Wanting some fries with my "catchup"

Yes it is true as Hannah often reminds me....we haven't posted in awhile.  Life has been busy with school, home, church callings, and everything else that life throws at us.  We are LOVING our new apartment! (Pictures soon to come).  The family who lives upstairs is so great, they have three little kids with one on the way.  We absolutely love our family ward.  There are 10 former mission presidents, 1 former temple president, 1 current temple president, and the former mayor of Rexburg, ALL from our ward! It has a great mix of retired people, people with teenagers, young families, and newlywed couples.  We love it so much that we might actually stay here in the fall! School is going well for both of us.  We both are taking some hard classes that each require a lot of attention, but we are getting through them nonetheless.  

SINGLE DIGITS!

Here we are 9 days away from the big day! Who knew time would fly by so quickly? The days go by like weeks, but the weeks go by like days! Once we get finals done and packing done we can relax and do the wedding.  Hopefully we can make it through this next busy week!

Mama's and Milk Duds

Well before I get started I just wanted to let everyone know....11 days!

Today I found a dollar in my wallet and I decided to hit up the vending machines next to Mike's classroom while he was in class. So there I was staring at the goodness of candy held by the vending machine with my dollar in hand.  Oh the choices! Anyone who has been to multiple restaurants can tell you that I am the most indecisive person when it comes to food...I just want it all! Especially candy.  As I glazed over the different candies the golden box of Milk Duds hiding in the bottom corner caught my eye and I immediately smiled.  I never really liked Milk Duds until I was older and in high school.  My mom would get them a lot and we would have them while watching a movie or our favorite tv show on that night.  I have grown to love them because of her.  So here I am writing this in memory of my mother, in which time I have "accidentally" eaten the entire box.... :D I love you mom!

We're in the TEENS!

Holy cow we're already in the teens! It's amazing how fast the time has gone! Not too much has been happening.  Utah was a blast! We took my roommate Hannah with us.  We got our marriage license, make-up for the wedding, and had a bridal shower! So many people came it was beautiful.  We got such nice things too! Mike is thinking that we need to have bridal showers more often.  It's crunch time now with packing, finals, and wedding plans, but we're going to make it!  

Birthdays

As many of you may have seen Mike's "birthday" was yesterday. He and his cousin Craig thought it would be funny to see how many people would not notice and wish him a happy birthday again.  I was actually surprised at the response, there were so many people who didn't think twice about it and still wished him well on "his day."  I still feel awful about him tricking people like this! Luckily no one sent him anything. 


My birthday is on Thursday, yes St. Patrick's Day, I'm really looking forward to it because Mike and I are taking one of my roommates (Hannah) and one of his roommates (Shawn) down for the weekend.  Not only are we going to celebrate me turning 19, but some dear friends are throwing me a bridal shower! So it's going to be a party all around this weekend!

One Month to go!!!

One month from today Mike and I are getting married!! I can't believe how fast time has gone!
Well so much has happened the past few days.  Utah was so much fun! It was great to just get away and relax.  We did the photoshoot for the baseball team, and then I took Mike to Whistle Wok, a chinese restaurant in AF. It's like Panda Express only better! After we went to Orem to watch the BYU basketball game at his grandparents house with Bruce and Deb, and Brian and Adriana, and of course Evelyn! I got to take pictures of her, she is so beautiful and so sweet! Here is a sneak peak at some of the pictures.  Fish update: Wilbur is still alive and swimming!
   My roommate Natalie is hilarious. This morning she walks into my room and says "Caitlin I need a girl talk. How do I become a good kisser?" Well needless to say for once I was a little starved for words.  I had to text Hannah to come into the room and help me out on this one.  So she is telling me her stories for about the 4th time in a row, while I try to get a word in giving her advice on boys.  This is always interesting.
   OH! Great news, so this morning I officially changed my major.  I was once a History Ed major, and I am now a communications major.  I am so excited!!

Close Friends and Getting Closer

Yes it is true. It's March which means we are just 38 days away! That is so close! I can't believe it! Things are going well around here in Rexburg.  Mike is still working, we are still studying, and I am still blogging.  
GREAT news! The apartment that we have been wanting is officially ours :) And we are going to pay less than what we were told! Mike got a new basketball for free, and we got a new coffee table for free yesterday. So what free things are we going to get tomorrow? :) On a sour note, Palagi died this afternoon, ok so like 5 minutes ago.  Mike isn't very happy about that. Ending on another good note, we are headed to Utah this weekend!


