September Days

Alright I knew it would take a bit for me to blog after school started :)

Here are top 5 things that have happened to us in the last month.

1. Derek was called to be in the bishopric. He is the first councilor in our married student ward. We were considering moving to a family ward but soon saw that was not for us. I am proud of his hard work in his calling. He goes to church early, stays there later, and has a meeting on Tuesday night. One thing of interest is he is not a high priest. Here they do not sustain the bishopric of a married student ward. Therefore, when he is released, he will still go to elder's quorum instead of high priest meeting.

Here is my handsome man on the day he was sustained in the bishopric. He is wearing his new favorite tie my mom sent. An interesting thing is that this is also the day he met the bishop. As the bishopric was called all three of them went to the front and shook hands saying "Nice to meet you". A decision to call his councilors was truly a personal revelation for the bishop.

Derek picked some rosed for me from our rosebush in the backyard. He has done such a great job keeping the yard clean and green. That is his fun thing to do while I'm studying non stop.

2. My in-laws gave us their piano as a wedding gift and we finally live in a place where we have room for it. So we moved it in!!! Unfortunately I did not get a before picture but Derek sanded and stained the bench to match the piano better. It used to be a lighter wood color. It looks awesome now!

Derek worked on the bench outside - sanding and applying stain and varnish

A close up of the bench

Some of the keys are chipped off but we'll fix that soon. For now it is just so amazing to play whenever I want! Derek will ask me to play him a song and it is so relaxing!

The finished product!

3. We recently went to Utah (sorry to all those I didn't visit) for conference weekend. We had Derek's mission reunion on Friday. Saturday watched a session with my aunt Linda and uncle Shane and one session with Tiffany. Then that night we played games and I was spoiled for my birthday. Tiffany had dessert and balloons, plates and napkins and candles (it's the little things that make it, we've learned from our mom :). Derek gave me a beautiful deep orange purse. Tiff gave me foundation! And Kayti made a beautiful purple crocheted headband/earwarmer with a flower on it. Cameron made it to the party too but I missed a picture with him. Tiffany also cut my hair again - I love it short!

It was so fun to have so many cousins together (Kayti, Tiffany, Cameron, Shelby, and now Aaron and Derek). Travis came to games as well and introduced us to a charades-like game called Adverb. It was hilarious. Here we are at Tiffany's new apartment.

I think I look like my mom in this picture :)

4. School is going well for me. Busy, hard, fun, scary, exciting all rolled into one. One thing is for sure - although the content is tough and discrepencies between teachers can be frustrating, I love my classmates! I am continually seeing blessings that Heavenly Father had in store for me by waiting one more year to begin the program. I am so grateful to know these wonderful 26 girls (and guy) in my class.

5. Derek is traveling more and more. This last month he has been gone every other weekend for 3-4 days. I thought I would be having a harder time withit but it actually allows me to study hard during the week so we can play during the weekend - he is such a distraction! He has been to Edmonton, Canada, Washington and New Mexico. He recently gave an excellent presentation in Washington and got some solid jobs for Premier. I am so proud of him!

Thats the update on us. My birthday is this weekend and although it's midterms I'm excited! Life is great. Our Heavenly Father has really blessed us recently and we are so grateful to him!