I'm DONE!!!!!!!

I am finally done!!! I took my last final today. I studied lots, and still felt like the final was pretty hard. Cumulative finals should be illegal, especially since the teacher does not give the previous tests back, so anything I missed before, I am sure I missed again. Oh well, I am DONE!!!!!! I won't walk for graduation till May though, but it is really nice to be DONE.

The Formal

The weekend before Thanksgiving Carson and I got to go to the institute formal. First we went to the matinee movie to see the new Harry Potter, it was really good, although Carson who hasn't read the books, kept asking me who all the characters were throughout the movie. He has seen all the other movies, but I guess it was still a bit confusing. Then we hurried home to get all dressed up. First there was a dinner, then a very packed dance in the Great Hall. We didn't stay at the dance very long, but we still had lots of fun getting dressed up.

This year Carson and I spent Thanksgiving here in Cedar. We started cooking in the morning while we watched the Macy's parade, then somehow Carson convinced me to go running with him (it was freezing). Around 1:00 we ate a great dinner at Carson's grandparent's house. Then only about 2 hours later we had another dinner at Megan's with her and Andrew, Nathan and Tonya and family, and my parents. All the food was great, and then we spent the afternoon playing games. It was a great Thanksgiving. The next morning Carson and I got up super early... no not to go shopping... to head down to Moab where we spent the weekend playing games, watching football, trimming trees, and getting a Christmas tree for Carson's family. It was a super fun weekend. Now we are back in Cedar, after a long and snowy drive home. It is the last week of classes before finals week, and we are sure feeling it. We spend our nights working to finish major projects and studying finals. We did put our tree up on Monday, it looks great. I will probably post pictures soon, but I need to wait for Stacy to bring me the rest of our ornaments. And today we get to start my favorite tradition: reading our book of Christmas stories.

Fish Tales!!!

Carson was so excited when him and Dallen went fishing and they caught these!!!! There is a new lake here and it has been well stocked with large catfish, and both albino and regular trout. The albino trout look really cool, but they are fiesty, they jump in and out of the water the whole time while you reel them in. Anyway these were the big catches for the day. It's the biggest fish Carson has every caught at a whopping 18.5 inches. Dallen's was 18 inches. After he caught it he called to tell me, then he called me later when he had gotten home to ask where the camera was so that he could take a picture of his prize catch. He did find out that the guy next to them had caught a 24 inch fish, so we will probably be going back to try for some bigger ones.

Halloween Fun!!

We decorated sugar cookies with Megan and Andrew the other day. We had lots of fun, and the cookies were very yummy. We also found out that Carson is very creative, though not conventional at all. Can you guess which cookies he decorated?

We also had a lot of fun carving pumpkins. I did a mummy this year, and it was pretty complex and took FOREVER. Next year I will be choosing something easier. Carson did 2 carvings on his pumpkin because the rest of us were taking so long.

Birthday Fun!!

My Birthday was tons of fun this year. Carson was so sweet and he tried so hard to make it the best birthday. On Saturday night we went to Winger's with Megan and Andrew for a birthday dinner, then had a pumkin carving party. On my actual birthday Carson and I made a yummy breakfast together, then I got to open presents. Carson got me a silver watchband, Home Alone 2, and some stuff to do cookie decorating. Then we went to church together. My Mom came on Sunday to stay here in Cedar temporarily while she does her radiation, so her and Megan and Andrew came over to our apartment for a big chicken fried steak dinner and some games. We played a new game called Pirate's Cove, and it was lots of fun. Carson is ruthless and he won both times (but I did beat him once when we played again). Andrew also made Megan and I a yummy brownie cake. It was a great Birthday. There is also a picture of the cake that I made Dallen for his birthday yesterday.

I love FALL!!!

Fall is the prettiest time of year! I love the leaves changing to beautiful colors and the perfect weather. I love all of the fall and Halloween decorations. I love the festive food and getting my jackets out for the coming cold. And we can't forget that my birthday is in the fall, and fall also starts out the fun assembly of all the best holidays: it is just the best time of year.

Last week Carson and I drove up to cedar breaks to see all of the fall colors, it is just so pretty.

Other things we have been up to lately include: job hunting, school, the hot air balloon festival, trying out the fishing at some new lakes, and spending time with Megan and Andrew. We had a great time camping with them last week at 3 Peaks. Carson and I won the bocce ball tournament, although I didn't contribute much to the winning, luckily Carson is pro. My new obsession is rock climbing though. Carson had a rock climbing class, and so we would go to the climbing wall on campus a few times a week. I love to try the new routes, and gradually progress to harder ones.

We also dipped carmel apples with Megan and Andrew. They were very messy, and I think we will probably change a few things next time we do it, but of course we still had lots of fun.
I am going to try to be better at blogging, but since we do not have internet at our apartment, blogging gets quite limited.