One of our very close friends, Sister Kodie Staub left for the MTC this morning.  She will be serving the Lord in the Philippines, Angels Mission.  We are so proud of her and will miss her dearly.  Her farewell was this past Sunday,  she did an amazing job! We love her so much!

Two New Additions

We have two new additions to our little family, Wilbur and Palagi (it means white thing in Samoan).  We call him Pali for short.  They are two large goldfish. Pali is white with a gold stripe on his back and Wilbur is the gold one.  I had a goldfish when I was in middle school, well t was really my dad's because he's the one who took care of him so he named the fish Wilbur.  So that is where that's name comes from. Mike had the fish tank and food already we just needed things to put in it :) So we are the proud parents of two new little additions and hopefully they will stick around for the big move in 46 days.

Fast forwarding to the 40's

I walked in the door two minutes ago only to be greeted with a computer in my lap and an invitation to write the newest McEwen Matters blogpost.  As flattered as I am to have this opportunity, I would like to briefly mention that Caitlin and I have broken the unforgiving fifties and are currently at 48 days till we tie the knot.  The days go by slow but the weeks fly by like hours... I could not emphasize enough how excited we are.  Let me recap the weekend thus far (the weekdays are relatively boring consisting of homework, cleaning toilets (for me), and a little bit of sleep):


Friday we hurried to get our homework knocked out of the way so that we could relax a little.  I made grilled cheese sandwiches at Caitlin's apartment and then we drove to Porter Park to eat them(Caitlin couldn't have been happier to have her favorite grilled cheese with ketchup... mmmmm!)  After the park we headed over to the racquetball courts.  I took a racquetball class at BYU this past summer and thoroughly enjoyed it.  We had fun whacking the ball around like three year olds on a sugar high.  Unfortunately Caitlin walked away with a swollen ankle.  We rested the rest of the afternoon we spent watching Harry Potters 1-3, and drinking hot chocolate (thank you Chantalle for the hot chocolate maker!).  Saturday I spent from 10 am- 5:30 pm doing homework while Caitlin went to DI with her roommates, cleaned, and took a test.  Later we drove to Idaho Falls with Hannah, Hayley, and Natalie.  We dropped Natalie off at a wedding reception and took the other two with us to the mall and to a mongolian buffet... by far the best decision I have made in a long time!  With baby bellies all around we picked up Natalie and headed home through a storm of massive snowflakes.  We ended the night with a traditional game of Rummikub... Caitlin beat me again (I always let her win ;).  We just got home from church and it smells like we're having cutlets, pasta salad, and french fries with some friends.   


That's a wrap for now, stay tuned until next time after we recap our dear friend Kodie's mission farewell and introduce the 30's!            

55 Days!

Well a big 55 days to go! I haven't been great about telling everyone what's been going on here at BYU Siberia.  Well on Sunday we went with my ward to an elderly assisted living center and Mike got to sit next to a lady and help her figure out whose brush she was holding.  He got the easy job! I had to give a talk, but it really wasn't too bad.  Then we went to his ward then my ward then we went to my lounge for naps and I made stuffed peppers for him or our Valentine's Dinner.  It was really nice to have the whole lunge to ourselves, it was nice and quiet and the lounge has a full kitchen so we made dinner there.  

Today being valentine's day Mike was so sweet to wake me up two hours early to bring me a full bouquet of flowers complete with card, vase, and necklace :)  he's so sweet.  My parents gave us two free meals at cafe rio, so we got to enjoy those tonight.  After which we came home and played games and enjoyed dessert.  Vanilla frosting on gram crackers, a childhood favorite of mine.  All in all it was a great weekend and only more to follow :)

