Brazilian Rainbow Boa

Just a couple quick pictures if our new boa. This are from online but he looks exactly like this, our pictures aren't uploaded yet. He's small for now, between 1 1/2 and 2 feet. 

But he will be huge eventually, between 5 and 7 feet. He's gorgeous! See the rainbow shimmer? :D Awesome.

We fed him last night, it was the coolest thing to watch him tackle that mouse (sad as it makes me) but it was frozen so that makes it a tad better. Name suggestions people, we need names! 

Spring slowly drizzling (roaring, storming, sleeting) In

Hello hello! I forgot a lunch today so I thought I would take my break to post a quick howdy do and what we're up to. 

The last couple of weeks have been crazy! Zach is nearing the end of his semester, so he is up to his nose in papers, tests and stress. That guy sure takes after his father in that when he gets stressed, he goes all the way! He is in the middle of a 25 page paper, with me poking him with a stick to finish before Mom and Dad come to visit (helpful I know, haha) so to say he's a little nervous would be a understatement. He's doing great though! His plans and research for his thesis are going great, his ideas are awesome, his new adviser is awesome, and the classes he has been taking seem awesome when he talks about them. He is currently working out the kinks of going to a conference in Vancouver, Canada at the University of British Columbia. Sweet! It's a small conference, but all the big names in his field will be there, so he's dying to go and get his own name out there. It would be an incredible chance to meet people and find potential research opportunities, so that's our goal! It is the end of June, he would be flying into Seattle and then taking a train or ferry to Canada. I'm trying to see if I can tag along as well, but that depends on if the school will pitch in on his fair or not. Cross your fingers! :D So he's pretty excited about getting the ball rolling, despite the nerves. Keep in him your prayers, he could use some comfort and confidence in the next few weeks. He's awesome! But you know I'm the wife so it doesn't count when I tell him that. Hahah.

I have been insanely busy but having a good time at work. I recently got a promotion (which means a raise!) and have just started my first few weeks running our Baldwin office about 20 minutes away from Lawrence. It's been great! It's a little chaotic, being our satellite it's new and a little less looked after, so getting things organized has been a hoot & a half, but it's finally smoothing out this week and I can breath a little. The first two weeks I pulled almost 15 hours of overtime, plus working every weekend (that's the downside of this deal) so it's been an adjustment but a fun one. I am also doing a huge plant/landscaping project for the Lawrence office (Eeeek! Yay!) so it's been a lot to keep up on but so fun to use my planty skills. Still a plant petter, as my friends used to call me when we went for walks... "Oh look a daffodil *pet pet* it's so Cuuute!" That's me, so this is exciting. :D

We still love it here :D the town is great, our ward and friends are fantastic, we still kinda like each other a little ;) and Webster is as fat as ever. So things are good! It is what these people call spring here....I call it drowning. 75 and sunny one day, and then it's below freezing and sleeting this awful grainy hail/styrofoam mix the next! It is green and bloomy gorgeous, which makes my commute to work Lovely! The huge storms have been weekly so we've been getting good use from the storm radio Mom gave us (Thanks Ma!) but we like storms so it's been pretty fun. 

Oh oh, new addition to the family! Nope, not that kind yet. We just got a beautiful Brazilian Rainbow Boa. The awesome pet store next door to our house (next door, that's a Adamz Zoo just waiting to happen) is one of our frequent dates, so we have looked some pets just for fun for ages. Then the other day, mid paper doom, Zachary says "We are going over there and getting a snake!" With wide eyes I said "Yes sir!" and here we are :D he's awesome! Look up Brazilian Rainbow Boas, he is a bright orange with brown spots, and their skin has an iridescence caused by tiny prisms in their scales, so he has a purple and rainbow glow to him, super neat! Webster just sits and stairs at him, haha with an occasional glass pawing. He's scared if him when he's out of the cage though, you should see Webster leap away from that snake. Sissy. We have to feed him mice (yeeesh!) but we'll cross that road in a few days when he needs to be fed again, thank goodness the pet store took care of the first round for us. Picture later, if I was home I'd post one. Btw...any name ideas? 

