Life as always has been busy but uneventful lately... well mostly uneventful.

John likes to go play flag football on Mon and Sat with some guys from church. It is pretty much his favorite time of the week so even though he has come back hurt a couple times I try to be a good wife and go let him play. He bruised a rib pretty bad back in July and couldn't lift anything heavy for several weeks so I wouldn't let him play again for a while. He finally got better and had been playing regularly again. Well about two weeks ago he came home from playing and we were talking about how his game went. After a little bit he says "I wasn't sure if I was going to tell you, and don't freak out but... I hurt my knee pretty bad". Ok well what does that mean exactly?? After icing and wrapping for a couple days it was swollen so I made him to the doctor who referred him to an orthopedic doctor. He ended up having to get an MRI and finally finding out this week that he had torn a ligament and bruised one of his bones. He has been doing some exercises with my leg weights to strengthen the joint again but he won't be playing again for a few weeks much to his dismay.

Last night I had a few girl friends over while John was at the church watching the priesthood session and gorging himself on ice cream at the priesthood ice cream social. It is nice to be able to spend time with friends and I must admit that I ate a ton too because everyone brought over tons of goodies. We had also made homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast so it was a very unhealthy but yummy day!

We have been trying to get little things done on the house and continue making progress. Also, I am teaching a lab section this semester so I have been a little busier than normal with that. We are trying to get the last bedroom done so that we can bring back all of the furniture for it when we visit my parents at the end of the month.

Our New Addition

John and I have a new addition to our family (no, I'm not pregnant). We got a kitten on Saturday from an animal rescue organization. They have a no kill policy and rescue animals from the county shelter that are about to be euthanized. She is 4 months old and we named her Kayala. She has all of her shots and is spayed already but might need to be declawed (especially if you ask John). She hasn't quite figured out yet that she can jump up onto things which is a good and not so good. Because she doesn't know how to jump she won't be a problem getting on the counters and table but to get on the couch or bed she stands on her hind legs and reaches up to attach her claws and then pulls herself up the rest of the way. This doesn't work so well especially when we are in bed and she uses John's arm to be her anchor. That happened twice in a row the other night and she drew some blood both times. She is still a little shy around us and hides if we walk toward her but if we leave her alone she usually comes to us and wants to be petted. I had to take the pictures on my phone because my camera broke so they aren't very good. In other news this weekend, we went to the see UF pound Charleston Southern into the ground on Saturday night. It was a pretty good way to start the season and we were SO glad it was a night game. For the past couple of years, the first game of the season starts and noon and here in Florida at noon it is HOT! The weather has started to cool off a little earlier than most years and the game didn't start till 7 so we had a pretty nice time. To top the evening off, my alma mater, BYU, against the odds beat Oklahoma! What a day! I love football season!!!!!!

All moved in!!!!

After weeks and weeks of prep work, we finally moved into the new house!!! Tuesday morning the Elders Quorum from our ward came to our apartment around 8. They loaded everything into a truck and then unloaded it. They were done by about 10:30. I think I will get help every time we move now. Before we got married, I moved about once or twice a year and every time I had help from my family but this was SO much faster and easier! 

We had some help from John's parents and my sister getting us unpacked. We still have a few rooms to organize but the main things are in order - bathrooms, kitchen, living/dining room and our bedroom. We just need to organize the extra bedrooms and then we will be done!!! Although at the moment we aren't feeling a lot of pressure to get that done. Now that the main pressure of getting things ready to make the house livable is gone there isn't a lot of incentive to organize the junk that we can just lock away and not have to look at. I guess I am spoiled with all this extra space. We took a few pictures of how things are coming out and will have to post them soon. I keep promising pictures but I am having a hard time following through :S

In other news, the new semester started this morning. I am going to be a TA this semester over an Honors Biology lab and we have been having a lot of organizational meetings for it. Our first lab will be next Monday and I am looking forward to it. John started classes this morning too. He wised up to the undergraduate life and decided to start his classes a little later in the day especially now that we live farther from the school. I think it should be a pretty good semester.

My New Calling

The Stake Exec. Secretary called Sunday and wanted me to meet with one of the counselors in the Stake Pres. last night. He also asked that I bring my husband along - you all know where this is going. 