57 Days!

So this was really for yesterday, but yesterday was so great I totally forgot to tell everyone about it!  A guy is selling his Adobe CS3 Design package complete with photoshop, illustrator, indesign, and many more programs, all for $150. I'm sure you can imagine how excited I was!  I'm doing a trade with a lady selling this AMAZING dress! And my roommate from Ukraine told me that if I taught her how to knit then she would teach me how to crochet.  She's amazing at it, she started late Thursday night and has already made a new camera bag, a hot pad, a scarf, and like 5 flower clips.  Plus still keeping up with her classes.  I don't know how she does it! 
Awkward couple strikes again! Times ten! This time I retaliated, I turned the volume way down on my computer so really only Mike could hear and I started playing the song "Afternoon Delight" probably not the most mature or appropriate thing I've ever done, but it suited the moment for them.  And Mike seemed to get a kick out of it.  As long as he thinks I'm funny right?
Once Mike and I got our homework done we had lunch and took a much needed nap.  We went out to dinner at Wingers, one of my favorites.  And we even splurged for the best dessert! PIE! It was so nice to sit in a restaurant away from both of our apartments and just talk.  I personally think the best part was having someone wait on us and not having to do the dishes :)  We have deemed Friday night as our date night, and that got me thinking at dinner about the Friday nights I used to spend with my parents.  In middle school I never had any real close friends to hang out with on weekends so I hung out with my parents a lot.  Every Friday once Chantalle and Jennifer were out with their friends we would go to Hollywood Video and get a movie or two with a candy and then walk next door to Safeway (a grocery store for all you east coasters) and we would get sushi and buffalo wings.  The most random combination, but we got it almost every Friday.  Well that got Mike and I talking about fun traditions like that, that we would do with our family.  After dinner we went to Mike's lounge, which he reserved, best idea ever, and we watched a few movies.  All in all it was a much needed break away from people here in freezing Rexburg.

58 Days!

Today being Thursday we had our weekly, "watch Bones night." after which we went and played basketball with some friends which was...............interesting.  And we'll just leave it at that.  58 days to go.....is it really that long? 

59 Days!! 2 Months!

It's true, we're officially in the 50's!! And there are only two months left till the big day! Well I'm sad to say that nothing too big or exciting happened yesterday.  For Mike the best part of the day was most likely the Duke v. UNC basketball game.  To his delight, Duke won in a close game.  I did figure out that the Apple desktops on campus have photoshop, so naturally I had to go and try it out! I got to play for a good hour or so, I was so excited! Here are some of the things I did:

Thomas and Hannah

This is my roommate Hannah and her date Thomas, who is also one of Mike's good friends and the brother of my close friend Kathryn. They look so cute!

60 Days!

Today has been interesting so far.  I woke up an hour earlier than I usually do, I won't say what time for all you young mothers, and my own mother who might scold me for sleeping in :) but anyways I digress, I woke up, took my medicine, CLEANED MY ROOM, worked out, and showered all before Mike even woke up for the second time.  For all of you who don't already know, Mike has a campus job from 4-7am so he gets to wake up twice! I've been so productive! I even wrote two papers and watched a movie for my math class.  Now I'm sitting in the MC with my former roommate and close friend Kathryn, when I am usually doing my homework, I now have no idea what to do with my free time! I really want to get back into painting again, so we'll see.  There is a couple that Mike and I see quite often in his lounge, we call them awkward couple.  Here's why.  They run into the lounge and no matter how many people are in there they grab a love sac and pretty much jump on top of each other going at it.  It's very uncomfortable to listen to the odd noises coming from the corner of the room.  I hope people don't think this kind of stuff about Mike and I, we try really hard to be aware of what we're doing when we're in public, even when we're not! 

Ending on a good note, remember my friend Kathryn? Well her brother Thomas, who is good friends with Mike asked one of my favorite roommates, Hannah out on a date for tonight! I love playing match maker with Kathryn :)

61 Days!

Here we are joining the sea of bloggers.  This weekend hasn't been very fun, Mike and I have been sick with fevers.  The past two weeks we've kinda been bumps on logs.  But good news is all the movies we've watched!
1-Jurassic Park
2-The Last Airbender
3-Toy Story 3
4-Leap Year
5-When in Rome
6-Star Wars 3
7-Star Wars 4
8-Star Wars 5
9-Star Wars 6
10-Star Wars 1
11-X-men Origins: Wolverine
12-Australia
13-Emperor's New Groove
And probably a lot more, but Mike and I are both too sick to remember.  School is well...great. Rexburg on the other hand.....
Here's what's been going on in our lives: -20- -35 degree weather, keeping up with online classes, birthdays, bridal showers, and Mike has a big list of wedding books to read before the big day :) If anyone has any more suggestions on books to read, please let us know.