A Summary

Here's a VERY breif summary of the last few months...

*started school *chopped my hair off *funeral *spent countless hours studying for the PCAT *drove to Missouri *another funeral *saw my brother and lots of other family *cried a lot *laughed a lot *got sick *got bronchitis *took the PCAT *got a calling. All the while in between enjoying work, spending time with my man and my family. If you are interested in hearing the long version here it comes. If not stop reading now.


Started school...Not much else to say about that. Chris hasn't really enjoyed his start at the U of U, but he's doing well. It just doesn't compare to Snow College.


I chopped my hair off...Susie made me do it! ;) I was just sick of the old hair due that I've had since junior high so I chopped it all off.

This is not the best picture of me...but hey you can see the new do.



Funeral...Chris's Grandmother passed away in September. The funeral was beautiful. It really made me thankful for the gospel in my life. The knowledge that I have of the wonderful things that are waiting for us after this life is such a comfort.



PCAT... I didn't do so good the first time, so I studied a lot harder this time. I hope I do better than I did before. I feel like I did, but you just never know with those stupid tests. I should be finding out in about 2 weeks.

Grandma and Grandpa Turley



My grandpa had a heart attack, and was a in the hospital a few weeks. He would be doing pretty good one day, and then not so good the next. They thought he may be able to get well enough for surgery, but he never did. Grandma and Grandpa decided it was best to go home with Grandpa on Hospice care. He was much happier at home than in the hospital. After a week or so of being home he passed on. At first we didn't think we would be able to make it to the funeral in Missouri, but it all worked out in the end and Chris, my mom and dad, and I drove to Missouri. It was great because we got to see a lot of cousins that we haven't seen for awhile. Not to mention my brother made it from Georgia. It was a really beautiful funeral as well. I have never cried so much at a funeral. Not because I was sad, but it was a really spiritual experience. I think that my Grandpa would have wanted it that way. He was such a good example of how to live a good, fulfilled life. One thing all of his children and grandchildren agreed on was that he had a way of making all of the kids feel special like they were his favorite. Which is not an easy task when you have 13 children and 66 grandchildren with I think 18 great grandchildren. He really was an amazing person and he will be missed.

The family after the funeral.

Wednesday Chris and I had a meeting with the 1st counselor of the bishopric. The whole time leading up to it we were trying to decide what it was that he was going to say. Were we going to speak on sunday? Do we have a calling? What calling? Maybe he just wants to get to know us better? It was a calling. Chris is going to be a primary teacher for the 11 year olds. I am going to be assistant girls camp director for our ward. It's funny because I have only been to girl's camp once. I wasn't really active in the church at that age, so they picked the girl that doesn't have a clue about girl's camp. I'm excited though. This will give me the chance to go to girl's camp again.

CALIFORNIA and other updates

I've been a big time slacker in the blogging department, but hey it's been busy. Chris is getting ready to start a new semester at the U of U. He can't wait to get back to school and start learning some new things. He has been interning in the chemistry lab at the Energy Solutions Clive facility. Although it has been a great experience and resume builder for him, I think he is ready to move onto more exciting things. I have started a job at Target pharmacy as a pharmacy tech. So far it's been great! I really love the people that I work with and I also like how the pharmacy runs in general. It is really organized and everything just flows. Everyone there really enjoys their job, and it makes it so much easier to enjoy mine.

July 17th we made a long journed to California with Chris's parents and little bro spencer. Luckily with so many people to talk to the trip went quickly and we arrived in Escondido in no time. We stayed the first couple of days at Lauren's (Chris's brother's wife) grandparent's home. There home was absolutely beautiful. There were orange trees, nectarine trees, and avocado tree's. Grandpa made us orange julius's right when we walked into the door from fresh squeezed oranges....ohhh it was delicious!

