Our Apartment and East Coast Weather as of Late

So we finally got all the boxes unpacked and everything put away! Here are some pictures of our one bedroom apartment.

The kitchen had very limited cupboard space and no full size drawers (how weird is that??), so we had to get some extra shelving for our food.

Our only closet (besides our bedroom closet)

Ben is a permanent fixture at the desk

My belly has grown! It is exciting and feels good to have the weeks going by faster! I'm already almost 16 weeks pregnant! I have my first doctor's appt with a new doctor on Thursday, and then after that (in about a month) we find out the gender! Yay! I'm feeling like I have tons more energy and feeling more normal. The only weird thing is that apparently I had an anxiety/panic attack? I wasn't even feeling anxious... at the time. But I guess with lots of anxiety bottled up over all summer and pregnancy combined and decided to make the lower half of my face, especially my tongue, go numb! It is the WEIRDEST and scariest thing that has ever happened to me! I thought I was having a stroke, so I had Ben take me to the hospital. Everything was good though! No stroke, everything normal, excpet my blood pressure was really high (because I was thinking I was having a stroke and was going to die). But my blood pressure went down once I learned everything was pretty normal for anxiety (so weird, who would have thought?). I spent last week trying to relax, and getting my mouth back to normal! Currently, I feel great and am doing more things to help me relax and keep my mind busy.

Grumpy face because Ben was trying to position me...

ALSO, as many of you already know there was an earthquake and a hurricane all in the same week! The earthquake naturally (get it- because it's a natural disaster!) happened on the day that I was having an anxiety attack. Luckily I was waking up from a nap when it happened so I couldn't really tell what was going on. I thought there was a fat maintenance man on our roof- nope, it was an earthquake. The earthquake was a 5.8 and it happened in Richmond, VA. We felt it all the way out here- it was crazy! Also, Hurricane Irene made her appearance this weekend! Luckily it stayed east of us for the most part. We got a bit of rain and cloudy skies all weekend but other than that we didn't get any weather.

We are each settling into more of a schedule, which is so nice! This is what Ben does: wakes up, reads his scriptures, eats breakfast, works out, showers, reading/homework, goes to class. Then he comes home for lunch, more reading/homework, and goes back to class. Then he comes home, takes a little break, eats dinner, and hits the books again! By the time he finishes with that it's pretty much bedtime! Here is my schedule: wake up, do whatever I want. It's great! I get lots of stuff done around the apartment, and I also have time for crafts. So far we are enjoying life here- hopefully we won't have another natural disaster for a while :)

Our 1 Year Anniversary!!!

It is crazy to think that Ben and I have been married for a year now! There has been so much happening lately that it just kinda sneaked up on us! Yesterday morning Ben got up and surprised me with a yummy breakfast of pancakes, toast, eggs, bacon and orange juice. It was soooooo sweet! He also got me a bouquet of flowers, and later gave me a bouquet of roses! It was great! I love flowers. I also got a new scripture marking pencil- the one that has like 10 colors in it- I love it! I got Ben a new digital watch, which he has been proudly sporting since I gave it to him. After breakfast we got ready and went to the Penn State Arboretum. It was beautiful! I took a lot of pictures, and I must say I think they turned out fabulous!

Only fitting that we take pics of Hydrangeas on our Anniversary! (They were our wedding flowers)

Giant pumpkins!

I love this picture!

And I love this one!

Rolling hills of TREES!

Ben front of the Law Building!

 After the Arboretum we went onto Campus and wanted to try out the Creamery. I just asked for a cone of ice-cream and this is what I got. It was way too much ice-cream- I did not eat it all. Ben got a milkshake which he enjoyed, then we went off exploring. Unfortunately it was really hot and campus is really big so we didn't see much more than dorms... but we plan to explore again when the weather is a little cooler :-).

taking a much needed break from the sun under a HUGE tree!

After that we came back home and watched American Ninja Warrior for like 3-4 hours. That's right- we were hooked. It was also the only interesting thing on TV. Then we went to Olive Garden for dinner! Ben got the Tour of Italy which consisted of lasagna, chicken parmesan, and fettuccine alfredo. I had my usual fettuccine alfredo which was pretty good. By the time we got home I was feeling exhauseted from our 4 hour adventure on campus so we went to bed after watching a little more TV. It was a relaxed, simple day but we enjoyed it!

We went to our new ward today and love it! The people are all so nice and welcoming and it felt good to meet some new friends! Hopefully sometime this week I will take pictures of our apartment :-)

From Utah to Pennsylvania!

The past 2 weeks have been very busy! We managed to finish work, school, pack, move, drive, and drive, and drive some more, unpack, ect. all in about a week and a half's time! Not this last Monday, but the Monday before, my family took some family pictures before Ben and I left. Here are a few of them.

