Making a mess . . .

I mean, unclogging the sink so we can now use it again :) HOORAY.  Hooray for awesome landlord and an awesome husband who unclogged our kitchen sink.  Landlord came over and couldn't quite get it unclogged, said he'd return in the morning.  Aaron decided now that he knew how to take the sink apart and put it back together he would fix it.  So here he is fixing the sink.

Aaron fixing the sink.  Look at how black his hands are.

Despite the sink being filthy, at least the water goes down the drain HOORAH!

Then I got to clean up the mess (which is ok since he did all the work).  So thankful for my wonderful husband.

Aaron's Birthday

For Aaron's birthday, I took him on July 10th (a day before his birthday) to the gorge to go on a hike/swim.  We enjoyed much of our walk, I slammed a rock on my toe at one point so I wasn't quite as adventurous after that as my husband.  I had also made Aaron pulled pork for his birthday (with most of the left over BBQ sauce from the 3rd of July BBQ).   It took forever to pull the pork but it was worth it for my wonderful husband.  We also made a lemon cheesecake together for his birthday.  It was uber delicious.

Here are some pictures we took from the gorge.

The tunnel we walked through to get into the gorge, because I was too chicken to go down the other side. 

Other side of tunnel

Me, Aaron took a picture of me coming down the slippery part i the picture above. 

Just a pretty picture of the shale.

And then we went walking around the Penn State Behrend campus taking pictures because he really wanted to do so.  Which was fine with me :) 

Outside the building where we spent a lot of time as he was in the labs studying.

Just a pretty little place on campus

my husband the explorer

Kudos to my husband for taking this one

Yup and me again . . . oh well =P

Hope my husband had a happy birthday that day :)

3rd of July BBQ

Aaron and I planned a BBQ for some of our church friends for the 3rd of July, since the 4th was a Sunday.
Aaron made 6 cups of homemade barbecue sauce (He found the recipe from the guy on Create who does BBQUniversity).  He also made a dry rub for the ribs (we made a ton), the rub had only 3 ingredients, but everyone raved about it (I don't eat spicy stuff so I didn't try it).  It had paprika, fresh ground pepper and coarse salt.

We also made potato salad (which didn't turn out well) :(, fruit salad with pineapple, strawberries, blueberries, and cherries, rhubarb cobbler, lemon bars, watermelon, corn on the cob, hamburgers (thanks Liz), and chicken breasts.  There was so much food there.  We had expected a few more people than were able to show up but it was still a good time.

The guys played football/frisbee those types of games. The girls tended to sit around and talk a little bit more.

Overall it was a great day.  Too bad I didn't remember to take pictures until the end.

Oh and how could I forget there was ROLLER BLADING. . . with puppies =P

And Brandon giving Aaron some Pointers

And the building of a fire 

Like I said, overall, it was a very good day :) 

And then there was Liberty

Prayer Chapel

We traveled to Lynchburg, VA for Aaron to take 2 of his 3 intensives included in his program.  His program is all online except for 3 1-week intensives.  We stayed at an Extended Stay America hotel across the street from the college.  It was such a great hotel because of the price and that we were able to buy groceries since we had a kitchen in our hotel room (fridge, microwave, sink, stovetop, sadly no oven though).

749 piece puzzle, missing a piece of the right side

Aaron was in class from 8-3:30 or 4:30 every Monday through Friday which meant I had a lot of free time.  I had a mini photoshoot of myself, because I was bored.  We both got haircuts while there one night.  I built a 749 piece puzzle, read 3 books (the Ted Dekker Circle Trilogy, you should read it, it's AMAZING), practiced guitar (sorta), and watched some TLC.

Building with a computer lab that Aaron and I spent a
few nights in as he worked on his papers

The weekend in between his two classes we went to Appomattox Court House which was AMAZING.  They had some reenactors, who were stellar.  They acted as if it was today's date in 1865.  Which was awesome.  We went down after the war was over. . . well back up, Appomattox Court House is where General Lee (Confederate Army) surrendered to General Grant (Union Army) marking the end of the Civil War (although not everyone knew the War was over since it took a long time for word to get around).  We listened to the reenactors tell about their time in the war and they asked us things like where we're from (if your state didn't exist you had to think of the territory it would have been at that time). One reenactor was a Confederate Soldier, Tommy Tibbs, and the other was a Union soldier who was now a provost guard there. We also got to see the house where Lee surrendered, got to see the courthouse in the town of Appomattox Court House, we watched 2 films on the war, there was a really cool walk-through museum type thing in the second story of the visitors center, we also went to the general store and saw the printing press where the Confederate parole passes were printed (they needed these as a ticket home essentially so that they weren't looked on as deserters).  I unfortunately forgot to take my camera with me that day, but that's ok, it just means I'll have to visit again some day!

