Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, here it is the end of November and another month has flown by. Jason and I enjoyed a great Thanksgiving feast with the Burningham family this year. Jeff and Sally were gracious enough to host it in their home. We had 10 adults and 7 energetic kids. It was also James' 2nd birthday so it kind of doubled as a birthday party complete with gifts. We ate around 2:00pm and it was one of the most delicious Thanksgiving meals I can remember! I ate some of everything and it was all amazing. We enjoyed hanging out, talking, and playing games like Word on the Street, Ticket to Ride, and Bananagrams. I brought an apple and pumpkin pie that I made completely from scratch. It was my first experience making pie crust or the pie filling, but fortunately they both turned out deliciously. See the pictures below for a mouth-watering experience. :) We also had fun hanging out with Steve and Kirsten who were down visiting from Idaho as well as meeting 3 mo. old Ezra for the first time.

Thanksgiving weekend was also spent getting out the Christmas decorations. A few years back we received a free pre-lit Christmas tree in good shape minus a couple strings of lights being out. We figured that was good enough and have been enjoying it ever since. Unfortunately, this year when we pulled it out, most of the strands of lights had stopped working. We still really like the tree so we both spent a few hours stripping the branches of these invisible, yet annoying, green clips that held the broken lights to the branches. We bought some more lights and whaaaalla, the tree looks amazing again! :)

Another notable event of the month would be the 2012 Presidential election between Barak Obama and Mitt Romney. Both Jason and I voted as I'm sure many of you did, unfortunately unlike Utah, the swing states could not see that Romney was the clear choice of who should be leading the country. It was disappointing to say the least. Hopefully the spotlight on Mormons has sparked an increase in missionary work, which would definitely be the blessing out of the whole situation.

View of Salt Lake from the roof of the Conference Center

On a more positive note, I will report a random act of kindness someone made in my behalf. A couple weeks ago, a new friend in the ward called me at work and left me a message saying that as she was making dinner, and she thought we would really like this easy recipe so she made some for us as well so we could try it out. Isn't that thoughtful? I want to be more thoughtful like that. It totally made my day and I didn't have to worry about what to eat when I got home from work.

Happy Halloween!

I decided I had better write tonight so I could get a post in for October. I haven't written for a while, but since school started back up for Jason, we haven't been doing anything too terribly exciting.

The last couple of months have been spent mostly working (for me) and doing school work (for Jason). Jason is taking a prep class for the first actuarial exam that he will take the beginning of January. It's a difficult test and he still has a ways to go to be ready for it, but he has come a long way in the last year and a half. Jason has spent quite a bit of time looking into internship and job opportunities for the summer. He's had a few screening interviews and they've gone well, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that something will work out. The interesting part about that is that any job he gets will most likely be out of state and probably won't have insurance benefits. If that's the case, it's possible that I could just stay here through the summer and continue to work at my job. Neither of us like this option, but it is a possibility.

Besides work, I've been spending a lot of time with the Young Women. A couple months ago I was released from being a Primary teacher and moved to the Young Women's Presidency. I work with the 12- and 13-year-olds. I haven't been in YW since I was a young women and that feels like a really long time ago. I still can't say the revised YW theme without messing up and it's been kind of tricky to get the hang of the newer Personal Progress program. I am very excited about the new curriculum for next year though. We have about 11 girls at our activities and that number will only grow next year with many more girls coming in. I do have two advisors that work with my class and they are very helpful. To be honest, it's kind of been stressful that last couple weeks with some serious drama going on. The drama has involved several girls, moms, leaders, and the Bishop. The YW President and I are very ready to be done with it and hope that things settle down soon.

For fun Jason and I have been playing ultimate Frisbee Thursday nights at a local park and watching most of the BYU football games. I also started attending Zumba classes through BYU again, which I love. Melody and Brandon were up this last weekend and we had fun going out to dinner and catching up with them Friday night. Mike and Desi also just had their fourth baby last week. I just wish they lived a lot closer so we could go visit them! Ivy came 3 weeks early but fortunately everything seems to be fine with Desi and the baby.

Jason and I aren't big into Halloween. Neither of us dressed up, but we did get quite a few trick-or-treaters tonight--more than anticipated. We ran out of candy after an hour and a half and had to turn off our lights and hide in our bedroom for the rest of the night. Fun times. :)

BYU v. Oregon State-- Homecoming football game

Jason ran a 5K Conference weekend at Wheeler Farm to benefit the Council for Exceptional Children. He came in 6th place in just under 19 minutes. It's hard for me to believe that without any training, Jason can run 6 min. miles!

Labor Day Weekend

It's always nice to have a day off of work, and it's a bonus if it happens to be a Monday. I've come to appreciate Monday holidays more and more.

Saturday Jason and I hiked part way up the Mt. Timpanogos Trail to see a couple of waterfalls. It was a beautiful day to hike and there weren't many people on the trail since it was threatening to rain. In fact it didn't rain until we were a 1/4 of a mile from our car, and then it poured rain for several minutes. Even though we tried to run to our car, we were both soaked by the time we got there.

Monday we had my family over for Labor Day. Since we couldn't all fit in our small apartment, we organized some family Olympic events in the backyard...complete with a picnic. Afterwards we went to Bridal Veil Falls, which was more busy than I've ever seen it before. The water was really cold, but somehow the kids didn't mind.

Jump the river

3-legged race

Jason's favorite: wheelbarrow racing

The Fun Continues

The last half of August proved to be as fun as the first. Here are some pictures from our adventures.

Jason and I ran in our Ward Fun Run on Aug. 18th. We both took first place in our age category which was ages 19-39. Jason actually deserved his title after beating a high school cross country track member by a good 20-30 seconds. I, on the other hand, can only attribute mine to luck. 

