Holidays

Well, now that the holidays are over I guess I can give an overview of them.

Halloween

Nate's bow tie didn't work out as well as we would have hoped.

I only mention Halloween because our costumes were pretty awesome. We were Doctor Who and Amy Pond. If you don't know who those characters are, then you just aren't geeky enough. Unfortunately, we only had one opportunity to wear these costumes: the ward Halloween party. I don't think our ward has enough geeky people in it. Oh well. We had fun dressing up and it fulfilled my need for dressing up.

From the Ward Party

The goal: Amy Pond

The Doctor.

Thanksgiving

I was so excited for this holiday and boy did it reach my expectations. Nate and I left early Tuesday morning and drove all the way down to Tucson Arizona to spend the holiday with my brother, his family, and my parents (who also drove out there from Texas). It was a very long drive. We listened to books on CD and kept each other awake and alert. It was a good opportunity for me to hone my stick shift skills. I became a lot more confident driving his car. We arrived later that night exhausted, but excited to see everyone. The next day we helped lay sod in my brothers backyard (surprise!). It was fun to see my niece and nephew help out. We spent the next several days enjoying delicious meals from my sister-in-law, watching movies, playing games, and going for walks. My nieces and nephew are amazingly cute and kept me busy the entire time. Seeing my family was great!

Nate moving some sod

Me moving sod

Wendy and Trevor moving sod

McKenzie helping throw things away.

The kids loved having grass instead of a pile of rocks to play on.

   

We made marshmallow guns and played an awesome game of dodge ball.

The boys at the park.

Playing at the park with my niece.

Hanging out at the park. Did I mention it was very warm?

Christmas

For Christmas we spent the majority of the time down in Bountiful with Nate's family (who flew out from Arkansas). We went to several family parties, saw some new movies, watched football, and skied. The storm that blew in around Christmas created a few days worth of excellent powder. Getting spoiled by all of our amazing family wasn't too bad either. I especially enjoyed getting to know my in-laws that much more. This was the first Christmas we were able to spend together, but the third Christmas since we have known each other. A few days after Christmas we were able to visit my brother and his family while they were in Utah.

Our first Christmas.

Pre-Skiing photo.

Ward Christmas Party.

Playing games with my nieces and nephew

Trevor was really good at it

 New Years

I don't know if this is at all noteworthy, but we celebrated New Years Eve by going skiing. Nate and I fell asleep on the couch around 11:20 pm. At midnight we awoke to celebrate shortly before going to bed. Not the most exciting New Years, but it was fine by me.

Nate's Cousin's baby William

Until next time...

Happenings

Clearly, blogging is not one of my strong suits. It is a good thing that I love to take pictures--and let's be honest--pictures are worth a thousand words. Well, here is the low down. First of all, Nate finished up his internship at ATK mid August. He enjoyed his experience, but I think he was excited to be going back to school instead. At about the same time I also was able to get a real HR job! It was pretty exciting. So now I am working as a recruiting assistant for Convergys. It is so nice to be working in an HR department and going full time. I enjoyed working at the dentistry place over the summer, but I was glad to get an increase in both pay and hours. I have been enjoying it so far. I don't really want to stay in recruiting forever, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. 
Another advantage to getting this new job is that, between both our jobs and school, Nate and I were able to get away for a few days and go up to Yellowstone. The timing couldn't have worked out better. Nate's extended family got hold of a cabin at Island Park and they invited us to come along. We were able to drive up and then spend the next couple days just relaxing through the park, hiking, and sight seeing. Here are some pictures from our trip:

On the way up!

When we were with Nate's Grandparents I took every opportunity to snap a shot with us together--to Nate's dismay.

Old Faithful

Nate being a spaz at the Spasmodic Geyser 

Morning Glory

Coyote!

We went on a really fun hike by the Tower Falls.
The hike descends down Uncle Tom's stairs and then goes all the way to Artisan Point and back. It was a pretty nice.

The beautiful Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

Overall we had a really fun trip. I got to cross one more item off our list of vacation destinations. 

The other big news is that we ran our very first half marathon--the Layton Half Marathon.. We had been training for a while, so I was excited that the time had finally come. It was pretty fun. The race started about halfway across the causeway to Antelope Island on the Great Salt Lake. The course then made its way through the farms of west Layton to end up at a park near the center of town. It was a pretty flat course (which was nice). The best part was that I did much better than I'd expected. Nate was 6th in his age division and I beat my goal by almost ten minutes. It was really exciting to be part of such a big race. I'm glad that we accomplished this together! Despite the soreness that followed afterwards it was totally worth it!

Before the Race on the Causeway. Via itouch

Near the Finish Line! Lovely picture I know

Clearly my focus didn't want to cooperate.

Besides all that, we have just been hanging out and doing the student thing. I got a student spouse pass so that I can go to the games and enjoy the on-campus facilities (gym). It has been especially fun because the Aggies have been having a fantastic football season.

At the white out game! Pretty cool

 In October we went for a night at Snowbird. We had a free night available that expired soon so we decided to take advantage of it over an empty weekend. Unfortunately, we planned it for a very cold weekend that was a lot wetter than we expected. While driving up Friday evening we were in massively dense fog. We still went swimming though and relaxed at the hotel. We then got a free ride up the tram because we donated some canned food to the Utah Food Bank. Our original plan was to go hiking at the top, but because of our unpreparedness for the weather (snowy whiteout), we decided to just walk around for a bit and then take the tram back down. We went on a shorter hike near the base of the mountain and still had a fun little excursion. We are very excited for ski season!

Nate was walking to the new Little Cloud Lift

It was a little windy

On the tram ride down

Self timer FAIL!

 We seem to be doing pretty good overall, and are excited for the upcoming holidays. It will be our first Christmas actually together! More to come later. Thanks for reading!
  

Honeymoon and Such

I guess I will start off from my previous post. After the reception we spent a night near by in Layton. We then went to Brave the next day. It was super cute and I would highly recommend it. After stopping at my all time favorite Chinese restaurant in Farmington. We then drove to our primary destination of Snowbird. We had a really cute room and we got to do a lot of fun things. We went swimming in the hotel pool, hiked around the mountain, alpine slide, zip line and all the fun mountain resort things. It was fun to see the mountain not covered in snow but it did make me excited for the ski season. We got to eat at some fancy restaurants and just enjoy the nice weather. We did not take a lot of photo's but here are some from our longer hike. 

We did not plan on matching, but hey it looks cute that way.

Queen of the Rock!

Self-timer fail.

Success!

Very charismatic 

I had moved my hat so that I could take pictures. I forgot to move it back.

After I realized it. I just worked it!

So after the honeymoon we went back to work, but we still did many fun things. We hiked the Crimson Rim trail soon after being married. We have seen the new Bat Man movie. The most fun things we have been doing is going to see family. We spent the Forth of July with Nate's extended family in Bountiful. It was fun to eat good food and enjoy the celebrations. We also went to Huntsville to spend some time with my family and to go to my cousins fiance's bridal shower. While we were in the area Nate and I spent the day at Pineview. It was so nice. We alternated playing in the water and reading our books in our camping chairs on the beach. It was just pleasant. This is what I hope our retirement is like. We can go to some beautiful location and together read good books and enjoy life. This has been a lot of my feelings about our married life so far. We have done a lot of really fun simple things; going to the park and playing Frisbee, checking out movies and books from the library. We have loved our summer and look forward to the upcoming events.