GRADUATION!

On August 14, 2009 Jeff graduated from BYU.

I was so proud of him!

My parents and Jeff's parents came to see him walk at the Marriott Center.

Jeff with his "diploma."

Notice the Y in the background on the hill.

Go Cougars!!

Sparks Wedding

The second week of our California trip was spent preparing/waiting for the wedding of the year. Megan and Ben Sparks got married on August 7, 2009. It was so much fun.

Here is Jeff and I with his cute niece Madison who is very "dramanic" and was attached to Jeff the entire time!

The Happy Couple!

The Beautiful Oakland Temple

The new Sparks with both sets of parents

The wedding party

My parents even came out for the event. They love Megan! And my mom made the most beautiful quilt for Megan and Ben. Somehow, I managed to not get a picture of it. Maybe next time. :)

Kirk Family Vacation

I really want to be better about blogging. So after weeks of feeling guilty for this thing being so out of date... here I am.

Jeff and I traveled to California at the end of July to spend two weeks in California with his family. The first week was a fun trip to a cabin in the mountains near Pine Crest Lake. Joining us on this trip was:

Jack and Cathy (Jeff's parents)

Jared and Tierney (Jeff's brother and SIL)

Megan and Ben (Jeff's sister and BIL)

We spent our time...

Riding horses through the beautiful mountains. Seriously, it was gorgeous!

Fishing at Pine Crest Lake (and catching NOTHING), and watching an outdoor movie.

And BOATING! We spent a whole day tubing and swimming in the warmest lake I've ever been in.

It was a great trip. We had a lot of fun with Jeff's family!

Bateman Family Camping Trip 2009

As promised... pictures are now included.

So a couple weeks ago we packed up all our gear and headed to Heber to camp for a week with the (almost) whole Bateman Family. (We missed you Mike!) To say it short and sweet: It was a blast!

We set up camp with 4 tents, plus 1 cabin.
Marie, Manoj, and their cute girls, Misha and Maddie, came down from Portland.
Jen and Braxton from Denver.
Christy, James and puppy Cooper came in late Monday night. (Or was it early Tuesday morning? I was sleeping.)
And Mom and Dad came from Denver.
We met up in Provo, loaded everything up, and drove the long 45 minutes to our camp site. After getting everything set up, we had a great time enjoying each other's company and, of course, playing Phase 10.

Here's what we did to fill the time during the week.

• Floated the Provo River. So beautiful, and so fun. NOT so relaxing. (Sorry about your lost hat and flip flop James!) Mom and Dad went with the grandkids on the raft... with a guide... apparently that was relaxing. They didn't even have to paddle! The rest of us went down on tubes. It's a little more work than just floating. You have to use your arms to stay away from things like bushes, giant rocks, and dangerous bridges. Plus the water is about 10 degrees, so the more you paddle, the more your hands turn numb, and the more your skin on your arms disappears from rubbing against the tube. No really, it's a blast. It really is!




• Boating! This was the most fun, at least for me! It brought back all the fun memories of boating on the Snake and Columbia Rivers. We rented a boat for one afternoon on the Jordanelle Reservoir. We also rented one of those water trampolines that are on top of a tube, for the ones who weren't on the boat. We tubed the whole afternoon, making sure that we switched out people who were on the tramp. And with just a few set-backs (popping the first tube, and thinking we could climb back on the tramp without a ladder, for example) we had a great time!


Jeff and Braxton on the tube.

Here's the water trampoline. It was really fun.


• Park City. We spent one day here doing all the fun summer stuff that they have to offer. We had a few people ride the zip-line, which is not as thrilling as it may seem. Everyone rode down on the Alpine Slides, which are pretty fun. And we all LOVED the Alpine Coaster. For those of you that may be thinking about spending a day in Park City, this is where you need to spend your money. The Alpine Coaster is by far the best. You sit in your seat at the bottom of the hill. You ride all the way to the top, enjoying the beautiful views around you, then when you get to the top, you ride the twists and turns down the track back to the bottom. The best part is you are in control of your speed. You have handles that you push forward to go fast and pull back to slow down. It's a ton of fun. But if you think that you could ride it with your brand new iPhone in your pocket and still have it when you get to bottom, you'd be wrong. (Sorry Marie!) All in all, it was a fun day.

