K & M Helberg and one on the way!

Our first “family” portrait

2012-01-22T20:38:00.001-08:00

One of my students drew a family portrait of us in her Journal. It cracked me up when I saw it:

It also came with this nice note: Dear Mrs. Helberg,
I think you are the prettiest person in the world. You are always nice and you are going to be a great mom. You’re the best teacher ever and you always are ready to get up and learn. Love, Becca

Here is another cute note: Dear Mrs. Helberg,You are the nicest person I know. I learn so much from you. I am glad you are my teacher. When I met you I was so excited. Every day you look beautiful.

I love my students! :) haha Who wouldn’t though? I’m going to miss the random compliments they give to me. If you ever need a self esteem boost just teach second grade.They are the sweetest kids ever.

Now for something I think is fun to look at:

I think it is funny how I look different in every picture…not just my belly but my hair and stuff :) But wow look at that change! I never felt very small before I got pregnant but now I look at that month one picture and think wow! I looked like that only 5 months ago? I am seeing my past self in a new light I guess lol

Another week already? #24

2012-01-22T20:09:00.001-08:00

Holy cow! Time is going by so fast!! I can’t believe that it has already been another week. We have been starting to look at cribs, car seats, diaper bags…etc. and it is starting to get more and more real every day. People keep asking me if I’m ready. Ha! In a million ways I am so ready to meet our little guy, I just want to hold his little hands and kiss his little nose. I am in love already and I haven’t even officially met him yet! But then in about a million other ways I am not quite ready…I am a little nervous to be honest and I am glad that I have a little more time to prepare, even though I know it is going to fly by! Don’t take my nervousness as unexcitement though…that is anything but true. I am so excited. It is just a big deal becoming a mommy if you ask me and it is something I think you are allowed to be a little nervous about :D I am just glad I have Mark by my side. I know that he is going to be a great dad and that we are going to figure everything out as we go along and have a blast doing it too! I hope that I can be a great mom and give our little dude (yep he is still little dude) everything he needs and deserves.

Favorite story of the week:
I was a little worried Friday morning because little dude did not move like he normally does while I’m driving to work and he didn’t really move the night before like I had been used to. (its funny how you get used to them moving at certain times…even though he is pretty sporadic he still has a few scheduled movement times it seems) Anyway, I told Mark how I hadn’t felt him move and then he told me the funniest thing.

He said that in the night I had ended up with my belly pressed against his back and that right after that little dude started kicking him in the back! haha :D He said it was so funny. I loved it it was like Mark and the baby got to have their own little private moment. Cute!

Fun facts about little dude this week:
He is almost 2 pounds now! Wow and his lungs are starting to develop more. We tried shining a flashlight on my stomach because some places say that it will make them move. (I know we’re so mean lol but we were just curious) It didn’t really work except one time! He moved and I didn’t see it but I felt it and Mark said he saw him move haha it was a fun experiment.

We had our 24 week apt at the doctor. We laugh because you are not allowed to be late to your appointments or they make you reschedule after 15 minutes but then we wait an hour to be seen anyways. And then when we actually see the doctor it is like a 5 minute visit! haha

View looking down at 24 weeks lol

The big 26….aka old man!

2012-01-15T22:47:00.001-08:00

So Mark is officially old…I have decided this because he has some struggles blowing out all of his candles now. :) This last weekend on Sunday was his birthday. But he started out his birthday weekend on Friday. First I made him his favorite Steak (that I make anyways, I Know his friend Kyle wins the prize for his real favorite steaks) Then he thought we were babysitting. Little did he know I had a surprise party planned. About 25 minutes before we had to leave to “babysit” someone knocked on the door. He opened it and it was one of his friends coming to the party…except the party was not at OUR house! haha I had sent the address to everyone earlier but I guess he didn’t see it. It was at this moment I came close to dying. I stole Marks phone off the table to get his friends number so I could text him and tell him where the real party was!

After exchanging some “what the heck is going on glances” He played it off really well though by playing some PS3 with Mark and then just leaving when we left to babysit. I was happy we were able to keep our cool.

We arrived at Kyle and Heathers and the lights were all off. He commented on how that was weird because they are normally on. I just convinced him that they must have put the kids to sleep. :)

We walked in and Mark was like, “HELLO!” haha to which everyone responded: surprise!!

It was a lot of fun. We played games including the cookie face race and guesstures. Then Mark stayed up until 2 playing pool with the guys :) It was a great night and I was happy Mark had fun!

Kyle and Heather hosted the party! Thanks! :)

The guys from Marks 1st semester group in the MBA program came.

Lots of candles! He is going to attempt one breath!

We’ll keep you in suspense if he actually succeeded ;)

Friends :)

Jordan and Kaitlin

Kyle and Canada

Clayton and Zack

Tyler and Corinne

Cookie Face Race!

This is what you look like playing Guesstures…

I love these pictures of Allison trying to pop the balloon…her facial expressions are priceless!

5 months down....4 months to go!

2012-01-15T18:23:00.000-08:00

Wow has it really beenfive months?? We are officially in our 6th month and have 4 to go and then ourlittle dude will be here. He is still little dude to us. One day I will have mymind set on my favorite name and then the next day I don't know if it is myfavorite anymore. I think we will decide what to name him when he is born :)Everyone always says that it is easier anyways because once you see them youjust kinda know what fits! One thing I do know is that I think he is going tohave a lot of hair...I have always thought that because Mark and I both hadquite a bit of hair when we were born, but also I had a dream about him theother day. It was pretty crazy and cool....and if our baby is as cute as theone in my dream we are going to be able to win a lot of cute baby contests!

Little dude weighs alittle over 1 pound now. He is about 11 inches long and his hearing is startingto get very sensitive. He can hear us even more and might even move when thereare any loud noises going on. I can't wait for our ultrasound in 2 weeks whenwe can see him again! Especially now that he is a little mover!

I have been trying to keepa pregnancy journal of things that happen as the week goes by or feelings thatI am having. Here is something I wrote in my journal a couple days ago:

January 13,2012

Last nightwas so funny. I had decided that I wanted to hear the heartbeat so we got themonitor that we borrowed out. As soon as we started using it little dudestarted attacking theheart rate monitor! haha He was kicking, punching, elbowing…no matter where weput it he would kick it and it was so funny because you could hear it. Itsounded like a water bubble or something. We just laughed and laughed for like3 minutes as he kicked it. Then I told Mark that since little dude was being soactive he should try to feel him moving. He got to feel him a lot last nightand it was so cool! Now instead of me asking Mark if he felt that Mark says “wasthat a movement?” and every single time he asked it was. Little dude is justgetting strong.

Just now Itook a bath. While I was in the tub I actually saw my belly move for thefirst time. It wasreally cool to see. The best part was one time when my bellybutton was out ofthe water but had water in it little dude kicked and the water moved likeJurassic park. There were a few times where I felt like the movement was goingfrom one place to another. It was really cool. I didn’t want to get out of thetub. When he is moving I feel like it is his way of saying hello! He is lettingme know he is in there! My grandma colleen was saying on the phone that anyonewho thinks that the baby isn’t really alive until he takes is first breath isso wrong. I agree with her. Ever since I knew we were pregnant I loved our babyand was so excited but when he started moving it was incredible how that lovechanged. I feel a connection with him and just feeling him move makes me soexcited to meet

him! It allbecame a million times more real when I felt that first movement :D

It is now the 15th andalmost every time he is awake and moving now I see my stomach move. Yesterday Ihad a paper resting on my stomach and he would kick and move the paper it wasso funny. There was also a moment where he pushed out and kinda stayed therefor a minute so my belly was kinda jutting out on one side a little but...thatmade us laugh!

I seem to be having whatis called round ligament pain now and I have to be careful rolling over in bedbecause if I go to fast I get a sharp pain! Its because the ligaments in mybelly holding up my growing uterus are stretching so they hurt sometimesbecause they are so stretched out and not as strong. It can happen sometimestoo if you are really active but it is more like a dull pain that just kindastays. It happened today when I was walking home from church and I am hopingthat it won't get too bad because I want to be able to keep exercising. I justbarely got back into the swing of it! Its okay though because it just meansthat my body is doing what it should...it is just a new development in mypregnancy condition :)

We have been busy trying toregister for baby stuff...it is so hard! There are SO MANY THINGS to thinkabout when you are trying to prepare for your new arrival. Babies need lots ofthings you would never think of. And then sometimes the lists of things storesgive you to register for have a lot of useless things on them that you don'treally need. It is taking a lot of research but it is also a lot of fun. I lovelooking for things and picking out my favorites...especially clothes. I justlove baby stuff and how tiny all of it is.

Little Things

2012-01-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

If my students saw the word little in my title right now they would tell me I needed to use a more "juicy" word. haha We have been talking a lot about adjectives lately and they are crazy for juicy words. Small, miniscule, tiny, teeny, itsy bitsy, puny...those words would make them a little happier.

I just LOVE my job.

Back to the teeny tiny miniscule itty bitty things....It is SO easy to get caught up in life...I wish that wasn't the case. I dream of leisurely days where we have nothing on our minds but the little things that make life worth it. (but often get swept under the rug because of all the "big things" that seem so important to us. Even though I get caught up in life A LOT...being a full time teacher is a little time consuming, I have really been trying to recognize the little things in my every day life that make each day happy for me :)

Here are some of my little things:

-Hugs from students out of nowhere
-My hubby snoozing his alarm just "one more time" and snuggling with me
-Being able to make dinner most days and it is appreciated greatly! (Mark always thanks me for cooking and tells me how good it is...or makes me feel better if it isn't) He is truly a sweet husband.
-Looking at our dishes together that need to be done, but instead taking a nap on the couch for just 20 minutes...rare during the week that we get these
-Feeling little dude move. Even in my most stressful of moments this always brings a smile to my face
-Going through files and finding notes from Mark that I have saved over the last few years and reading them again...being reminded of how much he loves me
-Laughing as we do squats together in the living room and make fun of the other persons technique
-A chat in the middle of my students recess that says "howdy do?" Its so nice to know you are being thought of throughout the day :)
-Finding out that one of my students writes "What my teacher is wearing today" in her journal every day
-Leaving Birthday decorations up all month because my birthday is in a Month so our house always looks like a party
-Watching our ultrasound video...and anticipating our next ultrasound in just a few weeks
-Knowing that on Monday we get to sleep in and spend the whole day in leisure (or at least part of it)

And SO many more! I think I am going to start writing down all the little things each day that make me happy. I feel like it would remind me each day of how blessed and lucky I am, even on the worst days :)

22 Weeks!

2012-01-09T20:30:00.001-08:00

Our little guy is officially about 1 foot long and weighs 1 pound! It is funny to know that 1 pound of me right now comes from the tiny person growing inside of me :) I can’t believe how big he is already! Not much has changed…I have figured out some pretty nice sleeping positions, and I am pretty sure little dude likes OATMEAL! haha two times now I have had oatmeal for breakfast and he has just gone crazy after. So either he likes it or he thinks its gross and is moving because of that...Today during my car ride I was just cracking up cause he was moving so much after my breakfast It was like he was doing flips inside my tummy. It was like a wave going across and was really interesting feeling. I have only ever been kicked and elbowed but never a wave of motion until today!

