I'm actually doing it!

So I got a package in the mail today and I thought the situation was funny so I took pictures with the intent to blog about it, (note: I do this with a lot of stuff) so this time I decided I'd actually blog about it!

So here it is!!! looks pretty big right? I wonder what could be inside!

Still a little ambiguous as to what is in there, let's remove those packing bubbles.

...and these advertisements

What's that?

Oh! It's a box of paper clips!

So now you're probably wondering why I ordered a box of 100 paper clips from Staples, Huh? I was gonna say, "to make a long story short" but I don't want to! I'm gonna tell you the whole story! Staples has a printer (HP OfficeJet 8000) that's normally $149.99 but for a limited time only you can get an instant 75 dollars off. That brings your total to $74.99, you can buy $25 off $75 coupons online (e-junkies... google it) so I had to throw something cheap onto the order to bump me over the $75 line so I could apply the coupon and bring the order down to approximately $50. Next I send an old junky printer to HP and they send me a $50 check through their trade in program. What does that equal? A free printer! I love internet deals. I guess the printer was backordered for a day so it should be getting here tomorrow. I love how they decided to ship the paperclips a day early though.

Almost 3 months later

Jon and I are not too great at consistently writing on this blog thing so I'll try to think of any thing new or exciting that has happened in the past 3 months.

Insurance
At the beginning of July I finally got insurance from my work. The two days where I have felt the most grown up in my life were: the day I got my insurance card and the day I sent in my credible coverage letter from when I was on my parents insurance to waive the pre-existing condition waiting period. Working at a doctors office and having to deal with insurance and people having no idea what their insurance does inspired me to read the entire book that was sent to me by select med all about my coverage and benefits etc. I didn't want to be an insurance idiot.

July 4th 5k
After getting a pamphlet in the mail about Provo's freedom festival I decided that I wanted to run the 5K on the 4th of July. I convinced Jon that he should run it with me so we went running occasionally, but not even close to everyday (probably like 2-3 times a week on a good week). July 4th came and we ran ourselves a 5K. Considering our lack of training our goal was to finish in under 30 minutes and we both reached this goal. I finished in a little under 30 and Jon finished about a minute before me. Our times were nothing amazing but I was proud of the fact that we ran the race and tried to go running during the week.

Bear Lake family reunion

Over the weekend of the 24th of July my mom's family had a family reunion up in Paris Idaho. It was a lot of fun. Some of the highlights were tubing, trowing me and Jon off the wave runner with my crazy driving, the rope swing into the freezing pond, lots of good food, an amazing game of sardines with some of my cousins, and being able to hang out with Jon because neither of us had to work.

Ware Family Camp-Out
A few weekends after the Bear Lake reunion we had a camp-out with the Ware clan in Jon's parents back yard. It was pretty legitimate camping because we had a fire, made smores, we slept in tents, I got bit by bugs, and I peed outside because I got locked out of the house in the middle of the night. We had a lot of fun making bug themed crafts that were intended for the kids and hanging out with the fam.

When we got home we hung all of our crafts on the fridge, so now if anyone walks into our kitchen they will probably think we have children.

Dress Making
I got some really cool vintage patterns when we went to an estate sale with Jon's mom at the beginning of the summer, so one of my goals this summer was to make a dress. Of the 4 patterns I got I decided on the Butterick pattern number 6141 a mid 1950s halter top dress with a jacket.

I worked on the dress off an on in the evenings and on Saturdays when Jon was at work. I was pretty discouraged for a while because I couldn't get it to fit quite the way I wanted it to. Eventually after much unpicking, resewing, and searching for a brooch or a button for the jacket I finished the dress and was able to wear it. Here are some picture of the finished product.




Update on the Quest for Coupon Mastery
Most recently in my coupon endeavors I discovered some sweet rebates and sales that went along with these rebates. In the next few weeks I should be getting about $60.00 back in rebate checks from Kellogs and Kraft for buying their products. The best part was I scoped out the sales and with the help of my friend at work I was able to get a screamin' deal on a bunch of groceries. For the next few months, or until the 15 boxes we bought run out, we will be getting paid to eat cereal.

Rebates make me happy.

New Shift
Last Monday Jon started his new 11 am to 5 pm shift at work so he is no longer working the sucky 4 pm to 10 pm shift. It has been fun to actually have a husband again and to get to see him for more than about 2 hours a day. We had FHE for the first time in months and he helped me go shopping and set up for the enrichment activity we had on Wednesday. It has been so so nice to have him around in the evenings.

Pell Grant
We were really excited when we found out that we qualified for a pell grant to pay for Jon's tuition and books this semester. Like really really excited because over the summer we paid three different tuition payments because Jon took classes at BYU spring term and at BYU and UVU for summer term. It was a busy summer for Jon. I'm really liking the whole grant thing because our savings account isn't going to be drained this semester like it usually is when its time to pay tuition.

