Growing Family

For those that haven't heard our exciting news yet, we are expecting!!! The little one is should be arriving sometime around January 17th!!

Summer Rocks!!

Wow! This post is a long time coming... We had an awesome camping trip back in May and have been waiting on me (Andrew)to get the pics from Jake so we could post about it.

After a fun couple of days hanging out with Lilly we collected the traditional firewood and were off for Sand Hollow

along with Jake and Mindy Porter. We pulled onto the beach as the sun was setting and after starting the fire and making camp we took some cool pictures and then ate some tasty tin foil dinners prepared by Jake and Mindy (thanks guys!). Next day we ate some tasty breakfast that had a hint of burnt bacon flavor throughout,

played bocce ball and swam in the so-stinking-cold-you-not-only-go-numb-but-are-in-pain reservoir for a short while. Before long though the day grew hot and the sand burned our bare feet so we took off, vowing to return when the water was only uncomfortably cold.

After Sand Hollow we got to go on an AWESOME anniversary day date where we went to Gardner Village (of course we stopped by Sweet Afton's), went to the Hale Center Theatre to see the Three Musketeers, and ate dinner with Lara and Brian!

Since then we have had a pleasant mix of exciting and somewhat exciting experiences (loving every minute we're together). We had a lot of fun going to play with Nathan and Tonya and their sweet girls,

and loved going to Lindsay and Carson's WEDDING! We also got to enjoy the Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti Saturday night as well as the blessing of Kayla and Kendra yesterday. Hopefully we'll have more exciting news to post soon!

Summa Cum Laude

Congratulations Kelsey and Megan!

SUU's Most Beautiful Graduate
(the one with the metal on a blue ribon)

My beautiful bride graduated this weekend as Summa Cum Laude, and was chosen as "Outstanding History Student." We went to a special award ceremony where they said they had over six hundred students, and Megan was selected as being an outstanding student (because she ROCKS!). Her senior thesis was a hit, and her professor mentioned she showed an excellent ability to process information and displayed a strong understanding of the material she chose to study. It is easy for me to tell her she is great and smart, but hearing her instructors praise her work was a great experience for us both! Great Job Megan!

SUU's Largest Graduating Class ever!

Congrats Grad! We Love you!!

Graduation Weekend!

We sure love our graduate! We also had an AMAZING weekend visiting with Megan's family! Everyone came but Nathan and Tonya (get better soon you two!) and we had a blast! Everyone got here Thursday, and Friday everyone hung out and had a good time, and then we got to go cheer on Megan. After the graduation we went to Winger's, where we all got far too full and had lots of tasty dinner. We also got FOUR pieces of pie because we had two birthdays, a graduate, and a certificate for a free piece of pie! Happy birthday Jeremy and Marion!

The Rowdy Table

The Popcorn Lovers Table

Friday Night we stayed up way too late playing fun games, and watching a movie! After a little sleep Saturday morning we went to the graduation, and then we had fun and celebrated all day!

Bocce Ball was fun, even when the neighbor's dog ran off with the most important ball!

Next we did some shopping down in Saint George, picking up a sweet arm chair for $25 at the Down East tent sale, and having fun shopping at Kohl's and Tai Pan Tading Company! Next we had a picnic of pulled pork sandwiches and other delicious food items, and went on a hike at Red Cliffs (near Leeds). After that, we had some ice cream and went on the next leg of our adventure, Snow Canyon Park! We went down into the caves and had a great time fumbling around in the big dark rooms. On our way out we had some heads jarred by the lava rock ceiling, but no one was seriously injured. Finally we went to Wendy's for a final bit of nourishment, and then we all headed home and promptly went to sleep.

Red Cliffs hike has some beautiful vistas!

Above we see our "Spelunkers" having a go at Snow Canyon Caves

Sunday after church everyone had to leave pretty early, but we got to finish some delicious "Hamburgers."

Below we see the hard work that went into putting the mini burgers together, and we got to try out Marion's new Cupcake rack!

The "Burgers" really aren't hamburgers at all. For more info click here.

Family Tradition

After Christmas last year Andrew decided that we should start a tradition of burning our Christmas tree after the new year. At first I said no because I thought I would cry at the sight of my beloved Christmas tree being put to death by fire, be he prevailed and we took it out in January. The tree was still pretty wet so it smoked a lot but we roasted hot dogs and had a good time. This year we waited for the weather to warm up and brought along some friends, and we of course roasted hot dogs. If you wait three and a half months the tree is way dry and it goes up in flames fast. It was so fun and the whole time we were out everyone kept talking about how excited we all are to go camping this summer. Come quickly summer vacation!!

Hot Passionate Kisses

A friend told Andrew about this, I have no idea why they call them "hot passionate kisses" but they do. First you take a grasshopper cookie and you bite a little bit off of opposite sides like so.
Then you hold the cookie partly in your mouth and stick the other half in the hot chocolate.

Suck until the hot chocolate comes all the way through the cookie and into your mouth, then eat the cookie.