Cousins!

I have the cutest neices and nephew ever!

After all that fun, we couldn't last another day of camping. Since we were so tired from all the fun, we decided to come back to Provo a day early. (Or maybe it was the rainstorm that hit us Thursday night.) Thanks Mom and Dad for planning the fun trip! Let's do it again sometime!

Where We Have Been...

I feel like I owe the blogging world an explanation of where we've been the past months. Since we've been MIA on this blog for so long, here is the explanation.

April:

I have no idea what happened to this month. It began, we had James and Christy visit us over Conference weekend, I had spring break, Jeff had finals, and the next thing we knew, it was over. During spring break I spent my 3 days (Yes, apparently that is a "normal" spring break in Utah. I beg to differ.) spring cleaning. Although it didn't feel much like spring since it snowed 2 of the 3 days. I was going to take a before and after picture so I had something to show for all my hard work, but I forgot about the "before picture" until after I was half way done. Oops. Just trust me, I did a lot of cleaning! Jeff did well on his finals, as it was his last regular semester at BYU. Now he just has one term until the finish line.

May:

May is always a crazy month for a teacher. I know that, and I say that, yet I still forget how crazy it really is until it actually happens. Anyway, this May was filled with a fun visit from my parents and Jeff's parents. They came to visit for a few days and it was a blast! We LOVE having visitors (hint, hint). Next was the culmination of my ESL classes. I took two classes for the last term and almost killed myself. I was in class 6 hours a week with homework on top of that. All that combined with end-of-the-year activities at school almost saw the death of me. I ultimately came out on top though! Yea for being done with ESL!

Right as all this was going on, our landlord made a stop by our apartment (may I add that this is the first time in about a year that he has done so) and saw our cute kitten sitting in the window. Now, our contract said that pets aren't allowed, but our previous neighbor had a couple cats and the landlord was okay with that. For some reason, he was NOT okay with us having a cat. He told us to move out within 2 weeks, or get rid of the cat. Since we were wanting to move anyway, this gave us some serious motivation to find a new place to live. (Call us crazy, but a landlord that never fixes anything, including a leaky roof, and having a washer in the kitchen and a dryer out back in the shed, isn't quite what we considered our perfect home.) So within a week we found a place and moved ourselves into a new home. I'd also like to add that this was during my last week of school... yes, I think I deserve an award. Anyway, I will post pictures of our new place next time.

June (so far):

This month has been much more fun! Nichelle was here visiting the first week and we went all over the place entertaining Kami and ourselves. The highlight: IKEA. We LOVE that place. Next came our trip to Denver. We made a special weekend trip to visit my family and of course the Seattle Mariners!!! I was SO excited to see them play. It has been far too long. Here are some highlights of the trip.

If you don't know about Denver weather, let me just say, it can change very quickly. This picture shows the storm that went over on the left, and the blue skies that followed on the right. Now Jeff, my parents and I decided to wait out the storm. We sat in pouring down rain and hail for 30 minutes in order to keep our seats dry. We were prepared with ponchos and umbrellas. Turns out, that when you are on the club level, guest services will wipe down your seat after the storm. Whatever...

That lady behind us, is the one who will wipe down your seat. Although, she wouldn't do Jen's at first because she had her poncho to sit on. Apparently the empty seats behind us have first priority.

Mom was a traitor and cheered for the Rockies. Boo. It was something about a winning streak... I don't care. I am a Mariner's fan all the way.

Braxton was SURE he was going to catch a foul ball. He actually had a couple good chances!

I've missed this place!

Meet Olivia.

Well here she is. The real thing. I know what you're thinking, "That doesn't look at all like the other picture." Well you are correct, she is very different. You see what happened is, we called the lady who had our kitten last Friday. We were just calling to check up on our kitten and maybe figure out exactly what day we could come pick her up. The lady remembered us and that we had picked out the white one with black spots, but there was a little problem. That kitten had gotten really sick and died a couple weeks previous. But she did have another female kitten that we could come pick up anytime.

