Road Trip!!! Virginia Here We Come!

   

The trip from Rock Hill, South Carolina (where we were) to Williamsburg, Virginia is about a 5 hour drive. Thats not bad, but its not great either. The first thing I noticed while we were driving along the highway is the massive amounts of trees there are on the East Coast. Utah has hardly any trees unless you go to the mountains. But back East there are trees everywhere! It seriously looks like they cut down a square of trees to build a house and the rest of the property is completely surrounded by forest! I think it looks really cool, but my little sister Kalena got Paul started playing a zombie game called "Into the Dead" and it has forests on it, so I started freaking out about zombies coming crawling out of the forests!!! Nothing of the sort happened, but it literally was on my mind every time I looked into the huge trees! I even had to take a picture of Paul and myself walking into the creepy cool forest.

       So, the drive... We had to meet Eric and Amanda a little ways up because they had taken Milo to the ER. Both Milo and Sage had a cold, and as most of you mothers know a common cold for an infant is dangerous RSV. Milo was having trouble breathing so off to the ER he went. No worries though. Drs. said it was RSV and he needed to get all the gunk in his lungs and throat cleared out. So while Eric and Amanda were at the hospital doing that, we were driving to meet them, but along the way Julie wanted to visit an old professor of hers while she was back East. We made a pit stop and visited her professor for a while then headed back to the highway to meet the rest of the family. We stopped at a park for to have lunch and meet up. We ate our food, then of course I had to go play on the playground! Cute little Sage, (my nephew), is really active and came to play too. We had fun on the slide and playground equipment for a little bit. Paul and I found an out door chess table, (like the ones you see in the movies), so we sat down with Sage, convinced him to pose with us and took some pictures. 

       After our brief pit stop, we hit the road again. Everything was going great until Sage got car sick! We had to stop twice and clean out his car seat and the van! Poor little kid. He was happy as a clam after the car stopped moving, but those twisty, windy roads must have made him nauseous. We finally got to the condominium we were staying at sometime in the later evening. I was quite impressed with the size of our place! We had two bedrooms upstairs one with a jetted tub :) a kitchen, dining room and living room! It was pretty sweet! Paul and I got stuck with the hida bed couch thingy, but we figure that until we have kids we will prolly always get the ucky hida bed couch thingy. No worries though, we survived.

      After a late dinner and a TV show, we all went to bed to prepare for the fun adventures tomorrow would bring. Which I will write about in the next post or this one would be forever long!! 

A Carolina Wedding!!

       Paul and I were lucky enough to take the red eye flight to South Carolina. We were also lucky enough to travel with his brother Eric and Amanda (sister in law) and their two very young children on the said red eye flight. It sounds bad, I know, but it really wasn't too bad. It was quite hysterical watching four people with two babies trying to navigate the airport with a ton of bags and the kids. No worries though, we managed to get all the bags checked into the right places and got everyone onto the right planes. We left from Salt Lake Airport at 12:50 AM and arrived in South Carolina at 9:15 Eastern time (7:00 our time), and we were expected to be up and ready to roll asap.

       After getting checked into our hotel and having some breakfast we went right over to the church where Peter's reception would be to help set up. The church looked really cute and only needed a few finishing touches, so we spent a few hours getting all the last minute decorations put up so that we were ready to go for the wedding tomorrow, (Saturday December 27th). After the church was all set up, the girls got to go get manicures while the boys entertained themselves for a little bit. I had never had a pedicure before so I decided to get one of those, and man are they nice. I was a little weirded out at first by the Asian man washing and massaging my feet, but it turned out not to be so bad. Jessica's family had a dinner for everyone, (kind of like a Mormon style rehearsal dinner I suppose), which turned out to be great. We met all of her family and got to know them a little bit better.

       Wedding day! Julie woke up to go running, which woke me up so I decided to go, and in her effort to not wake anyone up she woke up everyone, (it was kind of funny). Anyway, Julie and I went for a nice hour long run in the rain, came back to the hotel, had breakfast, and showered quickly as we could so that we could be all ready to go for the wedding. Eric and Amanda were a little late getting their kids together so Peter and his parents left to go to the temple before we did, and on the highway we totally caught up to them and arrived at the Colombia South Carolina Temple the same time that Peter did.
       The wedding was beautiful. The happy cute couple just seemed so happy. They were glowing and you could tell that they were in love! After the ceremony, of course come the pictures. It was so fun to see all the cute poses they did and all the fun pictures they had taken. I made sure that Paul and I took some of just us while we were dressed up so cutely. Finally after pictures were done we had an hour drive back to the reception location. I slept so it was no biggie.
                                                                                             Upon arrival, we had to get all the very lastly finishing touches set up. All in all the reception looked amazingly cute. Once the reception started Paul and I tried to act interested in everything. We were just holding out until we could trash the car. That was one of the high lights of the evening. Sadly it was too cold to completely trash the car. We did what we could with what we had in the cold. When the couple finally got ready to leave they started handing out these huge massive sparkers! They were the coolest things I had ever seen! I am not joking you when I say that the sparklers were almost as tall as I am! We lit them off and made a lovely walk way for Peter and Jessica to run down to get into the car. Once they left we had the joys of taking down and cleaning up the reception hall. Thankfully there were lots of wonderful helping hands there to get it all taken care of. When we finally got back to the hotel, Paul and I crashed. We were so tired from the day, still trying to catch up on sleep from the red eye flight, and I guess we were subconsciously preparing ourselves for what was going to happen in the wee hours of the morning.
       At around 3:00 AM everyone in the hotel wakes up to a banging on the door. We come to find out that Eric's 3 month old baby, Milo, was having trouble breathing and they were really worried about him. Paul and his dad got out of bed to help Eric give him a blessing. But again at 5:00 AM we hear a banging on the door again. Eric said that Milo was doing ok but they were going to get packed up and find an emergency room to take him to. Paul and I had to wake up and pack the luggage Eric needed to take with him. Its a good thing we went to bed early as we could because we sure didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night.
       When we finally had to get up in the morning for good, we got ready to go to church. We went to sacrament then, started the 5 hour trek from South Carolina to Virginia. That story will be in the next post!

