Our friends told us about a new pet store that opened in Cedar City just this week, so for our first official day of no school, we decided to go check it out. The had some interesting things there! Tons of snakes, a few different kinds of turtles, weird looking rabbits, hamsters, lizards, ferrets, a GIANT centipede, a huge scorpion, lots of birds and fish and a few cats and dogs. Check out the size of this guy! Nate, I'm pretty sure in a battle, this guy would beat a black widow. D.A.N. was weak.Anyone who knows the name of this animal is amazing... hint: it's got SUPER soft fur and "they" used to make coats out of them
Tiny little puppy. I think it was only six weeks old.
Also this weekend, we went to the "Electric Parade" on main street in Cedar. I love all of the cute little things small towns do. I wish there was more of that in Utah county. It wasn't that great of a parade, but I think the little kids everywhere enjoyed it despite the cold, ha ha. Here's santa on the fire truck:
Rich having SO much fun
The Grinch
Last weekend, my whole family came down to southern Utah for a Sam Payne concert at the Tuacahn theater. Sam is in my home ward and is in my parent's bishopric and everything.. I didn't even know he was a musician, but now I hear him on the radio all of the time here! We all stayed at a house in St. George (except Rich, :( he had drill that weekend) but it was fun to hang out with everyone! I was watching Race and Kaleb came over to see what was going on. They're both so darn cute :)
Alright, so one of our clinicals this semester was at the Surgical Center in Cedar. I've watched amputations, and other intense operations before, but for some reason, that week didn't go so good. I was just sitting there talking to the surgeon (found out we went to the same high school) and then I started getting light headed (all they were doing was teeth stuff, so I have no idea why) so I looked around, found the closest wall to sit down at, but I only got to the part where I turned to walk before I passed out! Sat down, and fell straight back. I guess I smacked my head pretty hard on the solid floor. Anyway, a nurse came and woke me up... but when she went to get a chair to roll me out in, I passed out again! I don't know what was wrong with me that day! It's pretty funny now, but I was pretty scared when it happened. After Rich came and took me home for the day, I guess he went out and got me this:
He's so darn cute. Not bad for growing up with all brothers ;)

School is over for the semester! I'm so excited.. Everyone in the SUU nursing program says that the second semester is the hardest, and that's the one I just finished. So hopefully it won't get any harder than this! Rich just finished as well and even after missing three weeks at the beginning of the semester he got all A's and B's! I'm so proud of him :) This weekend we're going to be going back to Manti for the first time since we got married. I'm really excited! Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post from it after the break!

Our Story

Ok, I'm sorta copying my sister here, but I don't care cause it's cute... This is the story of Ashley and Rich Brandt (from Ashley's view):

After I graduated from high school, I went down to Southern Utah University. While I was there, I met a bunch of people including Rich. We weren't really friends or anything, but we knew of each other from common friends. As the years went by, nothing happened, and after my sophomore year, I went with three of my friends to Hawaii for the summer.

While I was there one night, I got a text at about 11:00pm (3:00am Utah

time) from a friend, and then another one, saying the exact same thing,

from Rich. I responded to Rich first

and later found out that the two were working a night shift together and got bored so they both texted me to see

who I would respond to first. After

that, we would talk occasionally and I found out that Rich was transfering up to UVU that next year. I tried to convince him to stay at SUU, but I guess we weren't good enough friends at that point yet for my opinion to really matter ;)

When I got back from Hawaii, I had to go up to Salt Lake for an exit interview with the company we had been working for. I told Rich about it,

and he said we should do something that weekend while I was up. So after the interview got over, I gave him a call and he said he had military stuff going on that night. I figured that meant he couldn't do anything, but then

he asked if I would to go with him. I was kinda confused, till he explained

that it was the military ball they do once a year and it was "kind of a big

deal so you'll need to wear a dress". Ha ha, so not really knowing what was going on, I called up a friend to ask if I could borrow a dress from her, and luckily, she was going to the same thing that night! So I got a little more information about it from her and ended up having a blast at it! There was a live band, all of the dates were in semi-formal dress and those in the

military were in their class-A's. I felt like I was in the movie Pearl Harbor or something, ha ha... just kidding. But seriously. So, that was our first date... and that's a picture of us. Just kidding, we didn't take a picture that night, but I wish we would have.

After that weekend, I went home to Lindon a lot to see my family since I was gone the whole summer, and most of the time I would end up just hanging out with Rich instead. After a few months of that, we started talking about dating and a little later got into the possibility of marriage etc. etc. Most of my friends didn't even know we were "hanging out" or anything, and my family didn't know how serious we had gotten so when I told my parents we were probably getting married, they were a little shocked. To say the least. When I first mentioned it to my parents, we had already bought a ring and everything. Basically we just did everything by ourselves without the influence or opinions of everyone else. It was kind of nice that way :)

On April 10th 2009, we went down to Manti to visit Rich's mom and

see some of his friends. While we were there, we borrowed a neighbors horse and went up into the hills behind Rich's house and he proposed!

You can't see the ring, but this is right after he proposed. Here are some more pictures:

I'm sick of typing though so I'll post the rest next time. Maybe. We'll see how motivated I get ;)