New Apartment!

We moved into a new apartment on November 1st but I haven’t had a chance to post about it. It is a bigger apartment with two bedrooms, no stairs, more space, and washer and dryer hook ups.

We got our washer and dryer for free from a friend of a friend. They are old but they work, although we did have one mishap: on daylight savings I woke up at 5:00 in the morning and asked Bryan why the washer was still going. One of the hoses had cracked and flooded half our bathroom, the hallway and a little into the two rooms adjacent to the washer. Luckily it was clean water and we just spent the next few days letting it dry out. So we bought new hoses for the washer and now it works great, but I don’t leave the water turned on unless I’m doing laundry.

Here is a picture of the hallway, the bathroom door is open on the left. In front of that is a closet, behind it is a second bedroom and across from the bedroom is our room.  I am really glad to have the shelves and cupboards at the end of the hall, it’s a good place to put decorations.

 

Above is our kitchen with a dishwasher and lots of cupboard space! Below is our living room with our Christmas tree. The toys in the bottom left corner are for Aiden who is 14 months and comes over a lot.

Last week we went to a friends’ apartment and helped them decorate their tree so this week they came and helped us decorate ours. Here are some pictures of us decorating our new apartment.

Bryan and Nephi set up the tree and put on the lights. It took them a minute to figure out which was the bottom portion.

Thumbs up! The lights are on and we’re ready to decorate.

Hannah put up a nativity scene while Nephi helped me hang some garland.

Bryan decided he wanted to be decorated too. You can see at the bottom corner where he is plugged into the wall. Hannah and I love our charming husbands.

November

November has gone by pretty fast and all of a sudden we’re looking at two weeks left of school. We spent Thanksgiving in Centerville, UT and had a great time for the time we could be there. Bryan ended up working late Wednesday and early Friday so we couldn’t be there very long but Thanksgiving Day was a relaxing day. We went to Layton for some family pictures and then back to Dad and Karen’s for dinner.  There were about 30 people there, which means lots of food and lots of left overs.

Here are some pictures at Gordon and Karen’s having pie.

 

 

 

 

Carson, Emily, Kimberlee, and Bryan.

Karen and Dad; Kelley and Daphne.

This is some of Karen’s family: her sister and brother in-law on the left and niece and nephew and friend on the right.

They had a lot of fun playing with the nerf guns although they weren’t very good at playing baseball with them.

Parties in October

This month we attended a couple of great parties, mostly with family.  We were invited to a 1920’s murder mystery dinner-the Grand Opening of the Four Deuces, a new speakeasy, all dressed in 1920’s appropriate attire (at least what we could find).  Just before we were to start dinner a prominent guest was murdered.  Inspector, Matt Kerr, (who was there investigating a murder from the night before) took charge of the situation and enlisted us all in helping to find the murderer and thus clear ourselves.  While socializing we were trying to gather information about the murder and to further our own agenda for the evening. (We had all been given characters to play with pieces of gossip, knowledge, instructions, and money.)  During our investigating another guest was murdered, who many people had thought committed the first murder, so that threw us off the scent and only one person guessed the murders correct at the end of the game.  They gave out certificates for those with the most money: Dustin, the host; the best acting: the first victim; and the best costume: me!   It was a great night and I got to try a new meatball recipe that turned out really good. It uses apple jelly and grape juice, which I’ve never thought to use for a meatball sauce but it works.

Halloween was very busy.  Bryan dressed up as a Samurai and I dressed up as Princess Peach for a LAN (computer) party and played video games to 3:00 in the morning.  Kimberlee was voted most attractive female, Matt was voted best overall and most original and I was voted best fit (character/personality).  I had not played the games we played before and had fun with most of them.  The next day (Saturday) we stayed at Dad and Karen’s for their Halloween party and got to see lots of costumes, eat food, and play rock band.  Then on Sunday we went to the Birthday Bash at Grandma and Grandpa Gordon’s to have more treats and fun.  It was an exciting weekend we got to see lots of family and friends.

Lockout!

Bryan and I decided to go on a date to get a root beer float from A&W. We got dinner from Wendy's and since we had gone through the drive through, we sat in the A&W parking lot to eat. While sitting there Bryan rolled down his window for a time, then rolled it back up and left the keys in the ignition; so when we got out of the car we locked the keys inside. Unfortunately his wallet was also in the car and our lights were on. We would have walked home and got my keys but weren't sure the car battery would last that long so we called our friend, Nephi, and asked him to bring my keys to us. He was really nice to stop studying for his test the next day and bring us the keys. We had our root beer float while we waited for him since the coupon had been in Bryan's pocket and didn't require us to buy anything. Once we had the keys we retrieved Bryan's wallet and bought Nephi a float as well. It turned out to be a very funny date.