Christmas with the Blatter's

       After five long days of school, (long only because I was ready to be on vacation as much as my students were), Paul and I were finally able to head up to Salt Lake again for another Christmas.
       We started the break off right with a snowboarding trip to Snowbird (12/22/12). My dad, Uncle Tim, cousin Brytt, Tyson, Yulia, Paul and myself all took a trip to Snowbird for some winter fun. Last time we went snowboarding Paul got injured and still hasn't completely recovered from it, so he was semi hesitant to go with me this time. I tried to convince him to try skiing this year in stead of snowboarding. Skiing is usually easier to learn and not as hard on your body as snowboarding is. Paul decided to give skiing a try. I was really excited that he was willing to come with me.

       I was really hoping that we would get some good snow before I hit the slopes, but I wasn't that lucky. The snow was decent, but a little icy in some spots. Yulia had never been skiing before she she decided to stick with the "bunny hill" while the rest of us ventured to the more intense things. Paul got tired half day and decided not to take chances getting hurt again. Sadly he just waited for us in the car while we had fun without him. The rest of us hit the good spots on slopes for a few hours.
       On sunday we decided to have an ugly sweater party, play games and drive around to look at the lights. I know we looked like crazies in our mismatched clothes, but i love my family no matter how crazy we look!

 Kalena and I showing off our smexy ugly sweaters and muck-lucks :)

       The Blatter family all dressed up in their lovely Ugly sweaters! Oh how I just love my family!!!




      Christmas Eve our plans were kind of crushed because the snow made it too difficult to go sledding. Every Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember we have gone sledding up Big Cottonwood Canyon at Donut Falls. And this year because it was snowing so bad, we decided not to go just because it was too dangerous to drive up the canyon. Instead Paul, my siblings, and I all built a pretty sweet snow fort in our front yard. It was literally big enough to fit five people in there. Then we had the Mustoe's over for dinner and the Nativity, (which has been a tradition as well for as long as I can remember). Paul and I had to leave my parent's a little early because Paul's little brother Jonathan, (who is on a mission),  was calling from the Philippines, (guess they are a day ahead or something). We got to talk to his brother, then went back to my parents for the anual opening of the Christmas pajamas. Then off to bed we went so Santa could come to our house.

       Christmas morning Tallus and Kessla were up ridiculously early. Paul, being the awesome brother in law got up early and looked for stockings with them. I tried to sleep in as long as possible. I finally got out of bed at 7:30 AM, (like two hours after Paul got up), and went in search of my stocking. My dad had to help me find mine because Santa hid it so stinking well! We opened stockings, got my family up, and opened presents together.
         Our family has a tradition where we draw a family name and have to hand make a gift for them that year. Every year the opening of the homemade gifts is my favorite part. I just love to see what everyone is able to come up with, and there is just so much meaning behind everything that gets made. Sorry, got a little sidetracked, anyway, this year my sister Kalena drew my name and she made me these amazing almost footie pajamas with out feet! LOVED them! My mom drew Paul and she made him a ladder ball game (so stinking cool). I got Yulia this year so I made her a pretty sweet quilt with lots of little hedgehogs (she loves hedgehogs). The look on her face was priceless when she opened it up and saw what it was.

        Tanner got to call us on Christmas from Peru and spend about an hour talking with everyone. We used Skype so we could see him and he could see us. It was kind of fun to see how much he has changed the past year and a half. After our phone call with Tanner we went to see The Hobbit, (another tradition my family has is to go see a movie Christmas afternoon or evening). After the movie we all pretty much went to bed early since we all got early this morning.
       The day after Christmas we did a little shopping to get everything we needed for our trip to the East Coast.
       All in all, my Christmas can be summed up as AMAZING!!! The time spent with my family this year was so wonderful. No one fought with each other (too much), and the spirit of Christmas was abounding everywhere.

     Stay tuned for adventures in South Carolina!
   

Christmas with the Burnett's

     Christmas got to come a week and a half early for Paul and I this year. Paul's brother Peter is getting married on the 27th of December in South Carolina and all of the family is going to fly back East for the wedding, so we had Christmas with the Burnett's early so that we would all be here together.
      Most of my teenage years I was not all up and in the the whole Christmas spirit thing, but ever since I have gotten married and essentially started my family with Paul, I have loved the Christmas Season and everything that comes with it. Anyway, this weekend we got to celebrate our Christmas together. It was kind of weird to think about open presents on not Christmas, but it was so fun to have the family all together.
      Even Eric and Amanda were able to be with us on "Christmas" with their two cute kids Sage and Milo.

