Family Trend

Back in June, my family was rear ended and totaled their new car.  Well, just a couple days later, my dad was rear ended in a different car.  Luckily this time there wasn't much damage.  We all joked about our family being magnets for car accidents.  Little did I know that I would bring this bad luck to Travis too.

This morning, Travis kissed me goodbye and left for work and I fell back to sleep like usual.  Well, about 20 minutes later I get a phone call from Travis and he said, "can you do me a favor?"  I figured that he had forgotten his bag and wanted me to bring it to him.  Then he asked if he could borrow my car for the day.  Of course I asked why.  His respose?  "Don't freak out, but I got hit."

Apparently Travis was waiting to turn left into his office and a guy came up and just didn't stop.  Travis spun 180 degrees.  The insurance people haven't come to look at it yet, but we think it is totaled.  He can't drive it and the repairs will definitely cost more than the car is worth.  So, this morning I spent my time driving Travis around to his different appointments until we had enough time to stop by home. Oh, and he is fine. 

Here are some pictures:

 Side view

 That is the bumper in front of the car. 

I keep telling Travis he needs a new car, but now maybe he will actually agree with me.  Now we just need to find a good one at a good price. 

Missionary Mondays

My favorite thing about Monday is that I get an email from this cute girl: 

 Meghan Mullen, Romania

and this one:

Theresa Gervais, Florida

and this one:

Kelsey Lund, Korea

They are all missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It literally makes my day to hear from them!  As you can see, they are all in totally different places and have totally different experiences but they are all doing the same thing, teaching strangers about our church.

Here is something unique about each of them:

Meghan always brings a humorous light to situations she and her companion are faced with.  I cannot imagine some of the things that she is faced with being in such a poor country. 

Theresa is always so good about bearing her testimony in her email and telling her family how grateful she is for them.

Kelsey has the most positive attitude about everything and is a great story teller.  I don't know if funny stuff always happens to her or if she is just is good at retelling, but I always find myself laughing at her emails because they are so entertaining.

I love getting the emails and hearing about all the people that they are teaching and the lives that they are touching.  I love seeing the changes and how much they have all grown since they have been on their missions.  I love reading their testimonies every week.  I love being reminded of my mission and experiences that I had.  I love being reminded how lucky I am to have the gospel in my life.  I love how they give me challenges to be better. 

Just because I don't do this enough, I want all of you to know how grateful I am for the gospel in my life.  I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.  I know that the Plan of Salvation is real and that we can be with our families forever.  I am grateful for temples and the blessings that we receive from be worthy to enter the Lord's house. 

If any of you ever have questions about our church, please feel free to ask me.  I would love to share what I know because it has brought me such happiness.  I would love for everyone to feel it too!

Cry Baby

I am what you might call a "cry baby."  I didn't mean to cry, it just happened.  You see, today is the first day of school at Harvest Elementary.  End of story. 

Actually, that isn't what made me cry, not directly anyways.  I started off with good intentions.  First I texted Kamrie, my co-teacher from last year, to wish her luck on the first day.  Then I texted Trudy, my wonderful aide, the same thing and to say hi to all my kids.  Then I called Kristen, our secretary, to wish everyone a great first day and that is when I fell apart.  She was always so wonderful to me and just hearing her and talking to her brought back all these great memories.  I just started to cry.  I know.  Cry baby.  Or maybe it was because she said they missed me.  I don't know.  I just cried.  Then I composed myself quickly and apologized for crying and answered her questions.  Needless to say, Harvest and all those sweet little kiddos of mine will be on my mind today!

Pizza Quest

Travis and I are on a quest to find the best pizza in town.  We thought it would be fun to try all the different places and rate them on a scale from 1-5.  This scale includes not only pizza quality, but also the atmosphere of the restaurant.  We decided to start by going to a little hole in the wall place we had driven by earlier that week.  From my experience, sometimes they are the best places.  It was in a poorer part of town, but we want to try every place.  As I got out of the car, a man looked at me so I said hi.  He gave me an odd look.  Travis and I began walking up to this pizza place that had been given great reviews online.  The man that I said hi to was also going there.  We followed him up the stairs and he held the door open for us.  Then Travis and I found ourselves standing in the middle of a bar.  Everyone turned and stared at us.  I looked at him.  No wonder that man gave me a funny look.  This was the local hangout.  Travis and I turned around and left.  It was awkward and I laughed all the way to the car.

