Babysitting These Cuties

Earlier this week Kory also got to watch Hayden and Roman for a little bit while Kelli went out to lunch with friends. I dropped in about half way and couldn't resist taking a picture, or two, or three... haha. He entertained them easily with the Wii Mario Kart game, so fun! I ran to the grocery store while they were playing Nintendo to get some "kid-friendly" snacks! I chose Scooby Doo fruit snacks :)





I almost forgot to blog about seeing THIS bestie last week! I love her.



By the way there are two other new posts below...

Fun Activities!

Thursday, June 18th

Kory and Stephen took their last finals for Spring term, yay! By this point Kelli had been in town for a couple of days and we hadn't seen her yet. So in the evening we dropped by to say hello. She had to run some errands so Kory and I went with her. It doesn't really matter what we are doing, I love seeing family. After we ran to the grocery store we had to show Kelli our new favorite Provo treat, Yozone! Yozone is the yogurt place in the retail space at the bottom of Alpine Village. It took me by surprise, I wasn't expecting it to be as great as it is. They have 8 flavors of low-fat frozen yorgurt goodness, plus lots of yummy toppings. My favorite is original and mango flavors with strawberries on top. I went and got Stephen while we were there and he got to meet Kelli. After enjoying our treat, we dropped Kelli off back at home. Kory, Stephen and I went back to our apartment and played our new favorite "group" Wii game, Wario Ware. It's a silly game that makes us laugh a lot so we love it. It was such a good night hanging out with our siblings.

Friday, June 19th

We worked a shorter shift so that I could hang out with Stephen and help him move out. He is really easy to move out compared to either Kory or me, haha. Mom was also able to come for a quick trip to help Stephen and go see my cousin's play. We went and saw Singing in the Rain at the Hale Theater in Orem. My cousin Bre played Lina, and she was hilarious. We really enjoyed watching her. She is a really good singer but for the part she plays she has to pretend she has a really annoying voice and can't sing. Since we know her, it made us laugh harder. It was so fun to have Mom here, I love it when she comes! (even if it is a short stay).

Saturday, June 20th

Kneaders breakfast, yum! It is always a treat to enjoy unlimited, delicious french toast for breakfast. Mom and Stephen left for Boise after breakfast, I was sad to say goodbye! It made me a little homesick.
We had to head to work (because we had to make up the hours that we missed on Friday). After being there just 2 hours I decided to head home because I wasn't feeling very well. Lucky for me, the intranet server wasn't working in the whole office so everyone got sent home and I didn't have to feel guilty. After work we went to Bed Bath and Beyond to get a wedding gift for my cousin Lindsay. I was sick with a cold the rest of the day. It got me on a cleaning kick and I completely cleaned and dusted our apartment like crazy instead of taking a nap like Kory suggested. It felt really good to get things really fresh and clean, our apartment gets dusty so easily. Kory got home from running errands, and while he admired the clean apartment he was disappointed to learn I didn't take a nap haha.
We were able to go to my Aunt Laura's home for my cousin's wedding reception. It had been raining all day so they didn't get to take advantage of all of the beautiful work they had put into their yard for the occasion, so sad! It turned out great though.
By the time we left the reception the weather had cleared up. Kory and I decided we would go see Beauty and the Beast at the outdoor Scera Shell. It was a lot of fun to cuddle up in blankets and enjoy the show. We really enjoyed it.

Sunday, June 21st

Church was wonderful as always. I love our ward, and our callings. Every week just gets better and better :) I was able to go visiting teaching after church. Then Kory and I got our Sunday naps in. After our nap we woke up just in time to make it to Sunday dinner at my Aunt Laura's home. Not only was dinner delicious, we got to enjoy the outside decorations that couldn't be enjoyed the day before. It was beautiful outside.