Grandpa Urry's House

I soon found myself with two new attachments. Lauren's little brother Luke and little sister Taryn became my new barnucles, attaching themselves to me wherever they could. Don't get me wrong they are the cutest little kids around, but it was hot and it didn't help to have warm bodies on me constantly.

Monday afternoon we headed to San Elijo beach where we would be camping for the remainder of the trip. Luke decided he wanted to ride with us, so he packed up his squirt guns, and his books to read and hopped into the truck with us. Boy, that kid loves to talk, and he says the darndest things! We coined a term for his funny sayings, Lukisms. One example...This was like the third day camping, and we were sitting around a camp fire just relaxing and roasting smore's. Luke gives me this weird look and says, "Your thighs are barking at me!" Where he got that from, and what it was suppose to mean I have no idea! Another memorable one was also half way through the week. Luke had done a lot of swimming, and had a little bit of a chaffing problem down below. Before we had left for the beach we had watched Paul Blart Mall Cop, and I don't know if you remember, but there was a hot sauce stand in the movie, and the owner of the stand gave Paul a bottle of a hot sauce called Devil's Crotch. Luke being the smart boy that he is remembered that, and said "I have devil's crotch." Those were just two of the many Lukisms that we ran across that week. We had a lot of good laughs because of Luke.

Our camp on the left and the beach down the stairs on the right

Lucky for us the whole week that we were on the beach we had wonderful weather. The mornings were always a bit gloomy, but it cleared right up by afternoon. We spent the week swimming, boogey boarding, sunbathing, swimming, and more boogey boarding. There was never a dull moment. Chris and I also spent a day at Sea World since I had never been there before. It was so much fun, I really enjoyed it!

One of the day's we drove to La Jolla Cove so that the guys could scuba dive, but the waves were a little rough that day so there wasn't much scuba to be had, but we did have a good time anyway. We also dressed into matching outfits and took a few family photos. (seen at the beginning the entry)


The Tide Pools at La Jolla

It was a great trip, Thanks to the Urry's and all of their planning and hard work! It was sad when we finally had to head home, but at the same time I couldn't wait to be home in my own bed, with out all of the sand everywhere.

Chris Holding the Sun

Worst day ever

Two days ago was one of those days where you just want to crawl into a hole. Chris and I bought a 96 Honda Accord a few weeks ago, like I mentioned in another blog. It needed a few repairs so it was at a friend's getting fixed. Tuesday we got it back and we just needed to get an oil change, alignment, and safety and emissions done before we could get it on the road. We took it to the shop to get all that done in one stop, and it didn't pass safety for a few reasons. Two of the problems were small, a dim light and the battery needed to be secured. That was no problem. The third problem was that the exhaust was leaking and it needed to be replaced. It was only a 300 dollar part, don't worry. So we said to just go ahead and do it. So all together we ended up spending 400 dollars for that plus another 400 dollars for the other repairs we had done on it. Chris then drove our fixed car home, while Thy and I headed to the gym.
I got out of the car and shut the door. Thy then says, "Where are your keys?" Then I turned around and desperately tried to open the already locked door, but it was no use. Luckily we were close to my mom's house who had a spare key. Then I look down and notice that I don't even have tennis shoes on. I had forgotten that I was just wearing flip flops, so we can't work out at the gym anyways! We decided to just go back home after my mom saved the day with the spare.
Later that evening Chris and I decided we wanted to take our fixed car out for a spin and.... IT WOULDN'T START! That was the final straw. I tried to be happy and just laugh all the other stuff off, but I was just angry now. We took it back to our friend the next day to check it out, and it needed a new starter. While he was fixing that we told him to replace the timing belt while he was at it. That ended up being another pretty costly repair.
Then later that night we were trying to replace the burnt out headlight on the car, but even the new bulb wasn't working. Oh great, now there's a costly electrical thing going on. Turns out it was just missing a fuse in the fuse box. After about an hour of dinking around under the hood we finally figured out that that was the problem.
10:30 pm last night we finally had all the problems fixed and we now have a working car without any problems! I hate cars!

