Family … isn’t it about T.I.M.E

When I was in high school, and for about a year afterwards, all I did was play guitar in local bands and bum around with friends. Unfortunately, I have learned that there is more to life than all of that. However, my buddy Jack has found a way to mix adulthood with those beloved teen years. He is a student at the U of U and plays in a local band. His band, This Is My Escape, opened for Fall of Troy. It was a pretty good concert. It had your usual group of junkies and burnouts, but it was fun to get out and do something that didn’t involve O Chem, Physics, or Physiology. I was surprised because there were 5 bands on the bill, which is a lot of rocking for one night. This was compounded by the fact that one of the bands was a modern day Nirvana; I didn’t know it was possible to write 5 songs and only use 4 phrases. To top off the night, we enjoyed a delicious dinner at Betos. I am so glad that we had Thanksgiving break.

It's a hard knock life...

Here is a current update:

Life at our house consists of Jeff studying for school and the DAT, me planning lessons, and both of us working at the Branbury. Add in church and trying to stay on top of everything else in our lives and life becomes crazy. We were so sad when we realized that the time we'd gotten to spend together last weekend was the hour we went grocery shopping and the five hours we were in my classroom on Saturday (Jeff studied while I worked).

We are currently trying to catch our breath. Jeff has three tests this week in Physics, O-Chem, and PD Bio, and I just had parent/teacher conferences on Thursday. Between review sessions and report cards, we have been able to go out and throw the football around while we make up "original" plays. Let's just say this past week has consisted of very little sleep...

Looking at the kids in my class, who's biggest concerns consist of when lunch is and who is their new "best friend" for the day, makes me think of how much simplier life used to be. And I know that it will just continue to get more hectic. Kids come along (no I'm not pregnant) and life doubles in craziness.

But looking at my kids, I just think back to one of my favorite childhood stories, Peter Pan. I always hated how Peter Pan never stayed with Wendy, but you can't blame him. Who doesn't want to just have adventures all the time and be completey carefree. Sure he had to watch out for Captain Hook, but he never seemed too concerned about him either. Bascially, what I am trying to say is what would life by like if we lived as Peter Pan? What would it be like in a world where no one ever grew up?

I don't really want to find out because I love being grown up and all that comes from it (i.e., intellectual/spiritual growth, being married, making your own decisions, being completely independent, etc.), but there is just always so much to do.

Jeff and I are just grateful for the situation that we've been blessed with, which makes our lives so comfortable. But we are both really, really looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas break! YAY!

Shoulda Known Better

We went to a concert with Jack earlier this month, and it was just so amazing that we had to make time to blog about it. I am sure most of you have heard of Unwritten Law and may think they're pretty good, but you have no idea. We watched a free "after party" performance at a club in Salt Lake and found the singer to be incredibly entertaining. It was so fun to watch his interesting, statuesque (I'm not trying to use big words but this really is the only word that can describe them) dance moves...kinda weird, but way cool at the same time. Jeff bought a CD the next week, and we've been listening to it in the car nonstop since the show. The music just makes you want to dance (even Jeff, who hates to dance, thinks so).

So if you see two unbelieveably good looking people car dancing in a red Toyota Corolla driving around Provo...that's us...listening to the one and only Unwritten Law.

Please Help the Poor, Invalid Boy!!!

This is a message for all of those people that have been scratching their heads and pondering, "What can I do to help Jeff and Whitney?" The following post answers just that question.

Okay, so here is our current predicament:

Jeff, who just five days ago suffered a major concussion (among various other traumatic injuries), took a make-up exam today, and although he was shooting for the stars, he missed. Because his grade was not so great, he needs your help. His professor is letting friends take a survey that will help him earn extra credit points. Please "Save Jeff" and take the following survey:

http://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_dajj8KTsyR26dDe&SVID=Prod

At the end of the survey, click on the "click here" link and it will ask you to put in the name of the person you are taking the survey for. Just type in "Jeffrey Youngberg" and you're done! It is sooo easy and you Save Jeff!

Now being serious, it would really help if people would take this survey.

Thanks everyone!

(When finished just let us know you've taken it by posting a comment.)

We may not have it all together...

Okay, okay...so I admit we are failures when it comes to blogging. I had hoped that my husband would help strengthen this horrible weakness that I have, but unfortunately, he is a blogging failure too. I have this great ability to forget and let things go that I feel are a last priority, and sadly blogging always ends up being dead last and, consequently, completely ignored. However, Jeffy loves the idea of a blog, so I am attempting to make up for the lack of bloggage on our part and have a somewhat up-to-date blog. I do think blogs help keep everyone in the loop, but my question is - when do you people blog? When? I can't sleep, and here I am blogging.

The following is our life in a nutshell:

June 7th - Jeff and I were married.

June 8th - Our Honeymoon began.

We went on an amazing Western Caribbean cruise to the Cayman Islands, Cozumel (Mexico), Belize, and Roatan Island (Honduras). The food was great. Jeff enjoyed it a little too much, which was flaunted with his eight pound weight gain. Yes...skinny Jeff left married and studly and came back to the states with a belly. But in his defense, it was lost within a week of getting back. I guess all-you-can-eat 24 hour buffets are too tempting for Jeffrey.

