The Kirks

Adventures in Colorado

2012-02-03T14:48:00.003-07:00

It’s about time I update this thing, right? As far as my many (actually, eleven) blog followers know, we are still living in Utah, I am still having a blast teaching 1^st grade, and Jeff is about to strike it rich with his entrepreneurial endeavors…. But things are just about the opposite of that. Here’s the scoop:

Moving:

So in the spring of 2011 we started to think that Jeff’s job just wasn’t right for us at this time in our lives. He started looking for other jobs in Utah, but was coming up short. Nothing was quite right. We expanded our job search to California and Colorado so we could be closer to our families. Well, what we soon realized was that California is expensive, but Colorado is do-able. Jeff and I both started applying for jobs in the Denver area in June. Still nothing came. I had a couple interviews, but did not have my Colorado teaching license yet (It took 5 months to process!) so nothing came of them.

In the middle of July Jeff and I came out to Denver for a few job interviews (2 for him, 1 for me). We had a family vacation planned in Denver at the end of July, so we really wanted to be able to move before that came. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to hear back from the interviews before we had to make a decision. I remember specifically on Sunday morning on our way to church (in Denver) we made the choice to go ahead and move. It felt like a “now or never” chance. Even though we had no jobs lined up, we felt like the opportunities in Denver were better for us.

As we said good-bye to my parents after church we asked them what they would think if we drove out for the family vacation in a moving van… and if they would mind having house guests for a few months. Of course they were excited to have us close by. So we drove back to Utah on Sunday, quit our three jobs (I was also working at Archiver’s) on Monday, packed up my classroom and our entire apartment in three days, and left with the moving van on Friday. It was a crazy/busy/stressful week,* but totally worth it. We are so happy to be in Colorado!

*My only regret about moving so fast is that we didn’t get to say good-bye to our closest Utah friends, Cory and Jenelle. Jenelle was out of town that week and we left before she got back. Cory was nice enough to still help us load the moving truck. We miss them like crazy!

Laura:

As soon as we got to Colorado, the serious job hunt began. I was still waiting on my Colorado teaching license to come (did I mention that it took 5 months to process?), but I was hopeful that I could find something. Archiver’s in Aurora hired me and I was happy to have something to do and a little money trickling into the bank account. A little while later I was hired as a para-educator at a fantastic elementary school. I started working there, happy that I had something a little more fulfilling to do, but not completely happy with a job that I was over-qualified for.

After a few weeks of working as a para, I got a call from a principal in Aurora that I had interviewed with in the summer. She asked me if I had gotten a job, and told me that she had a teaching job open up in kindergarten after one of her teachers decided to retire mid-year. She asked me if I would be interested and told me when to apply. I followed through with it, got the job, and started a few weeks later. It’s funny how things work out.

So now I am teaching kindergarten. This is my class. I have 26 kids, and I’m the only Caucasian in the room. 22 of them are ELL students (English Language Learner). Most of them speak Spanish at home, but I do have one who is from Burma. The best part of my day is when my Latino students translate things for him in Spanish. Haha… that kid will probably learn Spanish just as fast as he’ll learn English.

Anyway, it’s been a rough year. One that has been even harder than my very first year, but I am learning a lot. I have a great support system at my school and I hope that next year I will be able to build on the knowledge I have gained.

Jeff:

Jeff had a little bit longer job hunt, complete with a trip to the LDS Employment center. That was, by far, the best thing. Right after he attended that seminar he got hired through a temp agency. He worked in “accounts payable” for about six weeks. He enjoyed it, but it wasn’t something he would love to do for years to come. But then, something better came along…

He recently scored a fantastic job with Cigna. I don’t know what his official title is, but he is working in the finance department. They hired him so that they could have someone in their Denver office that is able to do his job. Before, they only had people in their Connecticut office and it caused problems when they’d get snowed out or need to be available during west coast office hours. So he is learning how to do his job over the internet from people in Connecticut, and later on he’ll be in charge of training anyone in Denver that they decide to hire after him.

