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!

Look at all of our cute nieces and nephews! I'm the oldest in our family so those seemed to be a thing of the future, but then I married an uncle of 11 and became an Auntie! I love it :D

This is Zach's parents and all of the Grand-kids, our nieces and nephews. Haha!

And this is darling Olivia and  cutie-pie Isabelle. Mary and Kina's eldest daughters. Love 'em!

What fun being an Auntie, hahaha I'll spoil them all!

November 2011 Newsletter!

Lauren & Zachary

(November 2011 Newsletter)

            It’s the last day of November, one more day till December! I am sooo excited for Christmas this year, it will be our first Christmas since getting married which brings a lot of fun memories since it was this time of year that we got engaged, on the 11^th it will be the anniversary of the day Zach proposed. J Cheesy I know but fun just the same. But staying on task here, November was a blast! A few of the main events being both my (Lauren’s) parents’ birthdays, Dad’s on the 12^th and Mom’s is today, the 30^th. We had a combined birthday celebration with the whole family at Tucanos Brazilian Grill (Yuuuum!) which was a blast. We stuffed ourselves with all the delicious goodies and even got to embarrass the parents by having them sang to, with tambourines and the whole bit, it was great fun!

            Zachary has been working hard on finishing up his school applications J we’re getting really anxious and excited! Hopefully he gets into several so that we have some options in where we move and where I transfer to finish my undergrad, but who knows where we’ll end up. It will be an adventure whatever happens, I just hope and pray that Zach can get into a program that he enjoys and can really excel in. Good luck Zachie!

            I’ve still been working at Wolcott Optical, though I am applying to some flower shops in the area, I would adore being back in that field and with any luck they need some holiday help. It would be a dream and a half to be working with flowers and plants again, and I need to work on fleshing out my resume with more experience in horticulture.

            Zach and I have been trying to be healthier (riiiiiiight…) so we have started a work out/eating healthy contest. Good luck to us, so far Zach is winning at the work out, and I am winning at drinking water (yahoo). The prize at the end of two months is choosing a dinner date, though knowing us Tucanos will win and we’ll end up undoing any progress hopefully made. Haha just kidding we’ll be good! :S

            We have been delightfully on top of our Christmas shopping this year, and are actually almost finished! Just a few here and there to go and we’ll be done! We had a really fun day shopping around a few weeks ago, but we’re stumped on a few. What are some good smaller gifts for teenage boys? We’re not very creative I’m afraid.

            Some more fun this months were the mission farewells for some very close family friends, boys my siblings and I have grown up with. Evan Mydell, and Jack Parker, best buds (Annie’s clan) who have been in our ward since we were all just babes, shared a farewell the Sunday before Thanksgiving. The next was for John Clark, a dear friend since our cousins Erin and Michael married his cousin Sam, and sister Lisa Jane (who just had a new baby, darling Zander!) was this last Sunday the day after we got back from Denver. They all gave excellent talks and we know they will be great missionaries, we’ll miss them!

