Doesn't Brentwood sound like Brightwood? :)

Brad and I arrived in Rexburg on Sunday evening.
Since we had already signed the contract and payed the deposit to live at University Courtyard again, but we couldn't move in until September, we needed a place to live for the next 5 weeks.
After searching the BYUI bulletin boards, we found something that sounded pretty promising, called up the people, and here we are!
The complex is called Brentwood and it's "off the beaten path" as my brother said earlier when he was over here.
It's down past Smith Park, across from K-Mart, kind of, but down this road and behind some trees. Haha.
When we first walked in, I automatically fell in love with it!
It's not furnished, and utilities aren't included, but who cares when you have a living room, dining area, kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, linen closet, two bedrooms, and lots of windows?!
Sadly, we won't be here for very long, but i'll enjoy it whole it lasts.
I took a few pictures while we were moving some things in yesterday, but everything looks smaller in the pictures than they really are, so don't be fooled, it's a pretty sizable apartment.

This is just part of the living room. Brad and I bought this little end table for cheap at Ikea and had just put it together before I took pictures. As you can see, Brad is trying to find out if we get internet here (which we didn't, until we borrowed my brother's Bridgemaxx thing today.)

There's a nice tiled area in the corner. I wish we had a dining table!
Here's the kitchen. There's more room than the one at University Courtyard, but I think there's less cupboard space...
...but, it has a garbage disposal, so that makes the less cupboard space not matter so much.
The bathroom looks TINY in this picture, but it really isn't. Trust me.
Here's our bedroom. These cute tiled mirrors were already on the wall, and I love em! I wish I could taken em with us when we leave, but they appear to be stuck there. And there is the air matrress we bought a few days ago. Pretty comfy, actually.
I'm not sure why this picture came out blurry, but this is our closet.
Here's the second bedroom. Well, here's the closet in the second bedroom anyway. The rest of it is just carpet and a window. Lol.
The hallway.

The laundry room. My absolute FAVORITE area of the whole place! Can you see how big it is? Can you? Can you?!?!
And this is the linen closet at the end of the hall.
Since it was Sunday, and it was nighttime, we didn't want to have to sort through everything in storage to find what we would need for the night, so when we got back, we realized we didn't really have anythiung to cook or eat with! We had brought back a basket of food that we had in storage, and luckily the soup cans had those tabs on them to open them, but we ended up eating the soup right out of the saucepan with two large serving spoons (and some leftover rolls we bought at Desert Book on Saturday). It was pretty messy, but kind of fun!

Well, there you have it!
We're here for the next 5 weeks, and then it's back to University Courtyard.
Not that I don't love it there too, what with all the furniture and utilities and internet and cable and whatnot, but I will miss this place.

El Canyon Grande

So, 6 weeks earlier than originally planned, Brad and I left New Mexico.
We'll be staying in Rexburg for the 7 week break from school and hopefully it will be easier to find jobs this way since a lot of the students have gone home.
Since we don't need to be up there at any specific time, we decided to take our time.
Brad asked me if I wanted to stop anywhere so the first place I said was "The Grand Canyon!"
Neither of us have ever been, and while it wasn't exactly "on the way," what better time is there than the present?
We found a cheap little motel in Flagstaff to stay the night before our adventure.
Flagstaff is about an hour and a half away from the Canyon, so it was far enough away to avoid the crazy tourist prices, but close enough that we didn't have a long way to drive in the morning.

This is the outside of the motel. Saga Budget Host Inn. Haha.
Our dingy little room. It was a tad smelly and the towels had questionable stains on them, but the sheets were clean, "13 Going on 30" was on TV, and we had Del Taco, so I was happy.
After our drive, we paid for entrance to the park (and I bought a T-shirt) and then drove into the park.

This is our first view of the Canyon.
There were all these ledges that you had to climb down to, so I went and sat on the very edge, hung my legs over the side, and took this picture of my foot in midair above this vast, deep canyon. Needless to say, Brad didn't climb down to the ledge with me. He stayed up behind the guard rails and was worried to death about me the whole time.
Just a picture of Brad looking out.
This is me sitting on one of the ledges. If I had fallen over, I would have died. It was so sweet. I love adrenalin.
Brad's such a cutie.
On another ledge. I zoomed in and took a picture of Brad. This is right before we got in a mini-fight because I was scaring Brad by being so close to the edges, and I wanted him to be more adventurous.
It was a little cloudy when we were there, so I had to touch the pictures up a bit, but the colors were so beautiful.
I turned on the self-timer and set my camera on a trash can to take this picture. Haha. And if you look close enough, I totally look pregnant in this picture! (In reality, it's just my chunkiness)
Click on this picture! I took a bunch of photos next to each other and then made a panorama on my computer. It's pretty sweet.
This wasn't even at the Grand Canyon. This was on our drive up To Utah. Lake Powell. I just thought the blue was SO gorgeous in contrast to the rest of the area.

Anyway, it was pretty awesome.
Now we're staying at Jenna and Travis' for a few days before heading up to our furniture-less apartment for the next few weeks!
I'm lovin' our life. :)

Second Week in Cali

(Sorry there are no pictures for this post)

Our second week in California wasn't near as exciting.
We had only planned on staying a week, so the extra seven days weren't really planned out.
My youngest sister, along with both my parents, headed up to Girl's Camp for the week, so Brad and I were "housesitting" for the week.

