Did you know.....

....that I LOVE cheesecake?

Like an unhealthy Love? 

I remember liking it as a little girl. 

But, I think my real love for it started when I would go to Brooklyn to visit Dad at work and we would walk down Fulton Street (not the Manhattan one. the BROOKLYN one.) to the Original Junior's for lunch and he would buy me a piece of delicious.heavenly.cheesecake. 

Let me paint this picture for you. (with the help of some actual pictures)

A street mall. (from here)

My dad works in the building just a little bit down this block ----->

Junior's

We would walk down here and get this:

Junior's Cheesecake!

OH YUM.

Anyways, to get back to the point of this post, I found a delightful little swanky dessert shop that makes a mean cheesecake RIGHT HERE IN PROVO! It's called THE SWEET CONNECTION.

After begging to get some (read: mentioning this place all day long non-stop),
I went and got some. I got these two:

I ate the Turtle one first. It was excellent. 

But I think my heart belongs with the NY Original. 

It was just that delicious.

I'm going back.

Nickelcade!

David hurt his knee, and has limped around on it for a week-ish, demanding to know what was for dinner and refusing to go to a doctor. His knee was pretty swollen and had pretty limited ROM right at first. I am glad it is almost back to normal. But when he was limping around, I noticed this bruise on the back of his leg. I'm not quite sure why it is in this specific spot on his leg since he had an MCL sprain on the inside of his knee. But bruises are interesting.

Ignore the ugly setting on the camera. The bruise was actually a way dark purple-y color. When I first saw it, it was about the size of a nickel. Then it became the size of a PILE of nickels. 

Which I would take to Nickelcade tonight if they actually were nickels. Too bad they're not.

Allred Valentine's Tradition

In keeping with the tradition of my Grandma Allred, my mom makes everyone giant personalized sugar cookies for Valentine's Day. She even mails them out to those who don't live at home. We got ours in the mail last Friday.

I think they had a rough trip, but they were yummy!

Valentine's Day.

I am only going to spend 10 minutes on this post, so you get what you get. 

Our V-day was very low-key. There was studying, working, and normal busy stuff going on. We decided to get dinner that looked like this: 

Except with about half as much pepperoni. It was quite delicious. And low-key was the best. None of the "expensive dinner/flowers/chocolates/presents" rush. Just us enjoying each other's company. That's how I like it best. :)

And since it was Valentine's, this blog now deserves a kissy picture. 

Less than one month away!

In less than one month, we are going here(!!!!!):

One of the reasons I am so excited to go is because we are going to go to one of my most favorite pizza places EVER!! Their pizza is just so fresh and thin and saucy and tasty and wonderful. My mouth is watering already.

This is a picture of the one in Brooklyn, but I discovered a few months ago that Las Vegas has one too! And since then, I've dreamed of going down there just for a piece. I just double-checked and guess what!!! THEY HAVE 3 LOCATIONS in Vegas. Oh, March 10 needs to get here sooner. 

We are also staying in a sweet hotel. We got lucky and got rooms at a great deal. They look something like this:

25 days until Vegas.

 Oh man. So excited!!

Over and Done.

Last night David turned to me and said "I know what your next blog post is going to be about."     And he was right. 


When we first got the payment plan for my student loans, they wanted us to make monthly payments for the NEXT 20 YEARS. 

No thank you.

We chose to make up our own payment plan (basically it's the "pay off as soon as you can with as much money as you can afford") and avoid the extra $2000 that the 20 year plan would have cost us. After a short 116 days, all my student loans are PAID OFF!!!!!!!!! 


It feels so nice to know that all the money I make from here on out I get to keep to myself (ourself). It is semi-depressing to think about the money that could be in our bank account and how it would be SO nice to have it right now when I'm craving a vacation out of Provo. 


But, I finished school with it. (And as such, haven't really gone anywhere with my degree......) And now, we are free! It is a strange feeling to have paid it off. No more guilt in splurging on something for yourself and realizing that if you have money like this, you probably should put it towards paying off what you owe. It is strange to not feel that looming at the back of your mind (or at the front, if you are figuring out your bank account and always subtracting what you owe from what you have. Getting rid of that negative sign feels great).


So, I think to celebrate we will go out for dinner tonight. But since we just used up tons of our savings to pay off the rest all at once, we will definitely be using a giftcard! :)

Red Robin, anyone?