When Andrew told me about it I thought he was crazy, then we just happened to be having cocoa and toast for breakfast so he tried it, he said it was amazing so I gave in and tried it too. He was right it was AMAZING!! Go ahead try it!!!

Half Marathon!!

Andrew kept asking me why I didn't blog about the half marathon. I kept telling him that I didn't have pictures since he took my camera (and lets face it, pictures make a post more worth reading), and that Lindsay posted about it so I would just be repeating what she said, plus I don't think that many people read my blog so it didn't really matter if I posted. But I stole some pictures from Lindsay's camera and since this is a form of family journaling he finally convinced me to write about it.

On March 20th I ran a half marathon for the first time in my life! 13.1 Miles!! My two goals were 1. to not walk at all and 2. to finish in under 2 hours. The last five miles were way hard and I gave up on goal #2. Who cares about time at that point? I just wanted to finish! But when I went into my sprint for the finish I was pleasantly suprised to see that the timing clock said 1:57.17 as i crossed the finish line! Yay!! I did better than I thought I would. My chip time was 1:56.08. Right after I finished my mom asked me if I would do it again, I said I would have to forget how hard it was first. But it was a ton of fun and I think everyone should experience the starting line of a race with almost 4,000 runners, craziness.

Andrew's Spring Break!!

So I just went on a service trip to the Dominican republic a couple weeks ago with a group of students from SUU along with a local doctor, two nurses, a dentist, and a dental hygenist. We left Cedar City Friday morning at 11 am and arrived in Jaibon sometime in the afternoon of the following day, there meeting up with well over a hundred volunteers from around the US. It was an amazing trip, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat! I got to know some great people from around here, and we got to help the people there and learn a TON! There is too much to list everything so I am including a list of top 10 things that impacted me the most from the experience:

10. Traffic Laws (I mean really... do they have any?)

9. No AC. The only times we had air conditioning on the trip were on the bus rides and in the airplanes (I think the airport in the DR had AC too).

8. Sticky heat (at first I wondered why people were just sitting around but then I realized they were lounging during the day b/c it's too hot to do ANYTHING)

7. Food was amazing! I was ready to get back to American food when the week was over though...

6. Living conditions (we saw countless shacks constructed of plywood and just whatever people had) (Below: an abandoned food shack)

5. Medical professionals that came with us and other groups were very selfless, humble people ready to help wherever they could (Below: Dr. Rick Barnes the Dentist and Tressa the dental hygienist)

4. People -I loved being in a position where I was able to give to these people. We taught in the schools, helped provide medical and dental care, and I even helped build the footing for a small rock wall in front of the orphanage (Below: Greg playing frisbee at school/masses at medical clinic)

3. Getting to know the Doc from here in Cedar City and hearing a little about his experience becoming a physician and about his being a physician (Below: Andrew and "Dr. Dan" en route to the DR)

2. I missed Megan more than I expected. I thought about her more and more as the week progressed. Because she was gracious enough to let me take a pic of her the night before I left I had this pic of her on the camera I got to look at from time to time so I wouldn't miss her too much

1. Monday afternoon I translated for a Doc at the medical clinic. It was as though I were the physician because I asked all the questions and explained the diagnoses. It was awesome and got me so excited for the future!

PS Did I mention we went to the beach Wednesday? And then to another on Saturday?? (Below: Beach at Puerto Plata ...I think)

agression

Do you ever wonder what your family members think of your spouse? Sometimes I do, but you don't really have to wonder what your sister thinks of your husband when she lets out her pent up aggression. Lindsay just happens to hit Andrew with the ball every time we play racquetball together, I no longer believe it is just coincidence. Tonight she let it all out, the pictures don't show it very well, but his lips are pretty swollen. One side of his face had a nice red circle on it and of course being the supportive wife that I am I laughed every time I saw it. When it happened I was laughing so hard I had to leave to spend some time in the bathroom.

Indoor triathlon!!

A triathlon club was started on campus and yesterday they hosted an indoor triathlon. Those who can complete a full triathlon would call it a wussy triathlon because it is even shorter than a sprint triathlon, but I thought it was perfect. Three miles on a treadmill, ten miles on a stationary bike and a quarter mile of swimming. It was a ton of fun and I would totally do it again!

Mental note, don't pick the treadmill in front of the window when the sun is coming in.
The running was my favorite part I was so proud of my time and I felt really good when I finished that part.

I don't bike, that is why participating in a triathlon on a stationary bike appealed to me, no hills and I probably won't fall over or knock anyone else over. I didn't train for the biking at all and it was by far the worst part for me. My timer told me to put my level high so I would finish faster, BAD IDEA!!!

Transitions, notice our timers dutifully following.

The swimming was the part I was the most worried about, but I ended up enjoying it a lot.

Andrew had the hard task of taking pictures and he did a wonderful job! Then he took Lindsay and I out to dinner at the Pizza Factory last night because we are so awesome!