Mortensen Happenings

I don't really like drawing attention to myself so this blog for the sake of my family, the few people who actually read my blog on the rare occasion that I write something- and because I feel like if you know me well enough to read my blog then you won't mind if I don't use facebook as my avenue for news.
Kid Mort is coming June 2012. Yup, you read that right. Aaron and I are gonna have a little one. woo woo! Oh, and I'm feeling great. First trimesters are not something I am fond of so I'm very grateful to finally be done with the worst of it. This year has been a roller coaster  for Aaron and I. We started off the year by announcing our first pregnancy, only to be disappointed with a miscarriage and all the baggage that comes with it. I am truly grateful for this pregnancy and trying my hardest to quell the paranoid pessimist that the miscarriage has created in me. The good thing is that my Dr. says everything is looking good and that baby is on target with the "due date". Hallelujah.
Anyway, on a not really but kind of related topic- and I hope no one is offended by me saying this, but I loathe cutesy ways of saying "pregnant". Let me give you a few examples: Prego, Preggers, Pregs, Preggie, Bumpies, Ego Preggo, Bun in the Oven, etc. My vexation at cutesy words also extends to words like Hubby, Hubs, Presh, Fav, Gorg, and Adorb. Do these not bother anyone else? I mean, I realize I am easily irritated by really insignificant things but I just I feel like it's like a little kid calling a blanket "blankie", only it's adults referring to someone having a baby- and it's not cute anymore. But just so I'm not burning any bridges with anyone- if you do use these words I probably won't care, but I promise you I will never use any of them unless in jest. In other words- I am so much better than all of you cutesy word users! haha just kidding. One thing is for sure; it will be a difficult adjustment for me to let go of all the little things I love to be annoyed by during this pregnancy. Unwanted advice, patronizing, coddling, and personal space invasions are but a few I'm looking forward to.
Alright I'm done with my idiotic ranting and I want to thank all my friends and family who actually read my silliness and have taken part in my joy of having the privilege of creating a new life. I am thrilled for this new adventure and after almost three years of partying and honeymooning, Aaron and I are feeling ready for the new addition to the Mortensen family.

In other news, Aaron and I bought a house and are moving in this week. I LOVE it. sooooooo... be jealous! Or you could come visit Aaron and I and make good use of our guest bedroom:)

Lots of us are dumber than some of us.

I'm back!!

so my life has had a few recent changes. First of alllll- Aaron and I are in the process of buying a new house. I mean, that's pretty cool right? And thank goodness too because the property management company (RMPM) we are renting from are... idiots. You heard me. Idiots!
Let me explain myself. First of all, I can't complain too much because it has been nice to just call someone else to fix problems with the house even if it does take them forever to do anything, but aside from that, I can't give them too many compliments.
When Aaron and I first moved into this rental house I had one very awkward close call where one of the fixer-uppers on the RMPM team came over to change the filters in the house (without calling beforehand). Aaron was at work and I wasn't expecting any visitors that day. So needless to say I was quite surprised when I heard my doorbell being rung repeatedly at 8:30 in the morning. Oh and also, I was still in my pajamas, in bed, asleep. I seriously thought that the cops were trying to break down my door or something the way this guy was impatiently knocking and ringing at my door. So, I hurriedly put on a jacket and ran downstairs to see who it was when I heard him opening the door with a key. WHAT? he was letting himself INNNN?!? So intead I unlocked to door before he could and really irritatedly said- uhhh, can I help you? I think he was a bit shocked to see me there but I didn't care, I was ticked off. I could have been in the freaking shower! oh and fyi- my bedroom doesn't have locks on it. Nooooooo bueno.
That was when Aaron and I first moved in about two years ago. The most recent fiasco we've had with them was just a week ago. Usually I pay rent by filling out a check, driving to the RMPM building and handing them my money in an envelope so they don't freaking lose it. Well, the last time I went in was like normal- I drove there, envelope in hand and impatient because I had a whole ton of errands to do that day before business hours end. When I got there they were really busy with end of the month stuff and people paying rent so I thought I'd just sneak in and give them my check without taking too much of their time- I made eye contact with the front desk lady, and set my envelope across the counter where she could get to it when she had time.

Fast forward- a few days later after letting a violin student into the house I see a notice taped to my door threatening to evict us if we do not pay our rent with a late fee of $130
Ummmmmm, WHAT? You're kidding me right? I know for a fact that I paid rent on time...
when I called RMPM to complain about their idiocy they merely asked for the check number and told me that they would have their accountant see if the check was in their files and that they would call me back when they found it. Okay, that's fine.

