Merry Christmas!

The little Dorn family wishes you all a very merry Christmas from Chelseas new BlackBerry!

Somehere beneath the glitter, that comes this time of winter...

Last friday, even though I was feeling pretty 'under the weather' (I work with kids so I get a cold anytime the weather changes), we decided to go see Glendale Glitters for date night. We ate at the Pizza Roma restaurant (SUPER GOOD, kind of greasy), walked around in the crowd for awhile, bought a chocolate caramel apple (San Francisco Chocolate Company, I love you),

watched part of the Sun City Poms performance (Senior year assembly anyone?), walked around some more, bought wooden roses, met up with Steven's parents, walked around with them a little, then walked through the less populated are of downtown glendale to take random pictures, went home, and finished off with watching Get Smart at home! Besides feeling pretty icky, I thoroughly enjoyed it!!

It's Beginning to Look alot like Christmas!

Well, we sent out Christmas Cards this last week. We mostly sent them to out of state people and family members. Don't be offended if you didn't get one. I got them ready while Steven memorized his last speech. Here's what they looked like and what the message said:'Twas the month of finals, and all through the Dorn house,

Not a sound was heard, not even a spouse.

The office was covered by paper without care,

In hopes that graduation soon would be there.

The presents were nestled all snug under the tree,

While ideas of "Our First Christmas" brought extra glee!

And Steve wearing black, and Chelsea in silver,

Posed by their tree, in order to deliver...

Their very first Christmas Cards!

Then there was a reference to our blog...and we hand signed all of them. (what a pain)

Well taking pictures of yourself is no easy feat. We were trying to figure out settings and timings between two cameras. One of them turned out like this:

Pretty cool huh?

Consider yourself virtually Christmas card-ed!

Picnics...

Last week Steven's new printer that he got for free with buying his laptop came. However, his laptop isn't here yet (don't mention it to him-it's a sensitive subject). ANYWAYS..the point of the story: He opened up the printer on our kitchen table and there were papers and packaging all over. So, we ended up having a picnic by Christmas lights for dinner.

The menu: Chicken nugget wraps, salsa and chips, juice or eggnog

All in all, a good night after a long day at work:)

Decorating the tree...

We spent last Friday night decorating our tree. We inherited my paren'ts old artificial 7.5 feet tree because they decided to get a 12 foot last year. Well it was all fun and games until we ran out of lights. I guess my family does lights weird because it ended up taking 10 boxes of lights. We had a top heavy tree topper that I was ready to give up on. But, my amazing intelligent husband figured out what to do and fixed it. I can't even tell you what he did because I just watched in amazement. Maybe I'll get him to post his secret.

He really is Mr. Incredible...(I bought him that shirt) But he was aggravated about me taking pictures...haha

Here are some things you don't know about our tree:

-On the level K section, we were short one branch...well we looked but couldn't find it in any of the other bunches. So, we decided it was in the back towards the wall and no one would know there's a hole back there.

-On level H we found the missing letter K branch...but by the time we realized, it already was entangled with lights..so there's a branch that is a little longer than necessary...

-There's a thousand lights on it.

-We spent less than $50 total on everything: lights, tree, ornaments, topper, etc.

-I still haven't taken pictures of the finished product because I wanted to have a tree skirt first...so I bought that yesterday and will take pictures soon.
-My mother in-law is really excited to see our tree.
-We have one mismatched ornament. It's our Hallmark Ornament that Steven's family bought for us last year. It has one of our engagement pictures in the frame and plays a song.
-The tree with the star on top is less than an inch from our ceiling.

Thanksgiving!

Due to the fact that I am always behind on this thing, I am going to start with recent posts and as I have time, fill in all the time I missed.

Our Thanksgiving was awesome! We woke up early to an argument going on outside our window. This was a little scary because all the other townhouses in our section are vacant except ours. We couldn't understand what the man and woman were fighting about because there was so much vulgar language. By the time Steven got the phone book to call the non-emergency police, there came a huge thing of thunder and the rain started up again. The couple relocated to a different area under a tree but we could still partially hear them. So, even though it was four and we were awake, we decided we deserved a little longer sleeping time.

