Dad's Christmas Present

Steve had Dad's name for Christmas this year (again), and we had a tough time trying to figure out what to get him. Steve came up with the idea to give him Jazz tickets. So we bought two for us and two for Mom & Dad, and we met up with them in Salt Lake City. We did some shopping, ate at Rodizio's Brasilian Grill (which I highly recommend if you LOVE meat), and walked about Temple Square to see the lights. We rode the tracks to get from place to place, and we stayed at a cute hotel called Little America.

At the Jazz game!

The next morning we woke up to SNOW! Can you imagine trying to drive downtown SLC with all this white stuff!?!

Thanks Mom and Dad for coming and spending time with us. We had a blast!

O Christmas Tree

Our first Christmas tree is so cute!!! I love it! It took us about 2 hours to find "the tree", and after looking at a good half a dozen, we concluded that one of the first trees we saw would do fine. Much to our dismay, (especially when Steve was putting it in the tree stand) we realized we should not have chosen a double stumped tree. But, with many "four-lettered words" j/k, Steve got our tree up. We trimmed the tree and it looks absolutely festive! We are enjoying the Christmas decor all around the front room, especially when it gets dark, and the lights are twinkling.

Have you ever seen "Christmas Vacation?"

Our first Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2009

This year we went up to Malta to celebrate Thanksgiving and my mom's 50th birthday. There were so many pictures, I put them on an album on Facebook. We took family pictures in Rigby, ate dinner with grandparents, target shooting, traditional Thanksgiving dinner, soccer games, arm wrestling championships, Christmas party with the Johnson side, and just enjoying ourselves.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=165323&id=636902358&l=46d687228c

Trees are falling all around...

...on the rooftop, on the ground!

Okay, so a tree didn't fall on our house, but I was pretty certain that it would. Much to my relief, it only got "close." We are getting a new pivot and some trees were in the way of its path. Sooo.... they chopped the trees down and dragged them away. Of course, after they get all the equipment out here, they decide to cut a few more trees down. The extra trees just happened to be in front of our house. I wasn't too heartbroken for the trees; they were a pain to mow around.

Before

During

After

This was the main project. I didn't get a before picture, so just imagine about 10 old trees in the field.

My Dresser!

My wonderful husband surprised me with a dresser for my birthday. After we came home from Enterprise, he set it up for me. What a sweetheart!

This dresser is so beautiful, perfect for us! With it now, our closet seems empty! Thanks Steve!

Pumpkins

YAY for pumpkins! I don't know why I love pumpkins so much. Maybe it's the fact that I'm a Halloween baby, or maybe I like pulling the slimy guts out of a vegetable and carve a face into it. I don't know, but I love pumpkins. When we did our garden this spring, we did 5 mounds with about 5 seeds in each mound. The mounds were about 6 feet away from eachother. We thought that was too much, but it turned out that pumpkin plants do need that room.

This little guy was one of our first pumpkins. I would say that this was in July. We were so excited that they were growing!

This was after the frost. You can see how much the plants spreaded out.
We harvested 39 pumpkins! Some were rotten, but we still counted them.

Decorating our front door with festive corn stalks and pumpkins.

Steve definately has a carving skill that I wish I had.

Trace decorated his pumpkin like a 'potato head'. He did not want to have his picture taken.

Me, Steve, crying Trace, Johnny, Jenny, and Maddie

A Birthday Surprise!

Last weekend, Steve and I went ot Enterprise to celebrate my birthday. We played Wii at the Pickerings, went to the movies, ate at a nice resturant, and went to the temple with Eric and LaDawna. Right after the movie, Steve had a surprise for me. We went to the furniture store next door. A man came up and asked if he could help us. Steve said, "Yeah, we are looking for a...dresser." Wow! I was not expecting that! We looked at three places for a dresser and found one we both liked. We have to wait a few weeks for shipping, but I am so excited!

Jen also had a birthday surprise for me. Jenny took me over to Jen's house where some of the ladies in the branch had a surprise birthday party for me. I was so flattered! It was so fun!

Last night Steve took me on a date to Ely. There is a nice resturant called the Jailhouse. We both ordered steak and potatoes! Yummy!

