Big Events!!

So, since I last posted we've had a lot of big events. We celebrated our one year anniversary, Eli's 24th birthday, and my graduation from BYU. Here are a lot of pictures.
For our anniversary we went back to the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake where we spent our wedding night. It was so much fun. We went swimming, ate a nice dinner, and even got room service. I got Eli a soccer ball and he wrote me a poem and sang me some songs. It was a great anniversary. I can't believe we've been married a year. It went by really quickly and it seems like we've been married for a lot longer than that.
For Eli's birthday we had an awesome Nacho Libre party. We dressed like wrestlers, nuns, or orphans, ate a lot of food, had a wrestling contest, and watched the movie outside. It was a lot of fun.
I graduated on Friday. It was really nice, short too. My mom and dad came out for it. We had a really good time with everyone. On Friday night we had a nice barbeque with all the family that was in the area at Eli's parents house. It was a lot of fun. Now, I'm just looking for a job. Eli's working and getting ready for school to start. It's kind of strange to have a fall without starting school. But, nice.
Here are our pictures:

Separate Vacations

Well, we have almost been married a year and we already started taking separate vacations. I went home last week for my friend's wedding. We couldn't afford two plane tickets. Eli stayed home to find a job (he got one the first day, while I've been looking for almost a month, no fair!). He's now working at Stonehenge Rehab as a CNA. Thanks for putting in the good word, Emily. But, his job didn't start until the next week, so he got a ride with his brother to the family cabin in Island Park, ID, right outside of Yellowstone. I don't like separate vacations. I missed him so much. But, we both did have a good time on our respective trips. I just wish we could have taken each of them together. Oh well. I had a great time in Missouri. Joanna's wedding was beautiful. It was a lot of fun and I saw some friends that I hadn't seen for a while. Then I got to go visit Alaina, Roland, Milo, and Oliver (whom I had never met before). I love those two boys. Oliver smiles so much and Milo gives the best kisses. Then I spent time with Paul, Cheryl,and their lot. They were fun to hang out with too! And I got to see Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Michell, and Mom and Dad. It was a great trip. Then the day I got back was fun too. Annie and Lia Belle picked me up. Then we all went to Provo where I got to see Eli again, then we all went to Cindy's and ate lunch, then we all went swimming at the Orem pool. It was a lot of fun. After that, Eli and I went to the airport to pick up Ronda's oldest three. I even got to see Ronda and Romey. Romey couldn't be restrained from seeing Eli so I had to take her back through security again. The most amazing thing about the whole trip was that I got to see all 16 of my nieces and nephews all in a week's time. I don't think that's ever happened before! I'm happy to be home now and back with Eli. I missed him a lot. Hopefully, separate vacations won't happen again. Here are some pictures!

No Fireworks for us...but we did see a bear!

So, we had a very interesting Fourth of July. Cindy, Kurt, AJ, and Lars came over for breakfast and then we all went to the parade. It was very nice. Then we just hung out, Cindy and Kurt got sandwich stuff for lunch and we had a very pleasant time together. Then they went home to nap and Eli and I napped too. When we woke up we went and saw the movie "17 Again." I loved that movie. Eli liked it too. It was really funny. Then we met up with our friends Tom and Whitney to go cook some hotdogs at Tom's family cabin in Provo canyon, by Vivian park. We were excited. The street the cabin is on has three or four other cabins, most of them had people at them. When we pulled into the driveway, Tom started to get out of the car but the neighbor yelled, "stay in your car! There's a bear by your cabin." So, needless to say, we stayed in the car. Tom's neighbor is a vet. By that I mean veterinarian, not a vet from the armed forces, although I don't know if he was in the army or something or not, he did have really good aim. Anyway, the vet shot a gun a few times to scare him off. He told us the bear wouldn't be back because he was too scared. So, we went back and started cooking our hotdogs. The neighbors came back and told us to get off the porch because the bear was back. We could see it running between our cabin and the neighbors. It wasn't huge, as far as bear standards go, but it was powerful. So, it's running around and then we heard a really really loud shot. Just one shot. Then the neighbor who's a vet said, "He's dead." He shot that bear in the head with just one shot. So, we got to go up and see the freshly killed bear. It was still pretty big and powerful looking to me. We all felt kind of bad for the bear. He was just curious, maybe he even got scared by all the fireworks and that's why he came down. But he was just being a bear, not really harming anyone, and then bam, he's dead. At the same time, there were a lot of kids around and the next day a lot of Tom's little cousins were going to be at the cabin, so you can't just have a bear running around. But we still felt sad for it all the same. The pictures are pretty cool. Sorry if I got repeats of some pictures. Also noteworthy that night was the biggest moth any of us had ever seen, it was about the size, if not bigger, of a hummingbird. And when we were leaving, a huge, probably half-ton bull moose with giant antlers ran out right in front of our car and we almost hit it. That was more of an experience with nature than I was looking for, but it was pretty cool. It was certainly a night we'll remember. Happy Fourth of July! And R.I.P. big bear.

