Meet Ricky. His full name is Alan Rickman, but we call him Ricky, Rick, Ricks, and anything else we come up with.
He's mine and John's new pet.
He's a gecko!
He is the coolest pet ever. And super easy to take care of.
He eats live crickets. We throw in a few at night before bed. He's a nocturnal animal, so he's usually asleep during the day, but we play with him anyway.
We love our Ricky.
Unfortunately we can't take him with us this summer. So Amanda will be babysitting him for a while. I still really want to take him with us...
He really likes John. A few times he's curled up in John's hand and went to sleep. For some reason he likes John more than he likes me. He runs away from me to John when we play with him. It's probably because John is warmer.
It's exactly one month until I'm getting married. It's crazy to think that my life took such a turn so quickly... I sat down (okay, so I'm procrastinating on editing and re-drafting my midterm paper for English) and actually figured out the recent important dates. It was funny how I had things a little (or a lot...) wrong until just now. And it's sad how hard it was to figure out.
Nov. 18: John and I met at my apartment watching The Producers and eating pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that I made for him.
Nov. 19/20: Amanda, Amber, John and I went to the midnight release of Twilight and had Brick Oven Pizza beforehand.
Dec. 13: John picked me up and we went to Amanda's breakfast/Elf Christmas finals party. We frolicked to the Creamery together in the snow.
Dec. 16-18: We studied together in the library everyday for finals.
Dec. 19: Last day of finals, John and I studied and then watched a movie at my apartment and shared our first kiss...es... kisses... I don't remember what movie this was... But it was a good night. We went to Wal-Mart with Amanda and then went to hang out with her at her apartment.
Dec. 20-Jan 1: Christmas break. We talked together... everyday... for hours. And John has the phone bill to prove it... and he said it was totally worth it.
Jan 2: We both returned from break, and John gave me a Three Kings Day gift he made for me.
Jan 3: I went over to John's apartment for pancakes, then we went to the library, then the other library, and the store. We were together the entire day. And it didn't feel long enough.
Jan 4: We spent the whole afternoon together and watched Singing in the Rain. In the middle of the movie, John asked me to be his girlfriend.
Jan 5: Our first date after we started dating. We played in the snow on campus, walked together for hours, talked at the Bell Tower, and threw snowballs at Freshman.
Jan 7: We built a fort in my living room and dubbed it "Fort Adelaide"
Jan 8: John met my dad when he came to visit for the weekend.
Jan 23-25: We took a vacation to Vegas with Tyler and Tristan and stayed with Tristan's dad.
Jan 30-Feb 1: Jake come to visit and I got to meet him.
Feb 4: My mom called and, out of the blue, asked if I was planning on marrying John. To which I admitted I was. And she wasn't surprised, but very excited!
Feb 8: John told his very, very shocked family that he was planning on marrying a strange girl they hadn't really heard about at all. At least they knew my name...
Feb 14-16: We drove to Idaho so I could meet the rest of his family.
Feb 21-23: We flew to Nevada so John could meet the rest of my family.
Mar 6: John proposed to me inside the Draper temple in the sealing room during the open house.
Well, you know what has happened since then :) Now we're just on the last stretch to the temple!
Wow, that happened fast. But not really... we spent every spare moment together, so it didn't feel fast.
31 days... one month... :D
...and I just realized. I've seen John every day since we returned from Christmas break on January 2nd. That is amazing to me... And it's still always hard to say goodnight when we part in the evening.
I woke up yesterday with a sore throat, but ignored it. Sore throats are common, and don't usually mean anything big. Then today, I could hardly swallow. I went to church, then after, I had John look at it. My tonsils are swollen and have big white spots on them.
So, like any girl, I called my mom to ask what to do. She said it was probably strep and told me to go to urgent care to get a throat culture since I don't have a doctor in Utah. Urgent care would be the most efficient way of getting some help. So, I changed out of my church dress, and had John take me to an urgent care in Orem. Let's just say that I'm glad I still have insurance through my parents.