We love and miss everyone! Congratulations to Caitlin and Grant, as well as our friends Vanessa and Caleb for their new Babies! They are darling! :D We send our love, hope everyone is well (so much for this being short) and talk to you later. 

Oh Mom, Dad....see you this THURSDAY!!! Aaaaha! :D

Happy happy Valentines Day!

You know you have the perfect husband when he is so excited for the surprise he was waiting for you he can hardly stand it! So he tells you over and over how much you will love it, acts out what your exact reaction will be because he knows you to a T, and ends up being spot on no matter how hard I try to hold it in! Zachary is perfect! That is all I have to say. :) haha ok just kidding I want to tell it all!

So! We started a tradition of me spoiling Zachary Valentines Eve, and then Valentines is all his to play with. We'll see how that works out once we have kids :S but for now it's really fun. I surprised him with one of his favorite meals and some treats with a big tasty twist. A lobster tale! Steamed in our rice cooker, haha. He loved it and I was delighted that he liked it so much. His card was cute to if I may say so, haha. I had to get him two though! I have decided that my Father-in-law had the right idea when he gives his honey more than one card. I could not choose! So he got a bit of a spicy one that night then I had a sweeter fun one for Valentines Day. We had a lovely romantic evening.

For Valentines Day Zachary had some big plans that he was really excited about. I got off of work a little early and he picked me up all spiffed up and handsome (sigh) and took me downtown to a place called Tellers. Awesome! It's a really old bank converted into a fancy restaurant and it was amazing! There was a server with a waxed handle bar mustache big teeth and suspenders! It was like a black and white movie :D so fun. Our food was great and the experience was a blast, neither of us had been to a fancy place like that before, it was kinda fun, though half of our forks and such were still clean at the end, hahaha oh well.

He teased and taunted about my surprises the whole evening. "When you see it you are going to do this!" (some ridiculous excited face and girly gasp) "I will not!" Then he shows me and what do you know, it was like watching a replay. He was laughing so hard he was rolling. "You're going to do it again in a minute too" which I denied now that I was prepared and tried to hold it in....nope, next surprise got the same reaction. Boy does that man know me or what??

 Zach gave me some chocolates by Christopher Elbow, an artisan chocolate guy in Kansas City. They are gorgeous! Oh my goodness every one is lovely and delicious and it was about impossible to eat them! The fall leafy one was whisky walnut, and the purple swirly one was lavender caramel, those were our favorites though we loved them all! Yeah, I shared, though it was against Zach's will, it's more fun that way! I got a few goodies like the German hippos I like as well, what a spoiler! Other with the darling card which had me giggling and tearing up (that guy can write!) he also got me Skyfall, which I loved in theaters. A snugly night at home with luxurious treats, perfect. :)

That was our Valentines Day :) I adored every minute and the evening reminded me of how truly awesome Zachary is. I chose wisely. Haha! We enjoyed our time together and enjoyed realizing how well we fit together and compliment each other. We have a lot of love in our life and we plan to keep it that way. More pictures later, love you all!

Hello Hello everyone!

We are hear playing house in my Aunt and Uncle Andersen's place while they are in Utah. We're pretending not to be Greeeeen with envy! So I figure that while I have a day or two of internet bliss I should update this poor neglected blog!

We have now been living here in Lawrence Kansas for about 6 months and can't believe it! Half a year? Weirdness! It feels like we just moved away and we still miss everyone like crazy (In Utah and everyone else scattered across the globe) yet we are all settled and it feels like home. We absolutely love our apartment. It is open and lovely, we keep it pretty spic and span cuz after the chaos of work and class, we like to keep it our little oasis. Just don't look at the laundry pile in my room. :S Sorry Aunt Leslie, we brought a basket....or two. Haha! The best thing about our place it the Green! It is a jungle people, a jungle. We were delighted when we incured minimal casualties from the move out hear, and the humidity and sunlight have made the survivors go hog wild. We just did a great divide of some of our more crowded pots and we're swimming in green stuff. We breath pure O2 in that place, it's good for the studious brain of Zachary Adamz.

