Surprise!

Yes, the rumors are true.  I did get my nose pierced.  I've been wanting to do it since I was a teenager, but figured that wouldn't really pan out, so I put it on hold until recently.  I had been talking about it with Zak, and he said I should do it, why not.  I talked to some of my co-workers, and found out which place in town would be the best to go to.  So yesterday after work, Zak took me to the studio and I got my nose pierced.  It didn't hurt as much as I thought, but it still hurt.  It was a quick pinch and brief pain and then it was over.  My eyes watered a little, but the piercer and Zak were impressed that I didn't even make a sound.

I have to clean it with antibacterial soap at least once a day, and then a sea salt solution three times a day for the next 2 months.  I am really happy with it.  And don't worry, this is as far as I think I could ever go, piercing-wise.  A girl got her lip pierced right before me and there is no way I could do that.  So I think I am set for a long time.


Here are some pictures!

close-up, the stud is teal

Jenna's Visit

My little sister came to visit us last week.  It was so much fun having her around!  She just turned 16 and is the only one at the house, so I know she enjoyed being around me & Zak.  She got into Spokane a little behind schedule, but that didn't deter us one bit. We stayed up playing games and watching Arrested Development. For the most part, we spent the day together (I switched shifts w/people at work in order to spend time with her, Zak worked a few days), watching AD or doing some project or eating.  Or a combination of all three.  My favorite project was something I had gotten months before from work and was dying to share them with her: piggy banks to decorate (we are 'piggy sissas', which started with our shared love of the Beatles' song 'Piggies' and then evolved from there)!  The piggies turned out very cute, as you can see.

 one side of mine

Jenna showing off her pig's glittery bum

oink oink

piggy sissas

One day we decided to have an impromptu picnic in the park.  I made delicious sub sandwiches and had grapes, chips and cookies in the park.  My favorite part culminated with Zak rolling up Jenna in our picnic blanket.

about to enjoy the food

a pretty good story through pictures

Jenna and I also made some necklaces with some fun charms I had found on etsy.  We also spent some time at Michael's picking out a few extras.  It was a fun activity, and they turned out pretty well.

                            one of the necklaces I did                                           Jenna's

we also did children's clearanced mosaics

and Jenna colored these wooden animals that represent her in our family

We also went shopping at the mall when Zak was there working one night.  We hit up Old Navy and of course, Macy's and ended up with some great buys.

We also ate a lot of delicious food.  We had chicken skewers one night, yummy homemade burgers the other night, pasta with spaghetti and cream sauce, coconut curry chicken, blueberry coffee cake, among others.  I love cooking and enjoyed having another person around to feed (less leftovers, haha).

burger night, yum!

color foods  (char sui, blue rice, zucchini & green beans)

Zak and Jenna enjoyed fighting/antagonizing/playing together.  It was definitely nice to have a break from all of that.  They are so funny together and just make me laugh.  Zak also gave Jenna a sweet (his word) tattoo on her arm the night before we took her to the airport.  All three of us used some temporary tattoos Jenna had (dinosaurs and butterflies), which were awesome.  It was nice to just be goofy and carefree, which is how I feel when I'm with Jenna.

 left-handed wrasslin'

comparing our hamster to a chicken nugget

Jenna's

mine - I like to pretend they're yelling at each other

Zak's are fighting vertically

giving her a tattoo

yes, he spelled it wrong (he didn't think to ask me)

It was a very fun week and it was sad to see her go, but we loved having the time we did have with her.  She is a very smart, adorable and fun young lady and it's crazy to me that she is already 16 and a junior in high school.  I'm not fond of that, but if anyone can handle the drama of high school, it's my sister.  Mom and Dad, thank you for giving up your baby for a week (& trusting her with us, ahaha) and Jenna, thanks for coming to visit.  It was so nice to have you here, you are such a person and I love being your older sister and perhaps smothering you sometimes. :)

 she is putting ketchup from a packet on her fries. this is why we are sisters.

(It's times like these that I really miss my family and being home in CA.  Boo.) 

Education Frustration

So it looks like Zak won't be able to go to school due to the stupid state requirements about residency.

When he originally submitted the residency form in April, he was declined and was told he'd have to wait until August to try again.  We thought that meant August 1st, but it apparently meant the 18th, which was the 1-year mark date of us living in Idaho.  So since the 1st of August, Zak was trying to get a hold of his past employers from Rexburg to get a simple letter detailing when Zak worked for them.  He called every day, but to no avail, because his past employers are idiots.  It was hard enough getting that information when we lived in Rexburg!  Plus, it's frustrating that Zak would have to submit an entirely new application for residency, why they couldn't just update it is just plain stupid.  