Well, I tried not to speculate too much on what this meeting was going to be about. We started out the meeting with the normal small talk and then it begins "Sister Gordon, we would like to call you as a (wait for it................) Stake music specialist" What the heck!!!!!!!!!!! Are you serious???? My response was pretty much shock and mostly disbelief but he assured me that I didn't need any musical talent. He said normally in a situation like this my job would be to lead choirs (um, does it matter that I can't lead music) and pick music for them to sing (or read it?? or even sing for that matter). My job mostly would be administrative. He set me apart right then and the whole time I was trying not to laugh. As we were leaving the office (actually we met in the mother's lounge) he told me that he was told to be prepared for this reaction. Apparently my bishop told him that I wasn't musical which is very true.  

Needless to say I had a really good laugh at this and so did John. He said it was a calling he didn't think any Morriss would ever have. It definitely was a surprise.

In other news, we have been working to get the house ready to move in to. We are moving on Tuesday and are trying to get all of the painting done before then. We had started out with a big 5 gallon bucket of paint. We ran out and thought that we would only need about 3 more gallons. John went back yesterday with the recipe they used to make the first batch and got us 3 gallons of paint. When we started painting today, the new paint was close to the same color but definitely NOT the same!!! We painted one room with one of the new gallons because we had already started but have to take the other two back and get the right color. Only a few more days before the big move and still lots to do but it is coming together.

I can't believe it's August!!

Wow, the summer is really flying by!!! July was a pretty busy month for us. I went to Hawaii for a week to go to a conference with the American Society of Plant Biologists. I will post lots of pictures later but I will give a quick run down of the trip. We (my advisor, me and a post-doc from my lab) left Gainesville Thursday morning around seven and arrived in Honolulu 14 hours later at 3 in the afternoon. We spent the first day checking out the area around our hotel and getting situated. The hotel we were staying in was HUGE! It was actually a "village" made up of 6 towers that were all around 30 stories tall. In the middle of the towers there were a lot of shops, fountains, and statues. My favorite thing to do every morning was to go walk down to the beach at around 6 ish (it was hard to get adjusted to the time change so I got up a lot earlier there than I would have liked) for my morning call to my honey. While I would talk to him I would walk around and the first morning there I found a little place where they had about 6 or 7 little penguins. Just up the walk way they had flamingos and parrots too but the penguins were definitely my favorite.

The first full day we were there we went on a hike through a crater called Diamond Head that used to be a volcano and up to the southern lip which looked out over the ocean. The view was BEAUTIFUL but it was a steep climb getting up there. At the top you could see all of Honolulu and Waikiki beach. After the hike we drove up the eastern coast of the island and stopped at a lot of scenic places to take pictures. We ate lunch in Chinatown in downtown Honolulu and then walked to see the capitol and Royal Palace where the Hawaiian kings and queens used to live before Hawaii became a state. 

Saturday morning we went to Pearl Harbor which was really cool. We got to tour a real WWII submarine which was one of my favorite things we saw the whole trip (besides the penguins). It made me appreciate all of the sacrifices that the soldiers made for our freedom seeing the tiny space and conditions they had to live in. Next we rode a boat out into the harbor to visit the USS Arizona memorial which is a battleship that was sunk in the bombing of the harbor and is still on the bottom of the harbor. It was also very neat to see. Last we toured the battleship the USS Missouri which was the site of the Japanese surrender at the end of the war. If I had seen it before the submarine, I would have thought that the soldier's sleeping quarters were small and cramped but compared to life on a sub these guys had spacious accomodations. 

After all the site seeing it was time for us to head off the real reason we were there - the conference. We listened to lots of talks and I had a poster that I presented there as well. I walked around on the beach a lot but only went swimming once - kinda sad. It was actually my first time ever seeing the Pacific ocean. It was a good trip but I was very glad to come home at the end of it.

 

We left Hawaii on Wednesday afternoon and got into Gainesville around 8 Thursday morning. John came to pick me up and take me home. On the way home he asked if I wanted to go home right away or if we could drive down a little farther before we went home. It didn't take much to figure out from a question like that that there was something he wanted to show me so I said that it was fine. We drove down to 34th Street which has this wall about 100 yards long that has at least 50 coats of paint. It is basically one huge graffiti wall that anyone and everyone uses to paint messages and memorials on. When we drove by John pointed out one section that he had painted while I was gone that said "I heart Courtney" in red paint. He had been wanting to paint the wall forever and with me out of town for a week he finally got his chance. Most people would probably not find it too romantic but I thought it was cute. 

