Hi FAMILY! We Love you ALL!!

Well hello!!
Yes it's be quite some time since we have updated (I** have updated) the blog!
We've been soooo busy with school especially as we head into the second half of the semester.
Our new house is absolutely wonderful.




I don't know if all of you know this, but Jordan's sister (Jessica) and her husband (Justin) and their toddler (Avery) and Jordan and I all moved into a new town home together! We all were a bit nervous about it at first, I think, but it has turned out to wonderful and it has been such a fun fun fun experience to be with them and especially to live in the same house as Avery.
She is sooo cute and we feel blessed to be related to her.
SO-We live in Bloomington, which is kind of a separate area south of St. George which is more family oriented.

Our scoot scoot is broke right now, which has actually turned out to be ok because my parents gifted us with mountain bikes! WE LOVE THEM!




We are sooo happy to ride them together, and also alone depending on the school day. Transportation is definitely a shuffle now that we live a bit farther away from the college.


Speaking of school....
ITS HARD! And SOoo much fun :)
BUt it will be soo worth it once we're done.
SO far, the plan is that I have 1 full year left of classes and then my senior piano recital the following summer.
I'm a year behind because I basically started college over when I changed majors and got into the music program and DIxie, and the program is vigorous and very demanding and takes almost a full 4 years to complete.

Jordan has about 2 full years of classes left, and he is doing so well. I have not updated our Scholastic Blog because we've been busy, but one of these days I'll upload his most recent projects.

Here is something that I had Jordan make for me so we will print it on sticky vinyl and put it on the car window :)













I think it's pretty accurate :)



Recently, our thoughts have been turned to searching for schools that have a graduate program in Graphic Design. They are few and far between but my hopes hopes HOPES are that we can go to one of the schools in Chicago or Minnesota (there are none in WIsconsin :*( Being closer to home will be WONDERFUL! ESPEcially because hopefully we'll be starting our little itty bitty Johnson Family by then!! :) :)


The leaves are still turning colors, some trees take longer than others to finally turn colors, so there's still plenty of green around here! THe sun is still hot in the afternoon, but the heat is in at night to keep us comfy.
Yes you should wish you lived here...( I'm talking to you dad :) haha
My dad has been SO into road biking (Lance Armstrong style) and he rides hundreds of miles a week on his bike (unless it's snowing).

SO: When my dad found out that ST. GEorge has 300 days of sunshine a year.... he perked up, because that pretty much means that he could ride his bike 364 days of the year (Give or take 1 days of sand storms hahahaha!!!)






Biking has become my family's new hobby together, from all across the nation where we live, we are united by this new family LOVE for biking!!! Every single one of us, from Portland,Oregon to Ogden, Utah to Provo, Utah, all the way over to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and then all the way down St. George, Utah!
We love it so much, and I'm so happy and I love my family sooo much.
My little sisters are growing up, it's CRAZY! :)

We are very much looking forward to our next Gagnon-Palick/Bernaden family trip to San Diego/Newport Beach in Spring! My mom is the planner:

We are GIDDY about how fun it will be (we're going to the zoo there too!) Grandpa Bernaden is coming (hopefully he surfs with us in the ocean like he did in FLorida!! haha), Aunt Kathy and Aunt Debbie are coming too!!! We ARE SO EXCITED TO VACATION WITH THEM!













Alright, I've got to get back to life-but this has been a fun update.


We miss you all so much,
AND----
Just so you know, we plan on coming home to Wisconsin for Christmas!!! :) :) :) :)

YAYAYAYAYAYYY~!~~!

We are so blessed to have so many friends and family that love us, and we are so grateful for you.

Love,
Jordan and Melissa Johnson

Looking Ahead...

--Birthday Update--
My brother Peter and I have the same birthday February 20 so when Jordan and I went up north for my birthday, we spent time with Peter and Tina and Angela to celebrate all of our birthdays, and also to go to the Salt Lake City Temple with Angela!! :) :) It was sooooo much fun to be together:)


WELL:
I thought I would write about the things that Jordan and I are looking forward to, in the next couple months or so...

Coming up this week-

1. I work EVERyDAy(as usuaL) at the Library
2. We work Tues/Thurs @ the GolF CouRse
   
3. Tuesday-Our Math Test which we absolutely love!! MAth mAtH maTH!
4. Wednesday-Jordans BiG website project is due!
5. Friday-I think I perform in my Piano Performance Class
6. Friday-The StArt Of SpRinG BreAK!!!!!!YAYAYAYA!!!!

