Cupcakes!!

I normally have my evenings wide open so last night I decided to experiment and make filled cupcakes. I started with a white cake mix and added some thawed frozen strawberries for a little extra flavor.

While the cupcakes were cooking I made a filling with strawberries, cornstarch, sugar and some lemonade Koolaid. The recipe actually called for lemon juice but since I didn't have any I had to improvise. After letting it boil it thickened up and then I let it cool in the refrigerator. I realized it's basically what you would put on strawberry shortcake and way better than the store bought stuff.

After the cupcakes were done and cooled I used the "cone method" to fill them. (I looked it up on the internet since I've never done it before) I frosted them with a vanilla frosting mixed with the lemonade to give it a different flavor.

They were very delicious. As soon as they were done Kyle had 3 and I ate 2. I even had one for breakfast as well :)

The Place We Now Call Home

Here is our new table. That is our front door so you walk right into our dining area. The kitchen on the left and down two steps is the living room

Here is our living room with our new couch. Yes mom, I know sectionals are bad. Unfortunately due to the shape of the room we wouldn't be able to fit a couch and loveseat and this is perfect for us and has enough room.

Here is our kitchen. Pretty basic, but it is so nice to have a dishwasher!!

Down the hall is the main bathroom. Finally I have my bathtub and I love it!

Here is our bedroom. There are no lights in the living room and either bedrooms so we have to have lamps and lights plugged in or else we'd be in the dark all the time.

Next to the bed are my saloon doors...these are the random closet doors we have, which lead to a closet and a secret bathroom

We do have a second bedroom which is for now storage and my craft room.

Introduction to Epic

On Saturday Kyle took me on a tour of his workplace, Epic. It is a huge campus with over 12 different buildings. Here is an aerial view of maybe a 1/2 of the campus.

The buildings are name from A-K with names like Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Juno, Isis and even one called Heaven. The building that has Kyle's office is called Deneb. Each building has a theme and is decorated accordingly. Kyle's building is a Jungle theme, with a wall that looks like a giant snake then moves into a Mayan jungle look.

It is a beautiful place, with lots of grass, trees and walking paths. Outside the cafeteria center is a small pond with a waterfall.

Other building themes include Dungeons and Dragons, cowboys, and an Asian decorated building. They go all out in the decorations. In the Dungeons and Dragons building the carpet looks sort of like lave/fire. It is actually pretty ugly but goes well with the theme. They try to focus on not being a number and allowing a space for people to feel comfortable and to be creative. Here are some pictures from the Epic website (I couldn't get my pictures off my phone). Kyle also has some posted on facebook. I really liked Kyle's building and my other favorite was Heaven. It had an awesome picture made of lights that looked like a swirl of stars in the sky. It also had a slide going from one floor to another. It was actually pretty fun :)

They also have a giant tree house there, but we didn't make it inside of it because it started to get dark.

Officially Moved In

Today we finally checked out of our hotel and are officially living in our apartment. It still smells like fresh paint and newly cleaned carpets. Since the living room and bedrooms do not have any light fixtures I had to go out today and buy several lamps, and a fan for our bedroom, since the A/C is an in the wall in the living room. Still no couch or dining room table but we did get most of the kitchen put away and tomorrow I will start working on the random boxes we put aside in the 2nd bedroom. Pictures to come in a few weeks when everything is here and beautified :)

We are so grateful for my (Courtney's) parents for driving all the way out here with our furniture and stuff this past week. It was great to have them enjoy Madison with us and explore. We already like it and it feels much better to show our family how great it is too. Hopefully Christian can post some of the pictures from our adventures on facebook or email them to me to put up here. While they were here we went to the Cave of the Mounds (basically a giant cave).

I was expecting a glittering cave with cool formations and different colored things. I think the gift shop was a little misleading with all its pink, purple, teal and black crystal items for sale. It was still pretty cool to see and not as claustrophobic as I thought it would be.

We then drove a little further to tour the House on the Rock. Yes, it is a house built on a rock. It has 3 different sections you can tour but you have to pay for each section so we only went through one. It was insane!

Part of our tour we went through the infinity room. It looks like this when your walking into it.

I thought it used mirrors to make it look like it went on forever but no...It actually goes out to a point. The scariest thing is that the whole thing is just an extension off the house with NO supports underneath! Once you get out to a certain point you can feel it moving and that is seriously scary. I could not make it out very far, but Kyle, my dad and Christian made it to a section where there was a hole in the floor to look down at the trees.

See the silver jutting out, that's where we were!

Inside the rest of the house it is very dark, a little dank, and smells like an old man's house. It had lots of carpeted seating areas and big fireplaces. It was asian inspired so there were beautiful chests and cupboards covered in drawings and art and statues and things. Maybe we'll go back to see some of the other sections, including a giant carousel, a dollhouse room, and much much more. Did I mention in the women's bathroom there was a giant Santa Claus display and airplanes on the ceiling?

The Beginning of our Adventures

We left our beloved Utah on Tuesday May 31st and drove for 2 days until we reached Madison, Wisconsin, our new home! The weather was great during our travel and we had no problems, except Kyle's air conditioning died so the final day of travel was less than cool for him. After the long drive and getting pulled over in Nebraska, I (Courtney) hope to NEVER have to do that drive again, or at least for a very long time.

Thursday, after a good night's sleep, we set out looking for an apartment. We walked through 4 or 5 and called many others. Unfortunately Epic does their hiring all at the same time, so everyone else starting on the 6th was also looking for an apartment too. In the end we chose a great 2 bedroom 1 1/4 bath. It is on the 1st floor so we have a big sliding door to outside. This is great so get all our furniture inside! On a side note the apartment complex has a golf simulator. I'm not sure if I'll use it, but is pretty cool nonetheless.

We also bought a new couch and kitchen table. We enjoyed the ones in our old apartment but were excited to buy them for ourselves and get them new and in the style we wanted. We had to order them so we won't have them for a couple weeks but we will post pictures as soon as we're all settled. Here's a picture of what the couch sorta looks like, except it is a dark brown.

The first few days here have been great but has not been without it's problems. This will probably be one of the hardest things we've had to go through so far in our marriage. It has been stressful trying to find an apartment, getting lost and frustrated trying to find places and getting used to their driving skills. We've tried not to take it out on one another, but I know I (Courtney) have snapped more than a few times over silly things. Luckily we will survive and hopefully grow together in our new adventure.