2 month anniversary in Richmod AND 5 month anniversary for being married!

Yup. I'm the slacker. I've waited so long to post that I don't even remember all of the things we have done and it has been a lot. That means you get bullet points for all of the things I actually remember.

• Camping with the Tracys and the Olsons at Pocahontas State Park. (Ben said it wasn't real camping because they had pretty decent bathrooms, showers, and electrical outlets.)
• Lots of shopping with the girls here. I've become the tag along...NO I don't buy. I just wish I could.
• A trip to the Yorktown Beach with all the M1 (first year Med students) wives. Our husbands were studying all day Saturday (we hate Monday tests!) so we came back from the beach and had dinner for them. Our friend Lara did most of the work this time!
• I subbed...for one day :(. I am going to keep searching for sub jobs but I am back on the job hunt sort of. I'm getting frustrated that we have been here for 2 months and I still don't have things figured out. I've never gone this long without working so it is getting to be worrisome and a pain.
• I've started cooking. Sometimes... For the last 6 years I've been on my own and in college I never made meals for just me. I've also never really liked cooking...my twin must have stolen that good quality from me! Lately I've been trying and it is getting more enjoyable...especially when Ben tells me it's good.
• I finished another book. The title is The Lucky One and it is by Nicholas Sparks. It is about a man who was a marine and went to Iraq 3 times. While he was in Iraq he found a picture of a woman he didn't know but it became his lucky charm. After the war something tragic happens to a friend and that makes him go in search of his lucky charm because he feels he owes her something. It was a good read!
  

Our tent is on the left :)

The Olsons!Jack is such a cutie. I think he is slowly but steadily warming
up to Ben which excites Ben to no end!

The girls :)

Loving Life

I am absolutely loving the area we are living in. There are so many different things to do. Monday I went with some girls in the ward to pick some apples. We walked through the rows of apple trees and got many comments. Can you guess what they were about?

Hint...What does everyone else have that I do not?

I love the Brockbank boys because...

So we share a doorstep with our neighbors. When you go up the steps, to the left is our door and to the right is our neighbor's door. Ben walked up the steps last night and went to the right. I was freaking out because I thought he forgot which door was ours. I was terrified he was going to walk into the neighbor's house. He didn't though. He knocked and offered them help to move some big furniture they had outside in their truck. I am constantly reminded by the Brockbank boys what service is and how to help others. I am ashamed to say that I would have never offered my help to the neighbors I didn't even know. Not because I am mean...I hope...I just get in my own world and forget. Ben's parents have taught their boys, and I can't forget Gwen, the importance of service and love for others around them. They don't just serve their family. They serve everyone. Whether it is going to a neighbors house to keep them company, cleaning the church building, or helping their brother move they are continually being a good example to me of how I should be.

Love you guys!

Cafe Rio Dinner Night

On Saturday many of the husbands of the couples we live around left us early to head to the library. They stayed all day because they have a big test coming up on Monday. SOO Erin and I cooked dinner! We had NO CLUE what we were getting ourselves into when we said we would cook a Cafe Rio Dinner. Preparations started at 10 am and didn't end until 6:30! We made roast beef, chicken, and pork salads. We spent a lot of money, made a mess, dirtied a lot of dishes, had a lot of laughs, and filled a lot of empty tummies. We had enough to feed 10 families and then had some great left overs for Sunday dinner!!

I think my hubby liked it :)

Lots and lots of reading.

My 2 latest books were very enjoyable and worthy of a blog post. Last week I read the third book in the Hunger Games Trilogy. It is called the Mockingjay and written by Suzanne Collins. It was much like the second where it built up the characters and the plot for the first 2/3s of the book and the last 1/3 of the book had all the good action. My favorite was by far the first in the trilogy but I would definitely recommend this one also.

This week I read Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry. It's a book that is supposed to go along with The Giver. I read The Giver so long ago that I thought I might have trouble understanding this book but that wasn't the case at all. I wasn't lost and I really liked it a lot. It was a really easy read...probably because it was meant for teens. I felt like the book taught a good lesson.

Labor Day

We had a great, fun-filled Labor Day. We started it off by celebrating with our ward. We had pancakes and bacon!
Then we headed to the Flying Squirrels baseball game. We snuck in with the Mormon Missionaries. It even says it on our tickets. Our friends, The Andersons, invited us to go tailgate with the missionaries and also had some extra tickets so we thought it would be fun. The missionaries got to lead the stadium in Take Me Out to the Ballgame.
To end the day we had FHE with The Andersons and Tracys. I gave a lesson about strengthening families by watching them and helping them grow so we thought it was appropriate to play the bean game after! :)

All play and no work :)

Friday night Ben went to play xbox with Eric so Cindy and I decided we would go do girl things. We called Sarah and made her come with us :) Girl things included going to downtown Richmond for Richmond's First Fridays Art Walk. It was really cool. We saw a lot of cool pieces of art, we heard lots of different types of music, and my favorite was seeing all the DIFFERENT types of people. :) We also went to Applebees and shared an appetizer because we didn't want to get home too early. It was nice to have some girl time.

Yup...I'm short.

Saturday included sleeping in WAY late and going to the the Johnston's for some homemade pizza with several of our friends from the ward. We're now watching the BYU game. You can tell how much I am paying attention to it...I'm blogging instead!

Seriously, bugs are EVERYWHERE. Big, creepy, jumpy ones.
At least this one wasn't in my house!