Its Beginning To Look A Lot like Christmas....

Well it is December 13th and its finally starting to look a lot like Christmas. Last night we hung out with our friends Brandon and Ashlee and we made a Sugar Cookie Ginger Bread House. We don't have any pictures at the moment but we will get them. YES, it is finally snowing today...which we are totally excited for because I AM DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS.

Brent and I are going to my work party tonight and we are suppose to bring a favorite Christmas treat and I love to make Sugar Cookies with red frosting and sprinkles!

Last but not least, this is our wonderful Christmas Tree! Its a bit blurry, sorry about that...I couldn't stand still when I was taking the picture I guess. We are really excited for Christmas to come and to spend some time with our family's!!

Yes, Brent has been a good boy and there are some gifts for him under the tree!

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend! Both me and Brent had to work on Friday so we ended up staying home on Thanksgiving Day and had dinner with just the two of us. It was great. We still had a big dinner with potatoes, rolls, turkey, stuffing and Martinellias to drink!

We then topped off our meal with this wonderful home made Dutch Apple Pie with Carmel! Boy that was the best part of Thanksgiving. After we had lunch, we both took a nap. Another best thing was we didn't even have to get out of our jammies. That's the way EVERY Thanksgiving should be!!!

We ended up going to Rupert/Burley for the weekend. We had Thanksgiving Dinner with my mom's side of the family. My one brother was there with his wife Joni and daughter Ava. Me and Ava have had a great bonding since she was born. When she was a baby we used to hang out on the couch and watch cartoons all morning! (Watching cartoons is right up my ally too.) So on Thanksgiving she was my little shadow. We were hunting for Rabbits for most of the day. She was so stinking cute that I just had to take a picture of her with her little mouse ears, toy gun, and my little bike that I used to ride when I was her age. Then after we were done hunting Rabbits we played Barbies and ate Otter Pops!! (Clint, I thought of you guys and knew you would love this picture!)

We also got to see 2 of my mom's sisters. One of them is from California and Brent has never met her so it was nice to see her and her family. We then went over to Brent's parents house and had a great time playing games and hanging out!! The weekend went by all too fast but that is just the beginning because Christmas is right around the cor nor!!! We are so grateful and thankful to have such a great family!!!

Birthday Weekend!

My Birthday was on Monday Nov. 10th. I like to pretend that my birthday is more than just one day. Two months ago Brents parents called and wanted to come to Boise the weekend of Nov. 8th to go to a football game. I then linked going to the football game to my Birthday and that we would have just one FUN weekend! Brents parents came and we got to go out to eat, shopping, played games and went to the football game. I would have to say that it was the best weekend EVER!

My mom then decided that she wanted to come and visit also so her and Steve came on Sunday and spent the night with us in our little apt. I did really good at not opening any of my presents. But as soon as my mom arrived, Brent made my birthday cake and then my mom gave me part of my gift on Sunday. Brent then wanted me to open his. I was going to save my cake until Monday but at about 10:45 on Sunday night I couldn't stand it so we lit the candles and they sang Happy Birthday to me! I made sure to make a really good wish!!

Then on Monday my ACTUAL Birthday we went shopping and had a BLAST! We went met up with Brent and had some yummy lunch and they gave us some ice cream for my Birthday. I would have to say that I have had the BEST Birthday by far. I got lots of wonderful gifts and I'm so lucky to come from such an awesome family!!!

Pumpkin Carving 101

I have decided that Fall is my favorite time of the year. We haven't carved pumpkins since we have been married so I thought we should start the tradition before we have kids!

Since I picked the pumpkin, I let Brent decide what kind of face we will carve. He choose the scary one and when I was little I was the opposite. My mom has pictures of me and my brothers and they always carved the mean and scary looking ones but mine was always the happy one! Haha imagine that...me cheerful?!
You can't forget that of course we watched SCOOBY DOO! Whats a pumpkin carving party with out SCOOBY?!
After all said and done we turned off all the lights and put 3 tea light candles in the pumpkin and it looked amazing! Brent did a very good job...I will take credit for his uni brow though!!
Here is our pumpkin on our door step! HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALL!!!

Snow Storm

Me and Brent haven't been home since Labor Day weekend. So we decided that we were going to go home on the weekend of Oct. 11th. On Wednesday night as we were working out the details I told Brent that I just have this strong feeling that we should take our pickup home instead of the car. So then Thursday night rolls around and my mom calls me and tells me that there is a severe snow storm out for Saturday and Sunday. I thought that was very odd...I mean its the beginning of October. So we were getting ready to leave on Friday evening and we had about an inch of snow in Boise. We left after I got off work thinking that we could get a head of the storm IF there was going to be one. To say the least we got about 20 miles out of Boise and the roads were dry so we made it to Burley safe and sound!!!

