Being Married...

Well.  I'm married.  See?

It's been a few months.  I like her.  I think I'll keep her.

After the wedding we lived in Elizabeth's old apartment, which wasn't that nice a place, but it was a lot bigger than mine, and she kind of hated my landlord for his somewhat less than benign neglect of the place.  We weren't in her place for too long though.

We were very eager to stay in the ward where we met, and looked for a new place within our budget that would keep us there.  The pickings were very slim, and for the most part they were really awful places.  The Bishop had told us that if we could stay within the a block or two from the boundaries he'd be ok with us staying.

So we were very excited when we found our place down in the canyon before Memory Grove Park.  It's an old hodgepodge of buildings and houses that are managed by the same company, and the neighborhood was amazingly beautiful.  We couldn't believe our luck.

We actually went to look at another apartment in the complex, which was very beautiful, with lots of tile work and a sky light over the kitchen.  The only problem was that it was roughly the size of a shoe box.  We considered it for a night, but decided that it was just too small.  But when I called the manager to tell him that we couldn't do it he said that a bigger unit in the main fourplex had opened up that day.  We went and looked at it with him and he had our deposit that afternoon.

We like our place, but it has the usual old apartment complaints.  Sometimes cantankerous plumbing.  A bathroom so small that had we both tried to stand in it at the same time before the wedding we might not have made it to the temple.  There aren't nearly enough electrical outlets, and some of them don't work.

But it's got some really neat casement windows, a cool little home office stuffed into the space under the stairs up to the neighbor's above us.  There's some neat tiling in the kitchen and the bathroom.  And it's really beautiful outside, with a big flowering tree.  This was a shot from out front door this spring.

We had one sad surprise though, moving into the new place.  When we went to the Bishop and confessed that we had rented an apartment outside the boundaries he hemmed and hawed a little and then said we'd have to go to the Canyon Rd ward.  So, despite all our efforts we still got the boot.  Funnily enough, as we left his office we both realized we were OK with it.  So it goes.

Now Elizabeth is going to talk.

Hello, y'all - Elizabeth here. Mah-wage. Man, what a fascinating, complex, challenging, exciting, surprising, rewarding transition! It seems kind of similar to the immense transition of entering the mission field, in that nothing can completely prepare you, really, since the ride is different for everyone; but obedience to the gospel, love and kindness for your companion, and a willingness to follow the Spirit and adjust plans as necessary have been kept us centered and focused on growing together - what a relief.

I'm not sure what to say, really - it feels weird popping in on someone else's blog (not that I have my own...perhaps that should change...). Well, one thing I do want to say is Thank You to all of the Jones family, for your help in making our Logan reception happen. I was keeping my cool, but it was all fairly overwhelming, especially since my groom needed last minute hemming on his pants so I was fielding hugs and hellos from happy friends and family I had never met. I hope everybody had a good time, at the Bluebird and in Salt Lake City. Thanks for being kind to my brother, Louis, and my sister, Paula. I was sad that my two oldest sisters weren't able to make it.

Mike did meet all of Louis's family, my oldest sister, Jonna, and her family, and my foster brother, Jon, and his whole family when we visited Georgia in May. That was a lot of fun, plus we went to Savannah, GA for 2 days and got sunburns at played in the ocean at Tybee Island, and took our time walking around the city.

 I look forward to visiting the South together again sometime! I asked Mike for suggestions on what else I should talk about and he is only providing silly and/or dumb suggestions, so I'll just call this good.