When we woke up, Steven made breakfast and we got to work on our 'assignment' for dinner. Our assignment was only a vegetable tray. I thought that was boring, so I decided to make life difficult and make turkey cupcakes. They took a lot of effort but only one last minute trip to Fry's and they were cute :)

What it was supposed to look like and the actual product: Pretty close right?
He's super cute...and I'm not talking about the turkey!
Pretty bomb right? Too bad some of their heads fell off on the way to dinner...
Well our first stop was at Steven's Aunt Deborah's house. We got there and realized we beat Steven's parents. That never happens-usually we're the late ones. Slowly but surely, everyone showed up. We had Steven's 3 aunts and between them all their 5 kids plus one girlfriend. So all together there was 16 of us-plus two dogs. Dad Dorn made salsa and it was amazing as always. Steven's aunts spoiled him and brought him cranberries (he's the only one in the family who likes them). The mashed potatoes had a hard time because the butter soaked in all weird and they were almost liquid. We stayed and ate and filled out our Christmas list. The way things work with his family is that all the grandkids write out their Christmas list and then all the adults get together and decide who is going to buy what. It's pretty nice. Then they all separate out the ads for Black Friday. While the adults were starting to divey out the Christmas shopping, we passed out turkey cupcakes (which no one wanted to eat because they were too cute) and headed out.

Next stop- my parents. Of course they said dinner was at four and it was actually almost five by the time we got there. But, it was still good and worth the wait. I missed Talia a lot. It didn't feel complete and I kept waiting for her to walk in the door.

After dinner, we all sat around for awhile and I tried to help mom clean up. We played dance-dance revolution and Wii for awhile. Then, we convinced Jaden he wanted to come spend the night with us at Wal-Mart to get Steven's lap top.

Well, we had to stop at Steven's parents house to grab something. In the process, he turned it into a four hour event trying to figure out what lap top he wanted. In the end, he found a better one online for the same price. So, Greg, my brother in law, decided he still wanted to go out Black Friday shopping. Steven wanted to go to 'witness the mayhem'. Obviously neither of the two had ever done it before. I rolled my eyes and said ok boys...

By the time we got back to our house, filled up the air matress for Jaden and were sleeping it was about one. Wouldn't have been too bad except we woke up at 4:15 to Greg calling to make sure i was awake. If you've ever been black friday shopping, i don't have to elaborate: chaos, anxiety, angry, crazy, early. We went to five stores and made it back to take a nap by nine haha!

All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed our first married thanksgiving! We're looking forward to decades more!

8 things :)

8 TV Shows I Love to Watch *We don't regularly watch TV but here's a few favorites*
1. Oprah Winfrey's Big Give
2. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
3. Saved by the Bell
4. Fresh Prince of Bell Air
5. Full House
6. CSI-The original stuff
7. Boy Meets World
8. Cops (Steven watches this at lunch at work)

8 Things that Happened Today
1. I woke up EARLY!
2. I wore tie dye, a face tattoo, and flip flops to work (Professional Development Day)
3. We went grocery shopping.
4. I dropped half of dinner on the floor.
5. We worked on homework.
6. We took a study break and danced to "When Did You Fall" by Chris Rice
7. I worked on our shutterfly 2008 album and Steven approved!
8. I got 5th place for my teacher made enrichment judged by a regional advisor :)

8 Favorite Places to Eat
1. Fazoli's (too bad there's no more in AZ)
2. Bajio (we located one in AZ!)
3. CARAMBAS (an old family fave)
4. Chipotle-Steven's favorite
5. Applebee's
6. Arby's
7. Subway
8. Home- eating Freschetta's Naturally Rising 3 cheese pizza straight from our oven :)

8 Things I'm Looking Forward
1. GRADUATION!
2. Our one year anniversary!
3. Starting our family!
4. Buying a cute SUV (Chelsea)
5. Having His & Hers Mazda RX-8's (Our Retirement Cars)
6. Buying our own house
7. Getting our Halloween costumes in the mail!
8. Going to the temple again soon!

