I Guess After 7 Months It's Probably Time to Post Again...

Clearly, we have slacked at blogging. What has happened this year? It's hard to remember it all but I guess I will give it a shot.

February: Hmmm....not much. We worked and skied. We also found the most adorable Pomeranian puppy but our landlord wouldn't let us get it. Well wishes to you dear Cupid. Hope your owners are as cool as we would have been. I think we bought Kindles this month, too. Excuse the language, but I've given Jeff a new nickname: technology whore. This cute boy of mine has to have the latest and greatest of everything. And I've proved to be a bit of a pushover, so somewhat against my will, we bought Kindles. They've actually been pretty great and we have read a lot of books this year so far.

Is he cute or what?!

March: We headed down to St George so that Jeff could get some--according to him--much needed golfing in. To my surprise, this trip also extended down to Vegas. Jeff sweetly surprised me with a night at the Vdara (a new 5-star hotel on the Strip) and tickets to Phantom of the Opera. Needless to say, the show was absolutely amazing. And Jeff got to golf. Of course.

April: Work. Work. Work. And my 24th birthday. That's it.

May: After several months of planning, we FINALLY got to go on our California Trip. This included golfing (what else?!) at Pelican Hill. Wow. That place was top notch. We also spent a day at Knottsberry Farm and 2 days at Six Flags Magic Mountain. So freaking fun. And then we ended our trip with a lovely 2 night stay at the Hyatt Resort in Huntington Beach. It was a pretty fantastic getaway. Later that month we moved apartments. The people upstairs got to be too noisy to handle any longer and I had to either leave or go insane. I chose to keep my sanity. With the move we also decided to spend WAY too much money on a new couch and loveseat as well as Jeff's pride and joy, a 60" TV. Remember that nickname I gave him? On Memorial Day Jeff and I went with his parents and Sadee and Ava to Yellowstone. It. Was. Freezing. Little too cold for my liking but it was still a fun adventure.

Jeff at Pelican Hill.

Our new living room.

The cute girls somewhere in Yellowstone.

June: My younger brother Nicholas got home from his mission in Portugal in May but I didn't get to see him until June when he moved out to Provo for summer term at BYU. It was so good to see him all matured and grown up. Proud of him. And I applied to PA school during June. That's right. I did. I guess we'll see how that goes. Crossing our fingers and praying that we both can get into the same program.

Pre Mission

Post Mission

July: Sadee and Ava came to visit again. We spent time with Jeff's family at a water park in Kearns. Went to Jump On It again. Stayed up late to watch movies and play (or attempt to play) Rock Band. And I worked A LOT. I usually work at least one extra shift a week, but this month I ended up working 2 extras per week. It was tiring and to be quite honest, almost torturous.

August: I know it's only mid-August right now, but we've already had so much fun. We spent a couple days with Jeff's family in central Utah four-wheeling and right after that we got to spend 3 days with my family at Bear Lake. My dad, step-mom, 2 youngest brothers and 3 stepbrothers drove over from Oregon, and Brandon, his wife and son drove down from Rexburg to meet up with Jeff, Nick, Alex and me at Rendezvous Beach. We camped there for 2 nights. We swam in the lake, visited the Paris Ice Caves (not worth the 10 mile drive on a rough gravel road), and went boating/tubing. It was a blast.

The whole fam. More pictures of the Bear Lake trip are on Facebook.

Well, that's all folks. Maybe we'll post again soon. Maybe we won't...

After Christmas Fun

  Sadee and Ava are the cutest nieces ever. We love them so much! We were so lucky to have them come spend a few days with us after Christmas. It was like a non-stop 3 day party. See the pictures to take part in all the fun we had.

Opening presents. Their favorite thing was the lockets we got them. I found some for super cheap.

We went to Trafalga and tried the mini golf. They have a really cool black light course we thought they'd love, but they didn't even last 3 holes before they were sick of it the game.

Trafalga has a 4D Theater they loved. The chairs move, vibrate, blow wind on you, etc.

The girls LOVED the arcade games. I know Ava's face doesn't look like it, but she was loving the race car driving.

Do you see all those tickets?! That's only about of third of what they won. They both kept hitting Jackpots and then Jeff won them a ton on the Pink Panther game behind them. The got 3,200 tickets. And below is what they traded in their tickets for.

Sadee got a stuffed dog and a gumball machine and Ava got an awesome glittery princess lamp and candy. It was way too much fun.

One of their presents from us was wooden jewelry boxes, pictures frames, paints and paint brushes. They sang along to Mandy Moore and Taylor Swift while painting. It's so cute how they know all the words to so many songs. Love them.

 We went and saw Legend of the Guardians in 3D.

