Look at This!

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!

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!

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!