I am a bad bad blogger!

Wow, it has been about two and a half months since my last post! A lot has happened! Here is a quick update:

Birthdays: John and I both had birthdays recently, mine was in November and John's was in December. We didn't do anything too exciting for either of our special days but they were fun and I finally got a new camera since mine broke back in July! It is so cute and my favorite color -RED! Best of all it's really small and fits much better into my purse. It also has a lithium battery that lasts forever and a new memory card that holds TONS of pics!!! I didn't get my camera till after my birthday but here is a picture of John on his birthday:

Thanksgiving: We went to GA for Thanksgiving this year. All of my siblings and nieces were there. It was great to see everyone especially my brother and his family from AZ since we don't see them very often. We ran a 5K while we were there, got family pictures taken and did lots and lots of black friday shopping. Mostly we got random things for ourselves but we also stood in line super early to get my dad a blueray player for Christmas.

Me with Jeremy and Jamie's youngest daughter Natalie:

John with Carrie's baby Shayla:

Carrie, Brian, Jamie, Jeremy, John and I after we ran the 5K in Conyers, GA on Nov. 28:

Our first Christmas tree: John and I got an artificial tree from my sister and her husband who weren't going to use it this year. John and I have different opinions when it comes to ornaments and decorations. I love trees that are coordinated with matching ornaments and white lights. He is more of a random, homemade ornament kind of guy. I thought we had a nice compromis. Most of the ornaments matched but we had a few that were homemade wooden ones John and my dad had made.

This is a picture of John while we were putting the tree together. Here is the final product:Our first anniversary: Can you believe it has already been a year?!? Me either! For our anniversary, we went to dinner at one of my favorite places, Ruby Tuesdays. We did a little shopping afterwards and John bought me a new ring which I love: and I got him a new coat... very romantic! After the shopping, we went back home and ate the top of our wedding cake and had some sparkling cider: and danced to a new CD I put together. We also put together some items for a box of remembrance.

Visit from my parents: My parents came in town for about a week in mid December to help us with a few things around the house. My mom and I did TONS of baking while John and my dad fixed the furnace, replaced a window that has been an issue since we moved in, and fixed some rotting wood on the underside of the roof. It was really nice to have them around for the holidays to make my first Christmas away from home a little easier. Also, it was really really nice to get those things fixed! We also got to go to the Temple with them on their last day here. On the way back we were rerouted home because of a detour. We had to go pretty far out of the way because there were no signs how to tell us to get where we needed to be. This prompted one of our Christmas presents. When we were coming out of the Temple, John and I were taking a picture when one of the security guards came up in his golf cart. He told us to jump on and he would take us to a great place to take pictures. It was a nice sunny day and we had a great unblocked view of the Temple: Christmas: We spent Christmas day here in Gainesville. Chirstmas eve we opened one present and then moved our mattress out into the living room. We watched movies until pretty late and then slept by the tree. In the morning we woke up and opened the rest of our presents. We got some pretty good loot: new 700 TC sheets, games, movies, a homemade puzzle (from John) and game (from my dad), gift cards, flower bulbs, a noodle spoon, and the big item was a new GPS. I decided we needed one after getting lost on our way home from the Temple. After we opened presents, we started baking for dinner. We went to John's grandmother's house for Christmas dinner where we met all of John's siblings (except one), parents, and other family. We had a big dinner with so many dessert choices... apple pie, cherry pie, mississippi mud pie, coconut cake, banana pudding, oreo dessert... so GOOD! After that we went to John 's parent's house where we had a bonfire and ate s'mores. We had a pretty early night because John had to work early the next day but it was a very nice Christmas. After John got off work the next day, we headed up to Atlanta for a few days with my family.

New Years: We went and saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie and to dinner for New Year's Eve. The movie was really good. Afterwards, we came home and watched some football until it was time for the ball to drop. This is our first picture in 2010!

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.