Jared + Carly Reid: April 2013

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

April Update

It was so fun to see so many friends and my family during the month of April. Later that month we had some fun times ourselves documented in the bullet points and pictures below.

It has been so good to hear from my sister Mikele each week who is serving an LDS mission in Chile.

Me pretending to be interested in golf but really just watching the Masters with Jared because I love watching sports with him. (Let's be real, golf is borrrrring :))
Jared finished his first year of grad school! WOOOOOOOOO!!!
On April 22nd I had my first real day of work as a permanent employee.
I read these two books and highly highly highly recommend them! (Thanks Ruth & Dad!) I think I will start giving engagement gifts instead of wedding gifts and will give people these two books together!

Okay. You really don't even want to hear the chicken story. But I'm going to tell you anyway. My friend buys meat from a wholesale place because it's a lot cheaper. I thought I'd join her on her order and so once she received the order she dropped my part off at home and Jared put it in the freezer (I wasn't home). I get home, pull it out of the freezer, and see it's in a white plastic trash bag. That's it. Twenty frozen chicken breasts now formed together in a big ball of chicken in a white plastic trash bag (my friend had picked up the chicken raw-not frozen-and put it in a bag and given it to Jared). I showed it to Jared and was like.....uh......and then I texted my friend and she said, "Oh no, I should have told you not to freeze it and to separate the breasts or cook it all!" Haha! So here Jared and I have seriously a basketball size of chicken not quite sure what to do with. The next couple days I leave it in the freezer....avoiding it because I'm not sure what to do with it...and then finally my public health mind flips and says okay this needs to get taken care of. I take it out, try to defrost it in water, find I don't have a bowl big enough for it to sit in with water covering it, as you can see above, not even my biggest pot fit it, and below you can see my biggest bowl didn't fit it....Jared gets home from school, takes the ball of bird outside and starts chiseling away with a knife and hammer trying to break chunks off! That didn't work, so I finally found a bowl big enough, left the chicken submerged in water for a couple hours, the chicken becomes soft enough for me to be able to take a knife and slowly chisel away at the ball while it's still submerged under water...so gross. I put some of the ball chunks in my crock pot, and the rest I throw on the stove to boil. Nine sandwich bags later and we finally have the chicken cooked and stored away.

And I didn't even want to eat it after that.

We babysat the world's cutest and most well-behaved baby while her parents went on a date for Lindsey's birthday. That man right there is so handsome. And please can we have a baby as beautiful and calm tempered as Tayli???

Sigh

We compromised and watched the BYU mens volleyball team play in the playoffs and NBA basketball at the same time. :)

Who knew there was such thing as Administrative Professionals' Day?

There is a lake behind our office and there are two gators living in it that we discovered.......

We were able to take a newly baptized member in our ward to the temple for him to do baptisms for the first time. It was really really special and he is an amazing man.

Jared and Jonas

After that Jared and I broke our week-long sugar fast and got our favorites from the Golden Arches. And I made Jared pay in quarters because I like to embarrass him like that. The only thing he hates worse is when I make him use a bunch of coupons. ;) ;)

Thanks to Pinterest I cooked cookie dough on the bottom of a muffin pan to create a cookie ice cream bowl! It was genius!

April was a wonderful month, and we truly continue to feel the hand of the Lord in our lives. We have been able to be involved in the missionary work down here and it has been so fulfilling and joyous.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

The Fam Comes to Disneyworld!

Saturday, March 30th:

We greeted the fam by sitting on lawn chairs on our driveway :)

The kids look THRILLED! This was also their first time seeing our house.

Dad paying homage to the king bed they gave us--its origin is from mom and dad's first apartment!

After dinner at TGIF we went food shopping at Target. My two favorite boys :)

Sunday, March 31st (Easter) :

My family came to listen to me speak in church and then we had a nice Easter lunch and decorated Easter eggs.

Right about when that guy snapped his shin in half in that basketball game......

Then after we prepped food for Easter dinner we went on a drive to the Orlando Temple.

I kept telling myself over and over, "This is what life is all about." Walking hand in hand with Jared, walking with my family, outside the temple...it doesn't get better than that. We missed Mikele though.

Monday, April 1st: I had to work all day and the family went to St. Pete's beach and had a great time.

