Anniversary

It's my anniversary this month. We did not get married in February because of Valentine's Day. We got married because it was a 3 day weekend (President's Day!) and we didn't want to wait until the end of the semester. I'll let that sink in for a minute. Anyway, I think I should blog about my lover-boy to tell him how much I love him and how lucky I am.

I met Dave the first week I was at BYU. We were both freshmen, in the same ward.
He came over to my house and woke me up from a nap to take my picture for the ward directory. This was not exactly the most glamorous first meeting. Despite this inauspicious beginning, Dave never asked me on a date for the whole freshman year. This might have had something to do with my bangs. It also might have had something to do with my boyfriend (or his girlfriend). In retrospect, I am glad that we never dated that year. We both had alot to learn. Interestingly, one day when I was having a particularly rough time I called Dave and asked him to give me a blessing. At the time I thought I called him because he was one of the boys I was least connected with. Now I think maybe I was inspired.

Then Dave went on his mission and I went of my merry way through BYU. (Funny side note: my roommate wrote him letters and his mission pictures were on the wall in my bedroom.)

When Dave came home we reconnected through email. We decided to plan a reunion party for our freshman ward. We started to spend lots of time together organizing and planning the thing and sure enough, we fell in love. Our first date was August 21, 2000. We got married Feb 16, 2001.
What's funny about it is, we dated/were engaged for around 7 months. And now, looking back, I am surprised by all the things I didn't know about Dave. For example, when we got married, he didn't even have a job. I had no way of knowing that he would turn out to be such a good provider for our family. When we started dating he had just begun his major. He still had nearly 3 years of school left. I had no idea he would turn out to be so good at computers. Also he wasn't really into babies or little kids until we had some of our own. I'm really lucky that he is such a great dad.

He did fit my criteria at the time for the perfect man:

Tall
Blonde
Funny

And he has made me laugh every day since we've been married. I wake up every day so happy to have him. He is my best friend and confidante. Also, he is a really good kisser. And stuff.

The last time we had a couple picture taken was at our wedding. It was such a cold day, but I didn't care I was so happy! It would be really fun to have a couple picture of us now, nearly ten years later. I would love to have meganknorpp.blogspot.com take our pictures because she is such a great photographer she might be able to overcome my weird picture faces. I think Daybreak would be a great location for such a picture too. We could go out to the lake, or some of the cool walking trails. Or even by the temple. It would really represent where we are in our life right now.

Dave, even though you will think I am cheesy I just want to say

!!!!!!!!!

Persian Rugs

We really skimmed over the Ottoman Empire last week, it was way over my head much less the kids. But, we did find a cool craft to make our own persian rugs. Super simple, fairly easy, and fun to have afterward. (I really hate those crafts that you make only to throw away. The kids are planning to use their rugs for Littlest Pet Shop rugs/blankets.)
So here's how you do it. First you need a loom. Ours was a cardboard box with an equal number of slits on both sides. The slits have to be pretty close together. Then you thread the loom nice tightly and tie the loose threads together. (Pictured are the front and back of the loom.)
Now tie the thread you are planning to weave onto one of the corners and to the loose end of thread add some scotch tape to make your "needle".
Now just weave under and over, every other thread, and be sure to go all the way around the last thread (this was tricky for my kids).
Once you have done a fair amount of weaving, you have to push the weaved part down to tighten it up. The rug on the left is loose, the rug on the right is compressed.
After you are totally done weaving, clip the threads off of the loom and tie them together to make a fringe. If you don't tie them together at the ends, the whole rug will fray apart.

My kids really enjoyed making these. They now want to make one for all of their friends. I like the rugs because they weave while they are listening to me read school books and they are much less fidgety with their hands occupied. :)