We are so excited for this job opportunity. We have our brother-in-law James to thank for helping him find and apply to so many great jobs, which ultimately led him to this one. Jeff is really happy with what he is doing, which makes me really happy. We hope it is a great job that Jeff will be able to stick with for a major part of his career.

Olivia:

Yep, we still have our crazy cat. My mom and dad were nice enough to let us bring her when we moved in with them. She still plays fetch with small crumpled papers. She also spends a lot of time playing with her pink mice. She has two favorites, one stays under our bed so she can play with it at night, and one stays downstairs for when I’m sewing in the basement. If you move them from their proper locations, she will move them back. But her favorite hobby (by far) is torturing any house guests that come over. She is so mean to everyone!

Anytime that we (Jeff and I) are out of the house she walks around crying and carrying her bird-friend. She is so funny about this nasty bird. It was a toy we bought her a long, long time ago. It used to be on a stick, but she chewed the string off and got super-attached to the bird part. When we are home, she completely ignores this toy. But when we come back from being gone, it’s always in a different room from where it was. When we are home and she thinks we are gone, she walks around the house carrying it in her mouth and cries. If she sees us while she’s doing that she will immediately drop it and walk away. It’s hilarious. She’s so weird.

Well, anyway, that’s the latest on us. We are so happy to be living in Colorado! Don’t expect another update for a couple more months… wouldn’t want to mess up my average 6 posts a year!

Seattle

2011-04-14T16:20:00.011-06:00

This week is my Spring Break and since Jeff can choose his own hours, we took advantage of the time and went to Seattle.

We left on a snowy Saturday morning and flew up to the beautiful Northwest to meet up with my oldest sister Marie, her husband Manoj, and their cute girls Misha and Maddie. Saturday was filled by touring their awesome neighborhood. They live on a peninsula called West Seattle which is a homey-feeling place located just 20 minutes from downtown. In fact, they have an awesome view of the Seattle skyline from their bedroom. How cool is that?

This is Alki beach (where the sand is trucked in) with the Space Needle in the background.
Then we went to the Mariners Baseball game that night. They lost, but it still felt great to sit in the seats at Safeco Field again. And it helped that Marie got us the best seats I've ever sat in.
After the game, we were pretty much chilled to the bone so we went to Manoj's restaurant at the downtown Courtyard Marriott and got some hot chocolate as well as a tour of the hotel. It's beautiful!

Sunday we went to church and relaxed at home. We played lots of games including this game from India called "Carroms." Manoj was pretty much the only decent player, but he taught his girls well. This is Maddie practicing. (She's 4.) Later on in the week she said, "I had more than Jeff!" which was no lie.
Monday we spent the day as tourists. I believe we went to Pike Place Market, the first Starbucks, the Gum Wall, the Space Needle, and walked along the waterfront. It was a beautiful sunny day, but somewhat windy.

The Gum Wall
Super Convenient Gumball Machine
Placing my gum on the wall (but not before I accidentally dropped it on the ground first, yuck!)
View of downtown from the top of the Space Needle

This is just to the right of downtown, that is Marie and Manoj's neighborhood.That night we went out for the most delicious Indian food! Chicken Tikka Masala, Lamb Saag, Mattar Paneer, Masala Dosa, Chicken Pakora, and Gulab Jamun!

Tuesday was filled with the Seattle Aquarium, an awesome Harbor Cruise with interesting facts about Seattle, lunch on the pier and a great performance of "The Three Little Pigs" by Maddie and her pre-school class.

This is Misha and Maddie with the "Dinner" that they made for dessert for us one night when we were there. So cute!

Corn on the cob, peas & carrots, mashed potatoes & gravy

Wednesday we drove a couple hours north to Sedro-Woolley where Jeff's Grandma Kirk lives. We were able to visit with her for a couple hours before heading back to the city. Sedro-Woolley is a beautiful area close by Canada with plenty of fresh air. It was a beautiful place to visit and we were so grateful to get to visit with Grandma Kirk.