Next Week-

1. Mon-Wed in Las Vegas for Danny, one of Jordan's best friends', Birthday!
2. Thursday ANGELA AND ELDER SCHOFIELD (ok *FORMER Elder*but thats how I know him haha)(He is Jordan's last companion on his mission-they were in delafield 2gether)
   
3. ~~~~~TUACAHN THEATER~~~~~ to the concert of the cd: Nashville Tribute to Joseph
   
4. WE ARE SO EXCITED FOR THE NASHVILLE TRIBUTE TO JOSEPH
5. Friday-Sunday ANGELA and Elder Daniel Schofield will be here to have fun, hike, golf, hopefully saturday either go to Zions Park or the Grand Canyon!!:)

Looking Ahead-

1. Hopefully Peter and Tina can come down to play with us soon!!!!**************************CONGRATS ON THEIR NEW HOME PURCHASE!!!!***************
2. Perspectively the weekend after Spring Break, or two weekends after, Jordan will have a brothers Golf Weekend
   

Further Ahead...

• We have a big PALICK FAMILY OUTING in WISCONSIN w/Spouses and w/lOVe at the end of June and beginning of July where Jordan and I are planning to spend some time in
• 
• Wisconsin for 3 Weeks + and hopefully I can get my darn braces back on! :)
• Canada Trip in July for McMurry Family Reunion, we will fly there from Wisconsin! :)
• A HOT HOT SUMMER working at the GOLF CouRSE and doing lots of outdoors stuff during summer in St. George :) Very Excited, and happy to have a break from school.
• Angela and her ROommate Courtney are SOO darn cute and I love spending time with them. Courtney is finishing Aesthetic School, and she is SOOo good at what she does. Also she sells Mineral Makeup, some of which Angela soo GRACIOUSLY baught me for my birthday, and OH do i LOVE makeup now :) Its so much fun.

• We love spending time with Jordan and his sister and brother-in-law Jessica &Justin and their little Avery :) Its so much fun. So I put a picture of Avery combing my hair during Christmas here:)

Well HeLLO!

HI! I'm not sure why I'm writing this, caus really I should be in bed, but Jordan is playing his favorite video game NBA 2K9. ??? yup. But I love it, caus he let me try it one time with him... but I messed up his team somehow and he almost lost, ahahaha. He said they scored 20 points in 2 minutes when I was playing for him! YIKES!

Here is probabaly the biggest issue in my life-and what this post is dedicated to:
Bacteria. Germs. Cooties. Fungai. Microorganisms.
You know what I mean. Everyone knows it by a different name.

They stress me out so much.

They are the reason I spent over thirty minutes in the shower tonight, the reason I couldn't wait to come home- so that I could take a shower and use my new anti-bacterial bar of Dial Soap and scrub and scrub, wash my hair, wash and wash, and MOST ESPECIALLY-------use my bar of Dial Soap to scrub the skin next to my hair line. Why?
Because it makes me sick to my stomach to think about how my hair products clog my pours and caus me to break out.
This is the reason that I left the house today feeling gross like I wanted to turn around and take a shower, even though I just spent time doing my hair and makeup.

How does this all relate? Clogged Pores caus bacteria which causes acne.
Oh and it stresses me out so much.

After we got married, Jordan and I went shopping at Costco and bulked up on good stuff like body wash, Oreos, Etc. So, we still are on our 2nd bottle of Dove Body Wash from our 3 pack.
Well Dove ain't doin for me anymore.

So this week I finally went out and bought bar soap, because after we stayed at the Holiday Inn hotel in Newport Beach, California for Jared's wedding, I brought home the bar of soap from our hotel room, and i really enjoyed it, because I like the feel of the tight dry skin, because it makes me feel like there is no oil clogging my pores after I shower.
So I bought a bar of Dial Soap (ok well a pack of 3 for only like $2.19 :)

Why did I chose this kind? ----Well here is the reason behind the dillemma:
My "nice" and "name brand" "Dove" body wash.... DOES NOT SAY ANTIBACTERIAL ON IT.
So here is my thought process:

Why would people want to buy soap, to WASH their body with... that doesn't kill germs...fight bacteria...etc? I don't understand the point of getting in the shower just to wash the dirt off your body, but not wash the bacteria and germs? Lets be realistic here, who really checks the back of the soap/body wash/shampoo that they buy to make sure it says "kills bacteria" or "antibacterial" ? Well I do now.
And let me tell you: To find soap/body wash that is antibacterial (at least at Smiths) you have to look for the Sub-Heading of the Hygiene Section. So it says: "Body Wash" and then next to that section is the "antibacterial soap/bodywash" section. Stupid right? Who wants to buy soap from the section that is not part of, but only nEXt to the "antibacterial soap" section? pointless to me.
Anyways, I looked it up today on wikipedia, the greatest, but not for research papers, and found some information about my enemy:

