"They're always on Steroids."

Life doesn't get any better than when your wife supports you fully in buying a TV so you can watch football on the weekends! So on Thursday we checked Craig's list and bought a TV, DVD player and cabinet from a couple who got the set for the marriage. They never had time to watch so they sold it. So if time's an issue with this entertainment system, then let us know if you're in the market for a new TV :) This country seems to be suffering from the doldrums on Mondays though. Notre Dame, Penn State, West Virginia, Michigan, UCLA... it's a darn good thing we got the Sun Devils!!
This past week went by super fast. Anna's been running around all over the city for a job and now she's got options to choose from. Yesterday I spent the afternoon alone in the apartment while Anna was at the Relief Society Broadcast and I missed her more than oxygen. She's been strong to be spending the days alone with no school or job. I love how Anna is always up and doing. When I imagine I would spend free time just lying around, she is a living model of productivity and efficiency.
So we have three more topics to write about. The first one is: Quote of the Week. Fortunately we got a good one from Anna at dinner tonight. We were sitting talking about cute actors and actresses (uplifitng Sunday talk for newlyweds :) and of course Brad and Angelina came up. Then Anna spontaneoulsy announced, "They're always on Steroids!" My first thought was, let's get Anna a job with MLB or the Committee of Olympic Drug Affairs so she can use her hound dog senses to catch suspect athletes, but then she looked at me and we bust up laughing when she said she meant Tabloids. I love it when Anna starts laughing hard because hiccups inevitably follow. I fell in love with those hiccups back when we were dating. They hurt her thoug so I never wish them on her.
Our second topic: Best activity of the week: This is a hard one. We've had a lot. Last night we went on a date and incorporated Bed Bath and Beyond gift cards into it by agreeing to split up and choose an item that we think the other would like. So at the store we split up for half and hour and roamed the store. We ran into each other right off looking for the lava lamps and then split. We both ended up with massage products. Poor Anna, next time we'll go to Sports Authority to make it more gender even.
Topic number Three: Favorite meal together: On Friday Anna rode her bike with a cooler on her back to school and brought me egg and bean burritos, complete with drinks, dessert, and appetizers. We sat out on the Institute lawn and had a fun lunch. Then we rode back through campus and I went to school and she checked out some nursing stuff.
We're having fun learning and living together.

Home Sweet Home

Lots of people have said they wanted to see our apartment, so I added some pictures of it on here.
On top, there is a picture of our complex. Our apartment is on the top floor, left side (behind the tree in this picture). Jan calls it the exercise apartment because of the stairs going up...
Next is our new barn red wall in our dining room/family room/front room/study (our apartment is very efficient).
Third, our bite size kitchen :)
And finally, I got this idea from Carrie--she took a picture of her favorite part of her apartment and put it on her blog. This is my favorite part--our bathroom cabinet. Part of it is cuz Spencer and I had such a time putting it together: starting over 8 times, shooting glue all over the carpet, and tearing out half the wall. But also, it just looks happy.
So that's home sweet home for us...thanks to all who have contributed to it! We love it thus far...

The land of Pecans

Well, the blogger Hansens are sending out to the universe what is happening in our warm neck of the woods, and we couldn't be happier. We had a great, fun week. This past week I learned a lot more about Anna that makes me realize how lucky I am every breathing second. One thing I learned a while back came back even stronger this past week. When I got home on Friday afternoon she had everything ready for the camping trip. We've been looking forward to camping since we were married and now we were actually going. While driving to our camping site I realized all that Anna had been through during the week. Looking for a job, arranging the apartment, getting Spencer ready for school, all these boring, monotonous jobs that would bring me down, and she never shows any measure of discouragement at the expense of my happiness. Obviously biased because she's my wife, I've still never known anyone who can go through hard personal trials on a day, and on the same day make her best friend feel like the happiest person in the world. Anna doesn't show her suffering. I just barely learned she gets headaches on occasion. But she never shows it. It's never a cause to complain or alter life. Whenever we're called to cross our pioneer plains during life, I couldn't have chosen a better partner to push the cart with. Anna is long-suffering. I knew it before this week, but this week highlighted it in a different way.
Best part of the camping trip:
We were watching Red Eye. Scary, thriller movie. In one scene Anna gave me a personal red eye when she wheeled her head from the screen to the pillow during a scary moment and nailed my head with her forehead :) The experience blew away anything IMAX could have offered.
Something new we learned about Tucson:
The sky color changes hue as the sun descends latitude with the changing season.
See you next week!

