Blog Boredom

As you can probably tell, I get bored with my blog a lot. Mostly because I don't know how to make it cute, I just pick a template from the ones they have ready-made. Does anyone have good suggestions on how to spice up a blog?

Party Weekend

Ok, party weekend might be a slight exaggeration... but for us who usually have to fill our weekends with homework and errands, this was an unusual weekend and it was VERY fun. On Friday we had a double date with one of Richard's old mission companions and his wife. We went out to eat, went bowling at Fat Cat's, and played games at our apt. Sat morning I had no homework to do so it was very relaxing. I went down to T-Ville to have a "sister day" with Kristi and spent all day with her talking and playing with Logan. I never feel like I have enough sister time so this was a GREAT way to spend the whole day on Saturday. Logan did a lot of cute things that night, but the cutest was that he opened the car door for me every time we went out to the car. The first time, we thought he was trying to climb in the front seat but he opened the door and said, "Get in Reepy" (that's what he calls me). Kristi said he has never done that before and it was SO adorable!!! I have a very chivalrous two year old nephew! Richard went to the football game and had a guy's night out with his old roommates. Sunday night, our ward hosted a dinner for all the new members in the ward and we got to know a few very nice people. We definitely need to be more social in our ward. It's not as urgent to get to know people as it is in a single's ward! Then we went to Richard's dad's house for our weekly family dinner to end our fun weekend. It might not sound like a lot to those who have play dates every weekend but it was a wonderful break for us!

Missionary Experience

Last Sat, Richard and I decided to hike the Y (which is a miracle in itself because Richard swore he wouldn't hike the Y in college). We had a million things to do that day and couldn't decide if we should waste time going hiking or not, but finally decided we needed the break from all the homework and errands. We also left a little bit later than we had planned to but were excited to go hiking. After hiking for a few mins, we stopped at an overlook to look at the beautiful scenery. There was another man standing there and we just smiled at him and didn't think anything of it. All of the sudden he said, "great view isn't it?" We agreed and then he asked us, "So is that the school down there where all those Mormons go?" We smiled and said yes and he said, "you mean, ALL those people down there really believe in that stuff?!". He continued to tell us that he lives next door to a "stage president" (he didn't know it was actually stake president :) ) and that this stage president had told him about how we can one day becomes like gods. This really confused him because that made him think that we were a polytheistic religion and that we didn't believe in the same God as Christianity. In fact, he told us that our God must be less powerful than the "normal" Christian God because that God has always been: He created time and space and doesn't follow rules, unlike our God who was once a man. I was really impressed by the way Richard answered his questions and it gave me a good glimpse into the kind of missionary my husband must have been. At first I was quiet and just let Richard answer all of his questions but after a while I felt like I was really guided by the Spirit to say some things, like when he told us that the polygamists led by Warren Jeffs must be the "real Mormons" because they lived the same way that Brigham Young did. If I had answered alone, I probably would have explained that clearly he knew nothing about us or the FLDS church and should do some more research. However, the Spirit guided me to talk about the importance of a prophet for our times to guide us in how to live today instead of living the way Brigham Young did because he was the prophet for those times. I think he had been taught some things that were unrelated to what he needed to know, and others that were over his head spiritually, but he is a really good guy and sincerely wanted to find the truth. It was such a great discussion and I hope he went away with the assurance that we know without a doubt that this religion is true and that we love it with all of our hearts. It was an amazing experience to talk with him and another perfect way to strengthen my own testimony. Who says you can't have missionary experiences in Provo?!

Richard's Birthday

Richard's b-day ended up being a lot of fun! I woke up early and made him waffles to take him breakfast in bed. I planned on singing happy birthday to him to wake him up but he was OUT, so I had to shake him up a little bit to finally get him up and help him realize what was going on. Since we still had school the next day, we just went out to dinner and I gave him his present. The next day we went to the batting cages, threw the frisbee in the park, and played a bday game to decorate his cake. The game was supposed to be that we blindfold ourselves and frost the cake and write "happy bday" in icing. However, I tricked Richard and took my blindfold off as soon as we started so that my half of the cake was done nicely. He still gives me a hard time about it but I thought it was a fun game!!! Hopefully, even though we didn't do much, it was a great bday for my wonderful husband!

Bday dinner at Goodwood

Blowing out all 25 candles!

