Referee Please

I need to get something off my chest. It's been a long, drawn-out discussion, and we need a referee to get things straight. A friend recently posted on her blog that some things she's just now learning about her spouse after several years of marriage. We've almost hit the four month mark, but I didn't just learn this. It's been bothering me every time I set the table, every time food of any sort is going to be consumed and a utensil is required: do you use a spoon or fork?

• What if it is served in a bowl? Of course, the rational, reasonable, and correct answer is that a spoon is required! How else can you get everything off the bottom of the bowl? Forks leave so much wanting in this sad realm, and yet Barbie seems fixated that if it has any solid-like mass, a fork has to be used. Examples include stew, macaroni, even ice cream on occasion! It is just unreasonable
• And then question 2, the one that leads up to question 1: do you serve the meal in a bowl or on a plate? Of course, if it's something solid, it should go on the plate! Take spaghetti for example: it clearly belongs on a plate, so that a fork can be used. In a bowl, a spoon would be required in order to get all the sauce left on the bottom, but a spoon clearly won't work for spaghetti! Some plates have lips, and I agree that these are preferred for things with sauce such as spaghetti, but to go to the extreme of a deep dish bowl? I rest my case.
  

Bloody Spinach!

Wednesday was a very traumatic day in the Madsen home. As you all know Josh and I started a new diet where we eat tons of veggies. Well... Wednesday evening after Josh got home from school he decided to make one of our delicious spinach shakes (he was starving because he had failed to eat all day). He sticks the spinach in the blender all by itself, but it doesn'y liquefy. He then turns off the blender and sticks his hand inside the blender to move around the spinach. The only problem was that the blades to the blender were still whipping around. YIKES!! Josh ripped his bloody hand out of that blender sooo fast!! Luckily it only cut up one of his fingers. No serious damage! We move into the hall so I can get him a band aid, and as I am putting a band aid on his finger he says, "Babe I feel really light headed." He starts leaning forward and completely collapses! His face was completely white and he wouldn't respond!! he had completely passed out!! Putting it lightly I was freaking out!! He was just laying there!!! I ran to the phone and called 911!! Josh finally got up! The paramedics came, although Josh thought it was all unnecessary. Everything turned out fine, my husband is still alive and breathing, and I've calmed down a bit (says Josh). haha. We think his passing out had to do with lack of food--My poor boy!

Veggies are yummy!

So Josh and I have decided to start something called "a cleanse". It is where all you can eat is veggies, some fruit and some very yummy spinach shakes. HAHA. Well you may all think we are crazy and when Mom Madsen first introduced it to us, we were a little nervous. Both of us need to improve our health, so we set out on this three week adventure. We are learning self control and I already feel better. Plus salads with a little bit of lemon and sea salt are delish. We are hoping to make this a lifestyle, well after the three weeks we will eat meat "sparingly" but I really want to knock out the sugar almost completely. We can do it!!! Last night for dinner we ate steamed broccoli and asparagus along with a delicious stir fry of bell peppers, mushrooms, onions and garlic, all sauteed in a tiny bit of olive oil! Well we will keep you posted on how we are doing.

GIMP!

Well lately i have been having so much fun how to use Photoshop with my friend Jenny. I love it. So my amazingly SMART husband went searching on the web for free downloads! That's about all college students can aford. Plus who doesn't like FREE!! In the process he found GIMP!!! It is a lot like Photoshop, and it is a great place to start practicing and learnin g. This is what I made yesterday while my Josh was slaving away for his finance test. I don't know if i am completely satisfied with it yet. I still wanted to put some text on it. oh well i still had a blast making it.

I have come to a consensus... I like Halloween!

