Seasons Greetings

So apparently Christmas is in like 3 weeks. WHHAAT? When did that happen? I don't know. We're both so stuck on school that Christmas still feels forever away. We do have all of our shopping done and they're all even wrapped and under the tree. So why doesn't it feel like Christmas yet...Hmm. It could also be because we're trying to MOVE. What a pain. I'm to the point that I don't even want to finish decorating my tree cause I might just have to take it down anyways. Ah well. We'll just see how it goes. Hopefully we'll find a new home soon so that we can know what we're doing!

Finals are coming up next week. I have 3 online ones and 2 in class exams. I'll be done by Tuesday. But poor Tyler, he has his Chemistry final and make-up exam coming up next week. Lot's and lot's of studying for the 2 of us! Our house is a literal disaster--I don't even like thinking about it. haha But by next Wednesday it will be beautiful again...so that I can start packing. yayy.

Anyways, Merry Christmas! Hopefully soon I can post pictures of a cute tree with pretty presents underneath (they're already there, and they look marvelous. but it doesn't look the same without all of the lights on the tree!). Charli and my mom went along with a craft idea of mine that took FOREVER and we're not even finished yet. Hopefully we can all finish before Christmas because I think it will turn out cute...eventually! For Christmas Eve we'll be with my fam and then we'll head out to Fielding after Christmas morning to spend the day with Tyler's family. I'm still hoping we'll get to talk to Haden, but we'll see :)

Drive, Drive, Drive

It seems as though we are always doing homework. Every spare hour of every day. But this last weekend we finally got a reprive! Now we're realizing that we'll be doing a lot of driving! Last weekend Tyler's last companion from the mission got married so we drove down to Salt Lake, then he took me to Lehi to stay with my parents because he had to drive back up to Logan for work. Then Saturday after work Tyler came back down to Lehi to finish watching conference with my parents. Then we both came back to Logan. Sunday night Tyler went out to fielding and back again. Tomorrow (Wed) Tyler gets to drive to Harrisville after work then come back, then we'll be going out to Kaysville for the wedding on Thursday. Then there's the hunt and a bunch of other driving stuff coming up. Long story short, LOTS of DRIVING. But it just makes for more adventures!

As of Late

Lately all we seem to be doing is homework...lots and lots of homework. Tyler has about 5 billion hours of study time each night for his math and chemistry class (not to mention English!) and I just seem to be writing paper after paper for my classes. This weekend alone I've probably written about 9 pages of research journal crap...but we love it :)...I think...

Tyler getting home from work & realizing how many hours of studying he still has to put in before the night is over :(

Studying away...what a good boy!

This weekend we did get a little reprieve from our monotonous days of school and work. We got to go up to the Idaho Falls temple to support Tyler's cousin as he went through the temple for the first time. He's going to soon be serving in the Marshall Islands so we thought we would go say bye one last time. Unfortunately, this weekend we also had to say bye to Tyler's older brother for a little bit. He's moving down to Arizona for work and his cute little wife will be joining him soon. We're going to miss our buddies :( But it will be a fun experience for them to get away and we're happy for them.

Today was the dedication of the Brigham City temple as well. What a wonderful experience to see yet another temple dedication. The spirit is always so strong and we love to hear our wonderful leaders speak. Tyler also knew quite a few people who were there in the temple, including his old high school choir director! When his sister and bro-in-law went we got to spend some time with our favorite little niece and enjoyed an evening with family. There's nothing better. 

Hunting & The Temple

Last weekend we had the opportunity to view the Brigham City Open House. We were going to go with Tylers whole family, but we wren't able to go with them so we randomly decided to go one night. Though it was super packed, it was still another wonderful experience.

 

Yesterday, the dove hunt was a go. So Tyler and Jeremy decided that we should all take a drive and go looking for some doves. We drove for a while and saw nothing. Eventually Ty and Jer got out and me and Kristi followed behind in the truck. Unfortunately the boys didn't get any doves...but they did spot some cute little deer! We eventually made it to his parents house and shot some pigeons on their property.