Monday, June 22nd

We went to work, as usual. But Kory adjusted his schedule so that he could come home early enough to go to Hayden and Roman's birthday party! They are my adorable nephews (Kelli's boys), who turned 5 and 3 this month. It was fun to go to the Scera Park in Orem and visit with family and friends while enjoying a yummy picnic. The boys got some great gifts! We were happy to learn that they have already been enjoying our T-ball set. I hope it is a lot of fun for them over the warm months.
We had to leave a little bit early because Kory and I were one of the couples who organized our very first Ward FHE (Family Home Evening)! Family Home Evening is something that Latter Day Saint Families try to once a week, typically Mondays. It is a time when families and talk about the gospel together, feel the spirit, and bond through a fun family activity. I had been telling people that I thought we should have one in our married couples' ward once a month so we could create more ward unity. Finally last month the Bishop gave us the go-ahead to start implementing it as a month ward activity. Needless to say the Ward FHE event was a total hit! Lots of couples came. We split into two groups so people could get to know each other better. Each group had a lesson prepared for them, and then a game to follow the lesson. Our group played a game where we had to act out adverbs for a person who didn't know the word to guess. It was hilarious, and very funny. Wish you could have been there to witness it!

The Rest of the Week

I don't really remember what has been going on the rest of this week. Just working and getting ready for an exciting weekend! Tonight (Friday) Kory and I are going to go see the Manti Pageant! We are going with another couple in our ward, plus my friends Emily and Debra! I am so excited because Debra is leaving to serve a mission for the LDS church in Kentucky (the same mission Kory served) on July 1st. Emily graduated with me then moved to DC and I haven't seen her since! She came to town to say goodbye to Debra and hear her speak in church on Sunday. I am thrilled to be able to spend time with them tonight. More people were going to go with us but slowly more and more people dropped of the list. Oh well, next time we plan something fun hopefully more people can come.

Tomorrow Kory and I are heading home to Boise to attend my bridemaid Kylee's wedding! I am so excited for her to be getting married. Her fiance helped out at my reception so much, I was really impressed with him. I am happy for them, and cannot wait to attend the reception. We will be in Idaho the rest of the week for the Van Vleet (Mom's side) family reunion! I am SOOOO excited for that! I LOVE my family, and our reunions. It will be fun to camp out in cabins and play lots of games until really late in the night.

I'll update you when we get back!

Schedule Change and Church Activities

I changed my work schedule for the summer so that I am working the morning shift. However, Kory is still working the evening shift. That means I get home from work at 4 and have to wait for him to get home at 8. I'm only kind of complaining because I'm glad I don't have to be at work until 8 anymore. However, for some reason yesterday I was feeling so bored and lonely after work. Of course there were plenty of things for me to do around the house, but honestly, housework just gets old sometimes even though it needs to be done. I listened to Pandora Radio which entertained me for a while. I talked with mom on the phone for a while and I told her now that I have a sewing machine I want to start using it. Maybe that would give me something fun to do?

Needless to say, I was actually glad that we had enrichment last night. I rode over with my neighbor Lauren, whom I love. Our church has this great pavilion with picnic tables where we met the other fun girls in our ward. It was recipe night so we shared recipes with each other and some girls brought samples for us to try, yum! But mostly it was just fun to sit around and talk in a smaller group, and actually get to know the girl whose face you see every Sunday but never really get to chat with. Plus, it doesn't get dark until way late here now (like 8:30 or 9:00) which I love. It is so nice to be outside in the evenings.

After the activity my visiting teachers came over. They are so sweet, and I actually loved having them over and getting to know each of them a little bit better too. We talked, they gave a lesson, then we talked for another 30 minutes haha.

It was fun having something to do last night. Now that I get off at 4 I need to start planning fun things with friends to fill my early evenings. It's been so long since I have had time for friends because of work and school. I'm excited for the schedule change.

Top Ten!

I was tagged by my wonderful sister-in-law Celeste! :) I am supposed to write my top ten things with the letter "N." She had to do ten things for the letter "H," which is the starting letter of her maiden name. Of course "N" stands for Nelson, which is my maiden name! Did you do that on purpose Celeste? haha. Here we go!

1. Newlywed (being one)

2. Nightlife (even though lately I'm just tired at night!)

Me in Italy enjoying all the music and socializing on the Florence Bridge above. Kory and I at our first concert, Ben Folds, below.

3. Naps (because I'm always tired! haha)
4. Nationality (I'm an American Studies major)

I went to New York city with some friends working for the Republican Party.