Halloween... It's always a fun time for all ages. I really don't know who it is more fun for, the kids who get to run around and get free candy from everyone, for the parents who watch the kids run around in their cute princess costumes gourging themselves with skittles and bubble gum or for the people like us... no kids, just married. Josh and I had such a great time just dressing up in really lame costumes ( JOsh was very set on dying his hair blue, don't ask me why), we had so much fun being with our friends. In the pic above we have chelsea, jonathan and James, Chelsea was Fanny Mae, Jonathan was Freddie Mac, and James was Uncle Sam. Whenever someone asked for candy chelsea held out her empty candy box and said "oh no, we're bankrupt" The JOnathan (Freddie Mac) pulled out his pockets which were empty and said "So are we"... then they both would say in unison as they looked at baby james " Uncle Sam will bail us out!!" It was really funny. It is things like this that makes halloween fun for all!

Now we have this handsome couple!! David and Jenny!! And she says she doesn't like Halloween!! I don't buy it for a second!!
Now here's the winning family ensemble. The hot dog man (Spencer Clive) and his hot dog daughter!! I think everyone got a kick out of this one!! Who couldn't have fun on Halloween with these kind of characters around!!

HALLOWEEN BLAST!!

Trick or Treat!! One of the funnest things about Barbie is her enthusiastic personality. She just shines, and this Halloween was a great example. Some friends hosted a Halloween party, and being on a tight budget (donations accepted) we spent most of the day looking for discount clothing stores in the city. Notta one. Way too expensive for those type of stores to survive here, I guess. But Barbie did eventually find some leggings for a good price and went as a punk rocker's girl, and I was the nerdy punk rocker with blue hair (I already had that outfit). Anyway, the party was FUN!

PUMPKINS!!!!

Chelsea, James, Jonathan, Barbie, Josh, David, Jenny!!


Yesterday we Invited a few friends over for FHE!! It was nice to have more people than just the two of us. Every monday Josh always says "I would like to welcome everyone out to the weekly Madsen family family home evening, the opening hymn will be played by me, then Barbie will give the opening prayer, following I will give the spiritual thought. ...." then we end with a treat one us made and a game you can play with two people. If I get my way we play racko if Josh gets his way we play cribbage or chess. So this week was something new!! We started off with a great lesson by Jenny, then carved Pumpkins!!!

JOsh made the design for our pumpkin!! While we carved we ate brownies and drank hot apple cider!! It was great!!

PHOTOSHOP!!!

I learned how to use photoshop today!!! It was so much fun! This is us playing in the leaves here in good 'ole chicago!

The Art Institute!

Last week my mom came into town! It was so great to have her here. All three of us went to the Institute of Art downtown. They had some beautiful paintings unfortunately their entire impressionist collection is traveling around the country. Bummer.

We did see American Gothic! Super cool. I was surpirised at how small it is and it wasn't in any special location! It was just there with all the other paintings!


This one below was Josh favorites! Painting of Darian Gray! Ok i am sure i spelt it all wrong so no need to be critical. I'm not an expert when it comes to paintings! but anyhow... I guess there is a book about this painting that JOsh really enjoyed and this is the actual painting they used in the movie! Josh was thrilled! I thought it was pretty grotesque. Maybe I should read the book.

My prince

Add Glitter to Pictures
I just learned how to pimp out our pics!!!! It is sooo Fun!




Personalized Glitter Graphics
Beautiful Abigail!!!

Josh Goes To Court!!!!

It's true!!! A few weeks ago we got in a small wreck in a parking lot and Josh got cited for failing to yield!!! OUCH! He had to go into the police station and as I waited in the car the police officer almost took away his drivers license!!! The only reaon he got to keep it is because he is from utah!! So our insurance covered all the damages but Josh still had a mandatory court appearance! I went with him for moral support and good thing I did because there was NO parking so I had to drive around downtown for a half hour!! SOOOOO SCARYYYY!! I almost hit two pedestrians!!! It's CRAZY downtown! When Josh finally came out he had a 10 dollar fine for failing to yield and a 135 dollar court fee!!!!! GRRRR..... Why did we have to go to court in the first place!!!

