Goodyear

Well, last week Karen got to toot her horn about her last year home from a mission, and now it's my turn. April 26th made it one year here in the Sunflower State. A few things happened in this last year and here is a list of some of the more notable events:

• I got home from my mission and was released as a full time missionary on the evening of the 26th.
• 8 days later, in the wee morning hours of Cinco de Mayo (That's May 5th for you Gringos) after watching the last of the original Star Wars trilogy (which happened to be Karen's first time seeing it. I told her she was un-American for not having seen it before) we had a DTPR (Determine The Possible Relationship) and sealed the deal with a kiss.
• My sisters and nephews came the following week to see me for my 22nd birthday.
• I started working temporarily as a Custodial Engineer (yes, a janitor) at an elementary school. Thank goodness for iPods.
• Two weeks later I started working at a call center where I answered questions about the FAFSA and other Federal Student Aid programs.
• My Granddad Everett Buhler passed away in June having been diagnosed with cancer several months before. I was sad to see him go but found peace in the fact that I saw him after my mission.
• Karen and I went on a very important road trip to Utah where we grew rather fond of each other. (The trip was originally organized to set me up with a mission companion of Karen's. Looks like I was too good to pass up, eh?) ((Karen just called me a nerd for that last sentence. I chided her for her poor use of the word 'nerd'.))
• I started school at JCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC to work on my general education credits. It's a third the price of tuition at KU so I'm taking advantage of as many credits that transfer. I declared a major in Accounting but have yet to take a class in it. I think I like it...
• One Friday night in September Karen and I sat down and made our financial goals for the next year and in seeing that they were the same, we decided to get married over Christmas Break.
• Two weeks later I found out how temporary my job was with Federal Student Aid and two weeks and one day later I was out of a job.
• One Friday night in October I gave Karen a sparkly ring.
• In late October I started working at Payless where I am a Retail Operations Specialist. I have to know pretty much everything about how a store is run and I get to deal with customers a lot too. After working there for about 6 months, I can almost say that I feel comfortable answering 80% of the questions.
• One Friday in January we got married.
• We went to Chicago and I got sick.
• I'm living with a girl now.
• We paid tuition, bought two Macbooks, an LCD TV, DVD player, Microwave, bed, car insurance, and health insurance all within a months time. Gosh, life just got a lot more expensive!
• I bought myself my own Digital SLR camera!

I'm supposed to put a little synopsis or something here at the end. I'm also supposed to say how wonderful Karen is and how blessed I am that she was there when I got home and now we're married. So, I guess that about does it. (I'm contributing to this blog with influence from Karen if you haven't noticed.)

One Whole Year

Well, today is my one-year mark.  That's right, folks.  I have been home from my mission for an entire year today.  It's crazy!  On one hand, it doesn't feel like my mission should be that far behind (okay, it's just a year...but still).  But, on the other hand, I'm married.  It's been quite the year.  Honestly, it wasn't entirely what I had thought it would be when I came home from my mission.  It has definitely been a year of change and growth, so - it's time for photos to document it at all!  Unfortunately, I haven't really taken that many pictures this year, so it won't be as all-inclusive as I was hoping.  Oh well.  Here goes:

April 20, 2007 - My flight came in twenty minutes early, so I actually greeted my family as they came into the airport, not the other way around.  I was so happy to see everyone and amazed at how much they had grown!  It was a late night - after I was picked up, we drove to Pres. Elliot's house and I was released that evening.  That was probably the hardest part of the day.  Reality hit - hard!

May/June 2007 - But, three weeks later I was back in England!  My parents and I spent about three weeks visiting my dad's mission and mine.  It was great!  This is a family we stayed with while we were in London - the Guei family.  Florence was baptized when I was in Whitechapel (London) in May 2006 and her husband was baptized in August 2007!  Her son John is so cute and James was born a day before we left back to go home to the States!  I love and miss all my mission friends!

