Our New Apartment

We finally heard from the housing office at UCI. We got the exact apartment that we want. It is a 900 square foot 2 bedroom/1 bath flat. The community is called Verano Place. All utilities (electricity, gas, cable, internet, etc.) are included except for telephone. The rent is a lot less expense than living off campus, but it is still twice as much as we are paying right now in Provo. We can move in as soon as Tuesday, June 26.

So that means we have about a month left in Provo. I will then start my first rotation of my PhD program with Grant MacGregor on July 2. We're both excited for all the changes to come.

Carol's Wedding Cake

Carol, a good friend from work asked me to make her wedding cake! Wow, what a challenge. The only experience I had had was helping my sister make my own wedding cake a couple years ago. This is a picture of what she wanted. I included pics of the whole process (which took nearly 20 hours to do!).

Carol didn't want to serve her actual cake, so the bottom 2 layers were styrofoam and the top was real chocolate cake. So the first step was to make the cake from scratch and give it a good thick layer of frosting.

Next came the huge task of rolling out the fondant. It was a serious workout (my whole body is sore from this!) I actually had to get on top of the counter to get my whole weight into it!

Putting the fondant over the cake layers was probably the most difficult part of the whole process. All those pointy edges were a pain!

But luckily I had another set of hands (Michelle Shade - friend/neighbor) to help me!

We then stacked and put the red ribbon on.

I trimmed the cakes in icing, which I had never done before!

Putting the tiny red dots all over was nerve racking!

Miles and I then carefully transported the two pieces (real top layer, and bottom fake layers) to the location in Salt Lake. When we got there, we started assembling all the pieces.

This is Miles helping me!

Then came my favorite part, placing the flowers. That floral design class I took really came it handy!

And this is the final product! Wow what a project!

Nickel Creek Concert

This is Miles and I at the Nickel Creek concert last night. It was at Abravanel Hall in SLC. They are a bluegrass group. Supposedly this was the last concert of their tour. In fact, we heard it rumored that they are breaking up to do solo work for awhile. It was a good concert, long (4 hours), but good. Everyone in the group is really talented. They sound just as good live as they do on CD. We had fun just feeling like we were dating again.

And, this is just a random picture. The other day we cracked open an egg with Siamese twin yolks! Never seen that before!

Mom's Funny Dream

My Mom sent me this email about a dream she had the other night. I found it HILARIOUS. Just thought I'd share. And if anyone else has a funny dream to tell, I'd love to hear it!

Here's a cast of the characters:

Mom (narrator), Mikelle (little fish w/freckles), Kiarah (little fish), and Andrea

After I sent my last e-mail, I remembered this one dream I had a couple nights ago that was so bizarre and funny. I just gotta tell ya about it.

Well, we were swimming around in a pool (I don't know who "we" is except that I know Andrea was there and some other people around.) For some reason, Kiarah & Mikelle were little fish swimming around, tiny little fish. There was a whale swimming around. We were concerned about the whale getting Kiarah & Mikelle but not too worried. Mikelle swam too close to the whale while the whale had its mouth open and went right in. The whale swallowed Mikelle! I panicked. Andrea was worried but not as worried as I. I told Andrea that we needed to use force on the whale. So Andrea swam to the bottom of the pool and punched the whale. The whale surfaced. I swam over to the whale to try to get Mikelle. The whale's face turned into a pretty woman's face. I tried to talk the whale into giving her up, but it wouldn't. We were very worried that Mikelle was just gone forever. But then we noticed little fish Mikelle on the side of the pool on the cement. I went over to her. She wasn't breathing, so I did a little CPR with my finger. She started coming to life and began turning back into a human being. As she was developing, I looked at her face and noticed she didn't have freckles. Then as she continued developing, I looked again, noticed that she now did have freckles and knew that now Mikelle was completely back to normal because now she had her freckles.

Oh, my gosh, what a dream!

Love, Mom

Our Niece Kia's Baptism and More

Miles and I just got home from visiting my family is St. George. Our niece, Kia got baptized on Saturday. It was a really neat experience. She is such a sweet girl! My dad, her grandpa, baptized and confirmed her. Afterward, everyone got together for rootbeer floats. Here are some cute pictures of Kia. My mom loves taking her picture because Kia is such a good model!

Here are some more pics from when our families were in town for our graduation. We had a blast!

The whole fam together!


All of us strutting our stuff while playing bocce ball.

My family made Miles and I a quilt for graduation! Wow, a ton of hard work went into this project. My mom and sister were up til 2:00 in the morning for a week to get it finished in time. Thanks again family!

Graduated and Movin' On!

Alright, after we sent out our graduation announcements, we had a ton of people reply and ask what our plans were from here. So, here's the update for anyone who wanted one...

Both graduation commencement and convocation went VERY well. Vice President Dick Cheney gave a great speech. Also, President Gordon B. Hinckley, Elder Bednar, and Elder Scott were all there in attendance. President Hinckley didn't speak, which I was actually happy about. I think if he had, it would have overshadowed the presence of Dick Cheney. Miles' entire family came down for commencement and convocation. We had a BBQ/picnic for both of our families after convocation of Friday. Everyone got along surprisingly well. We ate fat hamburgers and played some mean bocce ball.


So, now that we've graduated from BYU, here's the plan. Miles got accepted to UCI for a PhD program working with embryonic stem cells. So, we will be moving to California in mid to late June. He will be starting a rotation summer quarter. We will be close to the beach and Disneyland for at least 5 years. Wahoo!