Good Job, Joseph!

Although we stayed in Provo for the Christmas holiday, Cory and I took a little journey to Kansas City on the 28th through the 30th for Joseph and Abbey's wedding.  It was a great weekend!  We flew in on Friday afternoon, and got a quick tour of the neighborhood Joseph grew up in, which was entertaining.  Then we were taken to the Lineback house, which is where we would be staying.  The Lineback family are friends of Joseph's family and they graciously offered their home for us to stay.  They were on vacation in Aspen so we were there by ourselves, but there were no house parties on the agenda.  We did however, go out to one of the highest rated Kansas City BBQ joints: Oklahoma Joe's!  Yeah, I know the name doesn't make sense.  It was some good grub, though.

Cory really liked it! 

                         

  

After dinner, the guys all headed out for Joseph's bachelor party.  Now, seeing as none of us had ever been to Kansas City, Joseph kind of had to plan his own party, but it worked out.  We decided on Dave and Buster's for some arcade action.  When we actually got there, this is what I saw towering over Dave and Buster's.

I don't even know what that place was, but it looked AWESOME!!!  We should have been going there.  Anyway, I had never been to Dave and Buster's, and it was really fun.  Brett and I humiliated ourselves on the basketball shooting game, but it was all good.  Brett redeemed himself on all things military and flying.

The best part of the night was when Joseph hit the jackpot for tickets on the Slam-A-Winner.  We used them to get some fake mustaches to wear the next day in some of the pictures taken.  Here is Joseph in his arena of victory.

The next morning we headed to the Kansas City Temple and witnessed the sealing of Joseph and Abbey for time and all eternity.  It was a great experience, and afterwards we prepped ourselves to brave the bitter cold outside for the pictures.  As the pictures show, we wore yellow bow-ties, and I must say that we looked snazzy. 

Another great take-away from this trip was that Cory figured out how to work the rapid-shot feature on our camera.  It takes like 6 pictures a second or something like that.  While waiting in the cold for the happy couple to emerge, it was almost vital to survival to dance so as to keep warm.  Here is a depiction of such survival techniques as documented by Cory's rapid shot skills.

They finally came out and they were excited!!!

And so were we!!!

Here is a little teaser of what our fake mustaches were like.  Not only did it make all of us look classy, it also did a very effective job of keeping our upper lips warm.  I have to say, that patch of hair on my face gave me a confidence I didn't know existed.

We took lots of pictures, and the photographer was super efficient with how much time we had to spend out in the cold. 

After the pictures there was a tasty luncheon, and then we headed back to the Lineback house for a short time before the reception.  

Here is the happy couple enjoying their first dance.  But there might have been someone even happier...

IT WAS ME WHEN I FOUND OUT THEY HAD ROCK CANDY AT EVERY TABLE!!!!  But there may have been someone even happier...

IT WAS ME EVERY TIME THIS SMOKIN' BABE WAS NEXT TO ME!!!  I don't want to steal Joseph and Abbey's thunder, but we just may be the happiest couple.

'Tis the Season

Here are some fun videos from our Christmas day activities.

Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve

It's almost Christmas!
The Gilmore home is just buzzing with Christmas cheer!  We are so excited for Christmas day, and can't wait to see what is waiting for us under our little tree.

For Christmas Eve we decided to go out for a little experience.  Sean was feeling something indian, he loves curry.  Curry, curry, curry, he loves it.  We tried a little place on Center Street in Provo called India Palace, and we loved it!

Sean got the Lamb Curry, and I got the Chicken Tikka Masala.  We chowed down and filled up!

Super crazy mural at India Palace.  It seemed to be glowing!

After a delicious dinner, we headed home to get ready for Santa!  We picked up a red box for a Christmas eve movie, and decided to cuddle up in the living room so we could try and catch Santa.

We put out our cookies and milk, and are just waiting in wonder of how he will get in since we don't actually have a chimney!!

                      

Brett and Kyle came over Saturday night to help decorate our sugar cookies.  Merry almost Christmas!!!

Temple Square Trip

Me in front of the Assembly Hall, Sean with a Shepherd from the super life like nativity by the Visitor's Center, and me and Sean cozied up in front of the Temple.

