye of course, I don't think that concert could ever be topped). This article pretty much sums up my feelings about it.

Zach Gill, the opening act. He didn't play the accordion the whole time, thank goodness, but he was pretty good.


Colby and I waiting for Mason


Mason Jennings himself.


The band.

Babysitting

Tuesday night we babysat the little stinker, Madison, while Nate and Lacey went to a play in Orem. She missed her dad at first but soon we were playing and jumping on the bed and just having a grand old time. She's sure a cutie.

Running around in Aaron's shoes...

She especially loved by rainboots...even though i had to help her get in them...

Fun Weekend in Idaho

This past weekend we went up to Idaho Falls. It was quite eventful - there were lots of things to do and people to see.

We arrived late Friday night - more like early Saturday. Aaron was taking a test so we didn't get to leave Provo until very late. But, that gave Colby (my brother) and I a chance to head over to Brig and Steph's to wish Brig a happy birthday, play with the babies, and eat dinner at Brick Oven before we left on Friday

Saturday, Aaron and I went to the Rexburg temple for Jenni's (my good friend from Texas) first time through the temple! Jenni is going on a mission to Chicago in January and I am so excited for her! The Rexburg temple is so beautiful and it was so great to be there with her and her family. As we were walking up the stairs after the session, we saw Aaron's good friend Thomas. He was going to be sealed to his wife in half and hour! Him and his wife got married civily in June and since she is a convert, they were able to be sealed this weekend. They invited us to attend - and so we did! It was wonderful experience. It was the first sealing we had been to since our own, and it was great to hear everything again - especially since our wedding day was so incredibly hectic. It was a great reminder of our commitment to each other.

Aaron and I being goofy in front of the Rexburg Temple
A nice picture.

My Bro

Saturday night was a lazy night at the Lairds'. We ordered Chinese food and watched I Am Legend and Kung Fu Panda. I would not recommend I Am Legend - it scared me so much! And not the good kind of scary either...

Sunday we attended church and then my grandparents and my dad were able to join us at the Lairds' for the afternoon for a delicious dinner and poker! My grandpa recently put my grandma in an Alzheimer's facility in Idaho Falls and he rents a little house nearby her. My dad came up for the weekend to help him out with some things and just to visit.

It was a great weekend and we were sad it had to end! Hopefully we'll be able to make it up to Idaho again soon!

Google Game

I'm at work and I'm hardly working...i was blog stalking and happened upon this. enjoy.
just do a google images search for the following things...

My age

Places ive been

Places I want to visit

Favorite place

Favorite object

Favorite animal

Favorite color

Favorite restaurant

Birthplaces

Current place of residence

Pets

Best friend

Nickname

My name

Grandmothers name

Bad habit

First job

College degree

What are you doing right now

Halloween

We had a lot of fun for Halloween this year. I've had really fun Halloweens since I've been at BYU and I was looking forward to dressing up with Aaron this year. We went as Nacho Libre - the monk and Sister Encarnacion. We went to 5 parties and I was really Halloweened out by the last party. It was all lots of fun though.
Last weekend at the Tanner's party...
At my SDA Party....
I'm the mummy they wrapped up.
Saturday night we went to Aaron's brother and sister-in-law's party and we forgot to dress up! We were so caught up in the BYU-CSU game that we just got ready and left without our costumes! luckily when we got there, Nate and Lacey had some old people costumes that we could dress up in.
All in all, we had a fun halloween season and now we are ready for Thanksgiving!

In other news, Aaron got an interview with Loma Linda University School of Dentistry in California! We're not exactly sure when he will interview - we're hoping we can coordinate it with the ASU interview so that we don't have to pay as much for flights.

An Actual Update

So I feel like I don't know where to begin with this thing - so much has been happening in our lives lately that it's hard to know where to start blogging about real life events. So here's a brief update about what each of us are up to...

Aaron is a senior at BYU studying Nutritional Science. He applied to 10 dental schools in July. So far we've heard from 3 and he's been invited for interviews for all 3! He interviewed with Virginia Commonwealth University earlier this month, he interviews with Creighton University on Tuesday, and he will interview with Arizona State University in mid-November. We're excited about all of his possibilities for next year but are still hoping we will hear back from everywhere else soon.

Lauren is also a senior and is studying Dietetics. She loves the program, but is getting anxious to graduate. She's working for BYU Broadcasting as a Production Scheduling Assistant -basically scheduling cameras and crews for shoots around campus and other KBYU administrative work. It took some getting used to, but now she really likes it. She's looking forward to applying to dietetic internships as soon as we find out where Aaron gets accepted to dental school.