            The grand finale of this month was the trek to Denver, Colorado for a Thanksgiving family reunion! We were up Thanksgiving Day at 3am to finish last minute prep, a quick trip to the airport to drop of Glenn and Shannon’s van, back home to herd the very drowsy Thomas and Daniel into the car, and we were off! Zach had spent the previous night burning some awesome CDs to keep us entertained along the way, so we watched the sun rise to such awesome tunes as “Opossum in a Gum Tree”, and “Dixie” by the 2^nd South Carolina String Band, Zach singing all the way! I’m sure the boys were loving us at that point. Hahah! The drive there was fairly painless; we stopped for breakfast and a picnic lunch and arrived in Denver about 2pm, 9 hours later. Daniel and Thomas were a riot, teasing and singing and speaking Korean the whole way. Thanksgiving was great, with food and pie all around! We were on dish duty… L a huuuge bummer with the massive crowed of eaters, but we missed most of the prep so I guess that’s what we get. J Of course one of the highlights of the weekend was all of the new babies, and babes to come! Two week old Zander Hofmann (Mike and Lisa’s third) and two month old Eleanor Jean McCoy (Matt and Lisa’s first!) were passed around like bags of potatoes along a trail of Germ-Xed hands waiting to squish on them. They are both darling babes and we are so excited for them and the three soon to come, to Janci and Andrew (1^st), Cynthia and James (3^rd) and Ryan and Kelli (2^nd), good luck moms!  Introducing Zach to some of the family was a lot of fun, including Cynthia and her wild gang, Ryan and his, and the newlywed only a day earlier, Uncle David and now Aunt Lori! He went through the official initiation of choosing a pocket knife from Uncle David’s collection. All the grandkids and cousins have one of Uncle David’s knives; Zach’s big black knife is a bit more vicious looking than my tiny ivory one that I picked years ago. :P The next few days were spent visiting and antique shopping and swimming at the hotel most of the gang was staying at (We crashed at Uncle Kelly and Aunt Teresa’s which was great!) amidst the parties spread across Denver at all the different relatives houses. One fun night was spent laughing at Zach and James (Cynthia’s honey) playing the awesome video game Portal. What a riot! We enjoyed the short time we had there, I particularly enjoyed the treat of knitting a lot with my darling Aunt Leslie who taught me to knit years ago when I spent a few summers with her. J Good times! Finally after a big breakfast at Mike and Lisa’s we began the long drive home, which seemed to last ages this time! We left a lot later in the day and took a different route home, which was lovely, yet it felt a lot longer driving that long in the dark through the canyons. Thomas and Daniel had as much fun as ever (THOOMAAAS!!! Cries Daniel each time he is harassed or woken up) which kept us entertained, and we finally arrived home at almost 10pm. Yahoo! It was crazy but it sure was good to see everyone. Thanks all for coming and for having us! :D

            The last bit of news that we are all super excited about we received just this last Sunday night, the day after getting home. Julie and Adam have a baby!!! They received an email and a few pictures from the adoption agency, and they have found a baby girl in Ethiopia only ten days younger than Julie’s sister Lisa and Mat’s baby girl. Those two gals are going to be darling! Her name (as far as we’ve heard) is Zadie Mae, and we can’t wait to see her in a few months. Congrats Jorgensens!

            This is a big one this month, I’ll shorten it for the newsletter, but the details are what make it fun to read years from now. Everyone remembers we went to Denver, but being reminded of the small fun stuff makes it all work while. J    We’re both working away, happy and healthy, the cat is getting fatter by the day, haha, and we’ll see ya next month. Be safe Mary and Davin and kiddies on your way to Germany, we will miss you guys, and will definitely be out to visit. Love you all!

We've been having a lot of fun cooking lately and we were thinking about making a food blog just for our own entertainment, but we'll just combine them! So we'll post some of our favorite dishes once in a while, here are some our our recent favs.

Tonight we had homemade fish and chips (onion ring bits) and tartar sauce. Delicious!

Zach and I made a trip to an awesome Korean market we found, and made this Dduk-guk (rice cake soup) and some fried Tofu. A little different but very yummy!

Making the Zach's mother's famous pizza rolls was super fun! They end up like pizza cinnamon rolls.

Zach made this cucumber, tomato, and green pepper salad, we needed to use some garden veggies. The grapefruit was perfect with the salad, it was a wonderful summer treat. 

Another one of Zach's (he makes all the cool dishes worth picture taking) it's Italian seasoned fried chicken, with a balsamic tomato salad and sliced tomatoes with french fried onion. Again, we needed to use up garden tomatoes. 

Better picture of the same. Yum! Zach is quite the cook!

What better sweet treat than a piece of wedding cake! Boo on waiting for our anniversary, it's cake! The top layer was Fun-fetti, a surprise for Zach. :)

In case you have never made fun pancakes, this is how it's done! We made these at my parents house Halloween morning, a tradition of ours. Favorite!

And the food coloring is not as bad as it looks, still yummy I promise.