Finally Pictures of Stuff!

So, here are some pictures finally. The ones of nature are of our hike we took a couple months ago, the one where Eli saved the dog from the river. It was beautiful. The one of the pretty little pool was the actual hot springs, although it was more like a luke-warm bath. But it was a great hike. The one of Eli's taco's is after we saw Taken. It's our new system of judging how good a movie is. The more Eli likes it, the more he flaps his arms, and the more he sweats. Therefore, Taken is a great movie because, well, look at those tacos!























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Now, here are some more pictures. We have a new niece, little Tori Bell Reddish. She's so cute. We stopped at Kim and Rory's house on our way to Idaho for Mother's Day. There's Rustin with his uncle Eli. Their relationship is mutually beneficial. Eli loves playing with Rustin and Rustin loves playing with Eli. There's also Eli's roommates, Thom, Steve, and Kyle with their wives. It's kind of like they're the power foursome because we all got married the same summer. This was a dinner we had right before Thom and Brittany moved to Texas, and told us they were pregnant! Congratulations you guys! And we have pictures of Eli before his MCAT! He took it yesterday morning in Casper, WY. He thinks he did all right on it, but we have to wait 30 days for the actual score. We had a good day and a half trip. On the way home we stopped at a nature interpretive site (we still don't know what it means. It was little lake with signs about the animals who live there) and at Martin's Cove, which is conveniently right on the way to Casper. We're glad to be home though. Eli is looking for a job now and so am I. Hopefully we'll both be employed soon. That's all the update we have. I have pictures on Picasa if you want more. Here's the link!
Also, we have a picture from Mother's Day in Idaho, me on my last day of college ever! (I had to give a presentation,that's why I'm dressed up)! That was a great day!

FREEDOM!!!!

Yes, you read that right. Freedom. From what, you may ask? Well... Freedom from writing papers, freedom from being told what to read, freedom from stress about whether or not I'll pass a test, freedom from paying a lot of money every few months for school, freedom from always thinking about what's due the next day...you get the idea. I am done with school! My last final was Wednesday night, and I did pretty well on it if I do say so myself. I am so happy to be finished. I'm not trying to rag on BYU though, with that list above, I love BYU and I think it's a great university and it's helped me a lot in life. I am just over the moon to be done. It was kind of weird because I had a lot going on this week (finals, papers, presentations, work) that everything kind of slipped by without much thought. Usually when a big part of my life is over, I like to muse about it and celebrate it. We did get taken out to Cafe Rio on Wednesday to celebrate, so that was fun. I think I'd like to write about what my time at BYU has meant to me. Warning, this may become cheesy.
First of all, when I came to BYU, it was the first time I had ever moved in my life. That's right, I had never lived anywhere else but my parents home. And, I was so excited to get out of Kearney that it wasn't a big traumatic move, but I think that is significant. I went somewhere a thousand miles away where I didn't know anyone. That was fun.
I also learned a lot about the nature of learning. I'll be the first to admit that I was not the best studier, or that I did 110% on each and every assignment. In reality it was far from that, but I've found out that there are things out there that I am passionate about and that I would be interested in learning about for the rest of my life. BYU really promotes lifelong learning, and I totally see what they mean. I know it took me a little longer than normal to graduate (almost 5 years) because it took me a long time to decide on a major, but I don't think any of my time that I spent here was a waste at all. It was all valuable because it provided me experiences.
At BYU, I learned a lot about love. I know that sounds so lame, but it's true. And, I'm not just saying that because I met my husband there, but rather, I learned a lot about love in friendships,finding love, loving yourself, and loving the Lord. I don't think I could have grown as much as I have anywhere else. I had a LOT of hard times at BYU, a lot of pain and struggles.Struggles over grades, classes, relationships, deciding on a major, friendships, jobs, trying to figure out what tod with my life, and things of that nature. Most of them were probably because of my own stupid actions, but it all helped me become a better person.
I made so many great friends at BYU. Friends that I will have for life. Most of these friends came from people I lived with or people that I worked with, but there's just something about going through the same things together with a group of people that will keep you friends forever. I can't even list them all because so many people have touched my life. It makes me excited to think of all of my friends here and where we'll all end up in the world. I hope we'll be spread out all over so we can always go to visit each other. Anyone is always welcome to stay at our place, wherever we end up.
And of course, I met Eli here. I've always said, even before I met Eli, that I'm certain I only got into BYU because of inspiration on the part of the admissions board. I'm not like a lot of BYU students, academically or ambitiously, but I know this was where I was supposed to be. I can't believe the way things worked out while i was here and how I came to meet Eli and we got married. I'm very lucky to have him. I'm also kind of glad that he still has a year of school here because I like BYU and I like Provo.
Well, this is getting lengthy. If anyone wants to come to graduation, it's on August 14-15. I'm excited. If you come we'll have a party.