Anyway, that same afternoon that I got back from Hawaii, we closed on our house! It was a busy day to say the least! My dad also came into town that night and we went over to the new place to make a game plan of projects that we wanted to get done first. Over the last two weeks we have been working hard to get a lot done but no one worked harder than my dad. He was there everyday for at least 10 hours a day doing electrical, plumbing, carpentry you name it he did it. We also had John's parents and sisters over to help one Saturday with some cleaning and yard work. We are still a long way from being done but we can definitely see (and smell) the progress we are making (John ripped up all the carpet which was really really stinky and now it smells SO much better). 

We have taken lots of pictures and will post them all once we get a chance with all of other things going on. We are going to a friend's wedding this weekend which I am excited about. I haven't gotten to see a sealing other than my own so it will be cool to be able to see that. Then next week my parents and sisters will be in Orlando and we will get to go visit them and stay at their resort for a weekend. And during all of this we somehow have to get our apartment full of stuff over to the new place. Life is busy but we are very happy and blessed. 

It is already the middle of July and I thought I should post something before I head out of town tomorrow. Nothing too exciting has been happening here in the Gordon home so I haven't felt like posting but here goes...

Fourth of July weekend was a pretty busy for us. My parents came down on Thursday night before the Fourth to take a look at the house we are buying. Since there are a few things that need to be fixed in the house and we will definitely need my dad's help to do it we thought it would be a good idea to have them see it before we closed. We went over Friday morning to meet the realtor and look around. John and my dad spent the afternoon pricing out building materials while my mom and I shopped around for "girly" things for the house like paint colors and curtains. The next morning our ward had a Fourth of July breakfast with games. My parents left after that which gave us a little time to go buy some fireworks for that night.
For the festivities, we went to John's parent's house to have a cook out, play games and shoot off fireworks. All of the family from Gainesville came over so it was a full house. John and I were in charge of cooking the meat which wasn't the best plan. I was kind of distracted while Iwas eating my burger and didn't realize that it was not cooked very thouroughly until I had almost finished it. All of the food was really good and we ate TONS. Afterwards we played some games while we were waiting for it to get dark. Finally, it was the time John had been waiting for all day! He put on quite a nice little fireworks show for everyone. Later that night while we were getting ready for bed, I asked John if his stomach felt a little weird. He told me he felt fine and we went to bed. About an hour later, I learned my lesson about making sure your meat is cooked all the way. I have a great husband though who took very good care of me during the night.

July 10th was Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A. If you went to Chick-fil-a dressed from head to toe as a cow you got a free combo meal. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. John kinda thought I was joking about going but I printed off these "starter kits" online that had some cow spots, ears, a nose and an Eat Mor Chiken sign. We cut everything out and taped it onto ourselves along with some homemade hooves and extra spots. We did this in the parking lot and while we were getting dressed up it started to pour outside (what else is new it's FL?). John was really hesitant to do this at first but I was like hey it's free food and who cares who sees us. As we were waiting we saw several people getting out of their cars with spots and signs and some kids had even painted their faces. When we saw that he (and me too) were much less hesitant). We finally got sick of waiting for the rain to stop and went through the monsoon to get inside. When we got in there it was a zoo! There were tons of people dressed up, the big chick fil a cow was there and even a guy making free balloon animals. He didn't do a monkey though and so I got an elephant. Pretty much as soon as we walked in we saw one of our scouts and then his family also one of the other couples that we know came in while we were ordering. It was definitely funny to see what so many people will do to get free food one lady even made herself paper udders and taped them to her stomach. It was a pretty entertaining evening and I am posting the pictures we took. We didn't take the camera inside because of the rain but have some from the car.

Date Night

My old roommate Stacy and I had been trying to get together to catch up for a couple of weeks. Usually we would just go to lunch or something but we decided to allow our husbands to come along and so we planned a date night. Stacy and Jay had us over to their new apartment and we made pizzas and then watched a movie. They had tons of toppings to choose from and then we had some really really yummy pie afterwards. Stacy and Jay making their SUPREME pizza. John adding EXTRA cheese. Yummy pepperonis!

