Campus Walk :)

The last day that Matt's parents where visiting his brother James pulled through with his moving truck (he and his family were moving from Pittsburgh to Provo).  It was fun to have him visit, even if it was only for a day.  We had lots of yummy food and went for a walk around the campus.

James & Mom on the left, Dad and Matt on the right :)

We got some famous dome pictures...

And, of course we fed the campus squirrels.

 It's amazing how they'll eat right out of your hand!!  During the summer Matt and I would eat our lunch on a bench outside and feed these squirrels.  Sometimes it freaked me out though because they will come and sit on your feet!  That's a little too close if you ask me!

And, we had to get a picture of all the attorneys/future attorney in front of the ND law school.

People always tell me how much James and Matt look alike--especially with their goatees. :)

The pictures didn't turn out very well for some reason, but I'm glad we got a few anyway.  Matt and James may or may not have had some bonding time playing xbox later that night--even though it was Sunday. ;)  They had to live it up since these best buds hadn't seen each other since last December and won't be seeing each other until next December--man we need to live closer once we're done with school!

Scenes from Our Life

Shortly after we arrived in South Bend last summer, Matt and I took a walk on campus and I snapped a few shots.  I stumbled upon them the other day and thought I would share them with all of you.  I'm constantly in awe of this beautiful place where we work and study each day.  The architecture and landscaping is breath taking.  We feel so blessed.

Bleeding Blue, or Irish Through and Through?

Matt and I were able to get some awesome tickets to the last Notre Dame home basketball game on Friday night through my work.  It was such a fun experience.  Matt says we were so close we had to look up to the players. 

Isn't this shamrock sweet?

The arena was incredible... so we were pretty proud that it's named after us.

We aren't rabid Notre Dame fans yet, but being there close enough to see the players and coaches interacting, with all the people, really got us pumped.

I think we'll always bleed BYU blue, but we were definitely feeling some Irish pride.

Matt and I at our first Notre Dame sporting event!!

Dinner in the Press Box!

Last Saturday as part of Matt's Law School Orientation we were able to have dinner in the Notre Dame press box.  It was a really fun experience, I'm so glad I had my camera so I can share it with all of you! :)

The Stadium.

Walking through the tunnel.

Looking back at the tunnel.

Matt and I in front of the field (I think they shoot you if you step on the field or something - they are really serious about their grass :) )

The friend we made just moments before this picture was taken, Panashe.

The Notre Dame Stadium!  We are really excited to go to football games next year when we buy season tickets.

The press box.

Our view while we ate dinner.  Matt has already started counting down 'til football season; this just increased his excitement.

Some of Matt's classmates.

Me and Matt - Thank you South Bend for your awesome summer rain.  I actually love the summer rain, apart from the little number it does on my hair.  :)

View of campus on the other side of the box.

I'm sure this was a once in a lifetime experience, but we loved it.  I would love watching a game up there, especially if we had some more of that delicious food they served! :)

Our home in South Bend :)

First let me say how much we LOVE it here!  :)  We love our ward and have already made so many new friends.  There are quite a few student couples in our apartment complex and even more in our ward.  Our ward was so nice to help us move twice and then we have had 6-7 dinners with people in our ward since we have been here.  We love the location of our apartment!  It's 10 minutes from campus, 20 minutes from church, right near three grocery stores (within walking distance).  I wasn't able to relax until everything was unpacked.  Matt was so good to help out and we were completely unpacked within three days of our second move.  It's been really nice to get all settled in.  Here are some pictures of our new place so you'll know where to picture us!

 

The family room.

Family Picture Wall

The Family Room: We love our balcony.

The New Ikea Entertainment Center: Matt and I built this and it only took us like 6 hours.

The Balcony: the pond was feeling a little sick for a while, but it's doing a lot better now and looking a lot less green.

We love how this family room has quite a bit more space than our last one and we are able to have our desktop computer out here where we'll use it more often.

Our Bedroom: We love that it's right by the Family Room

Our Dresser

The 'Master' Bath... I'm not sure if I can call it that since there isn't a tub, but it's the bathroom that's connected to our bedroom, so we'll call it that.

The Dinning Room/Kitchen

The Kitchen: LOVING the gas stove!

And my personal favorite: The Laundry Room!  I will never be able to go back to not having our own washer and dryer.  It has saved us so much money and it's so nice to just pop a load of laundry in whenever you feel like it rather than waiting until you have 10 loads!

Bathroom #2:  I think I would rather have 1 bathroom, personally.  Less to clean.  But, it will be nice when we have guests!

The Spare Bedroom!  This is our random room, as you can see.  Weights, Drying Rack, Bookshelves.  It also has a huge walk-in-closet which is great for storage and this is where guests will stay. :)

So, that's it!  We love it here - come visit and we'll show you why!  :)

Moving to ND

On Thursday, July 28th, early in the morning, Matt and I hopped in our Penske truck and began our drive to Indiana.

Have you ever seen a white Penske truck before??  I hadn't but now I see them all the time.  We were lucky because our truck was pretty new.

Here we are with our truck and car all loaded and ready to go :)

Just a minute or two before we drove away - this was so exciting and scary!

Haha.

Matt and I in the Cab where we would sit for the next few DAYS!

My mom was so great to help us get all our food ready for the trip, here is Matt eating a snap pea :)  We didn't really stop at all to eat - no time!  I would just make the food and hand it to Matt to eat on the road.

We surprisingly really enjoyed the drive out there.  Our audio books were kind of a bust, but we enjoyed the scenery and the adventure anyway.  One of my favorite parts of the drive was the gorgeous sky!  Check out these clouds!

And then we came upon the dreaded Nebraska... :)  We actually liked this part of the drive - could have been because we stopped half-way through.  As my sister-in-law said, speaking from experience, "Nebraska is an annoyingly wide state."  :)

I had to snap a few pictures of the fields of Nebraska to prove that it's not as ugly as people say it is.  :)  There may be nothing but fields in sight, but they were pretty none the less.

And I had to snap a picture of the Mississippi as we passed.  Matt loved the houses on the banks.

And on Saturday morning we finally reached Indiana!!

We arrived in South Bend around 10:00, returned the car trailer and picked up the keys to our apartment just in time for the elders quorum to show up at 11:00 to help us unpack our truck.  When we stepped in to our new place I wanted to cry (I might have actually cried) because our apartment smelled like an ash tray... literally.  The carpets were GREASY from the smoke.  It was disgusting.  We went back to the apartment office and they said they didn't have any more apartments like that one available and couldn't get us in to a two bedroom that day.  We made a spur of the moment decision to move our stuff in and see if we couldn't get the smell out (I wasn't aware of the greasy carpets until I spent the night there).  We unloaded all our stuff and Matt started helping me unpack the kitchen.  Suddenly we both sat on the floor and decided we didn't want to live there for three years!!  So, we stayed there until Monday morning when we moved into another two bedroom apartment.  It was frustrating that we had to move again and pay a lot more than we were planning to in rent, but we are SO glad now that we did.  The ward was so great to help us move TWICE and we were invited to dinner on Saturday and Sunday nights by some kind friends.  We love our new place, the location, the layout, the clean carpets, and that it smells good in here.  So worth it.  

While we were staying in our first greasy apartment and didn't have a place to sleep, we made a little makeshift bed with the couches.  Matt thought it was kind of like a fort and we loved it.  We set up our laptop with a movie at the end of the bed and had yummy treats.  I guess all you can do is make the best of a frustrating situation sometimes.

 

More on how much we love our new place later!! :)