Best Husband Award #2...

Still goes to Eli. I have to write 2 papers by Monday (but they're the last two papers I will ever have to write for BYU, so it's not too bad). Eli knows that I like to procrastinate (hey, I do my best work at the last minute and it's worked for the past 4 1/2 years so why change now?). During my procrastination period, I ironically get a lot of other work done, especially housework. So, what was Eli doing all day on Monday when I was at work? He cleaned the whole house! I'm talking dusting, vacuum, dishes, putting away laundry, EVERYTHING! He even had dinner started when he picked me up. And then to make it better, on Tuesday he came up with meal plans for us for the next couple weeks and a grocery list and he even came to the grocery store with me, which is an errand and he hates errands. I think I have the best husband ever. He's a sweetie. He's always very helpful and does more than I expect of him, but this week has been a lot and I'm really grateful. We're almost coming up on a year of marriage now, how weird is that? It has gone by quickly! Oh, and an update on the MCAT, Eli moved the date of it, probably to July 2, happy birthday Alaina, and will be taking it then, if the confirmation comes through. He just felt like a couple more weeks of studying would be just the right amount for the score he's hoping for. He's been studying up a storm though. He found the perfect little study cubicle in the library. It's on the same floor as my work and it is away from all computers and other such distractions, but still easy to get to and I can always run over and talk to him on my break. He's going to do great on the MCAT. So, that's our update. I'll be writing a lot of stuff this weekend. I can't wait to be done!! And I'm also starting my job search, so if you hear of anything let me know!
Have a good night!
Cherie

I'm scared of June

Sorry, I don't have any pictures because I left my camera at Cindy's house. Anyway, I made the headboard and it turned out great, yet for some reason, on the right side of our bed nails will not go into the wall. I spent a lot of time searching for something to secure it, and I found a hook type of thing, and the headboard hung for a couple of days. Until Saturday. I finally selected a picture to hang above our bed and whilst I was hammering in the nail, the headboard fell off and I was unable to get it to go back. I got so frustrated I had to just forget about it for a while. But, I will get it up one of these days, even if I have to completely reconfigure the bedroom. Just kidding, I'd just move the bed at the most. We had a good weekend. Friday night was Eli's friend Tom's birhtday. They had a cookout at Mt. Timp park. It was fun. Then we watched the movie "New in Town" with Tom and Whitney. I really liked that movie. It was really cute and it was one of the cleanest movies I've seen in a long time. On Saturday I cleaned the whole house (which was awesome) while Eli studied then we went to a bonfire up the canyon with some of our friends. It was really fun and so nice to come home to a clean house. Now, we have 17 days to the MCAT so I will be drafting up a schedule for us as soon as I'm done posting this so we can make the most of our time in studying. Eli takes the test the day after I have my finals. So, in the next 16 days I have to write two big papers and present them to the class. We have a lot going on in the next few weeks so we probably won't be doing much. Well, a couple fun things we'll be doing is our ward pool party on Saturday and new baby Tori's blessing on Sunday in Ogden. Wish us luck on our upcoming academic endeavors. Ha, that sounds so high-falutin'. And that sounds so hick. Oh well. Have a good week everyone!