Lesson Learned

Stephen has a ton of homework that he needed to finish today, so he's been doing homework non-stop all day. I decided to make some puppy chow (or muddy buddies...whatever you call them) at like 10:30. After I poured the melted chocolate chips on the chex, I put the GLASS bowl on the edge of the counter.

BAD IDEA!

As soon as I started mixing it, the bowl fell and completely shattered. I learned my lesson...don't ever put a glass bowl on the edge of a counter. Ever!

At least the puppy chow is delicious!

Thanksgiving & Black Friday

There are no pictures, but a lot of words. Sorry.

I have so much to be thankful for! Some of the things at the top of my list (in no order) are:

• Stephen
• Family
• Friends
• Gospel
• the Essentials (home, food, clothing)
• A Job
• Education/School
• and so much more!!!

Even though I wasn't able to spend Thanksgiving with family, I still had a blast and a yummy dinner. We ate dinner around 5, then talked, played wii, and looked through Black Friday ads.

At 11:30 p.m. we went to Wal-Mart with some friends to start our Black Friday experience. It was absolutely crazy, but we were able to get some Blu-Ray movies for $5! Talk about a deal! Then we went down to IF to check out some of the other deals. We went to the Wal-Mart there too just to waste some time because the next store didn't open until 3. (We also went to Burger King to get a drink. People are NOT so friendly at 3:30 a.m. at the BK drive-thru. We definitely won't forget this drive-thru experience!)

We went to Kohls as soon as they opened at 3 and went straight back to the bedding section to get a new comforter. Although it took us less than 10 minutes to get in and find the comforter we wanted, we waited in like for an hour!

We thought about going to Target (that opened at 4), but when we got there at 4:15, the line was still going in. We decided that was too many people, and we didn't really want anything there that was worth fighting that crowd for.

Best Buy opened at 5, so we went and waited in line. The employees kept going down the line of people handing out fliers for anyone that wanted them with different doorbuster specials. We took one where if you bought a 32" Samsung TV, you got a free wii! We didn't need a TV, especially since we have a 32" Samsung. But, our friends wanted a TV, but not a wii. We ended up getting a great deal on the wii (After waiting in line, getting to the front to find out we were in the wrong line, going to another line and waited 2 long hours just to be told to go to a different line so we could get checked out faster.)

After Best Buy we decided it was time to go home. We got back around 8 (and by this time I had been awake for a full 24 hours). We were exhausted so we immediately fell asleep and I slept until 3! I got a full 7 hours of sleep after 7 hours of Black Friday shopping.

Overall, we had a great Thanksgiving weekend. How was yours?

Food Storage?

Most people have beans, corn, soup, dried fruit and veggies, water and lots of other things for food storage. Now, we have some of those too, but if you took a look in our spare room it would seem like our food storage is just cake, cookie mixes, and frosting. Take a look.

We have around 15 cookie mixes, 15 cake mixes, 10 frostings, and 10 bags of chocolate chips. Even though we don't need all of this, we will eventually use it! We won't have to buy any of this stuff for a long time! And let's just say we got a really good deal on it!

So Unlike Me

Let me start out by saying that I do not read! I might have only read one book in high school, and since then (4 years) I've only read a couple...

However, in the last month I have read 3 books! Yes, that's right...3! I've read:
A Child Called "It"
The Lost Boy
The City Of Ember

Disease called "Perfection"

Last week i came across a post on FaceBook about this disease called perfection that someone had linked. I really enjoyed reading the post and just thought I would share it. It has really made me think! You can get to it here!

Logan, the Sky Angel Cowboy

My mom showed me this video a couple of years ago and I just came across it again. I love the message that this 13 yr. old boy shares with the world!

Petrified Forest

Our last stop before home was the Petrified Forest National Park. It was really interesting to walk around and see all of the trees that are now hardened crystals. We were able to learn why the trees turned to crystals and we were also able to go on walks around some of the main places where trees have fallen. It is weird to think that this now desert used to be wetlands!

Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon was our second National Park to stop at. We only spent like 2 hours there because we got there right before sunset. It was absolutely breathtaking! Enjoy the pictures!

Zions National Park

This was our first stop on our way back home. We didn't really spend too much time here, just enough to drive through and stop and take pictures every once in a while! Even though we didn't go on any hikes, it was still a gorgeous place! We are so glad we were able to go through!

update

So I realized that I haven't updated this blog since we got back to Arkansas over a month ago! It's about time! On our way home we went to 3 National Parks, so I will upload pictures from each one. We had such a nice time being home. We were able to spend time with family, go to the pool and lake, and enjoy a break from school!