USU!!!

The game was awesome. But crazy intense! We went with our friends Jake & Kylee and Kevin & Melanie, and we had to get there an hour early and we were still worried about getting seats. SOLD OUT game! Honestly, I wasn't planning on winning, but I thought we should support our Aggies anyways...and then, the first quarter happened and they kicked butt! We were winning big time. By the end of the game we were tied and we went into overtime. It was close, but we got our touchdown and the Utes were second and they were close...but not close enough. Good game. Super intense.

CRUISE!

We didn't have a blog when we went on our cruise, so not much was posted about it. SO I have decided to put a little about it on here, especially because I'm planning on printing off my whole blog eventually. We went on a western Caribbean cruise for a whole week. When we got engaged we knew that we would want to do a fun and exciting vacation eventually, but not for our honeymoon. So the chance came up to go on this cruise with Tyler's cousins Matt and Luna. Such a good idea! The bad idea was thinking it would be fun to drive 25 hours in a small little car all the way to southern border of Texas...straight through! It was a little bit cheaper, but I think next time we'll just fork out a couple hundred extra! But it was a good thing to do once! We got to see a lot of scenery in Colorado, New Mexico and of course Texas (holy huge state!).

We Made It!

 The first couple of days were "fun day at sea" days. The boys played some dodge-ball, we checked out the ship and ate a LOT of good food! Including lots and lots of soft served ice cream and frozen yogurt! At nights we would watch movies on the big screen and play lots and lots of games. The first night was formal night so we got to dressed up for that which was pretty fun too! We also got a sweet bottle of wine but we decided to leave it for some lucky custodian to find...so nice of us. HA

 Our second full day on board was lots of fun again, just getting to know the ship (because they're huge!). But that night we had the best performance of the whole trip! His name is Marcus Monroe (He told us to call him mmmm) and o my was he funny. He also rode a unicycle and juggled for us! All 4 of us loved it!

Day 2!

The next day we finally made it to Jamaica! It was a beautiful little island and I'm way sad we didn't get to see more of it. Our excursion lasted nearly the whole time so we only got to see the scenery through the bus window on our way to our destination. Our destination was this beautiful spot in the forest (9) and we got to go zip-lining (6)! It was tons of fun. I think Luna loved it the most, but our tour guides were way funny and they made it all the better. The bathrooms had cute little signs on them that Luna loved too(2)! We started out by an amazing river that we kept crossing as we went. 

That night once we got back on board we were able to enjoy another show and some more yummy food! Ty liked to try all of the funny foods that they had, this shows one of them....

 The next day was my personal favorite, the Cayman Islands. We had a blast here on the island! When we first got off the ship we were able to walk around the streets and enjoy of the cute little stores set up on the island.

We then met our tour guide and started on our adventure! The trip started off on wave runners (Ty drove the whole time (:) It was way chill and we got to go the speed we wanted and Tyler had a blast going back and forth through the natural huge waves (much more fun than a lake!) To make it even better, we got way nice wave runners that barely had any miles on them so they really did go way fast! Not to mention the fact that the island is BEAUTIFUL! So green and lush and the water was a perfect blue!

We rode the wave runners out to stingray city and we got to play with all the stingrays there. First our guide made each of us kiss it because apparently it's good luck!

Next we all got to experience a back rub administered by the stingray. It's the coolest and oddest feeling in the world!

After we got done playing with the stingrays we hopped back on the wave runners and headed towards the reef. Here we got to snorkle and look at all the pretty fishies and coral...the pictures do NOT do it justice! It was my first time ever going snorkling so I was exstatic the whole time. It was just as fun as people say it is! It's also very relaxing to just float underneath the water and look at all the cool things in the ocean.

