14 to 13. Enough said.

Time to do some re-ranking!

Peter got a new toy! and other happenings of our lives

Check out that smile!

So technically, this is not a toy, more another form of transportation. But it is so fun! It is a KYMCO People S-200 (i think? if you want to know more about it ask him). We even drove it to church the other day and had awesome hair when we arrived.
As you can see from this picture, it is sweet blue color and has a nice spot in the back for yours truly to sit. (or i guess other people, but it looks pretty funny when he has his buddy's on the back)

In other news, Peter is doing great at work with the insurance stuff and got 110% of his goal last month. What a stud. All while I work my 12 hrs a week -- still looking for a job that is in my field.

Other new changes to our family include Cosmo having to go to the vet, where they told me he weighs 13.6 lbs! What a cow. We thought he had a urinary tract infection (something any girl can sympathize with) and I got to collect a urine sample, but for all that, he is fine.
I dyed my hair back to its "natural" color, meaning it is really dark but will probably fade, and as you can see by the pic, we are getting reading for the football game today. BYU is playing Oklahoma University and while they will probably get stomped, we will still go and support. It is the first game in the new cowboy stadium and it will be fun to root on our alma mater.

You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.

Or so says Davy Crockett.

Other amusing things from Texas so far:

There are hooters, twin peaks (same thing as hooters) and bone daddy's (worse than hooters) every block. And they are considered family friendly restaurants.

Evangelical christians make up approximately 1/3 of the radio stations here, and 1/6 of the TV stations.

Cattle drives still take place in the middle of the street. (okay, just downtown Fort Worth at the stockyards, which are pretty awesome.)

Ribs = amazing!!

Drivers seem fairly laid back and so it takes a while for people to go when the light turns green.

They sell key limes at the grocery store. Maybe since we share the gulf they are easy to get?

There are like, 5 million power companies here and you can pick and choose what you want.

Ed hardy is apparently the state sponsor of clothes. I have literally seen their stuff in just about every single store. Also, the girl in front of us in church (by girl i mean 12-14 year old) was doodling his name on a notepad during sacrament meeting. I guess i just don't get it.

The lower the lakes get, the more our water starts to taste like fish.

Grapevine Texas!

After a 20-ish hour trip down from Michigan (with the cat sitting in his litter box the entire time--it was clean :) ) Peter and I are finally here! With a temperature of somewhere in the 100s, we unpacked our entire apartment with the assistant of one of Peter's friends from home, a couple from the ward, and the local elders. And as you can see, Peter is enjoying taking it easy in our air-conditioned apartment.

Our trash days are Monday and Thursday, and we accidentally slept in past trash pick up. So thank goodness we have 2 bedrooms! And much to the dismay of the cat, they are gone as of this morning.

This is where he spends much of his time, under the bed, being a stink.

Here is our lovely dining room/nook, and I am a little nervous at the prospect of it being over carpet in that, according to Peter and the hospital records, if it is breakable or spillable I will be the one to do it.

Our kitchen! So wonderful, lots of cabinet space.
Drumroll please . . . . and a DISHWASHER!!! Hallelujah! I think we have been using extra dishes just because we know we don't have to wash them. Also in this corner are three of my other favorite things. 1) My kitchenaid. Enough said. 2) The greek owl tile from Peter's grandparents house. Trish told me that her mother always told her that it is considered lucky to have an owl in the kitchen, and there he will stay. 3) The garden gnome. He mostly lives here because Peter does not really want him anywhere else, but I adore him!
Here is our bathroom, pre-curtain rod. (They brought it today) And as hot as it is here, we don't get much cold water from the tap. But the shower is huge and so it is great.
Our beautiful bedroom, complete with new mattress. bed frame, and duvet cover. I love it! We got a memory foam and it really is like the most comfy thing in the world. Also some rad things in this room include a framed picture of Peter as a baby and his little teddy bear that his mom let me take with me. The picture is killer and he has the fattest cutest cheeks ever.
For the most part, that is our apartment. No big Texas bugs yet, or any other crazy things. I hope you guys can come visit! (we will even let you try out the memory foam)

Chicago is one of our favorite places

About two weekends ago we took a trip down to Chicago. Several tolls later in which we did not have cash (whoops) we landed in Carey, Illinois, which is where Peter's uncle Jared and his wife Matia live. (so Jared is really Peter's uncle's brother, but. . . same thing.) They were sweet enough to let us stay the weekend there with them and their so-cute two little girls. And their pet snake, who is currently receiving antibiotics via injection by Jared. Random, but kinda awesome to watch.

