Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The In-laws
So I realized how blessed I truly am. I am surrounded by individuals who dread spending time with their in-laws. How truly lucky am I that not only do I love spending time with them, but it is almost like I was made to fit in with them! :-) I mean how many people do you know, that feel comfortable enough to call their mother and father-in law, mom and dad?? HA! I don't know very many...now granted, when I'm around both sets of parents, that gets confusing...haha so I stick with Colleen and Larry when my parents are there as well. :-)
The main reason why Jim caught me off guard with his proposal was because I thought for certain he wouldn't do it until I met his parents. So you can imagine my shock when he did propose.
I was not just meeting Jim's parents anymore...I was meeting the people that WOULD be my in-laws.
.....NO PRESSURE....
I guess it was kind of a bitter-sweet...well...it could have been. At the moment he put the ring on my finger my fear became, what if they don't like me?well...I guess it doesn't really matter at this point...
When we walked in the door to meet his family, Jim opened the door, and left me standing in the foyer, while he went to give his mom and sister's a hug. Then I hear his mom say "Well? Where is she? You left her in there Jim?". They came out to greet me with big smiles and all of them gave me a hug. It was that moment that I felt like I actually joined the family :-)
I will say that it helped that I'd met Robyn from my singles ward in Houston. AND I met Hillary when Jim flew up to see me for conference.
In any case, I love my inlaws! And I'm not just writing this because I know at least half of them will read this post haha...I truly do feel as though I've known them my whole life. I am so grateful that I am able to love them as I do my birth family. They are all such great people! It's no wonder my husband is so amazing! With a family such as his, How could he not?
SO! Mom, Dad, Hillary, Robyn, David, John, Heather, Mackenna! (*and Jim of course) Thank you for making me feel so welcome and like part of the family. I want to publicly say, I love all of you.
How far will you go for dinner?
It was the first Christmas for both of us to be away from our families, and both of us wished we had had some family to visit. We woke up about 6:30am opened our stockings :-) I got ponytails, werther's minis, candycanes, an orange and a cute movie called IQ. Jim got a package of snickers, almond joy, reeses, twizzlers, socks, an orange and his favorite kind of mints, and a holiday cookie which he didn't care for so I ended up eating it for him. :-) Then I went back to sleep while Jim played a game he bought online. When I woke up the second time Jim made hootnani pancakes and we had that with a glass of milk and homemade syrup which again Jim made :-) After that it just felt like any other day. :-( We decided to go out for dinner...little did we know...EVERYTHING was closed. First we tried Olive Garden, CLOSED. Dennys...but we left. Golden Corrall CLOSED Outback Steakhouse CLOSED Village Inn CLOSED...
After an hour of searching, we gave up on finding food and just decided to drive around a little bit. The sun was setting at just the right angle to turn the snow on the mountains pink. It was beautiful! While driving in downtown Provo, we saw a Japanese restaurant open so we went in...they were short handed but dinner came out quick and it was the perfect portion :-) A little weird to have Japanese for Christmas dinner...but what can ya do?
The Sunday after Christmas we were going to have what WAS supposed to be our "Christmas Dinner". Christmas, I was so blasted tired it never happened. I was all excited because I didn't want our Christmas Dinner to be just like any other dinner and we bought these Rock Cornish Game Hens, seemed easy enough. Well....haha...little did I know! It was terrible! So first I pulled them out, I was kind of scared to look inside of them because I didn't know if they were cleaned out. Then I rinsed them off and had them sitting on the cutting board over the sink, while Jim was reading the recipe and I think that is about the time I started to lose it. I picked up the wings of the little hens and made them dance and laughed out loud while I did! :-) The recipe we found said to cut them in half length wise...Jim did that part...he had to cut through their little ribcages. Poor little things probably never saw it comin :-( We thought maybe it would work out better if we only cut them through one side. haha. so he cut through the front of the ribcage...and then we stuck em in the oven......****ONE HOUR LATER***.....Jim pulls the birds out of the oven while I was on the couch. When I looked up I swear he was a weird ghostly green color! The hens looked so gross! Kind of like someone who fake 'n bakes way too much...they looked like they were plastic...it was disgusting! The worst part is that we could actually see the liquid boiling inside...THROUGH THE HENS! *gag* Neither of us were even brave enough to try it. I almost did but the second I caught a wiff of it....that ended. Jim had to throw it all away...we are both so traumatized from this...we decided never to try to cook the little things again...I also learned...never experiment with new things for a Holiday meal.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The dark side...