"All liquid hand and body soaps contain antibacterial chemicals. Triclosan is a common ingredient, as is alcohol. Since there is a great variety of bacteria, effectiveness against any given type of bacterium does not ensure that it is effective against unrelated types. These are generally only contained at preservative level unless the product is marked antibacterial, antiseptic, or germicidal. Triclosan, Triclocarban/Trichlorocarbamide and PCMX/Chloroxylenol are commonly used for antibacterial and deodorant effect in consumer products."

Take a read at that article. It will explain much to you.
So this whole situation where too much antibacterial may lead to not a good situation is explained here.


So:

1. When I spay the whole house, couch, bed, pillows, countertops, closets, bathroom with Lysol before every trip up north,
2. When I wash my hands and pump the soap over and over again JUSt because I'm washing my hands in a dirty bathroom at the gas station,
3. When I wash my hands after every hair-touching episode over and over with antibacterial soap,
4. When I Purell instant hand sanitize my phone with tissue daily to get rid of my face/hand germs that constantly are in contact with my face and hands (therefore causing the side of my face next to my ear break out in consistant cycles),
5. When I Cringe at the thought of my makeup brush containing yesterday and last weeks dirty face bacteria and particles,
6. When I SERIOUSLY cringe at the thought of my dish scrubber being filled with more bacteria than a pile of dog poop, (therefore I really have nothing to clean my dishes with, because everything that ISN'T NEW ...is contaminated),
7. When I think twice about itching my face or neck because I don't know how dirty my hands are and because ALL I'm thinking about is how many germs I might be about to put on my face,
8. When I tell Jordan not to touch my face,
9. When I don't want to hug Jordan after he's played basketball because his sweaty body will clog my pores,
10. When I hate sleeping in sheets that I haven't washed in less than 3 days,
11. When I carry my mini-purell bottle in my backpack and use it every time I'm nervous, before AND after I play the piano (c'mon that is understandable right? Who KNOWS how many people have picked their nose before playing on any of the pianos at school? or Wiped their nose, etc)

......................so....
..............................When I do all these things...
...........................................................................I'm really not doing myself a favor, I'm actually doing something that may turn out to be a not-so-good thing............

Oh well. Better clean than not, right?

.... but the first bar of Dial Soap is already almost gone :)

So the new trend-one Blog Post per month:) haha

hi! like the title says, I guess our new trend is to post one blog per month. because now its December... so here goes:

As usual, we have been so busy with life. After our crazy Thanksgiving trip to Las Angeles California (lOng story maybe I'll write about it another time) , I was sick for the following couple days and didn't work or go to school and that always stinks :( And since then, we have been just on our toes catching up and gathering our energy to finish up the semester.

The past 5 months have been wonderful and difficult but a special special experience as well. Being a student after getting married has been probably the best time of my life. If you want to do well in school...get married! haha. Maybe thats not true for everyone, but for me and jordan it defINAtely has been true. Because I have grown so much since meeting Jordan, I have taken a greater pleasure in the responsibility of an education and balancing a marriage. Since we mostly just want to be with each other, doing homework isn't a hassel because we're together doing it :) And when I get frustrated and sick of doing what I'm doing, he is here to cheer me up and give me a break :) I just love it.

Jordan and I went to Cafe Rio' the other night to share an AMAzing salad, and when we get in line we start talking and all of a sudden this tall guy in front of us turns around and says hi to jordan and it seemed like he knew him well, and I was thinking, oh another mission friend,... no. It was the teacher of his very favorite class, his Visual Technologies teacher :) WEIRD THOUGH, because Jordan told me that he just graduated from Dixie last year, and now this year he is teaching there so thats why I would have mistaken him for a mission friend. His teacher was there with his cute wife and 2 little girls. adorable! We are hoping that this teacher can maybe teach the Photoshop class that we will be taking together this summer!

