halloween, thanksgiving, and a little christmas.

ricks and i lead a pretty quiet life. he goes to school and studies. i work on my final undergrad classes online, clean, and search for jobs. in the evenings we cook up yummy dinners and on the weekends we sleep in and teach primary. highlights include outings to taqueria davis, ben and jerrys, walks, picnics, and making up fun recipes at home. we also love watching movies and tv together and cant wait for the third season of white collar to come to netflix. we also watch a lot of 30 rock, food network shows, and whatever dvd is next in our netflix queue. we are pretty boring but we like it that way. we are both such home-bodies that it is the perfect lifestyle for us.

like i said, i am working on my last few classes so that i can graduate with my undergrad in april. i'm taking 4 classes on super exciting topics: intercultural communications, modern art art history, mindbodyspirit, and marriage enhancement. doing independent study is nice - the time aspect is super flexible: whenever ricks is home, i can put down my assignment and spend time with him. the hard part about independent study is that i can put down my assignment and do whatever i want. it takes a lot of motivation. some days im super motivated and whiz through a ton of assignments and other days im lucky if i get through half of one assignment, if at all. the good news is that im about halfway done with the courses and i just need to finish by march 30 to be eligible for april graduation - no problem. i am THRILLED to be done with my undergrad so soon. about a year ago, i was made aware that to graduate in my major, i would need to take 6 prerequisite spanish classes to get to the level of the required 300 level spanish class. i started right away and made my way through 2 of the courses, but, with the move to davis, it became a lot more difficult to finish those final 5 classes. they werent offered via independent study and i was unable to get a seat in one of the equivalent courses at UCD. luckily, my advisor at BYU allowed me to petition to replace my spanish requirement with an anthropology course on intercultural communication. so here i am graduating a full year ahead of where i would have been had i needed to find a way to complete the spanish courses. up next: deciding what i will do post graduation. a masters would be ideal but i just cant decide what subject to do it in. im extremely interested in left-brain activities like graphic design, fashion, and interior design. who knows, maybe ill find a career at hollister (see below) : )

as far as holidays go, we spent halloween at a ward party which was fun. we made chili for the cook off and came in third place. we were cheapies and used no meat or dairy products and the elitists inside of us labeled the chili as "vegan." : ) maybe next year, when we are rolling in the dough, we will use some meat and make it to first or second place. we were also cheapskates about costumes and just wore our normal clothes but told people were undercover agents or drug dealers. we are super classy. for thanksgiving, we actually flew back to utah and got to see our families really quick before turning back around and heading home. it was so much fun to see family and... I GOT A JOB. yes, in utah. my amazing sister in law hooked me up with a position at hollister. i worked a full day on black friday without any prior training; it was absolutely crazy but a lot of fun as well. afterward, i was transferred out to a store in CA where i start my first shift tomorrow. also of note, ricks had the best thanksgiving of his life. one of my favorite parts of thanksgiving break, besides being with family, was going to see the muppet movie. to be honest, we werent expecting much. however, ricks and i totally loved the movie! it was very funny. thanksgiving was a great little respite from the worries of school. we are very thankful for our family and are so glad we got to see them and do some fun things together.

once we got back to davis, the reality of law school sunk in a little deeper for ricks. there was about a weeks worth of classes left and now finals are in full swing. ricks' first final is this friday and this morning he headed to the library and, except for a quick lunch, i havent seen him since. i dont anticipate seeing him much over the next 3 weeks.

last week, before things got too crazy, we snuck out to the davis boy scout christmas tree lot to pick up our first christmas tree! i am in love with our tree!!! our apartment smells and looks so lovely. picking up the tree was fun, too. the boy scouts are so funny. when we got there, the boys were laying down on the stands they had set up to cut of the stump of the tree. then, they just watched as ricks and i picked up the tree and tied it on our car as their leaders encouraged them to help us. we also have a little advent calendar that i lovingly move along each day and the music of choice while washing the dishes is, you guessed it, anything and everything christmas!! ricks and i both purchased all of our gifts for each other on amazon, on the same account because we are geniuses! so now there is no tracking allowed for the either of us for fear of ruining the surprise. i love christmas time. : ) the only downside is that between ricks' peanut eating and the tree, i am vacuuming everyday and sometimes multiple times a day. ill be the first to admit it, im a little ocd about cleanliness but wow! i cannot believe how quickly our carpet gets dirty between the tree and ricks.

so there is the super exciting and amazing update in the life of davis! the end.