BIRTHDAY WEEKEND!!!!

Here's the birthday post I promised... It's a little lengthy so you can just skip through to the pictures, I won't be offended. :)

My parents got into town on Thursday night. I knew they were coming, but I didn't know they were bringing my siblings! I was super shocked when I saw Danielle and Trevor hiding in the back. What a great surprise!!! We hugged and talked for a long time, but Dallin and I had early work the next morning so we had to go to bed KINDA early. (eleven-ish)

On Friday both Dallin and I had early work and class. Dallin was able to get work off in the afternoon so we could spend the afternoon and evening with the family. We took the family around campus to show off all the buildings and stuff.
We spent a long time in the book store,

explored around the Eyring Science Center,

did push-ups to raise money for autism,

and just enjoyed the beautiful campus!!

That night we watched Dallin play in a flag football game,

and ate dinner at Zupas (one of our favorite restaurants.)

Saturday was my golden birthday!! (Turning 22 on the 22nd.) Dallin, Dad and I woke up early and did the Parents Week 5K Fun Run.

(Before)(After)It was so fun! Dad got 3rd in his division and got a medal! I got fourth in my division... not quite fast enough for a medal.

When the race was over and we were getting ready to head home, we realized mom had taken our warm clothes, which had the car keys in them, back to the hotel. Luckily, we found some friends at the race and they dropped us off at my parents hotel. We ate breakfast at the hotel, got the car keys so we could go home, showered and got all decked out for the BYU game. The game was so warm and beautiful, it was wonderful.

After the game we went to Tucanos for dinner.

My family had never been, I think they enjoyed the experience.

and no... we don't have a massive saint bernard. We asked a lady to take our picture, and her husband told their dog to lay down in our picture. It was laying right on my feet, it's HUGE!

After dinner we went back to our apartment, opened presents, ate dessert, and played games.



My family got me a bread maker, some new clothes, some things from Bath and Body Works and the movie Tangled!!! WOOHOOO!! I also got a voucher for an hour long massage from Dallin and a gift certificate to buy more clothes from his family! It was a long and perfect day.

The family headed back home early Sunday morning, so we said goodbye to them Saturday night.

We were sad to say goodbye, but we will be home for the holidays soon enough. :)

oh and p.s. Dallin used the new breadmaker to make a loaf of bread today, it was incredible. :D

PUMPKINS!!!

Next Monday our ward is having a Halloween party and Dallin and I have been assigned to buy the pumpkins for the carving contest.

We are supposed to buy one per couple... that's about 40 pumpkins!!!!

So last night we made a run to Smith's and got 21 pumpkins.... only HALF of what we need. We got lots of awesome looks in the store. :)


The only question now is where to store them?!

p.s. Stay tuned for a wonderful post featuring my birthday weekend!!!

Goodbye Summer. Hello Winter.

I don't really know what happened to Fall... but we went from over 80 degrees, short sleeves and flip-flops on Monday, to sweatshirts, long johns and snow on Thursday.

I am not quite ready for winter... but on a happy note, the mountains are beautiful!

Now to update a little....
We have watched every BYU football game, including the epic game against the Aggies!! Notice we are in summer attire??

...that won't be happening anymore. lol!

We LOVE football!

It helps that I am finally starting to understand everything, and don't have to ask Dallin questions on every play :P

Firsts....

I am currently sitting alone in the Boise airport waiting to board my flight back to Salt Lake. And amazingly... I'm excited to get back to Provo!

