The Christmas season is finally here!

Last Thursday was a great feeling. I finally turned in all of my assignments for the semester and now I can finally start focusing my attention on two things: (1) Christmas, and (2) Finals. This past week Jill and I journeyed across the street, over to Smith's grocery store to buy our first Christmas tree. We also drove to a couple stores to get a tree stand, lights, and some ornaments--it's finally starting to feel like Christmas! What really made the season feel more like Christmas though was going to the annual Bonneville stake Christmas concert to see Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband, Sam Payne, and many other famous LDS irish music ensemble musicians. They performed many traditional Christmas songs and hymns while also adding their "bluegrass" flavor, which made the performance all the more better. It was a great show that helped me really start feeling the Christmas spirit this season.

The hard part of this time of year is trying to balance the joy of the Christmas season while preparing for a stressful week of finals. Christmas is associated with love, service, giving, gratitude, and peace while finals week is associated with stress, hatred, frustration, and...well...anything BUT being happy...except for when the week is over. When I compare these two opposites, it's hard to focus on the positive but I've decided to anyways. I've realized that it's such a huge blessing to be a student at BYU and to be able to further my education and become a better person. Finals is a stressful time but I'm becoming a better person because of these tests--and isn't that what life's all about--become a better person? I've said goodbye to Jill for the week because I'll only see her for a few hours at most but when the week is over, It's Christmas time..and let the joy begin!

My Grandma

Tonight Jill and I went to Salt Lake City to see the First Presidency Christmas devotional and it was amazing. And as great as it was, my favorite part of the night wasn't the devotional. It was being able to visit with my Grandma, who lives in Salt Lake, a couple hours before the devotional and being able to catch up with her.

My Grandma is such an amazing person. She treats everyone so respectfully and wouldn't say a negative thing about a single person. She's had some pretty difficult trials this past year but it seems like she is still loving life and living each day with a full heart of joy one step at a time. Even for the sweetest, kindest, and most patient person, there are still times when life can be stressful and we wanted to make sure that she wasn't going to have a stressful start to her Christmas season. I feel like I am pretty much at the peak of my stress level when it comes to finals (which are right around the corner) and Jill and I thought it would be a good idea to focus on my Grandma instead of focusing on ourselves.

Jill makes DELICIOUS no-bake cookies so we decided to take a few of the cookies to my grandma before we went to the devotional, along with a Christmas flower arrangement that I made in my floral design class earlier in the week. When we arrived at her house she answered the door with a pleasantly surprised look on her face and anxiously told us to come in. We sat in her living room and talked for about 45 minutes before we had to go but it was so fun to see her reaction to our surprise visit and little gifts. She was so happy to see us and loved telling us stories about the family and how well everyone is doing. I love my grandma for the amazing person that she is and the example that she gives me of being a Christ-like individual--full of love and patience. I'm glad that we could spread a little Christmas cheer to her and hopefully get her holiday season off to a good start

Black Friday....not the best experience

Jill and I went shopping on Friday, hoping that we would find a bunch of great deals.....Although we did find a couple, Friday was just another ordinary shopping day. There was something a little different about black Friday though, and it wasn't the deals. It was the long lines that we had to wait in, the traffic jams that we were stuck in, and claustrophobia kicking in every store that we entered because stores were so packed with people.

