For the love

This year's Valentine's Day was the best one. EVER.  Usually Valentine's isn't a big deal for us and our first Valentine's when we were dating was a disaster.  So glad that good memories are replacing bad ones! :)

Dustin spoiled me with the trifecta of Valentine's gifts:
Jewelry (ShaneCo pearl necklace and bracelet), chocolate (See's Truffles), and flowers (long stem red roses and lilies- my favorite!)

Valentines Day new jewelry selfie? you betcha!

I gave Dustin a nice new watch that I had him pick out, and then I decorated his car with a basket of goodies while he was in clinic.  They had cutesy sayings.  Thanks Pinterest :)

 

Once upon a time we decided that we would have candle lit pizza dinners for Valentine's Day and then go out on the weekend, but that was when we thought we'd have kids some time soon and would want to spend the night with all our loves.  Seeing as we still don't have kids and VDay was on a Friday, we figured we might as well go out.

We enjoyed dinner at Panera, which was perfect because there was no line, no waiter to tip, and the food was delish.  Then we watched The Lego Movie at the Clackamas Town Center.  It was so funny!

We had lunch together on Valentine's Day and Dustin told me some shocking facts.  Of all the married couples who started this Chiropractic program with Dustin, 50% of them are now divorced.  Of the married couples that are doing the Sports and Exercise Science Master's Program as well, 2/3 of them are now divorced. Grad school is HARD.  We hardly see each other, especially true the further he gets into the program, and it's hard not being able to spend much time together.
A few people have asked how we're able to do all our fun dates or outings.  I'm not sure if they meant financially, or how we find such cool stuff to do or whatever, but I honestly don't know how we'd survive these couple years WITHOUT the quality time together.  I literally get so cranky when I can't see Dustin for more than a few minutes a day. We need time together. And some days we see each other when we wake up, and then for maybe an hour before we go to bed.  I know we should get more sleep, but I like those few hours that we have to spend together.
Financially we are fortunate to be able to easily prioritize fun dates.  My job has been excellent and I have increased my hourly pay rate by almost $3 more an hour since I started 2 years ago.  We're also still taking out max student loans.  Starting grad school I was FREAKED OUT by the financial side, but we have been very blessed.  We use Groupon often and usually spend at least one weekend night (Friday or Saturday) at home.  We use our credit cards to our advantage to receive rewards like cash back or Thank You points that get us gift cards.  We pay them off in full each month and never pay interest.  Sure, we could have a lot more in savings or could take out less student loans, but we are making memories and taking time to be together. I'm happy to be in that 1/3 that are still married and even happier that our love for each other has grown during the past 2 1/2 years in grad school. We're in this together FOREVER and I'm so glad I have Dustin with me to go through this hard time in our lives.

 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

3 posts in 3 days! Don't worry, this won't become the norm. I've just been working on my lesson in relief society for this Sunday and need a break, especially because next week I will be writing a talk for sacrament meeting. Holy cow, this ward is going to be so sick of me, but then we'll be leaving for 3 weeks, so I guess they'll get over it in that time.

Plus, I needed to blog because I'm excited for Christmas! Our house is decorated and ready for Santa to visit! Which is awesome cuz he will be to our house in 2 weeks exactly! That's one of the many perks of going home for the holidays- that we get to celebrate Christmas more than once.

So to share in my excitement, here is a little project I made that is now displaying on my piano. Hope you like it as much as I do! Thank you Buddy the Elf for helping it look a lot like Christmas!

Giving Thanks

Things are in full swing Christmas here at the Creers as we are excited to celebrate Christmas #1 in just about 2 weeks before flying home for the holidays. But I can't forget writing a post about Thanksgiving!

The Jack family (my mom, dad, Ginelle, Spencer, and Evan) got here Wednesday afternoon. We surprised Evan by picking up The Limited Edition of Zelda Skyward Sword for Wii and he was so excited. He had been looking for it at every place in Utah County, but as he didn't reserve it, everyone had sold out. So I did a little calling at the local Targets at was able to reserve it at the Cascade Station location. We made a little boy very happy by having it ready for him to play as soon as he got here, and that's exactly what the boys did while the girls were working away in the kitchen making pies and rolls. We had some yummy pumpkin pancakes for dinner and then spent the night swimming at the hotel pool and hot tub.

Thursday was turkey day! We enjoyed sleeping in and then relaxing all morning. We headed up to Battle Ground for Thanksgiving dinner and festivities with my Uncle Art, Aunt Sheri, and their 3 boys (the Gaileys). Sheri brined the turkey and it was AWESOME. So moist and tasty. In fact, if you go to allrecipes.com and search for "turkey brine," hers is the first recipe to come up. We stuffed ourselves silly and then relaxed/watched football/chatted. We watched the movie (from the BBC? You can find it on Netflix) The Nativity and it was so funny. It's a British movie about a church school putting on a Nativity play. Just watch it. We finished the night with pie, pie, and more pie! And then a food coma. :)