Well we woke up on Saturday morning and we looked out the window and the snow was just falling out of the sky! I was so amazed and couldn't believe it.
I love this picture. I love flocked Christmas Trees and this would be my ideal Christmas Tree to have in our house!!! We left Brent's parents house on Saturday evening around 5 and it was still snowing. We were out driving around the yard and the snow was up to Brent's running boards on his pickup!!
After we got to my mom's house we went and got some dinner! Nothing was sounding good so we all voted to go out to BURGERS hmm that hit the spot. We got home and there was a BSU Football game on and of course we HAVE to watch the game but there was only one problem....there was so much snow on the dish Brent had to go out and clean off all the snow on the dish! As you can tell from the picture...there was a BIG 'ol drift on the roof where the dish was! After all said and done...we got to watch the game and eat some fresh peach pie and BSU won!!!!
Okay so it has been snowing non stop for about 15 hours when I took this picture. I loved how piled the snow was on my mom's bush!
Here is a picture after all said and done! We went to bed the night before at 12 and it was still snowing. I was so amazed! I really like the picture of the river. Man this is the type of storm that we like to have on Christmas. Too bad I don't have all of my gifts bought because I was seriously thinking about it!
Here is the snow piled on my mom's picnic table! We ended up having church late and we only held sacrament meeting! That was great!!
I had a splendid idea of measuring the snow on the picnic table, so I went and got the ruler and shoveled a path and the result was about 15 1/2 inches. Brent's parents got about 20 inches. The weird thing was that it only snowed in the Burley and Rupert area. To say the least we had a great weekend going home!

Peach Pie

So my boss at work came back from the weekend saying how she canned some peaches and made a pie and what not. She has 2 little ones too a 3 year old and a 5 month old. I felt really inspired from her. She brought a box of peaches to work on Tuesday and told us to take some because she had so much extra. She then kept saying how good her peach pie was and what not. So then I got on the Internet and found a recipe. I showed my boss and she was so funny...she is my little cheerleader! She was like "You can do it I know you can!!!" I came home that night and Brent went out golfing and I was bound and determined to make this peach pie. Let alone I really like to cook...its kind of my time to relax and take time to myself. So I had to take pictures of the wonderful pie that I baked.

Here is a picture of the peach pie before I put it in the oven. This is the 3rd pie I have ever made. So I was really glad that my dough and everything turned out so good.
Here is the final result!! Boy was it worth it. We had a hard time cutting the pie because it looked so perfect!

Bear Lake

We had the opportunity to go to Bear Lake over Labor Day weekend. We went with my mom, Steve and Sammy! We were really excited to go because neither one of us has been before. So we had this trip planned like a year in advance so I got Friday off so we could have an extra day of play. We met up with Sammy in Logan and then we went up. As we were driving down into the valley we couldn't believe how blue and clear the water was. It was so beautiful!!

Here is a picture that I took of the water...so pretty!
The night before we left my mom called us and asked if we wanted to go golfing....HELLO DO WE WANT TO GO GOLFING...so they had tee times set up for us when we arrived. So we ate lunch really fast and then we went golfing. It was super fun. We ended up going twice. We all did better the second time. Thanks to Sammy...she gave us a bunch of helpful hints!!
Here is mom and Steve!! Whoot whoot!!
Okay check out the cool sand castle we built...okay not really but we would like to claim it. Once we got done golfing we went to the beach. Me and Brent started to build a castle but man its hard work and I started to loose my patience! We played Frisbee and volleyball on the beach. That was super fun. Let alone it was a great place to people watch. I couldn't believe how many sea shells there were too!!!
Oh yes and you can't forget about the kit flying! Me and Brent flew a kite. That was fun...I haven't done that since I was a little kid. The wind was kind of blowing but once we were done of course the wind picks up. But still that was really fun!

Here we are all in a line, mom, me, Brent and our sis Sammy!!!

Brent got bored as we were sitting there watching a storm move in so he wanted to bury my foot. It reminded me of a cartoon like when someone gets their foot stepped on or ran over...it was like huge after the fact.

Once all said and done he found some cute sea shells to make me some pretty toe nails! Haha

Here is a group photo of us on our last day. It was so sad to leave everyone but we had such a great time! Thanks so much Mom and Steve for inviting us. It was nice to have one more vacation right before we started back into school!!!

Oh yes...that is snow that you are seeing. We were on our way back home and it was snowing as we were driving through the mountains. How crazy huh...only in Utah/Idaho does that happen! I always heard crazy stories that it snows in the summer time...but I never really believed it until I saw it!!!!