     Today we opened our presents and Santa was even able to accomodate and come early for us. As far as presents go, Paul and I received some wonderful gifts. We are very grateful for all of the wonder things we were given today. Paul and I got sleeping bags that zip together. I am so excited to go camping and be able to zip them up together. Sage is almost two and it was so fun to see his expressions and reactions to everything that was going on. It has made me even more excited for our future children. I hope they will always enjoy time with their families the way I enjoy it now.
     Julie wanted all of us to sing a song in sacrament meeting, so we practiced for an hour yesterday and then pulled it off in sacrament. It was very spiritual to have everyone together singing of the Savior. I am so grateful that I was asked to help sing. It was a testimony to me of the Savior and his love for everyone.
     I still have a week of school left before I am on Christmas break. I know it is only five days of school, but I think I am going to be just as stoked for Christmas as the kids are. I surely hope that we can all stayed focused enough to learn something over the next five days. Then Paul and I will get to celebrate Christmas again with my side of the family before we leave on a plane for South Carolina and Virginia.

Only five more days... I can do it.....maybe... :)

Thanksgiving Break

    YAY! Its that time of the year when families and friends gather together for food, memory making, and great company! Paul and I were lucky enough to visit our families here in Salt Lake. We spent Tuesday Night (11/20) with Paul's family. Paul's dad makes chocolates so he snatched us while we were visiting to help him make some of his deliciously famous hand dipped chocolates. We spent actual Thanksgiving with Paul's family. We did come visit my family before dinner and after. Paul played in a turkey bowl with my dad while my mom and I did an intense kick my butt workout. After dinner, we met here to have a late celebration of Paul's birthday, and figure out our plan of attack for Black Friday shopping.

     Walmart opened this year at 8:00 PM with all of their deals, so of course we had to be in on all the good stuff! We got there at about 7:40 with plans to split up and get what we needed to done. Paul, Tallus, and Lena all fought their way through the DVD selection while my mom and I got PJ pants and some clothes figured out. My dad was the set of wheels. He dropped us off and found some parking so we didn't waste time with that. When the sale finally started at 8:00 we had everything we needed and were checked out by 8:30. We did awesome.

     Paul had planned to get his laptop this weekend, (the one that I told him he could have for his birthday). He decided the store that he needed to get it from, and at around 11:30 left to get in line. Just in case there were tons of people showing up. Paul said he sat in front of Staples for almost 6 hours and by the time the doors opened there were only 15 people in line! I am glad I didn't have to sit in the cold for that long. My little brother loves me enough to have some "male bonding time" with Paul in the freezing cold weather. While it did stink that Paul had to waste 4 hours of his life, he was grateful that he got his "precious" laptop.

      Paul has spent the last few days trying to figure out how to use windows 8, and getting the hang of his cool new toy. We were able to visit with some of my friends from high school  (Courtney Leonard and Alyssa Mustoe) and see Breaking Dawn together, (I was a huge Twilight junkie in high school). It has been so wonderful to have time to relax, enjoy life, and spend time with family and friends. Its crazy to see all the changes that happen within our family, but I love it at the same time.

Paul's Birthday Bash

     Today we had an early birthday celebration for my wonderful hubby Paul! I am awful at keeping secrets from Paul so I figured I would save him the hassle of trying to keep a surprise party from him and just plan a regular ole party for friends and family in Cedar City to come to. I told him that if he really wanted a birthday party he could set up an invite on my facebook. Thats right, I made my husband set up his own birthday party event on facebook. I am an awful wife sometimes. Its ok though because Paul still loves me. I did want to give him a little bit of a surprise, so I decided to not tell him what I was going to do cake wise.

    I had planned to give Paul a few spring form pans for his birthday (I know its cheesy, but he really needed/wanted a new laptop so that was the plan for his main present. I still felt like Paul needed something smaller to open on his actual birthday). Back to the cheesecake pan, I thought to myself, "I should make an awesome cheesecake with Paul's new cheesecake pans!" Then I thought, "Paul might be a little bummed if I use his present first, but I know he loves cheesecake, so I guess I am just going to have to use Paul's cheesecake pans before he does."

     I got my best friend Lisa Walters on board to help me cook this cheesecake. Of course, I had looked on pintrest and picked the exact one that I wanted to attempt to make, now I just needed a distraction to keep Paul from knowing what I was up to. The easiest way to do that was to steal Lisa's kitchen for several hours. Paul got left at home to do homework while Lisa and I set to work in her kitchen making what I hoped would be an amazing recipe.



     We finally got the cheesecake cooked and cooled and decorated and it turned out quite fantastic! I had never made a two tier cheesecake before, but I have to say that the cheesecake turned out far better than I thought my hands were capable of making. All of our friends at the party raved about how good the cheesecake was, so I thought I would post the recipe just incase anyone wants to try it.

