I am very much partial to cooler weather. I would much rather have a foggy summer than a scorching hot one and I would much rather be bundled up tight in a jacket and scarf than scantily clad and free as a bird! So coming to Utah for the tail end of the warm summertime was not something I was looking forward to. The first couple weeks were hard for me and I barely ventured outside the apartment. I’m a homebody anyway so it suited me to stay in and pretend it was snowing outside. Because that’s the other thing I dislike about hot weather -that it makes me feel guilty about staying inside and not taking advantage of a nice day. It makes homework a lot harder to do as well. So I just pretend the sun's not there. I bet statistically students are a lot more focused during winter semesters than any others. This past month we’ve been here I just haven’t seen sunshine as much of a friend.


BUT. I may be changing my mind.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I would still RATHER wrap up in a blanket with hot chocolate and a movie than go running through the sprinklers getting sunburned. But I guess what I’m saying is that my hostility towards the sun is decreasing. Especially when Andrew and I spread out a big yellow blanket on the grass outside our door at 4 or 5 in the afternoon and play Monopoly Deal until the sun goes down. All without jackets, or socks, or shoes, or scarves. I can’t deny that I love the stillness of summer air at that time of day. That’s when I look at the sun and say, “Okay. Maybe we’ve been misunderstanding each other.” I’m realizing how much I love being able to go for a walk without getting all kinds of gear on. I’m realizing how much more amazing a bowl of fresh fruit or an ice cream cone tastes in warm weather. And I’m realizing that flowers are at their prettiest when the sun shines on them.

I got to thinking about all this because of an event that happened here last night. Our apartment complex set up a movie theater size projector screen on the lawn and served popcorn and pink lemonade while a movie played and the sun set in the background. It was like a drive-in movie right outside our front door. THAT is what sold me on summer. Cause you can’t do that as well any other time of the year. Hundreds of college kids came and set up their blankets and lawn chairs. Boys sat next to the girls they had crushes on, newlywed couples sat close under blankets, and friends sat in big groups playing games, getting to know each other, and being shushed by everyone else. I think it was the kind of summer night that Sandy sings about in Grease (Sandy’s part, mind you, not Danny’s!). If that’s not a perfect summer night, what is? It was so cool.
I still prefer winter clothes by far. But I have now decided that the fun of summer romance + summer nights are both amazing enough to let summer come around every year.

I like listening to old CES devotionals from General Authorities, especially Elder Holland's. I like the way he speaks, his humor, his use of Shakespeare and other poems to get the point across, and the way he makes his message a part life, not just something to think about. That's what it does for me in a nutshell. I even like his scoldings because they put me in check better than nice soft suggestions do.
One of my all time favorites of his is called "How Do I Love Thee?" It describes love far beyond fairy tales and makes it seem more real and lasting to me. I think it teaches very well the meaning of real, true love. I suppose it's not as much about romance as it is about trust, care, vulnerability, and not just a happily ever after ending but a whole life BEYOND that.
Especially being married now I understand the importance of the lessons he teaches in this talk. Andrew and I are still newly weds, for better or for worse. And we are still learning from each other how to act, how to treat each other, how to be more mature towards each other than we would be towards a sibling (no offense sisters and Luke). Because no matter how upset one of us may get, we can't run and tell on each other and walk away happily when one of us gets our way over the other. When one of us does get our way over the other all we feel is bad about it. And that's a new thing for me! I think getting your own way is not how happiness in a marriage is found. And, well, since I've never been married before I've found that I am re-learning a lot of things about life and I'm figuring out the person I want to be.
Anyway, here are some of my favorite quotes from that talk:

"Think the best of each other, especially of those you say you love. Assume the good and doubt the bad. Encourage in yourself what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature.""

"Love is a fragile thing, and some elements in life can try to break it. Much damage can be done if we are not in tender hands, caring hands. To give ourselves totally to another person, as we do in marriage, is the most trusting step we take in any human relationship. It is a real act of faith--faith all of us must be willing to exercise. If we do it right, we end up sharing everything--all our hopes, all our fears, all our dreams, all our weaknesses, and all our joys--with another person."

"No serious courtship or engagement or marriage is worth the name if we do not fully invest all that we have in it and in so doing trust ourselves totally to the one we love. You cannot succeed in love if you keep one foot out on the bank for safety's sake. The very nature of the endeavor requires that you hold on to each other as tightly as you can and jump in the pool together."

"The prophets tell us that true love "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (1 Corinthians 13:7). Once again that is ultimately a description of Christ's love--He is the great example of one who bore and believed and hoped and endured. We are invited to do the same in our courtship and in our marriage to the best of our ability. Bear up and be strong. Be hopeful and believing. Some things in life we have little or no control over. These have to be endured. Some disappointments have to be lived with in love and in marriage. These are not things anyone wants in life, but sometimes they come. And when they come, we have to bear them; we have to believe; we have to hope for an end to such sorrows and difficulty; we have to endure until things come right in the end."

"One of the great purposes of true love is to help each other in these times. No one ought to have to face such trials alone. We can endure almost anything if we have someone at our side who truly loves us, who is easing the burden and lightening the load."

