Seth has been a busy bee with completing side projects for professors-preparing and presenting projects for classes-reading-working on his thesis-and getting things ready for next semester. First semester of Grad school down-3 more to go :). I've been busy working-doing this domesticated thing-and doing my best to distract Seth while he works on these projects :).
Recent entertainment:
Babysitting: We offered to babysit for a couple from our church-just so they can go out and enjoy themselves without children all the time and also so Seth and I can get our children fix. I've already mentioned that a lot of couples our age in Utah have children-so it just makes us (or at least me) think of the idea of having children. Who they will look like-how they will act (like a Sineath or a Cook/Marsh)-how we will afford them-raise them-etc...So-babysitting essentially helps Seth and I to understand that we may not be quite ready for all that commitment :)-but we enjoy hanging around them at times. They have a 4 year old and 14 month old-and the 4 year old stuck with me and the 14 month old loved Seth and his beard! Well that was the case until the younger girl had a poopey diaper and Seth passed her over to me :).
Louisiana style BBQ: Seth and I along with a few other couples-got invited to a BBQ at a couples home (who are from Louisiana). We have been to BBQ's before-which are fun but not the BBQ that Seth and I were expecting :). Since these folks are from the South we definitely had high expectations and they were most definitely MET! The BBQ was so delicious-tender-yummy-and it was actually BBQ :). We ate off of Christmas china and it was a lot of fun. It made me and another lady dream of the day we will have our own place with our own Christmas china!
Utah Weather: Over Thanksgiving we got a lot of snow and into the negative degree weather. Over the past few weeks our weather is so moody :). It went from freezing to being in the upper 30's lower 40's and all our snow melted. We were warmer than our families in South Carolina. We are getting back down to the 20's or so...and we got a fresh coat of about 5 inches of snow. Seth and I both agree we like the snow on the mountains and ground over seeing the grass/dirt-especially with it being so chilly now. It also gets so foggy here. Somedays we can't even see the mountains or it will be clear where we are and the next block over it will be so foggy you can't even see!
Hanging out with Friends: We have met so many wonderful couples/people in Utah and just have enjoyed hanging out with them. We have been opened up to all sorts of fun games to occupy our time during some of these winter days! Saturday we just walked around downtown in the snow and enjoyed ourselves with the Stricklands. We went to there home-had taco soup-watched White Christmas (which I guess is a classic that neither Seth and I had seen before) and was given ski pants that we were soooo pumped about. It was a great movie and we enjoyed our evening with those guys! Last night we hung out with our neighbors and just had a blast playing games all evening :). Seth and I have just become little social butterflys and are making wonderful friends. BUT we are soooooo sooooo excited about seeing our friends from home and hanging out with them (even for a short time) this coming week!
While hanging out with Gina and Joe on Saturday she asked us what we were looking forward to most about going home-and it was a fun question that I haven't really thought about. So, Seth and I came home and discussed it and came up with a list:
Excitement of coming to South Carolina List:
1. I am so ready to just touch my family. I see them on Skype often but just to touch them and give them huge hugs will be awesome. To just be beside them only a few feet away will be soooo wonderful instead of 2100 miles away. Growing up I use to hang/hug on my mother-and at times it may would get annoying and she'd let me know-but I know she is sooo looking forward to this next week when I do all that :). She probably has missed it soooo and regrets every telling me to stop! Seth isn't as excited about this one as I am but he is looking forward to hugs he says.
2. Seth's was being able to build a fire and sit by it. I am looking forward to this as well. We will just enjoy being by the fire and drinking a cup of joe-talking with family.
3. Troupe :)-I have had to 'allow' my parents to adopt my puppy while we are out here. I will be so glad to see him and annoy him and play with him. He will NEVER look to me on Skype and it is rather annoying to see him enjoying life and not missing his mother :). I just hope he remembers me and will sleep with me!
4. It will be so nice to assist with cooking yummy food and not having to clean it all up. Especially since our folks have dishwashers :). We are looking forward to having good Southern meals and sweets and just being spoiled with it. Also will be fun to not have to wash or iron our own clothes :).
5. Spending a holiday with families. Since we missed Thanksgiving with our families it will just be nice to spend Christmas with both of our families!
So-this will be the conclusion to this post. This time tomorrow we will be on our way to South Carolina ;). Just praying for safe travels--and good weather conditions--please keep us in your thoughts tomorrow!
Merry Christmas everyone!
The Cook's :).