This is the car Josh crashed into!!! hhahahah! j/k I think that fine would be more than 10 bucks.

The Most Wonderful Wife in the World

It's amazing how quickly time passes, and every day I find myself loving Barbie more and more. I'm so grateful she's taken the initiative to record parts of our life here in Chicago and the adventures that we undertake. She is so good to me, patient with my weaknesses and supportive in my pursuits. She is my better half and I count myself a very luck man to be her man.

We're MARRIED!!!

YEA!!! We are married!!! This was the most amazing day ever!!! Everything was picture perfect!! Well... except for Josh's ring and all my jewelry getting lost. No one could find any of the jewelry, my mom ran from parking lot to parking lot looking in all the cars and by the time the ceremony was to start still nothing found! So Josh ended up getting married with his dad's ring!!! (Thanks Dad for letting us use it!!!) When the ceremony ended my mom ran back out for another thorough search in all the cars! I just sat in the brides room with My Aunt Korrie and Josh's mom. I really wasn't even nervous. My mom really wanted me to have my jewelry! So... about 45 min later my mom finally arrived! All the stuff had been buried under cadles in the trunk! Still no sighn of my shoes so I walked out in my nice platform sandals! Well here are some pics of the wedding that my Aunt Korrie took, hope you enjoy!

Here is my beautiful niece Abigail!!


Here are a few of the bridesmaids freshening up! Chelsea, Karlene and Natalie!! And Mom Madsen!!

A thirsty Fairy!!

I guess they get hungry too!!

KISSING COUSINS!!! How cute!!


Getting ready to take a few pics!

But Peyton and Haylin are the TRUE models!!!

My brother Jake, My wonderful Mom (who made this awesome day possible), who's the weird guy on the right???



Mom Dad and Abigail


Lot's of friends from the mission came!!! It was so nice to have them there!!! Les quiero Hermanas!!!!

Dance the night away!!! This was mine and Josh's first dance as a married couple! My cousin Luke sang beautifully! The song was "So Close" from the movie Enchanted. It was picture perfect!

A Saturday in Chicago

Josh and I had so much fun today! We went with two of our new friends to the Field Museum and looked at theAncient Egypt and the Ancient Americas Exhibit! This museum is huge!! We could have spent all day inside!But instead we walked a block to Soldier Field and went to the country music festival!! It was so fun!! All the well known artists are playing tommorrow but we still had a blast and they had a dance floor so me and Josh were able to practice our dance moves!!! Oh ya and before i forget if any of you ever move to chicago be sure to get a library card, you can check out free passes to all the museums here!! And they get in up to four people!! It's great!!

These our beautiful nieces and nephews!!!! WE MISS THEM SOOOO MUCH!!!! Can't wait for X-mas!!! first we have Rachel, then Andrew, then Abigail, and finally baby Jake!!! And there are still two more on the way!

I MISS THEM!!!! Wish i could see them more often!

JOSH GRADUATES!!!!

YEA!!!! Josh graduated from BYU in December and got to walk in April. We had only known eachother for about two weeks but I am so glad I was able to be there. Elder Bednar was there and gave a great talk at commencement about learning to love to learn!!! Josh obviously applies this philosophy because he is now in the process of getting his PhD in accounting. He tries to spread his love of learning by trying to teach me abstract algebra and the math of probability. But.... I like to learn line upon line not line upon number upon letter upon line!!! Love ya babe!!!

Our First Date

This is our first DATE! That was SO long ago--April 11th to be exact. I had been home from my mission to Uruguay for 5 whole days!!!! Josh was very impressed at how well i was adjusting!!! HAHA! I was sooo awkward! This date was so much fun, I was super new at rock climbing and i fell off the wall and smashed his eye!! i made his contact fall out!!! GREAT for a first date!! Ask Erik he was a witness! Then Josh took me out for ice cream!! It had been a LONG time since i ate GOOD ice cream!!