So his past employers didn't help him out at all, and on the 18th, Zak e-mailed the guy he had been talking to about his residency.  And then we learned something else: even if Zak had gotten the letters from Rexburg, they wouldn't have done him much good because he wasn't fully employed for 12 months.  He was unemployed for a little bit of December and January.  We didn't know that at the time, but go figures.

Zak called the school and un-enrolled from his classes.  A few months ago, he qualified for a Pell grant & a few Stafford loans, which would cover the school expenses.  But without him being an Idaho resident, it'd be something like an extra $3,000 - $4,000 per semester that we simply don't have.  Luckily, there is a bit of silver lining to this awful cloud: Zak's boss is going to put him back at full-time at work, so we will both be working full time and saving up this next year.  So at least there's that. 

It is a big disappointment for us, Zak has already been out of school for a year, and was looking forward to going back.  I was excited for him, because his classes sounded really cool.  But there were some things out of our control.  Zak tried the best and hardest he could to make it work, but it looks like the government just doesn't like us. 

Year One: Success

Saturday the 7th was our anniversary.  It's hard to believe that we've been married for a year.  But it was a pretty good year with some nice changes and events.  We got to celebrate Christmas with both our families, on opposites on the country, Zak's 21st birthday, my 22nd, my graduation from BYU-Idaho in April, our move to Moscow, and our first summer vacation to California with my family.  We have loved every minute of it, the good and the bad, and we both think we're doing a pretty good job at this whole 'being married' thing.

So to celebrate we decided to leave Friday afternoon and spend the night in Spokane, and then Saturday there.  We found a cool hotel called the Hotel Ruby to stay in.  It was right in the heart of downtown Spokane (complete with all of their one-way streets, that we had no idea about...), and seemed like it had been recently bought and refurnished.

our room

our view of the train from the room

We walked around after we checked in, looking some of the restaurants, and tried to decide where to eat.  We finally ended up going to a place I had heard good things about, the Steam Plant Grill.  It had originally been a steam plant to provide steam heat & electrical power to Spokane, and did so for about 70 years, until it was no longer economically feasible in the 1980s.  Then it was bought by some people and turned into a really neat restaurant, with most of its original features still intact.

hamming it up

less than perfect picture of our view from our table

walking back to our hotel, which was down a few blocks

Anyways, it was a great choice for dinner, because everything we had was absolutely delicious.  Zak had great fish & chips, and I had heavenly cheese raviolis with basil, shallots, a cream sauce on top of a tomato herb sauce.  I devoured the entire plate, because I haven't had such good raviolis in a long time.  Yum!  For dessert, we split a slice of huckleberry ice cream pie (the Northwest region we live in is crazy about huckleberry, but we don't mind).  Everything was perfect!

yum!

heaven

he was actually that excited, haha

The next morning we got up to a beautiful day and went to the Riverfront Park we had looked up online a few weeks before.   I thought it would be a fun thing to explore, since it was our first trip to Spokane.  We had a really fun time, and the weather was perfect.  We rode on the cool skyride thing, which took us on a lovely tour of the Spokane Falls.

on the skyride

in our gondola

Spokane Falls

We then went to the Imax theater to watch a really cool movie about the Hubble space telescope.  After that, we played a few rounds of mini golf, which Zak mostly dominated, with his three hole-in-one shots.  I got one hole-in-one, on the last hole on our last round!  We had a nice lunch and walked over to the famous Looff Carrousel, which has been around since 1909.  After a little bit more of walking around, we headed back home and had a nice night relaxing and watching a movie.

'be more excited!'-Zak

being more excited with my horse

I don't want to forget to acknowledge my anniversary gift from my wonderful husband.  Zak got me a beautiful 1/4 carat diamond necklace.  Ever since he bought me my beautiful diamond earrings for Christmas, when I would wear them, I'd say it's my '21 Diamond Day'.  So now when I wear all my diamonds, it's my 22 Diamond Day.  So I have as many diamonds as I am old.  For a few months, anyways.  Zak is a very thoughtful and great husband, who may spoil me a little more than I deserve.  Part of his reasoning is that he's going to get me jewelry while he's in the job field for it, with the discounts, etc.  He jokes that when we're old, he'll have gotten me all of the jewelry, so then he'll get me, what, sweaters?  Anyways, I love my necklace, and wear it a lot. :)

Zak's present was a Citizen watch he picked out months ago.  He even had it transferred in from another store so he could wear it at work before we officially bought it.  He is very happy with it, and wears it all day.  I also got him, what I think, is a fun take on the traditional 'first paper' gift: a year subscription to National Geographic.  He was surprised and is excited to have something interesting to read (and so am I).

So it was a great anniversary, sorry it took a bit to post this.  I wanted to have all of the corresponding pictures to go along with the words, so here you go.