We love our cute town as well. It is hilly and green and darling, not nearly as flat and spooky as expected. Lots of fun and cute local places, and the down town strip called "Mass. St" is a blast! We have made lots of friends, both single and couples(most from our student ward) and rarely go a day or two without a hang out session or a get together somewhere. Be it be a cooking nights, game nights or we exhausted who's having the best dinner for us to mooch on night, we trade. :) We have a group that we rotate FHEs hosting with, Thursday is Gals/Guys nights and we pretty much party all the time! I can't believe how lucky we've been in the friends we've made, we love them so much and truly are blessed with the wonderful people we are surrounded by.

Zachary is doing great with his school work! He studies constantly, has soooo many awesome ideas I just bubble over with pride sometimes and his professors love him! He is really enjoying school more than he used to now that he can work on what he likes most and has so many big plans for his thesis, paper, books and beyond. Good luck sweet cheeks! He's a busy beaver and never does anything halfway. We just splurged with some Christmas money to get him an Awesome desk for his study, he's happy to finally have a good spot to work. This semester took off with a whirlwind and he's already up to his eyeballs with papers presentations and one opportunity to write a chapter for a book (yay!) but he gives it his all and does splendidly! He is also has a job at the KY Map Library (perfect) which can get a little dull and dusty but he gets a lot of study time and has fun going through thousands and thousands of map. I often get a random text with one ridiculously named city or an another. "We HAVE to go there!" it's a lot of fun and he's really doing great. He has a lot of fun with the guys in the ward as well, he finally has someone other than me to play crazy games with! A relief for us both :) He is amazing at helping around the house when I fall behind with how busy I get with work (a lot of over time and out of work events lately) and is the sweetest husband I could possibly hope for! He constantly makes my day with little here and there surprises and sweet nothings that I still just beam with how awesome he is. I'm so happy that it makes me tear up to think of how lucky I am to have him and how much he blesses by life. We're as in love as ever :), which is good since we're not yet 2 years into this long hall haha, and play and laugh and sing our way through all the tough stuff as well as the grand. He was just called last week as Sunday school president and is a fantastic teacher. We love our ward by the way! In short, he's doing well and I love that man to bits. Ok gush over I promise! Sorry guys, it's for me to read 50 years from now.

I am absolutely loving my job! I work at a pretty big optical clinic that is the place to go in Lawrence. All the doctors are fantastic, the teams are fantastic, the manager is tough but fair and an absolute blast! The goal of the business to to be exceed excellence in quality and customer service of course, but most of all to make the work place somewhere we want to be. If we're going to spend the majority of our waking hours there, our bosses want us to be happy because that will transfer to our customers. And boy to they keep us happy! We have an absolute blast, we all have a great connection with each other and can work together well, but we keep the serious professionalism that makes our business thrive. And we are so busy it makes our heads spin! That's how we like it. I worked customer service for 6 months and I am now training as an optician like Mom. After a few months of that I will train as a doctors technician/assistant and then I will be fully trained to work at their new location in Baldwin City. I've been sent to one conference in Wichita (a group of us went for 2 days and it was a blast) and I have another next weekend for 3 days. They really believe in having a staff that is well educated and they really invest a lot in developing professional and functional employees. Do they know how to do it right or WHAT? Anyway, there are no plants involved so it is not permanent by any means but it's one of the best jobs I've ever had. It's also the hardest by a long shot, and sometimes I go absolutely crazy it's so busy and complicated but we make work like home and we love it.

The cat is fat. Our dear King Tootinkattin has become a true house cat. He is fluffy and lies around all day, usually flat on his back with his legs in the air. Hahah we love it! He has always loved water so he hangs out in the bathroom and whines at the door when you are in there with out him, but his esteem lessened a little a few weeks ago. He usually sits on the edge of the tub while I take a bath and dips his tail in. This time he leaned too far over and fell in! He was flailing and scrambling and I was laughing so hard I couldn't help him so by the end he was soaked to the bone and I was covered in scratched form is panic and Zach was stunned holding a dripping Webster in a towel unsure of what to do next! Hahaha he's avoided the tub for a while. Anywho he is spoiled by every one who drops by and they all love him.

