Are you happy, healthy, and terrific?

My dad used to ask us kids that question all the time growing up. It's a phrase that pops into my head often, because I am! I was thinking today how lucky and blessed we are and how happy we have been lately. Not that we weren't before, I think I'm just seeing it more. Anyways...

This weekend was nuts! In all the good ways. We worked hard and played hard. Friday was the norm- Tyler worked, I schooled, then I erranded while he homeworked (all real words, I assure you). I had to work Friday night though- not the norm. We set up everything for auditions and ate yummy pizza. I work with some of the greatest people. Luckily I didn't have to work for too long though- I don't think it was more than 2 hours. Randall and Crystal came over after Tyler picked me up, and we had pizza (yes, I had two dinners of the same food in one night- don't judge) and played some Wii, and then watched "21" and ate pazookies. The movie really made me want to learn how to play poker or something. It was fascinating, seeing a life that I am so unfamiliar with. Anyway, it was a good night. We woke up uber-early Saturday morning because I had to be to work at 7! Audition day!! It was quite the event. We had hundreds of students auditioning, and for lots of different instruments. I got to administer the Aural Skills Exam (any of you music majors taken it?) and grade them afterwards, which was fun. It was a busy day, but it honestly was tons of fun. It really didn't feel like I worked 11 hours. Well, until about the 8th hour. :) Tyler picked me up at 6 and we went straight to Tucanos. Yay for coupons! I love birthday month. We ate lots of really good food and felt full for a really long time. After we ate we went to Giselle and Austin's place and (after a trip to Cari and Ryan's to borrow it) we watched "Terminator Salvation." Not my kinda movie. But it was fun to be there with their surround sound system... there was stuff falling off the shelves during one of the fight scenes. Pretty cool. I had a really hard time falling asleep that night, so I popped in "Wedding Planner" as Tyler was snoozing, and that helped. Sometimes I just need noise I guess!

Primary was a bit of a struggle today. Two of our kiddos started complaining that they weren't having any fun. Seriously? We had just shown them part of The Restoration movie. Whenever they played movies in Sunday School when I was a kid, it was a treat! Anyway, so they had a hard time listening to our lesson on the First Vision, so we ended up doing a little bit of Simon Says and paper airplane flying. They are so reverent in Sharing time though, it's weird. We came home after church and grabbed a snack, and then drove up Provo Canyon. It was such a beautiful afternoon! So we used our handy dandy camera to take a few self-timer pictures. I'm still getting the hang of the camera, but Tyler is much better, so some of the pics turned out great. We drove down to Aunt Dana's for dinner after that, and it was delicious! My first french dip sandwich. YUM. We sat around sharing stories for about 2 hours after that, and we laughed harder than we had in a long time. We love our family.

So, because we live in a time where it's acceptable to have family portraits taken as often as you darn well want, here are some of our "we've been married for a year and 5 months" pictures. Just struttin' our stuff.



What makes you happy, healthy, and terrific?

My Winter Wonderman

I love this man! And this camera that takes great pictures of this man! :)

Pain, in all its varieties

There are two kinds of good pain, in my opinion: being sunburnt and being sore. I wish that the pain I'm feeling tonight was a sunburn, but I'll settle for being sore until the sun comes out. I went swimming tonight! First time I've swum (yes, a real word) laps since... well, too long for you to know. But it felt great. Tyler was my motivator, sitting on the benches behind my lane reading. I was nervous to swim. We have this home video of me swimming at the Scera in a club race when I was probably 11 or 12, and I kicked everyone's trash in both races Lindsay filmed. There's a clip right at the end of my scrawny undeveloped self waving my two 1st place ribbons in the air. I've got a long way to go to get back there. I mean, to the fast swimmer-self, not scrawny and undeveloped-self. :) I have a problem when I swim though... it's way too exciting! I get in and start swimming, and then feel this rush of happiness and coolness and athleticism, and then I go too fast and burn out by the time I've reached 200 meters! Not cool or happy or athletic. Pretty opposite, actually. So I stuck it out as long as I could, going embarrassingly slow until I at least hit the 30 minute mark and jumped out (and when I say jumped I mean crawled) before the girl sharing my lane could say, "Leaving so soon?" Embarrassing or no, it felt great to be in the pool again. I can't wait to get in better shape and last longer than 30 minutes.

Speaking of pain (this time not the good kind), my first round of tests is coming up. First test is this week, then three more next week, and two more the week after that! Add to that the fact that I have to work 11 hours on Saturday (auditions) and you have a fun-sucking weekend. Fun-sucker! Someone name that movie. Good thing I've got my motivator with me (see below). He is my best friend and keeps me laughing the whole way!

Missing these kiddos

I miss Madi too... but sadly I don't have a picture of either of us with her yet.

Being an aunt is the greatest!!

