The latest...

1. CAR BREAKDOWN - Zach and his brother Ryan have been driving the Ford Escort (which he parents so graciously donated to the kids many years ago) to work every day at the bookstore. It has been having problems for awhile, but last week it finally bit the dust. Right after leaving the house the car just wouldn't move forward anymore. So we've been trying to figure out what the next step is. We still need to check the transmission fluid to see if it might be leaking and then we might take it in to a mechanic to get it looked at to see if there is an easy fix. If not, it might be time to buy a new car... We could probably make do without for awhile, but when I start school in the fall it might be kind of tricky. And just when I finished paying off my other car...!

2. Yesterday we found a GIANT mosquito in our apartment. It was the mother of all mosquitos. The body was literally 3 inches long - it's kind of hard to tell from the picture. So Zach took a broom to it. When he thought it was dead he tried to shake it off into the toilet and it started flying around again. We were both screaming. He finally smashed it again, but it broke free again - that mosquito would not die! Finally he started beating it over and over until we had mosquito limbs all over the bathroom floor. Sick!!!

3. Last week Zach's sister Kacey flew in from Texas to begin her first experience as a college student at BYU. It has been so fun to have her here altough she misses home dearly. She will just be here through August and then she will be going to BYU Idaho in January. Good luck Kacey!

4. Along with Kacey, Zach also started classes this week. Real life is finally starting to hit. But Zach has a way of being very efficient at getting his homework done quickly, so hopefully we'll still have some down time together. He's taking a weight lifting class that he's really excited for - he hasn't lifted since high school and he's excited to get back in shape.

5. Last weekend we drove out to Stansbury Park for a get-together with my old Jr. High friends. Over the last couple of years it has been a fun tradition that we've started. Rachel was so good to host us and she had a GREAT yard for all the kids to play in. SO MANY KIDS!

6. We stayed a bit too long at the friend gathering and only had 1/2 hour for our IKEA trip on the way home. We needed another shelf for our kitchen. It took incredible self-restraint to pass by all the amazing things in that store and just pick out a shelf. But we were successful and made it out before the store closed with a nice shelf.

7. Zach and I just got callings on Sunday. He is the Teacher's quorum advisor and I am the primary pianist. We're both really excited about our callings. Zach will do a really good job working with the youth and he's excited to get back into scouting :) I am excited to have an excuse to brush up on my piano skills and I think it will be fun working with the kids. I haven't been in primary since I was 12. It will be hard to have to have miss Relief Society every week b/c I really love RS and it is a good place to get to know people. But we're both excited about our callings :)

8. The day after Zach and I got back from our honeymoon we noticed one of our tires was almost completely flat. So we pumped it with air and took it into Costco the next day to get it looked at. They did the rotation and balancing, but I don't think they took a very good look at the tire. Since the air pressure was okay I think they assumed it was okay. But about 3 weeks later I noticed once again that the tire was almost completely flat. I immediately pumped it up again and took it in again and they said the tire was completely worn out from driving on it flat for too long and it needed to be replaced. Grrr. I was annoyed that we had to pay for a new tire because they didn't check it well enough the first time...but the tire was only $25, so it wasn't too bad.

9. Today as I was washing the car, I looked up to see two horses walking down the middle of the road. They didn't have any anyone with them or any rope or halters. Then I saw a guy sort of following them in his truck and he looked like he was calling the police. Soon there was a whole line of cars backed up b/c they couldn't get past the horses. Soon they were out of sight but I saw 5 0r 6 police trucks drive by a few minutes later. Wonder how they handled that situation...

10. Last week we had sloppy joe spaghetti for lunch. I saw in the fridge what I thought was leftover spaghetti sauce so I made up some noodles. As I was mixing in the sauce I noticed it was really dry and realized that it was in fact sloppy joes and not spaghetti sauce. But I couldn't bear to throw it out so we ate it and it was pretty gross.

11. Zach and I are thouroughly enjoying married life. It is so great to be able to spend so much time together and to hardly have any stresses at all! It's not going to be so stress-free for long so we are trying to enjoy every minute of it!