we went camping!

and it treated us so well. 

friday afternoon, we drove out to anza borrego desert. 

we were driving through Julian, and i've never been before so we stopped to look around. 

ohhhh my goodnessss cutest little town. we went into a candy store and i bought the best gift for my nephew's 6th. in order to be able to use a debit card, we had to spend like 75 cents more, so we bought little tubes of honey. jon loves honey. 

it reminded me a lot of main street in park city, just much older and smaller. it was filled with all these cute shops right next to each other and it. was. freezing. 

(for us....it was about 50 degrees..)

we drove through and got to the event right before the sun went down. jon has been signed up for this for months. it was tierra del sol's 50th anniversary desert safari. tons of off-roading vehicles came from all over. they had fireworks, venders, and a huge raffle. it was a really big deal, apparently. and jon was in heaven. he saw that blue truck in a magazine. 

i'm not really a fan of camping. we went last year and i nearly froze to death. jon has since sold his truck (sad!!) and got a larger vehicle that we can sleep in! he also returned our nice new sleeping bags that we used last time, and got different ones that zip together:) well, it worked! i was warm and cozy all night long.  

all i care about is treats. treats and snoozinn. 

look at me. treats and snoozin. snoozin and treats, that's it.

our friends from church came with us. see them up there, teeny tiny???

we hiked out to the wind tunnels. it was really cool! i can't believe those are not manmade. i couldn't help but think about how maybe, long long ago, someone used these tunnels as homes......

here are our friends. all three of them are marines! they are a fun bunch. 

nate made us burgers and steak. it was like luxury camping.

unfortunately, on one of the 'obstacles', girlfriend got her truck stuck! she got so stressed out that she got out of the truck and ran off! it was so funny. so her husband was left to deal with getting her truck out of the jam she got it in. lucky for us, there was a group of "drunk idiots" (jon's words, not mine.) there to help pull us out. 

it was a fun day filled with lots of beautiful views. and good weather/food.

this was at the raffle. they had a drawing for our active duty military personal in attendance. there was a bagpiper there that played all the difference branches songs, and then the announcer thanked them for their service. the entire audience gave them a standing ovation. it was really touching. 

we left the desert the next morning, stopped in julian again for pictures and antique shopping. the whole weekend was so much fun. as much as i loved jon driving his truck, his new car is SO much more comfortable. i went off-roading with him twice in his truck and really didn't like it. this time, i loved it! our car was filled with yummy treats, good music and good conversation. i really like being a passenger in the car. especially with the windows rolled down. it's so peaceful. a few times when we were driving on bumpy roads, i almost passed out. it lulled me to sleep, just like it would a tiny baby. there were even a few times when i looked over to see that the same thing was happening to jon; he was asleep at the wheel! 

this was our theme song the whole weekend:

(love their entire new album (except it gets better: yuck!). i don't agree with their blasphemous phrases though. remember that.)

happy v-day, my people!

because of our packed school schedule, jon and i celebrated valentine's day on the 13th.

we had a christmas gift card from mei, so we had our dinner destination picked out for us! we went all out and got an appetizer, and we each got our own entree and dessert shooter. we were happy to discover that the gift card held $35 instead of $25! AND, they took the left over money on the gift card for a tip, so we didn't end up paying a single dime!

afterwards, we went and saw the vow. i have been excited for this movie for months andddd, it was such a disappointment. i mean, rachel mcadams is always beautiful, and channing...is channing. but, i wanted the movie to be more. i wanted it to focus on them falling in love again, but they didn't.

nevertheless, it was a fun night with my man and i was and still am so happy that he's here this year to celebrate with me! he makes even the most trivial holidays both fun and romantic.

he was good to me last year, thousands of miles away.

and, i like being able to celebrate my love for my gals as well. two of my favorite gals sent me valentine's in the mail. it was such a sweet surprise that made me feel so loved and happy. they are the best.

our new chalk board! i'll blog about this soon...

feeling contemplative. . .

<3

because nothing makes me feel more contemplative than this song.

it's me again, margaret.

looking through my pictures, it is clear that my life consists of only a few things. 

two of them being cats and my man. 

i can't help it though, both of those things are too irresistible to not take photos of. 

 i went into the back yard with the intention of taking a picture of the sun and green grass, then rumbi jumped up and just stood in the way. it made for a pretty cool photo, though, yes?

 my new years resolution (and yours too, probably) was to work out 4 days a week. no more, and no less. last semester wassssss rough. i was so busy with my classes that i literally had no time and no energy to work out. i've been doing so much better than last semester, even if i don't always hit my 4 times a week quota. when i start to work out, i usually work out a ton for a few weeks and then get burned out. that's why i put the 'no more than four times a week' rule into effect. although my clothes aren't fitting much better yet, my legs and arms are definitely improving. i'm hoping that if i slowly get to where i want to be, it'll take longer for those results to wear off.....rigghhtt?

 look. at those. little. arms. and slanty eyes. i love. 

oh yeah. we got another cat. :D

 saturday night, jon and i spent a couple hours doing lots and lots of homework. by the time 9 o'clock rolled around, we were both feeling pretty hungry and stir crazy. so homeboy offered to take me out! although chili's isn't the best restaurant in the world, i was craving a chicken caesar salad, so we went there. we shared it and contemplated getting some chocolate molten cake. HOWEVER, it was $6.29! are you kidders?? i remember when it was $4.99! no way am i spending almost the same amount on dessert that i did for my salad. ridiculous. 

