Welcome to the Ratliff's!

Thanks to Jay, his last comment scared Taron enough to let me out of the dark long enough so I could welcome everybody to our first new home as newlyweds! =)

This is our front door!

This is our living room! Our friends Liz and Josh gave us our table (which currently has a puzzle on it that we are working on.) Taron was given the piano for helping some of his friends move a few semesters back, we just barely put pictures in the frames above and on the piano so now its our faces in the frames instead of the strangers that come with them (Gail Park gave us the one hanging above the piano and Sophie Mcbroom gave us the clear ones on the piano.) and there is a wooden bookshelf that Todd and Kristen gave us that you can barely see to the right of the piano which we put some books on and our games and they also gave us the TV because it was bigger then the one we had (I'm watching Friends because Taron isn't home. =) The Dvd shelves, tv stand, and curtain we bought with our Wal mart gift cards from our wedding ( thanks everybody!) And that big blob of white on our floor is our couch we made out of extra blankets. So if it wasn't for friends and family giving us things and gift cards all we would have would be a blob of blankets on the floor and a little tv sitting on the floor in the corner. Thank goodness for people looking out for us! =)


This is Taron's box where he practices his ninja skills throwing used gift cards.

And this is our Kitchen! The outside of our fridge is full of decorations from Victoria and Cole and the inside of our fridge...

Is full of...nothing! =) Our shopping trips mostly consist of sandwich stuff, tortillas, milk, and yogurt so our fridge looks kinda sad but don't let that fool you our cubbards are full and we really do get plenty to eat!

Also once our apartment was set up it started to feel like our home and we both decided that it is essential for all homes to have icecream!

Walk through the door at the end of the kitchen and its our bedroom! Our bed has batman on Taron's side and Fairies on myside! Gertie, Bernie, and Simba also share the bed with us (don't worry dad Simba still gets his place on the bed! =) Sorry our closet looks messy I just wanted to show our shoe racks we also bought with our gift cards. Can you guess whose side is whose? =) To the right of our bed next to the white drawers is our tv that was in our living room before Todd and Kristen gave us the bigger one and near the bottom right corner of the foot of our bed is the door to the bathroom. On the door to the bathroom is a cracked dent thats shaped very much like knuckles...curious. I guess previous owners must have a husband or wife with a really bad temper! (don't worry its not from Taron! We haven't been married long enough for that kind of rage to build up yet! ;)

So there ya go this is our home! I get home about 6:30 everyday (if I don't have to stay on campus to finish homework in the Spori computer lab, if so I get home around 8:00 or 9:00.) But the very first thing I do when I get home is tidy up our house and cook dinner so Taron has a nice place to come home too. Its really fun to tidy up and keep my house clean because its mine! Taron gets home around eight and then we eat dinner. by the time we get done with dinner and dishes its probably around nine or nine thirty so we don't really do much during the week but go to school/work, eat dinner then watch TV or work on our puzzle till bed. On the weekends Taron goes to work Saturday morning and I head on campus to get ceramics and graphic design homework done (which I'm supposed to go do now.) Then the rest of our free time we usually spend hanging out with our friends Todd and Kristen (who live next door!) Liz and Josh (my old roommate and husband who feed us a lot), Jason and Angi (who also feed us a lot!), or Amy and Tim. As you can tell we are happy and living large! I made this post extra detailed for all of you who requested better updates!

Dreams Do Come True

Taron and I have been together for fourteen months and six days. We have been married now for four weeks and a day and I and I am happy to report that life couldn't be better! =)

I Saw the Sign! =)

As everyone knows by now Taron and I have finally decided to be happy together forever! =) Here is my side of the story for those of you who don't know: as most of you do know for quite a while the decision was solely up to me since Taron had made up his mind forever ago what he wanted. This was the biggest stress on me because I felt like everyone was just sitting around holding their breath waiting for me to decide...and this was a BIG decision! It already takes me much longer than normal people to decide anything let alone committing myself to one person for eternity! But after weeks of stressing (which had nothing to do doubts about Taron or our life together) I realized I was finally ready. Last Monday I went to a double birthday party for two of my old roommates and we decorated cupcakes. I had no idea how to tell Taron I was ready so I just made him a cupcake that said "P.s. I'm ready!" And on Tuesday while we were eating lunch in the sunshine I gave it to him. From that moment on something in Taron changed, he was so happy and so cute despite all my anxiety. He wouldn't even eat his cupcake! He just sat there holding it with this goofy smile, I had to force him to eat it! =)