Big Things Going On:
-I have a Piano Recital on Wednesday!!! AH!!! It's my first Piano Recital in like 2 1/2 years! I'm excited because it is the first time that Jordan will be there, but I am sad because for the first time in 15 years of piano and recitals, my parents wont be there :( Its very very sad, but its part of going away to college and choosing to be a million miles away. My parents haven't even seen me play piano since I started lessons again and all my new songs :*( but last week i played my songs for them on the phone, and my mom and dad told me which song they liked the best, but it wasn't the one that i was ready to play for the recital, so i joked to my mom that i chose to play their least-favorite song for the recital so that they wouldn't be missing anything :) haha.
actually its true though lol.
i miss them so much, and i'm devastated that I don't get to come home for Christmas AGAIN! ahhhhh. After this Christmas, i will have officially missed the past THREE CHRISTMAS' AT MY GRANDMAS HOUSE :*( so sad. Truthfully, Christmas doesn't feel so happy because it's that magical time when everybody wants to spend with their family and get time off work and school to take a break and go home and be with their family and enjoy the spirit of the season, but thats not whats in store for me this Christmas, and I just wish it was. Another truth: "Holiday Season" doesn't feel like anything special in St. George, Utah because there is no snow, barely any lights (you can't even really see the lights that aRe up because there is no snow for them to shine against) no Christmas music stations???, No candy-cane lane, no Santas around, it just doesn't feel Christmas Cheery down here :( I guess thats the price you pay to have 60 degrees in December) and NO Palicks down here :( aye. i just miss my family alot. my sisters are growing up and I don't even know them anymore because they have grown up so much and are such beautiful young women now, they have beautiful hair, and are 10 times prettier than i EVER was at that age! haha.

SOOOO: On a brighter note: I could not be more excited because this is my first Christmas with my new HUsband! HOW WONDERFUL :) He is so wonderful and adorable and would do anything and everything and does everything to make me feel good and feel happy :) He is the most patient loving gentle person that I have ever met, and he is my perfect match, my opposite :) He is soft, I am rough, He is gentle I am rigid, he is quiet i am LOUD , he is everything that is good and wonderful while I am basically the opposite. He is perfect for me and He is my most wonderful beautiful bestest Christmas present:)
But mom, i still want you to send me a package as LONG AS IT HAS A LETTER IN IT TOO!!! haha :) My mom is so nice and sends cute packages to me and Jordan, but sometimes she forgets to write a note or letter to me, so I told her she needs to remember, and so last time she almost forgot but grabbed a piece of paper last minute and wrote me a short cute note :) love it :) i just love seeing letters from her because they are written in her handwriting :)

ok well See you on the other side of exams everyone! I'm not worried about any of mine except Ear Training and Geology!! aye. Love you all and hopefully between tests I can send out some Christmas Card/Newsletter Updates! :)

PS>Paul& Esther i LOVe/MISS you both!!! :) if you guys want to forward this blog to other people in our ward, that would be good just because I don't have ANYONE else's email address!

PPS> I will also try to write another blog post on a much brighter note concerning this holiday season. i'm just still sad because my recital is in two days.

Midterms! Already?!

Hi! :) Midterms last week and this week! AYE!

Already its come so fast! So Jordan and I had most of our exams last week:
-Math
-Analyzing Movies-Jordan
-Visual Technologies-Jordan
-1/2 of our Geology exam
-Music Theory-Melissa

and next week we still have
-the other 1/2 of our Geology exam
-Ear Training&Sight Singing-Melissa

So its been very busy and stressful because jordan just got over being SOOO SICK, SOO SICK with strep throat, and seriously he was on his death bed with a bad fever and constant body sweating that made the comforters and sheets wet, fever, chills, WHITE ALL OVER HIS THROAT, vomiting?, etc. it was bad. finally he started getting better after two things:
1) his (doctor) uncle prescribed him antibiotics,
2) we realized that Ibuprofin is 400% better than tylonal extra strength!!!! AHH!!!!

So thank goodness jordan got over his sickness just in time to catch up before exams started.

^So where are my parents right now?
-answer: On their way to Hawaii :(

^do i miss them?
-answer: yes. :( alot.

^who got engaged this week?
-Jared and Britt

^Who is on their way driving back from Wisconsin?
-Angela, Jared, and Britt, in angelas car

^Who in the family is going with to Hawaii?
-answer: dad, mom, grandpa, carrie (and probably carrie's Webkins haha :)

yes i miss my family alot. this weekend jordan and I drove up to Orem to hang out with his family and it has been fun. and drama lol, but thats religious and political conversations/arguments at the Johnson's for ya haha

SO: thats about it for now. we still dont have our scooter license's yet, (its registered but we dont have our motorcycle permit yet, because we don't have time to go get it!!!!! )


Sorry that we don't update this vey often, it is time consuming though! we will try though :)

-Love
US :)

School Started This Week...So Pretty Much Our Lives Have Finished This Week

Hi!!!! Ok so Jessica told me that she would add a link to our blog after we actually WRIte our first blog...so here goes :) (also, I'm doing this because I'm procrastinating going back to school to practice piano lol).