His party turned out lovely. We had family and friends over for pizza and games. Our friend Tricia Keeler totally gave the cheesecake surprise away on accident but it was great anyway! Paul still acted surprised so that made me happy :)













Delicious Cheesecake
               Crust
1 1/2 cups finely crushed Graham Crackers
1/4 cups walnuts
1 TBSP sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)    

For crust: in a bowl mix the graham crackers, walnuts, 1 TBSP sugar, and optional cinnamon. Stir in the melted butter. Press the crumb mixture into the bottom of a spring form pan either an 8" or 9" pan.

               Filling
2 - 8 oz packages of cream cheese
2- 8 oz packages of sour cream
1 cup sugar
2 TBSP flour
1 tsp vanilla
3 slightly beaten eggs

For filling: in a large bowl beat the cream cheese, sour cream, 1 cup of sugar, flour, and vanilla with electric mixer until combined. Stir in the eggs.

Pour the filling into the crust lined pan. place the pan in a shallow baking pan and bake at 375* for 40-45 minutes for an 8 inch pan and about 45- 50 minutes if you used an 9 inch pan. The cake is done when 2 1/2 inches around the edge of the cake appear set when gently shaken.

Cool for 30 minutes. Remove the sides of the pan and cool the cheese cake completely. Then chill for at least 4 hours before serving.



  

Murder Mystery Party

     For the past two years Paul and I have done a Murder Mystery party with our friends for Halloween. Last year it was 1920's Chicago Caper themed. This year, we had a Hawaiian Luau! It was a hoot, thats for sure! Because Paul and I did a Hawaiian Luau wedding reception, we had TONS of decorations to deck out our apartment with. By the time we took the pictures all our awesome decorations died, but before everyone came over they looked pretty cool! :)
    We have made really good friends with our neighbors just up the sidewalk from us, Ray and Shay Martel. They introduced us to the Ada and Dion Munk, (who used to live right by us also), and Aaron and Taylor Remer. We have developed some awesome friendships with these three couples so, when you get all of us together, there is no telling what will happen. Paul and I thought that it would crazy fun if all of us were together trying to solve a murder.
     Paul got to dress up like a hawaiian tourist, I was a native Hawaiian hula dancer, Shay was a bodacious swimsuit model, Ray was a surfer dude, Taylor was a ridiculously rich, fancy woman, and Aaron was Chief Wiki-Wiki. You can guess by his name that he was the island chief right? Anyway, the food was great, the company was great, and it was so fun to see how everyone got into their characters. By the end of the night, we had a murderer, it was one of our six guests, but I am so not going to give it away. If you want to know who was the killer, you gotta play the game!

      This is the whole crew all together! Don't we look like a crazy bunch of people? 

A few days before Halloween Paul and I decided to carve our pumpkin. We had grown our beautiful pumpkin in our garden and had waited a few months to be able to carve it. Anyway, we were having a hard time deciding what to carve. Paul wanted one thing I wanted another. Finally, we came to an agreement which involved bringing out the geeky-ness in both of us.

      Two hours later our beautiful masterpiece was complete. It wasn't as perfect as we wanted it to be, but it was still pretty sweet!

Bringing Home the BABY!

       As some of you may know, Paul and I found out that we were expecting in late August. We were told our little bundle of joy would be joining our family Mid October. With so little time to prepare for the arrival, we had to work quickly to get all of our preparations in order.
      Two months later we drove to Salt Lake for the long awaited edition to our cute little family. We went into labor at about 10:15 on Saturday morning. Thankfully it wasn't as bad or long as we were expecting! An hour and fifteen minutes later we had our beautiful baby!
      Name and gender are soon to come, but look at this, isn't it beautiful?

Family Picture Fiasco

       I have been bugging Paul for the longest time to take family pictures and even though we don't have kids yet, I thought it would be fun to take some pictures of our cute little family. Paul hasn't been too thrilled about the idea of pictures, but several weeks ago we were shopping for clothes and Paul found the perfect shirt to wear for pictures. I was kind of excited because after that I knew he was on board!
      I asked Paul's amazing cousin Nicole to take our pictures, and we set a date. As over done as it is, I really wanted to take pictures up the canyon with the changing fall leaves; and even though it snowed up the canyon the night before, I was still determined to get those fall pictures taken.
      Paul had never been up Cedar Canyon to the place where I wanted to take pictures, so we drove around a little bit looking for places where we wanted to take pictures. We kept driving up and up and up until we had pretty much gotten to the top of the canyon and started going down the other side. (Might I add in that whilst we were driving up and up and up we splashed through at least three ginormous puddles that repainted the truck brown!) Anyway, at that point we decided it would be a good idea to turn around and go back to the picture sites that we thought were really good. We flipped a U turn and started going up so we could go back down the canyon. We were started up a semi flat hill when the truck just slowly died. Power was still on, the radio was running, but the engine turned off for some reason! Of course I was dressed in super cute clothes, and shoes that couldn't really get muddy, and of course the truck happened to die right in the middle of a huge puddle of dirt and snow; so naturally Paul got to get out and look under the hood to see what the problem was. Nicole and I tried to make the best of the situation by taking some silly pictures.

