"Birthdays are like Boogers... the more you have the harder it is to breathe."

SO my birthday is now over, it always goes by so fast, but it sure was a great one! I am now 22 though, my "golden year" as some people have been calling it cuz my b-day is 2/22. I sure hope it's a good one, and so far it seems to be looking towards that! :) We kinda stretched celebrating over a couple days though since my actual b-day was on Sunday. So on Saturday both Mark and I had work scheduled for the morning so we could do something that night. After we both got home we went to Borders where he got me a new book for his present (I told him I wanted it :). It's actually the third book in the Inkheart trilogy but it just came out and I haven't read it yet and really wanted to. We'll get the other two later on. Surprisingly though, I haven't read the entire thing yet! Usually when I get a new book I read it in less than 24 hours, but I've been busy this weekend and value my sleep more now so I'm taking this one slow. It's a huge book though and so far really good!

After the bookstore we put our name on the waiting list at the restaurant we ate at and wandered around the shopping area until a table opened up. We went to a place called Tucanos, which is a yummy Brazilian restaurant where the waiters come around with various meats on skewers and sometimes grilled pineapple and veggies. They also have a salad bar, so you don't feel bad for eating so much meat. :) Anyway, it is SO ridiculously good, I love that place. It's also very expensive but luckily they do a birthday thing where you get a buy one get one free meal during your b-day month. :) Mark signed up to have his name on the birthday thing so hopefully we can go one more time before we leave Utah!

After dinner we met up with Whit and her husband Richie and went mini-golfing, which was a lot of fun. We goofed off quite a bit but who plays mini-golf seriously? The best part was that I got a hole-in-one on the last hole and got a coupon for free game. Happy birthday to me! :) haha...it was a pretty lucky shot though, the first 2 tries I hit it against the fence thing and it bounced out but I got the last one perfect! Here are some goofy pics we took while playing.





After we were done golfing, we went to a fast food place called Iceberg and got some way yummy shakes, they are SO good. I got a peppermint one, of course, and was very happy, although I couldn't eat it all, it was so big!




Sunday turned out to be pretty great too. I slept in, then read in bed for awhile while Mark made me breakfast (pancakes, bacon, and cheesy eggs, yum), which he brought to me in bed. He's so sweet! After that we went to church, came home, I took a brief nap, talked to some family, and then we went over to Whit and Richie's house for dinner. She made me a yummy b-day dinner with "Anniversary Chicken", corn, salad, and rolls. It was really good! Then we played Spades (a really fun card game) and watched the Academy Awards and made fun of the people's dresses. It was a great, fun time and overall a most wonderful birthday!





Birthdays are the best though, you get lots of people calling you, facebooking/emailing you, and sending you things! It's so great! :) My fam sent things throughout the week, although Mark wouldn't let me open my mom's box until Sunday morning...I got to the other things before he could stop me though. :) I got some clothes and candy and scrapbooking stuff, and of course, baby stuff. I really hope we end up having a girl like everyone seems to think cuz all the baby stuff was girl stuff! Pretty funny if you ask me though...

Anywho, so I guess that's all I have to say about my birthday. I do want to say thanks though to all my friends and family for everything they do for me! You all are SO great! Thanks for making my birthday wonderful! I love you all!

"I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is that not strange?" --Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing

Happy belated Valentine's Day everybody! I hope you all had a great day, I know I did! Well the ending anyway. The beginning wasn't too exciting. We were going to go to the temple yesterday but Mark had to work in the morning and I had to work that night. :( Not fun. So I just kinda slept in a little bit while he went to work, talked to my sisters and mom, cleaned my entire apartment, quite well too, and then watched some old episodes of Mad About You before I had to go to work. Work was ever so fun, not! It was ridiculously slow yesterday, who wants to look at wedding invitations on Valentine's Day? Not many...anyway. So work lasted forever it seemed like but finally it was 9:00 and Mark came to pick me up (I let him have the car yesterday cuz he had some "things" to do after work...:)

So we got home and are about to go in the house and he's like, ok, there's a trail you need to follow inside the house. And I look inside and there's a line of balloons going to our bedroom (not a very far distance).


And then I opened our bedroom door and pretty much the whole room is covered in balloons and on the bed there's a bouquet of gorgeous flowers leaning against one of the balloons. SO pretty!


Then he tells me that part of my present is in one of the balloons so I shake all of them and don't find anything, apparently I passed it. But I eventually find it, pop the balloon, and inside is a receipt for movie tickets (he couldn't fit the gift card in the balloon). We hardly ever go to the real theater so I was pretty excited, and there's a ton of great movies coming out this year that I would hate to wait for the dollar theater.


Anyway, after this we went and finished up the dinner that he started. He made salad, vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy, and then there was chicken wrapped in bacon and sprinkled with cheese (he said he was trying to copy a recipe they used to make at Outback when he worked there). It was SO yummy and he did such a good job! I'm so lucky to have a husband that likes to cook. I made us a yummy dessert of cookie dough brownies, which were DELIcious! Really...so good.



While we were eating I gave Mark his present, which he already knew what it was. It was an Alabama ball cap, just like the one he used to have. We lost it on the plane coming home from our honeymoon so he's been pretty sad without it. I was going to fill it with candy or something but I didn't figure out what I wanted to do until I was at the store with him so then I couldn't buy it. So I'm just going to buy him his snack at the store this week (all the candy is on sale now! :).