Tuesday, April 2nd: I had to work 8-12 that morning but then met up with the fam at Islands of Adventure (the park located next to Universal Studios). They explored Harry Potter World that morning and absolutely loved it! Jace seriously loved it and I’m so glad he did. I met them at lunch at “Mythos.” We then went over to the other park, Universal Studios, and first explored the I Love Lucy museum. It was so fun to see!! It was cute to see my mom so excited too; she grew up watching that show and just loves Lucille Ball. We then went and saw the Horror Makeup show, and that was one of the highlights of the trip, hands down. The show was about how they apply horror makeup, but the two hosts of the show were the absolute best part, especially the female host. My whole family was crying we were laughing so hard. The funny part is, is that Aly is soooooooo funny, and this lady had the same type of humor, so it was hilarious to see Aly laughing so hard, because she was essentially laughing at her own type of humor. It was so funny. “You don’t speak English? Perrrfect!” “Francelina…” “Hi, I’m Chip (with a lisp)” “Nice to see you again, sir” We then went and got a shake from the malte shoppe. One of the highlights of the trip for me was that my dad bought us so many treats ;) When Jared and I go to the Disney parks we have a great time but always walk past the treats and restaurants and just sigh...$$$. We then went and watched a Twister show, themed around the movie “Twister” and all the crazy twisters that have happened in history. We then took a picture outside in front of the park, and I felt so much love for my family. It was such a wonderful day. Jared had work and school, and it was good to return home to him that night!

We rented a wheelchair for my mom because of her feet and the kids definitely got more use out of it :)

This picture was in the malte shoppe and it looks just like my Grandma Stephenson!

Wednesday, April 3rd: Animal Kingdom! Probably my favorite day! We started out the day by seeing the show “Lion King.” It was SO amazing and my family absolutely LOVED it! I loved seeing them so happy. We then went on the Safari which was a blast, we sat on the back row and it was sooooo bumpy, got lunch, saw Finding Nemo, rode the rapids ride and got soaked, ode Everest as a family and it was SO FUN, my mom even went on it and she was so funny! It was so fun to do it all together and see their reactions. Saw a Bugs Life, got funnel cakes and Lauren got bird yuckies on her, it started to POUR. Went back to the condo (my parents were renting a timeshare my Aunt Pam has) called Tuscana Resort just south of Disney in Champions Gate. Watched American Idol, then J joined us after class (he was still wet from the rapids!) and then we went home.

Waiting for the Lion King to start

We have taken this exact same picture about once a year. Two years ago on our honeymoon, last year sometime, and again this year.

Aly the tourist :)

Safari Ride

On the trolly to the parking lot as it was pouring

As we were leaving the park it started to pour harder than I've ever seen my entire life!

Thurs April 4: We were supposed to go to Magic Kingdom this day but it was raining so we switched things up. I called my manager Robin and asked to come in this morning instead of the next morning which she agreed to, so I worked from 8:45 – 12:45 and then my fam and Jared met me in the parking lot at work, after which we went on a drive thru tour of Orange Lake, which was so fun to show my family. Ate lunch at Panera Bread, went to Jared’s school and showed them around, went with dad to the Apple Store. The fam was chilling at my and Jared's house the whole time (my parents loved sleeping on their old king bed in our guest room! Such a family heirloom), then we went to Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner which was delicious! Fun times in the parking lot after dinner, me telling them the story of running into the antenna attached to the trunk of our red car and how I must have been the perfect height for the top of the antenna to stab me directly in the eye, took pictures, felt so much joy. Aly slept at our house that night so we could drive her to the airport the next morning (she had to leave a day early because she had a volleyball tournament), and before we went to bed she and I listened to youtube songs together like Taylor Swift’s “22,” Demi Lovato's “Heart Attack,” Rascal Flatts “Changed,” and that one country song “Done.” I love her!

Panera Bread (like Zupas)

Driving to Jared's school. My bro is such a cutie!

At Jared's school

Isn't it gorgeous?

After dinner, listening to music, before we went to bed

from Jace

Friday, April 5: Today we went to Magic Kingdom. It was kind of raining in the morning. We first went to the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor which was funny but not as funny as past times (the funniest time was with the Jepsens), Jared ran around and was so kind about always getting fast passes for us, went on Buzz Lightyear, Thunder Mountain (rode this many times thanks to fast passes!), Jungle Cruise, Splash Mountain, new Fantasy Land, got La Fou’s frew, Gaston was hilarious, funnel cake, shopping, then said bye at their condo. One of the things I loved about this trip was that Jared was so kind to run and get fast passes for us and planned our days in a way where we got to do so much and never had to stand in line because of fast passes. It was amazing! My family also sometimes is slower and likes more to relax on vacation instead of go-go-go, so I thought they might not want to do a lot at the parks, but they impressed me (especially my mom!) with how much they wanted to do and how enthusiastic they were. It was so great. It will be a week to remember for sure!!! I love them so much.

Said goodbye to my appendage of four wonderful years. So many memories with that computer.

Gaston's Tavern in the new Fantasy Land

He. Was. Hilarious. Some quotes from him:
"Your name is Mia? That's my favorite name because it has 'me' in it!"
"I just made your day!"
"The pleasure was all yours."
"I'm going to rename you Gaston!"
"Au revoir, in French that means get out of here!