A fEw RaNdOm ThInGs AbOuT oUr WeEk

This Sunday in Nursery:

* There were twelve little kids.

* During Song time, Charles and I kept having to grab little kids from running around and getting in the toys. I was the front guard sitting with the little kids that I had grabbed and Charles was in the back getting those that got through me.

* There was one little boy that was in tears because he got separated from the girl he was goofing off with. He was placed by me and I helped him and every once in a while he would lean over and give me a hug, he also loved playing with my necklace.

Salt Lake Temple Trip:

* We decided that since we didn't have a lot planned for Saturday that we would go to the Salt Lake Temple to do a live session. Seeing things that way helped me understand everything better because I could see who the narrator was supposed to be.

* It was quite interesting to see how the inside of the Temple was decorated because it has so much detail.

* Outside of the Temple before we went in, we saw a man all dressed in white and wearing the Temple clothing, minus the apron. He as well had his face and neck painted in white. He carried a white cane and wore large white cross on a white chain. He was definitely interesting, to say the least.

FHE:

Last Monday night, Charles' parents and sister came to our home to help us move furniture around and figure out the best ways to organize things since I was all out of all of my ideas of where to put everything.

Pretzels:

On Friday I made over 20 home made pretzels for my Grounds Crew end of Summer Party. I would have to say that they were absolutely delicious! Including the kneading and rising time by our bread maker, the pretzels take about 4 hours to make, but are certainly well worth it. Boiling the pretzels is the most time consuming part of the entire process.

Charles' Mono:

Most of the time, I (Charles) am invincible. This week I thought I had recovered from my mono and was invincible again, but alas, I have not. Friday, Saturday, and today (Sunday) I have had a headache and a sore throat. Wo is me.

Statue:

A while back we got a beautiful statue of a cowboy and cowgirl on horses. Larry gave it to us. It's an amazing work of art. I've wanted to share it with everyone and I'll include pictures that Annette took.

Charles

Annette

Death of a Subaru:

Rose Merrill (our dearest matchmaker) decided it was time to get a car that sounded like a car and drove like a car and less like a locomotive. The downside is that we can't hear her coming anymore. They can hear her leaving though because there's a belt that needs some lubrication or something. Rosy Posy did her homework at our house while we went grocery shopping Saturday night. She was a very good house-sitter. We might just employ her again the next time she needs her laundry done or the internet.

Driving a Manual

This weekend, Charles decided that it was time that I learn to drive his BMW, and look what happened!!!!

Just kidding, this is not Charles' car :) All went well. I didn't do as bad as last time driving his manual. I actually did quite well besides the fact that I don't always remember things. Like that I have use the clutch when I stop. It is hard for me to remember which peddle was which. Charles said I was too aggressive in shifting, but we can work out the kinks. I am doing quite well at starting from first gear though, except for those few times when I forgot the clutch altogether.

They say that driving a stick is to save on gas, but I am not sure that holds up for me.

Three Weddings and a Funeral

Annette's Comments:

Last weekend, Charles and I attended three weddings on Saturday for six of his friends that were all getting hitched to each other. It was a fun adventure to make it from one to another without getting rained on.

My cousin, Brent Meservy was in Utah County for scouts an

d their group was leaving, but his family was coming up to Utah. So Brent stayed at our house for Thursday and Friday night. He came with us to the weddings and on Saturday went to a garage sale with us that he had spotted.

On Sunday evening was my Great Grandmother Sylvia Tingey's viewing and Monday was her funeral. It was so wonderful to know that she no longer felt the ailments of her mortal body and has been reunited with all of her family that has gone before her. She was such a wonderful woman whom we all look up to.

The luncheon after the burial was at the church Sylvia attended. In the bishop's office there was a board of all past bishops. Among them was her husband's father and her husband Bill. And here are photos I took of them on the board.

Here is a photo of Charles and I there at the gravesite.

And here is a photo of my P.D.A. mother and her boyfriend (who should be more).

Charles' Comments:

Sylvia Tingey led a wonderful life and we had a glorious funeral for her. Elder Oaks quoted President McKay (I think) when he said that a funeral has three purposes. The first purpose is to honor the passing of a useful life. The second purpose is to comfort the bereaved. The third purpose is to instruct the saints in the gospel. That was paraphrased of course, but truly all three of those purposes were accomplished. The purpose that I would like to talk about for a minute is the first purpose--to honor the passing of a useful life.

In all of the talks, Sylvia was praised for having a cheerful countenance, not wasting time, being an extremely hard worker, reading to and serving her husband and family, doing genealogy, learning computers at a late age, and much much more. Throughout the funeral, every time they said something new and nice about Sylvia, I couldn't help but think about Annette. When I was dating Annette, I didn't just see immediate happiness. I could tell that Annette was the kind of person that could leave a legacy. I could see Annette being showered with accolades like Sylvia was. She is selfless, fun, energetic and spiritual. I had a long term vision of the kind of life that Annette was capable of living. I know that technically Annette is genetically only 1/16th similar to Sylvia, but I think that spiritually and in other ways she is much more similar.