Since we were on our way to the Draper Temple open house, we decided to go pick her up later that night. Yay! So after we went through the temple we drove the rest of the way up to Salt Lake and picked her up!

Here's what we've learned about Olivia in her first week living with us.

-She is VERY socially dependent. She hates being alone. If we are here she's either playing with us, sleeping on us, or following us around the house. If she doesn't know where we are, she starts crying until she finds us, or we find her.

-She loves to explore. She found rips in the underlining fabric of our box springs, so she climbed inside. We were laying in bed and heard her crying and tried to find her but we didn't see her anywhere under the bed. When we saw the fabric sagging and moving we put two and two together. We had to take off the mattress and the box springs to get her out. That's when WE found those holes, and got a good laugh.

-She's not yet litter trained, but she's making progress. She also found a hole in the underlining fabric of our chaise lounge, and left us a couple "presents" in there. That did NOT make us laugh.

-She HATES her car carrier, and the vet. When I put her in the carrier she did okay until she realized she was trapped. The vet is only a mile away (if that), but she was determined to chew/bite/claw her way through the metal cage.

-She's tiny! Probably too tiny to be away from her mom. She's five weeks old and weighs less than a pound. (15 oz.) But knowing what happened to the first kitten we picked out, we're happy to have her here.

-Just like all cats, she loves playing with a laser pointer. It's fun for us too!

Here's a video of her playing with all her toys. (Mute it, so you don't have to hear my annoying voice.)

The New Addition to Our Family

Isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen??? This isn't actually HER, but this is what she will look like. She was just born last week and just barely opened her eyes, so we can't take her home until the end of March. But just ask Jeff... I'm SO excited!

Here's the story...

Jeff and I had both been thinking about what to get each other for Valentine's Day for weeks. And neither of us had come up with anything very good. Friday night (the night before Valentine's Day) we had this conversation:

Me: So... have you gotten me something for Valentine's Day yet?

Jeff: ...uh, no. Have you gotten me something yet?

Me: No. What should we do?

Jeff: I don't know...

So since we were both stumped, that's where it ended.

Later on, I was telling Jeff about the puppies I had seen a lady selling on my way home from work. Jeff asked, "Do you think she's still there?" By this time it was after 8:00. Doubtful. We were discussing what we wanted to do that night and he said, "We could go look at the kitties at PetsMart." (This is something we do for a free, short date sometimes. I love cats.) I said something like, "Like just looking, or to get one?" He said, "Either." So when we both realized that we both wanted a pet, we started looking. PetsMart only had cats. If I'm going to get one, I want it to be a kitten. We drove up to PetCo in Orem, right before closing time, just to find out that they don't have cats there. So we came home and searched online. We found a few options, but it was late so we decided to pursue it in the morning.

So all day during Valentine's day we were driving around trying to find our Valentine's Day present for each other. We drove to two different shelters, looked and called several people we found online and came up with nothing. No one had a kitten younger than six months. To me, that's not really a kitten. We came home a little discouraged. But then, I looked again online. I found a lady on craigslist (love that place!) whose cat just had 7 kittens! So we couldn't get one right away, but we could have her reserve one for us. After several times trying to get a hold of her we finally did. She said we could come to her house and pick one out. So our actual Valentine's Day consisted of:

-Looking for a kitten

-Getting take-out from Macaroni Grill (the best way to do Valentine's Day, so you don't have to wait) and eating it on our fancy china at home

-Going shopping for kitten stuff at PetsMart and Walmart

It may not sound very romantic, but it was fun. I don't need romance all the time.

So Sunday we went up to Salt Lake, picked out a little girl kitten that looks like this one, except TINY, and now we are just waiting to bring her home!

We're still looking for good girl cat names. Here are our ideas so far:

-Emmy

-Ellie

-Koa

-Olivia

Any suggestions? Anything better? We need some ideas! Leave us a comment and let us know!