5. Nature
Beautiful Switzerland 2006 above. And my favorite road to drive on in Kauai below.

6. Navigation (makes road trips easier)

7. Nectarine (and other fresh fruit)
8. Napkins
9. Neighbors
10. Nostalgia (ie. for me represents having/making good memories)

That was kind of tricky! I tag Janessa with "T" Jeni with "C" Debra with "M" and Becca with "S".

Sick of Work

I am sick of work. I don't really enjoy being here or even a lot of the people I work with. Sometimes I like this job, sometimes I don't...lately I don't. The whole time I'm here I just think of the things that annoy me. Kory isn't very motivated lately at work either, I can't blame him.

I just want to plan my trip down to California to go see Jeni and Hugh,their new baby boy Lincoln and the cutest girls ever, Ryann and Reagan. I miss their family! I was so sad I didn't get to see them when I was down there last week.

I will be blogging about my brothers return from his mission soon...Mom has all of the pics and I'm waiting on those.

On another note...I can't wait for general conference and Boise the next weekend to see all of our family and hear Stephen report his mission in church.

Where Has the Time Gone!?

I haven't blogged in forever because (1) We're super busy, and (2) Kory has his computer all of the time so I can't get the pictures off of his camera.

We have some fun pics from our Canada trip (February 18-22) I'd like to share. That trip was so great! We flew up to Seattle on Wednesday night. Rick picked us up from the airport and took us over to Don and Jodi's house. It was fun to see the Fowles and get a tour of their new business operation, Eagle Ink. Thursday morning we woke up and got ready to head to the shop to catch the super nice charter bus. But first, Kory had to take me to get a donut from the Donut Shop, yum! I loved having a chance to get away, and hang out with Mom and Dad Hjelm, and Celeste and Bryan. Up in Canada we went out to dinner, played card games, and relaxed in the hot pools. Good times! We came home Saturday, and Kory and I went to see the Fowles again. Later Adam (Carissa's husband) flew in Saturday night because he had interviews in Tacoma the next few days. It was fun to have him there, all of us played cards again that night. I told Rick we had to have his famous guacamole before I left, so for Sunday dinner we had fajitas! Kory and I both love family time.

Coming home was a little stressful. I just have so much school work all of the time it is hard to keep up. Then with work on top of that. I've been doing ok lately.

The next weekend, February 28th, we got to go to Savannah Cheney's baptism! It was so fun to see the Cheney cousins. After the baptism Jon and Gina has us over for naffle waffles, which are waffles with ice cream and strawberries. Can you tell it was Savannah's choice? Klyn, Kay Lynn, Brett and Mikalla were all there. We had fun visiting. Then Brett, Mikalla, Kory and I went downstairs and watched the movie Sky High. I love that movie, I think it is cute. We totally forgot our camera though! We were so busy leaving straight from work it slipped our minds.

That night Kory and I celebrated our year of dating :) We went to California Pizza Kitchen at the Gateway which is where we had our first "date." After dinner we went to Barnes and Noble and read through some books together. It was actually really fun. We saw The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey at Jon and Gina's house earlier that day. I am always talking about things that Dave Ramsey says with Kory. So he was inspired to get us the book. It was a fun little date.


I can't believe it is already half way through March and here I am telling you about February! This month I have been counting my calories at Livestrong. It is totally free and it has been a lot of fun to see how I am doing just being healthy.

Other than that we have just been enjoying having a nice sunny day every now and then. Also some random snowy days. We are both keeping super busy with work and school. And I am getting super excited to pick my brother from his mission on the 25th! Woo hoo!

My Friday School Break

Monday and Wednesday I have class from 10AM-2PM without any breaks. But my 11AM class, LDS Church History, is only a Monday and Wednesday class. Which means that Friday I have a break from 11AM-12PM yay!

I am the type of person that needs downtime. You can ask Kory. Kory is like a machine, he just keeps going and going. I have to have time to myself, and time to just do "nothing." Its how I love to spend my extra time. Am I kidding? I never have extra time. But it is how I love to spend time that I don't really have. People ask me what my hobbies are and I feel like I have to say something like dancing, or volleyball like I did growing up. But now when people ask me what my hobbies are what honestly pops in my head are facebooking and blogging, haha. No joke. I love it. It is my break and my way of relaxing.