July 2007 - Adam and I had planned a roadtrip to Utah back on our missions.  Well, we had begun dating in May and decided to still go on that roadtrip, though I was no longer planning on setting him up with Sister Anderson (as I had originally planned).  We stayed with Kristen and Nate in Logan, visited mission friends in Provo, saw my mission president in Salt Lake, stayed with Aunt Nan and Uncle Kent, and were at Sister Anderson's homecoming in Centerville.  It was a way fun trip and even after spending 100+ hours together - Adam and I STILL liked each other!  And we definitely had plenty of time to talk about things...

August 2007 - Right before classes started, Deborah and I went out to California to spend a week with Grandpa.  It was a lot of fun!  We went to San Francisco, went swimming every day, visited the Oakland Temple, and got lots of quality time with Grandpa.  It was a perfect way to finish an awesome summer.

October 2007 - So, quite a jump.  I was busy with 18 credit hours in school, 20 hours of work a week, and spending every waking hour (and a lot of the nighttime ones too!) with Adam.  We unofficially decided to get married in September after realizing we didn't want to wait until the summer.  We talked to both of our families and decided to make it official, even without a ring.  However, in October, Adam officially proposed and I officially accepted (which was a good thing, since I had been addressing wedding announcements when he came in!).  It was excellent timing - we took our engagement pictures a few days later!

October 2007 - Engagement pictures!  And gorgeous ring.  Pretty cute guy too.

December 2007 - School was still crazy and somehow I managed to get through finals while planning a few bridal showers for others and having two of my own as well.  I'm grateful for some extra boring classes in which I could get a lot of wedding planning done while "listening" to lectures.  I honestly don't know how I survived that semester!

After months of waiting to find out, we finally got an apartment in KU's married student housing.  We still had to find someone to sublet our house since two of the three girls were getting married in January.  We barely did and I moved into our new apartment at the end of the month!  

January 4, 2008 - We got married!  It was an amazing weekend.  Though it was cold, the snow was perfect for the pictures.  It was so great to have so many family members come with us to Nauvoo.  I'm grateful for the temple and the chance Adam and I have to be sealed together for all eternity!  Heavenly Father definitely loves His children!  We had so much fun at our reception seeing all our family and friends.  We were extremely tired, but it was all worth it.

January 2008 - We honeymooned in Chicago right after the reception.  Both Adam and I love to travel, so it was so much fun to explore the city together.  About the only thing we planned was to go see "Wicked," which was amazing.  We ran out of time to do everything we wanted, but definitely want to make another trip to Chicago at some point.

March 2008 - Again, not too many pictures of our life since the wedding.  We've been super busy with school and work, but luckily, we've actually been getting enough sleep!  Not having to say goodbye each night (like when we were engaged) sure contributes to that.  We look forward to Family Home Evening, Date Night, and Sundays to actually spend time together.  I chopped off my hair (you can kind of tell in the picture), Adam got a new digital camera, and we both have our own MacBooks.  This picture is from a wedding present - tickets to see Michael Buble with Kaylie!  It was awesome.

Again, it's been quite the year.  Not at all what I thought, but exactly what was right.  I am so grateful for my mission that has prepared me for this time I have now.  I feel that I am a much better student, employee, wife, sister, daughter, friend, fellowshipper, and person because of my experience serving the Lord.  I often wish I could go back to it, but I know that each stage in our lives is for a purpose and a time.  I need to now appreciate and learn from the time I am at currently!  Here's to another great year!

Us Weekly

So, in an effort to keep things equally divided among the Junior Buhler posts, I must make an appearance. Well, a number of notable events have transpired over the last several weeks. Probably the coolest was that KU has ended its 20 year drought and won the NCAA Basketball Championship! We are proud to be Jayhawk fans, that's for sure! The day after the championship game I had to turn in a mega-paper for my Composition class. It was an 8 page research paper that had to follow the strictest guidelines in order to ensure that I wasn't plagiarizing. Not only did I have to cite the author and page number of the book it came from but copies had to be made and attached to the final product or no credit would be given for the assignment. This is one of those teachers that loves to be meticulous with their work with no regard to how it affects a student's sleep patterns or stress levels. This semester can't end soon enough. Karen is now working hard to please all of her teachers who "understand that May is crazy so we'll make this due in April." It's a wonderful idea, I'm sure, but when everyone thinks that way it defeats the purpose.

