December 2011

The fall semester ended on Saturday, December 10, but it wasn't vacation time yet.  I was enrolled to take Human Physiology during the winter intersession, and the first day of class was Monday, December 12, so it was right back to school for me when the weekend was over!  The class was rewarding, and I learned a lot, but it was challenging in a number of ways:

1. Class was 3 hours long and was straight lecture except for a 5 minute break halfway through.  Without fail, I dozed off at some point every class.  (I started buying energy drinks to stay awake, which only served to make me jittery and STILL end up falling asleep.)
2. Class was held every day Monday through Saturday.  Sleeping in was never an option for 8:30 class everyday and 9:00 church on Sunday, but at least it was only for two weeks, so it went by fairly quickly.
3. We went through a lot of material FAST.  Each day was basically a week's worth of material during a normal semester.  That also meant an exam every 3 days.  Thankfully, though, the exams weren't cumulative, so we were only tested on stuff from the previous few lectures.  I think this helped me retain information more easily because instead of having to relearn things taught to us weeks before like a normal semester, the material was still pretty fresh in our minds.

As far as Christmas decorations go, we didn't have much, but we were still able to fit some Christmas cheer into our apartment thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law Narayne!  As I mentioned in the last post, she gave us a pre-Christmas package when we were at her place for Thanksgiving.  She gave us the Charlie Brown tree, a tree skirt, a couple ornaments, a serving tray, and a snowman pillow (because Michael loves snowmen, so I'm led to believe).

 Our Charlie Brown tree, before and after ornaments!  It brightened up our home.  I have a couple of Raising  Cane's ornaments, a snowman that says "Merry Christmas," a fancy red one with an "R" on it, and Miss Piggy with her Kermit!  (That was a gift to me a few years ago from...my mom? My aunt? Can't remember...but yeah, I so loved Miss Piggy as a kid.)

...I think we may need a bigger tree for the tree skirt, though.  :)  Maybe next year we'll get a big one!

I ended up finding a way to use our tree skirt, though.  :)

(Most of the shoes/clothes on the right were about to go to Goodwill. Merry Christmas, Goodwill-ers!)

 That's a serving tray propped up at the end of the counter that says "Season's Greetings."  I didn't get to serve anything on it, but I think next year I want to make good use of it with plenty of holiday baking.

Once class was done on December 23 (though for some reason the final exam was after New Year's), we went to Houston to enjoy the holidays with my Egan family.  We were all there (except for Nick, who was still on his mission...he missed us by 2 weeks!) We hadn't seen Emily, Jeff, and their daughter Evangeline I think since Mike & I got married months before, so it was really great to get to hang out with them.  It was an awesome week & a half full of singing, cooking delicious things, watching movies, swimming in my parents' pool, playing Zelda...there was never a dull moment, especially with two cute cute nieces running around!  Maybe every aunt thinks their nieces are the best/cutest/more adorable/prettiest nieces in the world, but I really DO have the best nieces in the world.  ;)  My favorite memories from the trip were when we had out fun family tradition where, before bed, we light candles and each open a present each night for a few nights before Christmas, and we sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus (in the most reverent way we can) and blow out the candles.  It's kind of silly, but it's something we've done as long as I can remember and I love it.  :)  I love my family SO much.

Jane took a family pic of us to celebrate the occasion.  What a talented "photographist." :)

My sisters Jane and Emily also keep blogs and posted about our little reunion.  They have TONS of pictures and go more into detail about the week, so definitely check those posts.

The Savages: Christmas 2011

The Huddlestons: Christmas 2011 Overview

Mike and I stayed for New Year's, and then it was back to Baton Rouge.  I took my final for my intersession and got back to working at Cane's, and Michael went back to working full-time at his video game testing job at EA.  It was only one week until Nick was coming home and two weeks until school started again...

November 2011

Home-made dumplings

Earlier in the year, one of my best friends in the world, Lin Lei, taught me how to make Chinese dumplings (饺子, "jiaozi" in Chinese; but the shape I made here would technically be called 包子, "baozi..." they're made the same, though).  They are very simple to make, and so delicious.  When I have extra time and the ingredients, I like to make these.  The wrapper is made of just flour and water to make a dough that you roll out into small circles.  The filling is a small amount of just raw, ground meat with minced vegetables and seasoning.  Closing the wrapper is a little tricky, but you wet your fingers with warm water and pinch the top to make it stick and stay closed.  You can either boil or steam them for a few minutes to cook the meat and the wrapper, and voila!  A beautiful, tasty treat.  Dip them in your favorite Asian sauce.

Thanksgiving in Logan, UT


After school got out for Thanksgiving Holiday, we flew to Utah to see Michael's momma Narayne.  This was the first time we saw her since we were married in June.

Louisiana on the left, Utah on the right.  It's really cool seeing the landscape change when you're in an airplane.  Whenever I'm on a plane, I get a small glimpse at really how big, vast, and varied the world is (or at least the United States).

Upon arriving at the Salt Lake City airport, Narayne was there waiting for us, and she drove us back to her house in Logan.  Her dog Jack (and the dog Mike's known since he was little) came along for the ride.  (He recently had surgery to treat his diabetic migraines, which meant taking out his eyeballs...but he was blind anyway, so to make him a happy dog, his eyes were taken out and his eyelids were sewn shut!  He's as cute as ever still.  He looks like a Chinese dachshund now.)  He was SO happy to have Michael around.  As soon as we got in the car, he could smell and hear Mike and got excited, all wagging his tail and sniffing around for Mike.  What a cute little fattie.

Here's Narayne making our Thanksgiving dinner.  She did ALL of the cooking for us, and the food was all so delicious.  We had dressing, cranberries, turkey (of course), pumpkin pie, and much more, I just can't remember it all (that's what I get for posting 8 months late).  Boy, we were STUFFED by the end of it.  Before dinner Narayne was eating some of the turkey liver, and I decided to try some...oh it was gross!!!  I guess liver is an acquired taste.  At least I left more for her!

