WE'VE MOVED!!

HELLO FRIENDS!!
WE HAVE MOVED TO THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS:
mplusbequalslove.blogspot.com
PLEASE COME VISIT US THERE!!

Dog Poop

Blogs are like dog poop. The second you finish - there is more to be done! I just LOVE reading the blog posts from all of my adorable friends, but it somehow has not inspired me to be diligent! As an update, Michael and I went to Disneyland this weekend and had the time of our lives! Savanna (Michael's sister) made us really cute shirts with Monster's Inc. characters on them... but I still think this is the best picture to demonstrate my feelings at this time:

Preemptive Light

I think I may have been preemptively excited! My brain is having a difficult time believing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel today!! How does that switch from one day to the next?? I think finals just does a weird number on you... Or maybe it's the fact that my hardest final is worth 45% of my overall grade. That is CRAZINESS!! I already decided that it was a good idea not to study for my New Testament final... I took it yesterday and decided that I probably hadn't made the smartest of decisions. I WILL study for geology and it's GOING TO make a difference... :-)

Life on the Horizon

It is so interesting that we plan the way that we do... When I was in junior high I had lists and lists of goals that I wanted to accomplish - normally divided into short term, within sight, and long-term. I think the tricky part of this tradition, however, is ages post-marriage through retirement. Now, most of the long-term junior high goals still stand today but the list is getting shorter and shorter! It may be good to note that I have adjusted the goal sheet once or twice since my brace-face days so things remain afloat, but for whatever reason this step of graduation from BYU is feeling WAY more liberating than I ever believed that it would (run-on sentence)! The idea of owning my evenings has put beautiful kaleidoscopes on my eyes with colorful ideas of learning to horseback ride, taking photography classes, finishing triathlons, listening to books on tape, creating color-coded food storage shelves, enhancing my Spanish, teaching English in another country, cooking my husband dinner, taking road trips, going bird-watching, re-finishing our dressers, working out on a regular basis and writing our wedding thank-you's! Some may say that life doesn't slow down upon graduation, but I just can't imagine that being true! If it is... please don't comment on this to let me know. I am just loving spending my down time thinking about all of the different ways the hours of 6pm to midnight could be used without homework!

Let Freedom Ring!!

I feel like there is so much going on right now that I could just write for hours! But... I will spare you. This last weekend Michael and I celebrated our first real holiday together as a married couple!! We started the fourth of July off with a red, white, and blue pancake breakfast then headed to the parade on the scooter with Michael's family. After walking around center street for a while and taking full advantage of all of the free samples available Michael's family headed home so that they could be back for church and work. We then hopped back onto the scooter and headed to Orem for Scera Theatre's Ellis Island Exhibit - it was so neat! We learned all about how the immigrants passed through Ellis Island, what their preconceptions were of America and how they responded to their new surroundings. We then walked around a giant star of flags and recommitted ourselves as US citizens. At the end there was a little citizenship quiz that we both passed (with the brief assistance of cha cha), allowing us to make an oath of citizenship. It was really interesting to remind yourself of what it really means to be an American. Freedom sure doesn't come free - we really are expected to sacrifice for the things that we have if the time comes.


After our pledge we joined a large group of people enjoying a freedom-themed musical production put on by a youth theater group. It was really fun - I really enjoyed learning a little more about Joan of Arc. We ended up leaving a bit early and heading to buy our necessary watermelon for the day at Buy Low! The problem here was that we hadn't contemplated the fact that we would be riding home on our little 2 man scooter and that a 20 pound watermelon is about as thick as a person! I clutched onto Michael for dear life as we sped down University in an effort to all get home in one piece! Our efforts were proven to definitely not be in vain, however, when we sat down to our picnic in the park with the puppy and watermelon. The rest of the day continued to be all-American as we played catch, ate ice cream while watching the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire, and accidentally set off illegal fireworks into our neighbor's front door. Even the crazy lady that covered our scooter in lipstick because she was mad that we blocked her view by parking our little scooters in front of her added to the spirit of the day. By bedtime we were both overwhelmed with the idea of having to reevaluate our declarations of our 'favorite holidays.'

Fast Days, Slow Weeks

Welcome to summer semester! I don't think that either Michael or I could've guessed how much the beginning of this new term could've sped us up! After lots of work and classes we have found ourselves spending most of our free time at intramural games. Wednesday we had co-ed softball and it was an absolute blast. Michael gave one of his typical MVP performances with line drives all 4 times up at bat and many extra, yet totally necessary, dives and slides. He came out with a beautiful sliding battle-wound that has been bleeding ever since. Thursday I drove some awesome Nepalese friends to SLC for our biology class before enjoying my first hiking class! There were about 5 minutes between class and my hair appointment where I was able to kiss my little hubbie and run on my merry way. He, once again, found himself at the intramural field for co-ed ultimate frisbee (I'm on the team too but the hair just couldn't wait) where he scored 5 of our team's 9 goals - leading us to a beautiful victory! I love that little athlete!! And he usually doesn't read this, so I can write little braggers on him and probably not get caught!!

One Fun Blunder!!