Arkansas

We made the long trip back to Arkansas. After:

*4 days in the car

*7 states

*3 National Parks

*2000+ miles

*36 hours driving...

we are home and loving it!

We are...

And we hope that you are too!

Cinn-tastic Yummy Bread

So I found this recipe and it looked good, so I thought I would try it. Little did I know, it would be amazing! I made two loaves (half of the recipe) and they were gone in a day and a half! They were fairly quick and easy to make. If you have a little time and like cinnamon, try it!

You can find the recipe and others here.

R.A.I.N.

Do you ever have those days, or you just do something that reminds you of being a kid? It was nice weather today, and then as soon as Stephen finished his test it started raining. I found myself kneeling on our couch staring out the window. This just reminded me of being a little kid and wanting to play outside while it was raining. (It also reminds me of Dr. Seuss...)

family reunion

We had a blast at our family reunion in Island Park. We had so much fun, that I forgot about my camera! I was going in wanting to take lots of pictures, and came out with only a couple from Yellowstone.

We left on Friday and stayed at a cabin in Island Park. Because we didn't get there until about 6, we just ate dinner and got everything unpacked, talked and got caught up with everyone.

On Saturday we left around 8:30 a.m. to go to Yellowstone. Both Stephen and I have really wanted to see a bear every time we go, but never have. With talking to my aunt, we found out that she has seen a couple of them, so we figured she was good luck...she was. We Finally Saw One!!! That made our day! The rest of the day was filled with walking trails, looking at buffalo, watching Old Faithful, you know, the usual.

Sunday we went to church at 9:00. We forgot our church clothes, so we were kind of hesitant to go. Stephen didn't even bring a pair of jeans. My cousins said that they have been before and if we wore jeans we would fit right in! Stephen borrowed some jeans and we went to church. When we got there both chapels were completely full, so we sat outside on the grass. There were probably 200 people out on the grass. There were speakers out there so we could kind of hear what was going on. When some other cousins came out of the other chapel, they said the bishop said there were about 2000 people there! Crazy! The rest of the day was filled with going to Big Springs, Mesa Falls, dinner, games, talking, etc.

The plan for Monday was to go rafting down the river. Although that sounded fun, the water was cold, it was windy, and there were lots of clouds covering the sun. Instead of going (and possibly complaining about being cold) we went back to Rexburg for a BBQ. We spent the afternoon with good friends, good food, and nice weather!

How was your Fourth of July Weekend?

Hallelujah!

This weekend is filled with lots of good stuff!!! Last Monday we went to Bishop's house to FHE and we had a lesson on the tender mercies we get each day. Since then I have really been trying to recognize each tender mercy instead of just letting the days go by.

Saturday we woke up and it was just another Saturday. Walked out of our room and the flying ants were back. (Yes, our apartment was sprayed last Saturday, the ants showed back up Tuesday....) I told Stephen that I was going crazy living with these flying ants all day long! (He's on campus most of the day, while I am at home...) Well, it was a beautiful day outside, so we went to the park. Let's just say that I needed to get out of the apartment! Stephen was reading his book, while I was taking in the sun and people watching (one of my favorite things to do).

At 2:30 there was a water war. I would say 600+ people showed up for this war. I thought it was funny to watch! It was so nice spending time outside watching some very interesting people! We got lots of sun and lots of free entertainment!

The back of Stephen's legs. He was on his stomach reading his book...

We came back and went to play tennis again for a little bit. After like 30 minutes the sun was really hurting my sunburn, so we left. At 7:30 we went to Comic Frenzy on campus and loved it. The last one we went to wasn't as good as it had been, so we haven't been for a while. Meagan and Jaron invited us to go, so we decided this would be a good time to try it again. Stephen was laughing non-stop, and we all know that his laugh is contagious!

After, we decided to go to BRC's frozen custard. When we got there they were setting up a large screen for an outside movie. Although it was windy and a little chilly, the movie was good!

Today, I woke up around 8. Went out of our room, and there was a NEW trail of ants. We bought some new pesticide spray yesterday, so I decided to try it out. As I was spraying the trail, I noticed there were a lot more right below this vent than normal. I decided to try to open it up and see if that's where they were coming from. As soon as I started unscrewing the screws, ants just started dropping out. Of course, I freaked out and just started spraying like crazy to kill them. I got Stephen up to come help me kill these things!