All-in-all it was a great trip! We had so much fun! Can't wait to go back and visit again!!

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

2011-02-08T22:56:00.002-07:00

I'm sorry that my blog is not all that interesting. But I guess that's the way our life is right now. So instead of a post about something super cool and super fun that we've done... here is a post about some super cool and super fun things that I like.

#1 My sewing machine
It doesn't matter what I'm doing, I just love sewing. I got this for Christmas from Jeff's parents and I love it so much. What's even better is that my mom got me all the sewing tools I need to do any project I want, complete with lessons in sewing/quilting. I've used it a lot already and I don't see myself slowing down anytime soon.

#2 My cricut
More specifically the "Create a Critter" cartridge. I have had my cricut for a couple of years now and I've used it a lot for scrapbooking fonts, but I am now hooked on the shapes cartridges now. I wish they weren't so dang expensive because there are so many cute things you can make!

And using these two fun tools I recently made these...

They are see through valentines. I got the idea from here. It's basically just two wax paper hearts that I cut out on my cricut. Then I sewed around the edges with red thread, leaving about an inch opening. Then I filled them with m&ms and a tag. Then sewed up the opening. So cute and way easier and faster than I thought they'd be.

#3 Blogger app on my Droid
I don't know if this is a new app, or just new to me, but it's definitely one of my favorite things. I can now blog from my phone. It's great because it is so much easier to take pictures on my phone than it is to use my camera and then upload it to the computer. It eliminates one step and hopefully changes how often I will blog. (Although I make no promises.)

Happy Blogging!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7

2011

2010-11-17T20:25:00.027-07:00

Here's what 2011 looks like, in case you were wondering.

Those calendar pages were made with the Archiver's calendar kit for this year. The kit comes with three coordinating papers for each month. The layouts I did on my own, with the help from the ideas posted on the Archiver's website.

And I love making calendars so much that I made two for next year. This next one is a kit made by Basic Grey. It was nice because they gave you all the pieces and directions for how to put it together. I liked it because I didn't have to think much, but I also don't think it's as cute as the other one. This one I will take to school to hang in my classroom.

PS- Sorry about the low quality pictures. One of these days I should really learn a thing or two about photography. Anyone want to teach me?

Remember that One Time...

2010-10-24T09:18:00.020-06:00

Remember that one time, when I said I was going to be a better blogger? Yeah, right. I've come to accept that I am not a good blogger, and I don't think I ever will be. But I'll keep trying. Here's the update for the past 6 months from us.

A Dream Job: In May I got a dream job, well... a 2nd dream job. I LOVE teaching and I LOVE scrapbooking, so what's the new dream job? I work at Archiver's teaching scrapbooking classes. I love it. And on days when I'm not teaching classes, Jeff says I get paid to do my favorite thing, which is shopping at Archiver's. It's a win-win situation!

Trip to Colorado: We started out our summer with a fun trip to Colorado to visit my family. We had a fun time hanging out and doing a bit of sightseeing. We visited Estes Park, up in the mountains. And we drove through Rocky Mountain National Park, which included a drive on the highest paved road in the world, and a photo op by the Continental Divide (which is not at the highest point on the road... how confusing).

5k... Not 5000 Miles: At the end of last year, I decided I wanted to do something different. I have always wanted to get in better shape, but it never seems to work out for me. So I decided to start training for a 5k. I have always hated running, and I still don't enjoy it, but I did it anyway. Training went really well for the first few months, then I got my wisdom teeth out, and it all went downhill from there. I still ran the 5k, I just didn't quite meet my goal. I do want to run another one and do better. Anyone with me? Even though I still don't enjoy running, I am starting to understand the running "addiction" people get. Especially when you run a race and everyone is cheering for you at the end. It's pretty cool.