I also ate chicken again the other day! It was tasty..I think the trick was that Mark did everything with the chicken, chopped it, cooked it, mixed it into the pasta sauce…everything. I did not even touch chicken except with my fork and I was happy to eat it again. I also am loving oranges and this Greek yogurt Mark got me from Costco. (did you know Greek yogurt has crazy amounts of protein in it? it does…)
This last week we experienced a milestone! I had drank some orange juice and was sitting on the couch when little dude started moving like crazy. I said to Mark,”I think you need to put your hand on my stomach because I am pretty sure you will be able to feel him!” He did and for about five minutes I kept asking Mark, ”did you feel that? did you feel that?” Finally little dude gave an awesome punch right exactly where Marks hand was! It was really the strongest movement he had ever made…before or since then. It was almost like my stomach moved! Mark was like “woah! That was cool” It was so neat to be able to finally share that with him. I have been just waiting and waiting for the day that Mark could feel it. Then last night I got into bed and as soon as I lay down little dude started kicking again. I told Mark to put his arm around me just in case! Not too long after he felt him move twice :D Nothing like falling asleep to the baby moving and knowing Mark could feel it too...it was nice.

I adore feeling our little guy move every day. It is just a constant reminder of how incredible of a blessing it is that we are able to have a baby. It is also incredible what my body is doing to help him grow..having babies is just pretty amazing in general and mind boggling. Being able to have this responsibility is a pretty cool job! I can't wait until I can test out my skills as a mommy!

Daily Humor

2012-01-03T19:00:00.001-08:00

One thing I LOVE about being married to Mark is that we laugh every single day…HARD :) It is not normally about anything too funny but no matter what we end up laughing together and it is one of my favorite things. Today I have been feeling pretty crummy all stuffed up and sick…not much laughter coming from me.

I breathe in through my nose and realize that my right nostril closes every time I breathe. So I show Mark. The laughter begins. He starts laughing so hard and it makes me laugh like crazy, then he says we have to take a picture of this. He gets the camera and starts taking all of these different angles of my nostril being clogged. He looks like a wedding photographer at this point, tilting the camera..adjusting position…zooming in and out haha he was dedicated!

Sorry this post is kinda gross…but this was just too funny to us and I know we’ll laugh about it in 10 years :)

21 Weeks!

2012-01-02T15:45:00.001-08:00

We are 21 weeks! :) Half way there and over the last week my belly has grown even more…it was actually pretty crazy how it grew. Marks mom was like your belly has grown over the last 3 days! And by the end of the week it had really changed :) So cool.

I am still feeling good. Sleeping is tricky sometimes…but that is okay I have fun experimenting with pillow placement to get comfortable. Pretty soon Mark will have no room in the bed because of all of my pillows! haha

Little dude is 10.5 inches long and by the end of next week he’ll weigh 1 pound! (right now he weighs 3/4 of a pound) Still pretty crazy he is that big already. He has eyebrows now…hopefully not a unibrow! ;) I guess our baby is a little wrinkly right now…that is because he is going to start gaining baby fat and he is going to fill out all of those wrinkles with the chub. lol

Mark wants me to add in here that I BURP a lot! haha I burp so much that I hardly notice it anymore and a lot of the time I don’t say excuse me…so if I burp in front of you and don’t say anything I promise I’m not trying to be rude! :) I also have to go to the bathroom all the time…it was an adventure driving 10 hours to California. We didn’t have to stop very much though I was a very good passenger and only made Mark stop if it was turning into a dire situation! Above is a picture of us at the beach with my tummy! (my jacket and the way my shirt fit make it look really big I think! But everyone else said nope that is just how it looks…haha)

I still haven’t craved much of anything. I have yet to see if I have overcome my boneless skinless chicken breast aversion because I haven’t tried any since the last time. I did really want some Chicken Bryan yesterday when Mark brought it up so maybe I am over being anti chicken.

Little dude got spoiled at Christmas with clothes, blankets, towels, wipes, and bottles. We also got a book and a baby book that I can’t wait to start filling out!

I can’t wait to see him in this:

How cute is that little tie? :)

My FAVORITE things…and 20 weeks!

2011-12-25T21:30:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! :) I have had so much fun this last week and can’t believe how fast it went. The happy thing is that we have ONE MORE WEEK! This next one will be spent in sunny California where it is going to be 70 degrees and sunny every day. I think I am going to be in HEAVEN I am not going to want to leave. I can’t wait to be warm.

We had the best Christmas with my family and we are really looking forward to spending time with Marks family. Being with family is the best I decided. I love my family, they make me so happy…I love all of our little family jokes, quirks, and traditions.We always have a blast together. I can’t wait until we have our little dude added to our family. Look for some Christmas preview pictures at the end of the post! :)

Speaking of little dudes. He still is a little dude! We had our ultrasound on Friday and it was confirmed that he is in fact still a boy :) We couldn’t be happier because we sure do love him! We still don’t know what to call him though….hmmm that is just a tricky thing to decide. We have been experimenting with names and have 2 that we really like and 1 that we think we like the most but we will see.

We also got a better idea of when our due date is. I am officially not 19 weeks but:
20 WEEKS…our new Due Date is May 11th

Can you believe that bump? haha

Sometimes people ask me how I’m feeling and I tell them great and they seem shocked. Like I am supposed to be feeling terrible or crummy?? I could not be better than I am right now! I am so lucky to have this little guy hanging out in my belly and knowing that I am responsible for making sure he grows healthy and strong in there. Mark catches me rubbing my belly probably 20 times a day (and misses the other 40 times a day I rub it) It is just so fun to feel it knowing that our little guy is in there, and it is just interesting to have a belly where you never did before. I always thought it was funny when pregnant women rubbed their bellies but it is like an instinct or something.

Our little dude is about 6 inches long! He weighs 8 1/2 ounces and possibly can hear our voices now when we talk. So if you see a crazy lady talking to her belly…I just want my little guy to know my voice! He kicks/punches/head butts a lot now! The other day for like 10 minutes he was moving all around and I loved it! I have a feeling Mark will be able to feel him sooner than we think :)

I thought it would be fun as my belly gets bigger to take a picture each week of “my view looking down” Just because eventually I wont be able to see my toes anymore! haha

And now for a Christmas Weekend Picture Preview:

What Brings You To Our Country?

2011-12-21T17:18:00.001-08:00

Back when I was a cashier at Big 5 I would get a lot of comments about my name and questions. One time a lady asked me what my last name was. I told her “Helberg” and immediately she said, “oh, what brings you to our country?” hahaha it was all I could do to not crack up as I explained that I was born here. I have looked up my full name and found a girl in Norway with the same name so it is pretty reasonable I guess that someone could think I had moved to America. (minus the completely Utahn accent that I have haha)

Yesterday I was out Christmas shopping. I showed a cashier my ID and she asked me where my name was from and how to say it. Then she proceeded to say,
“You know it amazes me how you don’t have an accent. The other day this couple came in from Finland, they lived there their whole lives and didn’t have an accent. And then today you come in from Norway and you sound perfectly American. It is just incredible, you really have no hint of an accent at all. Your english is perfect”
hahahaha I almost died. I really need to have my dad teach me a little bit more Norwegian so I can play off these moments better. ;)

P.S. While I was out shopping little did I know my sweet hubby was cleaning the ENTIRE HOUSE. I came home to him with spray bottles and washrags in his hands :) So sweet, out of everything he could have done with his day off he chose to clean up for me. I love him. Sorry ladies of the world, I got the best one.

BYU Basketball

2011-12-20T22:45:00.001-08:00

This year we bought all sports passes so we could go to as many BYU sporting events as possible before Mark is done with school. We love going to games every week, it is such a simple date night where we get to scream and yell and act a little crazy. I love it :) This last Saturday Baylor was playing BYU and Mark was so excited for the game. Because it was a big game we had to go early to wait in line for a seat. Little did we know going 2 hours early was not early enough! The line was already SO long.

Can you see Mark at the end? (it was not really the end but pretty close to it lol) Here is the line wrapping around the rest of the building…

Yay for our shirts! I feel like I look way too excited in this picture haha

My favorite part is when they turn off all of the lights and drop these white pieces of fabric down. They play a little video on them and everyone gets pumped! haha :)

So the waiting in line story: Luckily there was hot chocolate and it was not too bad outside because we weren’t out there for long. Right when they started letting people in Mark noticed that they were letting some people in a side door. So he was like ‘LETS GO!” and ran over to the door. Right when we got there and there were only 10 people in front of us the doors got closed and then we were out of line completely. Luckily Mark was on the ball and spotted the other doors and started running toward them. I was like well I guess we are running “pregnant lady coming through!” lol We got in and noticed that some of the seats had shirts on them so, then we rushed to get to those seats! Then we had to try to find shirts that were not huge…we found 1 large and everything else was extra large. I took the XL since I have my prego belly and let Mark have the large. Then we sat down and laughed at how exciting our last 10 minutes had been! lol

The game was so much fun and even though BYU lost by 3 it came down to the wire and was a really good game. The crowd was going crazy and so were we. It was a blast. We also came the closest we ever have to catching one of those papers that drops from the blimps…it was in Marks fingertips…so close. lol

Here is a picture from a different game we went to that we rode the scooter to! So COLD!

poor Mark, he always has to be the driver and his face freezes! I just hide mine behind his…haha

I love when I look like I have a five-head in pictures…so cute

Family Christmas Party

2011-12-20T22:24:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday we had a family Christmas party :) It was a lot of fun. We made gingerbread houses, played the cookie face race game, and had a visit from Santa! It was a lot of fun and was a great way to get into the Christmas spirit. Here are some (okay a LOT of) pictures:

(Check out our broccoli Christmas tree haha)

Cute Baby Booties! :)

A lot of the kids got nerf guns…it brought out the kid in many of the adult men! haha

Bridger was not so sure about Santa :) haha But he does do a pretty good “ho ho ho” if you ask him.

Colleen was so cute. She told Santa that she needed to whisper in his ear if she had been good or not. Then she said no! haha :)

And last I will leave you with the most attractive picture ever taken. Mark and I playing the cookie face race :)

4 Months!

2011-12-18T20:01:00.001-08:00

I am officially 4 Months! We are just so excited still that we are having a boy (and we are hoping that our ultrasound on Friday re-confirms that fact! haha) I love our little dude. He has been moving a little bit lately and it has been a lot of fun to feel him. It is still pretty random though, I think it will be fun when he moves a lot more and when Mark can feel him. That should be coming soon! My belly is really changing so much it is so fun. I love the change and watching it grow (even if it means I am slowly finding out I can wear less and less of my regular clothing haha every day is a mystery of what I will still be able to wear).