So what am I doing during my one hour Friday school break? ...facebooking and blogging. I love keeping in touch with family and friends. I love knowing how people are doing. I love to hear funny stories. I love putting up new pictures and having all of your friends and family comment on them. I just love everything about it.

I hope you enjoy my hobbies :) haha



We have some fun things planned this weekend though! Tonight we are going to see "Room Service" a musical put on my the Hale Center Theatre. Tomorrow we are going to see Humor U the BYU stand-up comedy group. We're going to both things with couples from the ward. It has been fun to start getting to know people better and being friends with them outside of church.



Hopefully I'll be able to update the weekend when its over. I hope that all of you have a great weekend!

Winter Update

Well the last couple of days we have been getting dumped on! There is a lot of snow, it is really beautiful outside. I saw today's writing prompt and really wanted to reply.

Today's One Minute Writer: Write about how the weather affects you emotionally, or recall a weather-related memory.

This was my reply:
I remember one time when we were up in Priest River, ID (where my Mom grew up) and my brother Stephen and I made a igloo in the snow up there. We played outside in the snow all day long and it was so much fun! When we were kids our neighbors use to pick us up and pull us behind their car in sleds, we loved hookie bobbing!

Whoa! 1 minute goes by so fast! Try it, haha. There is SO much more that I could say just about SNOW memories! Oh well, that's the fun of it only saying as much as you can in one minute.

I realize I never really told you about last weekend. My cousin Brett was in town so we got to hang out with he and Mikalla on Thursday and Friday night after work. Thursday we went to Jon and Gina's house (my cousins) and ended up visiting until midnight. I love chatting with my family! I am so grateful to have such wonderful relationships with all of my cousins. On Friday night after work Brett and Mikalla came over. We had a lot of fun playing with his new Apple computer. I love it when people get mac's, it is so exciting to me! haha.

We had a lot of fun on Saturday. Our work Christmas party was early in the morning at Costco. We showed up and got $75 in Costco Cash, each! yay! At the party they had crepes and breakfast burritos, which we really enjoyed. Then we just had time to shop around. I wasn't feeling well so I headed home and took a hot bath (which I already wrote about) and Kory went to work. I met him at work a little bit later. We were able to go to the Provo temple that night. It was such a good experience. We left the temple both feeling very uplifted and happy. Then we went home and watched Elf! I love that movie.


On Sunday we went to church at our new ward again. We LOVE our new ward! They are SO nice and SO welcoming! We got to meet our new bishop and Kory participated in sacrament meeting. Needless to say, we're jumping right in! There are a lot of outgoing, cute, married couples. Its so different than a singles ward, its neat to have a different experience. After church we headed up to Heber to go see Celeste and Brian and family. We were up there for a few hours visiting. I LOVE visiting family. Its fun to visit Kory's family because I enjoy getting to know them better and better. Celeste is so much fun. We're glad that we got to go hang out with all of the Pearson's for a few hours. Brian's family is so sweet, both of his parents came and gave me a hug and welcomed us. We loved it. We headed back home and then the Elder's Quorum came over to get to know us...I know, awesome huh?

Basically we had a really great weekend. Anytime we get to visit with lots of family, go to the temple, watch a good movie, and feel welcomed by our new ward...good weekend.

And now it's Friday again! Yay! Kory is taking his last two finals today. Pray for him!

One Minute Writer

I just came across this blog that prompts you to write about something for one minute each day. Every day you are given a prompt and you are supposed to hit start for the timer and take your one minute to respond to it. There are some thought provoking prompts. I thought it was kind of neat.

Example of a prompt: What is a most memorable birthday? If you could do over one thing in you life what would you like to do better?

Click here to check it out.One Minute Writer

Possible New Blogspot Site Address

So I am thinking I want to change my blogspot address to www.analeeandkory.blogspot.com or something like that. But my question is, if I change it does it automatically direct everyone that follows my blog to the new site address? What do you think? Should I just try it and we'll find out?


CONCLUSION:

Ok so I tried it for 2 minutes and check it out myself. It doesn't redirect you automatically, bummer! It just says that www.missanalee.blogspot.com doesn't exist, sad! I can't decide if I want to go through the hassle of changing it or just leave it. But just so you know, in case you can't find my blog one day it has been changed to www.analeeandkory.blogspot.com :) ok!