The next day we packed all of our stuff (well almost everything) into an ABF trailer and sent it on its way to Pennsylvania! Wednesday I took my last final at BYU (Yay!), and we took care of some errands for our trip. Thursday morning, we left for Denver around 7am. We had a fun trip listening to a book on CD. It was pretty cheesy but kept us entertained. We stopped for lunch at my Grandma Riley's and visited with for a bit before hitting the road again. The next stop was in Littleton to visit Ben's brother Grant, and his family. We visited with Grant, Cassy, Garrett, and little Zach for a little bit, and it was fun. Their kids are sooooo cute! After that we hit the road again, but stopped for the night at my Grandma and Grandpa Green's in Elizabeth. It felt good to finally be done driving for the day! We visited with my grandparents, their dog Darby (who Ben LOVED), and the horses! I couldn't get any good pictures of the horses sadly because it was too dark and they were moving too much. But all 5 of them came right up to us! I got to see Flashy, the horse I used in Westernaires and haven't seen for about 5 or so years! She came up to me for about 1 minute and then decided she had enough and was on her way. Then Polly, my family's horse came up and visited with us, and shortly after the whole gang was there checking out Ben- stuffing there noses into his pockets and wiping their slobber/snot all over us. It was great. They haven't changed a bit!
The next morning we got up at 4:30am and got ready to go, however after eating breakfast my body not-so-politely let me know that it was not ready for food that early in the morning. We hit the road for the long haul to Chicago around 5am. I took a few pictures of the sunrise while we were stuck waiting for some trains to pass.

The drive was pretty smooth through Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. I did manage to spit my bubblegum into Ben's water bottle thinking that it was his sunflower seed shells bottle, but other than that nothing bad happened! We got to Ben's parent's house around 10:30pm central time and were EXHAUSTED. 16 hours of driving is NOT fun. So on Saturday we just chilled in Chicago and enjoyed being with Ben's family. They even made Ben a cake and gave him his present for his birthday! And of course Ben got to see Cody, his dog which made him very very happy.

The house that Ben's parents are moving into in about a week.

Playing some Foosball with the fam.

You can see my belly is getting larger :)

Ben leading us in the birthday song

We left Sunday morning around 8am, following Ben's parents and Brian. I'll be honest. I did not like this part of the trip. Not at all. It rained about 90% of the time and of course we hydroplaned when it was my turn to drive. We were okay though, nothing scary happened except for the fact I though we were going to die like every 3 minutes of that 11 hour drive. We drove through Chicago, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Once we got to Pennsylvania it was like trees EVERYWHERE. The whole land is covered in trees! It is very pretty. We even drove through a town called Shippenville (we stopped there for gas) where my brother served for a few months on his mission! It's cool to see where my brother spent 2 years of his life!
Once we got to State College we checked into our hotel, and then checked into our apartment. It was a lot smaller than what I was expecting, so I was a little upset at first (completely different layout then the pictures and floor-plans online), but it is going to work for us! Our trailer with our stuff came Monday morning around 11am. Sadly we had some casualties from the journey. Our nice oak table broke along with one of our bookshelves :(. So we went to target and got us a new little table and some storage shelves for the kitchen. I don't have any pictures yet, because we are still working on putting things away.
Ben started orientation on Tuesday and already has had his first class today! So far he likes it, but he already has a ton of reading for his classes. That is about all we have been up to! Nothing too exciting except we had a fire alarm go off in our building last night (apparently it happens often), but we were able to meet some of our neighbors. Well I will start taking more pictures as we explore our new surroundings more! Stay tuned!

Gardens on campus near the alumni building. They were beautiful!

Ben Turns 24!

Yesterday was Ben's birthday! He turned 24! Wahoo! He's so old now... Just kidding. We started off the day by.... going to work! Yay! But at work we watched 2 documentaries. One was called Dogs Decoded, and the other was March of the Penguins. The dog one was really cool. It showed studies that were going on with dogs, and how humans and dogs understand each other or something. Anyway, here is the thing. I need a dog. Apparently when you have a dog, and interact with it (pet them, play with them, take care of them, etc.) it releases the hormone Oxytocin in BOTH humans and the dogs. Oxytocin is the hormone that releases the milk in breastfeeding mothers. So doctors think that Oxytocin has something to do with the bond between mothers and babies. Anyways, because this hormone is released between both humans and dogs, they think it may have something to do with the bonds that humans and their dogs make. But Oxytocin does also stimulate muscles to relax which makes you feel relaxed and good. Therefore, it can lower your blood pressure and heart rate. Therefore dogs help lower your blood pressure, heart rate. Also they said that people who have dogs are like 4x (don't quote me on that, I'm not sure exactly) to not have a heart attack, and if they do have a heart attack they are more likely to survive. Since my blood pressure and heart rate have been skyrocketing lately, I need a dog. The end. Sorry, most of you probably skipped that part, but I think it is SO cool!
     Speaking of my blood pressure and heart rate, I am able to go back on some medicine to help with my anxiety. I feel confident that with this help I will be soooooooo much better. I know it also help keep my heart at healthier rhythms :). Now, back to BEN'S BIRTHDAY! We left work at lunch time and went to Cafe Rio! Ben stuffed himself with their Sweet Pork Salad. Unfortunately I have been having to force food down myself the past few days, so I didn't enjoy my myself as thoroughly. But Ben was happy, and still full by the time we had dinner!

Before....

After...

Next we went home and took a nap! Ben took a 3 hour nap! It felt great. Then we had dinner with my family. My mom made Ben's favorite food that his mom makes... Chicken Pot Pie! It was delicious! My mom even put a "B" on it for Ben.

Another shot of my belly kinda...

 

It was a long day... I really  am trying to look happy here.

Giftcard from Nicholas for a new hat!

Bookmarks from Taylor

BYU hoodie from my mommy and daddy

So cute :)

Happy Birthday Ben!

Ben's Funfetti Cake

He actually blew them all out in one breath!

So that was his birthday! He got some new dress shirts, a new pair of jeans, a new T'shirt (which he is wearing today), some new ties, giftcards, a hoodie, bookmarks, and some cards! PS In ONE WEEK we will be on the road headed from Denver to Chicago. It's getting so close!