Sean and I took a little trip up to Salt Lake to see the Temple Square lights and get in the spirit of  Christmas!

We headed up a little late and it wasn't til we were about half way up that we realized we might be too late too see the lights!  We were in a frenzy trying to look up the Temple Square hours and after much searching found out that the lights went out at 10:30pm.  We were safe to make it up and see the lights and even had time to grab a little dinner before.

Sean and I went to Red Iguana for dinner.  After being turned on to Red Iguana by Mike, Sean's dad, we always have to eat there when we are in Salt Lake.  It was killer as always, a Chimichanga for Sean and Carne Asada tacos for me.  Chips and salsa were great as always, and we were full before the food even came.  Sean also loves their Horchata, and claims it is the best he's ever had.  I have to admit it was super delicious, but I don't think I have ever had it anywhere else.

I caught this on film while waiting for our food, a special little treat for our faithful blog readers.
Sean, singing, in Spanish...so dreamy!!

The only regret I have about this video, is that I was so zoomed in (couldn't figure out how to zoom out) that you can't see Sean using his fork as a guitar and strumming along as he sings.

Tons of Lights!

As Promised...

Cory's Christmas Sock Wreath!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Something that I did not know about Cory before we got married, or a least something I didn't appreciate like I should have, is just how crafty she really is.  She can make crafts and homemade projects with the best of them.  What I love most about that quality in her is that she isn't in your face about it either.  She has a quiet confidence when it comes to her ideas, and they always turn out great.  I usually can't visualize what she is thinking, which sometimes comes across as skepticism, but in the end I am always enlightened.

Case Study #1

The Stockings Hung on the Bookcase With Care

In my family almost immediately after Thanksgiving we start putting up Christmas stuff.  So this year after Thanksgiving we started talking about what we wanted to do in terms of a tree, and everything else.  The topic of stockings came up, and Cory mentioned that she wanted to make our stockings.  She started to explain to me that we needed to go to DI and buy old sweaters that she would cut up and sew together so that when we had kids she could make more that looked the same.  I obviously supported her, but in my mind I was thinking, "Um...there is this thing called division of labor...people have done all of that for us and put it on a shelf at Walmart."  The joke was on me!  We went to DI and we got some old sweaters, and the next thing I know we have some legitimate authentic looking stockings hanging up on our bookcase.  I love them, and we share our initials with Santa Claus.

Case Study #2

On the First Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave to Me...

Cory surprised me with an early present this year, or should I say twelve of them?  She continued her crafty ways in the shadows, unbeknownst to me, and hung twelve decorated cards for me as a countdown for Christmas.  Each day I get to flip over another card and a sweet note, or it tells me what we are going to do that day together.  So far I have claimed things like back rubs, a drive around town looking at Christmas lights, and tonight is an ice-skating excursion to Temple Square.  

There are a few other case studies, but I don't have pictures of them yet.  She made a Christmas sock wreath, and we also have a red chalkboard countdown to Christmas.  Anyway, we also scored a $20 tree at Walmart, and I think it is a pretty good size for only $20.  It has been up since the week after Thanksgiving, but we were waiting for all of our ornaments to finally post a picture.

And here are some of our ornaments up close so that our parents can see that our childhoods are still represented on this new tree.

                  

Buzz also surprised us with a Nativity scene that is super nice.  We weren't quite sure where the giant angel went in the scene, but everything turned out perfectly.

So marriage is all about starting a new life together, and adopting one another's traditions, or creating new ones.  I don't think I have ever really tasted eggnog.  I think my dad likes it, but the point is that there was never a heavy eggnog presence in my house around the holidays.  Cory's house was the opposite.  Eggnog was flowing freely after Thanksgiving for her.  So I have tried some eggnog this year.  It tastes good, but for some reason I don't like it.  Does that make sense?  Probably not.  For some reason I expect it to be salty and...egg...y, but it isn't.   And even though I know it isn't, I still expect it, and thus don't want to drink it, despite what picture evidence may show.  I think this should have been our Christmas card picture...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Card Teaser

Keep a look out for a little Christmas cheer...hopefully by Christmas!