Hittin some balls at the batting cages

Decorating his cake blindfolded

Feliz Cumpleanos Ricardo!

It has been exactly one year since I said "I love you" for the first time to the man who I would later marry. And since then, life has just gotten better and better. I'm very grateful for Richard who means so much to me and has helped me through a LOT in the past year. He is always someone I can turn to for comfort, a listening ear, or just someone to play with and who makes me laugh constantly. He is my best friend and my everything- I love you Richard!! Happy 25th birthday!

New Nephew

Last night we went and saw our new nephew- Isaac Henricksen. He has a very serious little face but is SO cute. He was born right at home and the midwife didn't get there in time so he was delivered by his very own dad!! I'm sure Richard is glad I'm going to have all my babies at the hospital so he will never have to do that! Here is the newest and cutest addition to the Henricksen family:

The cutest little old man face I've ever seen!

I love new babies!

The whole family

Sleeping in Heaven?

I am not a big nap person. Mostly because I never wake up feeling better- I either have a headache or feel more tired. Yesterday Richard and I went to the park to read for a little bit before we went to the CES fireside (which was amazing by the way). We laid a blanket out in the shade and read for all of about two seconds before both of us were OUT. It was the perfect temperature and there was a slight breeze blowing as we slept. Both of us woke up an hour later feeling great and decided that that must be what sleeping in heaven will be like! If only sleeping at night felt this good....

School is now in session

I can't believe I am starting the last semester of my life! It will be a crazy semester with 18 credits total plus work every day, but somehow I hope to make it through. So far I'm predicting that I will like most of my classes but I am going to be BUSY. Here are the classes I am taking this semester:

Spanish 101/102= This will definitely be the most demanding class. I have it every day (which means homework every day) and since it is the accelerated version of every class we go VERY quickly and have to learn most of it on our own. Good thing I have an amazing tutor at home!

Family Recreation= This is going to be a very fun class. Every Friday is "play day" where we take turns bringing in ideas (and then actually doing them) of activities we can do with our families in the future

Missionary Prep= While my class is packed full of freshman boys, I think this class will be interesting and I will learn a lot. I wasn't planning on taking it but it was one of the only classes that would fit in my schedule.

LDS History from 1901- present= A lot of this class will be a repeat of the things I heard from my prophets class but I am excited for it anyway. We also get to read Pres Hinckley's biography which I wanted to do sometime anyway

And finally Residential Landscape Design= I know nothing about landscaping, but I like critiquing the way people set up their yards and I will learn a lot of useful things to use on my own house someday.

Anyway, that's the plan for this semester. If you don't see me around a lot- now you know why!!! But it will be worth it to graduate in December!

Fridge Troubles

There are a few things about our apt that I complained about for the first little while, but then was able to suck it up and start to love our little place. However, I can't say that this has happened with our fridge as of yet. When we first moved in, we had a VERY old fridge that didn't even have a freezer, just a tiny icebox that we couldn't fit very much in. Although that was inconvenient, it was hardly a reason for our landlord to get us a whole new fridge so we were trying to figure out another solution. Little did we know that the fridge would solve the problem for us....when it broke down. We started noticing that our drinks weren't very cold and any fruit we would buy would be bad in a few days. We tried to convince our landlord that it was broken, but he didn't believe us until we put a thermometer in the fridge and it showed the temperature as being 50 degrees! He bought us another fridge from a used appliance store and brought it over last Sat to switch out the old one. However, he hadn't noticed that someone had cut the plug off of the new fridge!!! He couldn't do anything about it that day so we had to wait the whole weekend to get our new one. Richard even drank some of the milk that had started to spoil and it made him sick all day Monday. Now we were mad because it was no longer an inconvenience, it was affecting our health! On Tuesday the landlord finally put in our new fridge and we thought our troubles were over. However, that night the fridge suddenly got very loud and then turned off completely. Once again, a ton of our food spoiled overnight and we had to throw away more of it. The landlord showed us the problem (the defrost timer was broken) and how to fix it temporarily (although we had to adjust it again this morning because the fridge wasn't on all night) but this is not going to fix the fridge permanently. I'll keep you all updated on what happens in the end, but for now we can't go buy any food that has to go in the fridge or freezer. So annoying!!!! I guess I should have been more grateful for the old fridge with the tiny freezer that at least kept our food cold!!!