March Madness!!!!!!!!

Ok, this title is deceiving. I don't really care all that much about March Madness basketball. It is fun to watch when it is the final rounds. I am cheering for VCU. The underdog of the tournament. They made it to the final four. They only made it into the tournament through bubble play or something. I forget what Mike called it. Anyway. On to the stories of life.

This last weekend I was thinking about my blogging. I normally don't blog because my life is boring for the most part. To remedy this I have decided to do something new every week to give me some kind of topic to blog it up about. This weeks new activity: running. Yes, I said running. Mike and I have been working out everyday for the last month and I decided to overcome my biggest adversary in the gym. The treadmill. I run for time, I don't run for distance. Some people run for 3 miles. I run for minutes. This week I started out with 10 minutes and eventually made it to 30 minutes of running. I definitely upped my need to eat. I forgot the invigorating feeling of the burn that comes with running. It is so relaxing. I use to say that I hate running. The only reason I was able to play soccer was because I had to chase a ball which gave running purpose. Well running now has a new purpose. Creating leaner legs and a flat stomach. So here is to creating a new habit of running.

This weekend was my old roommate's bridal shower. Daniella is getting married to Daren in just two weeks. Yay for marriage! It was fun. Food, stories and gifts followed by more food. I made these delicious French Breakfast Muffins from the Pioneer Woman cookbook. They were soooooo good. I also made lemon poppy seed cookies.(Not as good).

I gave her that cute apron. I am good I know. lol

My main reason for blogging today though are these:

 Like my apron? I bought it at Ross. I bought the some one for Daniella in green/blue.

 Check out these super sick bruises! I love them.

To answer your question: no, Mike does not beat me. I inherited these beauties from donating plasma. They accidentally went through my vein with the needle. They aimed a little too deep. Either way, I have two cool bruises. They didn't appear until a day later. The one on my right arm just keeps getting bigger and bigger  and they both change color every day! I can't donate plasma anymore right now because of the bruises. Poopy, I know. Once the bruises are gone, then I am back in action. So there goes 50 bucks a week for a couple weeks. 

One thing you should know is that I love pushing bruises. If someone shows me their bruise then I automatically push it. Don't ask me why but I do. Every time. It is like the easy button. You just do it. 

To day I am making white chili and homemade cornbread. Yum Yum. This week has been a good cooking week. I made fajitas, fiesta chicken bake, taco soup(the BEST that I have ever made), pork chops and gravy. [We were really into Mexican this week] I baked up a storm on Friday. I made the French breakfast puffs, the cookies, and messed up a chocolate cake. 

Cornbread made from scratched and baked it in my skillet.

Mike played volleyball on Friday night and Saturday morning. He played in a tournament on Saturday. His team placed 2nd. It was a busy weekend for him. We also tried Costa Vida which is very similar to Cafe Rio. The final verdict though is that Rio is way better. Just better flavor.

Well, have a great week. Until next time. Adios.

British Lit

Well my British Literature class has been the bane of my existence this semester. It is just nothing like what I thought it was going to be like which is disappointing. Right now though we are studying modern literature in Brit Lit which is cool. We are studying war poetry and we read a bunch of poems and had to create a found poem from all the poems we read. I wrote this:

Still falls the blood
Glistens like coral
The purpose of this, the old lie...
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
 Come gurgling from the froth corrupted lungs
I saw him drowning
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters.
Nobody heard him, the dead man
And now he's dead
Again the guns disturbed the hour
Roaring their readiness for revenge
            Still falls the blood

Kind of depressing I know but I think it turned out alright. Just a little bit of my education here at the good ol' BYUI.

Utah Getaway

Mike and I traveled to the land of Utah this last weekend. My dear sister Brooke was coming to Provo to try out of the Cougarettes. It was also her first time on the college campus she will be attending this Fall. Brooke is a BYU cougar. She is the first of the Rod Smith family to go there since our parents attended BYU. The rest of us in the family went to BYUI which is great because BYUI is the best. Anyway, I am digressing.

Mike and I picked up Brooke from the airport and immediately took her to In n' Out burger. SO good. Mike and I have been waiting to go there again since December. She liked it but not as much as us. 

My Mother commanded us to photograph EVERY moment of the weekend because Brooke forgot her camera. So no worries. I have photographed almost everything. We arrived in Provo and made signs for Kaycee who was competing in a gym meet against the Utes that night. It was my very first gymnastics meet. It was pretty. They just fearlessly fling themselves in all directions on bars and vaults and floors and stuff. I could never do it. BYU lost by less than a point.

We also took Brooke on her first campus tour. Well, Whitney and I did. The boys were glued to the TV all weekend watching the fabulous, never-ending tournament of March Madness (Not my favorite thing right now). I made sure to be as embarrassing as possible. Through the roof excitement here!

 The never-ending stairs of BYU campus. I am glad that BYUI doesn't have that.