Friday we did NOT go black friday early morning shopping. Instead, we slept in to our hearts content. We headed up to Cascade Station and hit up some lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings, then got lost in Ikea. I love that store. I love playing house in all the different set ups. We also scoped out Sports Authority for Dustin to pick out some Christmas presents from my parents, and then explored HomeGoods, which was cool! Utah doesn't have that store and they had a lot of good stuff. Good thing I contained myself and didn't buy anything. Cuz we don't have any money. :( After our adventures at Cascade Station, we made our way north to Vancouver and stopped at Old Navy for some Holiday shopping. We met up with my aunt, uncle, and cousins for dinner at the House of Beijing. I was expecting a restaurant similar to PF Changs based on the awesome reviews my aunt gave it. It was a totally dive. Looked so ghetto. But the food was awesome. I'm still craving the crab puffs right now. We will definitely be going back! We then headed up to Battle Ground for game night. The adults played Frustration and I am so happy to say that I WON! And Dustin came in second! It was a good game with victory for the Creers! To top the night off, we all headed down to Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland for a midnight doughnut run. I have seriously been waiting for weeks for this. I kept wanting to go to Voodoo Doughnuts but kept telling myself that when my family came, we would go. And it was worth the wait. Now I know that Voodoo Doughnuts has a lot of hype and I do have to say that they are not always amazing. They have some doughnuts that are to die for such as the Voodoo doll (chocolate bar doughnut with raspberry filling), Mango Tango (Mango jelly filled doughnut with vanilla frosting and tang sprinkled on top. SOOO good), I've heard the apple fritters are fantastic but haven't tried one yet, and the bavarian cremes. BUT, all their other doughnuts are just kinda so so. There, I said it. But for those excellent selections, they are freaking awesome.

Saturday we didn't sleep in quite as long, but we started the morning with early morning bowling at Big Al's in Vancouver with the Gaileys. After bowling we went to 5 Guys for lunch and then to Sheridan's for frozen custard. (can you tell how much my family likes to eat?!? Kinda the highlight of every trip....) Dustin and I shared a Candy Cane pothole (vanilla custard mixed with crushed candy cane and chocolate shavings with a hot fudge pool in the middle) and it was SO good! My aunt had to leave for work so we headed back to Big Al's for some arcades, and then to Trader Joes. My mom picked up some snacks for their drive home and they all looked so good! Eggnog flavored chocolate covered almonds! Seriously genius. I'm going to have to go pick some up for myself. Saturday night we were SO full from all the previous eating that day that we just kinda chilled at my house, watched Elf to kick off the Christmas season, and ended with Thanksgiving leftovers and pie.

My family left Sunday morning for their long drive back and while it was sad to say goodbye, we are excited that we will be seeing them again soon in Utah! It was such a great Thanksgiving holiday and we are so grateful that my family was able to come out and visit us. Dustin and I are so blessed with everything that we have in our lives! Sometimes we get frustrated thinking about the things we don't have, but we do have so much and are thankful for it every day!

Just a little note

Do you ever feel like you have SO much to blog about that you just don't blog at all? Cuz it's hard to spit it all out in typing and you don't know where to start?

That's how I've been feeling. Or else you would have had a post a day. My apologies for not posting much at all. I'll try to spit it all out. We've just been having fun instead.... and I go on these blogging feasts it seems where I'll just get 5 posts in one day. Maybe if more people would comment to let me know someone actually reads this stuff....

Plus, I've also been trying to get everything ready for next week because it's Thanksgiving!! And my family will be here! And I am very excited about that :) So the house needs to be perfect.

So, for now, I leave you with a short post including a few pictures of happiness.

Photo 1: The tree outside our bedroom window. Man, I love fall. And I love opening up my window to see this. None of the other trees in our courtyard look as pretty as this.

Photo 2: Look at this adorable turkey! I don't think you can get much cuter than this as far as turkeys go. I wish I could claim that I made this, but I didn't. Thank you Quilted Bear.

Stay tuned for more posts coming [hopefully] this afternoon!

Fall Fiesta

You know how Halloween was like AGES ago (at least it feels that way). Well, I'm finally blogging about it. Seeing as how all the young couples in our ward have 3-5 children, that meant that they would all be trick or treating or handing out candy to trick or treaters. So we kept it chill and just had a yummy broccoli and cheese soup dinner with some candy corn shaped cheesecake. To clarify, no, it was not candy corn flavored, it just looked like a cute candy corn!

We then watched Season of the Witch, featuring Nicolas Cage, and it was okay. Scary enough for us without giving nightmares.

A week ago we got to be a part of an Albertsons store closing featuring most every item at 75% off!! It was a MAD HOUSE. My incredible husband stood in line for 5 HOURS to get our food. I would have been with him there the whole time, but after being in line for and hour and a half, a friend picked me up to go to our Relief Society activity. And while I was there, I remembered that the store was closing at 7 and that I wouldn't be able to get back in line with him :( So he had to be in line by himself for 3 & 1/2 hours. Of course, by that time, everyone in line made great friends with each other since they knew they were going to be there for a while. We felt like extreme couponers as the total went from $240 to $59! 75% off is awesome! But I don't think we'd ever want to do that again.

We are excited for Thanksgiving in two weeks and for my family to come up and visit us! I keep wanting to go to Voodoo Doughnuts but am holding out til they get here.

Fall up here is so pretty and the colors have been changing a lot lately! I can't believe Utah has had 3 snow storms already. It's been sunny skies in the 50's.

Anybody wanna come visit? We have a spare room just waiting for company!