We are excited for Friday this week because we get to have our 20 week ultrasound. I know you are probably thinking but wait you are only 18 weeks? Really right now I am 18 or 19 we just aren’t sure. On Friday I’ll be 19 or 20…and that is what the ultrasound will hopefully be able to tell us! I really don’t care that much though about it I am just excited to see our baby again, it is the coolest!

I have been feeling great, minus the stomach flu I had earlier this week. I have gotten it every year since we have been married. And pregnancy or not I guess I still had to get it this year. It was stinky and crummy and terrible and….I could go on and on. Luckily for little dude the doctor said he would be hunky dory in there even though I was feeling crummy on the outside. I guess the babies have their way of getting what they need even when you can’t get what you need. I am happy to be eating again though and I am trying to eat very healthy to make up for the nutrients I missed for a few days!

I guess our little guy is about 5 1/2 inches long right now and weighs 5 ounces. The only real updates on his growth is that he is moving a lot more and that he is getting covered with some nice slime? haha We are as happy as can be Mark is enjoying my pregnancy hormones and I am no longer enjoying boneless skinless chicken breast in any form. The whole breast, chopped, sliced…no variation you try will make it okay for me to eat. Yuck. I do think that it has something to do with me cooking it though. Maybe if Mark cooked it I could eat it but I don’t know. I like cooking too much to let him make EVERYTHING lol But I still like things like chicken nuggets and stuff. Its just the chicken breast that gets me. I wake up a lot at night, I don’t know if its just because I am uncomfortable or what but I probably wake up like 10 times a night at least. Its not that bad because I fall asleep really fast afterwards but it is definitely different than I am used to!

We are pretty much half way there. That does not seem possible. We are starting a little collection of little dude presents that we have gotten from family and friends. Blankets, onesies, adorable little pants, and my favorite so far:

A crocheted blanket that my mom has been saving just for when we announced our first pregnancy. She is so cool I don’t even know when she made it but she had just been saving it for however long until our announcement. (Knowing it would come eventually!) I love her, she is so thoughtful and thinks of everything!

Sorting…

2011-12-11T19:34:00.001-08:00

I have been trying to sort and organize our pictures from the last few years. It has been really fun and I have come across a lot of memories that I had forgotten about! When we got our engagement pictures back Mark went right to work editing them and he created our wedding announcement too! These are some of the pictures I just found :)

What a cute husband I have :) I didn’t even remember him showing me this last “announcement” and I love it!

It is amazing how far we have come since these pictures. I just finished school, Mark has a bachelors degree and is working on 2 masters and we have a baby on the way! :) It is crazy how fast time goes…

The Big Reveal #2 and 16 weeks

2011-12-08T05:26:00.001-08:00

Mark and I decided to go a little early to find out the gender of our baby…our doctor doesn’t do an ultrasound until 20 weeks but we really wanted to know what the baby was before Christmas! I can’t remember feeling more nervous, anxious, and excited all in one day! (not for a long time anyways..like probably not since the morning of our wedding waiting for Mark to get to the temple)

We had to wait until about 7:10 to finally be able to go into the ultrasound room. I will never forget seeing our baby for the first time on the screen. It was unreal. I told Mark that I always thought I would cry but I just I stared in disbelief at the screen that that baby was actually in my stomach…it is incredible knowing that I have that little cutie inside my belly(I had a big grin on my face throughout the whole ultrasound) :D

Marks thoughts on seeing the baby for the first time: He says he was in Awe…he just wanted to keep seeing it and was so sad when it ended.

She first found our babies arm, and then a leg. Our little one was just curled up in a ball and it was adorable. Just chillin all comfy in my tummy. The tech had to work at it to make the baby wiggle enough for us to see that it was a boy! :) But when he moved he stuck his butt right at us haha it was so funny. It was fun to see the little bit of movement but for the most part he really was just relaxing…he was also face down. I told Mark he was going to like sleeping on his tummy like us haha

Here are a few pictures. If you want a better view of his manly parts you have to watch the video…the tech really took the picture at the most inopportune moment! He had his legs open for a while but by the time she took the picture his legs were closed so its not as good.

I love all of them…I think I have looked at them 100 times! :) They are my favorite. I especially love the arm one. I am so excited to hold those little hands.

In the video the best moment where you can see that he is a boy is at 1:30

Here is a bump picture at about 16 weeks and 3 days. (I decided to stick my 14 week picture next to it so that you could see the difference better) It is so crazy to have your belly growing but I LOVE IT! Last week I could wear most of my pants still buttoned…this week almost every pair is unbuttoned and some unzipped! haha but only because my belly is growing! They fit fine everywhere else (I have these bella band things that make it so I can still wear my jeans just unbuttoned)

Just an interesting fact…the doctor thinks we are actually 17 weeks right now especially after measuring me last Friday but they aren’t sure so we currently have a due date window of May 11th(if I’m 17 weeks) to May 21 (if I’m only 16 weeks.)

We have another ultrasound with our doctor on December 23rd and we will have a better Idea of how far along I actually am on that day :)

I’m almost 4 months! yay!

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-04T20:19:00.000-08:00

We got this picture taken with Santa at our Ward Christmas Party. Mark and I were in charge of the party this year and we had a lot of fun planning it. We had a few other couples in the ward on our committee and it was so fun getting to know them.

Everyone in the ward brought food from different countries and we had a giant feast. YUM! Then we had a gingerbread house making contest (I wish I had pictures of some of the houses…the Provo Temple, The pyramids at Giza, igloos, big ben, log cabins, mangers…they were impressive!)

The funnest part of the night was when Santa came. This was the part of the party that Mark was really heading up. He had Santa’s entrance all planned out and looked like a little kid on Christmas when it was time for the big arrival. It was so fun watching him get excited to surprise all of the children and it made me so excited to watch him with our little baby. I know he is going to be the greatest dad…especially if he gets that excited about surprising a bunch of other peoples kids :D

POP!

2011-11-30T18:02:00.000-08:00

This morning I was getting dressed and I looked down at my belly. My first thought was,"woah! where did that come from?" I went in the other room and said "Mark! look at my stomach!" He was sure that I was pushing out my belly but after I showed him what it would really look like if I pushed out...lol he couldn't believe it either.

My belly popped overnight! It literally looks different today than it did yesterday. I LOVE IT! I feel like now I have a legitimate bump.

So by this weekend when we take my 16 week picture you should be able to see a difference. Every time I looked down today it made me laugh.

I love this little baby of ours :)

p.s. We changed the day we are finding out the gender! It is now on Tuesday! 6 days...and I don't think I'm going to be able to wait.

Mark thinks girl...I have always thought boy...what do you think???

Flashlights....

2011-11-28T18:44:00.000-08:00

Happy 15 weeks! No picture today mainly because...we haven't taken one haha and I don't think much has changed... I'll post one next week though :)

so...I LOVE laying on my stomach especially to sleep. I have noticed recently though that it is not as comfortable as it used to be! I can definitely feel that there is something there in my belly when I lay on it so I have gotten out of the habit of laying on my stomach to sleep pretty quick cause it feels weird-and I don't want to smash the little child. lol

Our baby is 4 inches long now! Wow! I love it. We have been able to listen to the heartbeat using a fetal doppler that we borrowed from our neighbors and that is a blast. When we first got it and we listened to the baby's heartbeat it would stay in one place and we could just listen and listen. Now it cracks us up when we listen because our little child is a little mover! It wiggles around like you would not believe. One second we have the heartbeat and then the next it is in a completely different place. I love it and can't wait (literally I am just dying for it to happen) for when I can feel the baby move. It could be anytime in the next few weeks and I just hope it is sooner than later!

I also read today that:

Although our babies eyelids are still fused shut, it can sense light. If you shine a flashlight at your tummy, for instance, it's likely to move away from the beam.

Haha! I was telling Mark it would be so fun/funny to do that if we could actually see the baby moving. (and maybe a little mean? haha...we'd just be testing our babies senses right?) Maybe we'll try it with the doppler and see if we can get it to move. ;)

12 days until gender day!

The Little Child

2011-11-26T19:56:00.001-08:00

So, we have been keeping a big secret for the last 3 months! If you know me that is a huge accomplishment :) I do not do well with keeping secrets. This one especially…

Here are some pictures to clue you in:

If you didn’t guess by now…no I do not track my weight gain by month…but I do track my baby belly! We are pregnant! Due in May…sometime between the 11th and the 21st. Hopefully in a few weeks we’ll have an actual due date along with a picture of our “little child” (that is what we call it for now)

Some people don’t really see the bump but it is there! Depending on what I wear you can see it more or less…I think it is fun! I love it and we just wanted to show it was at least growing! :) The other day Mark said that when he hugged me he could feel it because normally I’m not poking out…it was very cute.

Here is how we told our families:

My family came over on the Sunday before Thanksgiving to support Mark when he got set apart as the second counselor in the bishopric. (Yes you read that right! We have some big changes happening in our life right now but we love all of them and are grateful) So we decided to tell them that day. We told Marks family when we got to California for Thanksgiving.

It was so fun to record the video and funny!

The day we found out was the best day. I didn’t think I could be happier…until we heard the heartbeat, and then until my little bump showed, and I’m sure it will just keep getting better. We are so happy. The day we tested we went in the bathroom to check the test, Mark wasn’t sure what he was looking for but as soon as I saw it I got so excited he figured it out, we jumped and danced and laughed in the bathroom and it is one of my favorite moments in my life.

Now for the lovely pictures of the stick I peed on haha. Memories!

Anyways…we’re excited and we’re finding out the gender in 2 weeks. We can’t wait to actually see our little baby. I’ll post another bump picture probably at that time too…

So far I’m feeling great. Hating carrots, peach yogurt, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cantaloupe, and string cheese. lol yuck! (I used to like/love all of those things) I don’t really crave sweets anymore-which boggles Marks mind. I have craved in this order: cottage cheese, salsa, and mashed potatoes and gravy from KFC. But now I don’t really care for cottage cheese at all. I haven’t really been sick at all except random bouts of icky feelings but nothing bad and I’m just loving every minute of it! Mark is the sweetest husband and has been taking good care of his pregnant wifey.

Singing Time

2011-11-14T18:32:00.000-08:00

On Sunday we had the primary program at church. It is the cutest thing. All of the little kids in our church go up on the stand and sing, and bear their testimonies, and act adorable. This meeting is usually pretty funny just because of how some of the children talk into the microphone, the cute ways they say things, and of course their excitement about singing as loudly as possible.

During the program the pianist started to play the intro to "I Am a Child of God"...when she got to the official part of the song (not sure what the would be called) all of the children started to sing. The best part?

I started to sing too! haha

I sang the whole first sentence of the song!