 The ducks of campus.

We did WAY too much walking. My little toes are still recovering.

Whitney and David were great hosts. They played with us all weekend and went out to eat with us all week. We went to Cactus Rio(Cafe Rio) on Saturday night. Brooke kept saying all the restaurant names wrong, like In 'n Out was Top burger according to Brooke and Cafe Rio was dubbed Cactus Rio. So that was the great joke of the weekend. Saturday we shopped and I bought nothing! It was a hard thing to do. The boys were yet again glued to the TV watching b-ball. We sent off the children(Brooke, Kaycee and Taylor) Saturday night to a dance so we married people could have fun. We went to Spoon It Up, a frozen yogurt place. It was the first time that I liked frozen yogurt. I didn't get a pic. [Sorry Mom]. We also played Kinect on the Xbox which was a lot of fun. 

We left Sunday morning and sent Brook on her way. It was the weekend away that we needed. A fun time with friends and family. One of the things that I did was completed P90X yoga. It was an hour and a half long and it took me three hours to do it. I never thought that yoga would be a workout but it was. I was sweating up a storm.

Me doing some yoga while the kids got ready to leave to dance.

Brooke spent the weekend texting and sleeping a lot. 

She ate an entire Cafe Rio pork salad. 

The boys watching basketball.

All in all. Great weekend. We had a lot of fun and were happy to see friends.

Why marriage is just the best thing ever!

Well thinking back to my freshman year of college people would tease me and say that I would get married really fast and that I would have a ton of kids fast. I use to say "No! I am not getting married for a long time!" and looking back on that I wondered why I ever didn't want to get married. Being married now is a blast and so much better than I ever thought possible. It does help that I have a really sweet husband who helps clean, wash dishes, does the laundry and cuddles me whenever I want. Here are my top reasons why marriage is so much better than I ever thought possible:

1. A cuddle buddy whenever you want and then some.
2. You don't have 5 other roommates to clean up after, only one now who is not that messy. At mine is not that messy.
3. He does part of the cleaning.
4. No more saying good night and going to separate apartments.
5. I get to cook as much as I want now because he will eat pretty much whatever I cook which is really really nice.
6. He does the laundry. It was part of our agreement of renting an apartment that did have a washer and dryer. I was so sick of coin operated machines.
7. He does the driving. I help drive on road trips but in town he drives.
8. He opens the door for me.
9. He will pick my up from the gym when I don't want to walk all the way home.
10. School is just easier. Who knows why but it is easier.
11. He is good at scanning homework for my when I need it done. 
12. He has cleaned the bathroom the last two times.
13. He lets me take command of the kitchen which is my favorite room because it is all to my design. 
14. He is pretty dang hilarious and really puts me in the best moods.
15. And we are just married.

This kind of turned into an "I am grateful for Mike" list. But still it is the best parts of marriage. I am sure that I missed some things that are so fabulous about marriage but still, it is just great. I love you Mike!

Update on life

Our little Garrard family has been busy busy with school and sometimes I forget to blog, or am just to lazy. I need to be better because I like reading everyone else s blog posts. Here is what we have been up to:

• Inviting friends over for dinner on Sundays
• going to Cafe Rio - our fave place that is so yummy and delicious
• Date to see the movie - I am Number Four
• reading, lots and lots of reading. I am on book 23 of the 32 I have to read for all my classes this semester.
• Working in the Office of Foundations
• donating plasma every week
• We celebrated the anniversary of our first date on February 26th by going to Apple Bee's for dinner
• Playing Settlers of Catan with friends
• doing lots of homework, or at least Mike is doing lots of homework
• We go to the temple every Thursday
• We went bowling with our ward which was a lot of fun to get to know people and meet new people.
• cleaning the apartment and grocery shopping every week
• cook lots of yummy meals like: chicken fried steak with crash hot potatoes, taco rings, white chili, corn bread, chicken bacon ranch pizza, pot roast with carrots and potatoes, cube steak sandwiches, chicken enchilada's, banana bread, chocolate sheet cake, cake balls, cookies, pasta salad, and many other things that we love. I like the cooking part of being married. It is my favorite thing to do other than read.
• For Valentine's Day we celebrated by making our favorite meal which is cube steak sandwiches and had cake balls for desert, and we watch John Q. It was a fun night of no school.

So our lives have been pretty great. Nothing to complain about that is for sure. Married life is so much better than I ever thought possible. 

Ship Breaker

I am in a Young Adult Literature Class this semester. I am required to read 30 novels this semester for this class alone. I have been reading tons. I am on my 18th novel for the semester. My newest read is called Ship Breaker bu Paolo Bacigalupi. I started it last night and I have only 50 pages left to read! It is one of the best books that I have read this semester.

If you like The Hunger Games, then you are going to LOVE Ship Breaker. It is action packed, intense, adventure, and dystopia all in one good book. Seriously you have to read it!