Now I'll tell you what Taron is one speedy man because the next day after I gave him his cupcake he proposed! I knew it was going to come quick but I didn't think it would be that quick!I kinda had a feeling that day that he might propose but also at the same time I didn't know if he could get the ring so fast. I was nervous all day! (I found out later so was Taron) I was also kinda on this crazy emotional roller coaster all day, right before our date I was really excited singing and dancing in the shower! But as soon as we got to the ropes course I thought I was going to throw up! I think it was the mixture of stress, nervousness, not knowing if the proposal was going to happen or not, and the fact i'm scared of heights. As we were climbing the tower I was thinking to myself "he had better not propose because I think I'm either going to thow up or pass out!" After a struggle I finally made it up the tower (which I am very proud of.) Taron let me settle down a bit by just relaxing and chatting at the top of the tower and then he pulled out our lunches and we had a picnic on top of the tower. Taron ate all of his lunch but I think I only ate two bites. He let me relax and calm down some more then pulls out a rope. I was wondering if he was going to tie us together coming down off the tower because I was so scared but he just told me I would see later and threw one end off the side and tied the other to himself. We sat and chatted some more then he started to pull up the rope. Confused, I was wondering if he was pulling up a ring box or something but it looked heavy. And it was a guitar! When we first started dating Taron learned the song "I wanna grow old with you" that Adam Sandler sings in the wedding singer. So its been our special song but he looked the most handsome playing it for me on top of that tower that day! =) After the song he asked me if he could keep me forever and I answered saying yes please! (something else we always say to each other) then as he pulled out the ring he said, "well in that case will you marry me?" and I said "Yes please!"

Its taken me a couple of days for everything to sink in but as more time passes and the more I realize whats actually happening the more and more excited I am getting! Taron is so sweet and wonderful for trying so hard to have the perfect proposal for me and I know he is everything I have ever wanted and more! He surprises me over and over with how great a guy he is, I just admire his personality. (not to mention I think he is so handsome! )And I am excited to start this new part of my life together! =) Thanks everyone for being so sweet and excited for us!

Artist Wonderland!

On Tuesday my oil painting class had to opportunity to go to a $750 dollar oil painting workshop for only $25 which we already paid the school in lab fees when we first registered for the class. The workshop was by a short Russian man named Ovanes Berberian who studied under Sergei Bongart (another Russian painter) for about 30 years I think. You would never know his house was even there just driving by because it was surrounded by trees and a tall wooden fence. But once inside this fence a magical land emerged made just for artists! His studio/house looked like a large log cabin castle and he had a huge green yard full of trees and flowers. When first walking up to the yard it looked like there were fancy tables set up all over for people to sit but once I got closer I realized his beautiful green yard was full of still life set ups! There had to been like fifty! It was almost a little eerie walking through all the still lifes...almost like something out of a twilight zone. And of course the inside of his house was huge and beautiful! Well I'm not quite sure if we were in his house or studio,or just the connected part of the studio to his house...either way it was huge and beautiful! He had a nice gallery set up complete with lights to show off his work in the best light and his actual studio room was huge so we could all sit and watch.

I think my favorite thing though was his easel! This man is short, had to be no more than 5 ft. and he paints on huge canvases bigger then him. So, his eisle is huge! He sets on his canvas and can move it around with ease, the canvas on the easel glides whichever way he needs it to go. If he needed to reach the top of his painting he can just pull it down or push it back up to get to the bottom, or to the left or right. It was cool! Now as we are all seated the lights are turned off and there is a spot light right on Ovanas. He paints with HUGE glops of paint on his pallett, I mean these things were literally the size of baseballs! While he was painting I couldn't but help feel like I have seen a cartoon of some kind very similar. Little man, huge canvas, classical music blaring, timid at first-stepping back to examine every brush stroke but once the drawing was down his little arms were speedy and paint was flying onto the canvas. It was almost comical but I don't know if anyone else felt that way because it was dead silent while he was painting, not a peep from anyone! it stayed this way for four hours when he finally turned around and said he was going to take a break. Most of my class, including me, took this opportunity to leave since it was now midnight. It was really fun and cool to be able to experience Ovanes Berberian's artistic world complete with daughters walking around in little toga dresses things, but four hours is also a really long time to sit in silence. At least he had classical music to keep us intertained. I can't wait till I can have my own place to set up my art supplies! =)

Memorial Day Memories

Not only did we have Monday off from school for Memorial day this weekend but we had Tuesday off as well! Initially I wanted to take full advantage of such a long weekend and escape Rexburg for a few days. My top choice was to go visit Jay and Rachel and the kids in Washington but plane tickets were a little out of my price range so, stuck in Rexburg, I vowed not to waste my long sunny weekend lying around indoors watching movies and doing homework.