Then I proceeded to die when I realized what I had done. Luckily I am not the most confident singer and I was singing very quietly. I don't think anyone heard me but Mark. (If they did they were nice enough not to laugh loud enough for me to hear)

haha too funny

Great Grandpa

2011-11-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago was my Great Grandpas Wedding Anniversary. My Great Grandma died a few years ago and my grandpa is pretty lonely. Our family decided it would be fun for all of his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren…and more to visit him and give him some company In just a couple months he will be 104 years old! He still lives in his home and just has people helping him throughout the day. He is amazing! It was fun to see him and to see everyone else.
I also peeked into the closet and found a nice surprise! The same box of toys that has been there for years. We played with them when we were little and so did so many other people. They are classics and I wanted to take some pictures just in case they get moved or lost later….

This top and the frog were my favorites!

I wanted to take a picture with him. He grabbed my head gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, “I got ya!” haha I love him. He still has so much spunk and spirit! He told me after that our camera was probably broken now. lol

As usual Tyler was showing great joy! haha He actually smiled right after I took the picture.

On a side note:

I just found out that my Great Grandpa is now officially the OLDEST MAN LIVING IN UTAH :) How cool is that?

Happy Halloween/we’re alive!

2011-11-02T22:06:00.001-07:00

I am willing to bet most people who used to frequent my blogs have probably given up on me. It makes me a bit bummed especially because my cooking blog was just taking off and getting more followers…hopefully one day I can get them back when I can start food blogging again. I have so many things to post on both blogs I don’t know if I’ll ever catch up. Here is a Halloween post to keep you happy, if you are here

This year we decided to go as nerds for Halloween. We went to the DI too look for cheap inspiration and found these awesome blue pants…Mark tried them on and the costume was born. I laughed harder than I had in a long time when he put those on. We went to a party at one of his friends. Here are some pictures:

We had the camera on “self-timer/multi shot” so we just kept posing. Every time we look at these we crack up….

Socks on the wrong feet….

The Nerd playing the original Nintendo…PacMan!

It was the best day full of lots of laughs. I am so grateful to be married to someone who is willing to be “nerdy” and have a lot of fun. Happy Halloween! Mark is already planning out his costume for next year….but you’ll just have to wait and see!

BYU Superfans

2011-10-11T21:34:00.000-07:00

We got All Sports passes this year so we could go to all the BYU games. We have been to all of the home football games so far and it has been a blast! We sit by our friends Jordan and Kaitlin and just love our weekly date night that we have been able to have.

For the first game Mark wore his crazy wig. He was walking into the stadium and someone saw his wig and gave him a beard for being a super fan. He wore it almost the whole game until it got itchy. It was so funny to see him rubbing it the whole time.

The next game I wore the wig. We WON! So every game since then I have worn the wig...and we have won. It is a rule now that I must wear the wig to the games :) I don't mind though. It keeps my head warm! (and I don't have to worry about my hair) After almost every game at least once someone tells me they like my hair. haha

Here are some pics from the games:

I know we are upside down. It is very sad. I am using blogger instead of the program I normally use to post this and it won't let me rotate it. For some reason my computer really wants this picture to be upside down as well...so for now it will stay that way. Later I will fix it. (to be very realistic I will probably never fix this and it will be upside down until the end of our lives :D )

Two people I LOVE.....

2011-10-11T21:21:00.000-07:00

I had two pictures on my phone that I just love...I wanted to share them just in case I ever lose them on my phone. I love other people too I promise but these two people are super special to me!

One is my little nephew Bridger Barnes. I think about this little guy every day. I wonder what he is up to and what new words he is saying and what mischef he is getting into. Every time I am around him I just can't believe how lucky I am to be his aunt. I hope that he thinks I am cool when he is older and that we can have the best relationship. I also hope that he will always know his Aunt Kjersti loves him! (he said my name in little boy language on this day and it made my whole day). He takes a little while to warm up to me but I hope that some day he'll know me and just run up to me and want to play. That is kinda my fault though...I haven't been around him enough. It isn't because I don't want to be though that is for sure. His cheerful attitude and happy grin could make anyone happy the instant they saw him. On this day before I went home we had a good time playing together on his slide and running around the yard, it was so much fun. :)

Picture #2 is:

Me and my Faja! :) This was at a yardsale we had together back in September. I love how he always lets me take pictures with him, he is always a good sport. My dad makes me so happy he knows exactly how to make me laugh. I love when he calls me with funny jokes from the radio, funny bumper stickers or funny things he saw or when I call him with funny jokes from the radio...because it is like our thing we do.

Anyway...there you go. Two people of the many people that I love!

I survived...

2011-10-11T21:07:00.000-07:00

Parent Teacher Conference

Thankfully none of the parents at my conference looked as concerned as the two in the picture above. Also I'm glad that none of the men had giant mustaches and mullets...and I'm also glad that I don't have short orange hair. (not that there is anything wrong with that I just love my long brown hair)

On Wednesday-all day- I was nervous out of my mind for parent teacher conference. It wasn't because I think I am not doing my job as a teacher or that I couldn't hold a professional conference...it is just a little nerve-wracking meeting with all the parents. Or so I thought. It actually was great and a lot of fun! Parents just want to hear how their kids are doing and lucky for me I have the best class in the world so I really had nothing negative to say about any of my students. I just love all of them and they all make me proud every day! So luckily I survived Parent Teacher conference and now I don't think i'll ever be nervous for it again :D

Other things I had to survive:

INSIDE RECESS

Inside recess is a very interesting experience. Very fun but a little crazy too. I was worried the kids would think my "games" were lame because I am on a small teacher budget and couldn't get very fun things. I forgot that I have awesome seven year olds! The favorite thing in the box? A old book from the DI on how to make different kinds of paper airplanes :) Who would have thought?

Fitting for a teacher….

2011-09-24T11:22:00.001-07:00

One of my friends had this posted on her blog and I thought it was fitting for me. ABC’s and teachers just go together :)
Age: 23
Bed size: queen
Chore you hate: dishes…they NEVER end!
Dogs: We want to have 2 dogs. One will be a mini american eskimo :D
Essential start of your day: I wish I had one of these. If you looked at my daily routine you’d think my essential start was sleeping too long then running around crazy and worrying about being late!
Favorite color: Blue
Gold or silver: white gold…or silver. I don’t like the look of gold gold. Reminds me of old people.
Height: 5’4″
Instruments I play (or have played): none, zero, nada, nilch
Job title: Second Grade Teacher
Kids: One day…of course! I have daydreams of being a mother :)
Live: provo
Mom’s name: Karen
Nickname: Kj, and the millions of other “nicknames” I’ve had my whole life-really people just don’t know how to say my name but if I pretend they are nicknames…it works? haha
Overnight hospital stays: none that I know of
Pet peeve: I have many driving pet peeves…ask my mom who is always talking to me on my drive home from work. I get road rage at least once a day haha
Quote from a movie: No more rhymes now and I mean it. Anybody want a peanut?
Right or left handed: right
Siblings: Older and Younger Brother. 4 sister in laws. 1 brother in law.
Time you wake up: 5:45-6:30 depending on how important it is to me to get ready that day
Underwear: yes please
Vegetables you dislike: carrots, beets, peas
What makes you run late: sleeping too long, moving in slow motion in the morning…I’m not much of a morning person.
X-rays you’ve had done: teeth, arm
Yummy food you make: lots! Check out my cooking blog :) CUPOOKIES
Zoo animal: monkeys/all zoo animals. I love the zoo!

Hey Baby Let’s Go To Vegas….

2011-09-18T20:24:00.001-07:00

Earlier in the year Marks dad asked us if we wanted to meet them over Labor Day weekend for a little getaway. We of course said “YES!” It was decided that we would go to Vegas and relax, eat at buffets, and go to a show. It was a lot of fun and great to see Marks parents! :D Here are some pictures of what we did:

This is one of my favorite signs and I always forget to take a picture…it’s probably silly but it makes me laugh. Carl’s Jr. Loves Subway.

Saw the Lions at MGM and a baby leapord! So cute :)

Got M&M’s at the M&M world or factory or whatever it is called. They had coconut ones that were SOOO yummy!

Watched an AWESOME 3-D M&M movie…..haha

Talked…a lot!

Enjoyed the jetted tub :D

Enjoyed the view from our balcony. We also played in the pool! It had waterslides and we had a blast racing each other. Even Mark’s dad raced us. That was so much fun. I think the time we spent in the pool was my favorite part of the whole weekend.

Watched some BYU football :)

Walked through the Bellagio Garden area. It was decorated like a carnival…so pretty.

Watched the Bellagio Fountains…I love them! I also love watching Mark with his parents. It made me so happy that he got to see them again when he normally only see’s them once a year.

We watched “O” at the Bellagio. It is a Cirque De Soleil show. I think that everyone needs to see a Cirque show at least once. They are so incredible! :D

We ate at two buffets! I love the desserts. We just got one of everything and tasted it!

I sat inside a giant shoe….

Rode a lot of escalators…Mark did this on almost every one lol

Hung out with the king

Saw the worlds largest chocolate fountain. Which ended up being a small disappointment. I imagined it to look a little different than it did. But it was still cool.

Took a picture at the “Welcome sign” on the day we were leaving…haha

Sad to be going :( Big bird was hanging out at the sign. It was so awkward. He was just standing there and no one really wanted a picture with him. Or at least they didn’t want to pay for it…haha and neither did I! We explored Caesars palace inside for the first time. It is pretty cool. I felt like I was in Rome…haha New Nike ad?

Fish with NO EYEBALL! Weird….We witnessed the ‘Fall of Atlantis’ I really don’t know why this show isn’t more popular. (haha I am being truly sarcastic at this point…)

The last thing we did before heading home was to find the nearest Tommy’s and have some delicious Chili Cheeseburgers! They were so good. It was only the third time I’d ever had Tommy’s but I wish we had one here in Utah because I love it.

All in all it was an amazing weekend! We were sad to leave but so happy that we got to spend it with Mark’s parents and have a blast.

My Goal....

2011-09-13T19:45:00.001-07:00

It is my goal to get back into my blogging habit again. Ever since I started teaching I haven't been very regular :( I know I don't have that many followers but for those of you that do follow me:

I'm Sorry!

Please don't give up on me. I promise I'll be back!

Just to give you 1 thing to enjoy:

Worlds Largest Chocolate fountain at the Bellagio. We were there...in Vegas I mean...and we ate lots of delicious food. And saw a cool show. And saw Marks parents! More to come on that later :D

Uncle Buds Park

2011-08-28T20:42:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday Mark and I just needed to get out of the house. It had been a long week and we hadn’t been able to spend much time together. (similar to this week…and probably many weeks to come) I had been looking up things we could do in Provo and we decided to try to find this park called “Uncle Buds Park”. It is kinda a secret park without any directions online besides a general area. We went on our drive to search for it. (we were planning on a scooter ride but it was raining off and on) We got so lucky! I chose one turn and Mark chose the next and before you knew it we were at the park. It kinda jumped out at us. We also discovered that the houses above the Provo temple have an amazing view! If we stayed here forever I’d like to live up there.