Oatmeal Cookies

My mom gave us a book of family home evening activities for newlyweds. This week Bryan picked out an activity to make cookies but you have to look up scriptures to figure out the ingredients. So we took turns looking up scriptures and adding things to the dough and were having a wonderful time. When we had added all the ingredients and were ready to bake them the dough was really dry, powdery. We looked at the key at the bottom (which is there to be sure you don't mistake what the ingredients are) and found it included milk. There was no measurement or scripture to tell us to put in milk, shortening and eggs were the only wet ingredients listed in the recipe.

So we knew it needed milk but not how much. We tried looking up the book online to see if there was a correction and all we found was a review of someone who had the same problem we had and still didn't know how much milk was needed. We looked up other oatmeal cookie recipes but couldn't find any consistency. So we added a little bit at a time and probably put about 3/4 cup in. The cookies turned out really great though. So if you want to use this as a family home evening activity here's the recipe. (I added the scripture and measurement for milk.)

Beat together:

1/3 cup Psalms 55:21

1 1/2 cups Jeremiah 6:20

2 Isaiah 10:14

3/4 cup Judges 5:25

Add:

2 cups 1 Kings 4:22

1 tsp song of Solomon 4:14

1 tsp D&C 101:39

1/2 tsp 1 Corinthian 4:6

3 cups D&C 89:17

1 cup 1 Samuel 30:12

Drop by spoonful onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 F for 15 min, but not before reading Joseph Smith History 1:37 and D&C 133:11

Key: Beat together butter or shortening, sugar (1 cup brown, 1/2 cup white), eggs, and milk. Add flour, cinnamon, salt, soda (to make them "puffed up"), oats, and raisins.

What a week!

Three weeks into school and it's hitting us hard. We started out really good, getting up at 6:30 every morning and working out 3 times a week. I stayed up with my classes for the first two weeks and then caught a bug that put me behind. Luckily one of my instructors moved a due date back a week so I'll be caught up by the end of the week. Bryan tried really hard to get all his school work done while working part time, but on Sunday decided it was too much. So he dropped his least favorite class and that has let up the stress a bit. He also got sick this weekend, although not with what I had, but he is up moving around, going to school and should be able to go to work on Wednesday. The doctor says will take a few weeks for him to completely recover so he also dropped his PE class. He's working really hard and should be able to get back on top of everything.

To top it off we were rear-ended on Friday by a USU fireman in a USU car. I was driving and stopped at a stop sign to wait for a pedestrian, then pulled forward and stopped again to check for cars. The guy behind me didn't realize I had stopped a second time and hit the gas. His car was not damaged but his license plate number is tattooed onto our bumper. Our back bumper and reinforcement bar have to be replaced but it looks like the university will pay for it. The car is still drivable, you just have to jiggle the trunk a little to close it.

On a happier note, I am taking voice lessons this semester and really enjoying it. By the end of the semester I should be ready to sing at a recital. I am also very excited to be filling out papers for graduation! If all goes well I'll graduate next May. I am also nearly finished with my research paper for work so in the next 6-9 months I should have a published paper.

Bryan has found he really enjoys his Database class which is a good sign since that's what he just changed his major to. He also likes his marketing class ok, which is his minor so we know he's on the right track. It has been a very trying week but it looks like we'll pull through.

Lime Koolaid Ice cream

At one time we bought 2 packets of Lemon-Lime Koolaid and when we made the first one it tasted like green jello. We weren't very keen on drinking green jello so it has just been sitting on our shelf for a while. I finally found a recipe that used lemon-lime koolaid. It is a sherbert ice cream recipe that only takes milk, sugar, and flavoring and is really easy. We made it this weekend and it turned out really good. The recipe is:

1 cup sugar

1 pkg (.13oz) drink mix

3 cups milk

Mix all ingredients in a bowl until sugar is dissolved. Pour into a shallow pan, cover and chill in freezer for 1 hour or until thick. Pour into a bowl and mix until smooth. Cover and store in freezer. It is best to let it sit out to soften for ~20 min before serving.