Ok so we've jumped on the band wagon. We have joined the WWB! (World Wide Bloggers) Jim didn't feel a need to create one but I wanted to :-) and quite frankly so many things happen on a daily basis and it is just ridiculous to change your facebook status every 2 minutes because something else happened! :-)
So here we go! Let's catch up! :-)
Jim is attending Brigham Young University in Provo, working hard towards his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering. He is also working in the OIT department at BYU.
I, Karisa Brianne Clemens (I LOVE HEARING MY NAME!) :-) after 7 months of job searching, am working at My Ebiz, as a Customer Service Representative (*inbound calls only). I am enjoying being pregnant and feeling the movements and kicks of our child who is soon to come!
We are expecting a beautiful little girl, whom we intend to name Juliet Angela Clemens. We are way excited for her to come! Only 7 more weeks to go! It has gone by so fast we can barely believe it. It has finally gotten to the point that it is uncomfortable no matter how I'm situated, how long I've slept, or how many times I've had to relieve my bladder. My due date is Feb. 8th 2010. I am just starting to realize how much there is to do to prepare for a baby! Its getting overwhelming quite quickly. I don't even really know where to start, all I DO know is that the Lord will allow us to get the items necessary to care for our child and provide us with the means by which to get those.
***WARNING: This post is long, but only because I had so much to share! The others won't be nearly this long***
----A "Not-So-Short-But-Shorter-Than-It-Could-Have-Been" Summary of our time being Married, So far----
We got married on Feb 28th 2009 in the Salt Lake City LDS Temple.
Our first 2 weeks of marriage were VERY interesting. Jim got a staph infection the night before we got married. The day after the wedding we went to the Emergency Room, where the doctor decided to experiment on my new husband. As a result of his digging in Jim's neck with a knife, it only made it unbearably sore. I was forced to learn how to drive the standard because Jim was in so much pain he couldn't. It was terrible because Jim was in the passenger seat nearly crying and I just wanted to get him home. I killed the car about 4 times on what SHOULD have been a 5 minute drive home. It got so bad that I had to squeeze puss from it, because Jim would get sick and have a monster headache after doing it himself. It eventually got better though! :-) (* Jim says I was a real trooper...)
In March, I surprised Jim with a romantic dinner :-) I cooked lasagna, with salad, and corn. Made cheese cake with chocolate covered strawberries and grape juice. :-) with snickers and almond joys and rose petals all over the place! (snickers and almond joy because he makes me so very happy!)
April, We had Jim's birthday! For his "Home-Birthday-Dinner" I made ribs, with corn on the cob and home-made mashed potatoes. We went out to a Hibachi Grill for his birthday lunch. It was DELICIOUS! My gift for him was tickets to go see Wicked. It was amazing! (I bought the tickets before we were engaged...at a great price!) (*this was the month that Jim discovered that in my family, we are very....indulgent for our birthdays...but he loves me anyways!) Then there was our "Honeymoon". We bought season passes to Lagoon and made a weekend out of it! We toured Temple Square and stayed in a hotel in Salt Lake. The next morning we went to the park and drove home after where we ate Edward's Chocolate Silk Pie. The weather was supposed to be really rainy, but it went great while we were there. As we were walking to our car, it started to pour! Talk about perfect timing!! We had Easter :-) we made baskets for each other and Jim learned that I can make $10 go alot further than he thought! hehe! We went to Granny Red's for the big family Easter Egg Hunt and Dinner.
In June we found out that we are going to bring a child into this world. Took a while to sink in. BOTH of us were in shock for a while...
In July we had 4th of July breakfast at Granny Red's Home. We played games after breakfast, when we discovered that we really wanted to own Lasso-Golf! It is basically Black Jack (aka: 21) but instead of cards you aim a string with a golf ball on each end, at a ladder style point bars thing, alot trickier than you might think. (sorry not a great explanation) After games, we watched fireworks neighborhood fireworks.
For a Clemens family trip we met the rest of the family at a cabin in Colorado. It was a blast! Jim and I drove about 10 hours to get their. On this drive we learned that I am extremely afraid of falling off mountains! Especially when their are not railings! We re-realized this about 3 times throughout the entire trip. The family threw me a surprise birthday party :-) I received wonderful gifts! One of which was an amazing pair of sandals which are SO comfortable! Also on this trip Robyn came in one night saying that there was a bear in the road and she didn't want to take a chance at having Otis catch it's scent, so she came back in. Of course the family decides...HEY! A BEAR! I WANT TO SEE! So we all went out to see if WE could see it!......we didn't. Later that night, Robyn needed something out of the car, I thought she might need someone to go with her after the bear incident, so I went with her. As we were standing at the car, I heard something slam (later came to find that it was only a garbage can lid) I jumped on Robyn and in the process of exclaiming a scream, peed my pants...Then there was an elk that decided to cross the road as we (Hillary, Robyn, Jim, and Me) were driving down the mountain. People are ridiculous when it comes to wildlife. People actually got out of their cars! I have no idea why...