The park was cute and Tiny. It had a plaque describing why the park was named after Uncle Bud. :) It was a fun adventure and we were very proud of ourselves for finding it.

Now the question is…can YOU find it? The only clue I’ll give is that it is in the neighborhood above the temple and to the south.

I am loved

2011-08-24T21:39:00.001-07:00

It was the second day of school today and I found these two things on the back of a 100’s chart my students filled out.

:) Mark joked that he won’t have to do anything for me anymore because I get praised, complemented, and loved for 8 hours a day at work….haha I also have a growing stack of pictures drawn just for me to hang on the wall behind my desk. One little girl brought me a chocolate truffle with peanut butter in the middle today….yum

Yesterday we caught a beetle in the classroom. I asked a boy to take it outside. I was greeted with a chorus of “noooooooo’s!” My students wanted to keep it as a pet, they named it pincher before I could even protest. So we kept it. It escaped in the night. Not to worry, this morning I was handed a bag with a brand new beetle (caught that morning!) to replace our dead friend. We hung it on the whiteboard. It was dead by lunch. (lack of oxygen?)

I am afraid of what kind of bugs I might get in bags tomorrow….

Today a girl in my class went to her first grade teacher and said: Last year I had a teacher with purple hair and THIS YEAR I have a teacher with purple hair! The other teacher came to tell me this and we both cracked up because neither of us had ever realized our hair was “purple” :D

If you haven’t guessed it already by reading this post:

I have the BEST job in the world!

Tomorrow…tomorrow…I love ya…tomorrow!

2011-08-22T19:26:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow 28 little second graders will be in my care :) They will come to my class and learn and grow and laugh and become a tiny community of learners…I am SO EXCITED. I can’t believe the time has finally come that I get to call myself an elementary school teacher.

Here are some pics of my class:

I Love my room it was so fun to decorate it and make it my own :) Wish me luck and cross your fingers for me!

Sorry!

2011-08-14T21:51:00.001-07:00

I use this program called Windows Live Writer to post my blog posts. Sometimes I forget to switch from my cooking blog to my personal or vice versa so my posts will get all mixed up on both. If you want to see the Cinnamon Pull-Apart bread that I just “posted” you’ll have to head over to Kjs Cupookies Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread to see it! :D Thanks all for being understanding!

We’re Back!

2011-08-14T17:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we went on a moving adventure! Back to Provo :)

My parents and little brother came to Brigham City around 10:00 in the morning and we loaded up my dad’s trailer. After that we metal detected around Velda’s yard (because her house is like 50 years old) We didn’t find much though-a dime, a bike reflector, and a big piece of metal. It was still fun looking though! After that we said our goodbyes to Velda’s family and off we went to Provo.

By the time we got here it was like 98 degrees. Sooooo HOT for moving stuff. Luckily we had a lot of great help (Kyle Kelley and family, Jordan, My parents, my little brother and of course my buff hubby!) It was so fun to see our friends that we haven’t seen all summer. We ended up moving everything in just about 2 hours! Then we decided to have snow cones. My mom, dad, Tyler, and Mark all got theirs…right when she was tyring to make mine the machine broke of course! But luckily I stole a few bites from Tyler and Mark still had the bottom of his to share :) Thanks guys for sharing! It was a big sacrifice for Mark because the bottom is his FAVORTIE PART…it was very sweet of him to give it to me. We ended up getting free snow cone tickets though to use next time so Mark will be able to have the bottom of his next cone all to himself haha

After the snow cones we went back to tackle the project of unpacking….we’re still in the process a day later…it’s getting there though and we’re so happy to be in our own home again! :) Sorry no pictures. We’re just busy buzzing around putting things away but once we’re all settled I’ll try to post a more exciting post with pictures.

How long have you been married??

2011-08-11T10:41:00.001-07:00

We get this question a lot when people find out we are married. The answer?

2 YEARS!

I know what a lot of you are thinking? Two years? Wow…such a long time! haha To us though it is cool. We can’t believe that it has been two years already. Time has gone by so fast. I was telling Mark that even though it has “only” been two years I am kinda glad it isn’t more yet…I am glad that we have many many many more years together :D

When we first moved to Brigham we went on a picnic at the park. These kids were playin frisbee golf (it was a high school dance activity) they saw us sitting on our blanket just talking and one girl came over to us. She said, “did you guys JUST get engaged??!!” We said no and that we had been married for almost 2 years and they were jus like, “oh, we had been trying to figure it out!” Even though it was pretty funny and will always make me laugh it also made me happy to think that others still see a love and excitement worthy of a “newly engaged couple” in us. I hope that we can always keep that spark and that joy alive in our relationship and that people will forever see us as crazy in love newlyweds!

For our anniversary I surprised Mark. He surprised me last year…Las Vegas Anniversary…so this year it was my turn. He came home from work early on Friday and we were off! I drove so he wouldn’t know where we were going. He was confused because we weren’t bringing a tent but we were bringing our blankets and stuff….when we got closer to our destination-Bear Lake-I started to act confused like I had missed a turn off or something and that we weren’t actually supposed to be at Bear Lake. We drove into the city where Raspberry Days was going on with rides, and booths, and helicopter rides and stuff. I was like “whoa they have something going on here this weekend!” acting all surprised even though I already knew it. Finally I turned into a KOA and told Mark I was going to ask for directions. (This was actually where we were staying and I was planning on checking in while he waited in the car for me to get “directions”) Unfortunately there were a ton of people in line and it ended up taking forever…Mark started to get an idea that I probably wasn’t just asking for directions anymore lol but I had him fooled up until that point! So he found out where we were staying but didn’t know what we were doing. Here are some pictures from our activities:

Friday night: Rodeo

The Stadium was up on the side of the mountain…..

We saw bull riding….And Bull FALLING
I love the guy in the basketball shorts…he has stopped in his tracks and his actions seem to be saying,”I want to help you, but I don’t want to die either…” haha Little Kids Chasing Cows: Bucking Bronco riding and falling…And Sheep Peeing Simultaneously after they are traumatized by having a young child strangle them while trying to hold on… haha aka Mutton BustinWe went back to our cabin and roasted Marshmallows with Rollos! Or Rollomallows :) Have you ever done this? Stick a marshmallow in the fire and it will grow and ooze and blob and be gross looking…We ate breakfast each morning on our cute porch swing :)

Saturday we rented a seadoo for 2 hours. This was a blast! It was so fun to cruise across the water finding boat waves to hit.

This is US! haha okay its not but we wanted a picture of someone on the water since we had no one to take one of us.

This is what our jet ski looked like though. (seadoo, jet ski, wave runner…what is the difference? haha)

At one point Mark got smashed by a wall of water when we hit the wrong part of a wave…haha funny to us probably not to you but I don’t want to forget it. Mark also almost launched me off at the very end.

After our seadooing we went and got some lunch. We waited in line forever but the food was amazing. After lunch I had another surprise plan! We were going to ride in a HELICOPTER! I took Mark on a walk and led him to the helicopter place…we walked up to the counter and they said,”sorry we are cancelling all rides for the day because the helicopter is broken” :( I was so sad I actually cried haha. This was like my top surprise I had planned and I had never been in a helicopter before so I was excited! Mark being the amazing guy he is cheered me up and we headed to race go carts across the street instead, which was a blast. I love him. We took a nap after that…haha we were on vacation! It was time to relax…and then we played mini golf before dinner. As usual Mark beat me-He wins the majority of the time no matter what we are doing. I still have yet to beat him at a thumb war. haha

We went out to dinner at a steakhouse and I had crab legs! (I had these in Vegas at a buffet for our last anniversary but this time they brought me out an actual crab! I had to crack it open and everything haha) Needless to say crab is on my top 5 favorite foods list I think…even though that list is probably more like a top 25 ;)

They brought us free dessert for our anniversary. It was CHOCOLATE of course so Mark wasn’t too excited about that part. He loves vanilla ice cream though so he ate the ice cream and I ate the chocolate and we were both happy!

We were going to watch fireworks next but still had like an hour to wait. We decided to wait in the back of the car because it was kinda cold outside :) Some young adults walked by and yelled “I wonder what is going on in the back of that car” haha If they only knew…..I was getting dominated at MONOPOLY DEAL!

don’t mind my hair…we had seadooed and go carted…I get a free break for that! :)

The fireworks were great! :)

Sunday we went on a tour of Minnetonka cave…they said we wouldn’t see any bats but we saw 7! It was pretty cool!

This was the marriage room…these two will be married in like 1 trillion years or something haha :) The one on the ceiling is the bride and the floor is the groom.

These were Mark’s favorite…the straws on the ceiling. After the cave we went to the beach! :) We floated on tubes, took naps, built things, had water fights, and played frisbee/football!

We headed home and stopped in Logan for Panda Express :) It was an amazing weekend! I am so happy to be married to Mark we have been having a blast so far and are looking forward to everything that is to come in our lives. Being married is amazing and I would not change it or anything about if for the world.

Oops!!

2011-08-05T06:20:00.001-07:00

The other day I was going to make an egg for lunch. I grabbed an egg out of the fridge and reached down to grab a bowl from the shelf they are on. As I was walking to the Stove (which also serves as our counter) I looked down and saw a big spider crawling frantically around in the bowl trying to get out! I screamed and tossed the egg into the air-somehow managing to hold the bowl until I could set it on the stove. Lucky for me I threw the egg and not the bowl haha this was the end result:

Spider was safe and sound in his bowl….little did he know I was contemplating how to kill him at that point. Little do all of YOU know that it took about 10 minutes to finally kill it because I was so afraid.

An egg…so worthy of being a sandwich for lunch only to die young…so young :(

Also as a side note:

My facebook buds already saw this sorry! In the bathroom the other night I killed 2 spiders, a centipede, and a beetle…only to have Mark kill another spider 1 minute later. We bug sprayed the entire room and think we found the hole where they are all coming from. In the morning there was another beetle dead…and last night 2 more spiders right in the same area! They are living in our wall…we are moving in a week so I guess I’ll live! haha

24th of July @ Camelot

2011-08-01T02:35:00.001-07:00

Camelot is near Fruitland UT just past strawberry reservoir. It will forever be one of my favorite places on earth. I have spent countless summers hidden away in the cliffs there. I have tubed, four wheeled, fished, laughed, played and loved there. It is a magical place for me. This year we have been so busy here in Brigham but we stole away for 2 days in Camelot over the 24th. We did almost all of my favorite things…except tube because the water was so high :(

There were tons of these suckers…haha…up there! We were putting on repellent like it was going out of style!