In the Cayman Islands, we went snorkeling and walked around. It was our least favorite place because it was too commercial.

In Mexico, we went the Mayan ruins. They were amazing. It did rain while we were there, but it just made it even more fun!

In Belize, we talked with the locals, took a taxi around town, and went to a private beach. This stop was a favorite because we were able to interact with the people so much and learn about their culture.

Roatan Island was our favorite. It was very exotic and remote. Not commercial at all. We played with monkeys, birds, explored technologically advanced pirate caves containing swamp coolers, and played on the beaches.

There was one crazy monkey in Roatan. It has so crazy and evil that it had to be chained to a tree to protect all the tourists. Watch at your own risk and behold the monkey, Kill!

Jeff being a crazy...

The "pirate caves"

When we got home from the honeymoon, we returned to bills, school, and work. We also had a little disaster at the end of June (just to make life interesting). Our bedroom flooded, but it is a long story so...we won't go into details. It was so fun though to rip apart all of our well organized rooms that had taken weeks to get our things exactly in the places we wanted them. So fun! Our living room looked like a disaster area. We had planned on going camping that weekend, but sleeping on our coaches was probably the next best thing. When it was all happening, all that Jeff could do was laugh, which is so Jeff. But his reaction just made everything so much more fun and hilarious! That Jeffrey...

We got our apartment back into order by the beginning of the next week, so it all worked out pretty well.

We were also VERY excited to get our porch light fixed!

Another major event occurred in July - the release of the second Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Since Jeff is the biggest Batman fan I've ever known (proven by the fact he had Batman sheets until we got married), he waited for the monumental event since well...forever. As we were waiting for its release, we prepped ourselves for the movie by buying Batman Begins and watching it over and over again. We also were so excited to find out that Domino's Pizza had a "Gotham Pizza." We bought it and found out that whoever thought of the pizza was a genius!

Read the pizza box and find out for yourself...

I mean, have you ever see such a cleverly designed pizza box? And the chain hanging in the background is Jeff's countdown to The Dark Knight's midnight showing. What a goob...
Needless to say, Jeff loved the movie (I did too), and we've already watched it three times since it's release date.

The rest of July was filled with me working at Baskin Robbins, hiking, biking, and rock climbing.
Jeff was excited to climb his first three pitch climb.

However, the most important event that took place in July was my birthday. Since it fell on a Sunday this year, I informed Jeff that I guessed we'd just have to celebrate my birthday the day before. Jeff made fun of the idea (I guess he's never been informed of the birthday celebration rules), but he went along with the whole thing. When I got off work, Jeff took me to Outback Steakhouse, and we treated ourselves to a nice big beefy dinner. We then planned on going to the driving range, going to get dessert, and going to a dollar movie. However, we had a pleasant change of plans when my brother called and wanted to go rock climbing instead! We climbed for a little while, but our plans were ruined when it started raining cats and dogs. We ran for it as we got completely soaked. By the time we got changed and hung up all the rock climbing gear, we were so tired we just went to bed. But running in the rain is always super fun, so our plans weren't ruined I guess, just changed. We decided that we would just go buy dessert on Monday night, so my birthday celebration turned into a three day extravaganza. I think this should be a new birthday tradition. I mean think about it...three days of celebrating?! It would make birthdays unforgettable. Birthdays are usually pretty good, but if they were three days long, then they would be one of the best times of the year! On Sunday, my real birthday, we went to church, and then we went to Evan and Bridget's (my brother and his wife) to have a cook out with Natalie and Mikey (my sister and her husband) and their two kids (Avery and Aidan). We had hamburgers and my favorite southern dessert, Hot Milk Cake with fresh strawberries and whipping cream. Avery surprised me with a wonderful birthday card that she worked very hard on.

Jeff also surprised me with his gift earlier in the day. He came out in his chemistry goggles, with a tower of snicker doodles (my favorite cookie) that had a candle in it. My gift was wrapped with love in an entire roll of toliet paper. Can it get any better than that? Yes, it can and it did. When I opened my gift, I was so excited to get a nice, new backpacking tent. It only weighs three pounds! So crazy! Here is a picture:

To finish the month, I stopped working at Baskin Robbins and began trying to set up my classroom.

We started the month of August with an unexpected accident - Jeff fell rocking climbing. We won't go into details, but his friend was able to save his life. Jeff had already fallen 30 feet, and his friend was able to catch the rope with one hand and prevent Jeff from falling another 40 feet. The doctors were baffled that he had such "minor" injuries. He stayed in the hospital for about three days, and he is now recovering very quickly. He left with a broken arm, 80 stitches in his forehead leaving a very nice Harry Potter scar, stitches in his nostril, a tear in his lung, a bruised and collapsed lung, and a lot of scrapes and bruises. Jeff's accident was reported both on KSL news and Fox 13 news; although, all the information reported was incorrect. Apparently, these news networks don't value credible sources and have no issues with completely making up their news reports.

(Thanks to Travis, Jeff's brother, who kindly took pictures while in the ER. Brothers are perfect for documenting disgusting experiences to remember later.)

We had lots of visitors while he was in the hospital and received so much help from friends and family. One of our favorite experiences was receiving a get well card from our niece, Avery.

Life has been full of crazy things since our marriage, but we are so glad to be alive and together.