Among the other things we did were explore the cute and cozy downtown area, shop at the local stores, meet Narayne's neighbors, listened to lots of Christmas music, and saw the Lee's Marketplace where Mike used to work.  Narayne also gave us a "pre-Christmas package," which included silly, fun trinkets like a small felt snowman pillow and some ornaments, and a beautiful Christmas tree skirt.  It's a deep red with a cursive gold "R" on it.  While we didn't have a tree, I imagined how lovely it would look in our future home.  She also gave us a Charlie Brown Christmas tree!  It's the perfect size for our little apartment, so we were going to have a Christmas Tree after all.  It's good to have such an great mother-in-law.  She has a very giving and hospitable personality.  We felt very well taken care of while we were there.

(This is a picture I found online.  I'll have a picture of OURS in our apartment in my December post.)

It's hard taking pictures on my phone since there's only a camera on one side...  This is the best shot I was able to get of us on our way to church, hahaha.

The snowy mountains were so beautiful.  I love getting to see them every now and again.  They just seem magical, since I'm used to the Louisiana swamp lands: tons of trees, little to no hills, and rarely ever any snow.

So then it was back to Louisiana, and school...  I was sad to leave Narayne's company and Utah's landscape, but at least the semester was winding up, and it being almost December meant it was almost time to see my family in Houston!  November and December are my favorite months of the year because I get to spend so much time with family.

Time to catch-up

Now that it's summer, and I have had plenty of free time, it's time for a blog update.  I don't even know where to begin, since a lot has happened and I've got a good 8 or 9 months of our lives to cover.  My plan is to do a blogpost a day to cover everything.  Now that life is slow, I feel like keeping the blog current is going to be an easy thing to do.

Basically, our summer has been spent mostly working.  We've had a couple of nice vacations visiting family, but otherwise our summer has been very lazy, chill, and relaxing.  Looking back, I could have been more productive, as in I had plenty of opportunities to update the blog/do crafts/read books/exercise/etc, but it just feels so good to lay in bed all day when you have no obligations!  It's almost like I know I won't be able to do nothing when the semester starts, or when I start having kids, so I'm enjoying it while it's here.  Now that I've had my fill of nothingness, I'm ready to get things done.  And so now, a blog!


Here is  list of the happenings in the Rougeau home by month.  Over the next week or so, I'll go more into detail on these things in about a post a day.


November 2011

• Natalie starts teaching a Sunday School class for chuch
• Thanksgiving with Narayne in Logan, UT

December 2011

• December 10 - Fall classes end
• December 12-23 - Winter Intersession class (Human Physiology) for Natalie
• Christmas and New Year's with my family in Houston

January 2012

• January 11 - Back to Houston to welcome Elder Nicholas Egan home from his mission to Phoenix, AZ
• January 17 - Spring classes start, Natalie starts working on her Dental Hygiene application to the LSU Dental School in New Orleans
• January 28 - Go to Houston (again) at the end of the month to see Jennifer play as Hedy LaRue in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying

February

• Natalie starts playing Skyrim...it kinda takes over her life

March

• Natalie submits her Dental Hygiene application and is invited to interview

April

• April 1 - totally prank Facebook on April Fool's Day by announcing Natalie's pregnant.  (people are STILL mad at us about it)
• April 2 - Interview for Natalie at the hygiene school
• April 7 - Crawfish with the Huddlestons in Pineville, LA

May

• May 7 - Spring classes end, Natalie's first "C" in college (darn Parasitology)
• Natalie receives a rejection letter from the Dental Hygiene Program
• Natalie becomes the Relief Society Visiting Teaching Coordinator for church

June 

• June 2-4 - see family in Houston for a few days, Natalie starts working on her Raising Cane's T-shirt quilt and pillows
• June 8 - Narayne comes to Baton Rouge, on June 9 we three drive to Lake Charles to see Grandma and Grandpa Mills
• June 10 - Our wedding anniversary
• June 16 - Blue Bayou with Narayne

July

• June 30-July 8 - 4th of July celebration in Bartlesville, OK, with every member of Natalie's family present for the first time in two years
• July 7 - Michael starts his new salaried job at Trendsic Coorporation
• Natalie is asked to become a manager at Raising Cane's
• July 13-23 - Steam Summer Sale!!  Michael buys a lot of much wanted PC video games for dirt cheap
• July 28 (this Saturday) - visit to Pineville to see the Huddlestons and welcome Elder Cory Huddleston home

So I realize it's been a while.

And this blog is CRYING OUT for a new post.

It's not that nothing has been going on.  A lot's been happening in our lives, so I definitely have things to report.  It's now just that I've come up with an hierarchy of things to do, a list that tells me what tasks are more important than others.

It is as follows:

1. School work & my job
2. Getting my Dental Hygiene Application finished early, but definitely by the mid-March deadline
3. Having my home clean(ish)
4. Finishing Thank You cards (I've been married almost 8 months!! They should be done already...)
5. Updating the blog

So there you have it!  Updating the blog is important, but not as important as those other things.  I've been trying to fill my free time with items 2-4.  Maybe one day when I find I have accomplished  good bit of the other priorities, I'll get on here and post about something from the past few months.

Until then, you can sometimes find snippets of my and Michael's life mentioned in the blog my sister Jane updates since we're both in Baton Rouge and do a good bit of hanging out!  My latest adventure was at the zoo with my precious niece Halle.  Jane blogged about it here (http://jacobandjane.blogspot.com/2012/01/zoo-day-with-natalie.html).

So sorry!  We'll be seeing y'all around.