Tyler brought his golfing stuff of so Mark and I let him give us lessons. We found out that Mark was good! Even using the wrong hand. I wasn’t very good at all, and Tyler was of course good as well! So I just pretty much took pictures of them :)

Next we went four wheeling…there had been a lot of flooding due to high run off so in turn there were a lot of PUDDLES! :D (My top favorite part of four wheeling)

Their legs crack me up! haha they both are just painted with mud! Our faces were covered too:

Right after this we were hosing off and I walked up to the trailer. I heard my mom and Mark inside saying,” you get Kjersti and I’ll get Kevin” I opened the door to find them filling up squirt guns! Needless to say we had a pretty good water fight at that point :) haha then Mark decided to see what it would be like to be pumpkin…tied to her pully system haha

Tyler convinced me to hike up the mountain behind our spot…it was so pretty and I’m glad I went with him! Even if my booty was sore the next day! (it was steep lol)

My mom and Mark came out and waved to us! :)

The next day we went four wheeling again…how could we resist??

It was Barbs birthday on Sunday…and even though she wasn’t there it is a tradition to destroy/blow up a cake on her birthday each year. (her birthday is on Pioneer Day here in Utah which is a holiday where fireworks are allowed) We used little black snakes and made a snake shortcake. YUM

The weekend ended way too soon :( I didn’t want to leave…

But we couldn’t leave without making one more trip to the fishing spot that we found on Saturday. (Mark caught a huge fish there…story to come when I get the pictures from my dad) We decided after a successful day Saturday we wanted to try it one more time. We probably caught about 40 fish both days between the 3 of us. (Mark, my dad, and me) It was a blast!

Why is my mom making this face you ask? Because there was ONE con to our fishing spot. BUGS GALORE! They were everywhwere! There wasn’t a second that passed by where we didn’t have some sort of bug on our bodies…haha :)

Overall it was the best short weekend! I loved spending time with my family. I got to play 20 questions with my dad when we went fishing on Saturday and it was fun to hear about his childhood and some stories about when he met my mom!

Swimmers Itch

2011-07-29T12:48:00.001-07:00

Swimmer’s itch, also known as lake itch, duck itch, cercarial dermatitis,and Schistosome cercarial dermatitis,is a short-term, immune reaction occurring in the skin of humans that have been infected by water-borne schistosomatidae. Symptoms, which include itchy, raised papules, commonly occur within hours of infection and do not generally last more than a week. A number of different flatworm parasites in the family Schistosomatidae are what cause swimmer’s itch. The cercaria (parasite larvae) penetrate the skin and dies in the skin immediately. This reaction causes initially mildly itchy spots on the skin. Within hours, these spots become raised papules which are intensely itchy. Each papule corresponds to the penetration site of a single parasite.

That is a picture of it…gross!

Now you are probably all wondering what this has to do with anything? The reservoir up above our house has a sign posted that says you can get swimmers itch if you go into the water. When we first saw this sign and then looked it up we were pretty grossed out. But every time we have gone up there people have been swimming and frolicking in the water. Making me feel like it must just have to be posted just in case anyone gets it? I decided to test my theory last week because it was hot, and because I wanted to try to net a baby fish:

I tried for probably an hour…balancing on rocks, sneaking around plants, holding perfectly still, tempting them with cheese…nothing worked! haha sadly I caught no baby fish…they were just too quick! All this time Mark was lounging under the bridge:

Not too long ago there was water rushing out of the lake and under the bridge, but when we came up the water was SO much lower it was crazy!

There are a TON of dragonflies here! Almost everywhere you look you will see one….one thing I didn’t see:

Any sign of swimmers itch :) I am itch free and it was so nice to stand in the cool water that I think I’ll do it again next time!

Out of What?

2011-07-29T09:11:00.001-07:00

There is a Chinese Buffet here in Brigham that is pretty cheap and has AMAZING coconut shrimp. Seriously some of my favorite shrimp I have ever had in my life! :D

They also have really yummy vanilla soft serve. Unfortunately the week before we went the ice cream machine attacked some customers. It spewed on them, leaked on them, sprayed at them and even attempted to suck a small child into the well that holds the ice cream. Because of this tragic event the machine was labeled:

and was not producing the vanilla soft serve :( We happily ate our coconut shrimp and cream cheese wontons and left…feeling a little disappointed that the ice cream machine had very unfortunately gone out of control.

Aerial Fireworks!

2011-07-28T22:45:00.000-07:00

Mark and I went to a firework stand. We asked the guy behind the table to please show us the coolest aerial fireworks….(guy gets excited thinking he’s going to make some money) then we crushed his world when we added “under 10 dollars” haha :D

He started showing us the “best ones under 10” while casually throwing things in like “but the super blast is so cool it does this that and the other and it is only 20” or “on the other side we have the cobra that is almost the same as this 5 dollar one but with more shots for only 25 bucks!” (He was really holding onto his dream)

We spent $7 dollars at his fireworks stand and we were excited about it!

Don’t mind the rad photo effects….I’m cool like that

I chose the “Saturn Missles” and Mark chose one called “All in” his was definitely the coolest but mine was the loudest!! :D

Then we went to The Wal (anyone?) and bought a pack for 10 dollars of lots of little fireworks and our show could finally begin!

Well it could have if Mark wouldn’t have been hungry…..

This picture is the only one I got of our grand finale…I knew it wouldn’t last long so I didn’t want to waste the moment looking at it through the camera…so I pointed it up and took a picture.

Don’t worry. The feelings you are having right now of wishing you could go back to the 24th of July and do cool fireworks like us are normal. They may or may not pass but either way you will be alright. ;)

Seriously? #2

2011-07-21T00:51:00.001-07:00

Remember THIS POST from Sunday night? On Monday I went to the gym and went to the bathroom and found this:

Pardon the toilet pictures but…really? A MOTH! In the toilet just hours after I saw a ginormous spider in the toilet? no. sorry but that is just not cool.

If you asked Mark or really anyone close to me what I was afraid of they would hopefully know me well enough to say:

SPIDERS, MOTHS, CHUCKIE, and VENTRILOQUIST DUMMIES (along with not being able to breathe out of my mouth and nose simultaneously…) haha

I hope that I am spared of any other bug in toilet incidents for a while because I am feeling rather traumatized at the moment.

Super “89”

2011-07-21T00:05:00.001-07:00

I got a gift card to the local movie theatre from my boss a few weeks ago. She is so amazing and sweet and I just love working for her. I am so sad that the summer is ending so soon. We decided that we would go see Super 8 during a Matinee so that we would only have to pay a little bit…come to find out that the gift card covered the whole movie for both of us! :) It was so fun to go out on a free date to the MOVIE THEATRE! (kinda like restaurants we rarely go to the movies..that is young married life for you I guess ;) we don’t mind though because no matter what we always have fun together)

When we got to the movie theatre it was EMPTY and it ended up that no one showed up but us. So we decided to play hide and seek in the theatre like 5 year olds and it was so fun! (one of us would hide and then the other had to guess where in the theatre they were hiding) I hadn’t seen Mark in 2 and a half days because he was in Cincinnati and I loved having him back, but the fact that he was willing to play hide and seek in a movie theatre with me reaffirmed that I am the luckiest girl married to the most amazing fun loving guy…I love that we can do anything together and have a fun time! :)

Now on to the “89” part of my blog post.

On the day we went to Maddox we took this bad boy:

To get to Maddox you have to go on Highway 89. The speed limit on Highway 89 in this area is 50…our scooter’s odometer tops out at 40. Normally when we are both on the scooter we can go 35 MAX and that is downhill or on a perfectly flat surface. Going uphill is another story, normally a speed of 25ish is lucky if we are on a hill. Needless to say this was a hilarious as well as intense experience. (In which I could not stop giggling for the life of me) at one point we were going down hill and we had topped out the odometer at 40…but we could have been going faster! Cars kept passing us though so we must have just “looked” slow to them. I mean seriously we were making good time! It was definitely our scooters/our wildest ride!

Its Classroom Time!

2011-07-20T23:55:00.001-07:00

I was given the go-ahead to start setting up my classroom for this coming school year. Mark being the sweet husband that he is traveled with me to American Fork/Provo last Saturday and helped me pick up all my teaching stuff from storage and move it to my classroom. Then he set up the desks (using the diagram I drew on the whiteboard for reference haha) and he SCRUBBED THEM! They were so dirty before and now they are sparkly clean. Then he attached nametags to all of the desks and helped me put up paper for my bulletin boards. Am I a lucky girl or what?

There is still SO much to do, but I am really grateful for the start he helped me get! :)

Maddox

2011-07-20T23:08:00.001-07:00

There is a restaurant in Brigham City called Maddox. As soon as people find out you are new to Brigham they say, “have you eaten at Maddox yet?” It is a big deal here! We had decided we wanted to eat there once before we moved back to Provo. It is a little pricy but we decided to just go for it as an early “anniversary” dinner. (I actually was going to surprise Mark and take him there ON our anniversary but it’s a good thing I didn’t stick with that plan because I won’t even be home on our anniversary day…I’ll be in Provo while Mark is here. :( Mark got a 32 oz Porterhouse steak. It was HUGE. It was 3x as big as the steak I ordered and took up his whole plate! He had plenty of leftovers the next day!

They had the BEST rolls I have ever had in my life. They melted in your mouth and had raspberry butter…which I LOVED but Mark liked the regular butter better. They also had homemade sodas there, our waitress said we could try them all if we wanted for the same price so we tried:

Homemade root beer
Homemade Cream Soda
Homemade Sarsaparilla

The Cream Soda won the prize for the best but I also loved the Sarsaparilla! I had never had it before but it tasted like root beer with black licorice(which I love) and it was pretty good!

All in all it was a fun dinner :) We don’t do things like this very often at all…normally we try to just eat food from home and we rarely eat out so this was a special treat and a nice little night out of our basement. If you are ever in Brigham check out Maddox…I don’t think you will be disappointed!

My Family Monday

2011-07-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

After I left California and Mark left for Cincinnati I knew that I wanted to spend some time with my family to help me to not be so lonely. Mark had been gone before but I still don’t like when he is gone or when we are apart. I just miss him :) Its cause I love him! Anyways I went to visit my Mom and Bridger First:

After Bridger woke up from his nap I convinced my mom to let me play in the water with him. He didn’t really want much to do with me but it was fun to watch him play. I sure love him!

I love spending time with my mom. She is such an amazing woman and so giving of all of her time to others. I love her! I am always sad to leave after a day of hanging out with her.

Of course I had to say hi to my beloved dog Pumpkin! :) She is getting so old it is sad. But she still tries to do tricks for me!

We dropped Bridger off with Tassie at the doctor and then it was off to Bed Bath and Beyond and Ross…where we met up with Tyler to buy him some shirts…we passed the Oquirrh Mountain Temple on the Way.

When we got to Ross we thought Tyler wanted to get some new skate shoes and shirts but he had other ideas:

Try to tell me that your little brother is funnier than mine and I will not believe you! I love my little bro so much he can always make me laugh and that is one of my favorite qualities about him :D

After “shopping” we went home to have dinner. My dad is also another person that cracks me up he ate his dinner on a little chair next to the high counter:

After dinner I headed over to Jereme and Tassies to spend the night. It was Jeremes birthday so of course Tassie and I had planned a sleepover to celebrate. (hahaha luckily my big brother loves me and decided that it would be okay….I may or may not have told him he couldn’t have his present if he wouldn’t let me sleep over) lol

Right when he was blowing out his candle Bridger reached up and grabbed an M&M haha

Thanks so much to my family for keeping me company when my hubby was gone! :) I love you!

