Where Did January Go?

This first month of school has been an interesting adjustment for us. There are so many things to do and organize and decide that keeping school in the schedule (as a prominent priority) has been a little bit challenging. I have been becoming more and more disenchanted with the English major, which is unfortunate. I just hope I still like to read by the time I graduate. :) Eldon, on the other hand, comes home all excited to tell me about his labs and what he's learning! I don't understand 80% of what he's telling me, I'm just glad he seems happy about it. :) Once when we were studying together I looked over at his textbook and the only word I was able to identify was "heat". Then the other day I had to write an analytical paper on a single word in an old text, and as I was telling him my ideas for a thesis he looked at me and asked, "You think you can write for multiple pages about the word 'FLATTER'?" We are definitely poised on opposite ends of the academic spectrum. :)


We just "celebrated" our one-month anniversary by having a "Settlers of Catan" game-playing marathon, so that was classy. :) I never considered myself an especially competitive person, but I sure like how it feels to beat him. But in all fairness, he beat me too. More than once. :)

We're reading the Book of Mormon together every night, which has been so enjoyable for us. I sometimes watch covetously as happy couples head off to Sunday School hand in hand while I hurry to sit with our primary class armed with my arsenal of please-pay-attention gimmicks. We are a little disappointed we never hear the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith lessons, but there's so much to learn even in the simple doctrines we teach our class. We feel blessed to get both.

Every once in a while we get to babysit his nieces and nephews, and we have a blast doing that. I've never been an aunt before, but now I have 16 (going on 17) of them! We laugh for a long time afterward about the things they say or do while we're with them. They have all been so sweet to me, and make me feel so welcomed into the family. Two of them are in the Junior Primary with us, and they wave and smile at us every week. I just love them to pieces. They sure love Eldon, too. That's been fun for me to watch, because he interacts with them all so differently. He has a tough, let's-be-men-together side for the boys and a tender, I'd-love-to-see-your-dolls side for the girls. I'm just crazy about him...

Anyway, that's all for January. February has more on the to-do-list with less days to do it, so we're going to have to really organize ourselves and be good stewards of our time. That's our biggest struggle. It's just so new and fun to be married that sometimes by the time we've made dinner, cleaned it up, and talked for a "little while" we realize we've been home for 4 hours and we haven't done ANY homework yet. :) We just have so much fun together, I hope all married couples' first month is like ours was. We truly are blessed.