Italian Soda anyone?

Our new favorite thing right now are Italian Sodas. We used to go to Star Bucks and get them all the time until we realized that we can make them ourselves. So we found the sparkling soda with flavoring at the Boise Co-Op. My favorite is Raspberry topped off with whipped cream! Come to our house for Italian Sodas!!!

My Accomplishments on my 1st day off...

Okay, so I always like to make sure that my apt is always clean. But you know how once in a while you have to clean your drawers and rearrange things and what not. Well today was the day. I have the week off from work so this was the first thing I wanted to get done on my list. I cleaned base boards, windows, blinds...you get the idea. I was so proud of my work that I did that I had to show everyone!

Here is our bedroom...
The bathroom... the rest of the bathroom...
Our laundry closet...wow pretty sparkle huh!!
Here is our dinning room...
Last but not least...our living room! I still have a few things to do like go through our clothes and our junk drawers but I don't want to do it all in one day right? Its nice because I can actually fix dinner. Brent's sister went home last weekend and she brought us back some fresh potatoes and corn. I'm in the process of making potatoes, corn and chicken topped off with Raspberry Italian Sodas. Whoa huh...Brent's never going to want me to go back to work! Haha we will keep ya posted on our other adventures for the week. Brent is taking Thursday and Friday off and we are going to head to Rupert/Burley! Thought we would take a few days off right before school starts on Monday Aug. 25th. Fun fun...

Bridal Shower

On of the girls that I work with at Home Federal got married on 8-16-08 so we had a surprise bridal shower for her. It was super fun. We did it before we opened the bank so we had 3 rolls of T.P. and we made her a dress...well it turned out to be a 80's dress. It still looked super cute on her!! Hurray to Jodell and good luck starting out her new life with her new hubby!

Here pictured from left to right is Donnelle, Jodell, Jessica and Me! We are missing Jamie it was her late day, Brigett was helping out over at another branch and Melissa was taking the picture!! I'm so lucky to have such a great team to work with!!!

Picnic to Rock Creek

After spending a few days with my family, we went over to Brent's house and spent a few days there. (Brent and I decided to take a few extra days off from work so we had like a 5 day weekend!) Monday we decided to go to Rock Creek for a picnic. I used to go up there for girls camp quite a bit.

Here we are getting ready to eat our lunch!
Here is Brent waving as I'm taking a picture of him!
After our picnic we got in the car and kept on driving. It was a beautiful drive. Lots of flowers and what not.
Okay in this picture....I know you can't see it very well but in the top right corner you see a dot of white...well that is snow. Yes in July there is still snow in the mountains. Imagine that!
Here is a picture of Brent's parents! Here is me and Brent! We really had a great 4th of July. To end the great Vacation we had a chance to go on a private tour of the Twin Falls Temple! It made the trip complete. It is such a beautiful temple. I recommend all go to go sometime and check it out! Thanks family for such a great Holiday!!!

4th of July

Brent and I had the opportunity to go home for the 4th. My brother and his family from Washington come down also. We really a had a great time. My mom bought some fireworks and we set them off on the 3rd. But we had extras to do on the 4th also. We went to the parade in Rupert and then we just hung out and had a BBQ and went boating the rest of the day. It was really fun.

Here is a picture of my nephew and nieces Brogan, Ava and Vy. These kids make me laugh so hard. Brogan and Ava are 3 and a half and they are also just a few weeks apart and Vy is 6. In this picture they are patiently waiting for the "Little kids fireworks"
Here is a picture of the boat. We were a little hesitant to take it out on the 4th because it is so busy. We decided to go for a ride. We all go loaded and we started to leak oil like crazy...come to find out we didn't have the oil filter on correctly. We got it fixed and added more oil to the boat and we were on our merry way. We were out and about looking at some new houses and luckily we were going slower and we glazed over a sand bar. It didn't do anything to the boat but it defiantly slowed the boat down! Haha good thing that the kids were wearing life jackets and that Aunt Joni was on the look out to grab one kid from flying out!
Here are the "little kids fireworks" going off on the putting green at my mom's house.
Here is a back picture of Ava and Vy. Ava had her arm around Vy. I thought it was just darling! Ava doesn't get to see her cousins Vy and Bo bo very often...but you can tell that she misses them very much!

Here is a picture that I took of me and Brent. He went and helped his dad move water on his farm during the day on the 4th. Boy was I excited to see him return! We had a great night by building a fire and roasting marshmallows and watching the neighbors fireworks show and telling funny stories with my family about when we were kids!