Haarschnitt

My dad never uses the word "haircut" in English. He always says it in German--haarschnitt. Probably every dad who served a foreign speaking mission does that. Certain words just stick with you. Anyway, I gave Annette a haarschnitt today. It was a blast. Things went well considering that I'm not sure how many fingers I have anymore and I had a big "Oops!" where I took a chunk of her hair out where I wasn't supposed to. I hope she doesn't ever find where. The beautiful thing is, she has TONS of GORGEOUS hair. It's the type of hair that is so amazing that I probably could have shaved a Nike swoosh in the back of her head and people would still be so mesmerized by the beauty of her hair that they wouldn't even notice. We kind of ran out of time for her to cut my hair and she wanted to see my dad do it one more time so he just cut my hair. We'll put pictures up of her whacking my hair off in a couple of months. But here are a few of me taking her hair off.

We Already Have 13 to 15 Children!!

So, within the first three weeks of our marriage, we're in charge of about 13 to 15 children. Annette suggested earlier that she wanted to be called to the nursery and boy did she nail it. We got called in to the bishop's office and I told him that we'd LOVE to be called to be the Ward Jesters. He laughed and then said he was looking for a couple so spiritually strong and wonderful that we didn't perhaps need traditional church meetings to stay an active couple. After such flattery, how could we turn down the calling of Nursery Couple? The hard part about this is that we are going to have to learn how to pry parents away from their children. We've been told that some parents just can't BARE the thought of leaving their kids. I'm going to find out if the nursery has a budget so I can buy a crowbar to separate parents from children and so that I can knock myself out if things get too ugly. Annette is already excited to form a Potty Train. A potty train is a lot of little kids that all magically decide they need to go to the bathroom at the same time so you line them up in a train and fold their little arms and walk quietly (if that's even possible) to the bathroom. What happens in the bathroom is beyond me and hopefully stays in the bathroom. Our first big challenge: find out where the nursery is.

Annette has already made two loaves of homemade bread!! We bought a bread maker because she wanted one. I always made it in the oven, but she's already cranked out two loaves in the maker so I'm not going to complain! The first one was a cinnamon swirl bread that was reminiscent of cinnamon rolls and the second was French Bread even though we forgot to shape it so it looked like uncooked dough. They were amazing!

BYU FOOTBALL IS COMING SOON AND WE HAVE OUR TICKETS!!!!!! Can you tell I'm excited? We're going to have an undefeated season this year simply due to the fact that the stars and planets have aligned so well that even Charles found the Most Perfect Woman to marry. How can we not win all our games?

I'm sick. I've been sick for a while. But it's a weird sick. I think I might have something really screwed up inside of me. I have a fever, but it's not a normal fever. It's lasted twice as long as a normal fever and it's STILL not gone. Annette hasn't caught it so I'm even tempted to believe that it's not from a virus. Another reason I think it might not be from a virus is that there are NO other normal fever-related symptoms with it like coughing, nasal congestion, etc. The ONLY symptom I have is a gnarly headache and I NEVER get headaches...ever. So, I think I'm suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning since my headache started last Thursday when I took a nap in my car with it running because it was so hot outside I wanted to cool it down. Or maybe it's some other poisoning. I don't know. Maybe I have a little alien inside of me wreaking havoc. Annette has taken care of me very well and shouldn't take it personally that I haven't healed yet. I'm so glad that I have no health insurance with Klune and just got kicked off of Medicaid. Hopefully I'll join Annette on BYU's Student Health Plan soon.

We have cups. Annette counted our cups and estimates that there are more cups in our cupboards than there are ACLU lawsuits. We think we have over 50 cups; it could be around 60 though. We think that maybe they're reproducing at night. By the time you have read this, we think that we'll have around 100 cups. If you need any cups, we might be able to help you out. Our neighbors will probably hear random glasses shattering and shouts of "Mazel Tov" coming from our apartment as we celebrate our marriage in Jewish tradition over and over again.

My dear sweet wife has started spending lots of time in the glorious reading of Eric Snider's books. She found my books while she was unpacking, started reading, and has been reading now for a week straight. I've tried to get her to at least eat, sleep, and shower, but she just won't. She keeps reading. She reads out loud to me while I'm in the shower. She brings the book in the car and reads to me while I'm driving. I'm surprised she doesn't read to me while I'm sleeping. He is funny. He's possibly the best humor columnist that BYU has ever produced. You know a good humor columnist by the amount of angry letters they get and he gets A LOT! If you ever want a copy of the book, let us know and we'll get you one for your birthday or something. His books are called Eric Snider: Snide Remarks, and Eric Snider: Snide Remarks II The Electric Boogaloo.

That's all for now folks :)

Our Little Basement Apartment

Well, we are still moving into our little basement apartment in Orem. There is a lot to do still with organizing things and still bringing over all of Charles' things. We hope to have this place much more together pretty soon, but we will see.

This was right after we got a couch for our place, but still didn't have any other furniture. We eventually got a table with 4 chairs for free and soon brought Charles' bookshelves that he bought back in the day over to our place.

We had just started a large cleaning of the entire apartment before moving in.

Our oh so empty fridge.

Our couch we bought for $20 at Charles' neighbor's yard sale.

Here is our couch full of empty boxes and our table that was just cleared off of a lot of things.

Books started to find homes in the book shelves, but we still have a lot of things on the dresser to the left and in front of it. We just got a desk, so it will all be moving into its really home soon.

Here is out in the kitchen, we have very little counter space and for a while we were using the stove top as the counter. We had boxes filling everywhere.

The Freds Are Ready To Start Blogging

Hey there family and friends, Freddy (Annette) and Fredo (Charles) Martin are officially starting a family blog.