Timp Caves

The first weekend in August, Carson and I headed up north for Carson's mission President's homecoming. We decided to make a fun weekend out of it by starting with Timp Caves. We bought our tickets ahead of time, but then unfortunately we got there 45 minutes late. They give you an hour and a half to hike up to the cave entrance, and we had to go pretty fast in order to make it by our tour time. We didn't stop to rest a single time, so we were a little sweaty and tired by the time we got to the top. The caves were way cool, and it was fun to hear all the history of how they were found. Our tour was with a whole group of really excited kids, but lucky for us their parents insisted that the other 4 of us a the group go first for everything, so we got to be front row for everything. There was a fun story about the drips in the cave, if one hits you they say that you got kissed by the cave and you will have good luck. One lady in our group looked up and got kissed in the eye. We decided that was worth double the luck. The rest of the weekend we spent doing a little bit of shopping, going to see Toy Story 3, having lunch at Mountain Mike's Pizza with my China friends, and going to the homecoming BBQ. It was fun to meet some of Carson's mission companions. The homecoming sacrament meeting was great, there were tons of missionaries there, and they had them all get together and sing their mission song. It sounded awesome, and it was a way fun weekend.

This is supposed to look like a St. Bernard. We could see it in the cave, but not anymore.

A New Look!

So on Sunday Carson comes out of the bathroom looking like this. He had started shaving, and decided that he wanted to try some new things. (The picture is not great, but it gives you an idea) Anyway being Carson, he of course could not decide whether or not he wanted to keep it that way. I told him that it looked "Cool" and that he could keep it that way if he wanted, but that was not good enough for him, he wanted me to tell him yes or no. After much debate I asked him how he even gets dressed in the mornings and he told me that he can make decisions just fine if I am not around, my response,"Well then pretend I am not here." He did finally decide to leave it so this is his new look for now. However we did discover that I am the reason he is so un-decisive. Maybe I can get him to decide my next hair style for me... probably not.

CAMPING!!!

For the 24th of July weekend Carson and I decided to go camping. We left Thursday night and headed to Medicine Lake. That night we took a very LONG 4-wheeler ride over to my family's cabin where Megan and Andrew were having his family reunion, to take them their forgotten propane take and shot gun shells. We played games there for a while, then headed back to camp very late at night. The next day Carson went out to look for bucks because he takes his hunts very serious, it is never too soon to know where they are at. Anyway while he was just plopped down looking through his binoculars at a hillside, a mountain lion stumbled across him. Carson quickly stood up (you know to add the intimidation factor) and they had a stare down for a bit. It wasn't until Carson said something that the lion decided he'd had enough of looking at this strange creature and he took off. When Carson got back we started out for our hike up Mt. Peale. We started at about 10,000ft elevation, and the very top of the peak is about 12,721ft. Let me tell you, from the bottom it doesn't look that high. We opted not to use the trail and just go for the more straight up approach. The only bad thing about that is when you are almost to what you think looks like the top, you get high enough to see the next peak that you have to climb to get to the top, and then sadly this happens again when you get to the top of that peak. Not to mention the fact that the slide rock starts sliding more as you get higher, so every once in a while when you are going really good, your footing just slides out and you lost all momentum (and motivation). Since we could see a storm coming in we had to move pretty fast if we were going to get to the top and back down before it hit. The hike up took us a record time of 2 hours and 10 minutes (at least if felt like record time to me). We did manage to make it up and almost all the way down before the rain started, so we just got a little wet. The pictures are us climbing, us as the top, and the little guy that followed us down (he wasn't too keen on our jalapeno flavored chips). Carson's parents met us up there with their trailer that night, and the rest of the trip included fishing, 4-wheeling, and getting caught in the rain. On 2 nice notes: I beat Carson in the fishing contest, and our tent is completely waterproof ;-)

A New Beginning!!!

I have been meaning to get this post up for a while, but life is pretty crazy, so it has taken me a few weeks. The wedding went great, and now I am married to my best friend Carson for eternity. I still catch myself wondering if it is all real sometimes. We fell in love so long ago, and after 4 year, 2 of them especiall long for me, we are finally married. I love Carson so much! I was so happy with the way the decorations and everything turned out for the wedding. A big thanks to everyone who helped. We went to Palm Springs for our honeymoon. We had tons of fun at the zoo, air museum, and the food fest. We also took trips to the beach and Disneyland. Carson unfortunately got super sunburned, so the trip could have been a little better for him. After moving into our little apartment, we spent a few days there, then we headed over to St. George for a fun family reunion. The reunion was for Carson's Mom's side. I knew some of them previously, but it was still a challenge trying to keep everyone straight all weekend. We had lots of fun, and then on the way home we stopped in Spring City to go to Kayla and Kendra's baby blessings. They are so cute and fun to play with. Then we came back to Moab for some more family fun as my Mom's sisters started arriving for Tori's wedding. We took my cousins and Uncle to Left Hand for a fun filled afternoon. My 9 year old cousin Hunter is way into sports, so he had a great time throwing a soccer ball to me when I would jump off the rocks. It took me a few trys, but I got a lot of cheers when I made the first and only successful catch of the day. There was a young mens group there that tried it out with a football, but they did not have great timing. Tori's wedding went great as well, and I was really glad that I got to spend so much time with family members that we don't see very often. Tori and Adam have already been spotted in Vegas, hopefully they are having a great time. Of course life is not going to slow down yet though, this weekend we have another family reunion for the Dalton side. There has not been a dull moment since the wedding, and hopefully life always stays that way:-)