Back In SLC

Chris and I graduated from Snow College on May 2. We didn't walk, but we figured we'd have another chance to walk at graduation since we still have more school to attend to. It's a bitter sweet feeling to leave Ephraim. We've come home for the summer and returned back to Snow for 3 years and it's weird that we won't be going back this time.

Chris started a new job on monday. He is doing a chemistry internship at Energy Solutions, which is where my dad works. He's only done training so far, and it has been extremely boring, but he should start doing actual chemistry on monday. He is really excited to get into the real stuff. I on the other hand am still jobless. I had an interview yesterday with Target pharmacy, and they are suppose to be calling me today or tomorrow to schedule a second interview. I think the first one went well. Another pharmacy tech named Casey interviewed me, and he was really friendly and made me feel pretty comfortable. I wasn't nervous at all, which was weird. Hopefully I will get the job! It is like .2 miles from where I will be living so I could probably walk or ride a bike to work. I have also sent my resume to the regional pharmacy supervisor for Smith's and he will call if any openings pop up, but he said the turn-over for jobs has been really slow so I don't know if that will work out. I'll just keep my fingers crossed for Target!

Chris and I bought our first car last week. It's a 96 honda accord. It has one minor problem that is getting fixed in the shop so we still don't have a car to drive, but it should be done within the next couple of weeks. It was so exciting to buy a car. It's our first big purchase! I'll post some pictures later.

Chris's dad has been working hard on my parents' basement trying to get it done so that we can move in. So far the sheetrock is almost finished being hung, most of the electrical is done, and the plumbing is done as well. It's been exciting to see the progress. It actually looks like a living space now! There's been so many changes the past few weeks, and it's been really exciting and stressful at the same time. I'm glad to be moving forward!

Another Great Weekend

We woke up at the butt crack of dawn to drive to Salt Lake on Friday for Chris's U of U orientation. We left Ephraim at about 5:30 in the morning. It wasn't until then that I realized how lazy I have become. The earliest that I have woken up in about 4 months is 8:30. Waking up at 5:30 used to be normal for me, but it about killed me on friday!

Chris and Jason (a friend from one of his classes that is also going to the U) headed off to orientation, and I was picked up by mom at the local Burger King, because they didn't have time to drop me off at home. I just hung out with my mom for the day.

After Chris was done, he came back with his dad to my parents home, to finish framing our basement. We are going to be moving in down there in the summer. It felt great to be able to see the progress. It also made me so excited to be back in Salt Lake with friends and family. It probably won't be done by the time we get back, but it will be great when we can actually help out with some things. I feel bad that we can't really do anything to help right now.

I have loved living in Ephraim, and I've had some of the best times of my life here. I've met some awesome people, and I've learned SO much, but I am ready to move on! I miss being with family, and my old friends. I wish we could have Ephraim's location with all of our family and friends near by. I don't want to go back to Salt Lake for the city, it's just the people.

I still haven't heard back from USN, but I'm kind of thinking that I will be better off not getting accepted, then I won't have to battle with the decision of whether or not I should go there because of financial reasons. I'm actually starting to hope that they won't call me, it will make my decision making easier. The only down side is if I don't get into the University of Utah when I apply next year, where do I go from there? I've been thinking about possibilities for other careers, and have been leaning towards getting a bachelors in medical laboratory science. I would have to take 2 more classes to complete pre-requisites, but I was planning on taking a class in the summer at SLCC anyways for Pharmacy pre-requisites for the U, so it wouldn't be too bad. If I get started on a degree in medical lab science then I won't be wasting time if I don't get into pharmacy school next fall.

My plan as of now is to work and take a couple of classes in the summer, start doing some regular volunteer work to build up my qualifications for pharmacy school, retake the PCAT because I got a 79 on it the first time, apply for pharmacy school for fall 2010 and pray that I get in. If not then I'll just move on to getting a medical lab science degree.