 

We also went to a place in Lindon called Jump On It. As you can see from the video, there are trampolines everywhere. There's also 4 or 5 bounce houses that the girls loved too. We went right after dinner which, apparently, is a bad idea. Sadee kept complaining of stomach pain that sounded like heartburn. Whoops.

 

 

There were a bunch of high school and college guys doing crazy jumps. This is the best one I got on video.

We went sledding at Rock Canyon Park and had SO MUCH FUN. It was exhausting climbing up the hill a million times but we flew down so fast, it was worth it. At one point, all four of us went down at the same time. Two on one sled, two on the other, and we held on to each others legs. I wish we could have had someone take a video of it because we went so dang fast. It was hilarious.

Jeff and Sadee just before hitting a jump. And of course, I missed getting them in the air. They wouldn't do it again for me to try and get another picture. I'm thinking the landing probably hurt a bit. Haha.

Braving the hill on their own.

Poor Ava. Just look at that face. Obviously, this was when all the fun was over and we were frozen to the core. Miserable.

The girls love the show So You Think You Can Dance and like to play their own version of it quite often. Usually we play it at Grandma and Grandpa's house and they have a bunch of their mom's clothes over there that they love to dress up in. Playing the game at our house, with a whole new wardrobe (mine) was almost more excitement than then could handle. They danced while Jeff and I sang along in our Rock Band microphone. (Yes, we have Rock Band 3. Very fun).

I think Ava looks so pretty here. Such a cutie.

 We also went to the Lehi Aquatic Center where Sadee went down the big slide by herself and where Ava jumped in from the side over and over again by herself. They were very proud of themselves. We played games, ate ice cream, watched movies, and had a blast. All the fun made up for having to work during the holidays. Thanks Kari and Dave for letting them come stay with us and Grandma and Grandpa for driving them down here!

Christmas Eve on the Mountain

Since I had to work during the holidays again this year, Jeff and I decided we would celebrate Christmas Eve by going skiing. I had only been one other time in my life. We spent a few hours in beautiful sunny weather at Sundance. Unfortunately, the conditions weren't ideal for beginners. The whole mountain was iced over from all the rain that fell the couple days prior, so it was super slick and super fast. I fell A LOT. And I got A LOT of bruises, including one on my left hip that is about 3 inches in diameter and is a deep purple. It scares me every time I look in the mirror, like there's a huge spider or some foreign thing on me. Overall, we had a really fun time and hope to be able to go again this season.

Winter Wonderland

A major downside of being a nurse is working during the holidays. Last year I worked Christmas Eve and Christmas and decided to be a bit of a scrooge because I was mad about it. This year, you guessed it, I get to work Christmas Eve and Christmas again! Aren't I lucky?

This year, I decided that we should embrace every bit of Christmas we can get. Right after the awful drive home from Idaho (as noted in the post below), we put up our tree and new collection of decorations. The pictures below don't quite do it justice. 

 The Tree

 Snowmen

 Santa Clauses

 

My favorite: The Village

Stockings and random decorations

We also have Christmas lights draped all around the doorways and the ledge across the ceiling. It's so much fun. We love it!

Alive and Well

We are well aware that we have been major blogging slackers lately. We deeply apologize to all of our followers, although I'm sure that by not blogging for the past three months, we may not have anyone left to read our blog. For any patient and dedicated readers out there, we will give you a brief rundown of recent events and a commitment to be better bloggers!

I am still working in the NICU and loving it, and Jeff is still working as a medical assistant and waiting to be accepted to PA school. Prayers for him, please!!!

We got some time off for Thanksgiving and, of course, traveled to Idaho Falls to spend time with some of his family. Like always, we had a great time playing with Sadee and Ava, shopping, and eating delicious food. I tried to be better at taking pictures, but what's below is all I got. 

 

 Sadee and Ava after putting on mascara, blush, and lip gloss. Pretty little girls.

 Swimming in the neighbor's fabulous indoor pool. I succeeded in getting Ava to go down the slide all by herself. You'd think I would have gotten a picture of that, right? Well, I suck at taking pictures.

This super flattering picture is documentation of the horrendous drive home. It took twice as long as normal and we were miserable. Stupid snow...

Jeff and I also did some Black Friday shopping. We stayed up all night and parked outside of Sports Authority at 1:30am. The store was to open at 5:00am and we REALLY wanted to be one of the first 85 people in line so that we could get one of the gift cards they were giving away to the 85 customers. Well between the two of us we got a whopping $20 in gifts cards while another couple got $750 together. The jerks! Life is not fair. We got out of our car and in line at 4:00am (that's when the first people got in line) and stood for an hour in -14 degree weather. Wowzers. That was freaking cold. It was an adventure to remember to say the very least.

Off to bed now. Look for more posts in the coming week!