A throat culture, blood test, and an hour later the doctor informed me I have mono.... and no way to treat it. Ugh. Well, that explains why I've had constant headaches and been tired a lot lately.
There are SO many good movies coming out this summer! John and I are (unfortunately) going to be spending tons of money to go see them all, but we've decided that we can't miss them! And it's already begun. We've seen three amazing ones already.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine- I've never seen any of the X-Men movies before and I was really impressed with this one. I had always imagined the X-Men movies to be cheesy, super hero movies (enter Spiderman, Fantastic Four...), but I loved Wolverine. The action was AMAZING. And I really liked the plot. I especially liked that I understood what was going on even though I didn't know absolutely anything about X-Men before the movie. **See the Wolverinetrailer here
Star Trek- OH MY GOSH. John says that after that movie I was ready to turn into a Trekkie. (Side note: it makes me laugh that I typed in "Trekkie" and spell check recognized it as a real word). Yet another example of a very exciting, pleasant surprise! I was prepared to watch a stupid, cheesy movie. The only Star Trek I had ever been introduced to was when I was in fifth grade. My teacher, who wasn't my favorite teacher by any means, was a BIG Trekkie, and talked about Star Trek quite often. Therefore, I got a bad image of it in my head. From that time on, the only thing I knew about it was that there was some dude with an ugly bowl cut with pointy ears, and a famous line, "Beam me up, Scotty!" Pathetic, I know. But I loved this movie so much, I saw it twice already. Plus, that evil dude who played Sylar in Heroes was amazing as Spock. **See the Star Trektrailer here
Angels and Demons- I saw this with John yesterday. I read the book this last week in two days to prepare to see it. I read The DaVinci Code before seeing the movie and was really glad that I did, so I wanted to read Angels and Demons as well. The movie was very different. Very different... but it made for a better movie than the book would have. The book was just too complex and required too much background detail to be fit into a movie. So overall, as a movie on its own, I really liked it. See the Angels and Demonstrailer here
Coming attractions
May 21
Terminator Salvation- CHRISTIAN BALE. period. Okay, so no Arnold in this one, but still... CHRISTIAN BALE! AND he's playing John Connor... only, like, the best hero in history after Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford was pretty attractive in his day) and John Preston (who is also Christian Bale... so he has a double win). In summary, I can't wait to watch Christian Bale kick some robot trash. See the Terminator trailer here
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian- The first one was adorable. I can't wait to see Ben Stiller's family-friendly humor in this one. See the Night at the Museumtrailer here
June 19
Year One-Jack Black and Michael Cera team up for an extremely historically inacurate and crudely funny movie about the beginning of the world. Bascially, I think Jack Black is hilarious and can't wait to see him at it again. See the Year Onetrailer here
June 24
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen- Oooooh!!!!!!!! Just watching the trailer gives me goosebumps. Usually sequels suck, but this one looks AMAZING!!! Same actors, same quirky humor from Shia LeBeouf, with new Decepticons to fight. Yes!!! See the Transformers trailer here
July 1
Public Enemies- Johnny Depp playing a gangster from the 30's and and guess who else... CHRISTIAN BALE! Both of them together? With guns?! Do pigs fly? Yes! See the Public Enemiestrailer here
July 17
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince- The weakest book turned into what I predict will be the best movie so far. I can't wait to see the newest insallment of the Harry Potter series (considering how obsessed I used to be with the books). More death and Harry angst, teenage love, and everything in between. It's gonna be good. See the Harry Pottertrailer here
August 7
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra- I will admit. I am a bit skeptical about this one. My brothers use to play with "Gee-Jai-Joes" when they were little. But the action sequences in the previews look really good, and I can't even really tell it's based off of an action figure toy. And, I had the same feelings about the first Transformers before I saw it. I'll give this one a chance. See the G.I. Joetrailer here
We have a major event taking place right in the middle of these... (I'm only getting married...) but I think we'll see them all eventually. It's going to be a good summer!