It's so frustrating not knowing what to do, but that's life right? I just need to keep remembering that everything will work out as long as I rely on the Lord. Have faith.

Anyways, I really got off on a tangent there. Back to the weekend...We went golfing on Saturday with a friend, and although I didn't golf, I had a great time. I'm not a big fan off golfing, but I like to drive the golf cart. It was such a beautiful day. I didn't mind just sitting around in the cart.

We headed back to Ephraim on Sunday, and we took a long drive with Chris's dad, grandma, little brother, and dog. The sun was shining, and we drove with our window's open, which was awesome. The only down side to the drive was that Roxi, the dog got car sick or something and threw up. Luckily her head was partly out of the window so most of it went out the window. We took a few detours along the way, and drove down to Manti to see the temple. It was just so nice to enjoy the spring weather, and keep our minds out of school and work etc.

I can't wait for summer and a change.

Back to Easter...

I said I would talk about Easter weekend, so here it is...

Friday: Chris's parents decided to go down to St. George with Spencer, and his friend, Kyle. On the way down they dropped off Roxi, their puppy, and Maria, their car, at our humble home in Ephraim. Chris and I were so stir crazy the whole week, so Chris's mom was so nice to think of us and let us borrow their car for the weekend.

Roxi was a bit of a handful, but it was so fun to have her around! She is a nut. After Chris's family left her, she was running all around the house looking for her missing family. She started barking and sniffing all around. It was cute. Here is a video of her playing with her T-bone steak treat, which she proceeded to do for about 30 minutes. Like I said, she's a nut!

I had to work at lunch time and since I had the car, I thought I would drive it to work. The only problem was that it is a manual, and I have only driven a manual like twice, and it was in a parking lot with Chris. I thought....I'll just take slow on the neighborhood roads and stay of main street, and I didn't stall it once! It is only a 1 minute drive to work from my house, but still! I was proud of myself. I didn't stall it at all on the way back either!

When I got home from work that night, Chris and I decided to take advantage of our new transportation so we went to Denny's in Salina! We were livin large! It's about a 45 minute drive from Ephraim. We met Chris's old roomate, Scottie, there and had a wonderful meal. The waitress we had was SOOOO Tan, and I think she may have fried some of her brain cells. She was a little odd, but very nice! After dinner, we drove to Richfeild just for the heck of it, then drove back to Salina and hung out at Scottie's house for a few hours. Then we went back home.

Saturday: It was a pretty uneventful day. I had to work at lunch and again at dinner, so we didn't get to take advantage of the car too much, but we did go grocering shopping at Walmart! And we didn't have to take our backpacks with us and hall all the stuff home on our bikes, so that was nice! haha! It was so nice to have the car!!

Sunday: We went to church, and enjoyed our last day of being in the nursery. It was the best calling I ever had, and it is so sad to leave. We only had a few kids, and they were all pretty young, so we couldn't really do lessons with them. We basically got to play for 2 hours before sacrament. After church we just played with Roxi until Chris's parents came back. Then we decorated easter eggs together, which you have seen in the previous posting. Chris's dad unfortunately couldn't stay for the egg decorating. He had to go back to work the next day, but spencer, kyle, and Susie stayed the night with us.

Monday: Chris had school, and I had work, so we didn't get to spend much time with the family, but we went out for breakfast at good old mickey dee's, and then they all came to eat lunch at the Snow Dragon while I was working. Then it was goodbye to family, roxi, and the Car :(

It really wasn't a very eventful weekend, but more eventful than usual for us. It was nice to have a car, and Roxi to entertain me while I wasn't at work. i bet anyone who reads this post will think that we have such a sad, boring life! haha! Anyways...that was easter weekend!

Easter

Easter was great! I will talk about it more later. For now here are some pictures of our easter egg creations.
This is Chris's Einstein egg.

This is Andy the Atom. He's a hydrogen atom also made by Chris.