Basketball

They won a t-shirt last semester.  So they decided they would try again.

Guess who benefits the most??  THE WIVES! We get to hang out every game and laugh about everything. YAY! (Except for last night, when I volunteered to keep score and then they kicked all the other spectators out to the bleachers above. I got left alone and had to remind the real scorekeeper what the score actually was. Remind me not to volunteer again.)

They have some teammates who have never played basketball before. EVER. (And they are from America, how does that happen?) It was fun to see them play and score! But not fun to see the other team be AWFUL - awful in the sense that they threw elbows and pushed and shoved the whole way. Clint even has a black eye. Stephen had to come off because he was stumbling around dizzy after getting hit in the head.

Which leads me back to the main point. I still think the wives have the most fun.

However, I think the best part is that the team name is "Bryce is having a baby" - created when they thought he was pregnant even though they really aren't. The score sheet last night said "Bryce Baby" for short. I laughed every time.

Jazzy Jazz.

Jazz vs Knicks!
It was a momentous occasion --- our first time sitting in the LOWER BOWL. It was fabulous. They even give out stats sheets after the first half. We never got those sitting in the upper bowl!

I think these are the only pictures we ever really take. And they all look like this. :)

My shoulder looks huge in this one. Weird.

This was our view from where we sat!

2010.

I'm awful at keeping a journal. ( I end up starting them, forgetting about them, finding them, re-reading them, hating them, and then throwing them away.) And I haven't been the greatest about posting anything up here, so blogging doesn't count. I carry my camera everywhere, but I never take pictures with it, even though I should. I just forget.

So I made a list of things in 2010 that I thought were pretty significant for us.

• got engaged!
• Jamie and Christian got married!
• turned 23
• got married! (hands down, the best thing of 2010)
• worked in Ogden (longest commute ever, David was the best for putting up with this all summer)
• moved into first apartment, moved out of first apartment, moved into basement.
• drove a gas guzzling rover, sold the rover, bought a focus!
• went to Park City, Manti (cutest bed and breakfast with the most delicious quiche), went to NY in June, went backpacking, went to Jackson Hole, and almost went to Idaho for Thanksgiving.
• graduated BYU! (N)
• got a job, quit a job, unemployed for 3 days, got a better job! (N)
• went to friends' weddings! 
• got TA job, then got a promotion to CA (D)
• had a fabulous Christmas break!

All of this was interspersed with seeing lots of family multiple times(!!), meeting new friends, many many sports games and lots of netflix. Plus other things I'm definitely forgetting.

Here's some of what I hope I can do in 2011. I asked David about his goals and he said he doesn't make any. I will count his dedication to schoolwork as his goal, but other than that, I guess I'm the only ambitious one right now.

• staying ahead of laundry (already failing at that, as I can see the overflowing laundry basket from here...)
• eating healthy, having a good bedtime, living healthily. 
• attempting to be a morning person and be a little more organized and patient (mostly with myself.)
• paying off my student loans (we are so close!)
• trips to Vegas and San Fran and NY
• sewing/being craftier in general.
• breaking my bad habits.
• NOT getting pregnant. (yet.)

Other than that..... we will have to wait and see.

Christmas

I guess it means you've had a good Christmas if you only took one picture the entire time.
This is Nathan, wearing all of the gifts Grandpa Jim gave the family. We especially love the ESPN pants.

Christmas was a wonderful break for us. I was lucky in the fact that I only had to work Monday - Thursday and had a full 3-day break for Christmas. Our break was filled with many games of 55 Alive and Forbidden Island, movies, sports games and lots of story-telling and laughter. It was our "first" Christmas together, but it honestly didn't feel like anything new to me. It felt familiar. 

We were sad not to be in NY, but I was grateful that we weren't one of the ones stranded by all the storms. I had to drive in the ones we got in Utah. Not my most favorite commutes, but I am grateful not to have been in one of the hundreds of accidents that occurred during those couple of days. 

As everyone is sending out their newsletters and beautiful Christmas pictures to friends and family, I feel like I should try to do one too. But I think I will skip the mailing part. It was enough to send out our Christmas thank you's today. (I am horrible at remembering to put things in the mailbox!) So maybe our blogletter will be my next post. 

Today was the first day of school for BYU. I'm graduated, but even I am not looking forward to this semester -- except the fact that by the time it is over, it will be warm and sunny!!