 We didn't notice the "PUB" part of the sign when we first decided to come here.

This led us into Downtown Dayton to eat at The Flying Pizza.  Travis gave it a 3 and I gave it a 3.5.  Let me tell you, we are pretty tough pizza critics.  I loved the crust, but the cheese was a little undercooked for me.  Travis said the crust was too chewy but he loved the strips of bacon on it.  The atmosphere was authentic, but we took it outside to eat.  There was an island with a monument and benches in between the lanes of traffic that we sat on to eat.

This week we went to Pizza Factory on the outskirts of downtown.  I felt like it was a little sketchier part of the city.  We expected a restaurant, but when we walked in there were no tables and chairs.  We ordered a pizza and bread sticks and then explored the area while we waited.  We found a little park and some cute houses.  I was definitely aware of my surroundings as we walked.  There were doors broken in, windows boarded up, and I am skeptical of people now that I am outside the Provo bubble.

After getting our pizza, we took it over by "the river" (I don't know what river it is) to eat.  When we got there, we discovered a free outdoor concert.  We finished our pizza and the concert was over so we walked along "the river."  I love exploring, but it is much more fun to do when you are not by yourself. 

As for the pizza, Travis gave it a 4.  I think partly because he was starving.  He also LOVED the breadsticks.  I gave it a 3.  I did not like the crust.  It was too soft.  The toppings and cheese were great though.  I guess I need to take the other crust and this topping and it would be the perfect pizza!

Dinner with Daddy

The good part about moving to Ohio is that I get to see my parents more often.  My dad travels to Cincinnati for business every month or two.  In the past, he and Travis have always met up for dinner.  This time I got the privilege of joining them!  After Travis got off work, we headed south to meet him at his hotel.  We then ate at Lone Star Steak House.  It was really good to see dad.  Now that mom isn't working, maybe he will bring her sometime.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture.  I will have to remember next time.

On another note, the job hunt is still in the waiting stage.  I have turned in a bunch of applications and now I am just waiting to hear back from people.  I did make a little progress today.  I stopped by a school that is literally 3 minutes away from us to see about subbing.  (They aren't accepting substitute positions at the district office so I thought I would get an "in" with the school.)  Well, I put my charm on and she gave me someones name and number and I am going in to get my subbing license in a couple weeks.  She said they have to get school up and going first, so it won't be until the first week of September.  That sounds far away, but at least it is something.  Until then, I will keep waiting and looking and enjoying the time off that I have.  It may be the end of my lazy days.      

Cincinnati Premium Outlets

Do you want to know how wonderful Travis is?  He willingly took me to the Cincinnati Premium Outlets.  Saturday morning we got up and he worked on his residency stuff for a few hours.  (He will be done in 2 weeks!)  Then I tried finding something to wear for another hour.  It was a bit ridiculous.  I just wanted to look nice because we don't get to go out too often, but I figured out that all my "nice" clothes are more wintery.  So, by this point I was a bit frustrated and ornery.

At least one good thing came out of it...it gave us something specific to shop for.  So we drove to the Outlets in search of a dressy-casual shirt that I could wear out in the summer.  I found lots of nice things at great prices!  I think everything was at least 30% off.  They had almost any store you could imagine.  They had a Rue 21 where I got 2 shirts for $10.  New York and Company where I bought one skirt and got another one free (among other things).  Le Creuset where we spent most of our money.  We are using this brand of kitchen product.  I love it, Travis likes it, our wallets hate it.  Travis got some Donald Trump shirts for 75% off.  There were amazing deals everywhere!  I loved it!  Travis on the other hand spent most of his time playing Risk on his phone.  He was a good sport though.

Other stores that we didn't get anything from include: Coach, Nike, Banana Republic, True Religion, Loft, Saks 5th Ave, and the one that I was looking forward to the most, Michael Kors.  It was actually a bit of a let down.

I am already plotting my next trip.  Travis needs a pair of basketball shoes and I still need a dressy shirt and the outlet mall has the best deals, so I guess we will have to go back.   