August, I turned 21! :-) we went to get a couples massage (AMAZING!) then we went to Golden Corral for lunch, followed by GI Joe in the theaters! (AWESOME ACTION MOVIE!) Later in the month I went and FORMALLY, and OFFICIALLY, became KARISA BRIANNE CLEMENS! It was a wonderful day! Later followed by a bittersweet day as Jim and I went and got Utah driver's licenses. The bittersweet part was losing our Texas licenses...
October, I went to Houston...alone...to surprise Elyssia for her birthday. It totally would have worked out except, the night before I came, she found out! LAME! It was there that I realized that I have been converted to Standardism! I had to re-learn how to drive an automatic car! I felt so dumb! I mean it was an automatic for crying out loud! For some reason, I didn't know what to do with myself without the stick shift to put my hand on! I had a surprise baby shower my best friend Gillian threw for me :-) haha and believe you me, I was surprised! I got such cute little outfits! We didn't know it was going to be a girl so I got lots of greens and yellows! I balled when I saw the giraffe outfit that said "my daddy loves me"...just thinking about Jim being a daddy :-)
Thanksgiving, we went to San Angelo! It was so great to see all of the family! :-) And to take Clemens' Family pictures. Unfortunately, those pictures will be outdated in about 7 weeks. On our way home in the airport Jim was pulling out suitcases that were all stacked on a shelving unit. These ladies who were waiting to get their luggage were like "wow! and he doesn't even work for the airport!" I just smiled because the only reason he was doing it was because my bag was behind all the others! :-) The lady followed with..."You need to marry him.....if you haven't already." I laughed and a smile spread WIDE across my face as I replied " Oh don't worry...I have" :-D
Christmas is coming up!! Oh my cow! This year has gone by so fast! It has been the most wonderful year! We helped Granny Red make 9 gallons of eggnog for my family's Christmas Eve shindig. It is SO yummy! MmMmMmMmMm! We've gotten all of our presents for everyone else done! lol However, still need to get our stocking stuff for each other. I'm now counting down until our first Christmas together!!! :-)
So here we go! Let's catch up! :-)
Jim is attending Brigham Young University in Provo, working hard towards his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering. He is also working in the OIT department at BYU.
I, Karisa Brianne Clemens (I LOVE HEARING MY NAME!) :-) after 7 months of job searching, am working at My Ebiz, as a Customer Service Representative (*inbound calls only). I am enjoying being pregnant and feeling the movements and kicks of our child who is soon to come!
We are expecting a beautiful little girl, whom we intend to name Juliet Angela Clemens. We are way excited for her to come! Only 7 more weeks to go! It has gone by so fast we can barely believe it. It has finally gotten to the point that it is uncomfortable no matter how I'm situated, how long I've slept, or how many times I've had to relieve my bladder. My due date is Feb. 8th 2010. I am just starting to realize how much there is to do to prepare for a baby! Its getting overwhelming quite quickly. I don't even really know where to start, all I DO know is that the Lord will allow us to get the items necessary to care for our child and provide us with the means by which to get those.
***WARNING: This post is long, but only because I had so much to share! The others won't be nearly this long***
----A "Not-So-Short-But-Shorter-Than-It-Could-Have-Been" Summary of our time being Married, So far----
We got married on Feb 28th 2009 in the Salt Lake City LDS Temple.
Our first 2 weeks of marriage were VERY interesting. Jim got a staph infection the night before we got married. The day after the wedding we went to the Emergency Room, where the doctor decided to experiment on my new husband. As a result of his digging in Jim's neck with a knife, it only made it unbearably sore. I was forced to learn how to drive the standard because Jim was in so much pain he couldn't. It was terrible because Jim was in the passenger seat nearly crying and I just wanted to get him home. I killed the car about 4 times on what SHOULD have been a 5 minute drive home. It got so bad that I had to squeeze puss from it, because Jim would get sick and have a monster headache after doing it himself. It eventually got better though! :-) (* Jim says I was a real trooper...)
In March, I surprised Jim with a romantic dinner :-) I cooked lasagna, with salad, and corn. Made cheese cake with chocolate covered strawberries and grape juice. :-) with snickers and almond joys and rose petals all over the place! (snickers and almond joy because he makes me so very happy!)
