Snowed In!

So, we've had quite the year for snow here in Ohio! Jacob has missed two days of classes, one day of work, and now today we missed church due to it's being canceled! A little bit of a summary. For the past two days (Friday and Saturday) Ohio got slammed by a really big storm. On the news they kept referring to it as "The Big Storm." Not their most creative stroke, but all the channels seems to have come to a consensus on the name. Anyway, yesterday morning (Saturday), we both slept in--Whitney because she's been sick, and Jacob because ... he was lazy--and were woken up by a phone call. Jacob answered the phone and found out that JC Penney (where he works) was going to close at 1pm that day so he had the day off. That meant that we both had the day off!

So what did we do? Not much. Whitney was sick and Jacob was ... lazy. So, we just hung around the house. We watched Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Whitney watched most of the first Harry Potter movie. Around 10 or so, Jacob braved the elements to check the mail. Whitney ordered the Disney World Planning DVD for 2008 and we had been hoping that it was waiting in the mail. It wasn't, but it was worth a shot we thought. Then we got the call that church had ben canceled.

So we slept and woke up to see that it was a beautiful day outside. After a wonderful pancake and egg breakfast we got bundled up and went on a walk. the walk didn't last long because it was cold (that usually comes with snow), but not before I got Whitney in the face with a snow ball. More like a snow grenade. We were getting ready to go inside and she packed up a ball of snow. Jacob hid behind a dumpster and packed up a ball of his own. He peaked up to see her ready to throw, so he threw his as well. Unfortunately he ducked dodging hers, but she didn't and got a big face full of snow. Jacob felt a little bad. Whitney just felt cold.

Whitney says she doesn't remember there ever being this much snow at once before. I'm not sure what the grand total for the storm was, but it's probably close to two feet in some places. We had maybe a foot and a half.

Still Breathing

Whew! Our lives our getting a little more intense now with school work, and life, and work, and life .... Whitney is working hard to finish her two independent study classes so she can graduate from BYU and Jacob is trying to survive all the reading that being a lit major entails. Whew!

We're also saddened by the passing of our beloved prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley. We watched the funeral online; switching back and forth between video feeds when one would stall or go offline. It was neat to be able to do that from our home.

Listen to President Hinckley's funeral service here

We both loved President Hinckley and are excited to become better acquainted with the new First Presidency (President Thomas S. Monson--President of the Church, President Henry B. Eyring--First Counselor, and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf--Second Counselor).

At church, Whitney is still organizing musical numbers every week and Jacob is teaching the twelve and thirteen year olds. We both think it's fun to be able to see Whitney's parents each week--even though they've been so sick lately. We're enjoying Ohio and doing our best to make it through our hectic lives without too many bumps. We're still breathing!

Good Bye Holidays, Hello 2008!

We obviously aren't very good at this blogging thing, so we'll see if we can do better. But, since we don't have any kids or pets to post on, this really is just about us; in other words, not too exciting considering our lives are pretty uneventful at the moment.

For the holidays, we were lucky enough to go out to Arizona to visit with Jacob's family for the majority of the time and stay with Whitney's grandparents for a few days as well. As we packed, we filled four suitcases full. Gifts for others seemed to take up more room than what was originally planned. Anyway, we figured that on the way home we would just put an empty bag inside of another. Much to our surprise, we came home with more than we left with. Jacob's brother, Ammon, and his wife, Penny, had us for the gift exchange. They gave us their Game Cube and PS2, along with games, controllers, and a DDR dance pad. When we opened it, Whitney said to Ammon that he really didn't want Jacob to actually get through graduate school. Nobody really thought it was a very funny comment...Anyway, these large, heavy gifts were joined by two air mattresses for camping (to go along with the 3 room 8 man tent that Jacob's parents had shipped to our apartment), and lots of random little gifts. We had a great time with family, as well as thoroughly enjoying our time off work. We went to see Enchanted, and National Treasure 2 with Jacob's family, and took advantage of small town life in Thatcher, Arizona.

We flew back to Ohio and jumped right back into real life, again.

