It Pays To Marry Nerdy

As many of you know, Michael started working at Best Buy last October. He is now much more into computers and tech-y stuff and has learned lots of useful things by spending some of his shifts with the Geek Squad.

Well, when we first got married I thought that we wouldn't need to buy a new computer or laptop for a long time since Michael had two laptops that were working just fine. However, within a couple weeks of our wedding one laptop pretty much fell apart. All we had left was the newer (but not as nice) one. Well, that one has slowly been falling apart as well. Just our luck! Since it would be unbelievably inconvenient to not own a laptop or computer, we decided that we'd use our tax return money to get a new computer. Michael has converted to more of a computer guy rather than a laptop guy, so we went to Best Buy a couple weeks ago to look at their computers. It's not exactly cheap to get a nice one... and we really wanted one that would easily last long enough to get him through grad school. So Michael proposed the idea of building a computer himself. He said it would be much cheaper this way for a quality computer. I was skeptical at first because .... well ... it just seemed complicated. But eventually Michael convinced me to let him to do it and I'm so glad I did! We have a brand new computer and it didn't even hurt our wallets too much! Here are a couple of pictures... the first one is of Michael and his friend building the computer, (I guess they needed a hard surface to work on, which is why they're in the kitchen) and the second is of the finished product!


Yay!! I am so glad that my husband is a nerd! It has proven very useful. :-)

Anyway, earlier this month we got to take a trip to my parents' house in LA for my little brother's homecoming! It has been so great to have him home, and it was SO nice to be with him and the rest of the family... and in warm weather! Gosh how I miss the warm weather. As our plane descended into Nashville we were greeted by yet another winter storm. I have gotten very sick of hardly being able to open my car door early in the morning when I'm leaving for work because it is frozen shut. Sorry, I didn't really mean to start on another winter rant... ha. Anyway, here are a few pictures from the trip.


Oh, and one other thing that I think is kind of funny- Michael joined an intramural basketball team at Lipscomb and guess what their team name is? The Flying Fredettes. The best part is that Michael didn't even come up with the name... a bunch of guys on the team just knew that Michael went to BYU and surprised him with their team name. I love it, because now a few of those guys have become huge Jimmer and BYU fans. As far as I am concerned, Michael has done them a lifelong favor.

Christmas Festivities

I love doing Christmas-y things every year..... and really, who doesn't? This year was no exception. One of my favorite things to do around this time of year is look at all of the Christmas lights. Well, there aren't very many houses in our neighborhood, and as a result, not a lot of Christmas lights. However, Michael's school is SO festive and has some of the prettiest lights I've ever seen on a school campus. He surprised me by taking me there to look around.

Then we came home and made a gingerbread house. It's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. I made it all from scratch. (Ha, yeah right. Thank you, Wal-mart, for selling gingerbread house kits! They are very handy!) This is the finished product, which made a cute decoration. And Michael made the tree on the back of the house, which he was very proud of. :-)

Growing up, we always had our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, so after Michael got off work on Christmas Eve we had a yummy feast including ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, and crescents.

Christmas was fun too. We woke up early, opened our presents, emptied our stockings, talked to family, and saw the third Chronicles of Narnia movie. We also had a white Christmas- brr!!

Showing off my presents.

Michael showing off his presents.

I love our matching PJ's. Thanks mom!

I really needed a new earring holder, so I'm glad I got one. Michael thinks I have too many earrings. Is that even possible?!

Anyway, the reason we stayed in Nashville for Christmas is because we're going home to LA for a few days next month for my little brother's homecoming. Yay! The whole family will be there, so we're very excited!!!

Winter Woes

I hate the cold. Like, I really, really hate it. Being too hot is uncomfortable, but being too cold is just miserable. Ever since moving away from California I can't even enjoy the fall season properly because I know that in just a few short months the worst season of all will rear its ugly head. I absolutely love Christmas, but Irving Berlin (he wrote "White Christmas") had it all wrong. Nothing is more magical than sunshine and flip flops. Yes, even on Christmas.

Growing up, my family always traveled in the summer, so it was a long time before I ever experienced snow and freezing weather. When I went to BYU, I was actually excited for it to snow because I thought that it would be this amazingly cool thing. The first time it snowed, I admit that I was excited. I grabbed my roommate and my camera and took this picture:


This is pretty much the only picture that exists of me being in the cold and enjoying it. :-) After experiencing frozen limbs and some seriously nasty falls, it didn't take me long to make my Facebook status something like, "Carly hates fluffy show, wet snow, slushy snow, icy snow, powdery snow, slippery snow, muddy snow, white snow, and yellow snow."

I thought that leaving Utah and coming to Nashville would mean warmer winters. I am very sad to say that it's not any warmer. If anything, it's even colder!!! I don't know if it's the humidity or the wind chill or what, but it has suddenly gotten ridiculously cold here. Obviously it's not the coldest place in the country, but I was just hoping for it to be slightly warmer. And it's not even officially winter yet! I told Michael that as soon as he's done with school, we have to live somewhere warm. I am way too wimpy and whiny for cold weather.

I know, I know- just call me Mr. Scrooge. At least there is a lot making me smile despite the weather, like this:

Merry Christmas from Michael and Carly!

Thankful

Thanksgiving this year was so much fun! It was also a great opportunity for me to reflect on how blessed I have been, especially this last year. I really am so lucky. Out of the hundreds of things I have to be thankful for, I think I am most thankful for the Gospel and my family. I have the best husband in the world and I'm so glad that I get to be with him forever. We both come from great families too, and we were lucky enough to get to spend Thanksgiving with Michael's sister and her family. They drove down here from Detriot (in horrible traffic!) and spent the weekend with us.

I am not the best cook in the world. I am learning, but cooking Thanksgiving dinner was so intimidating to me. Luckily, Michael decided to be the confident one and offered to be in charge of the turkey. When he asked if he could cook it in maple syrup (ew! and heck no!) I wondered what in the world I was thinking for letting him be in charge of the main dish, but other than the syrup thing, he did a fabulous job! Here's the proof:

Michael's sister and brother-in-law helped guide him through the preparation.....

.... and it ended up great! :-)

As embarrassing as this is to admit, I think I probably did the least amount of cooking out of everyone! Yikes. Even the girls made some delicious dishes! I justify it by saying that it's because everyone was just so helpful that there ended up not being a whole lot left for me to do. :-) Next year, I am conquering that turkey on my own!

Thanks to our tiny table with six people crowded around it, we had to use our coffee table as the food table. Other than having to kneel down to get our food, it worked fine. :-)

We spent the rest of the weekend showing them the sights of Nashville, shopping, seeing the new Harry Potter movie, and hanging out.

Michael and Leah

We tried to make it look like we were holding up the pillars...

I think I moved, which is why it's blurry. Oops.

Downtown

The girls also helped me decorate our little Christmas tree. So much fun! One day, we will have a tree that is not oddly skinny and crooked. :-) Here it is all decorated and pretty:


Thanks Cory, Karen, Natalie, and Leah for coming to see us! It was great to have visitors!

Wedding Pictures!

Happy 3 months to us! And what a wonderful 3 months it has been! :-) Here are a few of my favorite wedding pictures.