Coyotes, Cheesecake, Arizona Resident, and Whatnot...

Another week of marriage! I can't believe how fast the time goes! And I think every week gets more and more fun, if possible. This last week was full of more rollerblading, throwing the football, burned but fun dinners, our first camping trip, a trip to Grandpa and Grandma's, painting a wall of our apartment brick red (inspired by Lisa Tate!), my getting an arizona driver's license (once again, a "we're official" moment), and lots of laughs.
So the first question we thought of was the best part of the camping trip. For me, it was the coyotes. We had taken the lap top and watched a scary movie--scary movies are a whole different story when you're out in the middle of nowhere with wierd noises! So we were already jumpy, and we had heard rats, owls, and other animals. Then we were just drifting off to sleep when we heard the screaming of coyotes really close--we both jumped up with hair standing on end, then laughed uneasily, trying to reassure ourselves. As you can see...the coyotes did not get the best of us, we're alive and well, but it's funny to think how scared we were.
Second question of the week was what we learned about the other. This could turn into a novel. But there were two main things--first was how great Spencer is with kids. I had seen how much our nieces and nephews loved him. But this week we had our 7 year old neigbor come over a few times for homework help. Spencer sat with her for over an hour, working through math, teaching her techniques, and helping her keep focus. It was really cool to see his patience and his way of encouraging her. Second, I learned that Spencer is still full of surprises. When we were dating, he always had surprises for me at the testing center, in my classes, at my apartment, whatever. It was so sweet. And this week he still kept it up. I had a job interview and was pretty nervous about it. When I walked in, the lady interviewing me grinned, handed me a package, and said "Your husband dropped this off for you. He's SO CUTE!" It was a slice of cheesecake with a note he dropped off on his break. So my interview started by sitting down with the lady over a slice of cheesecake and talking about my cute husband. Then as she took me around and introduced me to different people, she would say, "This is Anna who has the cutest husband who just started medical school and grew up in Mesa and went to BYU and yada yada yada..." She then proceeded to offer my the job. So not only did Spencer provide a good breakfast and comfort when I was stressed--I think he was the one who got me the job! Thank you Spencer!
Long story short...we're having a great time, loving Arizona, and couldn't be happier. Thanks to you all for helping out! Love you all and have a great week!

never done this before...