Camping on the Oregon Coast: My family tries to get together each summer and do a camping trip. This year we went to the Oregon Coast. It was so beautiful! You just don't see those kinds of trees in Utah. We had a lot of fun going to the beach, sightseeing, relaxing, and playing games. Jeff and I also got to fly our dragon kite for the first time. Too bad I got it stuck on the roof of a restaurant. I was really bummed because it was a really cool kite that his parents gave us for Christmas one year. So I embarrassingly went into the restaurant and asked them to throw it down for me. And since they were nice about it, we got our dragon kite back! Another funny story from that trip is the incident with the raccoons. We were close by a little lake, so a few people in the group decided to get fishing licenses. After two days of fishing and not catching anything, my brother went out one last time in the early morning. To our surprise he came back with a fish! My mom was so excited to eat fresh seafood for dinner that night. We put it in a ziplock bag, in a small ice chest and left for the day. When we came back to camp later that afternoon, the fish was gone. The ice chest was open on the ground with the empty ziplock bag next to it. One raccoon paw print left on the ice chest was the only evidence of who took it. Those animals are so sneaky.

Moving: The month of July started out uneventful, but ended with madness. We knew our lease was ending so I looked for a couple days on Craigslist for a new place to live, but I didn't find anything better than where we were living. So we got an email from our landlord about resigning a contract. The thing that surprised us is that he wanted to raise our rent... by $75 bucks! Now if the apartment was worth it, that would be one thing, but this was a basement apartment, with no dishwasher, and the tiniest bathroom known to man. It was not worth it. But "to be fair" our landlord offered to meet us half way with the price if we did the yard work. So we would be paying more rent, and doing more work, for the same apartment... hmm, doesn't seem fair to me. So we looked a little harder and found a great apartment to move into. We love our new place. It is on the top floor (no noisy people above us), it's WAY bigger (1200 sq. feet), it has a built in dishwasher (no more babysitting the portable one), and everything else that we wanted. Plus, the landlord is awesome. I think we will be here a while. (This is the only picture I have of our new place. It's just a random picture I took with my phone of Olivia in her "new favorite place." ...disregard the dirty dishes. That never really happens around here.)

Trip to California: Before the summer was over, Jeff and I wanted to visit his family in California. It was a pretty relaxing trip. We went swimming in the pool, did some shopping at the outlets, and I got to go to my first SF Giants game. It was such a beautiful stadium. We had a lot of fun. Especially since we got to see a "Splash Down" home run, where the ball is hit over the right field wall into the SF Bay.

School Days: And then the summer came to a close. I wasn't quite ready for school to start this year, but it did. I am now ending the first term if the school year, which is crazy. But I do have to admit that I love my little kiddos this year. I only have 19, which is great. But they are pretty much all good kids. I have one that likes to act out, but he has been doing SO well lately. And my kids are so awesome as a whole. They work SO quietly. I have never had a class that was so quiet. I have had people come in and say, "Is this a first grade class? It's eerie how quiet it is!" I know some of it is that I've gotten better at classroom management (This is my 5th year teaching... crazy?!), but a lot of it is just the kids. They are an awesome group, and I love them.

So I think that wraps up the update. I hope to keep up this blog better, but I make no promises. Stay tuned...

A New Car

2010-07-24T10:07:00.007-06:00

So back in April I took my car in for a tune up and realized what I kind of already knew. With the ammount of repairs that my car needed, it was totaled. This list gives you an idea of the ammount of work it needed:

No heat and no A/C
Gas gauge broken
Turn signal broken and making a weird sound... constantly
Bad shocks
Numerous leaks and issues with the engine

So... we decided that it was time to part ways and buy a new car.

We went shopping when my parents were in town and found this beauty for a really good price!
It's a 2008 Hyundai Sonota. And it's a silvery-blue color. Plus it has a sunroof, A/C, and doesn't make strange sounds! What a deal, right?

Well, something you may, or may not know about me is that I share the same opinion of those vinyl family stickers as my friend Nicole does here. So on Sunday when I drove my new car home from church, Jeff asks, "What is that thing on the back of your car?!" Sure enough, this is what we saw...
We were so confused. Was that on there when we bought the car? (It was a used car.) Did someone put it on there after we bought it? Who and when would they do that? And why? Well, remember how I said my mom and dad were in town? Remember how I said I share the same opinion as my friend Nicole? Apparently I am not quiet about that opinion and my parents saw it as an opportunity to tease me. Hilarious? Yes. They got up early Sunday morning before we went to church and put it on my car. Apparently my mom had been planning it for weeks and had her vinyl lady cut it for her special for her trip to Utah. Loved it, but now it's gone.

