Outdoor Escapades

We love when the weather is nice enough to do things outside!! This is an assortment of **unfinished sentence in an unfinished blog post.**

So there was this one afternoon that Joshua and I made ourselves hamburgers and tater tots, packed them into our picnic basket and headed over the nature park. It was windy so we ate fast, but we made sure the duckies got fed too before we left!

 **Unfinished blog post alert!

Imagine inserted photos here.**

Once upon a time, between winter and spring semesters, Joshua and I hiked "R mountain"! (I'm gonna get technical – it's really a butte.) We hiked up what we thought was a rather treacherous path. Once we got to the top of the especially scary part, we realized we weren't on the path. We actually took the path on the way down, and it was not scary at all. We had fun exploring once we made it to the top and wished we had more time to spend all day up there!

During the summer we hiked R mountain with the Andersons. We were adventurous and went up a different way. It wasn't so bad to go up, but we knew we sure didn't want to go down that way. Joshua and Jordon braved it though (somebody had to get the car) and I took Sunshine down the way Joshua and I had gone before and we met the guys at the end.

Then there was this other time we went to the nature park. We actually visit the ducks often, but this particular time we took some pretty pictures.

I don't think I can say it enough how much we love the nature park here!!

Joshua's Birthday

Since Joshua's birthday was on a Monday this year and we were both in school, we had his birthday dinner on Sunday. I've realized birthday dinners are a really important tradition for me. He picked some casserole that I concocted recently. My re-creation of it for his birthday wasn't quite as good as the original, but he was still happy with it. (He's nice and enjoys humoring me by telling me I'm a good cook.)

Monday we were both at school most of the day. However, we did something unusual and took a break from homework for the night! First, we came home, gathered his birthday presents, and went over to the clubhouse. (Of course I knew we'd have a choice of movies to watch once he opened his presents. And we are without something to watch them on.) He picked Jurassic Park, and we got to cuddle up to watch a movie! That doesn't happen too often.

After that, we went to The Cocoa Bean for cupcakes! I even took candles, but forgot the essential something to light them with. . . . Maybe he'll just get extra wishes next year.

It was a happy birthday!!

Blog Stalking

...has led to a blog post!

I love reading others people's blogs. I was reading all about some other people's lives today and it inspired me. Normally when I read other people's blogs I think about how their lives sound so much more exciting than mine, but really my life is great too. Or I think about how witty they are and how it makes reading their blog enjoyable. I've still not convinced my blog will be really enjoyable to read, but life is good and I want to record these memories. I have a couple posts that I started at the beginning of the year and I've already forgotten about some of those things. They also include lists of things I wanted to write down, but I can't remember any of the details I would have included then so I'm not sure what to write. I'll have to settle for a simple overview of the past year. A lot of times I just don't do something if I don't feel I'm going to do a good or thorough job. So I'm making it my goal to catch up on my blog anyway!! By the end of the year I want to be caught up. That's rather ambitious but if I can't remember half of what happened maybe it won't be so hard. ;)

Yellowstone

The day after graduation, my parents took Joshua and I to Yellowstone. Joshua had no idea how big it is!! He'd thought it was something we could see all of in one day. Of course we didn't see anywhere near all of it, but we still had a great time!

The one thing I wanted to see (still the same as when I went with my parents years ago) was a moose. Can you guess what the first animal we saw was?! A MOOSE!! We saw a momma and her two babies. I was pretty excited, but I still really want to see a moose with big antlers. It's on my bucket list that's in my head.

My dad and I hiked down to the top of the Lower Falls while my mom and Joshua . . . did not. It's mind-boggling to me how powerful waterfalls are! I took lots of pictures because I thought it was so neat and pretty!

 

We saw some animals - mostly deer and bison.

We watched Old Faithful! As the name implies, it was faithful and right on time!

Yellowstone is so beautiful!  

 

 

**Unfinished blog post alert!**

Snowy Holidays

Snowy Holidays means we get to cover Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and Valentine's Day all in one!

This past Thanksgiving we stayed in Rexburg and celebrated by having dinner at our clubhouse with a group of people from our ward. Some of our good friends were there so it was really enjoyable! Everybody brought something, and our dinner was fantastic! After dinner we lounged on the clubhouse's amazingly comfortable couches to chat and watch a Christmas movie. It was lots of fun. And we have a lot to be thankful for this year!!

The only Thanksgiving picture I got was of my half eaten pie.

We were in Rexburg for Christmas too. Christmas Eve we had a traditional dinner with our neighbors and friends, the Carsons. It was Abbie's first turkey, and it turned out great! We always have fun spending time with them.

Joshua and I both agreed we needed to keep my family's tradition of baking goodies to take to people and making a cheese ball!! Since lots of our friends were out of town, we figured we only needed to make one kind of cookie. I picked the most important - peanut butter kiss cookies! We both love those! And they're not something we would usually make.

And my first cheese ball was a success! Pretty and delightful to the taste buds.

Christmas morning we slept in. Really late. Then we opened presents! We had no tree so this is where Santa left the presents:



It was kind of fun opening presents just the two of us. I got the coat rack of my dreams. I'd written Santa a very specific letter asking for it. It must mean I was a good girl this year since I got it! We both got a few movies. Funny since we have nothing to watch them on. I guess we'll have to head over to the clubhouse and watch them on the big screen!

Awkward picture, huh?

It was the only one of me and my incredible new footie pj's!

Joshua had asked if it could be one of our traditions that he make breakfast every Christmas morning! How could I say no to that?! I think I'll love this tradition. So here he is making our eggs, bacon, and hash browns:

It was really strange for me to have such a quiet Christmas. We talked to our families on the phone. I took a long nap while Joshua called some other close friends. Then we spent lots of time playing Sorry and Monopoly Jr! It was nice to get some two player games!! For dinner we had Hawaiian Haystacks! They're my favorite. I even did it the good way and boiled my chicken.

New Year's Eve we picked up one of Joshua's good friends, Matt, from the airport. He couldn't check into his apartment yet so he crashed at our place for a few days. The three of us went to my and Joshua's stake party. We gorged ourselves with tons of pizza, subs, and chips. And maybe a few veggies. We watched people dance awkwardly and wandered around. We stayed for the big countdown to ring in 2010! It was kinda fun. And kinda lame at the same time. Then we came home to have Martinelli's! And then we had our real entertainment - listening to Joshua sing after sucking helium out of the balloons they sent home with us:


We didn't do much for Valentine's Day. I finished Joshua's Valentine from last year. He made me breakfast in bed. After church we had a yummy pasta dinner, some Martinelli's, and some cake that I don't know what it's called. I just know that it was delicious.

We'll pretend this is a good picture. Because it's the only one.