Friday: To start of our weekend of fun, Taron took me mini golfing.




Saturday: We wanted to hike all day Saturday with Amy and Tim so we did some research to find out the best places. Turns out most places to hike are at least an hour away so we decided on one of the closest, Mesa Falls, because we heard there was about a four mile hike between the upper and lower waterfalls. We ended up being very disappointed on the hiking aspect. But we did enjoy eating our lunches by the waterfalls! Some other weekend we will venture out farther from Rexburg and do some real hiking!



Since "hiking" didn't take as long as we expected we stopped in a tiny town called Ashton on our way home to check out some of the flea markets that Amy was excited about. It ended up being a success! Taron found this really nice shirt from Hollister for only two dollars and a puzzle for fifty cents! Amy and Tim also found a few prizes themselves. After purchasing our treasures at the flea market we stopped by this old fashioned soda fountain/pizza place and got ourselves some ice cream. We all thought it was a fun place but I think I enjoyed it the most- reminiscing of my days as a soda jerk. I found myself watching the girls as they prepared all the ice cream treats, comparing to how we made them at home. I sure did love that job! =) So our day ended up being completely opposite of the long day of hiking we had planned, but it still was a lot of fun!

Monday: On Memorial day Todd and Kristen invited us to go Kayaking at Egin lake. We ended up not renting the kayaks and just played in the water and roasted hot dogs/smores. It wasn't the sunniest day of our weekend but since the water didn't go past your waist throughout the whole lake thankfully the water wasn't cold at all, just the wind was when you were outside the water. It was a really fun lake to play in but I did not like the little sand crab things that were in the water! Creeped me out-I always thought they were going to go in my shorts.






And Tuesday we went and did baptisms at the temple and helped Amy and Tim move into their new apartment. It was a beautiful sunny day! Plus we got free pizza and a crock pot for helping them out! =)

All in all I think it was a very successful weekend!

21 Birthday!

I had a very happy birthday on Friday! My day started off with a wonderful surprise from Taron. I've been looking for a cheap/used bike for a while so guess what was sitting in my living room early in the morning!?! Turns out he snuck it in three in the morning! Thank you my handsome man! Walking to work the sun was shining and there was no wind! The first time in weeks! And for the next couple of hours my phone was busy with all kinds of phone calls and text messages from all my friends and family. Thanks everyone for remembering my birthday!

For dinner we went out to the Mongolian Grill. But the day wasn't over yet! Next stop, surprise birthday party! Apparently I wasn't the easiest to throw a surprise birthday party for because Taron was supposed to take me to dinner while my friends decorated and got everything ready. But I fought Taron all week till he agreed to let me bring Liz and Vanessa along. I mean what good is a birthday if I can't spend it with all my friends? Little did I know I was messing up all their plans. =) But they pulled it off in the end. I was surprised! My party was drinking theme (since I turned 21.)Liz made me a cake shaped like a margarita glass and Vanessa mixed "margaritas" for us all night while we turned phase ten into a "drinking game."



Every semester Liz, Vanessa, and I build a fort. Its tradition. So we decided that my birthday would be a fun time to do it this semester. I have to say this was hands down our coolest fort so far thanks to Brent and Taron! Good job boys! I woke up in the morning in our fort with Vanessa squishing me telling me I had two minutes to get on shoes and a coat. I was then kidnapped to a little bagel shop for breakfast. I have the best friends! Thanks guys for my happy birthday!

I also think it is also appropriate to add to this post that I just recently received my first credit card! I thought it was about time I started to try and build up my credit a little bit. Taron was embarrassed but I made him take a picture of me making my first purchase with my very first credit card. So I got a new credit card and turned 21 this month...I think I just might be growing up. =)

I also want to wish mom a Happy Mothers Day! I am such a lucky girl to be blessed to have you as a mom, I love you!