Part of Aaron's photoshoot

That same day we also went to the National D-Day memorial, which was very neat, but not quite as good as Appomattox Court House.  All of the memorial was outside (it was over 90 degrees that day and BRIGHT sunshine, even at 4 pm).  So I started to get sick from the heat/sun.  We still managed to spend about an hour there.  I would suggest going there even still because it was awesome to see the memorial and remember what those brave soldiers did for us.  Also, if you do get to go there, we missed the walking tour by like 10 minutes, but if you can take a walking tour, I'm sure it will be better.

Aaron spent quite a bit of time in the evenings working on homework but we did manage to watch some discovery channel together which was fun.  We watched Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, Duel Survival, and Mythbusters, all rather awesome shows.  We also managed one Friday to hang out with Aaron's classmate, Franklin who is an AWESOME man of God.  It was such a blessing to get to spend some time with him.  He had apparently felt rather lonely since his wife couldn't accompany him to VA.  It was great to eat lunch with him and then we hung out for a few hours, prayed together and took him to the airport.  It was great though to see how God works through different people and how He shapes our faith.

The train tracks behind the campus

We also managed to go to Cold-Stone Creamery a few times.  YUM YUM.  I love me some icecream.  It's probably HORRIBLE for you but I loved it anyway.  So tasty.

On our last night there, Aaron and I walked around the campus.  We bought a few things at the bookstore, walked around taking pictures, and ventured in the prayer chapel.  That part of campus was so amazing.  You could just feel the Spirit moving there.  It was quite awesome.

Baseball field

Inside the prayer chapel this was found.  Pretty amazing

Dr. Falwell Memorial (Founder of the college)

Snowflex, which we plan on visiting in Dec
when Aaron has to take his last intensive

Adding on to the football stadium

Prayer Garden

Our One Month Anniversary

For our one month anniversary, I promised Aaron we would go to Red Lobster, so we did.  I had some tasty chicken dish and he had seafood (lots and lots of seafood).  Here are some pictures from that date night.

Here he is all enjoying his menu and such =P

waiting for him to take a picture

That's better

See, lots of seafood, totally not for me.  There's some crab legs, some shrimp, lobster tail, and I don't remember what else.

And then some nice guy who had been sitting next to us took our picture for us :) YAY!

Honeymoon

Aaron and I enjoyed our honeymoon to Playa del Carmen/Riviera Maya, Mexico, VERY much.  We stayed in the Sandos Caracol Eco-Resort and Spa.  It was soooooo beautiful.  Take a look at our lovely room!

We loved our room very much, it was so beautiful!  And they do a/c right down there, you don't walk out of your room and suffocate, but it's so refreshing entering the a/c.

This is the beauty experienced when walking around our GORGEOUS resort.  I had a few complaints (like too hot, and FAR too many bugs (came home with over 40 bug bites)), but it was the best honeymoon I could have asked for.

We had an all-inclusive package so we got to enjoy some yummy pina coladas.

There were also lovely animals on our resorts: Donkeys (burro, burra, and burrito), peacocks and peahens, lizards, coatis, raccoons, turtles and various birds.

There was a night where local vendors came selling their goods.  I bought this guy. =P J/K

We had a beautiful beach and a few beautiful pools to swim in 

We ate at some delicious restaurants.  The one below was the Mediterranean restaurant, I didn't enjoy this one as much.

But they served me tiramisu, with music notes around it. . .AMAZING

Then there was the Brazilian restaurant which was A-MA-ZING

We had at least 7 different kinds of meat, a salad bar, roasted pineapple, and some other side dish stuff 

And then they gave me a baked Alaskan, which they set on fire in front of me, soooooo cool

We also had a jacuzzi, despite the lovely photo, the champagne tasted AWFUL, eh, but it was free and made for a pretty photo :)

Then we went on a Mayan Excursion where we went canoeing, went hiking, ziplining, and rappelled into a cinote (natural spring) which was in a cave, SOOOOOO Cool, they had inner-tubes for us once we got down there. 

Then we went to Coba where Aaron climbed one of the few remaining Mayan pyramids, I chickened out after we took the first picture.  But my adventurous husband climbed all the way to the top.

And then it was time to go home,  Here is a picture of the front of the resort before we left. 

We had a great honeymoon and enjoyed ourselves very much.  I also enjoyed my first trip out of the states (other than Canada).  I have a wonderful husband to provide so well for me :)

New Blog New Blog

now that we're a married pair, new blog, new blog, now we have a place to share. . .

(to the tune of the "Clean Up" song).

Hello Everyone,

I decided to start a new blog now that:

1. I'm married to Aaron and we can now share this blog

2. I have a new email address

3. I have more time to blog again (since I'm not working/planning for a wedding)

Aaron and I have been married just over 2 1/2 months now! So exciting! We are loving married

life. We received our wedding photos back from the photographer. There were so many great ones! We decided to get a photobook made through snapfish.com. They are so awesome! I am so excited for it to come in. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the wedding.

We hope this blog post finds you all doing well! We love you all!

Aaron and Amanda