So remember how I said this was a 2008 Sonota? Well as we prepared to change our insurance, we noticed that the 12,000 papers that you sign when you buy a car all say 2006. What? Exactly. Here's what happened. The car had just been traded in when we came in to look at buying one. So there was no sticker with the specs in the window or anything. "Apparently" the salesman thought it was a 2008. (That's what you get for thinking.) And "apparently" the finance lady who does the paperwork knew it was a 2006. So when we were passed from one to the other, that piece of information was never passed. And wouldn't you know that as we signed the paperwork we carefully checked our names, address, and the mileage, but didn't catch the mistake in the year. Go figure.

As you can imagine we were more than a little upset that we hadn't caught the mistake then, but were even more upset with the fact that they had (not intentionally) lied to us. We went back and fought for something to be done. So we now have free oil changes and tire rotations for a year. Thanks. But I don't think I'll go back there when my car is totaled next time.

I wish I was a better blogger

2010-07-23T07:46:00.002-06:00

For all the hours I spend reading other people's blogs, you'd think I would write on my own blog more often. Yep, you'd think! Well, here is my "July Resolution" to be a better blogger. And I actually have a lot to blog about over the past few months. So here is a list to get you excited about what will be coming shortly.

A New Car
A Dream Job
A Trip to Colorado
5k... not 5000 miles
Camping on the Oregon Coast
Moving

There, that should keep me busy for a while. Mostly that list is for me, but I hope you are prepared to see a lot more action on this blog than you are used to!

And this picture is just because I think blog posts without pictures are some-what boring.

Spring Break Update

2010-04-11T15:26:00.010-06:00

This past week has been my Spring Break from school and this year we got a full week off! Wahoo! So here's how we spent the week.

We spring cleaned our little 2nd bedroom and moved the foosball table (that was never used) out to the garage. We also spring cleaned the garage a bit rearranging things so that it's not such a mess now. For those of you that know me well, that was a very important part of my spring break. I love cleaning and re-organizing! (And if any of you want a foosball table, let me know, but don't tell Jeff.)

We watched conference and had Easter dinner with Megan and Ben. I gave Jeff an Easter basket, Megan and Ben also gave us one, and Jeff got me this set of picture frames. (As per my request, since I was having surgery the next day and wouldn't be able to enjoy delicious Easter treats.) I spent Monday morning hanging it up, and put the pictures in a couple days later. I love how it turned out!

Monday afternoon I had wisdom teeth surgery. I don't remember much since they put me out and I was very thankful for that. Every once in a while Jeff will tell me funny things that happened when I wasn't all there. I don't believe it.

I recovered fairly well from the surgery so I spent the rest of the week being lazy. I got things done around the house, started our wedding scrapbook (only 2 years late), and ran errands when I felt up to it. My biggest complaint from the surgery was not pain, but since I couldn't eat much and I got sick of the same things over and over I wasn't getting enough calories, and I don't function well on a low amount of calories. But now I can pretty much eat anything as long as I chew with my front teeth and I eat really slowly.

Friday I cut 7 inches of hair off. I got it cut at a beauty school. It took 2 hours. I wasn't sure how I felt about it.

Saturday I cut 2 more inches off. I went to Super Cuts. It took 30 minutes. I was happy. Here's how it looks.

Jeff and I also got a new calling this week. They just rearranged our ward boundaries and now we are the Activities Committee Co-Chairs. Before we were just on the committee, which we prefer, but we're willing to take on the responsibility. If you have any good ideas for ward activities, let us know! We're already planning on doing "Minute to Win It" and the Manti Pagent (Our Bishop has a HUGE cabin down there).

