You're It!

Here's a fun tag to try...

Google each of the following things and post the first image that comes up...

First Name:

Sarah

Middle Name:

Elizabeth

Last Name: Whitman

Age: 24


Place I'd like to visit someday:

Paris, France. And this could actually happen sooner than I thought because Andrew might be doing a study abroad program there next summer...woop woop!

Favorite vacation spot:

Destin, Florida. Don't you wish you were there right now??

Past celebrity crush:

Wentworth Miller

College Major:

Actuarial Science, it's an emphasis in the Statistics major.
Yeah, it's about as boring as this picture looks!

Place I grew up:

New Orleans, LA. This picture is after Hurricane Katrina obviously, poor little city.

First Job:

Front desk assistant person at Tulane's Reily Recreation Center.
Basically I swiped people's membership cards and folded towels.

Favorite treat:


Devil Cremes and Twizzlers
(you can't have just one favorite treat, right?)

Favorite food:


Favorite color:

Aqua

Somewhere you've gone today:

The doctor's office.

What's for dinner:

Chicken Dorito Casserole. I was kind of surprised this picture came up...
I didn't think many other people knew about this delicious Mormon casserole :)

I tag everyone! :)

Labor Day

We decided to do some sightseeing on Labor Day so we headed up to Kirtland, Ohio to see some church history sites. We went to the Visitor's Center and saw the Newell K. Whitney store, the Whitney's home, the Ashery which was a very profitable business for the Saints in Kirtland, and the Sawmill which was used to help with construction of the Kirtland Temple. We also visited the Kirtland Temple which is now owned by the Community of Christ Church. Lastly we visited the Isaac Morley Farm, which was a gathering place for early church members in Kirtland.

I learned so many new things while visiting these sites in Kirtland. Both the Morley's and the Whitney's played a big role in the survival of the early church. Newell K. Whitney was especially helpful in sustaining the church financially in Kirtland. He was very generous with his inventory and he also donated three years of the Ashery's profits to the church.

Here are some pictures of the places we visited...
(don't mind the big pregnant lady in some of these)

This table is upstairs in the Newell K. Whitney Store. It is the same table that Joseph Smith sat at and received revelations such as the Word of Wisdom.

This is the Whitney's house. Apparently yellow was the most expensive color of paint.

Kirtland Temple

It was really neat to visit such special places. I am so grateful that I know the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth. I am also so grateful for those early Saints who knew that and were so faithful and sacrificed so much.

We made it!

Well we finally have a home of our own now and we are no longer homeless! Yay! After 4 weeks, 3,000 miles, 10 states, a wedding, a kidney stone, a one-year anniversary, and nearly depleting our savings buying gas, we have safely arrived in the Buckeye State. Much has happened since we last posted so this might be a little bit of an overload...beware. I'll probably just post some pics and narrate. Here goes...

July 18th - Olympia, WA

This is the day we moved out of our apartment and "moved in" with Grandma and Grandpa Kohler for a week. Earlier this summer we planted some cabbage and cauliflower in their garden and now it was time for harvesting. The cabbage grew sooo big, it looked straight out of a Cabbage Patch Kid commercial.

We planted a few too many so we had cabbage and cauliflower coming out of our ears.

While staying with Grandma and Grandpa Kohler we saw Wall-E, had breakfast in Grandpa's new secret garden, ate one last time at our favorite Mexican restaurant Puerto Vallarta, and went to the Regional Youth Dance Festival. We had a fun time spending our last week in Washington with Andrew's grandparents.

July 19th - Mercer Island, WA

Also during that first week of homelessness we went up to Mercer Island to visit with Emily and Jeremy. They were in town visiting Jeremy's folks. We had a nice little dinner out on their patio and you can see some of Emily's photo skills below. She just got a Nikon D60 and wanted to get some practice in. She's getting pretty good! (Em, you should probably start ordering business cards and feel free to use my pregnancy shots in your portfolio. )

July 25th - Leaving WA

Here's Andrew with his grandparents the morning we left Olympia. He drove in his truck with no air conditioning and pulled the trailer while I drove our car in front of him and blazed the way. We basically drove the Oregon Trail backwards. Driving through Washington and Eastern Oregon was really pretty but after that the scenery was dead looking until Kansas.

July 27th - Blackfoot, ID

We stopped in Boise for our first night then continued on to Blackfoot the next day and spent some time with Andrew's aunt and uncle. They were so nice to let us stay with them while they had other family in town. Andrew's cousin and family live in Japan but his cousin's wife was expecting a little baby so they came to Idaho to have their fourth baby in the States for better medical care. The other three kids in the picture above are their other kids. We were both meeting these little cousins for the first time.

Andrew built a lego plane with Perry. Perry goes to a Japanese school and taught us some Japanese words.

This is Elinor. She taught us that apparently in Japan you're supposed to say "right?" after everything, right? She's the cutest little girl, right?