Ooops!!

Now Carson is sick. Poor guy. This nasty bug seems to be circulating thru my family. On a positive note, at least it is a short term thing!

He Must Really Love Me...

I knew that at some point after we were married Carson would see me in some pretty low points. The key word is AFTER. There are a few states that I would have liked to avoid at least until we were married and he was stuck with me. Well I thought he had seen the worst for now a few weeks ago when he took Stacy and I to have our skin grafts done. Sitting in Walmart swollen, bloody, and dribbling chocolate milk down myself had to be a low point... until yesterday. I had to leave church because I was not feeling well, after stopping by Carson's house for some paint reliever we barely made it to the parking lot of the park before I took 3 steps and lost everything right there behind some poor persons car. Carson was very nice and patient as he stood there and watched me in my multiple episodes as I ejected impressive amounts of... well you know. Worst of all, we couldn't seem to leave because when we would try to get back in the car, I would start all over again. It was terrible!!! We finally made it home, and Carson was so nice to sit with me for hours in my grossness. And you know what else??? He still wants to marry me!!! Yep, he must really love me.

PS: I feel much better now, and I am getting super excited for this weekend!!!!!

Changes!!!

Changes in life sure are interesting. Some are good, some are bad, some seem bad, but then turn out to be good. Some people like change, and some people really dislike change, but it is inevitable nonetheless. I have had some big changes in my life happen in the last few weeks. My mom was diagnosed with cancer and has started chemotherapy. I love my mom, she is such a trooper and is doing great. The other major change was getting engaged to my best friend Carson. He pretended that we were going geocaching and took me up a hill overlooking Moab right around sunset. Then we started looking for the cache, but for some reason we couldn't find it ;-) All the sudden I hear Carson say, " I found it." I started hiking down to where he was, and as I was climbing down a little ledge to where he was, he pulled out a little black ring box and asked me to marry him. We are getting married June 5th in the Monticello temple. Whenever we tell people the date they say oh that is soon, but it still feels far away to us. Currently I am busy working on wedding plans while trying to survive the last 2 weeks of school. A cumulative final where the teacher does not give your previous tests back is just cruel!!! After I finish school, and attend Megan's graduation (YAY Megan), I am off to Moab for the summer.
Mom, Dad, and Carson came to visit this weekend for my Beta Sigma Gamma honors organization induction. The dinner was good, but the awards part was a bit long. We had a great weekend with great weather!!! We played in the park, watched movies, and played games together. Now I just have some major studying to do before finals. Wish me luck!!!

Bumps and Bruises!!!

This weekend Carson came to visit me here in Cedar City. We did a yummy fried chicken dinner on Friday night with a very yummy sweet and sour sauce that I got a recipe for from work and wanted to try. We also made cookies and watched a movie, it was a great night. We stayed up way too late though, and we regretted it the next day when we had to get up early for the "Hearts for Haiti" 3 mile race. It was very cold and icy, but we did it nonetheless. Carson was nice and ran with me the whole way (even though he could have gone much faster), he did push me a bit, and I ended up taking third out of the girls and won ten bucks. After that we headed to St. George for a fun filled day. We didn't really have anything planned, but as we were running a few errands that Carson had, we saw a large tent off in the distance. We decided to head over to see what it was, and we found the "Dixie Igloo." A spur of the moment decision had us putting on our own pairs of ice skates. We were not great at first, but we did manage to get the hang of just gliding around the rink in large circles. That is when our tiny bit of confidence led to a very bad decision. Note to self: amateur skaters should not attempt to play tag, I have a bruise on my hip and a LARGE bump on my head to prove it. We did have lots of fun though. That night we had a great dinner at Applebee's (my favorite), ice cream from Baskin Robbins, and then a trip to the 2 dollar theater to see Blindside. It was an EXCELLENT movie that I would recommend to anyone. Today was a nice warm day so after church we had a yummy pizza picnic on the grass outside. It was a super fun weekend. Hopefully the weather stays nice; I love the sun!!!