The first mistake that I made was bringing Jill to shop with me when I was shopping for an item that I wanted to get her. I thought that I had a great idea by dropping Jill off at the Fashion Show Mall on the Las Vegas strip and then going to my "secret store" to buy her "secret gift". The idea was a good one and Jill had no idea where I was going or what I was doing but after realizing that I left my wallet in Jill's purse when I was checking out at the "secret store", I knew that this was going to be a long day.  I had the store put the items on hold that I had picked out for Jill, hoping to return in about an hour.....that didn't quite happen. The store that I was at was only about five miles away from the Fashion Show Mall but it took me about half an hour to get there because of all the traffic. When I got to the mall, I called Jill hoping to meet up with her but quickly found out that her phone had died while she was in the mall. After several minutes of searching for Jill, She called me back with what little juice she could squeeze out of her cell phone battery. I found her in Forever 21, a store that we ended up shopping in for another 2 1/2 hours--not the best store to get stuck in for a guy. We stayed at the mall for about another hour after we left forever 21 and then headed back to the "secret store" to get the present that I placed on hold for Jill. Since I'm not too familiar with Las Vegas, I ended up taking a wrong turn to the store and had to drive an extra 45 minutes in order to get back on track and to the "secret store". When we got to the store, I bought the items that I had picked out and brought them out to the car only to find out that the items wouldn't fit it the car. And the whole time I was in the store and bringing out the gifts that I got for Jill, she had to close her eyes so she wouldn't ruin the surprise. Because the items wouldn't fit in the car, we had to go home empty handed and waste a good two hours trying to find this store and having to go there twice because I forgot my wallet the first time. Black Friday definitely wasn't the best experience this year.

Happy One Year Jilly!

One year ago today marks the best day of my life, the day that I married my best friend, Jill Dutson. Right now we're in Las Vegas, visiting Jill's family and in a few hours, we'll be off to celebrate our anniversary on the Las Vegas strip for a couple days.

Before I got married, I heard from a bunch of people of how hard the first year of marriage is and how you figure out who the "real" person is that you married. I can definitely say that the first year of marriage has been the best year of my life and has been nothing but bliss. And the only thing extra that I've "really" learned about Jill, is more of what I learned about myself. And that is not knowing that I could really care and love for someone as much as I do for her. I don't mean to be all mushy and stuff but I really love this girl. Of course marriage has it's challenges but I'd rather look at them as learning experiences and ways to grow both as individuals and together. 

Now that we've had the best year of marriage, we can put it behind  us and now make the second year our new best along with every year that follows. I love you Jill--you're my best friend.

Greetings from Ohio

Jill got her first shot at an interview for PA (physician's assistant) school this weekend in Marietta, Ohio. She was preparing all week long doing mock interviews with me, other family members, and my professor, who was kind enough to sit down with Jill and walk her through the interview experience. Good thing she decided to do all the preparing because it definitely paid off--she rocked it in her interview! 

The whole trip was quite the traveling experience. Thursday night, Jill and I drove down to Las Vegas to meet Jill's parents, who were coming with us. We woke up early the next morning to catch our first flight, which took off around 8:00 that morning. Throughout the rest of the day, we were making stops in Los Angeles, Cleveland, Columbus, and finally, Marietta. While driving to Marietta, we realized that it was 11/11/11 and that in a few minutes it would be 11:11. We decided to celebrate by going through McDonald's and all order hot fudge sundaes with french fries. The whole experience was pretty crazy funny but at least we can say that we took time to celebrate 11/11/11 @ 11:11.

 

The next day while Jill was in her interview, Jill's parents and I decided to tour around the town a little bit and then we decided to go down into West Virginia to check out an oil and gas museum. It was really fun to travel around the area that Jill and I could potentially be living in for the next couple of years. Jill finished up the interview by around 3:30 and then hopped in the car with us to drive up to Columbus. During the drive, Jill told us of the different experiences that she had and told us that she should be getting a letter in the mail within the next couple weeks letting her know if she's accepted or not.--so stay tuned!

We finished the night by going out to eat, stopping at Tim Hortons doughnuts, and watching the BYU football game at our downtown hotel. What a day! The next day we got up for church, stopped by the Columbus temple, ate at the"famous" Waffle House, and now I'm in the airport, writing my blog, and ready to go home and sleep. But the traveling doesn't stop here. We will be arriving in Las Vegas around 9:30 tonight and will be pulling up to Provo tomorrow morning around 4:30 in the morning. Let's just hope that there's no snow and ice on the roads...

Lessons from John

Jill and I have an elderly friend, John, who we visit once a week. When we're hanging out with John, we usually let him do most of the talking because he doesn't have anyone to talk to for the most part throughout the week. He talks to us about his love of fishing and catching fish in the ocean as a kid. He talks to us about how he's won awards for tennis, golf, and shooting. He talks about his service in the military, his love for his pet bird, how he likes to collect pictures of lighthouses, and really, anything to do with a lighthouse. John seems to be a pretty happy man at 81 years old.

