Rexburg Oct 2015

Steve had a young men's camp-out this weekend and I had a 3 day weekend from school so Logan and I decided we would go to Rexburg and hang-out with our good friends Kayla and Jay, and see some other friends!

These boys have so much fun together!! They are exactly 6 months apart and are already the best of friends!

We then took the boys to Treehouse Nursery in Hibbard, ID. It was a lot of fun! They had the cutest little forest with stories of the 3 Little Pigs, Goldy Locks and the 3 Bears, etc.

My best friend and I :) Love this momma!! 4+ years of friendship going strong!!

This boy had such a blast in corn bin! We were finding corn kernels everywhere after we got home haha

In one of the little houses. It was just their size!!

My little buddy! 

 Such a cute momma!

Pretty momma and Jay Jay on a walk! 

So one of the days I was driving up to the Ricks building to go and see some professors.....I saw Rebekah (out of all the people) walking home on the sidewalk amongst a bunch of people. I pulled over and waited for her to get closer to my car and then jumped out and surprised her. She was on the phone and quickly hung up and questioned why I was in Rexburg. I took her back to her apartment and we chatted for a bit. She then mentioned that her fiance had to do an observation on a child and called him up to see if he could observe logan for his assignment. He came over a while later and watched him. Rebekah and her fiance are getting married in March and I'm so excited for them!!

On Saturday I went over to Alli's house to meet her new baby Olivia!! She is so adorable and just wanted to keep holding her! 

I also had time to go talk to Steve's sister Stephanie. We pushed Logan in the stroller and went on a long walk. It was so much fun!!

Logan and I then stayed at Courtney's house Saturday night. Courtney is our friend Kenny's fiance and Steve also grew up near her. She is renting this big house in Idaho Falls and it had plenty of room for Logan and I. It was nice to get to know her more and spend some time with her. Logan and I then left Sunday morning to head back to Ontario.

Trip to Utah

A couple weekends ago we made the drive down to Utah for a memorial. A family friend of mine died in a snowboarding accident about a month ago and left behind a wife and 3 young kids. The whole thing is just so, so sad and it breaks my heart for their family. The Orr family was the only other big family in my church branch growing up and they had 10 kids, while our family had 9. Aaron was the 3rd oldest, and though he was 6 years older than I was, I still remember a lot of things about him.

Saturday morning we met with Steve's old childhood friend, Jeff Prause, in Provo. We went out to breakfast and caught up with him. The last time we saw him was at our wedding 3 years ago, so it was nice to see him.

We attended the memorial Saturday afternoon in Cedar Hills. They had a funeral for him back in Wisconsin the week before and since so many family members live in Utah now they decided they would do a memorial there. The memorial was really uplifting and focused on the positive things in Aaron's life. Aaron was such a great guy and will be missed by many. After the memorial we had a chance to visit with family during the luncheon, and even though it wasn't on the best circumstances, it was great to see old friends.

Sami is one of the Orr's cousins and we were good friends growing up too, lots of Girls camp/stake activity memories with this girl! It was a bad hair day for me in this picture, as I forgot all of my hair product back in Oregon, Sami, Gemma, and Logan look cute though :) Oh and Logan did have pants on, but he ended up pulling Steve's bowl of soup off the table all over him and daddy (nice work son) ;)

Logan and Gemma. They were so cute together. 

 

 

After the memorial and luncheon we went back to our friends place we were staying at in Pleasant Grove. We stayed with the Barney's (Drew, Taylor, Brooklyn). Steve and Drew were roommates in college at BYU-I. Drew and Taylor were one of our really good married friends in Rexburg and it stinks that we live so far away from them now. We knew we wanted to stay with them when we came down for this trip and I'm so glad it worked out. They have a 5 month old daughter, Brooklyn, and she is such a little cutie!

Logan was sure hittin' on the girls this trip!

Taylor made us the best lasagna for dinner and after dinner we drove down to Draper to walk through IKEA. I love IKEA and hadn't been there in a few years so I told Steve we had to go. It was a lot of fun and I probably would have walked out with the whole store if I had the money.

Taylor and I and our babies (Logan and Brooklyn)

After IKEA we went to the Orr's house in Cedar Hills. It was really nice to hang out with them a little more since I haven't seen many of them in so long. We only stayed an hour or so, but Logan was way overtired and we had a long day already.

Logan and Gemma in their pj's!