8 Things on My Wish List
1. College Diplomas
2. Our own babies!
3. Shoes (a permanent part of Chelsea's wish list)
4. Right Hand Heart Ring (Chelsea)
5. Having a gun (Steven)
6. Good grades for this semester!
7. Successful activities for our callings!
8. A goodnight's rest!

8 People I Tag (If you've never been tagged before you just use the headings and answer them for yourself in a new posting)
1. Bekah & Pete
2. Katelyn & Colton
3. Molly & Mike
4. Paige
5. T & Jackie
6. Caitlin & Greg
7. Alan & Ellen
8. Kal & Ashley

Fall :)

Since my allergies have passed I can now post about how much I love this weather!! Yahoo puts us at a current 61 degrees with a high of 85 today. There was a gentle breeze and the feeling was great!! One of the things I miss the most about SUU and Cedar City (besides the people) are the leaves! I would kill to walk through my favorite pathway on campus and drive up the canyon with Jenni! No doubt we would get lost and take a ridiculous amount of pictures, but the fall experience would be complete!! Maybe Steven and I will road trip up to northern AZ so he can experience the beauty of fall leaves and changing seasons!

This picture is from Oct 2, 2006- Jenni and I escpaed homework from a day and hiked up the canyon. We found this beautiful waterfall in the process!

This picture was taken Oct. 10, 2007 on an escape up the canyon. This time I was with Elijah and I wanted to share with him what a beautiful place we lived in!

God Bless Cedar City!

Random Thoughts on a Thursday Night.

Wow it's been awhile. I want to post more, but something else is always priority. I was planning on posting pictures of the past few events, but my computer is being mighty difficult tonight. I've decided to update on the major aspects of our life piece by piece.

First is school. Steven's schooling is doing considerably better. He understands his new concepts in physics and they finally got a tutor. However, the only times the tutor is available, Steven is at work. That class is very time consuming. I wish I could help, but mostly I just pray. He's working on a new speech this week. It's about sleep disorders. For FHE we decided to do the research for the speech. This weekend will be the practicing weekend. It's going to be worse than the last one because he has to remember the quotes exactly.
As far as school for me goes...I wish it was over. My two online classes are ok. It's definitely not the same as in-person normal classes. Oh how I miss SUU. My psychology class is do-able. It's a lot of reading, but not boring so I handle it. My other class is a joke. The teacher never clarifies anything and never emails back so I'm frustrated. I just barely figured out how things work in the class...because a student clarified for me on the discussion board. On a brighter note, I should be able to start at Ottawa in a few weeks. I'm getting super tired of paper work though. I just keep reminding myself that I can be graduated by next December. That's manageable.

Next work- Steven's job is same old same old. It's working out better this week for him to do half day at school and half day at work M,W,F. I know it's tough having to finish class, rush to eat and change and then head to work-he's a trooper!
Now my job. I've learned one important thing this week: At least I have a job and my hours aren't being cut like so many other's in the area. Ok now that that's over I'm going to complain for a minute. I almost quit my job this week. I've been working long long hours and having lots of kids. That's the ok part. The not ok part is my coworker. She seems to think she knows everything. So, she bosses me around-even though Iknow what I'm doing....just as much as she does. She also thinks that her kids are perfect so all kids should be raised like her kids...Now she was a mom at 16 and her kids principal often calls so I'm doubting that part. She also doesn't do anything. Today, in four hours-she changed a total of...guess how many? TWO diapers! In three hours of that time guess how many I did? About 25-30. So it's a real fair thing. She wants to be in a different room so she's "acting like a B until they realize what she wants" thats what she said at least. I got so frustrated today, I went in to the office at lunch and was in tears talking to my boss. But very long story short, my boss is reasonable most of the time and she's going to handle it. If she doesn't then I feel like I have good reasons to quit. I've been looking for a job more closely related to my future degree or an internship so hopefully we'll see. I've learned a lot of life lessons at my job but I can tell it's getting close for a need to change.

