The Struiksmas

I've realized that when most people get married, they seem to drop off of the face of the planet. Although this seems like a valiant asperation, I'm a little scared of heights, so dropping off the planet is a little extreme for me. Therefore, Derek and I have decided to create this blog as a link back to the real world. But just be warned, once you start reading about our rock star lifestyle, you may get addicted to this blog...like a fat kid is addicted to McDonalds. Its a scary choice.
Things have been picking up here in sunny southern Utah (try saying that three times fast). Derek and I just barely celebrated our 2 month mark with a box of goldfish crackers and an episode of the office. Married life is fabulous. Spending time together is so much more enjoyable when you dont have roomates tapping their shoes to the floor at the strike of midnight. We currently are the residents of an incredibly 1960's 5th wheel trailer. Not only do we have mice for roomates (one which we named Damien, and humanely caught and released at 1 in the morning), but we have also become keenly aware at how wonderful working electricity is (when it is working). The heating doesn't work, the plumming is a daily struggle, the water doesn't come out of the faucet 75% of the time, our electricity trips every hour on the hour, and just recently, we had to bear the smell of an animal that died under our floor boards, and was slowly rotting in the 100 degree heat. The way I see it though is that it can't get much worse...even if when we moved back to provo, we could only afford to live in the corner of a broken down garage, I would be alright with that. We did actually decide to paint and beautify the trailer...we bought brown curtains and cucumber green paint, and made it the prettiest trailer in town. Hopefully our boss apperciates all the hard work we put into it when he gets back from Hawaii :)

We've tried to make our days off count this summer, and have taken to traveling around the area on the few days we do have. We recently got back from a trip to California that we took with our boss and his wife. We stayed in Thousand Oaks with a family that we met at the resort. Their sons (9 and 13) are dedicated members of "The School of Rock", where for $300 dollars a month, you can learn to be a rock star. They were preforming one of the nights we were there, and I was blown away at how amazing 8 year old kids on the guitar were...you'd think they were in their 20s. Anyways, to make a long story longer, while we were there, the basist from Motly Crew came and asked if he could sit with us at our booth. Not knowing who he was, we told him it was reserved for VIPs, so he walked away. We looked pretty stupid. On top of the concert, I also went to Disney Land for the first time. Due to a climbing accident weeks prior to the trip, were I broke my right foot (and luckily didn't die), I got to ride around in a wheel chair all day long and get to the front of all the lines. I wasn't so lucky at the Wild Animal Park the next day, where I just had to suck it up and walk. I am just so grateful that my foot is all that was broken, because it could have been a lot worse...it does make working in recreation a little difficult though.

We were able to spend this past weekend with our friends, Matt and Mel. It was a blast having them to play games with, and hike with and watch movies with. We really are lucky to have them.

So in conclusion to this super long blog, I am fabulous (minus the broken foot), Derek is spectacular (minus the fact that his was thrown off an ATV yesterday into some trees, and can't walk too well today...oops!), and life is great. We are so happy to have one another, and things are only getting better!! We're just excited to see what life throws in our paths.