To celebrate the slaying of the evil mega-paper, we watched the movie "Enchanted". Usually when one rents a movie it is custom to watch it once and return it. However, we just couldn't get enough of the movie. It was hilarious! We highly recommend it. Disney realized how corny they are and didn't try to deny it with this movie. They made light of their own Disney goodness. The song "That's How You Know" was really fun with a scene in Central Park.

Also, this last week we were rewarded for my excellent customer service at work. When someone wants to tell my manager how wonderful I am and how "jovial" I sound on the phone, they give me a $5 gift certificate to Payless that I can use along with my employee discount. Now, you may be thinking, this is a guy, guys don't buy shoes. Oh, you're right, but this guy *pointing to self with big thumbs* has a wife who happens to love shoes and would hate to see those gift certificates go to waste so we went and got Momma some new shoes. The look she has when she wears them is pretty much worth the "jovial" attitude on the phone. So, next time you call in somewhere and the person you talk to is very helpful and perhaps even a little "jovial" ask to compliment them and chances are their wives benefit from it.

A very exciting purchase was made for our family. I finally bought my own digital SLR camera. I bought a Canon 30D on eBay. I outbid someone in the last seconds by 78 cents! You've gotta love the race to the finish. I will certainly shop on eBay again. It has a wonderful used photography equipment market. I've been teaching Karen some of the basics with photography now that we have a good camera to learn with and it's been fun. Karen took a picture and we wanted to know your opinion so we can settle a dispute. We won't disclose which version each of us picked but we would like to know your opinion. So, if any of you know anyone who needs pictures taken, you let me know and pass the word along.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Power-packed weekend!

It has definitely been quite the weekend here in the Buhler household.  First things first - General Conference was this weekend and it was amazing!  It was hard for us to believe that last April, we were both on our missions during Conference.  What a whirlwind year it has been!  But, the Spirit we felt at last year's Conference and this year's has been the same.  Somehow, General Conference seems to come at the exact moment I need it!  There were so many wonderful speakers and beautiful hymns.  As I heard President Thomas S. Monson speak, I just knew that he was God's chosen prophet on the earth today. It is so comforting to know that the Lord can confirm truth through His spirit to each of us as individuals.  As Richard G. Scott said, salvation truly is an individual matter (but exaltation is a family matter - I loved that quote).  I always try to prepare myself for Conference by thinking and praying about specific questions or concerns that I want guidance on.  I am never disappointed!  I have such a greater resolve to do better and the conviction to change.  It's great.

Not to change subjects entirely, but this weekend could not be complete without making a reference to the KU-UNC game on Saturday.  Holy Cow!  Not at all what I was expecting, but I am not going to complain!  A bunch of girls had come over to our house before the game to watch "Becoming Jane" while the guys had a BBQ.  We decided to walk over to Allen Fieldhouse to watch the game there from the videoboard.  It was amazing!  There was quite a good crowd there (and since anyone drinking was downtown, it was a very nice, safe crowd!).  The first half was just full of laughter, cheering, and unbelief.  The second half was a little frightening, but our boys totally kept their lead the entire game and ended up with the bench playing the last few minutes and winning by 18 points!  Whew....it was good to be a Jayhawk!  We're planning on heading over to the Fieldhouse tomorrow night for Family Home Evening - hopefully, we'll come home happy!

The one damper to the weekend has been our crazy schoolwork.  The month of April is insane for Adam and I with tons of papers, projects, and exams.  Adam has had to work on a huge research paper that is due Tuesday - he's hoping to get it done before the game tomorrow night, but it requires a ton of work.  We'll both be happy when he turns it in!  Luckily, summer is finally in sight and we are looking forward to having more time to just spend together.  Adam got a new camera (he'll probably write more about it here after his paper is done), so he's excited to take pictures on campus.  And, I'm excited to get some free photography lessons!