Ok trying to catch up is making this way to long of a post but really quickly here is a list of special evens of late! We saw The Hobbit, Skyfall and  Les Miserables, the latter two of which were amazing!! Zachary also liked Lincoln which he saw with a friend. Zach finished his first semester and enjoyed his first ever spring break (Darn BYU) but still kept busy. We've spent a lot of time with the Andersen's having a blast with all the fun we get into. Lisa, Matt and Ellie come down too (They are here now sitting on the couch! Here looking for a house, yay!!!!) so being close to family has been great as well.

Ok ok, Zach needs the computer so I gotta run, but we love and miss you all and you are all in our prayer. See ya!

Finally Settling!

Hey All,

So it has been an absurd amount of time since we have updated our blog, but I am going to try to get in the habit. We are finally getting settled in our new apartment, just a few organizational hour or two away from perfection! :) we are loving it! It's big and darling and the area is cute, the only one who isn't happy is Webster who has cabin fever as bad as I've ever seen! The poor thing just stares our the window when he isn't whining at the door or bolting down the hall only to be blocked by two more doors...I'm not sure what to do :'( but I'm sure sad about it. He has a leash and walks really well actually, but the more he's out the more he wants to be out all the time. Yeesh, we gotta figure something out. Anyway we are both liking our jobs, mine at the Lawrence Family Vision Clinic and Zach's at KU's Map Library, which is awesome! Most of his classes are professors are great, and he is making lots of connections and doing well with research for his Thesis, he has some really great ideas that he is working on getting funding for within the next few weeks. Our new ward is fantastic, we just adore them and are making lots of friends, we have weekly FHE with two other couples and rotate houses, and our first temple trip with the same clan was great! They are all very welcoming and we're having lots of fun. Living near Leslie and John is the cherry on the cake, what a blast they are! We are constantly at their place for fun and frolicing and we love them do death! You should all be jealous! :) Anywho, I'm on my lunch break so I gotta make it quick and get back to work.
We miss you all, we love you even more, and we can't wait till we can visit (wherever you are haha) and to smother you with hugs and kisses. :) Talk to you soon! See FB for pictures of the new place till I can get some on here. Later!

Busy Busy Busy!

Things have been pretty crazy lately, I've started school, Zach just finished up the last of his graduate applications and we're having as much fun as ever. Sorry for the long post gap, we need to cook more tasty food to post pictures of! We're fatties. Actually, Zachary has been the house chef lately while I study away and he is fabulous! Hats off to Cindy for raising a son who can cook better than his wife! Almost ;)  So I have been loving life with all the delicious things he's been whipping up. Chili Rellenos last night with spanish rice and green chili sauce....awesome.

We will soon put up our Christmas news letter, until then, love you all!

New Pictures! A yummy yummy dinner we maid and a few Christmas Pictures. We got a package from Zach's mom Cindy with lots of goodies, including some of Zachies favorite ornaments to put on our cute little tree. :D I love it! I am so excited for this Christmas, it's going to be so fun, everyone else excited?

One of our absolute favorites, Kielbasa Polska sausage sandwiches with sauteed mushrooms, onions and sauerkraut. Zach went for a bit of a sausage po-boy, but I wanted mine open face. Delicious!!!  

 Complete with a little cider in our "Inn on the Hill" glasses, from our honeymoon. Romantic  : P

Some of the ornaments that Zach's mom sent us, the orbs are family treasures that his great grandmother made. They are gorgeous! And then the famous Horse Family, a favorite of Zach's since he was little. 

Our darling little tree, now with ornaments from both of our families! Yay!

Zach lighting a few candles, I just wanted one of the whole scene.

These are stockings that Cindy made for us, they are darling! 

It is a tradition, I think most everyone in the family has one, I got mine yesterday, thanks Cindy!!!

Everyone who is traveling this holiday season, please be safe, and have fun! We love you all, Merry merry Christmas!