Ice cream maker
This month we got the ice cream maker attachment for our kitchen-aid from Bed Bath and Beyond with some of the gift card we had been given as wedding presents. It is amazing. You just put the bowl in the freezer for about 15 hours before you want to make your ice cream (or you can just store it in the freezer and not have to plan ahead as much) then you just hook the bowl to your kitchen aid, attach the dasher attachment, throw your ice cream batter in the bowl, and let your kitchen-aid go to town on that stuff. No ice. No salt. No salty-watery mess and no potential for getting rock salt in your ice cream. It is amazing. I made some peach sorbet with some peaches from my parents tree and it was super easy and way delicious.

Hiking Timp
Jon and I hiked Mount Timpanogos about a year ago when we were dating from the Timpanooke side and had a fun time, so when Jon Davis invited us to hike it with him yesterday we didn't hesitate in saying yes. At 7:30 am yesterday morning we got to the packed Aspen Grove parking lot because we decided to hike from the other trail this year. This was probably not the best idea because that trail is harder, I'm probably in worse shape than I was a year ago, and I'm married to Jon so I don't need to try to impress him with my hiking skills.

I did pretty well all the way up to Emerald Lake where we stopped for a break and sat and enjoyed some little snacks and listened to a few song on Jon's ipod. From the lake we could see the summit above us, but getting there was not that wonderful.

A little bit after leaving the lake we saw a bunch of mountain goats. They were super cute and very close to us. After seeing the goats we hiked across loose rocks and snow for a while to make it to the saddle where the Timpanooke and Alpine Grove trails come together. At the saddle we ate our lunches of peanut butter and jelly on english muffins (we didn't have any bread- they were pretty good but a bit dry), craisins, and anything else we managed to scrounge together that morning. We hiked to the summit, and I was dying. Jon Davis and my husband were very patient with my slow pace and repeated breaks to ensure I didn't throw up because I was feeling pretty queasy during this part of the hike. We made it to the top and there were so many people up there. It was crazy how many people were on the trail yesterday we passed so many people hiking up and back.
This is us on the top of Timp; of the three pictures we took I thought this one looked the best and ironically it is the one that Jon was trying to be super cheesy in. Anyway, we rested at the top for a while and then started hiking back down. The hike back down was a killer on the joints. We ran out of water on the way down so when we finally made it to the bottom we rejoiced at the sight of the drinking fountain and the fact that Jon Davis' car was still on the road where we parked it because the parking lot was full. I was probably a bit of a baby on this hike, but in the end I was glad that we hiked it and that we hiked all the way to the top. I don't know if I will want to hike Timp from that trail again any time too soon.

I tried to find some pictures to make this whole thing less boring. This hasn't been everything that has gone on in the last 3 months or so, but it is a start. Maybe I'll try to get Jon to write about what has gone on for the past little bit.

I love my phone, and my double chin

I love my phone, and my double chin

And this is a picture of all the loot

And this is a picture of all the loot

The quest for the coupon master

A few weeks ago I was inspired by this girl I work with who is super good with coupons. She would mention things like how she bought 10 packages of keebler cookies for $2.00; this idea intrigued me. I decided that I would learn the domestic art of the coupon. So far I have had successes and failures, moments of extreme frustration, and extreme joy. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the coupon world some frustrations can come when you miss a great sale or you don't use a great coupon and it expires (both of which have happened to me and I have been trying not to be too sad when these things happen). I have heard of the fabled woman who will get $200 worth of groceries for $13 or something crazy like this, but sadly I have not yet become this woman. In case you hadn't noticed the lure of this coupon thing to me was the fact that I could save oodles of money and because I am really cheap this spoke right to my soul. Going along with this cheap motif- I am too cheap to buy a newspaper so I can get the coupons, so my mother has graciously offered me her unused coupons (which is all of them and she gets two newspapers so this ends up being a pretty good amount of coupons).

This week I wasn't able to pick up the coupons on Sunday like I normally do, so today when I went over to cut my mom's hair I got the coupons. When I got back to my apartment I grabbed my computer to check and see if Albertson's was having any sweet deals because I had some coupons that double my manufacturers coupons. I checked my trusty coupon site (savvyshopperdeals.com my co-worker told me it was a great resource) and found the deals on things that I needed, wanted, or now wanted because they were pretty much free. I had my list all worked out, so I went to Albertson's and got my cereal, crackers, mini microwave pizza that Jon can take to work, and a bunch of pudding. I bought all of my stuff and I had saved quite a bit, but when I got to my car I was looking at my receipt and I hadn't been given the sale price on the pudding that I had bought 10 of. For a moment I debated whether it was worth it to go back in to the store and talk to the cashier because I would only be getting three dollars back, but dang it I wanted that three dollars. I went back in the store and reclaimed the three dollars that were rightfully mine and left the store feeling very pleased with myself. I ended up getting about $45 worth of groceries for about $11, but those extra three dollars are the ones I am the most proud of saving.