Back to these little ones tomorrow! ...7 more weeks!

Why I Love First Graders

2010-03-10T17:23:00.003-07:00

Today while I was teaching guided reading to my cute little first grade students, I heard a great comment.

We were reading a book called "Magpie's Baking Day," which is very similar to the story of the Little Red Hen, except instead of a Hen, there is a Magpie. So during the book Magpie asks his friends, "Who will go and get the milk for me?" and other similar requests for help.

To which my dear sweet student commented, "She's lazy!"

And to think, this whole time I thought the moral of that story was that you have to help in order to reap the rewards. Nope, I guess the real moral is: Don't help your friends that are just being lazy. Good to know.

Look at This!

2010-02-24T21:35:00.005-07:00

Look at my cute shelf. It originally had star cut-outs in the back, but I didn't think that fit our current decorating style. So I covered the back in cute scrapbooking paper and tied some red ribbon around it. I completed this project about three months ago, and it's been leaning against our living room wall ever since. This past weekend Jeff hung it up for me!

Now it's a spice shelf. I love it!

Time to Update the Fans!

2010-02-14T17:31:00.004-07:00

Yeah, like we have fans. But I know at least two people read my blog... so here's to you Mom and Christy!

Since I'm really bad at taking pictures, here is a list of what we've been up to for the past few months. I'll put in as many pictures as I can to make it interesting.

Jeff's been working hard with his start-up company. He's been working full time with a BYU professor developing software that will run on the new Android phones. (Like this one and this one.) We're super-jealous because Megan and Ben got these phones over Christmas break, and Jared and Tierney got these phones last month. We have to wait until April to get ours, and Jeff has been wanting one for over a year now.
I've started my fourth year of teaching. I have a cute class of first graders this year with tons of personality.
We bought the new Super Mario Brothers game for the wii a few months ago. It was a fantastic purchase. You can have 4 people playing the same level at the same time. It can be challenging though because you get in the other person's way. Sometimes tempers flare and we have to turn it off, but all in all, it's a very fun game. We have everything beat except the last Bowser level. Wish us luck!
We went to Portland for Thanksgiving this year. We stayed with Manoj, Marie, and their girls Misha and Maddie. It was sad to not have the whole family there this year, but we had tons of fun with the ones who were able to come. Here's a picture of my cute nieces:
For Christmas we went to California and stayed with Jeff's family. You can't beat the California weather. We were outside on Christmas in T-shirts! We had lots of fun with Jeff's family and felt very loved by all the presents we got from his family and mine.
While we were in California we spent a day in San Francisco for our anniversary. It was so fun! The last time I went I was probably 7 years old. I dragged Jeff around to all the touristy places, maybe next time we can do cooler things, but you gotta do it once, right? So we went to the zoo (It's an awesome zoo!), drove down Lombard Street (Once is enough.), and walked around Fisherman's Warf. We had a great time celebrating our 2nd anniversary!
In December I decided that I was going to get in shape and run a 5k. I was kind of shy about it at first and didn't want to tell anyone, but now I am telling everyone because then I am responsible to actually do it. I am following a routine that I found online and I've been pretty good at sticking to it. I've gained a lot of endurance so far, but I still have a ways to go. I've been going to the gym 3 days a week to run on the treadmill, and 3 days a week to Zumba class. If you've never been to Zumba, and you have a gym membership (24 hour, or Gold's) you should go. It's 1 hour of cardio, you burn tons of calories, and it's so fun! I love it because I workout for an hour without even thinking. Trust me, it's fun.
And besides that, we've just been busy with the day to day things. Work, work, clean the house, and work. I'll try to be better about the updates from now on!

GRADUATION!

2009-10-11T15:34:00.005-06:00

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

2009-10-11T15:15:00.010-06:00

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

2009-10-11T14:51:00.009-06:00

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

2009-07-08T19:06:00.004-06:00

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.

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...

2009-06-17T18:19:00.004-06:00

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.

2009-03-21T12:09:00.008-06:00

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

2009-02-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-02-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-01-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

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!