John and I had a great weekend in Nevada with my family! We ate yummy food, visited, slept, and went shopping. We both got some new clothes (thank you Mom and Grandma!), and I used a new purple shirt I bought to wear for engagement pictures!
With no further ado, here are a few of my favorite pictures. We took about 70, so I won't post all of them, but here are my favorites. My friend Thea Whitaker took all of them for us. She's so talented! The first one is the one we are going to put in our announcements. And her mother, one of my favorite ladies ever and someone who helped raise me, is making my temple dress. So I had a few fittings with her this weekend as well. The dress is beautiful! I can't wait to wear it!
Other than that, I started my new classes today. Well, at least one. I'm in the University Chorale this semester! I'm really excited. It's going to be fun. Especially since John is in it with me! And I'm also taking English 251, which is literary analysis and interpretation or something like that. I bought the books for it today, and sat down and started reading them. I'm excited for this class. It's going to be hard work, but I'll enjoy it. It's everything I'm good at. I haven't attended this class yet because the first one is tomorrow. We'll see how it goes!
Oh, and only 53 days until John and I are getting married :)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
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Meaning no offense, but I'm glad that I'm getting a new last name. True, it will be a bit sad to be that much more disconnected from my family, but I truly am glad I will be a Jeppson soon.
I'm not just saying this. It's for practicality's sake.
Typical conversation:
Person: "And what is your last name?" Me: "Hines." Person: "Excuse me?" Me: "Hines." Person: "Um, how do you spell that?" Me: "H-I-N-E-S." Person: "Okay, thank you." Writes something not even close to Hines. And even after hundreds of conversations like this, 90% of the time my last name is still spelled wrong. Here are the many ways I've seen it spelled.
Heinz Hinz Hiens Heines Henez Hinez Hienz
And that's all I can remember.
So, the moral of the story is, I'm going to be glad to be a J-E-P-P-S-O-N :)
It is more American sounding, isn't it? I'm sure it will still get misspelled (I'm predicting many Jepson spellings) but at least you don't sound like you're sneezing when you say it, or like you have to yell it like an angry Hitler to get it right.
No more being compared to ketchup, no more comments that I'm probably related to John Kerry's wife, no more explaining that it's like the cake mix and then have to further explain about Duncan Hines cake mix brand. Seriously, no one under age 50 has heard of Duncan Hines cake mix unless you actually are a Hines.
PS Does anyone know of any good D boy names? And no, not Dwight.
Quotes of the Day:
Me: "That was all John's cleverness. I'm not that clever." John: "Oh, yes you are. Good thing looks aren't everything." Me: "Did you just call me ugly? Or are you dissing on yourself?" John: "Me." Me: "You are so not ugly. You are definitely the most attractive guy I've ever met and I think you are incredibly handsome. You're better than Edward." John: "Yeah, because Edward doesn't exist."
Happy Easter! John and I had a great Easter yesterday. We went to church in my ward where we heard some really good Sacrament meeting speakers, then came home and dyed eggs, relaxed and read after a light lunch, then went to Wistie's apartment for a pot luck dinner. We had roasted pork, rice, salad, croissants, and the chocolate creme pie that John and I contributed. We had such a fun time! I loved hanging out with a bunch of my old friends again. I haven't seen them in a long time. This last weekend was absolutely crazy! But so good. The BYU Combined Choirs and Philharmonic Orchestra put on the best concert I've ever heard, The Pilgrim's Journey Home. I'm so glad that I bought tickets to both the Friday and Saturday night shows. The songs were absolutely incredible. They all touched me so much. For this concert, PBS came to record it to broadcast on TV next Thanksgiving. They're also going to be selling the CD and a DVD of the concert. I can't wait for these to come out because obviously I'm going to buy both of them. I hope that John is in a ton of the shots! I had a great time going to the concerts, but I know that both of us are glad that they're over. John was up on campus until about 11 doing recordings on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. I'm glad to have my John back with me in the evenings.