Six month anniversary

John and I went to Crescent Beach for the weekend of our six month anniversary. We got there late Friday afternoon and went for a walk on the beach. It was really hot but out by the ocean it was nice and breezy. We had a nice time wading in the water and goofing around. For dinner we drove up to St. Augustine and ate then we went and walked around the old fort there. There were lots of cool places around the fort and the walls were not made out of rock but out of what looked like crushed shells in mortar. We went back to the beach that night and took another long walk on the beach. Saturday morning John and I went to the outlet malls in St. Augustine and shopped for several hours. John was surprisingly good natured about shopping for so long and was even willing to shop longer. After shopping we went back to the beach to make a sand castle. We started out making a castle and as we got going John decided that he wanted to make a stadium instead of a castle. We ended up making a replica of Florida field complete with the spiraling walkways, upper decking and tunnel for the players to come out of. Sunday morning we woke up early to see the sun rise over the ocean. We got out there about 20 minutes early and waited for a while. It was very pretty but unfortunately it was too cloudy to see the sun. The weekend was really nice. We didn't have an schedule we had to keep to or any where we had to be. Nice and relaxing - just the way we like it!

We bought a house!!!

John and I have been looking at houses for a few months and finally put an offer on one. We have looked at dozens and dozens of houses in Gainesville trying to find one that had potential but was still in our price range. We finally decided to put an offer on a four bedroom one and a half bath 1200 sq ft house. It needs a little work but a lot less work than most we looked at. Also the price was really good and they accepted our initial offer which was kind of surprising. We won't be moving till sometime in July so we have a little while to decide on paint and carpet colors. We are both really excited but also a little in shock that we will be making such an adult step in our lives. We will post some pics when it gets a little closer to the big move. I am sure we will post some before and after shots too so you can see the transformation.

Also, today John and I hid our first letterbox. For those of you unfamiliar with letterboxing, to start you go online (letterboxing.org) and look up letterboxes in your area. You print out clues that lead you to a small box usually hidden in a park. Once you find the box, inside you find a hand carved stamp and a small pad of paper. You take your own stamp and pad along with you. You then stamp your stamp in the book you find and stamp the stamp from the box in your book. Basically, you follow clues, find boxes and collect stamps. It is a pretty fun hobby because it gets you outside and you also go into areas of parks that you normally wouldn't see. Anyway, John carved a stamp and we created our own "trail name" kind of like a screen name but for the letterboxing site and we went out and hid our box. We then came home and posted the directions to find it. From the site we can also monitor who finds it to be able to keep track of it. I have been finding boxes for about a year but this is the first one we have hidden. If you haven't tried letterboxing, it is a great way to get outside and have some fun with the family or by yourself. It is starting to take off in a lot of areas so there are a lot more boxes to find than there were even a year ago.

Completely unrelated - we went to see Star Trek this weekend. We hadn't been to the movies since November when we saw Twilight. Ticket prices went up again here so I don't think we will be going again any time too soon especially since we bought a house. It seems like summer time is when all of the good movies come out because there we a lot of previews that looked really good. I guess we will have to wait for them to come out on video.

The temple and poker

We started off the weekend by going to the Temple on Friday night. We left for Orlando around three and usually when we are going to the Temple we are in a hurry and don't have time to stop anywhere beforehand (which I know makes John secretly very happy). I have been wanting to visit Old Time Pottery for months and this time we finally had time for a quick shopping trip before we went to our session. After shopping we still made it to the Temple a little after five. As we sat waiting for our session, John's brother Burt and sister-in-law Lydia walked in unexpectedly and ended up being in our session - guess it was fate that we ended up going shopping beforehand so that we could be in the same session. During the session, I was able to do the work for my great grandmother.

After our session, the four of us went to Downtown Disney for dinner. We walked around for a little while trying to decide what we wanted to eat. We were going to try the Rainforest Cafe (which is the only picture we got) but the wait was an hour and a half - not gonna happen. We kept looking a found a place called the Earl of Sandwich - bet you can't guess what they served. Anyway, we got sandwiches which were pretty good and then walked around a little more. We even got to sample some chocolate in the Ghiradelli store. It was a good evening but I don't think that I will be visiting Downtown Disney on a Friday night for a long time. 