A thanks to my parents and parent-in-laws for remembering me on my birthday. Thanks!

My birthday was so wonderful! I don't feel any older or wiser, but that's alright.

Steve's Crash

Two Thursday's ago, Oct. 8th, I was at dance with Jenny when I get a urgent message to call Brandon, Steve's boss. The horrible news was that Steve was in a wreck. He was already at the hospital, but he seemed to not be broken. What happened was that he was checking pivots and hit a ditch on the four-wheeler enough to make him fly 30 feet in the air and skid on his back for 70 feet. He hit his head pretty hard. The four-wheeler went front end over front end about 1 foot to the side of where he was sliding. They guess he was unconcious for 30 minutes. A Peruvian found Steve and drove him back to the shop. Steve couldn't remember the crash or working with the rams a few hours before the crash. On the way to the hospital, he kept saying the same thing. He got a few bumps on his head and road rash on his back. They did a cat scan and everything was fine, so they cleaned him up and sent him home. He had scabs and headaches, but the next Monday he went back to work. We were so blessed that the four-wheeler didn't land on him. His head is fine and the road rash on his back is healing very well.

The shirt we was wearing when he crashed.

His road rash

Our First Garden

Our first garden attempt went fairly well. Most of the things we planted came up AND we planted the garden in a really cool pattern.

What we learned from our experience:

• the plants at the bottom of the water ditch grew better because of all the water that collects at the bottom,
• buy peppers as plants for a garden, not as seeds,
• spread out the carrots,
• we only need two plants of squash, not seven,
• weed continuously, and
• (from Steve) if you are going to do something with your wife, she is in charge :)

The garden when things started to bloom

Harvest time

We had a good harvest. It was so fun to have this project with Steve. It will be fun to do it again!

The Beach

The Pickering family has a tradition to go to Imperial Beach on Labor Day weekend. They rent out an apartment where we can walk out on to the beach. The whole family plays and swim together. I had so much fun and can't wait until next year.

Swimming in the pool

All the girls got their toenails painted, including Maddie.


All of us on the beach

Eric and LaDawna boogie-boarding. I've never boogie-boarded until this trip, and I love it. All you have to do is catch the wave at the right time, then ride it.



We went to the tide pools and found starfish, crabs, and even a baby octupus.

I loved this vacation. It was so fun to be with the Pickerings and to play with them. Thank you so much for having me in your family. :)

Ode to Summer

This summer has gone by too quickly! I have had so many things to blog about, I didn't know where to start. So I decided to do one big summer blog and try to include everything.

For the 24th of July, we went to Enterprise for their big celebration. We participated in the 5K and Steve was in the rodeo (he wasn't riding a bull this time). We swam at the resevoir and played in the rain. Eric brought out the Johnny Popper for the little ones. That Sunday we went to Tyson's homecoming and visited with the Darrington side. It was such a fun weekend!


One day, Hyrum, Jen, and Riley were visiting and playing over at my house. Hyrum was in my garden and had dust all over him. So Jen let him play in the water to "clean himself." Trace thought that it looked fun, so he also headed towards the water. Their moms stripped them down so there wasn't too big of a mess.



Steve and Trace playing soccer one afternoon. They both look so handsome with their jerseys on.

(Other events that we did and I didn't have my camera):

We went to Lagoon with J.C. and Sara. We got a lot of sun and enjoyed the time off work.

We also went to Malta for grain harvest. We mostly hauled straw bales. Steve is so proud of his two stacks he built. We enjoyed Mom and Sara's cooking and everyone else.

So, goodbye Summer. We enjoyed the nice days and playing out in the sune. Until next year.

Ducky

I love cats, and ever since Steve bought a motorcycle, I wanted something too. So for weeks I asked if I could get a kitten from my mom. He would give me a good explaination why I don't want one, and I would drop the subject until a few days later. When my parents came down for Riley's blessing and the 4th of July, a kitten came too! Steve surprised me with a kitty! He arranged it with my mom. So now we have our first pet, Ducky. It is kinda confusing that we named a cat after a different animal, but it is so cute!

This is the calmist it ever is!

This is how she ususally is.

She saw a dog.

She is pretty fun to have around. I love Steve and all that he does for me!