The Dunkin' & Covenants

This is my favorite intramural basketball team! Just check out all their team spirit:
*Please excuse the blur: I had the camera on the sports setting the whole time.
They may have lost, but they kept their game faces on the whole time:
Go DC!

Poor Leslie

Pictures of our car accident on the way to Vegas...


Not too bad right? Well, from the outside. Apparently there are beams inside doors, and the one inside ours shattered.

Backed right into my face! My first reaction was to push the door as they were coming closer and closer... I'm convinced that my brute strength is what saved us.

Luckily, the car is all fixed now! We can't seem to get through a Christmas without something eventful (not in a good way). Maybe next year!

Stuff I like and love

Like: We went to Iggy's two weekends in a row! Hooray for great coupons. This would be a love (have you had their bread?!??) except for the fact that eating out shows on my love handles.

Love: House. Two reasons: 1. Dr. House. I wish I had the guts to talk to people like that sometimes. 2. I feel so smart when I diagnose something right before they say it! Or when I know what they're talking about!

Like: The feeling of being sore. Yesterday, I took advantage of the warm weather and tried to shovel a parking spot for our car on the street. Thanks to the neighbor's pick axe (sp?), I did it. My back is so sore now! Not in a bad, I-injured-my-back kind of way, but in a maybe-this-will-help-with-my-love-handles? kind of way.

Love: Does Otis Spunkmeyer mean anything to you? It should. We bought Otis's cookie dough at Costco before having Dane, Taylor (and adorable Kalei!), Randall, and Crystal over for games. I hadn't had those cookies since working for Inwest! We now have some dough in the oven, and ice cream thawing. Pazookies here we come. [Yes, this is just a few sentences after complaining about my love handles. But, in my defense, you should try this cookie dough.]

Like: Actually, I'm out of likes. Too many loves.

Love: These shoes! I really want them!

Love: my job! I had my second day today, and it was great. Thursday we had Condie (you know, Condoleezza Rice) here, and today we had Elder Kikuchi. Highlights: sitting SO close to both speakers- awesome! Also, hearing Elder Kikuchi tell everyone to make sure to wear clean underwear everyday. Definitely a first. Also, meeting lots of great people.

Love: Carl Bloch. We went to the art exhibit at the MOA for family night with Randall and Crystal last night... it's a great exhibit! And, free!

Love: these faces. This is Sam's reaction when the flash goes off! What a cheeser! Also, my husband is really handsome.

The frozen chosen

So maybe "chosen" is an exaggeration, but frozen certainly is not!! It is sooooo incredibly cold here! 4 degrees when I took Tyler to work this morning. Brrrrr. But we're finding ways to have fun. Friday night we did homework (mostly get-ahead kind of stuff) so we were ready to party on Saturday. Randall and Crystal were so nice to get tickets for all of us to go to the BYU basketball game! It was really fun. The back of the tickets had a coupon for Iggy's (buy one get one free entree? Yes please), so we called Austin and Giselle and they met us there after we did a little grocery shopping. We'd never been there- the bread at Iggy's is to die for! They pretty much botched poor Giselle's meal, but other than that it was great. We met at their apartment afterwards and watched Sherlock Holmes. Have you seen that? It's a really good movie!! I really like how they made sure to discredit all the black magic junk... it bugs me when they make that stuff seem real. Anyway, we stayed late at their place, just talking and planning more fun stuff. Then last night we went to my friend Kim's apartment to watch the championship football game with some of my old high school friends. We love all of our friends! I've been thinking so much lately about how blessed we are to have great friends, and to live by a lot of our family. We're so lucky.

In other news- I have a job! I interviewed this morning and got it! You are reading the words of the new receptionist/devotional music specialist for the BYU Music office. I am so excited! I get to coordinate musical numbers, conductors, and organ players for all of the devotionals and forums- starting Thursday with forum. Condoleezza Rice is coming to speak! Pretty exciting. I'm really looking forward to the job. It's just 8 hours a week, so it fits great into my 17-credit schedule.

Now, time for some random pictures! At Soldier Hollow just before Christmas:
Word.
Randall and Crystal at the game:
Austin and Giselle at Iggy's:
Us at Iggy's (I didn't post the pic of us at the game because it looks awfully similar, except for the awkward angle of my face):

Maybe I should invest in a snuggie or slanket or something. Wearing sweats just isn't cutting it down in this cold basement!

April?

Kinda wishin' it would be finals week right now. This might be a looooong semester! But it'll be great. We officially got through the first week of classes! I ended up registering for another class (online) so now I have 17 credits. The extra class is physical science 100, and I'm going to the testing center next week to see if I can do well enough on the exemption exam to not have to take the class but still get credit! That'd be amazing. I had a job interview yesterday for what seems like the perfect job... pick me pick me! But I probably won't find out until next week sometime, so I'm still applying for other jobs in the meantime.

