Holiday Bliss

December has been a very busy but exciting month! Our first Christmas together has been a blissful one. Full of both of our families, parties with friends, and some good old-fashioned "us" time. When you are together 24/7 it's hard to surprised each other. But Adam, with his unusually large brain, found a way to surprise Charlene with Lightroom 4 for Christmas! (An Adobe-made photo editing software that goes perfect with Charlene's new camera). Charlene has spent every free moment since on her laptop learning how to use it. Adam, masterfully acted a surprised face when he opened his gift. Insanity! (A popular home exercise program that's title is not at all deceiving.) We have both since been in a constant state of delayed muscle soreness, and are thrilled about how hard we've worked to become this miserable!   

Below is a small taste of our December adventures. Enjoy!

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Our Ruben Family talent show on Christmas Eve, Adam and Ryan Jam out! This is one of grandma  Connie's favorite treats.

Our first Stockings for our fam :)

My family at a Filipino Christmas Party. I met a ton of people who lived in my 2nd area! Small world.

Both the Rubens at a work Christmas party

Aww, we totally got hitched here.

My handsome Husband!

It was fun to see the Lights at Temple Square. 

Noah and Beckett, our nephews. We got to babysit them one night, we buiilt a fort, made  a gingerbread house  and watched christmas movies. Good practice right?

Mo and D bought xbox Kenect and Sarah and I LOVE LOVE  the dancing game. Here's her and Nate battling it out!

Christmas Eve snowball fight. Adam Is very proud of this shot.  Notice Macy trying to help her dad out. 

An ornament we received with our announcement inside. How neat!

Hope Everyone Enjoyed the Holiday, Here we come 2013!

The Office

Charlene: The office is one of our favorite hobbies. Yes, The Office is that awesome, I consider it a hobby.The iconic couple, Jim and Pam are two of our favorite characters. For those who are unfamiliar with the show, Pam is a receptionist and Jim is a salesman at Dunder Mifflin paper company in the Scranton Pennsylvania Branch. They eventually fall in love and get married. They have an entertaining and loving relationship laced with the awkward and very humorous situations that their jobs thrust on them.

Who would have thought Adam and I get to experience our own kind of "Office" love. Adam Started working at HealthEquity this past week. We get to go to work together, hangout on breaks sometimes and even instant message each other throughout the day. We are with each other 24/7. I love it. I hope I don't get to use to it because this is only temporary. But boy, it is so fun to leave work holding hands with the love of my life. With Adam's chosen profession, there will be times I wont get to see him for months at a time. I am enjoying every moment we have to share together now. He's also been quite the catch at work, everyone just adores him. We've become the Jim and Pam at HealthEquity on the 4th floor.

Adam: It's all true! I have begun work at HealthEquity as a member services specialist just like my beautiful wife! Her and I have made big splashes on our beloved 4th floor. Apparently we're the only couple in the company that are both employed in the same position! Unfortunately, I guess all the Cornell graduates, beet farmers, and cat lover types were weeded out in the interview process because everyone there seems very nice and normal. But we're trying to keep things spicy! The Lord has thrown us curve ball with this opportunity, but we're enjoying it while we can!

Our First Post

Greetings to our family and friends!

This is Adam and Charlene's new blog - or otherwise a simple and easy way to stalk us and our lives. We hope you all enjoy the posts that will most certainly follow which will highlight simple moments in the lives of our new family. 

We suppose an introduction is in order... Bah! Ok, Charlene says I write too formally. Ok, she's going to take it from here. Adieu! 

(Charlene) Or maybe I'm just very juvenile in my writing...Well, we are so excited to share the moments in our life with everyone! We've been married for two weeks and it has been an adventure already. Being married is AWESOME!

A week ago we moved into our new apartment in Lehi, Utah. It's got a lot of character. When you see it from the outside, it looks like a garage....well not like, there is still a garage door on the front. But the owner converted it into an apartment. It's perfect for us. Everyone is welcomes to come visit, we love to have visitors. Literally we will jump out of our seats if someone comes over.

(Adam)...Ok it's Adam again. Charlene ran out of things to add. Our first week in our new apartment has been a blast. Every morning we wake up at 6:30 am and have a very productive morning filled with exercise, study, breakfast, and everything else a good morning routine would. After which, I will kiss Charlene goodbye as she goes to work and I stay at home and twiddle my thumbs and try to stay busy. Unfortunately, my orders to go join the active duty Marines in the recruiting station in Orem have not yet come through due to military budget cuts (*disgruntled facial expression*). So I have taken over the "stay-at-home husband" role until this coming Monday in which I will start working temporarily at Health Equity until my orders are funded. Ok Charlene has something to add again.

(Charlene) I'm not a blogger, that's why I told Adam we should blog together because I'll write two posts and never touch this thing again. Our first week has been SO MUCH FUN. We moved in on Saturday and gave the bishop a call informing him of our move. He was so great, he had the priesthood over Sunday morning to deliver our fast offering slip and announced us as a new family in sacrament.
Immediately after sacrament we were "voluntold" to perform a duet for the ward Christmas party. We are wasting no time getting acquainted with our new ward and neighbors.

I always new Adam was amazing, but he never ceases to amaze me. I noticed after dinner each night, he takes over the dishes when I have every intention of doing it (I think he gets this from his dad ;) it's really great of him. He eats everything I cook too! I've just enjoyed all the little moments we've had, it seems like it's been longer than two weeks. We are setting a very strong foundation for the rest of our lives. We continue to be open with each other and communicate everything and anything on our minds. It brings us closer together as we try our best to love and serve each other. I feel like we are  SUPER HERO DUO. haha.

(Adam)
With all the chaos of our new matrimony, new employment, and new apartment, we've somewhat neglected the traditional spirit of the season. But today, we repented by purchasing our first Christmas tree together. She stands proudly 4 feet at the tip with beautiful, pre-lit plastic branches that epitomize the good, old-fashioned commercialized Christmas spirit I treasure so much. We haven't found time to outfit her with any presents to cloth her naked feet, but I suppose we'll get to that. She's a beaut Clark! (Christmas Vacation anyone?)

We are very much enjoying our lives. Charlene and I couldn't be happier together. We will continue to post periodically as our lives press on.

Merry Christmas to you all!

... Or for our Filipino friends out there... Malagayang Pasko sa inyong lahat!

We're going to watch an episode of The Office now...

Adam & Charlene