I think this is what Heavenly Father made marriage for. I definitely reccomend this talk to anyone and everyone who is in love. He uses such good analogies and puts Jesus Christ right at the center of every relationship. And that's what life and love are all about anyway.

This is how my mornings have been going lately: I wake up around 10:30, read scriptures, eat breakfast, clean up around the teeny apartment, and then glue myself to the computer for a few hours. That computer part sounds pretty bad I guess, but my excuse is that as soon as Andrew gets home my computer time is gone for the rest of the day. I’m not complaining…seriously I’m not…because what he needs it for is far more worthy than what I need it for. All Andrew’s days consist of is school, work, and homework. All of which he needs the computer for. All of which are more important than my blog surfing and movie watching. But still he never rushes me or anything if I am still on when he gets home. He has become a very diligent student and he works hard all day long. So when he does get home I am very happy to relinquish the laptop over to him.
So anyway the point is I try to get everything done I need or want to get done on the computer early in the day. Then when he does need it I can do the million other non-computer things I need to do the rest of the evening. I scrapbook, read, talk on the phone, experiment with recipes, watch some tv, and clean a bit. By that time Andrew is usually done with his work for the day and we spend all the rest of our time hanging out together.
I should probably add that I DO have a job and am not completely free to accommodate my every whim all the time. But these days that I am able to do whatever I want sure are nice. The internet can be a very fun place if used well.

Julia and Lester came to visit us this weekend! We all had a fabulous time together. It was so exciting to have our very first very own HOUSE GUESTS in our teeny apartment. We cooked and baked and laughed and caught up and watched movies and played games and went swimming and walking and driving and had an absolute BALL! There's just something about seeing family that makes you say, "Okay yeah...everything IS going to be okay." It was refreshing and rejuvenating to have them here. The visit was short but sweet and super fun. We miss those Pinedas already.


Then on Tuesday we had some more visitors! Andrew's sister Brittney and her husband Alex always help us out so much. We stayed with them till we could move into our apartment and they are constantly taking us grocery shopping and driving us around anywhere we need to go. We really appreciate them and LOVE any time we get to spend with them and their cute Little Miss Lynny. We sure love them Clarks.



I absolutely LOVE this picture of Lynny and Uncle Andrew.



There really is nothing like family.

My favorite piece of furniture in our teeny apartment is our bookshelf. I love the way it looks and how useful it is. But mostly I love how much it contains. Since college and even more since marriage Andrew and I have both had to condense in almost every area of our lives. And since books are heavy, they were the first things to go. So the books we have on our bookshelf are ones that we pulled from the pile and labeled “worth it.” That is worth it to us to keep. Worth it to us to lug around forever. We have journals and notebooks, scriptures and church books, family history, even textbooks from classes we enjoyed. Our bookshelf holds our boxes of letters and keepsakes, books about pioneers, Hawaii and Paraguay, our favorite stories, pictures and scrapbooks. Books of hobbies, mementos from Andrew’s mission, cookbooks, Avonlea videos. 6 shelves of books and things. Books we’ve read, books we want to read, books we meant to read. Some of which we bought together and many from before we even knew each other.
I love that bookshelf because it’s a physical sign of our lives coming together and of us being enriched by each other. I’ve learned about his interests and the things that are worth it to him to lug around. And he’s learned about the things that are worth it to me.
I’m sure that over the next few years we may have to condense more. And that will be tough. But it will also make room for things we keep finding that we want to hold on to. Someday our bookshelf will probably hold parenting books right next to Andrew’s school books. And that one “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” Years after that there will be books about how to deal with teenagers, and even more years later there may be books about back pains and arthritis. My college scrapbooks will make room for our kid’s scrapbooks, and our philosophy books will scoot over for Dr. Seuss and The Bernstein Bears. I love our jam packed bookshelf now, I can’t imagine how much love I’ll have for it when we can’t squeeze anymore in between the cracks.
I’m very happy to have inherited this book-loving gene from my parents and grandparents. I’m excited to see our collection grow over time.

Lately Andrew and I have been trying to find good cheap ways to decorate our teeny apartment. So far we’ve figured out some good ones. This post will be about one of my favorites. Every day as we walk to and from campus there is a sidewalk we come to that has flowers growing on one side of it. Not just small wildflowers, but big rose bushes and zinnia flowers. And when you walk down that particular stretch of sidewalk you feel like you’re in a beautiful garden. I have learned recently how much I love flowers, mostly because of the wedding planning, and I now have a goal to find myself a green thumb someday and grow a garden. However, because circumstances don’t permit that at this time in our life, I have been looking for other simpler ways to have flowers around. I’ve always loved the way tiny flowers look in tiny vases. So when we found two small mason jars among our things, we just picked a bunch of small flowers, and voila! To quote Sister Hinckley- the small and simple things are often the most beautiful.

call me a pansy. But it hurt.




But you know what, Dad? I DIDN'T EVEN CRY.

It actually wasn't bad. Just tasted like peanut butter chocolate pancakes.....


(Blogger won't let me comment on my own blog. So I'm posting it here in response to Natalie and Julia!)

Andrew loves food. And sometimes he gets the idea that if two things have their own good tastes then they must taste even better TOGETHER. So this is what we had for dessert the other night.


Melted Reeses atop pancakes. Why not?