Well, John and I decided to make a trip down to Gardnerville between semesters. We'll be driving down on Thursday the 23 and then driving home on Monday the 27. So we'll have a good three days or so at home. Of course, I have to do the not-so-fun-things, like making a bunch of trips to all my doctors while I still have insurance, but there will be plenty of time for fun as well. I can show my dad, grandparents, Drew, and Christina my wedding dress that I picked up today! Needless to say, I'm just excited to make a trip out of Provo again. John and I just made a trip to Boise last weekend for conference and it was lovely, but definitely not long enough! I'll be excited to go home one last time before I get married.
Speaking of which- John and I are getting married in 67 days! I know it still seems far away, but it seems pretty dang close when you had started counting in the hundreds!
I got a job!!! I am SOOO excited! I've been looking for one all semester, and I finally got one!
I'm working at the burger place, Scoreboard Grill, in the Cougareat five days a week. I'm on cashier mostly, but they trained me to do the line today for lunch. So I can make the burgers and fries, and all the in between. And I actually really like it. I like lunch better than breakfast, though. Breakfast is more confusing and not as busy.
(psst... the burgers... they don't look like that. Well, they sometimes do until we squish them down in the wrapper... and we don't melt the cheese... But the teriyaki burger... it is amazing.)
The only bad part is that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I work at 6:30... so I have to get up shortly after 5:30... so I'm starting to go to bed earlier. And then I have to get up for class at 7 on the other days and start work at 10. So there go all my sleep in days. But it's nice. I'd much rather work early and have all day afterward than to work in the afternoons or at night.
I finally got a real name tag with "Allie" on it. For the last few days I've been wearing a burger label. I was the hottest "Double Cheeseburger" that there ever was.
I got off work at 2 today, and John starts work at 1, so there is an hour overlap of our shifts. Since he does receiving, he goes around to all the stores, and so I saw him for a bit today! It was fun. There I was flipping burgers and making grilled onions when I hear this cat call whistle behind me. Not really thinking, I turned around and saw John behind me! It was a fun surprise :)
Okay, a story! So then I got off and went down to the commissary to see what John was up to. He and Ben Leatham (his coworker from my stake back home... his younger brother Joe was one of my best friends in high school. Weird, huh?) were just about to go out and stock some of the drinks, so I decided to ride up in the elevator with them to the main floor. So we went in and about half way up we got stuck. We tried everything, and finally had to push the call button. They eventually sent someone to fix it, but we were in there for about 20 minutes. To pass the time we read the graffiti on the walls, and the boys played tic-tac-toe. I made the observation that if we were stuck in there for a long time, at least we wouldn't get thirsty or dehydrated... there were about 30 boxes of random juice, soda, and water in there with us. It was a great adventure.
So I'm not making bank, but it's better than nothing. I'm very happy to finally be pulling in some income. I'm going to be saving most of it to pay for rent this fall when I move in with John.
Speaking of which, we signed a contract this week. We're going to be living in College Park Apartments on 6something N and 100 W. I am very happy and very excited! Now if only we can find somewhere to live in the summer...
John and I went to a charity auction ball this last weekend. We had so much fun! We got all dressed up- John in his new tux and me in a slinky black dress- and went over to the Provo Library, since it was in their ballroom. They had the BEST truffles I have EVER had in my life! I've dedicated my life to finding/making up a recipe to match them. So they had a silent auction going, then did a live auction. I won engagement pictures for only $30 in the silent auction, and John won a prep coarse for the MCAT. It usually costs about $1600 (for the class, materials, practice tests, etc. Ridiculous, I know), and he won it for $625. We were very, very excited. So he'll be starting that prep course this winter so he can take the MCAT next spring.
Other than that, my classes are going amazing, I was enjoying the warmer spring weather until it started snowing today (God's April Fools joke, I suppose), and my fiance loves me. Life is good.
Oh... and I saw the LLAMAS!!!!!!!! John says I can have one someday. I already named my llama Carl.
I couldn't wait so I eloped with one. I guess John wasn't very happy...
He's a gecko!
He eats live crickets. We throw in a few at night before bed. He's a nocturnal animal, so he's usually asleep during the day, but we play with him anyway.
