spoiled rotten.

Sharing the news with people that we'd be spending the very first few months of our marriage in the state of Arkansas, of all places, was one of my favorite things ever. You never knew quite how people would react. Usually it was an incredulous face that said "why the heck would any sane person EVER choose to live in such an uncivilized, god forsaken place out in the middle of nowhere?", while their mouth said something like, "Oh, how nice!" My favorite reaction was given by a guy at the open house in Ohio. It went something along the lines of "That's great guys! You'll have first hand experience in knowing exactly where you do NOT want to live later on!"

We were pretty thrilled about it though. We actually were really looking forward to the time we'd spend in "the Natural State," completely on our own for the first time. And to be honest, I'm only slightly ashamed to admit that I've grown a bit fond of the place.

It was really exciting when we first stepped into our apartment in North Little Rock. Washer, dryer, dishwasher, huge bay window in a spacious living room...it was more than we had hoped for, that's for sure. Sadly, I didn't get around to taking many pictures of that place, but we definitely enjoyed our time there. It was a nice area with a great ward, mall less than a mile away, Wal-Mart less than a mile, every restaurant you could want within five miles of our apartment. There was even a McDonalds down the road that we could steal wi-fi from if we could snag the right parking space. It was awesome. Ben worked his tail off doing door-to-door sales, and I managed to find a job at Outback within a week of living there (not as glamorous a job as you might think).

Boy, we were livin' the life in that place. Or so we thought. Until our arrival to our new apartment in Fayetteville, AR, where the first thing we saw when we walked in the door was this lovely sight:



After no TV whatsoever at the old place, imagine our excitement at finding not one, but THREE of these babies in our apartment. (The other ones are like an eighth of this size, but that is beside the point).

As we continued our tour through our new home, we discovered that we had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, washer, dryer, free internet, two huge closets, fancy artwork on every wall, balcony out back with a view of the golf course and two ponds, and a fully stocked kitchen. And when I say fully stocked, I mean, we pretty much had nothing to unpack. It came with silverware, pots, pans, cookie sheets, can opener, measuring cups, everything. It even came with a microwave! (didn't have one at the old place - quite a learning experience) Here's the proof:











AND, the first morning we were there, Wednesday, we got a knock on the door:
HOUSE KEEPING.

All I can say is we are are in big trouble when we head back to Provo, because currently, we are being spoiled rotten.