These are all the animals. The dog, started by spencer and finished by me. The Bunny is mine, and the chick is Susie's. There was a worm in it's mouth, but chris totally cut it out of the picture.

This is Kyle's egg. We are not quite sure what it is, but we all thought it looked like cookie monster.

Here's a better picture of the chick with the worm in it's mouth. The green lady was made by me.

This egg was made by Susie specially for Brad and Lauren. It's a gaylien and it's space ship.

This is Lil' John made by Spencer. "What?! Okay?! Yeah?!

This is a collaborative effort by Susie and me. It's a carrot.

Conference Weekend Off to a Good Start

I love conference weekend. We have been looking forward to it all week, especially Chris. On wednesday Chris came down with a nasty sickness and he was hugging the toilet all day. He missed two days of school, and he was already worried about getting everything done. Missing two days of school certainly doesn't help the stress level. He was able to get caught up so that's good, and he's feeling 100% better which is also good.

Last night I started feeling super tired. My throat started to hurt, and I had a massive headache. I thought, "OH NO!! I am getting Chris's sickness!!!" I woke up the next morning feeling fine. :)

Chris made breakfast before conference. It was really cute. He made star shaped biscuits and scrambled eggs.

I had to work after the first session, but I was back in time to see the last half of the second session. The talks were great as always. There was definately a theme of adversity and trials. Tough times ahead, but remember live in faith not in fear.

Elder Busche

My cousin posted this video on our family website, and I thought I would just share it with all of you.

This is what I feel like sometimes...even without the anesthesia

Sewage Seepage

So... Last Wednesday Chris was taking a bath, and I was upstairs checking e-mail and facebookin' when all of the sudden I hear Chris yell, "ANGE!" I ran downstairs and the smell was horrid! I looked down and there is sewage coming up out of the bathroom floor drain! Luckily it stopped as soon as we stopped draining the bath tub. I called our landlord and he came right away and fixed it. It really wasn't a big deal, but it was something exciting that I thought was great blog material. Our basement is at a lower level than the sewer so we have this special pump thing to pump the water up and out to the sewer, and it just quit working. The landlord just replaced the pump and all was well again. It wasn't very fun to clean up that's for sure, but it could have been a lot worse. Good thing Chris was downstairs to notice. We could have flooded the whole basement!



On to other news. Chris and I have started the P90X program. You have probably seen the infomercials for it on TV. It's just an exercise program. Oh man! It is so hard! They have different types of exercises for each day of the week and you just follow the set out schedule and follow the videos. We did yoga the other day, and we started it thinking, oh yoga isn't too hard, this will be a nice break from the aerobic stuff. We couldn't even finish the thing! It is an hour and half long, and it was just so hard. Just watching you would think that it would be a peice of cake, but it's not. We have heard from quite a few people that it is really effective, and I don't doubt it. There's no way you couldn't lose weight if you follow the schedule and do the exercises. We've been doing it for a WHOLE 4 days now, and it's already killing us! It will get easier though...right? It has felt good to actually be doing some exercise though. We just need to be disciplined and keep it up. We should take some before and after pictures!

That's pretty much it for news at the Hardcastle Residence. Until next time....

New Puppy!

Chris's Mom and Dad got a new puppy last week, and she is adorable! She is a Yorkie Shitzu mix, or a Shorkie. Her name is Roxy, but not everyone agrees with the name quite yet so she's got a few names. She gets called Abby, Puddin, and Roxy. We went up to Salt Lake for my interview for USN so we got to play with her all weekend. She is definately a whole lot different from their other dog Nelly. Roxy is a typical puppy, curious, playful, and loves to chew on everything. It's so funny when she tries to play with Nelly, because Nelly just gets so annoyed with her. Nelly is 105 in dog years so she just doesn't have the patience for Roxy.

Spencer, Chris's little brother, went to prom on Saturday. He looked pretty Shnazzy in his tuxedo. They went to PF Changs for dinner, and went to a gymnastics training gym for an after the dance activity. He said that he had a lot of fun.