Two days later- I get a call from Aaron while he is at work complaining that RMPM just called threatening eviction from the house. Seriously? YOU lose my check, post a late notice on my door, and then call my husband at work and tell us we're being evicted? Nuh uh. I think Aaron was pretty ticked off because after they got his message the next morning they called me first thing sounding very apologetic. Whatever, I just want this resolved so I told them that I'll come in with another check as long as all late fees are voided, and they pay for a check cancellation fee if they cannot find and destroy the previous check. Great. Done. Now we just have to wait for them to find the mysterious lost check.

Fast forward to later that evening- I had just gotten done with all my errands when I check for mail and see this:
MY CHECK!!!!! Okay , before I thought they were just unorganized and lazy, but now I know for sure they are MORONS! Let me point out a few fatal errors. First of all, even if this did somehow make it into their outbound mail- it is addressed TO them. RMPM- without an address in in the addressee spot on the envelope, My address is in the return address section. Secondly, not only did they take the time to look at my envelope and put it in the out going mail when it is clearly addressed to them, they LOOKED. UP. MY. FREAKING. ZIP-CODE! Which I did not include because I wasn't actually mailing anything- I just wanted to make sure they knew which address this check was coming from. wow. Just wow. Flaw three- if you are indeed being stupid enough to put my envelope in the outgoing mail, look up my zip-code in your database, you might as well do it right and put postage on it. Notice any postage? nope. Neither did USPS. so they sent it back to the return address- which thankfully was mine. I mean, I learned how to address an envelope in first grade.... I just don't get it.

Sigh.

In other news, I got into another big time accident in July. yeah, let's just say Atlas now has all new exterior save two panels (the driver side doors). I don't know what it is with me and colorado, but nature seems to hate me. I was driving home with Aaron after spending the evening with the in-laws when a deer jumped out on the highway 200 ft. in front of me. I tried stopping, but ending up fishtailing and spinning out into the highway median which is a bunch of posts with steel cables. I think I have some serious guardian angels because my car went UNDER the cables which stand maybe 3 feet from the ground. Scary.
Oh and I know people tell you to just hit the deer but- seriously, you try purposely hitting anything living. I don't think I could've done it. Next time (please bless there isn't a next time) I will try to not preserve the life of the animal that tried to commit suicide. yikes.


So ends my colorado summer.

Short Post- New Hobby

So everyone knows that my sister Kara is a brilliant artist... I mean, duh. She is freaking amazing. Well, when I was little I thought it would be cool to draw as well as she could so I would always try to doodle as much as she did.... only to realize her natural abilities in the field of art would always greatly surpass my attempt at creativity- so I stopped trying and focused on singing. I mean, even if I practiced and had as much patience for the institution I STILL wouldn't be even close to as good as she is. I mean, check this out-







See what I mean?

Well, turns out I've started doing some doodling again- it's not as good as kara, but I was a little bit proud of myself.




My sweet candy husband told me that he will support me in my hobby so I've actually
started to paint on my own which I actually really really enjoy. It's a time where I can zone out, listen to music and do something with my hands. Maybe someday I'll take some classes and get pointers from my professional sister?


we'll see.


in other news, you know my last post about me running into a semi truck? Well, this is my new baby: Say hello to Atlas :)




giggity!

One Crazy Nuts Weekend.

Have you ever had the experience where you are looking forward to a vacation like crazy and then something happens that totally blows and destroys your hopes and dreams? Well... that's what happened to Aaron and I this past weekend.

Aaron and I had been planning to drive up to Utah to go see Aaron's old college buddy get married in the SLC temple on April 24th. This trip was going to awesome because pretty much ALL of his close college friends were going to be there and rent a house to stay up late in and party. =awesome reunion times. I was excited to go on a road trip with my crazy amazing/hot husband and meet all of the friends that had such an impact on his life. Anyway, Aaron and I had decided that the best way to get there would be to drive through Wyoming and into Utah on friday and then stay until sunday. We even purchased a brand new stereo for my car two days before the trip so we could listen to our ipods in the car.
So friday came and the first thing we noticed was that it was rainy and cold outside here in CO, which generally means that the weather is ten times worse in Wyoming. To put this in perspective for most of you Arizonans- Wyoming is a death pit when it comes to roads and weather. A few years ago they had a 90 car pile up due to fog. FOG! and then another huge pile up some years previous because of snow. The highways in Wyoming can be closed anytime year round due to bad weather and when they close the roads- they mean it, it's nasty stuff. Let's just say that the towing companies there are never hurting for business haha! So friday Aaron and I made sure to check road conditions before we left, we wanted to make sure that one: the roads were still open and two: that our '01 Camry could make it. Even Aaron's dad called us and warned us about the roads- but we figured we could make it. I mean, it didn't look THAT bad. But they were... oh they were.