So Saturday morning we get up early to go catch the train into town, and once we get there we realize the station in closed. Thinking we could just buy tickets on the train, we hop on and wait for the ticket man to come around. Once he gets to us, I pull out my credit card and he says they only take cash. We do not have any cash (as evidenced by the toll booth situation) and the guy tells us we will have to get off, get cash, and wait for the next train (at least an hour). Thankfully, the amazing guy and his daughter behind us offered to pay our fare and we could reimburse them when we got off. So nice of him!

We got into town and hopped on the bus, and the first place we got to was Navy Pier. It smelled of delicious roasted nuts and lots of other fried foods. As you can tell, Peter decided to make a photo op without my knowledge:

Also located on Navy Pier is the National Public Radio station where they air and record "This American Life." We buzzed the intercom and tried to get in, but I guess they only do tours and visits during the week. I guess that means I will have to wait until my next trip to meet Ira Glass.
After that we hopped on a bus that took us to the Miracle mile to check out all the shops and fun fancy places. And what did we find?? Steve Urkel's car from Family Matters!!

So funny. The people in the store probably thought we were silly, but that is okay. Peter was sweet and let me go into all the shops and spend as much time as I wanted. When we got too pooped we stopped at the Ghiradelli store and ordered an amazing banana split. There were lots of really neat buildings, like the Wrigley building, and a lot of them were pretty historic. It makes me want to move to a huge city!

If you walk further down on Michigan Ave you run into the beach (lake beach is still a beach!) It was such a beautiful warm day that we took off our shoes and waded in the water for awhile. It was so funny to be in the midwest and see a beach.

Towards the end of the day we both were starving, so we stopped at Gino's East to get some real Chicago-style pizza. Everyone writes on the walls and benches there, so we were sure to make our mark as well. (It is the reddish pinkish writing on the right-hand side)

We took the train back that night and heard all of Jared's great stories from his medical rotations and all in all had a blast. I could definitely live in Chicago, should the right job take us there.

Pictures from Canada and Ben's wedding

Wonderful Peter figured out how to get the pictures off his camera for us without the cord so now I don't feel so dumb explaining our adventures. It helps to have something to show for our trips! So here are our pictures we took our first visit to Canada. This picture of me is looking at the Renaissance Center (GM's headquarters) from the other side of the Detroit River. There was a really pretty boardwalk area to walk up and down.

Here is Peter, being awesome. I think he is pointing to the "People Mover" which is the actual name of the elevated monorail that goes around downtown Detroit.

No idea why Canadians are dressed up as Scots, but I am sure if we were native we might have understood why. It was their Memorial Day when we visited so there were celebrations going on.

We took the tunnel on the way to Canada (it took like 3 minutes) and took the Ambassador Bridge on the way back.

While there isn't a whole lot to do for us kids in Windsor, the next weekend Jason and Emeri came to town for Ben's wedding so we decided they needed to go see Canada too. (Peter and Jason have been best buddies with Ben since high school) Don't they look good? We had so much fun with them that weekend, and we went all over downtown Detroit, including a special trip to Pizzapapalis in Greektown. We all had a slumber party complete with Cosmo waking everyone up, and then got ready for the wedding. Ben and his awesome now-wife, Kim, got married in the Detroit temple. We stayed for some pictures and went to a ring ceremony, and dinner reception. Peter and I are lonely again with them gone, but maybe they can visit us in Texas on their way out to VA! (hint hint, nudge nudge).

Okay, so Peter just explained to me that Texas is not technically "on the way" to Virginia but a girl can hope right?

Oh, Canada

Peter and I went to Canada this weekend! We got on the tunnel to go, and I think we will be there for about 20 minutes or so but before I even know we are under the Detroit River we are already on our way out.

Each agent at the stop grilled us about random things before letting us in or out, like where Peter was working and why we were coming to visit. After parking down by the river, we walked into a Memorial Day celebration for them and there were lots of army-looking men in kilts and sweet white boots. (As soon as we get the cord for our camera I will post the pictures, we both packed ours up for Texas). Why on earth they wear kilts in Canada, I will never know. We walked around for a while and then went to get some delicious Chinese for lunch, since we heard it was great there. (it was, and we gorged ourselves)

Some other good news--we got a mac! And as you can tell by the picture below, we have been having great fun with the photo booth option. 

The cat does not look as thrilled as I would think he would. Anyway, we have skype and iChat and now we can all see each other when we move far away. Another reason we got the mac is so Peter can use it to do great things with pictures and videos for his website:

scootergy.com

Here he is hard at work: 

The glare isn't great, but you can see Peter hard at work on the website! In the background is the "Company white board" that has all the things that he and his dad want to do with the site. 

We miss you all and love you! Can't wait to see you guys in Vegas soon!