rushley & crew

Last Friday, Russ and I went to the dollar theater. We saw The Odd Life of Timothy Green. We thoroughly enjoyed it. We also both bawled our eyes out. Yeah. It's one of those movies. :) We highly recommend it. We also started a Thanksgiving family tradition! We adopted it from Russ's family. In Russ's family, they have what they call Gordon the Gratitude Gobbler. They put him up at Thanksgiving time and then write things they're thankful for on feathers for Gordon. When Russ told me about it, I liked it a lot :) So our turkey has a different name and looks a little bit different than the Holmes family turkey, but it's the same basic idea :) Meet Tomothy the Thankful Turkey! **ashleynicole

Russ and I have officially been married for 5 months now :) It's crazy how the time passes, and even crazier how incredibly happy I am to be married to this wonderful man :) Here are a few things that I have learned about him in the past 5 months. He makes crazy noises when he stretches . . .  . . . but his noises always make me laugh. He has really bad morning breath . . . . . . but I'd still kiss him anytime. He likes to pop out and scare the heck out of me . . .  . . . but he always holds me close afterward. He steals all the covers . . . . . . but that just means I get to snuggle closer to him. He eats all the food in the fridge . . .  . . . but he also makes almost all the food in the fridge. He is really opinionated when it comes to politics . . .  . . . but I like to hear him get fired up about stuff. He likes to tickle me mercilessly . . .  . . . but it's actually kinda fun. He always distracts me when I'm trying to study .

I've always been super opinionated about elections, whether I was informed or not. And that wasn't any different with this election. I was quite opinionated about Romney being the best man for the job.  But for the first time, I feel like I was at least a little bit informed. I watched part of most of the debates, I tried to understand what was important to both candidates, and my opinion stayed firm.  Regardless, it looks as though Obama gets 4 more years.  I want to get mad. I want to yell at people and tell them they're wrong. But that's just me being immature and stupid and contentious. And all this contention isn't what America is about. America is supposed to be about unity. People banding together to create something wonderful. That's what our forefathers fought for. That's what they designed for this country.  But there's just too much fighting. Too much of people caring about what they want instead of what's best for America. And w

Fall has always been one of my favorite seasons. I like the crisp air. I like the colorful leaves. I like the anticipation of upcoming holidays. I like wearing sweaters. And boots. And scarves. To me, music has a preferred season. Some songs are meant to be volume up, windows down, sing it loud, summer songs. Other songs are more of the cuddle up by a fire, grab your hot cocoa (except not me, since I hate hot cocoa . . . ), and watch the snow fall outside your window.  The following are songs that I've been hearing lately that just scream autumn to me. I love them :) **ashleynicole

School is starting to drive me crazy. I just want to spend time with my husband and family and friends . . . is that so wrong? But alas, school likes to get in the way. Luckily, last weekend I did get a break. We went up to Boise for some Holmes Family Fun! :) It was a packed weekend! I am seriously not quite sure how we manage to fit so many things in when it's a Holmes trip. It's crazy, but super fun! We only had one full day in Boise--Saturday. Here's how we spent it: first The boys went and voted . . .  . . . while the girls painted for Empty Bowls.  lacey's lacey's mom's mom's mine Russ didn't actually think he was going to be able to vote this year because he realized he wasn't yet registered after the registration deadline! So it was lucky that we happened to be going to Boise so close to the election because he just got to register and vote all at once.  For Empty Bowl

For the month leading up to Halloween, Russ and I talked about dressing up as Captain America and Peggy Carter (the girl from Captain America). We figured we could find cheap blue&red stuff for him, and a military looking jacket for me all at DI.  false. Stuff at DI isn't as cheap as you would think. We toyed with other ideas (Sherlock Holmes and Watson, Tetris pieces) but never did anything to make any of the above ideas happen. Then, twas the night before Halloween we still had no clue, and Halloween Day was going to be a busy one.  Luckily, I saw a pic of my friend's Halloween costume  on Facebook , and BAM we made a decision.  Meet Wenda and Waldo! :D I think our costumes turned out pretty great! We didn't have time to do hats, but everyone still knew who we were :) People at our ward party kept coming up to us saying "found ya!" And my amazing husband made the chili  (which is actually taco soup and is delicious)  that I