Okay, so you all know where this is going by now. I mean, why would I preface this whole story with how bad the roads were if it didn't end up in an accident. Well, yes, it ended up in an accident. You were right. Let me illustrate how this happened- mostly because I need to prove that I am still a good driver and I CAN drive in snow thank you.


Below is the scenario I will try to describe. As you can see I am the little white car minding my own business behind two large semi-trucks. I don't know exactly what happened in front of me but semi number one in the blue suddenly slowed down, probably because of ice. Semi number two in the red tried to brake suddenly but as there was plenty of ice on the road so he swerved to the left to avoid semi number one (blue guy).

Which put me in THIS position. I now have two suddenly really slow semi trucks in front of me and a butt load of ice to maneuver through. I pressed on the brake but my car hit ice in the right lane making it impossible for me to slow down enough to not hit the guy in front of me. So to avoid Semi 1 I turned into the left lane, unfortunately semi number 2 was now going super slow in front of me and I hit a nasty patch of ice which resulted in:

CRASH!
My car actually hit the rear bumper of semi #1, which lodged into my grill, latched on and then turned my car perpendicular to the semi, released and took us into a 360 in the middle of the road. Like this:

Fortunately after we spun out our car ended hitting the concrete median wall squarely on the rear bumper- not to mention we went through quite a bit of snow on our way to impact which slowed us down enough that we were not injured.
The worst part of the whole thing is- my mother in law called an hour before this happened warning me about the roads and telling not to get in an accident. She might never let me drive with her son in the car again. hahaha!
No but really, this was my first accident ever (I mean, while I was driving) and it sucked, I was pretty emotional that 1. I could have seriously hurt my husband or myself 2. I just trashed my beautiful car Alana, 3. I just ruined our vacation. 4. I no longer had a perfect non accident record. I know my worries were really silly, I should have just been grateful that no one got hurt but I was so SAD! I'm so thankful Aaron was there to help me through it. He comforted me, hugged me, spoke rationally, and never once made me feel like I was any less loved. He is the best blessing and gift I have EVER been given. I know Aaron and I were truly blessed and protected during this ordeal. Had our car hit the median, or the semi at any other angle, we would probably be in the hospital or worse. Not to dwell on the"what -if's" but thinking about what could have happened just makes me feel even more in debt and grateful to my father in heaven for his great and tender mercies. He truly does answer prayers.






To finish up the story, the guy driving the semi we hit was actually a stud. he pulled over, called the cops before we had a chance to, and made sure that we were okay. He stayed there until our tow guy showed up just to make sure we were well taken care of. Fortunately there was no damage done to any vehicle but our own and the police officer was understanding that the road conditions were nasty enough that I left with only a citation. Aaron and I were towed into Laramie where we waited for Aaron's dad to pick us up, and we called Geico for obvious reasons.

The story doesn't end there though, after driving back to CO with all our possessions we were able to find last minute tickets to SLC for Sat morning and we were able to experience the reunion of a lifetime. Thanks to all of Aaron's buddies for making us feel so welcome, and for showing us a good time. It was SO great to meet all of you even though it was for a very short time.


Rich and Mari out of the temple!


All in all it ended up being one crazy expensive and long weekend. But I still feel blessed and happy to be where I am with the best man I've ever known.


Goodbye Alana, Rest in peace.

My life in the form of pictures

Okay, since it would take me FOREVER to update everyone on whatI have been up to for the past however many months, I'll just throw down a bunch of pictures and SHOW you how awesome my life has been.

Be excited.


When I first moved to CO everyone told me that the winters would be super mild and that it really wouldn't snow very often. I should expect it every once in a while, but it would melt off the street in like one day.

So october rolls around and it was beautiful. real live Fall is awesome


Dang this guy is smokin' :)
remember, this is what it looked like...

and then all my CO friends became liars because THIS happened the NEXT DAY!


Notice the pumpkins? Yeah, those poor little kids definitely had to trick-or-treat in parkas. haha


Fortunately for me I am still so new to snow that

I still think it's cool to run outside and let the snowflakes melt on your face and destroy your make-up. :) seriously though, I had never seen falling snow before I lived here. That my friends, is how winter impaired I am. Every time it would snow here my husband and mother in-law wouldn't let me drive. They are slowly allowing me to challenge the roads the more I am exposed to this white fluffy stuff. It's quite amusing.

oh, they also told me it doesn't get too cold here either...

Why do you lie liars?
hahaha, this was the night AFTER it hit -14.
it's pretty cold when it starts to hurt to breathe. I now know how to tell the difference between 10 and 0 degrees. ooooooooh yeah! be jealous.

