Christmas is Coming!

Since about the middle of Novemeber Joe and I have had a Christmas itch. It is one of our favorite times of the year, plus we get to go home for about 2 weeks so we get really excited about that. However, we've had a hard time really getting into it this year despite the fact that we had started playing christmas music before Thanksgiving. We considered decorating our apt, but decided we didn't really have the decorations, and since we weren't going to be here anyways, we might as well not worry about it. But we were really missing out on all the Christmas spirit. Joe had started to ask for a tree, but because of the reasons mentioned above we decided not to get one. While I was talking to a lady at work about it she mentioned she had an extra fake tree that her family wasn't using and she wouldn't mind lending it to me for the next few weeks. I was so excited! So without telling Joseph I got the tree from her one day, made a quick trip to the store for some ornaments and lights and set it up before Joe got home from school one day. He loved it! We both feel like it's finally time for Christmas!

Saturday, knowing Joseph wouldn't have any school for a week we decided to celebrate by having some fun with our friends Kelly and Tyler. (Plus after the cougars lost we needed some serious cheering up.) We started by going bowling and had a great time! We hadn't been for awhile and Joe really wanted to. The first game went by fast and Joe won of course. He impressed us all by throwing some really great curve balls!
We played a second game like all great bowlers do and Joe tried to keep up his great power ball throws and amazing pin action, but it was not enough. His pin spray was nothing compared to my strikes and I beat him!!! I think it was the first time ever, what a victory! So, not quite feeling like we had our fulfilled our gaming urge, and because going out with a loss was not sitting well with Joseph we decided to go play some board games and make root beer floats!
We started off by playing candy land a few times. We made a rule that when you landed on the same space as someone else you knocked them back to the beginning of the board. It made things a little more interesting than just waiting to see if you pulled a gumdrop. It was pretty funny. Then we played Jenga a few times. I'm pretty sure I lost the most as Jenga, but we learned a fun new way to take the blocks out of the stack! It was pretty hilarious. Kelly showed us how to do it and then when Joseph tried, unexpectedly, he almost hit her. They come out pretty fast so we were glad it missed her and laughed pretty hard at how well it worked. I have another attempt on video. You can tell it started to hurt his fingers. Not a move for the fragile fingered.

Caramel Apples!!!

Sunday night we tried to make some caramel apples with some friends. The recipe that was used for the caramel was homemade and looked delicious. It even tasted delicious, but it ended up being pretty hard so we didn't actually eat much of the apples. Afterwards, Joe and I were still in the mood for some caramel apples, it seemed like such a good end of fall/beginning of winter snack. So Monday we went to the store to get some apples and caramels to make dessert. It was a little funny since we forgot to get popsicle sticks at the store. We just used butter knives to stab the apples and dip them, but they wouldn't fit in the shelf in our fridge so we had to repeatedly take the knives out to cool the dip and then re-stab them to dip them in the next layer. They turned out amazing though. We did two layers of caramel, and then one each of white and milk chocolate. YUMMY!!!!
We're going to make some more apples with our friends again this Sunday and we can't wait! We'll get a chance to put some different toppings on our apples this time. Plus we can play games that require more than two people while they are cooling. Yay! (The apples looked much better than this pictures shows, maybe it I can figure out how to get decent lighting, they'll look as good as they tasted!!)

A Great Weekend!

Last weekend we had a little reunion up here in Rexburg!!! It was so much fun. Nancy and Kate came up as well as Krista and Tyler. Nancy and Kate were here for a weekend away and to visit some friends. They stayed with us and it was so great to see Nancy again! We had so much fun living together our last fall, it was my favorite place to live with my favorite roomies. Krista and Tyler also came up with their friend Terry and their break dancing crew from down in Utah! We convinced Crystal and Jordan to come down as well so a big group of us went to support the Ground Houndz crew in the competition. It was so awesome to see! I can't believe how good everyone was. It was an eye-opening experience as well though, I didn't realize how much there was to break dancing. Tyler and Terry's crew was so talented and fun to watch! we tried a few moves of our own once we got home.