And last but not least, a super delicious random Asian food night. We had rice, veggie noddle stir-fry, and a sweet and sour combination of both, with cream cheese wontons. Sooo yummy! 

Monthly Newsletter!

All growing up my mom wrote a monthly newsletter to keep a detailed history of our family, as well as to share with family. It is something we have always enjoyed growing up, and we now charish the binders work letters we have, and really have fun reading through them, remembering all the fun we have had as a family. I want to keep up the tradition! So I've started writing our own newsletter, as well as a family blog on Zach's side for me to collect family letters and combine them together. Here is our first letter, covering Oct/Nov, although I need to write a few more to fill in since we have been married, I'm behind already! So here we go, and I hope I will be able to keep it up the way Mom has!

Lauren and Zach

(September/October 2011)

               So after asking everyone to send me newsletters I realized we had to get our own together! Being married has been awesome! We’ve been having fun living life despite being in a bit of a tight spot the past few months. School preparations and searching for jobs and possible relocation take up the majority of our time, but we’ve been having plenty of good times along the way. I work at Wolcott’s a seventy year old family owned optical shop, which is a lot of fun. Most of the General Authorities get their glasses here so it is kinda fun to meet them occasionally; President Packer was in just last week. Zachary has been working on applications for various graduate degrees, and we’re excited to see how things will work out. Webster, our kitten, is getting really big, and is as mischievous as ever!  

September came in with lots of fun and new things going on, one of the most fun being the new Korean foreign exchange student that has moved in with my parents for the next 4+ years! Some friends in our ward who have two Korean boys contacted my parents wondering if we would be willing to house a student, a friend of their boys, and two days later he was at the door! The American name he has chosen is Daniel and he instantly fit into the family. I think having Zach here to bridge the gap really helped him to relax with us, even though his English is perfect. At first he was almost silent and only bowed and nodded, but within a day or two he was laughing and playing games right along with us, he’s just another member of the family by now. At first he was terrified of all our pets and was constantly shrieking if they even walked near him, but now he is rarely seen without a cat or dog on his lap. He loves playing games with Zach and the boys, their current favorites are Hearts, Risk, and occasionally Axis and Allies. His dry sense of humor cracks us up and we love having him around! I’m really glad Zach has someone to speak Korean with, they have a lot of fun with it and we are all learning a little. September was a really fun month, we has a few birthdays, Scotts was the end of August, Daniels the second week of September, and Zach’s on the 29^th, so we had a big celebration! We all went to See’s Candies for the birthday boys to pick out a pound box each of chocolates, which is a tradition in my family, and then we all went out to dinner together.

Zach’s birthday was so much fun! Along with a few treats he got two Korean cookbooks (time for me to get goin’ on learning that stuff!) and one book about guns and their history. We have had a lot of fun already with the Korean cooking! He also got civil war book called Hearts Touched by Fire, which is a really cool collection of stories and memories written by generals, and other leaders who were there. Lots of books! One of our favorite date nights is browsing at Barnes and Noble and a little book exchange shop we recently found, we’re huge book nerds.

October started with General Conference, I had to work Saturday L but we enjoyed a brunch gathering with Caleb and Vanessa in Lehi, plus a few other friends, for the Sunday sessions. Zach made his now famous White Chili and everyone loved it (thanks for the recipe, Mom). It was wonderful to sit and listen to the words of our prophets, Conference is always a favorite for me.

Halloween was a blast! We didn’t dress up much, Zach thought about being Wolverine with the awesome split beard and all but we ended up just hanging out at the Pyne’s for Pizza and a fire bowl on the front lawn, for a better view of the costumes! A few friends were over and we had a good time chatting and eating candy, s’mores and the Halloween cake we brought. The rest of October has been spent working hard on school and work applications for both of us, we’ve picked several schools and we’re both applying, so hopefully we’ll have some options opening up for us in the next few weeks or so. Wish us luck!

Sorry this is so tedious; my main purpose is to try to get a good family history started early on, so if I’m a bit detailed I’m sorry!