Week 1 of Family Vacation

Lis and I :)
Our evil/fat kitty Domino




We love Jack!! He's so adorable!

Yay for sisters!

My brother Joseph--he's a dork. :)

The whole fam in front of the cathedral.

Just the Siddoway kids

Siddoway sistahs
Aww, tender


My goofy sisters


I'm wearing Lis's shirt in this one--I think it looks like a Lorelai shirt. Yay.

Us in Brussels

I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas! Kirk and I had an interesting start to our vacation. We actually missed our flight on the 20th, so we ended up staying with my aunt and uncle for a day (we had a lot of fun with them, so no regrets there). We made sure to get to the airport super early on the 21st, and we actually got to hang out with our friends Bret and Kim, who happened to be there early too. :)

We got to Belgium safely and are having an awesome time. The first night we got here, we went over to Brussels and had a taste (literally) of Belgium. We had some delicioso hot Brussel waffles that Kirk hasn't stopped talking about. :) We spent the next day in Cologne, Germany--this is where we took most of the pictures above. We saw the beautiful cathedral there and got to hit up a couple of oh-so-cute Christmas markets.

We've just been hanging out at the house for the past couple of days (playing games and watching our favorites shows), but we are headed to Paris tomorrow! Woo-hoo!

See ya lata!

We are headed off to Brussels, friends! We got to my aunt's house safely, and we fly out early tomorrow. We are so excited to go on another European adventure and see our family. :) We are going to miss Arwen and our house, but they are both being taken care of by some great friends.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Pictures of Arwen

She looks so happy in the this one.

Sleepy Arwen

Sexy Kirky

She's got beautiful green eyes!

My baby...for now. :) (Don't worry, I'm not a crazy cat lady).

She actually uses her scratching post! (I couldn't get her in action).

That's our kitty! :)

An addition to the family!

No, I'm not pregnant. But we did get an adorable little kitty at the Utah Humane Society.

Her name is Arwen, and she is mostly black, with white paws and a white belly. She is 11 months old, and we already love her!!

She is extremely playful (she has way too much energy), but she still cuddles with you too. I will post pics as soon as I can, but my camera doesn't work, and we can't find Kirk's.

She can also be really chill. I took her to the vet's on Friday, and she got 4 shots and she was soo good! She wiggled a little bit but not bad at all.

Funny story: So this afternoon, I walked into our back door and I see Kirk standing in the living room with his hands in the air, shouting "I am invincible, kitty!!" He didn't know I was home. Apparently he was really excited about a problem he had solved, and when I'm not home he STILL talks to the cat. :)

Yay for having a pet!

Tagged!

So I'm supposed to go to my third folder and my third photo.

This is a picture of my sister Sara (the middle one standing up) at her graduation. Yes, her class was extremely small. That's because she graduated from an international school in Angola. Doesn't she look preeetty?

I tag . . . Jenna and Rachel Dell!

Because I just wanted to.

In honor of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, the masters of stream-of-consciousness literature, I am going to attempt to write for four minutes using solely stream-of-consciousness writing. Ready, set, go!

Kirk is playing Zelda right now. Zelda looks like Robin Hood. I liked Robin Hood as a child. I always liked the romantic part with Maid Marian and Robin Hood in the forest. I wanted to be Maid Marian. How to you spell her name? I always spell it wrong. Another word I always spell wrong is definitely. I probably spelled it wrong there too. I hear the clock ticking. That makes me think of a Gilmore Girls episode where Kirk (not my Kirk, Kirk on the show) makes a movie where he tries to date this girl and he is sitting there rather awkwardly with the parents and teh clock just keeps on ticking. Tick, tick, tick. I don't like tics. Ticks? Tics? I don't know. I haven't gone camping since I was in highschool. I remember I met up my family after I picked up my prom dress. It was blue with flowers on it. I like flowers. Daisies are my favorite flower. I like daisies because of You've Got Mail, where Meg Ryan says "aren't daisies the happiest flower?" I like Meg Ryan. I have never watched Sleepless in Seattle. I know, i'm not a true girl. I have, however, seen While You Were Sleeping. There is a Mannheim Steamroller song in the soundtrack of that movie. I love them! Growing up I always listened to their Christmas cd. I remember Kim and I, sophomore year, bought both cd's and listened to them a lot.

The end.

p.s. It bothers me that there are typo's in this paragraph, but I feel like if I correct them it would diminish the stream-of-consciousness...feel. Also, I know that my paragraph was not even close to examining the inner mind of the character (aka "me"), but I still thought it'd be fun to try.

Fun, fun, fun

So as many of you know, I am completely obsessed with Gilmore Girls. My amazing parents got me the seasons as a present, knowing that this is a obsession that will hardly be going away any time soon.

I'm so excited because tonight, Rach (old roomie and one of my bestest friends) and I are going to watch the oh-so-amazing Gilmore Girls while making/devouring her mom's oh-so-amazing chicken noodle soup. *sigh*

Going to do better

I am sick, sick, sick of doing this. I've been eating crappy food, not exercising, working super hard, and wonder why I am exhausted every day. Well, I'm going to change.

Here are my goals:
-I am going to write down the fruits and vegis I'm eating to make sure that I get enough every day
-I am only going to eat at a fast food restaurant twice a month
-I am going to exercise every morning, getting up at 6:30 (which will work if I go to bed at 10)
-I am going to take my vitamins every night
-I am going to drink lots and lots of water (I'll get a cool water bottle that I like to help me with this)

Most importantly:
-I am going to take out an hour a day for myself. No husband, phone, or homework!! I have decided I really need this so I can function. My hour is going include my scripture studying and then ANYTHING I want.