The one thing, though, that's missing from John's life are his kids. His three kids are all alive and well but he mentioned to us that he's lived in Provo for seven years and that he can count on his fingers the number of times that he's either seen his kids or heard from his kids in the past seven years. When John was telling us about this empty part of his life, Jill and I were both squirming a little in our seats for a couple reasons. First; we obviously felt terrible for John and wondered how his kids could really neglect him. John is perfectly fine at 81years old. He has a sharp mind, he's social, and it's actually a lot of fun to be around him. Second; it made us realize how important our parents are to us and how we would never want to neglect them.

John seemed to understand that his kids have been busy with their own families and careers but he told us that all he's wished for has been a phone call, a hand-written letter, or a visit.We, of course, can't solve John's problem of not being able to see his kids that often but we can definitely be a friend to him by spending time with him. Although he is sad about not seeing his kids, he seems to keep himself pretty busy by going on long walks with a cart that he's made. This is no ordinary shopping car of sorts--it's basically a survival cart. Attached to his cart are several things; an umbrella, a flashlight, a chair- just in case he wants to rest from walking, two cup holders, a cane-not for walking but "for hitting dogs", reflectors, and an American flag.

John, Jill, and I have become good friends over the course of a few weeks. We find his stories really interesting and like I said, he is a fun guy to hangout with. Most importantly he's been teaching us lessons that he hasn't realized he's been teaching. He's helped us understand even more how important family is and to always stay close with family. Jill and I are really close with our families. We always want to spend time with them and if we had it our way, we would always be with them. Unfortunately things get in the way like school.....work.....and.......school. We love both school and work but we love our families more and are excited to be close with them forever.

What friends are for

Two years ago this past weekend would have been filled with dressing up in costumes, going to dance parties, eating all the candy that I could hold down, and washing down the candy with ice cold root beer while staying up until four in the morning. Now that I've gotten married, things have slightly changed....in a good way.

The weekend started off great with our team winning our last flag football game of the season on Friday night. It's been tradition this year to go to Denny's afterwards and reward ourselves with our outstanding play (even though we only won half of our games this year, we still like to give ourselves a pat on the back). Then comes Saturday, the day that is supposed to be set aside as my designated homework day. Instead of homework though, two of my best friends and I decided to go fishing up at Strawberry reservoir. It was a good decision. I feel like I haven't taken too many weekends off from school this semester and fishing was exactly what I needed. I've really only been fishing about three times in my life, as opposed to my friends who are pretty experienced fishers, but who could pass up a good relaxing trip to hangout with some old time buddies for the day. On the way up, we stopped at a gas station to fill up on snacks and junk food and just talked about old times as roommates. When we got the the reservoir, we set up our poles and headed off to our spots to catch some trout. Within half an hour, Nate had the first bite and ended up reeling in a good 20 inch or so rainbow trout. Nate (who is definitely the most experienced fisher out of us three) got the second bite of the day and called me over to come real in the fish. As I was reeling the fish in, we realized how big this sucker was. After a good 5 minutes of tiring the fish out, we got it to shore and labeled it the "trophy fish" of the week. It was a big 24 inch cut throat trout. Even though Nate did the work of getting the fish hooked, he still labeled the trout "Aaron's fish". It was kind of cool because it was the definitely the biggest fish that I've reeled in from anything outside of the ocean. Even though it wasn't really my catch, he let me take the pole and real in the biggest catch of the weekend. I guess that's what friends are for. The rest of the day was filled with a few hours of only a couple more bites, some chilly weather, and a lot of time to think while staring at my bobber to see if any fish were taking the bate.

Even though this weekend wasn't filled with dance parties, haunted houses, candy, and soda, I still had the best weekend because of the time spent with friends, family, and my best friend, Jilly, who I was with pretty much the whole time--except for fishing--sorry Jilly, guys only. Who needs dance parties and costumes on Halloween weekend when you have friends and a wife like mine--who really make every weekend the best weekend.