25 Random Facts

I did this on Facebook, but I thought maybe I could post it here too. Is that cheating? I don't care. It's my blog, and I'll do what I want to.


25 Random Facts About Me

1. I spend my free time looking on craigs list for a new apartment. I am very tired of the one we're in now, and I can't wait to move. Too bad it's 6 months until our lease is up!

2. I can't focus if my house isn't clean, and that's a really annoying trait when you don't have a dishwasher.

3. We have a washer and dryer in our place, which is nice, but the washer's in the bathroom and the dryer's in the shed out back. (What?! Who designed this place?!)

4. I've been married for over a year already... can you believe that?!
5. I share a brain with my BFF, Nichelle.

6. I can quote any line from any episode of FRIENDS. Try me, I dare you.

7. I teach first grade and love it!

8. This is my 3rd year as a teacher. And I NEVER want to go back to being a first year teacher. (SO HARD)

9. My first year I taught 2nd grade in Heber.

10. I made the drive up Provo canyon over 200 times during the massive construction project, but not once since it's been done.

11. I've been in 3 car accidents in my life, once on my way up to Heber, once on our wedding day, and once just a few days ago. (This is not counting the time that Jeff hit the neighbor's mailbox.)

12. I would LOVE to live in New Zealand again some day.

13. I went bungy jumping twice when I lived in NZ. And for those of you that know me, you know that is SO not like me.


14. I also went Zorbing when I was there. SO FUN!



15. Brown is my favorite color. Is that weird?

16. My favorite Christmas present was my Cricut that Jeff gave me. I find any excuse to use it.

17. We bought Rock Band for our 1 year anniversary, and I think I'm awesome at it.

18. I love the band "The Fray" more than anyone else I know.

19. The sound that your car makes when your blinker is on (that clicking sound), has been going non-stop in my car since October. I haven't had the time to deal with it.

20. I love reading all my friend's blogs, and hope that someday I will be a good blogger too.


21. I hate all winged creatures, or anything that can fly at your face. (birds, butterflies, mosqitos, bats, etc.)

22. I am slightly OCD. I have to have the movies in alphabetical order, my white board markers at school in 4 groups of 3 and organized by color, etc. I don't know why, but it has to be that way.

23. I LOVE reading children's picture books. I go to the library about once a month and pick out about 20 books to read to my class. It's so fun. My favorite book right now is, "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake." It is so cute and so funny. The first time I read it I laughed so hard I was in tears.


24. I love cooking when I have the time to do it. Which, most days I don't, but I still cook.

25. If I had all the free time in the world, I would use it scrapbooking. Too bad I hardly ever have free time.

The Beginning

Yep, that's right. We jumped on the blogging bandwagon. Well, actually, I (Laura) jumped on the bandwagon. I don't think Jeff really cares about blogging, but I think it will be fun. I love reading about what's going on in everyone's lives. I guess it's time that I give you a peak into our lives.

I am teaching first grade right now. It's my 3rd year teaching. (WOW!) I really love first grade. The kids are super cute and they make so much progress over the year. It's really exciting to go to work everyday. Other than that, I am keeping myself busy with scrapbooking. Especially since I got a new cricut machine for Christmas!! It's a ton of fun. I am also working as the Camp Leader for our ward and a substitute primary teacher.

Jeff is working hard on his degree in Business, with an emphasis in entrepreneurism. He will finish in June. Yea! He's also working 20 hours a week with Novell in their credit department as an intern. But most excitingly, he is working with a start-up company making a new software system for the google phones that just came out. He's working with a professor and some others on this company and is really excited that he has the chance to actually do what he wants to do for a living. Right now they are doing all the research and creating of the software. Once they release it (in April), we will know if it is going to be a full time opportunity or not. We'll see... it's kind of exciting!

Right now we are living in Provo. It's a great place to be, but we are a little antsy to move out of our apartment. When our lease is up in July, we'll see where we end up. It could be somewhere in Utah, it could be California, we don't know. Stay tuned and we'll keep you updated!