As a late anniversary celebration, Jason and I went to the Olympic Park in Park City and went on the High Adventure Ropes Course and the Extreme Zipline. We had fun and enjoyed some great weather and scenery. You can see in some pictures below that the leaves are already starting to change colors. I would have gotten pictures of the zipline, but we both went down at the same time.

I borrowed this pic from their website, in case you didn't recognize us in the pictures. :)

 

http://utaholympiclegacy.com/facilities/park/activities

We also went to Donut Falls with some friends of ours from the Sandy ward where we used to live. It was fun to hang out with them again. I think you can tell from the pictures who was their favorite. :)

Julie and Jason with the Simmons Family

This week after work I also took advantage of the $2 Tuesdays at Thanksgiving Point and went walking with my high school friend Marilee Bass Garner. We had a great time and the gardens were gorgeous! They are putting in a new exhibit with statues of Christ that will be amazing when it is done.

August Getaway Part 2

Early Monday morning we said our goodbyes to the Carter family and left Rexburg drove 1 1/2 hrs to West Yellowstone. Not too far into the park we actually think we caught sight of a grizzly bear. We wish that we would have stopped, but we were so inexperienced and didn't realize how rare that was. Although Jason decided that he wanted to start with a 6 mi. strenuous hike to see some panoramic views, I talked him into a 5.5 mile easy hike to Fairy Falls and back to a cool geyser hidden another 1/2 mile back. A little off the trail we could also see an amazing view of Midway Geyser Basin. It was great way to start our Yellowstone experience!

Fairy Falls

Higher elevation view of Midway Geyser Basin

Our next big stop was Old Faithful. We saw it erupt 3 times while we were there; it was so fun. The newly renovated visitor center is really great and we spent over an hour there watching a couple of short videos and seeing the exhibits. We also walked around the Old Faithful area and ate dinner at the cafeteria there. I can see why it's such a popular area. That evening we drove around to Canyon Village where we met a couple bison walking along the road. The first one we saw really startled us, but we were prepared with the camera for the second one.

Old Faithful

Bison about 10 feet from our car walking the opposite direction. I didn't even zoom in for this picture.

Tuesday we enjoyed hiking South Point Trail between the Upper and Lower Falls. Jason and I really love waterfalls, so this was probably our favorite part of the trip. Every time we even passed a waterfall on the road as we were driving along we would park the car to get a better view. We drove around Yellowstone Lake and stayed the night in Grant Village. We ate dinner at the Lakehouse Restaurant built right on the lake's edge with a beautiful view of the Yellowstone Lake.

Upper Falls

Lower Falls

Lower Falls from Inspiration Point

Cool colored pools of water in West Thumb

Our lakeside view from the restaurant

Wednesday we drove out the south entrance of Yellowstone and through the Grand Tetons. We were looking forward to the beautiful scenic drive, but it turned out that it was so smoky and hazy that we could barely see the mountains even though we were only a couple miles away from them. The drive home through Wyoming was long and we were happy to be home again.

This picture doesn't even do justice to how hazy the air was around the Grand Tetons.

August Getaway Part 1

Friday, August 10 was a great day! We made an important deadline that morning at work and so as a surprise reward, they sent the whole production team home at 10:30am. That totally made my day!
That and the fact that Jason and I planned to leave right after I got home from work to go to Rexburg to visit family on our way to Yellowstone.

We drove all afternoon and got to my sister Katrina and my brother-in-law Neal's new home in Rexburg. Their home was just finished in March so they've only been there a few months. It is very spacious and beautiful. When we stayed there, we had the whole basement to ourselves! It's too bad our rented basement isn't as large as their basement! :)

Anyway, we had fun talking, cooking, eating, laughing, and playing games. Our 6 yr. old nephew Daniel kept us laughing. His favorite thing to do was to challenge us to something and say, "the last one done is a rotten egg!!" We were able to get him to do lots of things like getting in his pajamas and brushing his teeth and getting into the car by giving him the same challenge. I won't tell you how many of those times I ended up being the rotten egg. :)

We attended church with them on Sunday and got a personal tour of Neal's new office at BYU-I as well as the gardens right outside his building. BYU-I is a beautiful campus. It definitely reminds me of BYU in some ways but has its own unique qualities as well.

Here are some pictures from our visit:

Daniel seemed a little nervous about this drinking fountain, but he was still happy to pose for a picture.

Neal's new office in the Political Science building

Porch swing in the gardens at BYU-I

The new Carter residence

The Fun Month of August

I crossed off an "I've never..." from my list today--the one that says, I've never been 4-wheeling. When my co-worker/friend at work, Nari, heard that I had never been 4-wheeling, she invited Jason and I to go with her and her husband Gary. Our husbands met us after work on Friday and we drove up to Daniel's summit near Strawberry Reservoir. We found some fun dirt roads that took us passed some surprised cows (they weren't the only ones who were surprised) and out to some beautiful areas where we enjoyed a picnic dinner. I had a lot of fun and it didn't take more than a few minutes to feel comfortable zooming down the road at 20-25mph. Jason loved it too and wished we would have gone faster. The only bad thing was that the very dirty nature of 4-wheeling didn't mix well with having hard contacts. I think a third of the time I was driving with only one eye open. But lest you be concerned, I did stop the two times I had to shut both eyes in order to cry out the dirt that kept getting in my eyes. :) Nari and Gary were so fun. We had a great time and would love to do it again sometime!

My co-worker Nari Carter and her husband Gary

Check out the dirt on his nose! My face was just as bad. :) We were covered in dirt afterwards!

I don't know what it is with August, but a lot of fun things ended up being planned for this month. Probably partially due to the fact that Jason finishes his summer term on Aug. 8 and then has two and a half weeks off. In any case, look for more August fun to come.