Saturday John and I had some friends over to play poker. We had invited a mixed group of our single friends but it ended up that the guys that we invited couldn't make it so it ended up being John, myself and four other girls. Any single guy probably would have enjoyed themself but too bad for John that I get him all to myself :) It ended up being a pretty good evening even without other guys though. We had lots of laughs and some really good food. I ate so much candy though that I was sick to my stomach after everyone left. I think it was worth it though. 

Memorial Day Weekend

John and I went to GA to visit my family for Memorial Day weekend. We left after work on Friday afternoon and got in around around 10 that night. My sister Carrie and her husband Brian also were visiting and they brought their month old baby Shayla too. She was super cute and it was very nice to be able see her while she was still small. On Saturday we girls spent a lot of the day shopping and the guys spent most of the day down in Dad's workshop.The boys all turned things on the lathe and John started to make a really nice bowl out of sasafras wood. He will get to finish it next time we go up there. He also made himself a new back scratcher because he is always asking me to scratch his back and he thought it was probably a good idea to make himself one. He kept it a surprise from me all day until he showed me that he had carved and painted it as a duck. It is pretty cool. On Sunday Christy and James came over and we had a huge turkey dinner and then played games for a while. Monday was a pretty busy day. We ran errands for a while and Carrie and I went and visited one of my friends. Dad wanted to have a little photo shoot out in the yard. He has been working pretty hard on the garden and with all of the rain they have been getting it looks really good. They will have tons of veggies to can in just a couple of weeks. We got to take lots of fresh herbs home which was super nice.

Playing in the Rain

Thursday John and I were on our way to an appointment and it started thundering and a couple of minutes later it started pouring down rain. It was our first thunderstorm since last summer. We both looked at each other and said that if it was still raining after our appointment that we should go out and play in the rain. We came home and changed into some t-shirts and went out and stomped around in the puddles and splashed each other for about 20 minutes. We got thoroughly soaked and had tons of fun. Everyone that drove by looked at us like we were crazy but I secretly think they were jealous.

Mother's Day Weekend

This past week we got to spend lots of time with John's family. His youngest sister Monica's birthday was Saturday so we had a surprise party for her on Thrusday. We left early Friday morning for a town called Crystal River where the annual retreat for my program was being held. I had to give a presentation that morning and John stayed to hear me speak. He got pretty bored though and left to go do other things while I listened to talks the rest of the morning. Our room was really nice and had a huge super comfy bed and a great view of the river. We got to go swimming and hot tubing that night. The next morning we went to the last of the presentations and then it was time for the beach! The beach was about 10 miles from our hotel so how could we not go? We were only there for about an hour but we both got pretty burned and are still sore.

Saturday night we went to another one of John's sister's house to celebrate Monica's actual birthday. The Gordons do birth"weeks"s not really birth"day"s. They have this cool X-box game like Karoke called Lips with microphones that you sing into and compete against someone else. It's pretty fun and we got to play for a while that night. Sunday was mother's day and we took John's grandma to church. She is in our ward but can't go very often for health reasons. She seemed to really like going and I think it really made her day. We all met over at her house that evening for dinner to celebrate and give John's mom her presents. We made her a mini scrapbook called a brag book with pictures of all her kids and grandkids. We also got to talk to my mom on the phone for a while. It was a pretty busy weekend but we also got some time to have fun and relax too.

Wicked!!!!!!!!!!

John and I went to see the Broadway play Wicked on Thursday night in Jacksonville. I had been wanting to see the play for several years and asked John to get me tickets to see it for Valentine's day. He picked me up from work and we drove to Jax for the show. We got a little lost trying to find the theater but the frustration was totally worth it. The show was absolutely AMAZING! Before the show we went to The Landing which is kind of a glorified outdoor strip mall. It was right on the bay and a beautiful afternoon. We were able to walk right down to the water and take some pictures.
We took lots of pictures while we were waiting for the show to start. This is John with the program for the show.

This is me with a poster of Elphaba. This was probably one of the best plays I have seen. I would highly recommended seeing it.

New Niece!!!

My little sister Carrie had a baby early Monday morning April 20 just two days before her three year wedding anniversary. The baby's name is Shayla Kay Johansen and she was just under 7 lbs. She is tiny and as Carrie says "perfect" and so cute!