Making Each Other Happy

I have learned in marriage that if you make the other person happy, they will make you happy.  Let me give you one example of this.  For our one month anniversary, I decided to make Travis a nice manly dinner of meat and potatoes.  For those of you that know me well know that cooking isn't my favorite thing to do, but I did it because I knew that it would make Travis happy.  The roast didn't come out quite like I wanted, but Travis was just as happy anyway.

As a result of me making him happy, he made me happy.  That morning I went and picked up a coffee table and bookcase that we had ordered.  After dinner he suggested we put them together before we went to bed instead of waiting until the next day.  I was excited because we were having our first visitors the next day and I wanted to have it done before they came.  We stayed up late putting it together and hanging my mirror.  Travis had to work the next morning, but he did it to make me happy.  We both made sacrifices to make the other happy.  

On that same note, Travis has made me happy by allowing me to set up and change around his apartment.  We are doing one room at a time.  So far we have almost finished the living room.  He always goes with me to pick things out and is patient as I ask him to move the furniture around.

I didn't take a before picture, but here is a picture of it from when we first bought the couch back in October.  The tv was in the corner across from him, but that was all that he had in the room.

Here is what it looks like now.   

Slowly but surely I will make his apartment more "womanized," as Nathan says. 

Announcement

As you all know, Travis and I have been married for a month now. We have decided it is now time to share a blog (not that he updates his anyways). I will be leaving all of you faithful followers, but I hope you will still follow me. This is a sad day for me because all my stats are back down to zero. My 100th post is once again far away. I have had fun watching as my blog is slowing increasing in popularity. My favorite is seeing how many countries it can reach. (To my faithful follower in Malaysia, thank you).



So, we are sticking with the moments theme and going with "Moments that Matter Most" from President Utchdorf's talk. The web address is http://atbarlow.blogspot.com/



See you all there!

Blog Inspiration

Since I currently do not have a job, I have had a lot of time to do some deep thinking.  One thing that I have thought about is making more out of what I have.  At first I had a pity party because I had no job and no friends here in Ohio, but I was overlooking ALL that I DO have.  Sometimes I forget to stop and take a look around.  I saw this Mormon Message several months ago and it made me cry and it came up again just the other day and it had the same effect.  Take a look and I will share some more.

After watching it, I knew that I needed to change my outlook on life.  Just by me changing my attitude, I have seen a huge difference!  I realize how lucky I am to be at home all day to do the things that I want to do and get settled in, how lucky I am that we can manage right now on one income, how I have a husband that loves me, a family that supports me and the list goes on.

I hope that anytime my perspective starts to change, I can remember why I titled this blog this way.  For those that are struggling with my same issue, watch the video...it helps! 

1 Month!

Travis and I have been married for 1 month today. In some ways it seems like we have been married for longer than that. In other ways, it seems like we just got married last week. Here is what we have been up to this past month.



July 9-Married in the Washington DC temple!

July 10-Flew down to Florida to Leave for our Cruise!

July 11-16- Cozumel, Roatan, Belize, Grand Cayman

July 17-Arrive in Florida, Fly to Georgia, Drive to Dayton

July 18-22- Travis worked, I unpacked, did laundry and repacked

July 22-25- Oregon reception

July 26-29- Travis worked, I unpacked, did laundry and repacked

July 29-31- Georgia reception

August 1-5 We finally came home for good. Travis worked all week. I still unpacked and did laundry. In addition, I have been unpacking my stuff that we moved into the apartment and finding places for our gifts. I have also been job hunting, still with no success.

August 6- Our first free Saturday!! We bought a couch! (from wedding money, so THANK YOU!!)

August 7- Our first Sunday. We loved our ward! Everyone was so friendly and welcoming. It makes a huge difference, especially since I don't know anyone yet.



So, I guess it seems like a long time because we have done so much traveling, but on the other hand it only seems like a week because we have only been settled down since last Saturday. I look forward to more time without travel and big plans.

A Beginning

I have had some people begging to see some wedding pictures. Travis' sister-in-law, Shonda, did our pictures and posted some on her blog. These are basically the same ones she has, but I am posting them for people that haven't seen them. I will post some more as I get them. She took some more while we were in Oregon that I am SUPER excited about!! She did an amazing job!

This picture was Jessica's idea. I love it!
This is one of my favorites because it is totally us!My handsome husband!

YAY!! We are married! Love this picture too!Sneak peak of the night pictures! I love this temple!