Lastly, Church. Steven is getting the hang of his 11-year old scouting. I'll post pictures of our training weekend whenever I can. He gets frustrated with some of the boys, but he just got an awesome assistant scoutmaster and some plans set so he'll manage.
I LOVE My Calling! My beehives are awesome. I am continually impressed by them *for the most part*. They want to be at church and mutual and anything else, and they want their friends to be there too. They are working on personal progress *mostly* and they shine more and more every day. By the end of the year we will get 4 more girls and they are already planning ways to welcome them. You can't get better than that. Church is awesome-we are excited for CONFERENCE!!

When someone asks me how life is going I usually say: School, Work, Church, Repeat. It's about accurate. We try to spend as much time together as possible, but it is very limited. We ALWAYS eat dinner together and we always go on a Friday night date (well sometimes it gets moved to Friday & Saturday nights). It's tough being a young, newly married couple in a family ward and going to school. Especially tough when almost all the other couples we know are expecting an addition to their family :) We're looking forward to graduation and starting our own family, but everything in good time!

PS Our mailbox has been stuck lately, so we're having trouble getting it open every night. Don't be worried if we don't respond to fan mail in our normally timely manner ;)

Diamondbacks Game!

Pictures from the Dbacks game we enjoyed!

Dakota, Mom & Jaden

Me & Dakota

Me & Jaden enjoying cotton candy!

The stadium was open and so were the doors!! This picture is mostly for those of you who read our blog, but have never been inside the Chase Ball Park!

Little Philmont

So I just realized that the pictures weren't working because the link came up in another window and I missed it.

At the training weekend we went to. I sewed all those patches on his uniform. It was a pain, but now I want him to earn other things so that he can have more nifty patches.

This our 'out in the woods picture' Steven's in his full uniform-including socks. I'm wearing my BSA shirt that I bought to seem supportive...and flip flops.

So I pack up everything needed in our backpack. Then I switch to help Steven roll up sleeping bags. I go to grab the bag and see this giant spider on it. I don't know where it came from, but I took pictures and it got relocated outside. It was bigger than my hand.

All in all, we had a good trip. Steven learned a lot. I went to most of his classes with him. For a few hours, I played with our Bishopric member's 2 year old daughter. We ran all over and hit grasshoppers with sticks. We 'roomed' with Bishop and his wife, and Tim & Jessica Hedgecock. It was fun combining bottom bunkbeds to sleep in. Haha we should have taken pictures of that!! Steven & Tim ended up in the cracks. Jessica and I decided it was their own fault because they didn't snuggle with us.

We enjoyed the time driving together and the cool weather was a nice change. We left in a hurry because a storm was moving in and we didn't want the car to get stuck in the dirt road leading out of the camp. Maybe he'll still be in the calling next time Little Philmont rolls around too!

Positive Points

Seeing as how my last post was a bit negative, I've decided to point out a few positive things of our life. First, Friday night was date night. It was my turn to plan and guess what we did? We had a picnic on the roof of my parents patio-complete with matching outfits. Let me just say we looked very old fashioned having a picnic, me wearing a dress and heels and him in a nice collared shirt w/ slacks. If we weren't on the roof it could have been a scene from the 1950's. Here's a few pictures:

Don't mind the chubby cheeks-we were leaning back to make sure we got in on the auto-timer.

The blanket happened to be the same color as the roof.Positive Thing #2: I just found my favorite chapstick in the pocket of the jacket I'm wearing. I didn't even know it was lost, but I'm glad I found it :) Long live Burt's Bees.

Positive Thing #3: Steven gives his first public speaking speech tomorrow. He's memorizing it right now and then we'll be free from it! No more midnight memorizing parties for awhile.

Positive Thing #4: We had our nightly run to the mailbox and we got an IKEA ad or catalog. This isn't just positive because we got it, but because it brought up the conversation about the stuff I bought from IKEA and so far Steven likes all of it that we've assembled :)

Positive Thing #5: My sunburns *tubing down the Salt River on Labor Day fried me* are getting much better. The tops of my thighs are completely peeled. The right one has a little alligator-looking skin, but it doesn't hurt to touch any more and it's not bright red either.Also, the bottom of my legs started peeling because I shaved them. They're really scaley, but they don't itch so bad any more and the skin is almost renewed!! PS Steven's feet are in the background because he was reciting his speech to me while I was taking pictures.