Sorry, my attention span was a little too short to finish last night. But, as I was saying...it's exciting to be starting a Hansen "family" blog. Ever since Spencer and I got engaged, we keep saying "now this makes us official!" We said it when he gave me my ring, when we sent out invitations, when we got a blender together, when we were sealed in the temple, when we moved into the apartment, etc. Maybe starting a blog together will be the final mark of an official couple!
The last two weeks have been two of the best of my life. We've had so much fun every single day. I'm loving living not only in the same STATE as the kid, but the same city and even the same apartment! I feel spoiled. We've had fun cooking together, setting up our apartment, opening the mound of gifts, rollerblading, going to institute classes, making temple trips, building forts in our apartment, hanging out with new friends, etc. etc. I can't wait to see what the next two weeks, months, years bring.
So as Spencer already said, we both are writing answers to certain questions. The first one was the funniest moment of the week. There have been SO many it's hard to pick one. But, I think when I laughed the very hardest was the other night heading out to the grocery store. We had parked right in back of our apartment, so Spencer and I split up, went opposite directions around the apartment, and were racing to see which way was faster. As I was turning the corner (in the lead, I'm sure), I grabbed onto a lampost, which looked pretty sturdy--they usually are, to swing me around the corner. But instead of swinging me smoothly around the corner, it sent me flying across the sidewalk as it completely uprooted. I ended up in the most awkward heap with the lampost on top of me. A young man walked by right then with his jaw dropped to the ground, but not the slightest hint of a smile. I lay there shaking on the ground laughing until Spencer came and joined me and we laughed together for a long long time. (so if any of you thought that turning twenty and getting married might cure my awkward appendage management issues, nope!).
The next question was what the most surprising discovery about Tucson was. This is so boring, talking about the weather, but really...everyone I talked to about moving to Arizona told me that I would be a puddle within a week. Even Spencer told me atop Masada (the hottest place I've ever been) that he felt like he was back in Arizona. So I was expecting to be scorched by now. However, it's hardly been hot at all! I wear a sweatshirt most nights, we still have some afternoon rains, and it's nowhere near as hot as I was in utah my last few weeks there. What a blessing!
And finally, what was my favorite picture from the wedding? I think my favorite is this one of the family...remember the face Eric made as he took the picture? I thought all the skin was going to fly off his face! I love looking at everyone's faces: so many of us are dying laughing, Sammie the knowing photographer looks like "yeah--i try that trick too," Lou's scared to pieces, Abby's about to tell him to grow up, and who knows what Katie's thinking but she's paying attention--incredible!
Thanks again to y'all for making that day, everything leading up to it, and the days since so great. I love and miss you all tons. Thanks also to that Spencer kid for everything...Have a great week--much love

More Photos For/From the Family

Sunday, Sept 16

Querida Familia,
Two weeks down, and an eternity to go. Sometimes we feel like we're going to explode with gratitude for everthing you've done to make us comfortable in Tucson. We feel your prayers daily, even hourly, and know that we've got the best examples in you all on how to live a happy life.
I told Marc we woud start a blog tonight, so here it is. We might choose another format yet, but this is where we'll start, on good old email. We talked about how to make our blog unique and decided to focus on three topics each week. Anna and I will have the topics but we will write about them independent of each other, not knowing what the other wrote. Then we will compare only after we send off the email. So you're getting Anna's perspective and Spencer's perspective, purified to the genetic core of each individual. We laugh a lot because when Anna asks something like, "what would you want for dinner," after she mentions sphaghetti, I always have a sudden appetite for sphagetti. So, hopefully through the blog, you'll discover what Anna is hungry for in our lives and what I'm hungry for, and how our goals and experiences are woven together.
I. Funniest moment of the week: There were many, but on one occasion we headed out the door to the car. We decided to race around the building to the car, Anna going one way and me another. I got the the car panting and all I heard was this upbeat laughter. Knowing Anna, I thought she had broken her ankle. Most people show pain through sad countenances and weird noises. Anna laughs. But when I came back around the apartment, (Actually, we just had a funny moment: Anna is sitting on the side of the bed talking to Martha and I crawled into the room and peeped around the corner of the bed and smiled a huge clown smile. When Anna turned and saw she let out an awesome yell of fear) okay, back to the story, when I came back to the sidewalk I saw Anna trying to place a lamp post back into the spot where it was uprooted when she used it to catapault around the corner of the sidewalk. We both fell down laughing. Accident-prone Anna. As I started to help her the lamp itself popped off the top and bounced down a little hill. It was too cartoonish to be real.
II. Most surprising discovery of Tucson: Our great ward! With fifteen new couples, the mission president and his wife, and some seasoned veterans, it's a great mix of old and young. Fun, fun friends and exciting opportunities.
III. A favorite picture of the wedding/honeymoon (see picture) You can guess why Rich looks so young again :)
Anna...
I can't believe I'm doing this...starting a blog with my husband!!! It's so exciting. (To be continued tomorrow)