We're both having a lot of fun and trying to enjoy our last year in utah with all of the friends we've made through the years. We're getting so excited for skiing/snowboarding season and will be spending most of the season at Park City and a few days at Snowbird.

So that's us...now I can officially start posting about real events in our life. Hooray!

WEDDING PICTURES!!

http://www.collages.net/PhotogEvents/Events.aspx?uid=c6f2e724-7107-47b7-9501-b57ff2455498

scroll down to "The Wedding of Lauren and Aron" (Yes, they spelled Aaron's name wrong...) The password is 8596.

The Lost Marriage License

So I should be studying for my physical science exam right now, but I am just slightly distracted. I am still trying to figure out this blogging thing. We are still waiting on wedding pictures from my cousin. I guess she's moved and done all sorts of other crazy stuff so hopefully we will be getting them very soon! :)

Anyways, I really want to tell the story of our wedding day. It was quite an adventure and it will definitely be a story that we could tell over and over again. I wish Brittany (my cousin aka photographer extraordinaire) would have been there during the drama to capture all of it. She was already at lunch with all of my other family who were waiting for us while we did the temple thing.

So it started out as a typical wedding day. Hair, makeup, etc. I am so not a morning person so I opted to get married in the afternoon. It would give me the day to get ready and not feel so rushed. I was actually the first female at my house to be all ready to go. So the limos pick us up (Aaron and his fam and some of my other extended fam were in another limo - we had 3) and we head up to Northwest Houston where the Houston Texas LDS Temple is. It's about a 45 minute drive. So we pull up, get out, and head in to get married.

So back up 6 days now to Saturday, August 9. I went through the temple and received my endowments on this day. It was an amazing day and I love the temple so much! Aaron and I had already gotten our temple recommends set and our marriage license purchased. I put the marriage license in my temple bag so I wouldn't forget it on the wedding day. As we're going through my records, the lady reminds me to bring the marriage license on our wedding day. We've already given her our living ordinance recommends at this point. I say, "well, I have it right here, can I just give it to you right now." She replied that of course I could and that they actually preferred having it earlier. So we watched her put it in our file and left it with them in full confidence. They are a temple after all; marriages are just what they do...

Fast forward back now to August 15. We sit down again, with the same lady, to do a records check. She has our living ordinance recommends, but she asks us for our marriage license. Aaron and I are a little bit confused. We tell her that we gave it to her last weekend. She looks a little bit confused and goes back to the office to look for it. She doesn't come back and doesn't come back and we're starting to get a little bit worried. My parents and Aaron's dad are around and soon it starts to turn into a slight uproar. The temple has lost our marriage license. And the same lady that took our license the weekend before swears she never saw it or anything. So we're stuck. Here we are ready to get married and we're not sure what to do. One worker suggests that we just get sealed, not legally married. To which my mom replied, if that happens, we are no different than the FLDS...lol she would. Finally, it turns out we can go down to a clerk's office nearby and get a duplicate license. As they're explaining what we have to do, they tell us we have to pay $12 to get a duplicate. I am just slightly flabbergasted at this point, and I exclaim, "WE HAVE TO PAY??? even though it's not our fault?" I ultimately apologized for this but can you blame me? So we run down to the clerk's office and purchase a duplicate. It's 3:00, the time we are supposed to be married and we are in a nasty government office not a temple sealing room! We got married around 3:45-4:00 instead. It ultimately, of course, worked out. We are legally married and now everything is just fine.

Again, fast forward to two weeks ago. I receive a package in the mail from my mom with some cute frames and some other mail that I received. Inside one of the envelopes is this:

A blank marriage license and a letter from the Harris County clerk saying that our marriage license hasn't been filled out! Notice the date on the letter: August 14, 2008! The day before we even got married! The license is the original too, it doesn't say duplicate at the top! Turns out the temple just mailed the blank marriage license after we gave it to them on the 9th! So now we know what happened to the lost marriage license! We've received the signed marriage license now too. Anyways, it was a drama filled day and we're so glad it all worked it out fine! Thanks to everyone who waited around to see us get married and was patient with us on our day!

I'll be updating more on our actual life soon. Maybe when I don't have a test to take the next day!

We're Married!

Aaron and I got married on August 15, 2008! Our wedding day was amazing, despite a lost marriage license and a scramble to the nearest Harris County clerk's office to get a duplicate (for the record, it wasn't our fault!). So far we love being married! We're just getting settled into our new apartment a new school year. Here are some pics that were taken the day before the wedding (good thing too with that whole lost marriage license thing). As soon as I get some more, they will be posted!