Our New Place!!

Carson and I have been crazy busy the last 2 weeks. We became apartment managers, so we packed up all our stuff and started moving. On top of that we had to clean a few apartment including our own, made a quick trip to Moab where we hiked to some really cool indian ruins, came back home, where Carson had finals, and I had graduation. Thru all of this we had a few interesting moments...

• Carson dumpster diving because I threw away his newspaper
• Finding a statue of Christ at DI for $2.00
• Finding an entertainment center at DI for $25.00
• Moving our couches about a million times
• Losing a bocce ball in the creek and walking in freezing cold water to find it
• Dallen finding the bocce ball!!!!!
• Losing another bocce ball
• Turning my hands purple from washing marked quarters
• Trying to cook plantains for the first time
• Totally failing at cooking plantains
• Found out that there is no shortcut from Oak City
• And found out which dryer does not work in our laundry room

So you see we have been very busy, but now we are all moved in and loving our new place. Even though it is not very big, it is twice the size of any other place that we have lived yet so it feels like a mansion.

Our Bedroom

Kitchen with green counter tops

(Carson does not like them, but I don't think they are that bad)

Living room

Bathroom (more green counter tops)

And my beautiful new clock that was a present from my siblings for my graduation in its new home (thanks guys). My walls are a little bare, but I am working on that.

And the totally unrelated apple pie that I made because we had tons of apples

Blessed

(Monticello Utah Temple)

Carson and I were really struggling with what we should do this summer. We were not sure we would be able to find jobs here, but we weren't sure if moving to Moab was the right thing either. We weighed a few options, and thought we had found what we should do. We went to the temple one afternoon to be sure we had the right answer. As we sat in the temple together, neither of us felt that what we had decided was right. We were no closer to knowing what we should do, but we knew the Lord was mindful of us, and we left feeling much more peace then when we had gone in. On our way home Carson stopped at a random gas station to grab a paper to read that night at work. In it he found an employment ad for apartment managers. We applied as soon as we could, and at the interview we were hired right on the spot. We finally knew what we should do this summer. It is so great to have reassurance that the Lord is watching out for us, and to have a temple so close that we can go to when we need help.

Graduation!!!

I did it!!! I graduated. Thanks to everyone who came to share the special day with me!!!

The Business Blues Band.

(the dean and 3 professors, so cool)

I have to say after all this hard work the alumni association made it worth all the effort by giving each graduate one giant.....

chocolate ice cream cone!!!!!

(Carson also took me out for ice cream as my graduation gift so the 4 years of lectures, homework, papers, and tests were totally worth it)

Carson's New Toy!!

Carson is spoiled rotten!! Look what he got!!

(he got a really good deal though, and I guess he deserves it)

Snowboarding

We got to go snowboarding on Saturday. It was the first time Megan could go with us so we were way excited. Andrew is a little more experienced than the rest of us, but Carson and I have gotten lots better this year. We were even attempting jumps by the end of the day (well I am not really sure you can call mine an attempt). Megan was a first timer. She did awesome, although she may be pretty sore now. I am hoping that we get to go one more time before the season ends, but since life is pretty busy right now I don't know if it will happen, oh well it was fun while it lasted. On a completely unrelated note,I am super excited that it is warming up.

March Madness!!

March has gone by so fast. Carson works and goes to school. I just work. And we both play!!!! Around the 17th the leprechauns struck, and we were left with green milk for quite a while. We also got to see lots of family when everyone came for Alex's baby blessing. We had a great weekend with everyone. There was a BBQ, swimming, games, and other fun all weekend.

On Monday after blessing, Carson and I headed up to Brian Head to teach Stacy, Parker, and Payton how to snowboard. It was a challenging day for some, but we had fun. I am posting a video of Stacy going down because at one point in the day she stated that she was too old for snowboarding, well the video is proof that she can do it. Carson and I both felt pretty bad for Stacy because she did not get as much instruction as the kids since they needed a little extra help. I must say though I have a new respect for the instructors that I work with. And of course we cannot forget about the time spent with Jimmer and the rest of the BYU team this month. Megan and Andrew would come over and we would watch the games together, I am glad that the team did so well this year. And now for our other exciting news... Carson and I get to go to conference this weekend. We are way excited!!! I love conference. We are going to the Sunday morning session if anyone wants to look for us!

Happy Valentines Day!

For Valentines Day this year Carson and I decided that we would get a photo book made of our wedding. So last week I spent 6 hours putting it together on mixbook.com. I was really fun, and it turned out super cute, everyone should come see it when it comes. I also made Carson a heart shaped brownie to go with his Valentine card and candy. It is a good thing I took a picture of it in advance because he wanted to eat it right when he saw it. Carson surprised me with a chocolate milkshake, which he had to carry while riding his bike (I was quite impressed). It was a great day!!!

What We've Been Up To!!!

Carson and I have been busy with lots of things lately. I have been working at Brianhead, and Carson has two little jobs and school. We manage to stay busy most nights with FHE, istitute, raquetball, hanging with Megan and Andrew,or whatever fun things we can come up with to do. I got to try out skiing for the first time last week. (my job is great). I was surprisingly good for my first time, probably due to the fact that I can snowboard. It was such a blast. I can't wait till we have a free Saturday so Carson and I can both go play in the snow. We have also spent lots of time playing with this little guy. He is so cute!!! In the second picture Carson said he was trying to look like Alex. Who do you think looks goofier???

Happy Birthday Carson!!!

Happy Birthday to Carson!!! This year Carson had a fishing birthday. I made him a fish cake, and decorated the house with little paper fish. Then there was a scavenger hunt for him to find his present. It was really funny watching him look for the clues, and along the way he found some goldfish snacks and some bait. Then finally he found his new shiny red, open reel, 6 ft pole. Megan and Andrew came over for his party where we had pizza, cake and ice cream, then watched Despicable Me. I hope he had a great birthday.

Holidays!!!

Carson and I were so excited to spend our first Christmas together. We went to Moab as soon as I got off work on the 22nd. It was a bit crazy going from family to family trying to make sure we spent time with both of them, but we had tons of fun. We made gingerbread houses with my family, spent a day tubing with Carson's family, played lots of games, and ate lots of yummy food throughout the week. We had dinner at Carson's grandpa's house on Christmas Eve, then we went to a birthday party for Andrew later that night. Andrew likes to pick a new cake recipe every year for Megan to try. This year it was very chocolatey and very yummy. We spent Christmas morning opening presents and playing games with Carson's family. Then later we headed to my parents house for more presents and our big Christmas dinner. We had to head back to Cedar the next day after church so that I could be back to work by Monday. When we got home to Cedar City we got to have Christmas number 3 with each other. Carson now has a new camelbak bladder and some fishing stuff, and I have lots of new cake decorating stuff. We also got two new games, so if anyone wants to come play with us and eat cake, we would love it.

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.