On Monday night we had Garrett, Mitchell, and Adam over. Everyone had just returned from home and we were glad to have them back! We played some Wii games, including one that G, M, and AJ gave us- Glee karaoke. It was seriously amazing. I have a very talented and entertaining new family! :) We had them over again on Wednesday night, this time including Abby, for Modern Family, brownies, and Perudo. I love that our closest friends also happen to be family! I think that's how it should be.

Tyler is a genius and came up with an awesome spreadsheet for documenting our goal-accomplishing this year! It's so satisfying checking off the little boxes he made each day. We've decided to reward ourselves at the end of the year if we accomplish all of our goals... pretty motivating! Haven't decided on a reward yet, so I just fantasize about stuff. Very effective. :) I'm keeping the system the same as last year, where I have a few goals for the whole year, but more goals set for just January. I just get too ambitious at the beginning of a year and set tons of goals that might sound great at the time, but as the year passes and schedules and motivations change, they're not always as practical as they could be. So, with that being said, I'm going to stick with my goal to make goals. :) But I have some good ones for January:

-The kitchen must be clean when I go to bed every night (holy cow. I love this goal. It makes me ultra-clean everywhere)
-Write one thank you card per week
-Find a job
-Practice the piano one hour per week

And a few others. I also want to be better about writing our missionaries this year. So there's lots to do! I have a feeling (nay, a hope) that this year will be a quick and a good one!

p.s. We're going to our first b-ball game of the season today. I love my brother-in-law, but that doesn't change my hope (or prediction??) that we stomp all over Air Force! :) GO COUGS

From the mouth of a 22 year old

Thanks to Nicole for helping me fix my blog. I think it did have something to do with the pictures. I tried messing around with the width and different templates even, but in the end I just deleted the Christmas post and the survey post. So, sorry to anyone who missed those posts. Apparently they were just too awesome for blogger to handle! :)

SO, I'm 22 now! We had a fun New Year's. New Year's Eve was spent with Austin and Giselle! We had a semi-progressive dinner. It was supposed to be with more than just us 2 couples, but we ended up just doing dinner here at our place and dessert at theirs! We had a great time though. I made stirfry and we played Wii and Perudo at our house, then had dessert, snacks, and PlayStation Move at their house. We slept in the next morning and left around noon for Grandpa's house! All the Backus side was there, and it was great. We had lunch and then busted out the 4-wheelers and sleds. It was pretty cold, but luckily the sun was out. I wish I had pictures of the day, but we really only took videos! We got home around dinner-time. The plan was to go to Texas Roadhouse, but the wait was over 90 minutes. No thank you! So we went to Chili's instead. Yum. We came home and watched Charlie St. Cloud while I made a gooey cake for myself. :) I pretty much ate it by myself too, unfortunately. That's kinda what happens when there's gooey cake around me.

Can't quite believe it's 2011! Here's a look back at our 2010:

January: Recovered from our eventful Christmas. Full of work for me, school for Tyler, and sledding.

February: Mom came to visit for Kellie and Ryan's wedding, I started baking bread like crazy, more work, even more school for Tyler.

March: Started experimenting with cooking, Austin and Giselle's wedding! Papa Kurt came for that and we had a great time.

April: End of the Jr. Core for Tyler (thank goodness!), beginning of warm weather. Finally.

May: Tyler and I spent as much time together as possible, trying to savor every moment before he left for his internship in Houston. We took two trips to Park City, where we shopped and did the Olympic zipline with Randall and Crystal! I also trained for and ran a 10k in May.

June: Tyler left for his internship. Also, I went to my first Juergens Reunion!! Then was my family's reunion. Then, I came back here and Tyler stayed. That was the not fun half of the month.



July: Good month. Tyler came to visit for the 4th of July, along with my family. Tim stayed with me for a few days after everyone else left, and we went to 7 Peaks and had a fun time together. I think I hiked the Y 5 times this month. Once with Tim, once with Tyler and his family, and 3 times by myself. I also ran a half marathon with Aubrey this month! Didn't train for it, so was happy just to finish. Then, at the end of the month, Tyler came home for good!


August: Celebrated our first anniversary! We took a trip to Zion's National Park and St. George. Went to the Manti Temple with Ryan, Kellie, and our grandparents. Hiked Stewart Falls, went to the zoo, took an emergency trip to Vegas for baby Dean's birth. Finished working for AMP! Busy month!

September: School started! That pretty much dominated our lives. We bought "the pass of all passes" over Labor Day weekend... best dating expense choice ever!

October: School, dates at Trafalga, drives up the canyon. Started experimenting with crocheting a bit more. Went through my first haunted corn maze!

November: Went to a BYU Hockey game and went ice skating with Adam and Aubrey, all in one weekend. Spent Thanksgiving break with Tyler's family, had our best Black Friday ever, and loved seeing Savior of the World! We also Jump{ed} On It, saw Unstoppable, and started listening to Christmas music.