We took the vent off, and look what we found...

This picture does not even do justice what we could see. There were literally thousands of ants crawling in this space. Some had wings, some didn't. Luckily this new spray works better at killing the ants than our last one. They died on contact! We found their home, and now they will be out of ours!!! Hopefully we can get an exterminator to come sometime next week to make sure they kill the home and get the ones that we couldn't! I can finally breathe again and not feel like I am going crazy with the ants!

Good things this weekend:
SUN
park
comic frenzy
BRC's
outside movie
FOUND WHERE THE ANTS
WERE COMING FROM!!!!

A Spider Man

Yay! We finally got someone from "A Spider Man Pest Control" to come and spray our apartment and get rid of those flying ants! We've had them for about 2 weeks, and were getting so tired of them! In total we had between 200-300. Glad that's over with...hopefully!

Another good thing....ONLY 5 MORE WEEKS OF SCHOOL! This is my last semester taking classes. For fall, I'm going to try to substitute teach or find some full time job. And during the winter I will be student teaching!!! I graduate in April! Stephen graduates next July. I can't believe we are so close to being done!

CLEAN!

Since my Practicum class ended Friday, and Monday was a holiday, today was my first free day! That was my only class Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Today I decided to be productive and deep clean our apartment! Sorry I don't have a before picture, but as you can see in the after picture, it is clean! I started with our bedroom, and Friday I will work on our spare room. We started it a couple of weeks ago, so it shouldn't be too bad!

On another note, we had a bunch of winged ants show up in our living room yesterday! We killed all the ones that we saw (which was a TON) and then sprayed our window sill and door to make sure that they would die before they inside our apartment. Today, we woke up and there was more! Today, they weren't in the middle of our floor though, they were on the window sill and in our curtains. SICK! Hopefully we will be able to get an exterminator to come and get rid of these!

Cottage Cheese

So, on the 20th Sonic started a special. Buy one real ice cream shake, get one free. Well, we thought this was a good deal, so Thursday night we went to get one. We got there and asked which ones were included in the deal, and after about 5 minutes we finally ordered two shakes. Right before she told us our total she said, "Oh, I forgot. Our ice cream machine is broken." What?? She let us sit there and decided which ones we wanted and it was broken? Oh well.

Then, Friday night we thought that we would try it again. (The deal lasts until the 27th.) So, we called 1st to make sure it was working! They said it was and so we went and ordered. After we got them, we started to drive off (because we just went through the drive-through. I took a sip of mine and it had a lot of chunks in it! It felt like I was drinking cottage cheese (and I don't like the texture of cottage cheese!!!) Stephen tried his and his was the same way, so we pulled around to tell them. Apparently they already knew that this happens! They said they got new ice cream that doesn't work with their machine, so they are getting a lot of angry customers! Wouldn't it have been nice to know that before we ordered it and paid for it? haha We were able to return them and get our money back.

Sorry that was a long story, just thought I would share!
Enjoy your weekend!!!

Weekend Getaway!

This weekend was such a nice weekend! Stephen found out early in the week that he didn't have any tests or homework assignments this weekend, so we were able to make plans! Friday, after I got done with my weekend homework, we went up to Island Park and stayed at a cabin with Nate and Kate Wright, and Brian and Jaclyn Robbert. Saturday morning we drove to Bishop's cabin and had breakfast. It was so good! Then, we went to Big Springs for a little bit! It was gorgeous there! The water was so clear, and the fish were big!

Around 1:30 Stephen and I drove up to Yellowstone to enjoy the rest of the day!

We saw a ton of these deer and a ton of buffalo!

As soon as we entered the park we saw the bald eagle!

Picture of us in front of a waterfall randomly on the side of the road. There was a very deep valley below. (This was so pretty, but you can't really tell in a picture...)

This is a yellow-bellied marmot. It came up right next to us and just started eating what little grass was around. We were talking and moving and it didn't seem to bother it!

This was a thermal area. It was interesting because it was kind of chilly, but when we got out of the car we were surprised how warm it was! All of the white is like ashes or something...

Overall it was a very good weekend! The weather was wonderful (it didn't start raining until we were on our way home from Yellowstone)!