Anyway, after we ate, we sat on the couch and watched "The Lake House" which is a pretty cute love story. Mark had never seen it though so I thought we'd watch it because of that and I think it's a cute movie. But overall, it was a pretty great Valentine's Day! Mark is so freaking sweet and creative. He kept saying though that he should've done this and that...his usual thing. But I was like, whatever, it was so cute! He just didn't have a lot of time yesterday to do all he wanted (he got off at 6 and then had to go to the store and buy everything and all that so he didn't really have too much time to put it all together, but I still think he did an awesome job!). SO yeah, I think I have the sweetest husband ever and am interested to see what he does next weekend for my birthday! Haha...poor guy...He thinks its not fair that he has to do the two things so close together and I'm like tough luck! He's lucky I'm not like my friend Maria, who's birthday IS Valentine's Day! Anywho...that's all for today! I'm off to eat some yummy lasagna with Markie Poo :)

"Don't miss the magic of the moment by focusing on whats to come."

So there's really not too much big going on at the moment in the lives of the Erwins and since I mostly blog about bigger things, I haven't blogged anything. But I have some very impatient nieces who say that I need to do more. I didn't know I was so popular with them :) I think they just miss me, I mean, I AM their favorite aunt. Anyway, so I thought that I might just do a blog and update y'all about the little things and some questions that I've been getting a lot lately.

So first of all, I'll start with the pregnancy stuff. I am feeling pretty great, I haven't had any morning sickness or the like since that first incident, which I don't mind one bit and hope and pray it stays this way. I'm not having hardly any outer symptoms really but I'm sure those will come soon enough. I'm just waiting anxiously for my first appointment and all that, for right now it sometimes still feels somewhat unreal cuz there's hardly any symptoms, but don't worry...I am pregnant....really. Mark has been reading my "What to expect when you're expecting" although he hasn't said too much about it yet. He is very excited about the baby though. He thinks its a girl along with some of my sisters and my mom and I hope they're all right. My brother found out today that his girlfriend is having a boy so I think we need another girl to even the scales out on boys vs. girls. Or catch up anyway, right now with it's 9 to 6, with the boys in the lead (this is the total for all the grandkids on my side btw). SO I think I need a girl. :)

Lets see...school is going well for both Mark and I. I wish it was over though. And so does Mark but he's almost done (he graduates in Dec). I still have no clue when I'll finish, but don't worry, I will! It just might take me longer... :) This month is a bit busy with school because midterms start and last pretty much all throughout the month. Such fun! I do like my classes though, they are all pretty good but they are all really, really long. The shortest one I have is 1 1/2 hours and the longest is 2 1/2 hours. ugh. NOT cool. But most are only one day a week so I guess I can't complain too much...Mark is taking more classes than me and they're mostly all upper division engineering classes so he's having lots of fun with that :) I'm definitely not jealous of his work load. He's doing good though He actually studies more than I do, I procrastinate of course, although almost all of my homework is just reading and although I am a Fast reader, textbooks just can't be read like that...

I did recently buy a new book, although it is for my sister Annie, but I wanted to read it before I sent it to her. It's called "Farworld: Water Keep" by J. Scott Savage, who I actually got to meet and had him sign Annie's copy. Mark and I were wasting time and went into Deseret Book at the mall and he was sitting there with a stack of the first book in the series and I remembered seeing a blogpost on Annie's blog one day a long while back about this book so I called her up and asked her if she wanted a signed copy (it was 50%, yay!) and of course she did. He was really nice and the book was way awesome and I can't wait for the next one in the series but that won't come out forever...I hate that. Annie and I were talking about how we would rather find out about a good book series when the last one was coming out, rather than the first cuz then you have to wait long periods in between for the next ones. But oh well, they'll be worth it. I think I might have to go back to Deseret book and get myself a copy though :) I love reading!

Another series I am reading right now is the Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke. The third one just came out but I haven't made it to the store yet to get it. They are really good books though, they even just made a movie based on Inkheart (which is the first book) which has Brendan Fraser. I really want to see it but yet again, haven't made it to the theater to actually watch it. Oh, and while I'm on the subject of books, my most favorite author pretty much ever (I LOVE everything she's written), just came out with a new book as well. It's called "The Chalice" by Robin McKinley, which was also a great book. Now most of these series and such are more for a younger audience but I think they are the best books most of the time! I have a friend (Chelsea) who teaches elementary students so she's real up to date with all the good ones so I get most of my recommendations from her and from Annie. Thanks guys! :)

Well I guess on to more adult things...last night Mark and I met up with his Navy recruiter to sign some final papers and such. The committee still hasn't met yet to review the applications (they meet like next week or something) so we won't know for sure if he got in til the end of this month or very beginning of next month. So I've gotten a lot of questions recently about that so there's the answer, once again. I promise I'll let everyone know when we find out! I'm more anxious than any of you to find out so if I'm being patient (barely...) then so can you! :)

I'm trying to focus on little things this month to hopefully pass the time quicker. Which shouldn't be too hard cuz this month is pretty busy...first there's all the tests and homework and such that I have for school, then there's Valentine's day, then there's President's Day which we don't have school on (yay!) so I'm sure we'll try to do something fun that day, and then after that it's my birthday (YAY!) which I'm definitely sure we'll go do something for that...there's actually a lot of birthday's in February now. There used to be just me and now there's Ephraim and Jerica and me and my friend Maria and quite a few other people I know. Good month I say :) Also my work is getting busier which is good. So with all that going on I'm hoping February will fly by and then we'll find out!

So yeah...I think that's pretty much all I can think of for updating the little things...I guess it's back to textbook readings now! I've put them off long enough today...