So, Tuesday was our first day of school. Let me first give you an idea of Jordan and I's schedule:


Melissa
Mon/Wed

• Geology (with Jordan!! :)
• Music Theory
  

Tues/Thurs

• Private Applied Music (Piano Lessons)
• Piano Pedagogy
• Ear Training & Sight Singing
• Math (with Jordan!! :)
  

Friday

• Success Skills (with Jordan!! :)
• Geology (with Jordan!! :)
• Music Theory
• Private Applied Piano Performance

Jordan
Mon/Wed

• Geography (with Melissa!! :)
  

Tues/Thurs

• Communication Design
• Understanding Movies
• Understanding Movies Lab
• Math (with Melissa!! :)
  

Friday

• Success Skills (with Melissa!! :)
• Geography

SO as you can see its just busy busy week. Jordan found out that his Movies teacher is pretty crazy and outdated (most of their movies are OLD), and his Communication Design teacher was just going to school here last year! And then graduated and now teaches here.
Our math teacher seems to spend quite a bit of time in the sun because he is dark dark! Dark like if you saw him in a picture you would think that something was wrong with your camera! But...thats St. George for ya! (I feel bad though, because I know how he must feel. Jordan and I bought Sunblock and I primarily needed it for driving in the car.... because just being in the car burns/tans my arms and legs. Its ultimately unavoidable.) Our geography teacher is great..... at talking.... and talks alot.....but thank goodness I have already learned how to tell which talking is important and which is So very not important so that I know when to Que in.

My Piano Proffesor is SO GREAT. She is sooo smart, sooo brilliant at the piano, AHHH I'm sooo blessed to have her instructing me. She is my Piano teacher and also teaches my Piano Pedagogy class and also leads the Private Applied Piano Performances. Her name is Dr. Nancy Allred and she is just soo fun and is the perfect teacher to lead me into the next stage of developing into a better pianist. SO-the most discouraging part of my week---was yesterday at my Piano Lesson.... I was assigned three warmups, a theory activity to practice & learn triads, and then THREE NEW CLASSICAL SONGS. When she kept writing down more and more things for me to study this week, I was just thinking....umm...usually I only have one warmup and one song to work on..... so I asked her, how much time do you think I should be practicing... she said, 'Well...if your a true blue Piano Performance major....about 4 hours a day.... but we'll start you at about 2 hours a day and see how that goes.' !>?!?!?!?1/.!??!!?!??!?!?!?! WHAT~!?!??!?!?! ohhh my. Its very intimidating, and I was thinking about how growing up while in high school, I would practice about an hour a day and I did really well.... but now I am still in school....but I am studying P.I.A.N.O. and M.U.S.I.C so i guess that amount of time that I would normally practice (1 hour) PLUS how much time I would spend in High School (about 6 Hours a day) is how much time I Know have to devote to this. Next semester won't be AS difficult because I wont have ALL music classes, I will be able to jump back into English too so that i can be progressing in both.

SO-this week has just been busy and we have also started work this week at the Golf Course at Sand Hollow. I'm still not too sure what my real job actually is, because this week has been pretty random because all week it has just been tournaments and so I've just had all kinds of odd jobs. Wednesday I did Jordan's job with him (because the tournament was over) and it was fun:) we took care of all of the carts and sprayed them down and organized them. They are so cute and they have GPS on them! haha thats awesome.

Ok OKokOKOK well I have lots to do today and I shouldn't really be wasting time?!?! (I'm also watching auditions for "So you think you can dance") Jordan has work all afternoon until 8 and so I'm home by myself and I need to go to school and practice piano for a nice round 2 hours?!?!?!??! WHO DOES THAT?!?!?! haha well I guess I have to learn to be like that.
Jordan is such a great motivater, because I just get so discouraged with how much work it takes to learn, and he really really believes in me. :) and I know that he is soooo smart and SOOO talented at ANYTHING he puts his mind to (a quality which I very much desire to acquire). Already I just see him shining when he talks about his visual technology's class and it makes me soo happy. :)

Jared and Britt come tonight to play! :) :)
BYE!