     While he was checking things out, I was frantically trying to get service on my phone. When Paul got back into the truck with no news, I was trying not to psych myself out. We were in the middle of no where, no cell service, no clue what was wrong, and no clue as to when the next person would drive along. We couldn't think of anything else to do but pray. After our prayer we tried to start the car. It didn't start. We tried to push the truck enough to get to a down hill so we could coast, and that didn't really work either. So we sat and waited, hoping and praying that some kind soul would drive along and want to tow us.
     About fifteen minutes later our prayers were answered! Someone came driving down the road. We flagged them down and asked so nicely if they would tow us down the mountain. Paul and the boy
from the other car hooked up the tow straps and we started off. After five minutes of us being towed, Paul attempted to start the truck and... it started! We waved our saviors down and told them that the truck started and had been running for a good 5 minutes or so, so we told them they didn't have to take us all the way back down the mountain. After we unhooked the tow straps and waved our goodbyes, we continued down the mountain as well. Since we hadn't taken our family pictures yet we decided we might as well do it since we were up there already.
       Paul pulled the truck off to the side of the road at a cute spot and turned her off. We took some really great pictures and then loaded back into the truck to move on to the next picture spot. When Paul tried to start the truck it wouldn't start... AGAIN! As you can guess we felt like idiots for not towing the truck all the way down when we had the chance. We were on a pretty good sized hill so we gave the truck a little push and coasted down the mountain.

      We still had a few spots that we wanted to take pictures at, so we coasted to them, made sure the truck was sitting at the top of a down hill, and got out to take pictures. Nicole Golden did a fabulous job  with our pictures. They all turned out really great. Anyway, after we had taken all the pictures we wanted to up the canyon, we prepared ourselves for the adventure we would have as we tried to get back down the canyon. The road was steep enough that we were able to start coasting down without pushing the truck at all. We actually sped up to at least 30mph, the problem with that was, the brakes were really tight and the steering wheel was tight as well so we couldn't turn or slow down very well. We hit a flat spot where there were cows in the road. We couldn't slow down or we could get stuck on the flat spot. We prayed that the cows would stay put and also that no cars would be coming the opposite direction of us so we could drive on the wrong side of the road to get around the cows. We successfully passed them and continued down the mountain. Pretty sure we may have hit a bird in the process though, because it seriously flew right in front of the truck!
     When we got to the section of the road that T-bones we were hoping that there wouldn't be any traffic coming so we could coast right through a stop sign and not lose momentum. When we got to the split, there were at least 6 cars coming in either direction. We stopped the truck and waited for traffic to clear. Since we stopped on a flat spot, the truck wasn't going to move anywhere without help. Nicole and I jumped out of the truck and started pushing from behind. When we had achieved a pretty decent speed we jumped in the back of the truck so we could keep up the trucks speed.
       Clearly I wasn't thinking about the weather when I jumped out of the truck to push, because I left my coat in the car. While we were coasting down the last half of the canyon I was freezing in the back of the truck! When we got closer to the bottom, a cop pulled up behind us and started following us. Nicole and I flipped out a little bit because we weren't sure if we were going to get in trouble for sitting in the back of a pickup while driving down a highway. We pulled into the canyon park parking lot and the cop just kept on driving. *phewf* dodged that bullet!
       When we started driving up the canyon this morning we had no idea what sort of an adventure we were going to have. Can't say that having a car break down is an adventure I would want to have again, but it sure was something that I won't forget!

Here are some of the amazingly cute pictures that Nicole Golden took for us!

Conference Weekend

Paul and I thought it would be really fun to spend general conference with our families in Salt Lake. We also thought it would be fun to take our neighbor Angelica and her son Gavin with us. Little did we know how eventful of a weekend we were going to have!

My dad gets season tickets to the BYU home games, and Friday the 5th there was a BYU game that Paul wanted to go to. Because Angelica and Gavin were coming to SLC with us we all decided to go to the game together. Paul bought me a legit BYU shirt and Paul, Angelica, and Gavin all wore theirs so we looked like an awesome bunch. The game was quite intense. Neither of the teams did well on the offense, but they both played a heck of a defense. We were sitting right in front of some hard core USU fans who were yelling and screaming at my dad for no reason, (probably because he is really good at cheering on his Alma Mater). I took it upon myself to yell louder than them for BYU every time they were trying to cheer on USU, (my lack of voice three days later has been an awesome reminder). Thankfully BYU won. It was a close game with an ending score of 6-3.

After the game (12 A.M.), we all drove up to Paul's parents to get some shut eye before our crazy Saturday. When we arrived at his parents house, the front room was filled with an air mattress and lots of pillows and blankets. Paul and I were to sleep on the air mattress in the middle of the family room, Peter, (Paul's brother), would be sleeping in the family room also, but on the couch, we stuck Angelica and Gavin in the spare bedroom down the hall, and poor Jessica, (Peter's fiance), was banned to the basement to sleep. We also had Paul's parents in their room, and Eric, Amanda, Sage, and Milo crammed into the basement as well. Needless to say, the Burnett house was literally a full house!

Saturday morning I convinced Julie and Jessica to go running with me. We took a lovely, leisurely, 3 mile run around the park before breakfast. Rex prepared a fabulous breakfast, after which, we all sat down to watch conference. After the first session of conference, (which was amazing by the way), we took Angelica and Gavin to Temple Square to see the sights and ride Trax. We parked at City Creek and walked around the mall for just a little bit before we went to the temple. Angelica had never ridden Trax, so we jumped on and got off at the next station just so she could say that she had been on Trax. We had to walk further to the temple than we would have if we hadn't ridden the Trax, but it was kind of a fun experience with them.