Easter

I think I went a little overboard on buying Easter candy this year. I filled two entire baskets full of chocolate eggs. Cadbury, Reeses, Snickers, caramel.... and soooo many more! I love easter!!! I don't know what it is about making candy in the shape of an egg that makes it so much yummier.

We went to John's Grandma's house for Easter dinner. We celebrated her 91st birthday with all 91 candles on the cake. I have seen cakes with more candles than that before but they were spread out and it wasn't too bad. I think the candles on this cake were a little too close to each other though because the flames all merged together it really looked like the cake was on fire. I wish I had gotten a picture but my camera batteries died.

Pinewood Derby

Last week was the much anticipated Pinewood Derby. John and I helped a few of the boys from the pack with their cars last Monday. Then Wendesday was the big day! The boys seemed to have a lot of fun. Some were a little disappointed in their cars but everyone got an award at the end which seemed to make everything better. John and I raced our cars against each other and his won. I will just have to work harder next year to beat him. Although mine definitely won in the looks category!

Strawberries strawberries strawberries...

Last weekend John and I took some two of his nephews and one of his nieces to pick strawberries. We went out to a farm north of Gainesville and picked berries. The morning was nice and cool and the berries were weed and bug free. All in all a pretty sweet deal.

More about March

John worked really hard last week even though it was his spring break so we took a little break on Saturday. We met our friends Jenn and Travis in St Augustine. We went to dinner and the beach with them and got to have a pretty good time. It was a little foggy and chilly when we first got to the beach around 5 in the evening and so most people were already gone for the day. After we had been there a little while we got used to the temperature and had the beach to ourselves to play. It turned out being a really nice day.

For St. Patrick's Day, I made a green dinner. My mom used to make us green eggs and ham for St Patty's Day so I decided to make us a green dinner too. I made green lemonade and green chicken enchiladas. To be honest it was a little gross looking and I think John was a little disgusted by my attempt at being festive. He asked me about 5 times "it's just food coloring, right?"

It still tasted good though I promise!

March Madness

I know I promised that I would be better about updating and but so far it hasn't really happened. The first weekend of March John and I went letterboxing at several parks in Gville. For those of you not familiar with letterboxing, you get clues online and then use them to find letterboxes hidden in your area. It's nice because you get outside and in to areas of parks that you would probably never visit. This is a pic of us letterboxing: The next weekend was spring break. I went to GA to visit my family and John stayed home to work. I got to do some canning with my mom. We made lots of strawberry jam which turned out SO good! Nothing is better than homemade jam!

I look pretty rough because it got super hot making the jam. After making jam all morning my dad helped me make my Pinewood Derby car. Since John and I are the Cub Scout leaders in our ward we get to make cars to race for the derby. My dad showed me how to use all the tools and then let me do everything by myself. In all of the years of school projects and such, this is the first time he ever left me alone in his workshop. We will see how it actually does come race day...

December 08 Slideshow

Wow, I am way behind...

It has been about 3 months since I have posted anything. I am not too good at keeping up with things like this and we have been pretty busy. Since the last post, John and I got married!!! We pulled off the big day without any big snags which was really great. We had lots of family and friends come and it was really great to see everyone. We then went on our honeymoon to Gatlinburg, TN for a couple of days. It was really cold while we were there and we both were fighting colds but we still had a good time. The area is beautiful and we got to get out and see a lot of nice scenery.

We came back to GA from TN on Christmas Eve to spend the next couple of days with my family. We had a really good time with my family and we got lots of neat presents and also ate TONS of great food! It was really nice to be able to relax and hang out with all of my siblings and their spouses who were still in town from the wedding. One of my favorite things though was my niece Makayla who was a never ending source of entertainment.

We came back to FL on Dec 30 after being gone for 3 weeks. It took a few days for us to get all of our things organized in our new apartment and all settled in. The next week school started again for both of us and we have been keeping pretty busy with that and our new ward calling as Cub Scout leaders. We have both started new hobbies. John started gardening in a little area outside our apartment. He is growing cucumbers and will be starting herbs and some lilies for me pretty soon. I started sewing and quilting. So far I have made pajama pants for John and a quilt for my sister Carrie's baby.