You can use whatever drink mix brand, whatever flavor as long as it's not sweetened. You can also put fruit in it if you want, I read a review of someone who had used lemonade drink mix and grated lemon peel into the ice cream and said it was really good. You can also mix flavors. Some people said they used flavored soy milk to mix flavors and then they didn't need any sugar, or only a little bit. It may not taste as good with some flavors as with others.

Camping

Last week end we went camping with our neighbors, Nephi and Hannah Williams. In the mouth of green canyon a piece fell off of the Williams’ car. The car still worked but they didn’t want to drive it more incase that would make it worse. So we packed the 4 of us and all of our stuff in our car and kept driving. We spent a while looking for a campsite but eventually the boys found the perfect one. We immediately started dinner: mashed potatoes with bacon and cheese; and meatballs and gravy. While we waited for dinner we played a few rounds of hand and foot.

Here are Hannah and Nephi cleaning the Dutch ovens. It was quite dark by then so she was holding a light for him. We stayed up late enough for the fire to burn down to a few hot coals and then hit the sack. Here are Hannah and Nephi in their tent and me setting out our sleeping bags.

The next morning Nephi started the fire while Bryan started briquettes for breakfast: Dutch oven breakfast casserole.

We had a big day ahead of us helping build an addition onto a house in Brigham for Hannah’s brother so we packed up after one last round of hand and foot.

When we got back to their car Nephi called his dad and described the piece that had fallen off. His dad knew exactly where it went; it helped hold the belt on for the idle. He also said it would be ok to drive as long as the belt didn’t come off.

So we followed them straight to Auto Zone to make sure nothing else happened.

In this picture Nephi is describing the piece to his dad and trying to see where it is from.

Despite the car trouble we had a great time and hope to do it again before it gets too cold.

Wedding Photo editing

I am finally making it through my wedding photos so here are a few that I edited. I like the ones with Neil and Zackary because the colors are so vivid. The black and white with Debra and Alicia had too much light on the right hand side so I couldn't get the colors right but when I changed it to black and white I thought it worked great.

Swedish Twister

Our stake re-did our ward boundaries so now we are in the 10th ward. I went to a relief society meeting and we played Swedish twister. You start with everyone standing in a circle. One person uses their right foot to touch the person on their right. That person has to use the foot that was touched to touch the person on their right and it goes around and around the circle until you touch the floor with anything other than your feet.

Some of us just lost our balance.

a couple of girls had to stretch pretty far,

we tried to be kind of nice to the girls in skirts,

I think Shannon got the worst of it, she had a hard time walking for a little while afterward,

and some of us ended up in precarious situations.

It was tremendously fun.

Digital Scrapbooking

So I have been doing some digital scrapbooking for a while now, and looking at some other blogs I thought I'd see if this works. This is the first page of my Disneyland Album.

And here are some group pictures.

Lava Hot Springs

On Saturday Bryan and I went to Lava Hot springs in Idaho to the Nielsen family reunion. We spent just about the whole day tubing the river. It was too hot for the hot tubs and the swimming pool was too crowded to be able to swim. At the beginning of the run you get in right after a waterfall where the current isn't too strong. Above that waterfall is another one just past a real good swim area. Bryan and Kimberlee decided to try both waterfalls. We went down enough times to figure out exactly where and where not to to go to not flip over, at least on a 4 person tube. I think you would almost always flip over on anything smaller. The top waterfall throws you back and forth so it felt like we were in a pipe where you run up the sides of the pipe, though it wasn't too bad, I didn't feel like we were really going to fall off. Usually right after that someone has to get off and push us to the next waterfall because there is no undercurrent between the two, which is what make it a good swim area. The second waterfall has rapids right before it and is one you are more likely to flip on. One time we ended up down it on the wrong side of the rock while on a 4 person tube. We got folded in half and then flipped over. Kimberlee ended up stuck under the tube for a bit, luckily Chaselyn (who is 8) had her life jacket on. We all ended up scraped up though I think I was the luckiest with mostly just bruises. That was the only time I flipped. There are some other rapids that feel like they are going to sink your tube but we always popped out on top. The water wasn't too high but the current was really swift after the two waterfalls. On the first run most of us were on our own tubes and Bryan fell off at the first rapids and couldn't get on for a long ways and got fairly scraped up, though nothing serious. It was funny how as we went again and again the rapids seemed less scary. We did get a little bit burned but it was so much fun!

Disneyland Pictures

Here are some of my favorite pictures from Disneyland.

It is so fun to get dizzy!
After day two we were all exhausted and crashed on the cement.
Daphne and Sophie are being held up by their fathers.