Another super-awesome thing happened is that Aaron and I moved into a new rental home and I LOVE it. It's a 3 bed 2 1/2 bath fourplex with an unfinished basement. Way more space than we need but it is so great to have it.

Living room before christmas (no TV)
After Christmas (thanks santa!!!)

My office/violin lessons room/the guest room

Aaron's office
Master bedroom :)
and bath...

favorite room in the whole house.
So yeah, what I've been trying to say is... be jealous. again. ;)

Thanksgiving was terrific. I got to spend it with the whole Judy and Craig Mortensen clan. Andrea and Clint came over from VA, and 'Lissa got to come home from ID, plus we got gma Mortensen and it was so so so fun to have them here.
I love my family and my in-law family. Seriously could not have gotten any luckier.

Me and the good looking one. This picture would be great if he didn't have that incredible beam of light hitting his face. oh well.
I made that.

December was also a great month. Aaron and I got to come up to celebrate an early Christmas with my family and then we celebrated my graduation from ASU!

proof. I officially have a BS in Speech and Hearing Sciences. Best major ever.

Favorite person in the whole wide world, ever, to be.
AZ friends celebrationess dinner.

Christmas in CO was pretty great too. we even got Lucy and Max to celebrate!
Anyway, I can't even begin to explain how incredibly blessed I feel. I know that the lord has taken care of me and my family and I am so grateful for the people that make my life so wonderful. I love you all!!


until next time.

Girls Night Out aka G.N.O

Before I say anything let me say this... don't judge me! I'm not a fanatic.

Oh man, so last night I had my first ever girls night out as a married woman in CO.

It was quite an experience.

Some girls from my ward called me earlier this week and invited me to go see... you guessed it... New Moon with them friday night. And... I totally went! hahah. since Aaron and I are in the primary we don't have any opportunities to make friends with anyone other than the 3-4 year olds. I love those sunbeams, don't get me wrong, but I really hate the fact that I still don't know anyone's name in the ward after five months of being in the primary. sigh. So anyway, when I got called I was excited to actually get to know some of the younger married women in the ward.

Let me describe my friday night.

I got picked up around 5:10pm by A. Morby along with a few other girls. after a few introductions and giggles they showed my what I was to wear for the rest of the evening, apparently they all got dressed up for the last movie "twilight". I was definitely surprised that they had been thoughtful enough to bring me an extra shirt so I could match the group, even if it was SUPER cheesy.

What the heck! it was girls night.. so I went crazy. I knew Aaron would get a kick out of it too. when I showed him he told me that that kind of stuff wasn't allowed in the house. haha!

anyway, first we went to dinner at a restaurant called Rock Bottom, not bad. Our group was huge so they but us in two separate tables = pretty lame but OH WELL! One of the girls had made little new moon gift bags. That was way cool of her. She had also brought a New Moon trivia quiz with prizes for whomever guessed the answer correctly. I won a new moon candle shaped as a heart for guessing who said the line " I never imagined it would be so easy to do! I thought it would be next to impossible- that you would be so sure of the truth that I would have to lie through my teeth for hours.." which book it was in and where int he book it was. This quote was toooooo easy. I'm not going to give away the answer because I know that those who really read the books will know.


The movie itself was surprisingly better than the first in my opinion. There were fewer parts that made me laugh out loud that really weren't meant to be laughed at than there were in Twilight. - like Edward running up the hill, like Bella's bumbling-stuttery speech, like Jasper's constipated facial expressions... the list goes on. I set my standards REAALLY low for movies like this so that I come out more pleased than I expected. It works. The atmosphere helped too. It was hilarious to hear girls scream whenever Jacob took off his shirt. oh girls.... I am so not like you, but you do make me laugh. I'm glad Aaron wasn't there, nor do I ever plan on watching any of those movies ever when he is around because I know what his reaction to it would be. This morning he told me that the Twilight books were to many girls what bikini editions of sports illustrated were to some guys. The way girls lust over the relationship aspect of the characters = how boys lust after bodies? I can see his point... but I really hate comparing the books to something so base.

Anyway, the point of this post was NOT to critique the movie or the books, because I could write a novel on that myself about all the flaws and awkwardnesses of the film. The point is, I had fun, and I'm really glad I went because there are some cool people in my ward and I'm grateful that they thought to invite me. (I really really missed Aaron though) by the time I got home he was already in bed. So instead of talking his ears off I settled for cuddling. :) He is way more real, interesting, easy to love, funny, intelligent, and perfect for me than any fictional character could ever be. So suck it Edward and Jacob!! hahaha

Anyway, if you want to know my real opinion about the books just ask me.