Sunday night, Nicole, Jeni and I had a sleepover!
Nicole's parents were out of town, so we watched a chick flick, ate popcorn, looked at pictures of our significant other's ex's.
In the morning, we went out to breakfast and then Jeni and Nicole were off to work.
Monday is when everyone left for camp.
Marci cleans a veterinary clinic every night, so I took over her job while she was gone.
Yay for a hundred dollars!
Most of the week, we didn't really do anything at all.
I went with Jeni to my home ward's relief society enrichment, where my aunt from Yucaipa was giving a lesson on emergency preparation and I ate 4 delicious cupcakes.
I don't remember which day it was, but Brad and I went to Best Buy to look at some laptops.
The last few months, Brad's been having small little problems with his laptop, and I guess the desert heat was the last straw for his lappy, because the screen stopped working.
So, we went to look at laptops, and ended up just buying a new one right then and there.
Brad seems to love it, so i'm happy for him.
Thursday, I woke up early to drive out to Coachella.
My sister Katrina hired me to clean the first floor of her house, so there was another 150!
I promised I wouldn't post any pictures of her house, but I'll just say it wasn't the most fun cleaning job.
Not too revealing, Katrina?
Anyway, Saturday is when they returned from girls camp.
We helped bring some things in from the motor home, and then just hung out while everyone rested for a bit.
Marci was going to a youth dance saturday night where my dad was going to be a chaperone, so she headed over to her bf Mario's house to let him know.
She left his house so he could get ready for the dance, and on the way home, she crashed the scooter!
Well, she didn't really crash it.
More like, she fell off and rolled a few times.
She called me and I took Brad and drove quickly to where she fell off.
I drove her home while Brad drove the scooter back.
My parents fixed her all up and she seemed to be ok in a few hours.
Luckily, her helmet pretty much saved her.
We had planned on going to church on Sunday, but somehow we both managed to sleep until 12:30, when everyone else got back form church!
Brad and I went over to Jeni's later in the day to play some board games and then ended up bringing Jeni back to my parent's house to play some more, since Brad wanted to go home and eat something.
We left early on Monday morning and got back to NM Monday night.

It's funny how I go through this cycle when I visit home.
Before we go to CA, I am SUPER excited.
Then when I get there, I'm so happy to be home for like, a day.
Then I regret ever coming down for the next couple days.
Then I start to get comfortable and never want to leave.
Then about a day or two before we leave, I can't wait to get out of there.
Then the day we leave, i'm super sad to be going.
After the whole trip, I get excited for the next time we'll be going down.

Right now, I just would love to be back there.
Family, friends, the heat, the pool, the people...
Man, I could live in Southern California for the rest of my life.

First week in Cali

Brad and I arrived in California on Monday, June 29th.
If I remember correctly, we didn't do anything Monday night except sit around and relax after the 10 hour drive.
Tuesday, I was able to hang out with my good friend Nikki!
We went to the dollar theater in Cathedral City and saw Monsters vs. Aliens.
Afterwards, we made some stops at Auto stores since Nikki is looking for a cute steering wheel cover, but no luck.
It was no nice to catch up, because I rarely get to see her.
Wednesday, I worked on some scrapbooking that i've been putting off for months.
Our wedding album.
However, as of right now, I still only have 3 pages done.
Oh well.
Wednesday night, my oldest sister came down with her husband and MY NIECES!
I LOVE seeing my nieces, especially when Zara is able to come over too!
Three adorable little girls running around. :)
Thursday, A bunch of us went to the San Diego Zoo!
The "party" included myself and Brad, Laura, her husband Ben, their kids Jordyn and Avery, Marci and her bf Mario, and my sister Katrina.







That night, there was a JeNiKim reunion!
Jeni, Nicole and Kim, that is.
We made our usual trip to Walmart with a stop at Dennys after.
I didn't get home until 4 in the morning!
Man, I love my best friends!
Friday, while Brad, Ben, and Buddy went out paintballing, my parents and I were able to attend a Temple Sealing!
One of my oldest friends, Elizabeth, got married in the San Diego temple.
It was beautiful, and I started bawling, and it was just a wonderful day.



On the drive home, we stopped at Old Town Rootbeer Co. in Old Town Temecula to pick up some root beer for Brad that he hadn't had since his mission.
My dad ended buying tons of stuff!
He's a bit of a beverage buff it seems.
Saturday was CRAZY!
Elizabeth's reception was in the afternoon, so I slept in and went to reception at noon.
There was TONS of good food and I gorgeous wedding video her uncle had made.
Overall, it was really nice, though I didn't get many pictures because the lighting wasn't super good for pictures.
Immediately afterwards, my mom and I headed to the grocery store because I needed to buy some things for my BBQ later that evening.
Unfortunately, we were at the store to long and I was pretty rushed to get things done.
In the end, I didn't get really anything done that I wanted to, and I was in a bad mood for most of the night, but once our family and close friends showed up, my mood lightened.
We had TONS of glowsticks, which was pretty awesome, TONS of fireworks, and TONS of good times. :)








The whole week was so fun and I forget how much I miss my family sometimes.
It's crazy to think that next time we're all together like that, there'll be a new little girl among us!

It Never Rains in Southern California

I know... I haven't updated since i've been here in Cali.
I just feel like i've been so busy!
I did write an UBER long update on Sunday about the previous week, and then when I tried to upload pictures, the whole thing froze up and I lost everything.
So basically, I was very aggravated and have put off updating.
I'm still not fully updating, however.
Sorry!
I promise I will in a few days.
We'll be going back to New Mexico on Monday and I'll update on Tuesday, yeah?
It'll be a nice chunky one, so be prepared!

Just a little quickie:
We've been here for almost two weeks.
I LOVE it and miss this valley so much, especially the summer nights.
I earned 250 dollars while being here.
And we spent 1200 on a new laptop for Brad.
Marci got into a scooter accident today, but she'll be fine.
San Diego Zoo.
San Diego Temple.
Elizabeth's wedding.
Elizabeth's reception.
Church with Jeni and Elizabeth.
Cleaning the vet clinic.
Girls camp.
Cleaning my sister's house.

There is much to tell.
:)