If I do these, I will get the following rewards:
-After one week, Kirk is going to give me a massage
-After two weeks, I get some Yoasis (my favorite frozen yogurt)
-After three weeks, I get a cute piece of jewelry
-After four weeks, I get to buy myself a movie (within our budget)

Brides of Harris County

So I am kind of a sap, I know. But when I turned on the Rachael Ray show this morning, I couldn't help tearing up. It was called "The Brides of Harris County," which actually is the county that I grew up in!

Basically, Rachael Ray put together a huge wedding for 33 couples in the Houston area who couldn't get married because of Hurrican Ike. Although I wasn't in Houston when the hurricane hit, my mother-in-law and some good friends were. They were without electricity for a couple of weeks and some were even without water. Obviously, it would be hard to have a wedding at this time!

I think it is SUCH an amazing thing that Rachael did. I guess because I just got married in 2007 in Houston, it kind of touched my heart even more. I would have been devastated if Kirk and I couldn't have gotten married when we wanted to, so I can understand the excitement these couples were experiencing when they finally got married. Here's an article you can read about it:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6091455.html

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Wedding pics

This is mostly so that I have a link to the video montage on my blog so I can find it again, but if anyone wants to see really old wedding pics of Kirk and I, here they are. :)

Halloween fun.

If anyone wants to see my awesome Halloween costume and Kim's SUWEET DI hat, check out Kim's blog.

We had a lot of fun with Kim and Russ when they stayed with us. We wish that they lived closer!

"Cheer up love!"

It's cold and rainy outside. It's kind of hard not to feel miserable since I have to be on campus for much of the day. However, as I was walking along, the words, "Cheer up love, it's a beautiful day" popped into my head and I couldn't help but smile.

Whatever you might be thinking, this was not God's voice in my head. It was a black man walking along the London streets in June 2006.

My friend Monica and I had ridden on a bus going from Edinburgh to Scotland the entire night before, and we were completely exhausted. There were no armrests on the bus, so I had a hard time staying in my seat as I would drift off, right myself back up again so I wouldn't fall into the aisle, drift off, straighten up...you get the picture.

I guess my sheer exhaustion and grumpiness was showing on my face all too well, because this random stranger passed Monica and I, directing the "Cheer up love, it's a beautiful day" to me.

It's kind of weird that this has stuck out in my mind. After all the things that happened to me when I was studying abroad, that is one that I really remember. I guess it's pretty helpful on days like this when maybe I'm tired, or it's not such a beautiful day outside.

I can make it beautiful.

Such a historic day.

Wow, our first black president. I'm pretty excited that I'm alive right now.

I know, I know, it's been over a week since I posted. I know all my avid fans are just dying to know what is happening in the Kirachel's life. Well here is a brief synopsis:

Homework, homework, tests, papers, and more homework.

That is about it.

Last week, I was spending all my time trying to get stuff done so I could hang out with my sister and brother-in-law, who were coming in for a wedding. I had a presentation, a test, and a couple of papers to write. PLUS, I am currently trying to get a job as an editorial assistant, so I was doing some editing tests.

It was really fun to have Kim and Russell in town. Russell is Kirk's older brother, and Kim and I actually roomed together a couple of years ago. Kirk and I wish they lived close by!

I went trick-or-treating on Friday, which was awesome because I got candy. So what if I'm 22? I look young...well I took off my wedding ring just in case.

I'm excited about the first real snow in Provo. Yes, it's super cold but if you put on bunches of layers it really doesn't matter too much.

Oh, oh, oh and I'm REALLY excited about the special Psych episode on November 28th. The rest of the 3rd season is going to continue in January so I have been unable to watch the episodes, but I get to see one this month! YAY!

New band i love!

Here's a cute music video that is to a song by The Weepies, a band that I've been listening to a lot lately.

Pumpkin carving and crepes :)

Sara, Rachel squared, and Kirk all got together tonight to have a crepe/pumpkin carving extravaganza! Sara actually taught me how she makes her crepes (which I love), Rachel and I concocted a delicious strawberry sauce, we toasted pumpkin seeds, watched Liar Liar (which I'd never seen before), and pretty much had an amazing time. Here are some pics!

Some people have too much time on their hands...

This is a website that has hobbits rapping. I found it when I was looking for something for my Tolkien class. Wow.

Kill the spider!!

As my previous roommates know, I have a tendency to...randomly start screaming in the middle of the night. No big deal. Ever since I was a little kid I have had night terrors. They are super scary to me at the time, but hilarious when I'm more conscious.

My old roommate Jenni will remember that glorious night when I thought that a crazy demon man was crawling in my bed. I flew out of my bed and somehow landed in hers. Hehehe.

Well, last night I had a similar situation. For some reason, spiders are a big theme in my night terrors. This time I could have SWORN that there was a giant spider coming down from the ceiling right on top of me. (It probably will happen eventually because we constantly kill spiders on our ceiling.) Anyway, I let out a blood-curdling scream, leapt out of bed, and ran as fast as I could into the living room. I kept telling Kirk to "Kill the spider! Kill the spider! Don't let it get me!!!!" I seriously was shaking and so freaked out!

Naturally, Kirk suoon ascertained the obvious the facts that a) there was no spider, and b) he has married a crazy woman.

Dashboard concert!!

Hand down!! I love this song. Kirk sang it to me on Valentine's Day like...4 years ago, actually.

Sara and I rockin' out, yo. She thinks I'm weird. I am.

Kirk pretending to be cool.

I love you Chris. I don't think you know, just how much.

The lead singer of Plain White T's did a card trick during a Dashboard song. I really liked that they incorporated other bands that were touring with them in their show.

Sing it, baby. :) He was super nice! He just had this big grin on his face the whole time, and looked like he had so much fun.

Me in our truck, excited about the concert.

Twu wov, will bind you, togetha!

Word.

Yay for sisters!

I think Sara looks gorgeous in this pic.