While we were at the temple I felt the Spirit so strong. It was so amazing! I was trying so hard not to cry in front of everyone but my feelings were so profound I had to wipe away a few tears. We walked down the street where all the protesters were to get to the North Visitors Center. Also on that street, amidst the protesters, many LDS people lined the sidewalk and quietly sang hymns to peacefully counter the protestors. We walked right through the make shift choir, and the spirit that was there was even more amazing I had felt before. When we got to the visitors center, we made sure to show Angelica and Gavin the Christas statue. That was the climax of my spiritual day. I could not look at that amazing statue of Christ and not cry. I had had a really heavy heart all week, and seeing that statue immediately lifted my heavy heart and gave me a very strong reminder of how much my Savior really does love me.

When we got back from SLC we watched the second session of conference and went to dinner. While the boys went to priesthood session I played with Gavin and Sage in the back yard for a while and then held baby Milo for another little while. I also painted toenails with my awesome sister-in-law to be Jessica. When the boys got back we watched the Avengers (which I had not yet seen, and it is INCREDIBLE!) and then went to bed.

Sunday we watched the first session of conference with the Burnett's, then went to my parents house and went for a drive up Butterfield Canyon. It is a family tradition of mine to drive up the canyon during the fall conference and look at the leaves changing colors. Tyson and Yulia came up and so we were all one big family minus Tanner who is still in Peru. We drove up to the top of Kennicott and looked down at the mines. We goofed off, like our family usually does, and listened to conference.

I thought it would be a really good idea while most of our family was together to take a family picture. We didn't have an experience photographer with us, but with the amazing skills of Angelica, we were able to get some pretty awesome family pictures.

After our drive, we made delicious lasagna and played some games with my family then headed back to Cedar City. We promised Angelica that we would be home before 11PM and true to our word we got back to Cedar at 10:45. We had an amazing weekend full of lots of spiritual food. I am so grateful for the gospel. I am a Mormon! I know it, I live it, I love it!

One Hectic Week!

Last post I wrote I said that I was going to be better at blogging and, for this week at least, I am sticking to my word! Paul and I had a very crazy week. With work, and school, and clubs, and callings we maybe saw each other a few hours each day.

Monday for FHE Paul took me golfing. On Monday nights at the Cedar golf course you can get 2 people in for the price of one. We ended up taking my cousin Brytt, Paul's cousin Nicole, and one of Nicoles friends named Emily. All three of us girls had never golfed before, but we were excited to try. We started on hole 9 and it took us a while to get through the first hit. The manager of the golf course came and told us that it might be more fun if we played scramble and hit off the best hit ball. We figured that would be the best way to go unless we wanted to be playing golf for the next 12 hours. We didn't get all the way through 9 holes before it got dark, but we got through at least 5 of them. The boys were a little bummed we didn't golf more. But as far as the girls were concerned, just driving the golf cart was enough to keep us entertained.

Thursday was another chaotic day. Apart from our regular daily activities of work and school, Paul had an accounting social where McGladrey came up and gave a presentation about their company. I went up to the SUU cabin with Paul to attend this fancy dealio. It was kind of interesting to hear what the company had to say. They gave us a lot of insight about their company and I really feel like that could be a good company for Paul to work for. Guess we will see what happens. After the presentation, we hurried down the canyon to get to our softball game that started at 9:30 PM. We play on a co-ed city league and haven't won a game yet. We thought that this week would be the week we won. We played an amazing game. We hit hard, fielded well, and had an amazing pitcher, (Paul was pitching). With 6 seconds on the clock we got our third out and had to start a new inning. The team then scored 6 to win the game by one point! It was so stinking frustrating to have six seconds on the clock, be ahead by 5, then just lose. But all in all it was the best game our team has played so we were ok with the ending.

Saturday we did a hike with the young men and young women of our ward. We hiked up to Kanarraville falls. Kanarraville is a really pretty hike up and through a slot canyon that takes you to a waterfall that is basically like a water slide. It has been pretty cold in Cedar lately so I kinda thought that the water would be a little chilly, and boy was it! Most of the hike was uneventful. We got up to the waterfall and only two leaders got in the water. The group went up to a higher waterfall, but I stayed behind with one of our young women that got hurt. When they met us back down at the lower waterfall I sucked it up and went down the slide. I had to show the young women that I was no wussy! The rest of the hike down I was freezing! But eventually when we got out of the slots and into the sun I started to warm up a little bit more. When we got back from the hike, Paul and I ran to our garden, did a little shopping, then came home and canned some peaches and tomatoes. He asked me to watch the BYU UofU game with him. I have to say it was a frustratingly intense game. It was good, but there were times where I really wanted to pull my hair out. It is a bummer that BYU lost, but at the end they played a good game.




This week really has been crazy, but the little things make it all worth while!

Labor Day and More!

I made a promise to myself that I was going to be a better blogger so that my blog posts are not complete novels, but I just get caught up in the flow of life and get so busy that I forget to keep things updated. Today's post will probably a long one, but from here on out I really will try to keep them short...er.