(I don't know why my face is white and weird...I know I kinda look like a clown) I don't think I'll ever have a future in break dancing, but maybe if i learn a lot about photo shop I'll at least look like a pro in no time. After the dance was over, Crystal, Jordan, Krista, Tyler, Nancy, Kate, Terry, Joe and I all played back at the apt. until late. It was so great to have Nancy, Crystal, Krista, and I back in the same room together (weird that the two roommates from Idaho were the two that missed all the action). All of them spent the night except for Crystal and Jordan, so we had a full house with lots of laughter until way to late in the morning. Joe and I are lucky to have such great friends that we can do stuff with. We're excited for the days when we can actually go on trips with them and plan to visit them where ever they may end up. It's great to know that even though that chapter of our life is closed, we might have those memories and friendships to cherish the rest of our lives.

Leftovers?!

One of our favorite desserts is ice-cream! We love it, in almost every flavor. It's almost rare to see our freezer without any. So what do you do with leftover Halloween candy??? Add a little ice-cream to it and blend! It sure makes for one happy boy! We're not so sad we only had a few trick-or-treaters any more.

6 MONTHS!

I can't believe it's already been six months! It doesn't feel like it at all, but I guess that's a good thing. We're already in our second apt, and hopefully close to our last apt. Work and school are going well. Joseph just had two interviews for an internship. If he gets it we'll feel like we can see the end of this school time. It's really exciting! We should know before the middle of December. Anyways, tonight we sat down and had dinner by candle light. (Well, we lit a candle and turned off half of the lights.) It was really fun. We used our fancy glasses and then laughed at what we were doing. So after dinner how did we celebrate?

Joe played baseball with an empty paper towel roll and a rolled up napkin. I'm a pretty good pitcher, I even struck Joseph out. When that happened though he threw the bat at me and was ejected from the game. I took the win since his team had to forfeit with lack of players. It was a pretty exciting game until that point.
We love being married and are looking forward to what life has in store for the two of us. But not too far, we're going to have as much fun in the now as we can!

I Got A Job!

OK, so I keep thinking that I'll take some good pics of the stuff we do, but I just don't. But I'm going to try and do better. But here's what's new in case you didn't know. I finally got a job! I teach P.E. at an elementary school called Kennedy. It's a pretty fun job. I only have classes Tues. through Fri. and two of the days are only half days. Most of the kids are so cute and fun and love to come play with me so it's a great job. There are always a few that keep it interesting and in some ways I think that's the fun part. Getting those kids who really don't want to play that day or seem to be really shy to come out of their shell and share with me can make my day! I've only taught a few classes by myself so it'll be interesting to see how I really do. I'm so excited! Plus I get all the good breaks I want so that I can still go home for the holidays and spend good time with Joseph.

Joseph, by the way, is still loving school. He has some of his first tests this week and is looking forward to having them over. He's done really well on all his quizzes so far so hopefully he'll do really well. He's also playing ultimate Frisbee in the competitive league on campus and sometimes plays with the club team. It's his new favorite thing! It fun to see him play too, he's doing so well and learning so fast.

I'm coaching for the women in the competitive league and playing on the club team for the women also. It keeps me busy and moving. Plus I love the girls that play. We have so much fun playing together.

Well, that's about it for now. So maybe I'll take some pictures this weekend of the games and try to get them up in a short amount of time!

We've Arrived

Ok, so it's probably about time we started filling this thing out. We've made it to Rexburg and since we didn't get any good pics of our last apt, which was probably cuter, we did try and get one or tw0 of our new apt. here. (Sorry the images are a little distorted, but i'm new to this so give me a break.)



It's nice and pretty big. Sinc the apt. is a handicapped one everything is bigger i guess, however the counters are all lower so you have to pretty much bend over to just do the dishes. It has two bedrooms, but those pics won't be up for awhile, i'm still trying to figure out how to best arrange everything. So that's pretty much it for now. Maybe something exciting will happen this week. Probably not, but if it does, we'll post it here.

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