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!!! :-)