August was full of lots of crazy adventures, but now that it is September, school is in full blow, and the adventures Paul and I have are more like trying to stay alive, get things done, and still see each other every once in a while. I started teaching school on the 16th of August. With it being my second year of teaching I wasn't as nervous to start as I was last year. I felt more prepared for the year, and I felt like I actually had some idea of what my year would be like so I could anticipate what I would be getting myself into. Paul didn't start school until August 27, but our lives still felt hectic and crazy. Paul is enjoying his senior year of college. His classes are a little tough but he can do it. He is keeping himself busy with his classes, working for the auditing department at SUU, participating in the various clubs he is in, and being in the young men.

Now that September is in full swing I just have to say that all those families that both work and have kids are amazing because I don't have time to take care of my house and I don't even have kids yet!

We decided that since life was crazy we needed a little bit of a vacation. For Labor day weekend we made plans to meet Paul's cousin Summer and her husband Tyler at their families beach house in Newport, California. On our way to California we drove through a monsoon. I literally had my life flash before my eyes. In less than 3 seconds we went from light rain to 0% visibility, huge wind gusts, and pouring rain. I am so glad Paul was driving because I am pretty sure if I was, I would have closed my eyes and prayed that I would magically make it though. We had to pull over to the side of the road and wait it out. Thankfully everyone else on the road did the same thing.


We got to California with huge plans to go boogie boarding and play on the beach the whole time. But sadly on Saturday the waves were so big and scary that we chickened out. The life guards on the beach proclaimed it a yellow flag day which means be cautious in the water. We tried a few waves, but the riptide was so strong and the waves were so big that we decided our lives were more important than catching a few waves. I kid you not, the waves were anywhere from 3 to 12 feet high. More of them falling into the 10 foot category! Instead of hanging out on the beach, we took advantage of some of the down time and walked the shops and played games. We taught Summer and Tyler how to play hand and foot and we played that game seriously all weekend.

Sunday we enjoyed going to church in the Newport ward and then spent the day playing games, reading, and sitting in the sand. Summer and I spent a few hours enjoying our books by the ocean side. The boys thought bocce ball was a better way to spend their day. Summer and I attempted to play a few games with them but the boys were definitely better at bocce ball than we were. 

Monday we figured we would have more of a chance to play in the water, but when we got to the beach the waves were still around 10 feet high!  The flag had changed to red, which we were bummed about, but every once in a while a small wave would come in. Paul, Summer, and I tried to catch a few waves and we did, but they weren't as good as they could have been. We had to stand in the water and wait for a set of smaller waves to come in. It was a little scary seeing the big sets of waves come in, and wash over us, but we held strong so that we were ready when the smaller waves came in. 

I am pleased to admit that Paul and I did get at least 10 good rides on the boogie boards. We figured we would just have to wait until next year and hope that the waves will be better.

There is a restaurant in Newport that Paul and I are rather fond of. We have made a tradition of going there with Summer and Tyler every time we visit Newport. The restaurant is called BJ's. They have the best deep dish pizza I have ever had in my life! BJ's is also the most amazing place to get a pazookie (pizza cookie with delicious ice cream). Anyway, the point behind that was to tell you that the pizza really is fantastic and amazing. I mean look at that picture. The pizza is like eating pie its so deep dished! MMMM!

On Tuesday we all got up early to go and do a session at the Newport temple. It was a really good experience, and I am grateful that we took the time to visit the temple.

 We planned on playing at the beach again, but the waves were still huge, and the flag was still red. We didn't want to waist time waiting for maybe one good wave so instead we got the beach house all cleaned up and played a few games before heading home. 

Thankfully the trip home was uneventful. The weather was fine, the car drove great, and we got home faster than we thought. 

Our vacation was much needed but it has been nice to get back into the swing of our normal lives. 

Until next time! 

Rain Rain Rain!!

Cedar City has had a SUPER dry winter and summer. We seriously did not get a single drop of rain between the months of May-mid June. But as soon as July hit, we have had rain for almost 3 weeks straight! Most of the time the rain is here and gone in a matter of minutes, or it is a slow drizzle that will hang out for a while but not really rain much water, but today, holy cow it POURED cats and dogs!


Paul and I went out to our garden to do some weeding, but half way though we started to get drenched. We ran back to the car and decided that unless we wanted to wade through the mud, it was a good time to head home. Since it was seriously pouring rain we figured by the time we got home it would stop and the sun would be out, but when we got home it was raining harder than it was at the garden! The road was flooded and water a foot deep was all up and down the street! We just had to go out and play in it!