As I said before, I went to Salt Lake for my Interview with USN for pharmacy school. I was really nervous before I got there, but everyone was so friendly and they really tried to make you feel comfortable. My Interview was second to last! I had to wait for three hours after the orientation presentation to get interviewed. It was kind of nice because I got to just sit around and relax for awhile and talk to other interviewees and current students. It sounds like a really student oriented school, and all the professors seem to care for the students a lot.

It's kind of a different program. They have a block schedule meaning that you focus on one subject at a time. So for 2 weeks you'll learn nothing but biochemistry 8am - 3 pm monday-friday. You test on the material you learn every other friday. You take a self assesment first and you must get a 90% or higher to pass. After the self assesment you take the same test with the group that you are assigned to for the year. If you get 95% as a group they add 5 points to your self assesment to help you get the passing 90%. If you don't pass the test friday you get another chance to take a similar test on monday, but if you already passed you get that monday off of school. If you fail again on monday you have to go to summer school, and take that block over again.

When talking to other students about the program, they all expressed that they loved the block schedule. They also said that the teachers are always willing to help. Much like Snow College, they have open office hours, many teachers give you their cell phone numbers. Everyone said that it is really intense because it is a 3 year rather than a 4 year program, but it is doable. Another positive comment was that because it is a pass-fail program there isn't so much competition between students. Everyone is more willing to help each other out.

It seems like a good fit for me. The only downside is the cost of tuition. Other students that have children and spouses that are also going to school are able to find a way, so I know that we can too. It's going to be rough, but so far through prayer I have felt that this is something that I can do. I haven't even been accepted yet, so who knows what will happen. If I do, I think that I will go for it. I will find out no later than May, so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed until then!

New Job

As usual I'm behind on my news. Most of you probably already know that I got a new job at the local chinese restauraunt, The Snow Dragon. I've worked there for about 3 weeks, and so far I like it. Everyone is really nice there, and it is pretty busy and I make pretty good tips. The last couple of days it's been a little slow, but hopefully it will pick up again. It's definately not my ideal job, but I'm just grateful that I found a job. I called several places around town and no one was hiring. I just found out that the place that is always hiring, Western Watts, is actually closing down. That was the place that was going to be my fail safe if I couldn't find a job anywhere else! It has become very apparent even in Ephraim that the economy is not in good shape. I am truly blessed that I was able to find a job, hopefully I can keep my job.

The past week I have been pretty bored since I'm not taking any classes, and I don't have the PCAT to study for anymore. So, I've been trying to fill my time with things that I haven't had time to do in the past. I've read 3 books in the past week, and I've been trying a lot of new recipes. I feel bad for complaining for a lack of things to do, when so many other people are so busy they could scream, but I'm running out of ideas for things to do when I get home from work. Sadly, I am excited to start school again. I feel so unproductive.

Yesterday I baked a cake. It actually ended up tasting a lot better than I thought it would. It was a yellow cake with raspberry frosting and a cream cheese midlayer. I decorated cakes when I worked at Cold Stone, and I miss it at times, so I decided to go all out on decorating the cake. It is much harder to do when you don't have all the supplies at your fingertips, but it still looks pretty good. I really want to learn more about decorating cakes, maybe that is what I can do in my spare time, although that probably won't be a good thing for our diets...

As for Chris, he has been doing great. He's been really busy with school, but he's been doing a great job working hard to keep up with everything. He complains a lot about school, but I know that he does enjoy the things that he's learning, since it is all he talks about. I'm glad that he has a passion for his education. It's going to make it easier for him to finish school, and he's got a long way to go!

All in all everything is going great at the Hardcastle residence. I really am so grateful for how we have been blessed with health, great family and friends, and finances. It really is a reassurance that if you do the right things, and work hard, that the Lord will take care of you. We sure are a lucky couple!