This too shall pass

So it finally happened, due to complications with school I was forced to shave my facial growth. Instead of just shaving it all off at once I decided to have some fun with it.

Before

I was going for sabretooth/wolverine in this one

Here we have some handlebars with mutton chops, the next picture's better

I ended up liking this one so much that I wore it for the rest of the day

Here it is without the handles

Andrea said I looked like a pedophile at this stage, hence the pedosmile

Farewell mustache

It's surprising how naked I feel now

Last but not least I got a haircut to match

So there you have it! I enjoyed my time with a beard. Whenever I walked into a room people knew I meant business, there was never any visible evidence, but I could tell they feared me and my facial growth. Maybe one day I'll be able to grow it again, but that day is very very far away.

The ode to Artemisha

Oh Artemisha, thou fish of all fish,
thy joy in death is my hearts dearest wish.
Your passing, though tragic, was expected by me
and now you are swimming in the vast porcelain sea.
Another fish could never replace you;
You will be missed and I say adieu.

Heeeeey!!!

Yeah, so it's been a stinking long time since we posted anything on here and we've probably lost all of our followers. Shucks. So I'm gonna take a leaf from Jon Davis' book and I'm just gonna make a numbered list of things going on these days.

1. I'm now taking my motorcycle class, it's really really fun and I quite like it.

2. I start up class next Monday (not tomorrow) and I'm excited slash not excited.

3. Tonight we're going over to the King's place and we're gonna have dinner and knit. When they found out that I know how to knit they immediately decided that we would all get together and knit. It should be fun.

4. Andrea graduates this week and it's going to be awesome! Unfortunately I couldn't get Thursday off work, but I was able to get the last half of my Friday shift off so I'll be able to be there.

5. I got my media center working! To any of you who don't know what I'm talking about I took both my sisters old computers in an attempt to turn them into a computer that we can plug into the T.V. and digitize all our DVD's and watch our favorite TV shows over the internet, but... they turned out to be too old, and Jennifer told me that one day her computer made a popping noise and smoke came out of it... so I decided to go to the BYU computer surplus sale and I found the perfect little Dell, it was a steal of a deal especially since it already had the right video card I needed.

Well, it's actually time to run over to the King's (they live across the street) but I decided to be more diligent in posting on this blog, especially since I'm going to be working nights at NuSkin and I'm sure I'll have lots of no call time to blog.

Bye

Calendar

I am shocked that Jon has not blogged about this yet because he blogged about us getting to level 12 on bejeweled. Yesterday Jon got a new application for his ipod and has been messing with it ever since. The application is one that will sync his google calendar with the calendar on his ipod. He has also set it up so that whenever he adds something to any of his calendars it also adds it to my google calendar. Last night he was up into the wee hours of the night putting all the immediate family members birthdays and setting them to repeat yearly, he also put our church schedule, stake conference, family parties, the phases of the moon, christian holidays, and a plethora of other things on the calendar (I tried putting an event on the calendar scheduling sleep but he disregarded this). We finally went to sleep after everything he could possibly think of was in the calendar. It is pretty funny because now every time there is something that we find out about he gets all excited and tells me to create an event on the calendar. Hopefully with this new calendar system we will be able to attend all of our various family, work, and social activities. It is surprising how it seems like you actually have stuff to do when you put everything into a calendar. Don't forget that Friday is Hoodie-Hoo day; I know I won't because it is on my calendar.

Get This...

So Andrea and I have a slight addiction to playing Bejeweled (Bejeweled 2, for those of you that are Bejeweled lovers) on my iPod, and until just now our highest ranking was level 9... but guess what? we got to level 12! You should've seen it! We got through level 11 without using our two vortex balls... TWO!!! I'm still in shock and awe at our awesomeness. You should be too.

New Widget

So I've been doing some searching through all of the amazing things Google has done and is doing and I'm amazed, don't ask me to go on or I'll talk your ear off. Currently I'm testing out the blogger widget on my dashboard. oh Google, I love you.

New Apartment

We got our new apartment on the 30th of January and have been moving in for the past little bit. Things are starting to shape up and look somewhat like a livable space. We took a bunch of pictures so all can see our humble abode. Now lets take a tour...


As you walk in the front door and look to your left you see our lovely potted plant, our tv, some assorted boxes(these are not permanent), and our really long hall way.


Here is another view of our lovely living room. In this photo that lovely little item next to the tv is the heater for our apartment. The living room is usually quite toasty where the rest of the place can be quite frigid at times.