December: Finished fall semester, had a great Christmas break! Went to Vegas and loved spending time with family.

2010 was so good to us! We can't wait to see what 2011 brings.

Sorry Michelle!

Michelle tagged me in this survey about a month ago... and I have taken a long time to do it! My apologies. Here goes.

1)When is your "marriage" anniversary? "engagement" anniversary?
Engagement: March 5, 2009. Wedding: August 8, 2009

2) Where/how did you meet your spouse for the first time?
I have known OF Tyler for a long time. My family has moved in and out of the area that his family lives in near Houston for years. But my first memory of us actually meeting was when he came over to our house in Utah on Easter Sunday with his dad. I was 13, I think. He was good friends with my sister and was actually there to see her, but I'm not gonna lie, I thought he was cute even then!
3) How long have you known your spouse:
I guess you could say 9 years? Or 2.5ish, from when we started dating.
4) How long did you date/court before you were engaged?
Dated for about 7 months before engagement, another 5 before marriage.
5) Do you have any children:
Not yet

6) Do you have any house pets:
Nope! Can't in this apartment. Not sure what we would have if we could anyway...
7) What are some of your favorite activities together:

Well, our first dates involved tennis, and we still love to play all the time. In fact, we played yesterday! Other than tennis, we like to play board games, watch movies, and read books together.
8) Do you have a favorite vacation spot:
Me, or us? The only vacations we've been on have been our honeymoon (cruise to Mexico) and trips to Houston and to Vegas to visit family. We say all the time how much we'd like to go on another cruise though!

9) Where was your first date?
July 24, 2008. Yes, Pioneer day. :) We met at Institute (finally serving its purpose!) and then attempted to play tennis at some nearby courts afterward. I say attempted because we couldn't get the lights on! So we went to TCBY and got ice cream and talked for a few hours. Maybe he rigged the lights- that made it easy for him to plan a 2nd date for the next night!
10) When did you first kiss?

We first kissed the day before he left for a trip to Costa Rica with his family- about a week after our first date. We were on a walk, feeding ducks at a pond near his house! Re-enacted in the picture above. Presh.
11)Who said I Love you First?
Tyler did, I said it right back. Actually, I said "You do?" first so I made sure I hadn't heard him wrong! :)
12) Did you get married in a church?
No we got married in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple.
13) Where did you go on your honeymoon:

Cruise to Catalina Island and Ensanada, Mexico. It was the best.
14) How long did you know each other before you started dating?
As previously explained, probably about 7 years.
15)What do you call each other most of the time?
I try to avoid "babe" because of Jan and Michael on the Office... did that annoy anyone else? I used to joke and call him honeymuffin, but it kinda stuck... now I say honeymuff or just muff! It's pretty funny. Let's see, Tyler will usually call me hun or sweetie or Cam.
16)Where do you each work or go to school?
We both attend BYU, Tyler works in the Accounting Dept. at Pinnacle. I'm currently looking for a job.
17) Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
Anytime we have to make a seemingly easy decision- like what movie to watch! Kind of kidding. Other than that, neither of us are very good at confrontation- especially with other people. Like yesterday, for example. We had reserved a tennis court at BYU, and there were people on it. At the time our reservation was supposed to be, we went to them and said we had reserved it. The guy we were talking to said that he had reserved it for another hour. So we called the office and they had lied about reserving it! WHY??
18) Did you go to the same school?
Nope- not until college.
19) Are you from the same home town?
Yeah, I guess you could say we're both from Houston! I like that we're both Texans.

20) Who is smarter?
We both have different areas of smarts... but I really think my hubby is one of the smartest men ever.
21) Who is more sensitive?
Uh... not sure how to answer this. I'm lucky to have married a man who is sensitive (and will watch chick flicks with me!), but I'm not sure who is more.
22)Where do you eat out most as a couple?
We don't eat out tons... but we like Cafe Rio, Olive Garden, and (recently discovered) Chili's. Their 2 for $20 deal is killer!
23) What attracted you to him first?

Well, when I was 13, it was his insane good looks. I mean, look at that face! I had no idea way back then that I would have a chance to know him better later! But when we started dating, I knew right away that we could get married. He is so good that I had no doubts, from very early on.
24) Who is more social?
Depends on how you define "social." We both really like to have people over and be with people, I'd say equal amounts. I'm louder in groups though. Maybe more they should change this question to ask who is more obnoxious?
25) Who is the neat-freak?
Depends on the day! We both have our moments.
26) What are HIS favorite things and HER favorite things?
His: chocolate milk, new computer programs, basketball, being with his wifey, family, etc. Obviously not in that order.

Hers: desserts, tennis, reading, music, and being with the hubster. Again, not that order.

I tag you, if you want to do it.