After that we headed back toward the ship but stopped at another beach and enjoyed the ocean there for a bit too. We also stopped a cool little food vendor and ate some good food. Tyler also wanted to buy a coconut so he went and got one but was so disappointed because it wasn't that good. :( We then spent a little more time walking around and taking in the scenery. But don't you fret, the awesome day didn't end there, once we got back on the ship I won our little group not 1, but 2 ship-on-a-sticks! (Yes, they really do call them a ship-on-a-stick. LOVE it.) There was a mystery, who-done-it type of thing and I told everyone the answer and they pulled out both mine AND Luna's name. It was awesome. A very proud moment for me. It's not everyday that you can say you won a ship-on-a-stick!

That night we played around on the ship and visited some of the shops...we especially loved the candy shop! (Yes, I did change outfits...don't judge! haha) I went through clothes like crazy on the cruise.

The next day we went to Cozumel, another beautiful island! We got there and shopped around a bit. Luna bought some nasty mexican candy and played around. We found this cool little restaurant with hammocks and a nice of the ocean...and our ships? haha It was awesome though. Matt and Luna also stunted in each location, so I thought I better put a pic up! (That's what you get for going on a vacation with cheerleaders!)

 

After that we hopped on a boat and went snorkeling again! It was fun, but not quite as great as the first time because there were soooo many people! I could hardly get a picture without somebody else in the way. It was still fun though. Also, a lady that stayed on the ship thought I was drowning. I sucked some water into my tube so I came up sputtering. The lady was telling everyone on board that I nearly drowned. Luna told us the whole story once we got back on (she stayed there when we went out), so apparently...I survived! haha The boat then took us to a little beach where we ate dinner and played on a bunch of toys. It was another fun adventure.

 Sadly, all things must come to an end and that was about it for us. Our last day at sea consisted of a lot of sun! We went on the slides, relaxed in the hot tub and napped in the sun. At dinner the last night the wait staff did a cute little number for us. It was pretty funny too!

 

Here are some of the pictures of the cute little towel animals that we got and our dinner dates on the ship!

 

O and Luna wasn't feeeling well on the way home, so this is how she rode practically the whole way home! Haha Silly Luna.

 

The Last Hoorah!

School starts tomorrow which means we had to end our summer with a bang. We were thinking it wasn't going to happen because I haven't been feeling too well this week but we still managed to go the Box Elder Fair & Rodeo, a Demolition Derby in Preston AND we saw Bourne Legacy. All were awesome. We went to the rodeo with Ty's parents, he wanted to go on Wednesday because that's when the best rodeo is? That left our weekend free so on Friday we had our last true date night for a while and went to dinner AND a movie. I was a little skeptical about the new Bourne movie, but seriously, it was SO good. And the Preston derby....AMAZING. Probably my favorite derby we've been to. In 3 separate instances, there was a fire, the firemen used the jaws of life and the participate was driven away in an ambulance (no worries, he's all good now) and a car got tipped on it's side. All in all, a good way to end the summer, but still so sad that school's starting and it's back to class we go.

We Ate Cake!

So right after our first anniversary, I realized that we had forgotten to eat our top layer of cake! I was determined that we would eat so we were going to save it for 18 month anniversary (the 2nd anniversary of when we met) and we forgot again (at least Tyler claims that he forgot too). So I made the decision to wait until our 2nd anniversary! Ty hated the idea, but I was determined. But I forgot...again. A couple nights ago when we were cleaning out our freezer we saw it and I made the decision that we would pull it out right then (we weren't going to wait until anniversary #3!) and eat it the next night. So we did. It looked awesome and it tasted surprisingly good. Of course we didn't eat the fondant, and it wasn't the best but we each had a slice (with no negative side effects) and then tossed the rest.It was a very funny moment.

