Surprise!

Did you know that Albuquerque is only a quick, scenic 10 hour drive away from Provo? This fact led way to our taking a brief, spontaneous vacation for the 3 (well 4, in our case) day weekend. Because Rachel lives there and Sarah, my mom, and my dad were visiting (making that my entire nuclear family), we decided that there was no other option than to go. So we called Rachel last minute and told her (unfortunately not EVERYBODY could be surprised) so that we could arrange sleeping locations and such. We were able to surprise the rest of the family and what a treat it was.
The weekend was very entertaining. We met Justin's wonderful dogs, went snow shoe-ing (well Tom did, I didn't), went to an awesome bluegrass concert, toured old town Albuquerque, and much more. Being a weekend of surprises, is shouldn't have been much of a shock that Tom and I would stumble upon a surprise of our own. Sunday morning we headed off to the local LDS church for their 9 o clock sacrament meeting. As our phone navigator led us to the chapel, we noticed that the parking lot was filled and blocked off with cones while men were directing traffic to further parking sites. Turns out that we showed up just in time for their Stake Conference. And whatdoya know, Elder Nelson from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from our church was there! What a pleasant surprise, indeed.
Now we are back to our simple lives in Provo. We've decided that we're going to avoid road trips for a while considering that we've driven over 3,000 miles in the past month!! YIKES. Needless to say, we're both a little sick of sitting in the car. I guess we'll just have to find means of entertainment within our little community. It shouldn't be too hard, we hope :)
Oh! Great news! Tom's application with Teach for America came and went and he has been accepted to move to the final stage of the application process: the in person interview. Most applicants would have had to go through another middle step of a phone interview and pass that before the in person interview, but they were so impressed with Tom that he got to fly by Step 2. What a hunk, huh? That interview will be taking place some time next month. We'll keep you posted, but make sure to keep us in your prayers. This is something that we are really hoping for and feel really good about.
That's about all for this week. Nobody has requested our services for babysitting yet but hopefully they'll be flooding in soon enough.

First Week of School

Last week was the first week of our last semester at BYU and it was pretty much the best week ever. We both really like the classes we are taking. We also had a lot of fun last week making new friends from our ward (finally!). We invited two couples over for Family Home Evening, dinner, and games on Monday night and everyone seemed to have a really good time.

Wednesday we conducted the Webelos den meeting for the first time and the boys all had a blast (they totally like us better than the older leaders…and I’m sure that has NOTHING to do with the fact that we bribe them with candy). In the middle of the meeting Tom faked choking on a piece of candy so that we could teach them how to do the Heimlich maneuver. We also discussed bicycle safety, made phone lists of emergency contacts, and for fun we played Doctor, Doctor (the game where you all hold hands in a circle and then tie yourselves up in a knot and somebody has to come un-tie you). After den meeting Tom and I went sledding on a hill on campus. We found a spot where some people had made some jumps and we had fun flying over them.

Thursday we went to the Scouting District's roundtable meeting where we had a mock blue and gold banquet. Since the theme was U.S. states Tom made a frosted brownie and turned it into a topographical map of Alaska. The cooking staff liked it so much that they stole it off the table and replaced it with chocolate chip cookies so that they could eat it themselves.

Friday we went to the movies for our weekly date night and then went to dinner at one of those Japanese restaurants where they cook the food in front of you. The food was great and we had a really good time making friends with all the people at our table.

Saturday night we went to the temple with one of the couples that we had invited over for FHE. In just one week we've gone from barely knowing that couple to being their best friends in the ward.

Lastly, we embarked on a new adventure on Sunday. We announced in Priesthood and Relief Society that we would do free babysitting. We figured that there were plenty of couples in our ward who could use a date night and we could use the practice/experience with little kids. Plus it was a great way to serve our fellow ward members. We have found that this is the BEST way to make friends in a new married ward. Seriously, after making the announcements, we instantly became every parents’ best friend. It was pretty great.

Review of the past year

Because, as my sisters can attest, I am not the best at returning or making phone calls (though I have made it a New Years Resolution to be better about that), I have decided that if anything, I can supplement my efforts to keep people updated on our lives with this blog. In addition, I am a terrible journal writer and I hope that this will be my substitute in that area as well.

In case any of you are wondering about the title of our blog, "teammates" is the motto of our marriage. We feel that it is very appropriate not only because of our clever little acronym, but also because we believe that in our marriage, we will do everything as a team. We stand as equal partners, striving to build each other up and grow together.

I figured that I would start our blog with our Christmas Letter that we struggled to send out in time for Christmas. Some received it, most didn't. So, here is our update of 2008. Enjoy!

Our Dear Family and Friends,

We are so excited about this, our first volume of the Arnett Family Christmas Letter! Though our life as old married folks has just begun, we have so much to report!

First and most importantly, our wedding was a hit! We were sealed together for time and all eternity in the Provo, Utah Temple of the Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-day Saints on November 1^st. The ceremony was short but very sweet and sacred to us. We had a beautiful reception with a ring ceremony presided by our wonderful fathers. Larry Arnett (fondly known as Papa-Bear by his newest daughter-in-law) shared a few words about the importance of being sealed in the Lord’s Temple and Joe Zuback (AKA daddy) honored us with thoughts on how to make our marriage last forever and the principle of becoming saints in our everyday lives. We even got to hear an amazing rendition of “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” by Grandpa Arnett. What a treat that was! We couldn’t have been happier with how the whole day turned out.

Because we got married in the middle of the school year we, needless to say, had a bit of a hard time picking back up our academic responsibilities. Thankfully, we had Thanksgiving Break to look forward to a mere three weeks after the wedding. It was over that break that we were able to finally go on our honeymoon to Oahu, Hawaii. We spent four amazing, fun-filled days touring the island and embracing the warm weather. Snorkeling, parasailing, swimming, enjoying delicious meals, touring the Polynesian Cultural Center and Pearl Harbor, and eating tropical fruits from the local produce stands were just a few of the fun adventures we had while there. The highlight of our trip, though, ended up being something that we hadn’t even planned on doing. On our last day in Hawaii, we threw out every ounce of reservation we could possibly have and decided to jump out of an airplane and skydive. This was quite the adrenaline rush; the view was gorgeous and the adventure was thrilling. It was, to say the least, a great way to end our adventures in Hawaii.

The Fall Semester is now over and we have just one more semester to look forward to before we conclude our years of undergraduate studies. In April, Mary will graduate in Home and Family Living while Tom will graduate in Economics with a double minor in Psychology and Business Management. Unfortunately, we cannot report where we will be after graduation just yet. Tom is still applying for jobs and graduate schools so our future is yet to be decided but we have great faith that everything will work out in the end.

We are so grateful for the love and support that we have felt from all of you as we’ve embarked on this new adventure in our lives. We hope that you and your families are happy and well, especially in this holiday season.

With much love,

Tom & Mary Arnett