July 28th - August 3rd - Provo

For the next week of our trip we headed down to Provo and I stayed with my sister Laura while Andrew stayed with some old roommates. We spent most of our time playing guitar hero and hanging out with Laura at Costa Vida. She works there and was able to get us discounts/free food almost everyday, which works out nicely because their food is the bomb. Freddie is also in Provo so it was fun to hang out with my little brother and sister I never see. Freddie works at Jamba Juice and was able to get us some discounts there, too! We had the hook-up! We also went to Seven Peaks Water Park one of the days we were there. I wasn't able to go down any slides but it was still nice to be out in the sun and I'm pretty sure our little baby was loving the wave pool, she was kicking like crazy in there. (Well, or I guess that could mean she hated it!)

August 3rd - August 6th - Salt Lake City

Andrew's family got into Salt Lake on Sunday night (August 3rd) so we headed up there to see them. On Monday we ate at the Lion House and walked around temple square and went to the distribution center to get Jessica's temple clothes. Grandma Kohler got me a little dress to bless the baby in.

August 5th - Mt. Timpanogos

Jessica and Terence

Andrew and Me

On Tuesday we went up to Mt. Timpanogos Temple for Jessica's endowment and then we had dinner at a nearby park with Terence's family.

August 6th- Salt Lake city

Jessica and Terrence got married on August 6th in the Salt Lake Temple. It was a really nice ceremony and their Temple Sealer was the same one who sealed me and Andrew, so it was kind of deja vu from about a year earlier when we were married there.

I forgot to bring my camera so you can see more pics at her photographer's website.

We left Utah on Thursday morning (August 7th) and made it to Cozad, Nebraska that night. The next morning we headed for Missouri and made a stop in Liberty and Independence to see some church history sites.

August 8th - Missouri

Inside the visitor's center there is a recreation with original stones in the actual spot where Joseph Smith and four others were in jail in Liberty, MO. You can kind of see it behind us. I would highly recommend this Church History site, it was definitely worth our time to stop.

We couldn't leave Kansas City without eating at a good BBQ place. Andrew just informed me that the KC in K.C. Masterpiece (BBQ Sauce) stands for Kansas City and apparently originated there. Interesting. Here's Andrew enjoying one of his favorite foods-RIBS!

Here he is about 3 minutes later...(no, seriously)

August 9th - Cincinnati, OH

We made it to Cincinnati on Saturday night (August 9th) and met Jessica and Scott at Cheesecake Factory for Scott's b-day. Here's a picture of the two love birds. Thanks for sharing your birthday with us, Scott!

We stayed with Jessica and Scott until Wednesday (August 13th) then headed to our new home. We stayed at the (not so) Super 8 Motel until we found an apartment with availability. I had narrowed it down, so we really only had 2 or 3 to choose from. We picked the one closest to Andrew's school so we could save on gas and so he could spend more time at home with me and the baby rather than driving to and from school.

We finally got moved into our new apartment on Friday (August 15th). The missionaries helped us unload our things. We spent the next day, which also happens to be our anniversary weekend, unpacking and setting up our new little apartment. After all was unpacked we went to find a place to celebrate our first year of marriage. We found a yummy little Mexican place called Mariachi Coco's.

August 15th - our new home!!!

This was probably the best moment of our life....unhitching the U-Haul trailer from Andrew's truck after 29 days and 3,050 miles!

Here are some pics of the inside and outside of our new little home.

We got ourselves a new bed and bedspread. It is super comfy!

Here's our little nursery. There isn't really a theme...I just got some white sheets at Target and a pink bumper. That'll do, right? If you look closely you can see the cute blanket Emily got me on the changing table.

Here's her closet. As you can see she already has PLENTY of clothes (most of these are the hand-me-downs from Jessica's girls). Also you can see the diaper bag Grandma Kohler got for me. It's really cute, right?

Andrew had his first week of Orientation last week and we went and took a little walk around campus. I made Andrew pose for these pictures.

Here he is looking for his textbooks that we would later spend $900 on!!! Gotta love Law school. But Andrew reassures me that it's ok, because he will continue using these books next semester. Whew, that makes me feel a lot better, right?

Well I think that about does it. So far we are enjoying our new life in Ohio. Andrew enjoyed his first week at Law School and is excited to be a 1L as they call first years. I spent his first week of law school at mainly driving around and getting acquainted with town and at Borders reading Breaking Dawn. This week I'll go get myself a library card and find some more books to read as I wait for our little girl to join us.

Oh and another thing, we got a family pass to the student rec center. It's really nice, I'm excited to get back to kickboxing classes after our little one is born. The pool is pretty dope, too. There is a lazy river! How cool is that??
One last random thing to end on (and speaking of needing to get back to the gym), we celebrated the start of College Football with some brownies, ice cream, chocolate syrup, and peanut butter M&M's. Yummy, right? Sorry to make you salivate, but I couldn't resist!