Reason #1,345,791 that Sean is Perfect

Sean is obviously the love of my life.
But, what I don't think I say enough, is just how easy Sean is to live with...because he is perfect!!

Without fail, like clockwork, and with a perfect exactness, Sean provides me with a quiet service.

Since being married I have never gone into our bathroom and run out of toilet paper, not even once.

Every time I think I've run out and I pull off the last 3 squares from the roll, I turn around, and there sits a brand new roll on the toilet tank.  It's always there, he never forgets, and I really don't think he ever will.

Sean says it's because he is paranoid about running out, but I know it's really because he loves me!!

Finals Week

So finals week ended today, and I have to say I am pretty relieved.  I took some challenging classes this semester, and am looking forward to a three week Christmas vacation.

I usually don't gloat about my grades, (mainly because I don't ever have anything impressive to gloat about) but I will say that I exceeded my own expectations this semester.  I can only attribute it to being married.  I had six finals, and got A's on four of them.  The other two....? No, but seriously...4 out of 6?  That is fantastic!

So two of mine were scheduled to be taken in class.  I never like scheduled finals.  It is always way too crammed in the lecture hall, and everyone is taking the same test, making it hard not to feel like the professor thinks you are cheating even if your eyes haven't left your paper.

Wednesday morning I had a scheduled final at 7:00 AM.  Another reason scheduled finals are lame...that is not the ideal time for me to prove my knowledge of anything, let alone Organic Chemistry.  So I walk in and find a seat between two girls and the tests are distributed.  I picked a great seat that morning, because some really funny things started happening around me.

I realized that I had sat down between two girls on complete opposite ends of the Chemistry spectrum.  We were all given some scratch paper with our test, and as the test got under way, with each question, the girl on my left furiously scribbled things down, as if all of that extra work on the scratch paper was necessary.  She was filling up the front and back of all three sheets of paper she had.  Halfway through the test I had filled up maybe half a sheet.  Was I missing something?  I was getting answers to everything without copious amounts of extra work, but I felt like doing some long division on my scratch paper just so she wouldn't glance over and judge me for my lack of effort.  She was a super-student.

Now the girl on my right.  I wish I was making this up.  Literally this poor girl got her test, flipped through the pages, set the test back down on her desk, and waited.  She waited about and hour and forty five minutes.  She didn't write anything.  She didn't look at any of the test again.  She just sat there, and then went to turn it in when a respectable amount of people had already turned their tests in.  I felt so bad.  What kind of low could she have hit that she literally didn't even attempt to answer ANYTHING?  Was all hope lost?  IS THERE NO BALM IN GILEAD?  And what is worse is that she had to sit for almost two hours to avoid the embarrassment of turning it in before the people who actually took the test.  Not a super-student.

So I was sitting in between these two extremes.  Another thing that stressed me out is that out of sheer curiosity of these two girls and their test taking habits, or lack thereof, I kept glancing at their papers, but never actually looking at their answers.  The girl on my right didn't have any, anyway.  The stress came from my professor, every two minutes, shouting out to everyone, "EYES ON YOUR OWN PAPER!"  I don't think he was ever talking to me, because he was always looking somewhere else when he was saying it, but it still was nerve-racking.  At one point he even started shouting, "Excuse me, young man in the hat!  Yes you!  Please turn your hat backwards, I can't see your eyes!"

This post has become much longer than I anticipated, but all of these things made me laugh in my head, and they are all true.  Last story.  When I am about a fourth of the way through the test, I look up and notice a boy heading to the front with his test.  I thought maybe he had to go to the bathroom, but no.  He was done, and he was turning in his test.  We had only been going about 40 minutes.  The next person to turn their test in was after like an hour and a half.  As in fifty minutes after that first guy.  We all know that the guy who turned his test in first is either a chemistry prodigy, or he completely bombed that test.  There is no middle ground.  There is no way that he is just an average student that got done really quick.  Maybe he was like the girl on my right that didn't answer anything, but didn't feel it was worth his time to sit and wait for others to finish.  Then again, maybe he was a freaky genius that knew every answer without having to use any scratch paper.

I learned in that two hours that I am probably right in the middle of all those extremes.  I have no problem with that.