I know I tantalized you with seeing a small peek of the couch in that last picture so I thought I would reveal the whole thing. TA DA! Also you may notice our lovely front door seen in the right side of the photo. That is pretty much the whole living room so we will now take a walk down the hallway. If you take a look back at the first picture you will notice that there are three doorways on the right side of the hallway. What might be inside doorway #1 you ask?


A KITCHEN!!! Yes door #1 does indeed contain an entire kitchen complete with-


Table, chairs,


fridge, oven, stove, microwave, kitchenaid, drying rack for dishes, limited counter space, and sink. The kitchen is pretty good except for the minuscule amounts of counter space. Door # 2 in the hallway is just our closet so that isn't too exciting, but what is behind door # 3 you might ask.


The answer to your question would be our bedroom. This is our lovely bed with a random assortment of stuff on it.


Here is a nice action shot of Jon putting stuff away. You can also see that I am standing on our bedside table in the mirror on the wardrobe in an attempt to capture the full grandeur of our bedroom.


Now we have left the bedroom and are looking back down the hall at where we have been. But wait! There is another door here on my right(that cannot be seen in this picture). What could possibly be behind this door???


A BATHROOM?!?! I never would have guessed. Yes this is the humble commode in our humble abode. That sink is midget height- even I have to bend over to use it.


Here is another shot of the bathroom. I was attempting to get a shot of the shower, but you get the general idea.

Thus completes your tour of our new apartment. It is cute and little and perfect for us. So far everything has been pretty good(the shower didn't work the first morning Jon tried to use it, but it was fixed later that day so all is now well).

Andrea

Attempts at being domestic

Last week because we still didn't have jobs or much to do we decided we would attempt to be domestic and make some bread. We started out by going over to my mom's house and grinding some wheat into flour. It was kind of messy but when we were done we had some lovely fresh whole wheat flour. The next day we busted out the family recipe book and used the a wheat bread recipe that I'm sure my mom got from some Relief Society thing about food storage and such. We got to use our lovely new Kitchenaid and it was fantastic! I love that thing.


Here is our first family photo: Jon, Me, and the Kitchenaid mixer. Aren't we so cute.


After using our kitchenaid to mix our dough we put it in the oven to cook.

We waited for about 30 minutes while it cooked and cleaned up a little, and then our bread was done.


It was super cute and very tasty.

I think that our attempts at being domestic were very successful. We might not look too attractive in those pictures because I'm pretty sure neither of us had showered or tried to get ready, but we found out that we are excellent bread makers.

Dang... So last week on some wild moment of craziness I promised Andrea we could exercise on Monday. Now I'm like the rest of ya, I prefer to sit on the couch and eat potato chips but to be honest I really liked it! (gasp!) I think most of the reason I didn't used to like exercising was because I never really knew what to do. Being married to a personal trainer is REALLY nice :D

-Jon

So guess what? I tried on Andrea's pants the other day. It was supposed to be a joke in that they made it to my calves or something - but they just kept on going! So I naturally took pictures... what a lucky wife I have.

-Jon

Marriage

So yeah, we went and did it... we got married. Here's a picture for your enjoyment.

Who would've thought that this baby would be marrying that baby?


















Anyway, I'm not to good at formatting these blog things. I know... me... not good at something? It's crazy to think. Well, since this blog is called Andreon, I think we'll have a little bit of input from the Andre of the whole mix up.

We've now been married about 19 days and the novelty of this whole marriage thing has worn off. We pretty much just live in the same place and coexist... kind of like when you live with a roommate you don't really like that much. Just kidding. So far married life has been pretty good. I am starting to go crazy though because I don't have a job and I need some structure in my life. Currently we have no income, but we don't really have too many expenses so it is working out ok. I have also discovered that since being married I have become a professional moocher. Last weekend we got 3 free dinners and a free lunch. People say that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but if you are eating your parents food then I would like to argue that there is.

Besides mooching food off of our parents- since being married we have been returning some gifts that we got doubles or triples of and we have gone to the temple once a week for the past 3 weeks. Speaking of returning gifts... With the money we got from returning some of our gifts we have purchased two very cool things: a Kitchenaid mixer and a Jack LaLanne Power Juicer. I haven't used the kitchenaid yet, but it is BLUE!!! And the best part about it is that I got it for cheaper than the white ones are regularly. I am very excited in case I hadn't made that clear yet. The juicer is also awesome. Already we have made a plethora of juices and are loving the juicer. The juices we have made so far are carrot, carrot orange, orange, and apple grape. We also bought a pinapple to juice later. Getting gifts has been one of the awesome things about getting married because all of our family members and parents friends have been very generous and given us a load of stuff. I'm working on my thank you cards right now and I was feeling like they were pretty cheesey, but then I had Jon write one and his was worse so I am feeling a lot better about my thank you card writing abilities.

The people to make sure the furnace is working good should be here soon so I think this will be all from me for now.

Andrea & Jon