Steven's sunburn on his chest is awesome. The part that is not burned is in the shape of a crest. So basically, it looks like he has the superman crest on his chest. Tonight I outlined it and wrote an 'S' in it, but he washed it off and wouldn't let me take a picture.

Positive Thing #6: Steven finished his physics test tonight. Usually, he just gets frustrated and hopes that the teacher doesn't grade the problems he can't figure out and leaves them blank. Tonight, he tried working through every problem. I'm proud of him! I know it's hard for him because he skipped Physics 101 and went straight to 111. Good job honey!

Positive Thing #7: Tonight, I went to a D-backs baseball game with my brothers and my mom. My brother got tickets at his field trip today so we went. There were lots of positives to this. First, the D-backs won 2-0. Second, I didn't have to make dinner-mom bought me & Steven Subway. Third, I had some good mom-bonding time. Fourth, the weather was perfect...about 90 degrees, the roof and windows at the stadium were open and there was a nice breeze. I'll post pictures later because the camera died at the game.

Positive Thing #8: My mom highlighted my hair on Sunday and Steven actually likes it. It's not too drastic so I like it too.

Positive Thing #9: I don't have to be in charge of a mutual activity for my Beehives until October. The Stake is doing a combined one tomorrow and the young men are planning a combined one the next week.

POSITIVE THING #10: STEVEN FOUND OUT TONIGHT THAT OUR STAKE HAS A 'LITTLE PHILMONT' TRAINING FOR SCOUT LEADERS. IT'S AT THE CAMP LOMIA (WHERE THE GIRLS GO TO GIRLS CAMP DURING SUMMER). HOWEVER, IT'S NEXT WEEKEND AND SPOUSES ARE INVITED TO ATTEND. SO, WE'RE TAKING THE DAY OFF EARLY AND SPENDING NEXT FRIDAY AND SATURDAY UP IN BEAUTIFUL PINE. BASICALLY, WE HAVE AN EXCUSE TO GO ON OUR MINI-ROAD TRIP WE'VE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT FOR MONTHS. WE'RE MORE THAN EXCITED!!

We love school?!

It's after 12 AM and we're working on homework. I just finished mine for this last week at 11:55. All mine has to be done by midnight every Sunday. Steven's physics class is killing him. He usually ends up reading the chapter 2 times and going back over certain things even more. He applied or whatever you do for a tutor, but there's no one available for a physics tutor. Tonight, we told mom Dorn about our 'plan' for life in the next five years. It seems far away to graduate NEXT December. And for Steven to graduate TWO YEARS after that. Too bad we didn't plan things better last year at this time. Maybe we'd be a little closer to our family getting a little bigger. But for now, we just have to enjoy our late night study parties and keep reminding ourselves that we can do this, we can finish, it's just going to take some time (and maybe some Dr. Pepper)!

Our First Blog/ Update on Life!

So we're hooked. Everyone else is blogging so we jumped on the bandwagon. However, everyone else is having a baby too and we're not jumping on that bandwagon anytime soon. We're buying a fish!

8 months of marriage have gone by. It's been lots of hard work but tons of fun! We're living in Phoenix, AZ right now. Working, going to school, and busy out of our minds.

Steven is in his last semester at GCC finishing some loose end credits. He'll start his aviation program at Chandler-Gilbert CC in Spring and then off to University of North Dakota we go. I'm doing 2 online classes at GCC right now and will start my major courses at Ottawa University next month. I should be graduating from Ottawa December 2009 in Human Resources. Steven is currently serving as the 11 year old boy primary teacher and the Assistant Scoutmaster. However, he's an assistant to no one so he may be the head honcho soon. I'm serving as the Young Women 2nd Counselor (over the beehives). I love my girls, but man it's a lot of work! Other than that, we just work and try to spend time with both sides of the family. We enjoy having study parties, making dinner together, watching movies, snuggling (he'll probably edit that part out), going to the temple and getting the mail together. Mostly, we're doing great, learning lots, and havin fun!