Married life has really begun to take flight! Over the weekend we were able to spend some great quality time with the Westoby's (Michael's Mom and Step-Dad) while they were in town for Cindy's Miss Utah Reunion. A diva never dies!! It was so fun to hear about her pageant excitement over the weekend. We also all went to Beauty and the Beast together at the Scera Shell Outdoor Ampitheatre in Orem and have a wonderful Father's Day breakfast together on Sunday morning before they had to take off. In the middle of all of our Westoby-family-fun we took a little Taufer break and met my parents in Cedar City to pick up my graduation gift from them... A BRAND NEW BLUE 2-MAN SCOOTER!!! It is beautiful!! We actually got it registered on Monday afternoon and have been riding it all over the place ever since. On our way home from picking up the scooter we were able to stop in Beaver to see Grandma and Grandpa Murdock to nibble on some homemade wheat bread and strawberry jam, then go see the cemetary where many of our Murdock ancestors are buried. It was a really neat experience.

Life's excitement continued on Monday when Dani and Chandler let us start watching their little 8-week-old Bassett Hound (Lebron) while they are out of town for the next two weeks! It hasn't even been 24 hours yet and we have fallen completely in LOVE with this little pup!! He follows Michael around to get his handy work done and sleeps on his lap while he works during the day. I did some homework this morning... and, sure enough, he was convinced that I was a moving chew toy. It's just the kind of relationship I always seem to develop with these sweet little animals. We were also able to spend a couple of hours with Chelsea and Brandon Bishop last night at the JIM BRICKMAN CONCERT! I have been looking forward to it for SOOOO long and it really exceeded my expectations. It was a sweet experience... minus our thoughtless decision to ride the scooter to the theatre. We didn't really process the fact that the concert would finish after 10pm when it was freezing cold outside - haha, it's all part of the memory.

3-Week Muffin-Top Madness

The original intention of this blog, hysterically enough, was to give our friends and family a place to track their pre-wedding goals. See, it felt like every time Michael or I invited someone verbally to our wedding that it was only a matter of time (average of about 3.1 seconds) before we were made aware of their individual weight-loss goals! The trend seemed funnier as time went on, the wedding-word spread, and our list got longer.

Well, I couldn't find a tactful way to give our devout friends a way to share their goals, experiences, and successes so decided to bag the idea altogether. Now though... The wedding is three weeks away and my own desired 12-pound weight loss was swallowed up in school and internship and has only lowered to a still hefty 8-pound goal. The truth: it is still do-able. The dropped weight will probably do a little bit of bouncing back after the wedding if it is not properly maintained but that is ok! It will not all come back if we continue to live reasonably, right? The dress only has to fit once! Kidding - we're going to do this as healthily as possible! I am a firm believer that everyone should have their own goals and plans, so you can DEFINITELY still jump on board if you are just looking to cut back on sweets, drink more water, or have better attendance to your water aerobics class! I am going to start my own jump start by drinking lots of water, maintaining a meaningful and a very low calorie intake diet excluding any sugars and foods with high glycemic indexes, getting good amounts of sleep, and working out 5-6 times a week. Keep in mind this is just a blitz to jumpstart our bodies and is not intended to last for more than three weeks. Our bodies deserves to feel good and do not deserve to be tortured. Listen to your body and be fair to yourself. So... Who is in?? Lets keep each other accountable!! Starting NOW and maintaining through May 16th!

Success!!

Thanks to Michelle and Mama Cheryl, we have finally overcome the bigget wedding challenge that we had encountered of FINDING BRIDESMAIDS DRESSES!! The colors switched several times and the girls were very confused with the fact that somehow we bought them all gray shoes before we even knew what our colors were... The final verdict is navy blue, gray, and ivory. The girls will all be in navy blue flowy tea-length dresses with gray shoes and jewelry. Michelle, the maid of honor, will be in a gorgeous form-fitting navy satin dress (check out her cute bum in it - definitely worth the glance). The groomsmen will all be in black tuxes with gray ties, and Michael will be in a black tux with ivory decorations. Our dads will hopefully all be in black tuxes with black ties and our moms will be in floor-length dresses, color of their choice. We are absolutely thrilled.

Our First Home!

We signed for our very first apartment together last week in Provo, UT! We signed a two-year contract with the intent of establishing ourselves in one place while Michael gets his degree from BYU in computer science and Brit (hopefully) gets her Masters in Social Work from the University of Utah. The apartment is two bedrooms and two full bathrooms so guests are definitely welcome!! We also will be experiencing the joys of our very own washer and dryer, diswasher, and covered parking! The apartment is just across the street from a big green park and a little water park that we have full intentions of having season passes to! Since the previous residents moved out a couple of weeks ago, the landlord was more than happy to turn over our key early and we have slowly started to move our things into the apartment. The next step is to get furniture and start painting! It has been fun to see the interior decorator come out in the both of us as we continue to catch the vision of our own little home's potential! It makes things so much more real. We have had a blast!


*The picture is of Michael in our apartment sitting where the couch will eventually be with his feet up on our new record player - records in hand*

Engagement Pictures

We got our engagement pictures taken on Wednesday and back yesterday! Katherine Loveless, our amazing photographer, did a great job and we are really excited about them! Feel free to take a look at a couple that we have posted on Photobucket. Let us know which one you would prefer to see in an announcement in the near future!! Just copy and paste this link into your browser:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=37215866&l=9ca9541bfc&id=17818278

Christmas and The Grand Canyon

Go check out our Christmas Break pics at these sites:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2234325&id=17818278&l=ee95d

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2234321&id=17818278&l=d9661Advertise

Or the Grand Canyon here:

http://s679.photobucket.com/albums/vv151/tauferb/Grand%20Canyon/