What do you say we leave for California?

2011-07-18T03:04:00.001-07:00

That is one of our favorite songs to sing. Mainly because we always wish we could go to California and go to the beach and see Marks family more than we are able to. Well our dreams came true this last weekend. Mark had an intern convention thing for P&G that he was going to in Cincinnati, OH. He found out that he could take a business personal trip as long as the cost for a flight did not exceed the cost of his original planned flight to Cincinnati. Somehow he managed to find a flight to California and then Cincinnati that was cheaper than the original! :D No idea how that makes sense but it worked for us. Then it was decision making time. Could we afford to buy a plane ticket for me? After a lot of talking and looking and thinking we decided that we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to have us both fly to Cali for the weekend for 300 bucks! (this probably wouldn’t happen again) We got a ticket for me and off we went. Here are some pictures from our fun weekend!

We played monopoly deal in the terminal and on the plane :) It was our sole form of entertainment. Unless you count the in flight trivia….which we WON! haha When we had almost landed we started playing this trivia game against 10 other passengers on the plane on the little screens on the seats. By the end it was us and 2 other people in the running. After finding out we answered the last question right we had to wait in suspense to see if the other players got it right. After a few seconds: KJ WINS! popped up on the screen. I was pretty much on cloud nine haha

LA on our way to the beach the first day. Our first stop was Venice Beach (home to lots of weird people) and then we walked from Venice to the Santa Monica Pier. I was in heaven all day it was so much fun.

We watched a crazy street performer hammer a nail into his nasal cavity and then swallow a sword…that was pretty crazy and gross to see up close lol

We bought Mangos and Pineapple from a street vendor. She put chili powder, salt, and lemon juice on them. They were so good! :D

We stopped and watched some people at a skate park for a while…

I saw lifeguards just like on Baywatch!! haha NOT! Baywatch is a lie

The beach was so crowded it was crazy!!

We were just laying there when a group of Asian guys in suits walked down by the water with a whole entourage. The posed for pictures and even did a choreographed head bob thing…conclusion: they must be an Asian Pop Band or something like it. haha

We loved getting some sun…but didn’t put on enough sunscreen! We were partially fried the next day :)

I’m so happy to be at the beach! I jump and do handstands…. :)

There is nothing…well almost nothing…I love more than walking all along the beach holding hands with Mark. Just close enough to the water that our feet get wet every time a wave comes in.

Walking to the pier was a lot of fun. This was definitely a good people watching day haha

This guy promised everyone he would flip over a kid standing on his mat and land on the star on the other side. I guess he was a chicken because all he ended up doing was a flip off of a trash can. There was a guy swimming in the ocean! He was pulling a floaty behind him…I would be afraid to get eaten by sharks!

We watched a guy catch a fish off of the Pier…it was a lot smaller than it seemed when he was reeling it in.

There were SO many nice cars there! It was crazy…this one had a matte finish :) Kinda cool!Jennifer Aniston made her prints 2 days before we got to Hollywood!

Cher is the most common name people try to call me when they “can’t” say my name. It is also the name I dislike the MOST! Naturally I had to get a picture with her haha

Somehow I am related to Cary Grant! :) This was fun seeing that he had his foot/hand prints at the theatre…over 50 years ago!

Thank you, Thank you very much….haha this picture is one of my favorites of the trip! :) The man himself Elvis Presley!

We ate dinner that night at Hard Rock Café with Stacy and Andy. Andy isn’t in these pictures because he was busy trying to get us a table. We were given a buzzer and when it went off the girl took it from Andy and then walked very briskly away. When she came back she acted like she didn’t know who Andy was…like she had never seen him before in her life! haha So he tried to explain that our buzzer had gone off and that we were ready to be seated…lets just say that it took a while but eventually we were lead to our table. It was a fun dinner and the food was great. (I had the best fish burger I had ever eaten-salmon) We did have to yell a lot over the music videos that were playing while we were eating though which brought a different dynamic to the experience haha

The next day after church we had a nice lunch with artichokes, baked potatoes, and steak. Mark and his mom tag teamed it in the kitchen for a while and it was fun to watch :) They have the best relationship!

I am in love with Marks house. I love the red tile roof and all the plants, flowers, and trees around it :) Plus I just love the design in general.

After lunch we drove to Malibu! Marks mom came with us but not his dad because he was really sick :( The houses there are ridiculous and huge! The drive on the PCH (pacific coast highway) is really pretty I loved it.

After making it through the crazy amounts of traffic we got to our destination:

El Matador Beach

We had fun watching the waves crash against the rocks. I loved this beach it was so pretty. The only cons were that it was really windy, and that it had the most disgusting bathrooms in the history of earth.

These pictures of Mark and his mom with their towels makes me laugh :) Like mother like son…

Mark likes to take pictures of me when I don’t know that he is haha….

Don’t turn your back on the ocean!? Psssh who needs that rule? haha this is my surprised face as I get hit with a wave I didn’t know was coming :)

These next pictures make me laugh. Mark was about to get down when a wave came in. It is funny to see the water get closer and closer to where he would have been.

Last but not least: this made me laugh and I had to get a picture of it! I want to have a funny picture above my house number some day :)

We went back and had Malts and watched a movie. The next morning was pretty sad for me. Mark and I both were leaving for 2 different airports. He would be gone for the next 2.5 days and I sure was sad to say good bye to him!! All in all it was an amazing trip but much too short!

Seriously?

2011-07-18T00:06:00.001-07:00

So I am up with Velda tonight. I go downstairs to go to the bathroom and almost have a heart attack because there is a spider on the back of the bathroom door. I kill the spider with a tissue and go to drop it in the toilet when heart attack #2 happens…I found a ginormous spider doing the backstroke in our toilet. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom after that haha

Pardon the toilet picture but really? I am sure anyone familiar with the common toilet would be able to see that the swimming spider is huge! I flushed it and it tried to swim to the side so it could crawl out of the toilet!! eek swimming spiders??….I am so creeped out now

Jackson #2 :)

2011-07-15T07:30:00.001-07:00

After our river rafting trip we headed over to “Bar T 5” for a show! (dinner included)

Coon/Skunk skin hats anyone??

I really like this picture of Mark. It wasn’t originally supposed to be of him though! He was just “posing” so I could get a picture of my Grandma! (this is not really her but it is her TWIN! haha when Mark pointed it out I had to do a double take)

All of us ready to go out into the wild wild west!

Mountain man warning us to turn back because the Indians will scalp us! haha

The show was pretty good and fun! :) The food was really good too!

Rachel’s feet were cold during the show so Kyle made these sandal covers for her. It was really like we were living in the wild! haha

After a night of some good rest we woke up to get ready to go Hiking at Jenny Lake.

This is our camp! Our space pod is on the left Kyle and Rachel’s normal tent on the right haha

Toasting My Bagel

Good Morning Kyle and Rachel! Comin back from their bathroom break looking refreshed and ready to go!

I could have taken pictures of the Tetons all day long. They are so pretty!

The lake was so pretty and clear. This is Mark being our fearless leader :)

Our first sign of wildlife! A yellow bellied marmot!

The lake was so high it flooded the trail in some places.

First we hiked to Hidden Falls. The amount of water coming down was insane! It was so powerful it was crazy. It would wash you away in a heartbeat.

Mark standing in front of the raging river. You can’t really tell it is raging here but if you were there you would believe me! :) He is also doing a great impersonation of Kyle:

Next up was Inspiration Point. I guess we were supposed to be kissing in these pictures…who knew! haha

Marks turn with the camera:

Our feet were killing us so we stopped and got into the freezing water! It felt so good…and your feet were numb in only a few minutes haha

We didn’t want our trip to be over yet but didn’t have anything else planned. I knew there was a Tram you could ride at Teton Village so we went there to look into doing that. We saw that it was $29 bucks a person and we abruptly changed our minds and decided to just walk around for a while. We overheard this lady saying,”we just saved 140 dollars and it has the same view!” and “I can’ believe it is FREE” so Mark and I decided to follow them. When we got to the free thing they were talking about it was a different tram! It went pretty much as high as the other one and was absolutely free. So we took advantage of that:

When we got to the top it was like being on top of the world! You could see everything! :)

As we were driving back to camp we found our FAVORITE view of the Tetons as well as an antelope :)

One of his antlers was growing out of the front of his head instead of the top…poor guy :(

We got back to camp and made the BEST tinfoil dinners! Then we went to sleep. The next day after quickly packing up the camp we went and got bagels, stopped at Lunch Counter Rapids to take pictures and then we were off back to our homes…it was really sad for the trip to be over but we had a blast!

I wish you could tell from the picture just how huge of a hole is on the other side of that rapid. It is insane that we went through it! haha

What a fun time! It was fun to be spontaneous and go on a mini vacation! Thanks Kyle and Rachel for being our Jackson Hole camping buddies :)

Fourth of July in Jackson Part 1

2011-07-08T07:03:00.001-07:00

Disclaimer: this post is super long! With tons of pictures… I just didn’t want to leave anything out because I want us to be able to remember it later :)

Mark and I spent the weekend of the 4th in Jackson Hole, WY with our good friend Kyle and his wife Rachel. We had a blast! I took about 1,000 pictures…haha not really but like 400. I’ll try not to post them all.

We started our trip Friday afternoon and after a few hours of driving decided to stop in Garden City, UT-by Bear Lake and get shakes.

I’ve been to Bear Lake before…but it was a long time ago! I forgot how BIG it was :D

I love how in Garden City every single shake place was “famous” it made us laugh :)

Next up we drove…and drove and drove here are some pictures from that drive:

My nephew has his own National Forest! :) I think this elk antler archway was almost cooler than the ones in Jackson! The Star Valley Star on the mountain…pretty cool!Our first view of the Tetons…they are so amazing! This is Mark trying to figure out where we are and where we need to go. He is also getting eaten alive by mosquitos. Never fear a scantily clad girl in a sports bra came to his rescue and even called her dad for him to find out where to go. It doesn’t hurt having an attractive husband…who just happened to leave his wedding ring at home haha :D

After sporty spice gave us the directions we were off to our campground. The boys sawed wood (thanks to our kind neighbor who shared his saw) and the girls put up the tents. Then we made hot dogs and s’mores! To finish off the night Rachel told us stories of how her work is haunted…true first hand experience stories. They were a little creepy if I was her I would have quit my job by now!

Our camping neighbors also gave us this color packet to throw on the fire to make it change colors…it kind of worked?