5th grade

For my Senior Practicum class, I got placed in a 5th grade classroom at Jefferson Elementary in Rigby, Idaho! Today was my full day to be with these 5th graders. So far so good. I also taught my first lesson to 33 students at once! (I think the most I have ever taught was 20ish students...) The last two days of being in the classroom all day I have come home exhausted! On Friday (my first day), I came home and took a TWO hour nap! Today I have not taken a nap, but I am worried I will pass out while doing homework!

I hope this gets easier, and I get less tired as I spend more time in the classroom!

(Sorry there is no picture of the school, I tried to find one online, but couldn't...)

3:30 AM!!!

Last night was a very late night! I cannot remember the last time I stayed awake later than 1:30 or stayed out later than 12:30! Last night we went over to one of Stephen's accounting buddies house.

Our night consisted of:

board games, dominoes, and Mario Kart
(I came in last almost everytime in Mario Kart...)
nachos, candy, and apples with peanut butter

We didn't end up leaving until around 3:30!
(and for some reason I woke up at 8:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep...)
Thank you Craig and Salem for having us over!

Tennis Pros

Yesterday Stephen and I were bored and wanted something to do. So, we went to Wal-Mart and decided to walk around. We started out looking for a frisbee and ended up buying tennis rackets and tennis balls! Neither one of us have played tennis for a very long time!

We called Brian and Jaclyn and they came and played with us! (Thank you guys for being patient with me!) Stephen was pretty good after we played for a little and he got the hang of things....I don't think I improved that night at all! However, we went this morning and played and I was quite a bit better than I was yesterday! So we are not quite tennis pros, but there's only room for improvement!!!

(Pictures to come)

Conference

So, we had tickets to go to conference....

But, we got stuck in Idaho...:-(

We both had a TON of homework this weekend because it's the week before finals.We planned to just work on homework all day Friday and Saturday morning. We were going to leave right after the 2nd session of conference and drive down to Utah and go to the 2nd Sunday session.

However, we woke up to about 4 inches of snow! Neither one of us wanted to drive in it, especially because it was suppose to continue to snow the rest of Saturday and Sunday. So, we went to the store and bought an 11 lb ham (yes, it is just us two eating...) and the ingredients for funeral potatoes. Looks like we'll be celebrating Easter with a yummy dinner!

Utah, here we come next week!!!!

Relaxing Weekend

Overall, this weekend was a good one. On Friday we had Stephen's birthday dinner at Red Robin! :-) However, on the way down there Stephen got pulled over for the first time ever! Luckily he didn't get a ticket because the police said he might have accidentally clocked the big truck driving behind us. (and luckily the police was nice!) Dinner was good though, and the company was great! On Saturday Stephen and I were able to relax and do nothing! We played Ticket to Ride (and I beat him again!). We also went to a play on campus called "Children of Eden". Let's just say that it was interesting. Sunday we had Brian and Jaclyn over for dinner and dessert. Pizza for dinner, Chocolate Trifle for dessert! Both were delicious!!!

Here's a picture of the yummy Trifle...

That's this weekend in a wrap!

One year older

Today is Stephen's birthday and he is so excited about turning 21!!! On Friday he opened presents from my family, and last night he opened his present from me because he thought he was going to be on campus all day today. Here's some pictures of him opening them up :-)

Stephen playing with his remote control helicopter
from my family...

I got him Ticket to Ride Europe. :-)

And he also got Planet Earth from
from my family.

We already watched a couple of the episode of Planet Earth and it is awesome on Blu-Ray!!! We felt like we were right there! Stephen turned to me and said, "I feel like I should be holding my breath right now!" while we were watching an underwater one! We felt like we were right there! Also, as you can tell by the pictures, the helicopter didn't stay in the package for long! It was out and charging in no time! We are excited to play Ticket to Ride. We've only played one other time but we thought it was really fun!

Happy 21st birthday Stephen! I love you!

not so productive

So, I was going to be very productive today. I was going to wake up at 6 a.m. to go run. Then, I was going to deep clean my apartment and throw away things that we haven't used to a while. I don't have class until 12:45 today, and I only have 1 homework assignment that is due today so I was going to do that next.

Well, I didn't wake up until 9 a.m. and I got on the computer. That was my down fall! I don't know how I manage to do this, but I always waste so much time doing nothing! Randomly I decided to start a blog and have now spent an hour trying to figure out how to do this! I spend so much time on the computer already looking at facebook and reading other's blogs, so why not get my own? :-) Here goes nothing!