April, We had Jim's birthday! For his "Home-Birthday-Dinner" I made ribs, with corn on the cob and home-made mashed potatoes. We went out to a Hibachi Grill for his birthday lunch. It was DELICIOUS! My gift for him was tickets to go see Wicked. It was amazing! (I bought the tickets before we were engaged...at a great price!) (*this was the month that Jim discovered that in my family, we are very....indulgent for our birthdays...but he loves me anyways!) Then there was our "Honeymoon". We bought season passes to Lagoon and made a weekend out of it! We toured Temple Square and stayed in a hotel in Salt Lake. The next morning we went to the park and drove home after where we ate Edward's Chocolate Silk Pie. The weather was supposed to be really rainy, but it went great while we were there. As we were walking to our car, it started to pour! Talk about perfect timing!! We had Easter :-) we made baskets for each other and Jim learned that I can make $10 go alot further than he thought! hehe! We went to Granny Red's for the big family Easter Egg Hunt and Dinner.
In June we found out that we are going to bring a child into this world. Took a while to sink in. BOTH of us were in shock for a while...
In July we had 4th of July breakfast at Granny Red's Home. We played games after breakfast, when we discovered that we really wanted to own Lasso-Golf! It is basically Black Jack (aka: 21) but instead of cards you aim a string with a golf ball on each end, at a ladder style point bars thing, alot trickier than you might think. (sorry not a great explanation) After games, we watched fireworks neighborhood fireworks.
For a Clemens family trip we met the rest of the family at a cabin in Colorado. It was a blast! Jim and I drove about 10 hours to get their. On this drive we learned that I am extremely afraid of falling off mountains! Especially when their are not railings! We re-realized this about 3 times throughout the entire trip. The family threw me a surprise birthday party :-) I received wonderful gifts! One of which was an amazing pair of sandals which are SO comfortable! Also on this trip Robyn came in one night saying that there was a bear in the road and she didn't want to take a chance at having Otis catch it's scent, so she came back in. Of course the family decides...HEY! A BEAR! I WANT TO SEE! So we all went out to see if WE could see it!......we didn't. Later that night, Robyn needed something out of the car, I thought she might need someone to go with her after the bear incident, so I went with her. As we were standing at the car, I heard something slam (later came to find that it was only a garbage can lid) I jumped on Robyn and in the process of exclaiming a scream, peed my pants...Then there was an elk that decided to cross the road as we (Hillary, Robyn, Jim, and Me) were driving down the mountain. People are ridiculous when it comes to wildlife. People actually got out of their cars! I have no idea why...
August, I turned 21! :-) we went to get a couples massage (AMAZING!) then we went to Golden Corral for lunch, followed by GI Joe in the theaters! (AWESOME ACTION MOVIE!) Later in the month I went and FORMALLY, and OFFICIALLY, became KARISA BRIANNE CLEMENS! It was a wonderful day! Later followed by a bittersweet day as Jim and I went and got Utah driver's licenses. The bittersweet part was losing our Texas licenses...
October, I went to Houston...alone...to surprise Elyssia for her birthday. It totally would have worked out except, the night before I came, she found out! LAME! It was there that I realized that I have been converted to Standardism! I had to re-learn how to drive an automatic car! I felt so dumb! I mean it was an automatic for crying out loud! For some reason, I didn't know what to do with myself without the stick shift to put my hand on! I had a surprise baby shower my best friend Gillian threw for me :-) haha and believe you me, I was surprised! I got such cute little outfits! We didn't know it was going to be a girl so I got lots of greens and yellows! I balled when I saw the giraffe outfit that said "my daddy loves me"...just thinking about Jim being a daddy :-)
Thanksgiving, we went to San Angelo! It was so great to see all of the family! :-) And to take Clemens' Family pictures. Unfortunately, those pictures will be outdated in about 7 weeks. On our way home in the airport Jim was pulling out suitcases that were all stacked on a shelving unit. These ladies who were waiting to get their luggage were like "wow! and he doesn't even work for the airport!" I just smiled because the only reason he was doing it was because my bag was behind all the others! :-) The lady followed with..."You need to marry him.....if you haven't already." I laughed and a smile spread WIDE across my face as I replied " Oh don't worry...I have" :-D
Christmas is coming up!! Oh my cow! This year has gone by so fast! It has been the most wonderful year! We helped Granny Red make 9 gallons of eggnog for my family's Christmas Eve shindig. It is SO yummy! MmMmMmMmMm! We've gotten all of our presents for everyone else done! lol However, still need to get our stocking stuff for each other. I'm now counting down until our first Christmas together!!! :-)