 so we hit up yogurtland instead! we figured we'd feel better after eating fruit and fro-yo than we would after eating molten cake, anyway...

 we got back from texas on january 13th. and we. never. unpacked. i mean, we unloaded our suitcases and put those away, but we never really picked all of our other belongings up off the floor. until we had to leave for church. that's when we decided it was really important for us to clean our room. so we did just that. and still made it to the last couple hours of church....doin' good!

i'll leave you with two photos. 

rumbi's feet all squished up while she was sleeping. so adorable. 

and my other favorite thing-walking in on sleeping cats and waking them up. they look soo groggy. those tiny eyes! ugh, i love them both. 

hai.

this is what we've been up to:

yup.

between the two of us, jon and i are taking 8 classes. 

my schedule at SDSU/one at Miramar College:

art history I

sociology 101

spanish 101

psychology 101

asian art

oral communication

jon is taking these courses from Central Texas College:

american government II

american history II

so things are very busy on our end! jon and i both have a 5 o'clock class on tuesday at the library on base, then he has one on his own on wednesday and i have one on my own on thursday. 

it's busy, but we are doing well and we are both very happy. 

in 6.5 weeks, i'll be down to five classes for the semester. 

and when jon finishes his 2 classes in 6.5 weeks, he'll have THREE more 8 week classes to take before he gets his ASSOCIATES degree!!

thought i'd do a quick update. 

brb, gtg to class. 

<3

four of them.

happy four year anniversary to my dear bloggie. 

how dare you four years go by so quickly! 

I remember sitting in my dads kitchen talking to lizzie about how i was moving to new york. she told me that this was the perfect time for me to start a blog so that my family could see how i was doing, and so that my time there would be well documented. it was well documented and i could not be more grateful for that. 

on january 11, 2008, i was blogging from harlem, ny. 

my dad helped me settle in to my apartment before flying back to utah.

something i didn't blog about was how scared i was to be there. the neighborhood i was living in was absolutely awful and the actual apartment i was in was even worse. the landlord was the weirdest part of it all. i remember going to a fried chicken store a few yards from my apartment with my dad. we were discussing what i would do at the end of the month and where i would move to. i stopped talking, looked at my dad and started to cry. i told him that i didn't want to stay. i could just go back to school at the community college, fly home with him and drop out of my school in new york. at a young age of 19, moving anywhere is scary. moving to the opposite coast without knowing a single soul: also pretty scary. of course my dad wouldn't let me do that, no matter how badly i wanted to at the time. i'm so glad that i stayed. i ended up loving the city and my time spent there. every once in a while, i think about new york and get a pang in my heart. i miss living there so badly sometimes.

in january 2009, i was living the single lady's dream. 

 i started to fully immerse myself into the interior design program at salt lake community college. i was living in sugar house in my sisters old place with her friends. i was working as a receptionist in sandy at a sketchy place that i later got laid off from. they called me back to hire me again, and i declined. but, that is neither here, nor there. 

what i hadn't blogged about was how i had recently sworn off dating anyone seriously in hopes of being single by the time chase got home. this gave me plenty of time to hang out with my girlfriends. i was sincerely happy at this time of my life. a few weeks later on february 3, jon and i started hanging out again....as 'friends'. 

one year later, in january 2010, i was an engaged woman. 

i was working as a front desk manager at a fitness center while going to school full time and interning at a design firm. all while trying to plan my wedding. 

what i didn't blog about was how hard it was on me that i was, in fact, planning my wedding alone. i am not ungrateful for the help i did get. it was a very lonely process, as happy as i was. since my fiance was living far away, i got to spend a lot of time with my cute nephew. i was so excited to be engaged, i loved wearing a new ring and having a 'fiance'. i was also coming to grips with the fact that my best friend had just gotten married. isn't that funny? i was excited to be getting married, but it was bitter-sweet that lyndsi and i were growing up. also, at the time, i was unaware that my brows were three sizes too small.

exactly one year ago on january 11, 2011, i was staying at my dads. i had been there for about a month. jon was deployed. we had spent all the major holidays including christmas and new years eve apart. i was sad to be spending our first holidays away from each other. i frequently thought about my favorite quote "Always together, never apart. Maybe by distance, but never by heart." i don't think i blogged about this at the time, but the silver lining i saw in our situation was that i had another year to spend my christmas however i wanted. and that was with my family. katie was about to come visit me in california for an entire week. i had a lot to look forward to. i was about to start my first semester at san diego state university, and i was past the halfway mark of jon's deployment. my cat had driven to utah and from utah with me. things were going well, considering. 

this year, i am really happy. we spent christmas and new years together. we were in utah for a week, and now we are in texas spending time with jon's family. i am starting school next week; taking six classes. i'm planning on graduating from SDSU in may 2013, just in time for jon to get out. i still don't have a job. something i wouldn't usually blog about: jon and i are probably going to move to utah when he gets out. he isn't 100% about staying in or getting out, but he most likely won't reenlist and we'll be heading home so that he can go to the university of utah. it's a big decision, he hasn't applied to the U and we are still undecided. it's up in the air. we are taking it one day at a time though, and enjoying each others company. things are going well. :)