For the past week, we were babysitting for a friend from church. Jacob's schedule was pretty open which allowed him to play mom while the kid's parents were getting sun burned on their cruise around the Gulf of Mexico. Whitney enjoyed being able to watch Disney Channel on a regular basis, including catching up on the High School Musical Phenomenon (with a little prompting by Jacob). We hadn't seen either of the movies until this past week.

Jacob successfully finished his first semester as a grad student, leaving only 5 more to go! (Or 2 full years, whichever takes longer of course!) He is still working as a shoe salesman at JC Penney, albeit the end to the holidays took a toll on his hours. We just look at it as a chance for Jacob to really focus on his school work...we hope.

Whitney finally finished her senior thesis, which leaves only two online classes for her to finish before being able to graduate--finally! She plans on graduating in April, then only to get on with her life. She is still working full time at Kids Academy of Copley, potty training and fighting with kicking and screaming two year olds.

So Jacob didn't have to work today, but Whitney did. Since there were so few kids, Whitney got to leave a little more than an hour early. Yea for holidays! With his free time, Jacob cleaned up around the house, including finally putting the rest of the Christmas decorations away. After a little evening shopping, Jacob hung a new curtain in the bedroom and Whitney finished reading the Dan Brown novel, Deception Point.

And there you have it, the exciting lives of Jacob and Whitney Lauritzen for the last two months. Unbelievable excitement, we know! Wahoo!

A while ago, Whitney had made some signs ("I love you a bushel and a peck" and "Families are Forever") for our apartment, but we didn't have a way to hang them. Jacob used his new power drill (which Whitney gave him for Christmas) to make some holes to hang them with.

Now we just need someone to visit us!
(Hint Hint)

Marching to a New Beat

Yesterday we went to Gabriel Brothers in Akron to get some inexpensive stocking hangers, but as we walked in the door we saw something else that we had to have. Whitney and I both love just about anything to do with Mickey Mouse. There at the front of Gabe's was a Mickey Mouse toaster for $14.99! We already had a toaster, but not one that not only had Mickey on it, but also toasted the shape of Mickey onto the bread! Needless to say, we decided that the ability to have Mickey become a part of our breakfast was worth the small price.


When we got home later that night, we read the box more carefully. To our delight and glee we read that the toaster played the Mickey Mouse March when the toast popped up. This got Whitney excited (and me a little bit too). So, we hurried and plugged it in. We'd been trying to decorate our kitchen in Mickey things anyway, but now we had theme music!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!

Post Thanksgiving De-tox

"Shopping!" Jacob said this morning as he attempted to wake me up around 3:30 am so that we could get to JC Penney in time to get the free Mickey Mouse snow globe they were handing out. Kinda ridiculous to get up that early, but we are big fans of pretty much anything with Mickey Mouse on it. Plus, it was free and we like free stuff. (When Jacob went into work around 8 am at JC Penney, he found out that they had set a snow globe aside for all of the employees.)

So we started our day early and hit the big sales, but not looking for anything in particular. We hit JC Penney and Wal Mart, then headed to Bob Evans for breakfast. Then we went to Staples until Jacob had to go to work. While he helped the mad rush of shoppers buying shoes, I continued to shop. I went to JoAnn Fabrics and spent some time with my mom, then went to Target (where I was able to complete most of Jacob's Christmas shopping).

I finally got home around noon, and attempted to watch a movie while wrapping gifts, but I was quite tired. I decided to take a nap, but my phone kept ringing, so I really didn't get a good nap. Then, before I knew it, I had to go pick Jacob up from work. We made a couple of last minute stops, then headed home where we had leftover Thanksgiving for dinner and got out the Christmas decorations!

We started playing Christmas music and watched ELF while we put up the Christmas tree. Even though we aren't going to be in Ohio for Christmas (we are spending it in Thatcher, AZ with Jacob's family), we still wanted to put up all our decorations. Here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving, as well as our apartment "beginning to look a lot like Christmas!"

The place cards that Whitney and Melinda made.


The final table setting.

Dad carving the turkey.

Us before leaving around 4 am this morning.

The snow globe from JC Penney.

"O Tannenbaum"

The beginnings of the Lauritzen Family's Christmas Village.