The last few days have looked something like this...
Tuesday:
- Drive to Salt Lake to catch a flight to Boise (first time flying alone)
- Wait 2 hours for my flight (first time flying Southwest)
- Almost board plane without my duffle bag... accidentally left it under the seat
- Get picked-up in Boise by Grandma Miskho and spend the night with her and some cousins (first night spent without Dallin since we were married a year and 3 months ago)

Wednesday:
- Dad picks me up in Boise and we drive to Ontario, OR
- Hang-out with Danielle and Trevor in the hotel
- Go to the church for Grandma Heath's viewing
- Sit on the front row of the chapel and cry through the whole funeral (first time I've been to a 2 hour long funeral)
- Have dinner with the whole family--120 of us! (meet a lot of Heath cousins for the first time)
-Say bye to the family and drive back to Boise

Today:
- Sleep in until 7:30 (that hasn't happened it a while)
- Help Grandma get the kids ready for school
- Drive to the airport, get boarding pass, and go through security (still by myself... but not a first anymore)


now I only have 50 minutes until I board, a 45 minute flight, and then I get to see Dallin!! YAY!!

The meaning of Double-E

Electrical Engineer.

Geek.

or

Extremely Entertaining.

You take your pick. :)

Wah-Hoo!!!!

After a few weeks of uncertainty... and lots of praying....

This handsome man has a job!!

He's going to be working for the IT center at the Provo MTC!!!

GO DALLIN!! :)

Heaven-sent

Last Thursday our swamp cooler stopped working.

I know... how inconsiderate of it to just stop cooling our home when it has been well over 90 degrees everyday?! We had our ceiling fans on constantly... but moving around hot air and pulling in more hot air from outside isn't very satisfying. Our only moments of relief would be while taking a freezing cold shower. (Dallin said he felt like he was back on the mission...)

When we got home yesterday we had a marvelous surprise! A brand new cooler was installed and cooling our apartment!!!

Okay, so it was still a billion degrees in the house when we got home and there was no swamp cooler installed... but we did go pick one up, got it home and then installed it ourselves.

We now have wonderfully cold air blowing into our home. I guess I'm just being reminded to never forget to be thankful for all the little blessings in my life.

The 2 car garage

Yup, we've upgraded from the 1-car-garage-turned-studio into a 2-car-garage-turned-single-bedroom.

Things have been a little insane since we arrived in Provo on Monday afternoon. The couple that lived in the apartment before us weren't able to get their stuff out on time due to problems with the moving company, so we couldn't get our stuff into the apartment for a few days and got to sleepover with our great friends Brandt and Liz.

The house required quite a bit of deep cleaning and painting, but it's looking much better now. We spent our first night in the apartment on Thursday, 4 days after we'd gotten into town. Here's a few pictures of our first meal/night in the house. We felt like we were on the show Hoarders because there was so much stuff everywhere that we could hardly find room to set up our tv tray... what an adventure. :)



Dallin was very excited to resume unpacking after dinner.

He has good reason to be excited because this is what the apartment looked like...


This is all the furniture that was left behind.... we don't really have room for all of it... haha!

This is our home. Can you see where the garage doors were? And the huge dead branch threatening to fall on our roof at any minute? Don't worry we're taking care of it.

And thanks to Sydney and Nick who introduced us to the most delicious/massive snow cones in Provo, we've helped ourselves to them 3 times since we got into town... it's helped relieve stress, and cool us down. :) If you come to town (in the summer) we will definitely take you to Hokulias.

Cocolalla

Dallin and I ended our summer with a BANG by spending a week at the cabin with the family.

Eliza, Talia and Brayden were so entertaining, and Dallin and I just couldn't get enough of their cuteness.

We always have so much fun at Lake Cocolalla.

This week's vacation consisted of:
playing LOTS of games,
reading, napping,

tubing/skiing,

fishing (Dallin caught around 30 of these little guys...),

kayaking,

eating delicious food (including leftover wedding candy!!)
roasting marshmallows
and cliff jumping.

Here's the cliff they jumped off of...

The boys looking all macho (getting ready for the jump)

Julie and I were a little afraid for our husbands' lives,
we were ready to jump in or give CPR if needed...

Here's the boys after they both safely made it...
I think they were a little shaken up... I know I was and I didn't even jump.

We were sad when the weekend came and it was time to head back to Kennewick. Why not just stay up there? Who needs to go to school anyway!? lol!