Adventures in the Big Sky State

     The next big adventure of the Burnett family was a trip to Montana to visit my cousins. Sadly, Paul missed the first half of the trip because he was in Las Vegas doing an externship for an accounting firm.  
     Paul went to Las Vegas for 3 days for a crash course/ overview of the accounting firm McGladrey. He got to have an inside view of what it would be like to work there, he did a lot of networking with the employees, and he got to see the major differences between the auditing side of accounting, and the tax side. Apart from all of the "work" that was getting accomplished, Paul did go bowling, went to dinner several times, and did a fun service project.
     Meanwhile, back in Montana, I went with my family on a backpacking trip. Every year they go on one in various parts of the Western United States. This year we chose a hike that was near Bozeman, Montana. After the hike we would drive about 30 miles to Livingston Montana for our Blatter family reunion.
     Our hike started on Monday July 23rd and we planned to hike out Friday the 28th. When all of us arrived at the trailhead and put on our back packs the clouds looked like it was going to rain soon. About 20 minutes into our hike lightning started striking all around us and the thunder began shortly thereafter. About fifty minutes into our hike it started to downpour like crazy. Because we had started our hike around 4:30, we figured it would be a good idea to start looking for a place to camp. We found a small campsite meant for maybe two tents, but it was all we could find. Somehow we managed to stuff 5 tents into a tiny site. The whole time we were setting up tents it was raining hard. We had to hold up our rain flys over  our tent in attempt to keep as much water out as possible. After all was said and done, my tent only had about 1/2 and inch of water sitting in the bottom. Thankfully we were prepared with a few small towels to dry out the tent. After we all got our tents set up it stopped raining (how ironic), but we realized that we had left a bunch of things back in the car. Since the trailhead was only 1.5 miles-ish away, my cousin, little brother and I decided to take an evening jog back to the car. We got back to the car no problem, but on the way back to camp, we just happened to stop running for a minute to look around and we saw a baby grizzly bear about 10 yards away from the trail. First thought was cool a bear, quickly followed by baby bear = mama bear = trouble. We kind of took off running and didn't stop for a while.

     The second day of our hike was pretty gruesome. It was all up hill. We had a huge elevation climb and it wasn't super fun. We did find a pretty neat water fall that we stopped at, but other than that it was just hill after hill, climb after climb until everyone was ready to crash. We finally got to the lake we wanted to camp at, but we found a sign saying "No camping near lake" frustrated and tired, we decided to hike a little ways to the next lake. It wasn't that far to the next lake, but we had another steep climb to get there. Finally we got to the upper lake and found a good camping spot.
   
 Day three was sort of an adventure day. We kept our campsite from the previous day as a base camp and just hiked up to one of the other lakes. We hiked out several miles and found the lake, but it was pretty pitiful. My dad wanted to hike even higher to see another potential lake, but half of our group was tired. The other half of our group (me included) went with my dad to hike a little higher. We were in a hurry, so rather than follow the trail, we basically scaled the mountain and climbed up a rock slide. Once we were at the top, we had a lot of fun rolling rocks down the hill seeing if we could make them either jump really high, or roll all the way down without breaking, (we did get a few rocks to jump 40 feet or so in the air). The view from the top was fantastic.  You could see everything it felt like. We found that my dad had a few bars of cell service, so just for kicks and giggles I called Paul from atop the mountain. When we got back to our base camp it was still pretty warm outside which meant that it was time to play in the lake. Even though it was warm outside the lake was pretty chilly. I got my hair washed and my clothes washed, but I couldn't bring myself to jump in. It was just too cold.
   
 Day four we hiked out and headed down the trail. The plan was to hike about 10 miles and camp, then on Friday we would hike out the last 3 or so miles. After singing lots of trail songs we got to the spot we figured we would camp and half our group decided they wanted to just hike the last 3 miles out  and just be done with the hike. After a vote, it was clear that we weren't going to be camping in the wilderness again. We pushed on to get to the end of the hike. Five miles later (not three) we got back to the car. We were all pretty beat from pushing ourselves so far today. We got in the car and drove to a family members house in Livingston to take a REAL shower and have some REAL food. Because there were 12 of us all trying to use one shower, I had to wait about 2 hours before I got a turn. Thankfully the water was still warm! We pitched our tent in the yard and camped out on the grass for a night.

     Day five (Friday) is the first day of our Blatter family reunion. This was not just my grandpa and his kids kind of reunion it was my grandpa and his brothers and sisters and all their kids, and all their kids! It was pretty neat. We got to stay in a massive horse arena and do all kinds of montana things. We tried to set our tent up outside but the wind was so bad it pretty much blew our tent down. Since we could tell the storm was only going to get worse, we set up our tent inside of the horse arena (it was indoors). All the cousins had a blast visiting with each other and getting reacquainted with the other relatives we don't see very much. Paul flew in from Las Vegas today also. It was so nice to see him after pretty much a whole week  of being apart.

     Saturday was packed full of activities. Half of the family got inner tubes and tubed the Yellowstone River. I was lucky enough to have swollen tonsils so I didn't tube the river, but I canoed it with Paul, my little brother Tallus, Dad, Mom and Kessla. We had so much fun trying to hit as many rapids as we could. My parents had to bail out their canoe a few times because of all the water from the rapids. After Canoeing was horseback riding. I chose not to ride horses because I wasn't feeling well at all. Paul had a blast running and trotting around. That evening we had a family devotional type thing. We learned more about our heritage and swapped stories and got to know our relatives a little better.

     Sunday morning we all went our separate ways and headed home. The trip wasn't too bad, but after the 8 hour drive from Montana, Paul and I had to drive another 3 hours to get back to Cedar City. We got back to Cedar around midnight, but driving the extra three hours was totally worth it to sleep in my very own bed for the first time in over a week!