As you can tell by the food eating faces: we were hungry! As far as the picture below goes the fire was NOT that high! Our camera was just adding “cool” fire effect to the pictures lol

This was such a good night with so many more to come. The next day we woke up, ate breakfast, explored Jackson, and went RIVER RAFTING! While we were exploring we came across this store:

It seemed like a nice store! So many things to look at and of course take pictures with because we are TOURISTS.

Oh ya! He was meant to be a cowboy! I love this picture! As well as the ones below…he seriously cracks me up :)

We were having a very good time until the man pictured here said to me: “did you ask if you could take pictures in here?!” (let it be known that he asked this in the absolute most “I hate fun and joy and happiness and think it should die” voice) I told him no…haha but I mean hello! He was asking a total rhetorical question and he knew it! We left the store after that. Later on when we were walking by we saw this sign:

Oops! :) I didn’t look at the sign…it was on the top of some belt buckles! For all I knew it was a sign about the belt buckles so I ignored it. If you look close in the picture above of our friend it says: “NO DRINKS…or food” seriously dude LIVE A LITTLE! I hope that if you ever go to Jackson you will pop into Stones Mercantile and take a little photo for me, will you?

We stopped in the Ripley's Believe it or not entrance…that is as far as we got. It was way over priced!

Stopping to pose with some Statues…

We found out that Kyle and Rachel tried to get a magnet from every place that they went. We do it too so we were on a quest to find the best magnet. Mark and I stayed in a store while Kyle and Rachel started to walk across the street. We decided the store had lame magnets and went outside to find out that they had just barley started crossing. I wish I had gotten a better picture but in a nutshell Mark scared Kyle to death and Kyle threw his whole cup of ice at Mark haha the picture below is the only one I have of the moment…Our next stop was White Water Rafting! We were so excited about this. We signed up to go in the “teeny tiny boats” they only take 6 people in those and it was supposed to be a wild ride! They called us Friday and said that it was just too high and dangerous and that we’d have to go in an 8 person boat. We were a little disappointed but at the same time happy that it seemed like it was going to be a wild ride! The 8 person was still a blast, we flew off of our “seats” a few times, screamed and yelled a lot and wanted to go again as soon as it was over. Mark and I were the lead paddlers and sat in the very front, that was pretty intense! None of us fell out of the raft though…Rachel and I jumped in during a slow spot and I have never had my breath taken away like I did in that moment. I guess the water was like 38 degrees and even though we had wetsuits on it was COLD! Mark says he will never forget my face as I came out of the water haha he said that my eyes were about as wide as he had ever seen them. He pulled me back in pretty quick though…gotta love a hubby who is good at a rescue!

The wetsuits were so attractive…I wish someone would have told me how “unattractive” my sexy pose was haha everyone else had good wetsuit modeling poses though so I am sacrificing myself in putting the picture up.

You can look at watermarked pictures of our trip here
Snake River Photo and here Float O Graphs

They are way too expensive or we would totally buy one!

I’m going to end this post now because there are still 1 1/2 days and it is getting pretty long. I guess it will be the same in the end if anyone besides my future self reads all of the posts but I feel better breaking it up for some reason :D

Aerial Silks

2011-06-30T23:48:00.001-07:00

During this summer in Brigham I am coaching gymnastics at a place called The Peak. It is a blast and I am loving it! Everyone that works there is awesome and it is the greatest atmosphere. I love teaching and seeing the gymnasts learn new things and the excitement they have when they accomplish something, it is so rewarding and makes me even more excited to be teaching second grade in the fall.

At The Peak there are some silks hanging in the cheer room. A couple of the girls that work there asked me the other day if I wanted to “climb silks” with them after our meeting. I have always thought it would be fun to try so off I went to the cheer room…I was a little nervous hoping that I wouldn’t make a fool of myself because I was the only “newbie” in the room. I found out three things:

1. I am NOT as strong as I used to be or as strong as I thought I still was.

2. My knees hyper extend much more than I ever thought they did…

3. If you want to get your flexibility back in a matter of seconds silks are the way to go haha

First Position I tried: This was not really what I was supposed to be doing but It just felt right….haha Super Woman! Next I went upside down:

Next came the Splits…I was very caught up in the moment at this point and didn’t realize that I was doing my bad leg of splits…my right side would have been much more impressive.

This last one was my favorite but man did it take some work getting up there! (This was my main “I thought I was stronger than this moment”)

I love the above picture and at the same time my bottom leg creeps me out…it is so hyper extended! haha

Silks are pretty sweet. It is so crazy how a few simple wraps around your body or your feet will hold you up but it does! I told Mark “Americas got talent here I come!” He said I should probably practice a little bit more first…I don’t know what he is talking about ;) jk This was a lot of fun though and I can’t wait to learn more!

When we wish we had our camera…

2011-06-27T07:12:00.001-07:00

Last weekend on Saturday I attempted to go to American Fork to pick up some things for my internship…it didn’t go so well to make a long story short. I stayed in American fork for about 4 hours only to come home with nothing. It is pretty much a 2 hour drive there and a 2 hour drive back so I was pretty disappointed and sad that I had missed out on a whole Saturday with Mark :(

I got back and Mark suggested we go outside because it was really warm. We ended up exploring Brigham City on foot. They were having some sort of arts festival with all of these people who knew how to do old styles of metal working and wood working and stuff. We watched a guy make a hatchet and another guy make a chair…it was kinda cool. Then we went to the “car show” it was pretty hilarious. One of the featured cars was a 2011 something or other convertible and it had a big dent in the front…the coolest car was this army jeep that was renovated. We didn’t have our camera or even our phones so we don’t have pictures of any of these things.

We kept walking down main street when we saw:

Okay we didn’t’ see this guy…the guy we saw was very thin and frail but about the same age. He was metal detecting at:

The bank!! Haha it was after hours on Saturday and he had this tiny long shovel and was walking around on the grass outside the doors…it was so funny :)

We kept walking to look at the Temple and go on a tour of the Tabernacle. As we were going we saw:

Okay not this either but an elderly moderately overweight couple zipping down the sidewalk on Segway's. The lady had such crazy hair we could not stop laughing and yet we didn’t have our camera!

It was a fun night though. Mark is the king at finding a way to cheer me up when I’m feeling bummed. He even took me to a Chinese buffet. Which is my favorite! haha I love the endless amounts of Chinese food especially the shrimp…and this buffet had shrimp in a coconut sauce that were AMAZING I loved them! So all in all it ended up being a nice relaxing night full of laughs and wishes of having a camera or even our phones.

Bike Rack

2011-06-27T06:52:00.001-07:00

The other day I went to WalMart on my bike. I searched for the bike rack. I finally found it on the far side of the store right next to:

The employee smoking area!

I was like seriously? There were about 5 employees practically sitting on the bike rack smoking…okay they were sitting on a bench next to the bike rack but I had to inhale the noxious fumes while I locked up my bike. I think one of the top 5 worst things in life is inhaling cigarette smoke it just is so gross and always makes me wonder how people smoke in the first place. Needless to say I was pretty upset because I choose not to smoke, I chose to ride my bike to be healthy, and then I have to sit there and breathe in their bad decisions….or at least to me I think it is a bad decision and for all of the smokers that don’t have you ever watched this:

This video makes Mark cringe every time….

Anyway…as you can see I don’t want to be inhaling secondhand smoke. So, I emailed Wal Mart. The next day I got a phone call from the store manager saying the bike rack was moved to a different location. I looked the other day when Mark and I were there and it is in the front of the store! :) I felt so special and important to find out that they actually moved it! (even though I know I’m not haha) I’m also happy that I don’t have to breathe in smoke when I ride my bike to Wal Mart lol

When we don’t want to go home…

2011-06-27T01:42:00.001-07:00

Saturday was one of my favorite days this last week. Mark has been working really hard and long hours…I miss him and feel like the weekends are heaven because I get to see him all day each day! On Saturday I came downstairs from staying the night upstairs with Velda and got to sleep for like 1 hour snuggled up with my man…then it was time to get up and get ready for a wedding! Marks friend Dustin (from Best Buy) was getting married in Plain City UT. This city is near Farr West…Farr West is probably our favorite city in Utah due to the fact that it is very easy to say in a hickish accent extending the R’s out. (just imagine you are a cowboy and now say: Farrrrrrrr West…fun right? Well it makes us laugh anyways)

The wedding was fun and we got to catch up with Kat and Natalia…and other best buy people that Mark had fun seeing but pretty much for me Kat and Natalia were the highlight :)

After the wedding we knew that we didn’t want to go home yet…we are always cooped up in the little basement and it is so nice to just be out and about together.

So we explored…we found a dirty looking waterfall by the road and some prettier waterfalls up on the mountain. We found an old house falling down plus an amazing view of Willard Bay, and lastly we found out that taking pictures with a camera that pretty much stays zoomed in is a little tricky but also hilarious ;)

Don’t mind the ugly faces to come….haha these are just for MEMORIES! :)

Mark is a sneaky photographer…he takes pictures without me even knowing-like when I’m running to a rock so he can take my picture haha :)

Naturally I can’t just stand on the rock… I have to do something “impressive” I climbed up there in a pencil skirt after all ;) Unfortunately pencil skirts are not very stretchy so I was not really impressive after all haha

I loved spending the whole day with this studly fellow :) He is lookin good! Yes, I know it is a back view…I think he looks good from behind haha!! ;)

When I saw him in this next picture I yelled, “DON’T DO IT!” doesn’t he kinda look like is is contemplating jumping??

The view from where we were was amazing…I could have sat there and looked forever. I bet it would be a sweet sunset location!

We ended the day watching repeats of shows that we had missed earlier in the week :) And taking a few more pictures with my phone….

I know what you all are thinking…it is okay to wish you were us…haha jk ;)

Who Planks?

2011-06-27T00:31:00.001-07:00

So when I first heard of planking on the news I have to admit my first response was: That is the dumbest thing I have ever seen. Who does that? I told Mark about it and he agreed it was a little bit weird……..

Today we were at the park, we were on a bridge when Mark said,”you should plank on the railing” hahaha I cracked up until I realized he was serious. So 1 minute later I was “planking” in an amateur fashion on the railing of a bridge hoping that I did not fall into the water:

I then decided that if I had to plank than Mark had to plank! We found a frisbee golf goal and he planked on that. (it was at this point we realized that Mark is good at planking and I am not quite as good at achieving the plank position)

Mark decided I needed to plank on the golf goal too…and then on a drinking fountain (I got wet haha):

I think this was my most straight plank above…the one below shows how bad I am at making my body straight…I’m just starting a new style of planking: CURVY PLANKING :D

Last but not least I convinced Mark he needed to plank on the scooter! haha this was one of my favorites:

In the end we found that planking is HILARIOUS we could not stop laughing and I think we might be addicted to planking after only one experience. I am looking forward to our planking adventures in the future!

A tip for all my avid blog readers: don’t bash this until you try it…I promise that even if you are too embarrassed to post pictures you will at least have some good laughs and memories with your planking buddies :)