The spring semester turned into a busy one for Jared and me, both. I started my first semester of graduate school and Jared finished his last semester of graduate school. We both finished the semester with 4.0 GPAs, but it was a lot of hard work. Between school, work, and church, this blog was the last thing on my mind, but now that the semester is over and living is easy, I thought I'd update since my last post...

Jared and I splurged a bit for Valentine's day and went out on a nice date together. Usually our dates consist of doing homework together and maybe playing a game of Yahtzee for a break, but for our first Valentine's day as a married couple, we decided to go out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, The Cheesecake Factory. It was awesome (and seems so long ago!).

Jared and me at Cheesecake Factory

The month of march was a very busy one! We both had Spring Break, but during different weeks. For my Spring Break, Jared took off some school, and we went to the beach for several days in celebration of our one year anniversary. We went down to Siesta Key Beach, and booked a couple nights at a hotel a few miles from the beach. When we got there, they told us they didn't have our reservation and that Expedia must not have sent it to them. They told us it wasn't their problem and we were welcome to call Expedia and see if they could fix it, but they only had one more room. After an hour phone call with Expedia, I got them to upgrade us from a small hotel room at the Holiday Inn Express to a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom condominium a mile from the beach. It was awesome! It had a living room, kitchen, and outside eating area. It was a great way to spend our anniversary!

Our Upgraded Condo

Jared and me on Siesta Key Beach

For Jared's Spring Break, which was the week after mine, he had some friends from his BYU days come down and visit us. They all have a mutual friend who works at Disney World, so during their visit all four of us went to Disney World to visit her. It was a lot of fun, and since Jared and I have been so many times since we've lived in Florida, we didn't feel a need to rush through the park and do everything, so it was more relaxing than the usual Disney trip. After Disney, we spent a day down in Sarasota at our friend Josiah and Lisa's pool and played tennis and had a great time. It was good to have them in town.

Peter and Tanner on the Disney World tram

So after all the excitement of Spring Break was over, life was pretty dull again. We just got back to going to class, and doing homework, and being boring. But, sometime in April we had a ton of rain! It knocked our power out for pretty much a whole day, but worse than that, it flooded our street, and I mean seriously flooded. Fortunately, our house is built on stilts off the ground, so we didn't have any damage to our house, but my car wasn't so lucky. The water flooded just high enough to seep through the cracks in my door, and there was about 2-3 inches of water in the floor of my car. Jared and I went wading through the dirty street water to push my car up the street a little bit further where there wasn't as much flooding. It was quite an adventure. My car smelt awful for several days, but it's back to normal now.

My car during the flood

In April, Jared and I booked a last minute flight to Allentown to visit my family for his birthday, Easter, and my sister Megan's birthday. All of them fell within 4 days of each other, so we took a few classes off and were able to see my family for a weekend. It was quick, but good to be home. We just spent a lot of time with family and it was great. In all the excitement, we forgot to take pictures, but our plan is to go back again this Summer, so hopefully we'll get some then!

The first week of May was finals week for both of us, but Jared didn't really have any finals because he already turned in his thesis and had it approved. I, on the other hand, had several, with my last one on Thursday night. Friday morning, we took off again, this time to see Jared's family. Jared's graduation was Friday night, but we skipped it and decided we'd rather be with his family than sitting through a three hour graduation ceremony. Jared's brother, Colton, picked us up from the airport! So fun, because I had yet to meet him. He just returned from his mission in Guatemala. It was so fun to get to know him this trip. Because of Colton's homecoming, all of Jared's siblings and their families came in to town, so we got to see everybody (23 people between siblings, spouses, and kids). It was a nut house but so fun!! We had family photos done while we were there, but haven't got them from the photographer yet. I'll post them as soon as we do.

Jared, Bergen, Colton, and Monique (4 of 6 White kids)

Story time with Hannah, Sicily & Brielle

This Summer should be relaxing, relatively speaking. Jared is done with school for a little while, so he'll just be working at USF as the assistant director of the writing center. He's applying for some adjunct teaching positions in the Fall at a couple local schools, so we're hoping he can have some additional experience there. I will be taking 2 classes this Summer, and possibly working, if I find something that interests me enough. I might go back to waitressing, but only because the money is unmatched. In the fall, I'll go back to being a graduate assistant at UT and finish up my Masters program, and then ... off to Georgia!