Anniversary Number 2

For our anniversary this year, Tyler wanted to surprise me with a mini little vacation. While he took many precautions to surprise me, I proved to be too sneaky for my own good. I snooped and found out we were going to Hairspray at the Tuacahn amphitheatre down in St. George (YAYYYY!) Tyler knows that I love musicals and so he was willing to suffer through the whole thing with me. Unfortunately we both had to work that day so we didn't get out of Logan until about 5:30 PM! We arrived in St George late last night and slept in (yes!) the next morning. All day Saturday we bummed around the city, enjoyed shopping at the outlet mall, the mall, ate lots of good food and stopped in at other little stores along the way. Hairspray didn't start until 8:45 that night and we realized that was a good thing because it was HOT HOT HOT that day.  It got up to 106 and stayed around there most of the day so luckily the sun wasn't beating down on us the whole time we were there. We had talked about going to Vegas a couple of times so after the show (around midnight) we head to Vegas. We got there around 1:30 and decided to go see if the Stratosphere was open, it was. So we went on the Big Shot...wow. It was crazy and it gave you a crazy view of Vegas when you are clear up there above it all. We then just walked around (lost $4 in the slots) and around 3:30 decided we were way tired and headed back to St. George. We got back around 6AM and zonked out until 10:40 showered and we were out of there by 11 for check-out. After that we had a lazy Sunday mid-morning. Hiked a bit in the red rock, but I forgot my shoes so we didn't do lots, and then headed home. It was a perfect, relaxing anniversary. It's always nice being able to spend a lot of time with your best friend and we got 2 whole days to do whatever we wanted. We're very lucky to have each other. Happy 2 years :)

 Hairspray!!!

Above Las Vegas (the flash didn't work :()

Trying to hike in Flip-Flops...

We spent a LOT of time driving!

Another Fun Weekend!

This weekend we were finally able to get Tyler's sisters family out on the lake. A few friends were able to make it too. There were SO many boats on that little lake that it was impossible to do anything but tube.

We did that for a while...until the boat broke. :(

The men tried to fix it for a bit, but once they decided it needed a new fuel filter it was time to go. Unfortunately the boat would not start so the boys got to pull it in. Lucky them!
We were also able to see my family this weekend at the blessing of my little baby cousin. It was fun to see all of them and we ended the weekend by celebrating Ty's moms b-day with their family.

Fishing and Swimming

During the week Tyler wanted to go fishing so we grabbed our poles and headed out. Tyler likes to fly fish so we went up the canyon to upper second dam and scared off all the little children that were there so we could fish. (Well so that Tyler could fish, I just helped out when needed and read my book :))

 Tyler caught one little guy, but he was small enough that we decided to put him back (it was totally on purpose). But at least he proved to me that he could catch a little fishy on a fly rod. Hopefully next time we'll catch a few more so we can have some yummy fish for dinner!

Yesterday was my work swim party, it was for all of the city employees so it was a little packed. We went with some friends from work and it ended up being a very good night. Jake and Tyler decided to go off the diving boards, but Kylee didn't want to get her face wet and I just didn't want to jump in. But here's the boys.

 

Graduation???

Tyler has a lot of schooling left, like maybe 5 years, if we're lucky. Just to get his undergrad in mechanical engineering. But his will be worth it. I however should be done! BUT I'm not quite there yet. I met with my adviser today and guess what! I get to take another class, which brings me to 18 credits for the fall. lame. I know I'll get there one day, but right now it seems so far away. Next spring though, I'll be one happy girl holding that diploma in my hand :)

Here we go!

I've decided that I should give the blogging world a go. We'll see how long it lasts and how good I am at posting! Here are a few pictures from our summer thus far.

In the early summer (Aprilish) we went swimming at Dawnas hotel and the boys decided to cat/chicken fight

Camping in the Uintahs in May is COLD!

Waverunning with my Fam

We like to take drives. This is up above Hyde Park somewhere....

Ty posing for the camera. After lots of time and money Tyler and his brother finally got their parents boat going good, after years of it sitting in a garage! We decided to take it out for the 24th and it ran great! We were surprised not a lot of people were there at Hyrum Dam, but it gave us lots of time to go wakeboarding and tubing!