Happy Anniversary!!

Well, we've made it through our first year of wedded bliss. We celebrated by walking to the nearby CiCi's Pizza Buffet and eating a lot of pizza. Maybe not the most romantic dinner ever, but it was perfect for us since we are on a tighter budget these days. Somehow I managed to get pizza toppings on both my shirt AND my pants! Anthony, on the other hand, cleanly made it through the evening. We were on the younger end of the age spectrum at CiCi's that night. At least we know we will be welcome at CiCi's for years to come.

We were up in the OP for the weekend so I could catch up with my old roommate and bff, Carrie Diggins. She lives in TX and was in town for the weekend for her parent's anniversary party. She and her husband Chris are moving to the KC area next month so it will be fun to be closer to them. Probably my favorite thing about living out here is being closer to old friends. My best friend from high school, Stephanie Zysk lives about 15 minutes away from us with her husband Pat and their two adorable daughters. She has been awesome about including us in their activities and especially helping me adjust to the area.

10 of my favorite things about Anthony:

10. He uses his "Tiger Strength 3000" daily to make life easier for me, whether he is carrying ALL of our groceries, my bag when I get a head ache, or putting together our furniture. And yes, the strength has been upped from 2000 to 3000.

9. He makes the best spaghetti. Since I am looking for a job right now, I make most of our meals. But spaghetti is his speciality. I always eat more than I need to when he makes it because it just tastes so good.

8. He is always telling me I need to buy more things for myself. Do I really need to? No. But it is nice knowing if I do decide to splurge he (probably) won't be too upset.

7. He is a "rule nazi." I never have to worry about knowing the rules to a game or if someone is cheating because I know Anthony will let everyone know if someone is breaking a rule. I think some of us can remember Anthony starting a chant of "Cutters" at the Marriott Center last Winter when two guys cut ahead our group.

6. He is very smart. He is doing awesome in his Master's Program! Everyday he comes home excited about what he learned or did that day. He has a great Assistantship that is giving him a lot of work experience.

5. He is outgoing. I don't know if Anthony has ever met a person he didn't really like, or that he didn't at least talk to. Social events are never quiet with Anthony around.

4. He uses lots of words. Anthony has quite the vocabulary and he often uses expressions that catch me off guard and make me laugh. I'm pretty sure our children will have a large, albeit strange, vocabulary.

3. Whenever we meet people and they find out he is from Boston and likes the Red Sox, almost inevitably they ask us if we have seen Fever Pitch. I don't really think Anthony is too much like the guy in the movie, but there are some similarities...I also think it is funny when people ask us about it, because it seems like they think they are the first person to ask us that question. Kind of like the people who thought they were the only one who thought to say "Your not in Kansas anymore" to me when I went to school. The Fever Pitch question is much more original and in both cases people are just being friendly, so anyways.

2. I have come to learn that every time I turn the TV on it will be on ESPN. It is the last channel watched at night and the first one turned on in the morning. I know more than I ever did about the NFL, NBA, MLB, and even the NHL than I have ever known in my life. Sometimes when I am home alone and bored I turn on ESPN for background noise.

1. It is hard to describe my favorite thing about Anthony because there really isn't one thing but so very many things combined that make him the amazing man he is today. I can't imagine my life without him. He is a great husband and I am SO THANKFUL to be married to him.

Farewell tour and Welcome to MO

It has been so long since we've written, so much has happened, it is hard to know where to start! This is Carrie--finally on the blog--trying to update on our adventures of the past few weeks. To quote Tyler Lars Nielson, "It's the end of an era." Anthony has been in Provo since the Fall of '99, and I started school at BYU Fall of '01, so this is a big change for both of us. We tried our best to live it up, amidst finishing my first graduate class, packing & preparing to move, and I think we did a pretty good job.

Thank you to everyone who made time to get together with us before we left!

A few highlights:

• Carly & Daniel treated us to Cold Stone
• Enchiladas, Sunday afternoon nap & Anne of Green Gables with Jill
• Salt Lake Temple--our first live session--and then delicious roast dinner with Meredith & Steven
• Old Spaghetti Factory with Nikki
• Costa Vida with Tony Capone
• Fro-Yo with Kieri
• Walks with Marquita
• Tucano's with the LegaLees staff
• Mama Chu's with Jill
• Family Gathering with the extended Fletcher/Bennett family
• Brick Oven with Nat & Tenille, Melissa & Brandon, and Candace
• Nikki, Melissa, and I winning glow-sticks for our awesome skating chain at Classic Skating
• Multiple trips to Seven Peaks with Nikki and Carly & Daniel

I'm sure there are more, I apologize if I left anyone out. We are also very grateful to those of you who helped us move, both on the Provo end and in Missouri.

Anthony's co-worker at the Rodeo House, Aura Conde, let us borrow her truck to take our stuff to the ABF station in Salt Lake. Carly & Daniel came over early and helped us load the truck, and then our neighbor and friend, Landric Ieremia, helped us drive our stuff up.

We left for Springfield a few days later with a full car. We drove first to Cheyenne, WY, and stayed the nice there in a "comfy" Motel 6. Along the way we ran into my cousin, Reed Dayton, who was headed west, back to Bennington. Small world. We got up early the next morning and got on the road. We drove all through the very hot day until we got to Kansas City around dinner time. Apparently I don't know my way around downtown KC like I used too--did I ever?--and we took a longer route to my parents house in Overland Park than we had planned. Since it was rush hour there was a lot of stop and go, our car started to struggle as we got closer to our home. I think we prayed it to be able to make it to my parent's house. Poor car, we put it through a lot that day: driving about 85 mph in the humid 100 degree day stuffed to the brim. After a brief respite in the OP we headed to Springfield the next morning. My dad and Jill drove down to help us and we couldn't have done it all without them. Our car worked just fine on the way down. As we drove down it really started to hit us that we weren't in Utah anymore. It is really pretty down here, but we are still trying to get used to the humidity.

That weekend was an adventure...finding a place to live that didn't smell like stale cigarettes, getting our rental application approved in an hour even though I don't have any income, picking up our stuff at the ABF in Strafford before it closed for the weekend, and learning our way around town, etc. The rest of my family came down Friday night and we all stayed the night at a hotel together. Saturday we went shopping to outfit our new place. We've spent more money in the past week than we've spent in the past year on a bed, couches, tables, microwave, internet paraphernalia, books, etc. I'm trying not to freak out about it, but I will feel much better once I get a job. The hunt is on...

Anthony starts classes at MSU on Monday, but this week he has had orientation things. The school is really pretty and people seem very nice. I think he is pretty excited to get started. Last night we went to a BBQ for all graduate students in the Psych department. His classmates and teachers are really cool. The highlight of the night (for Anthony) was that the department head's wife if part-Finnish and they spent half an hour talking about all things Finnish. There were two other people there with Finnish ties: a wife of one of Anthony's classmates went on a mission trip to Finland, and "another dude there" is half-Finnish. It was also a new experience for us to be around so many people drinking alcohol. Don't worry, Anthony drank two Sierra Mists and I had a Dasani and some lemonade.

We'll update later with pictures of our new place and how we like living in the Bible belt.