Sunday morning we went to church with the Barney's and then made the drive back to Ontario! It was a good weekend! I think I convinced Steve that we need to move to Utah....now we just need to find a job :)

The Barney's and us after church. We sure do miss seeing them! 

Kayla's Baby Shower

The week after Logan and I got back from Wisconsin (post here), Steve, Logan, and I drove over to Rexburg, ID to throw my friend Kayla a baby shower. She threw me a cute, fun baby shower back when I was pregnant with Logan in March and I really wanted to throw her once since she put so much work into mine and since she is such a good friend. Kayla and I became best friends, kind of by default, because our husbands both grew up in the same town. Michael (Kayla's husband) is a year younger than Steve so they weren't in the same grade, but they still have been really good friends growing up. When we were living in Rexburg, Steve and Michael would always go skateboarding together at the skate park and go up to Grand Targhee Resort to ski/snowboard. Kayla and I have always just gotten each other (we both have crazy husbands) and we have so much fun when we are together.

We drove up on a Friday after work, but before driving not too far I remembered I saw some "green-like" liquid that was splashed up on the engine earlier that day. I was adding some windshield washer fluid to the car under the roof of the car and noticed it. I didn't remember to tell Steve about it until we had been driving for 20 minutes. We pulled over and looked at it and Steve came to the conclusion that there was a leak in our radiator. The leak was so small, you could only see small bubbles of the fluid where the leak was. We stopped at a gas station in Caldwell and filled up with some radiator fluid and drove the rest of the way to Rexburg with no problems.

Steve has a few friends in Rexburg that are good with cars, so they worked on our car during Kayla's baby shower on Saturday and replaced the radiator. It only cost roughly $100, verses the $300-$400 it would have cost at a car repair shop. Steve has really been wanting to do his own car maintenance instead of taking it in a shop, to learn and save money, so he was really happy that he got to do this with his 2 friends.

Michael teaching Logan how to skateboard young :) They have a mini skateboard that was perfect for him. 

Kayla's baby shower was Saturday afternoon at our friends Polly's house and it was so much fun!!

Logan seems to be enjoying it! 

Alli (Kayla and I's good friend) did all the decorating and it turned out so cute! I was in charge of the food and everyone seemed to enjoy it. We did a Hot Cocoa bar, apples and caramel, and a few other treats. 

I made this diaper cake for Kayla and I love how it turned out! 

She's so cute!!

We played some really fun games and everyone had a lot of fun! Kayla also got lots of cute, cute gifts!!! 

Thanks Alli and Polly for helping with everything!!! 

We still have a few married couple friends that live in Rexburg and Michael and Kayla made everyone dinner and had us all over! It was SOO good! We also played a round of Monopoly Deal. 

Sunday afternoon we went to church with Michael and Kayla and then said our goodbyes. 

We had such a good time in Rexburg and always love visiting our friends. Thanks Michael and Kayla for always being such great hosts and making our visit so fun! Can't wait until their little boy will be here. A little less than 6 weeks until her due date! 

Memorial Day Weekend: Ashton, Idaho

This past weekend Steve and I made the 5 hour drive to Rexburg to go camping with some of our married friends over the holiday weekend. We hadn't been camping since September of 2012 and have missed it a lot so we thought it would be fun before this baby comes.

We got to Rexburg Friday night and of course the first place we had to stop was Karie Anne's. Karie Anne's is an Italian Ice/Custard stand and it is pretty much the best stand in Rexburg (let alone anywhere)!!! The best thing to get there is their Gelati which is Italian Ice, Custard, and more Italian Ice. It is so good!!!

Saturday morning we had some maternity pictures taken by Paint the Sun Photography (the same gal who did our 2nd Anniversary pictures). I'm patiently waiting to see how they turned out! I can't believe that this baby will be here in 2 months and we'll soon be getting newborn pictures done for him. We headed out to Ashton later in the afternoon (30-40 minutes outside of Rexburg) to start our camping trip. We went with two other married couples and Brett (his wife was at a wedding in California so he was solo). Steve's friend (Brett) in-laws owns a cabin and some land in Ashton, ID and that is where we spent the rest of the weekend. The land they own sits on a lake so we enjoyed time on their dock fishing/jumping in the lake, kayaking/canoeing, played sand volleyball, played horseshoes, had campfires, played ladder golf, etc. We didn't stay in the cabin because the electricity and plumbing are off, but the whole point of the trip was to go camping outside and that is what we did. We set up our tents right when we got there and played around on the land. I don't think we would have gone camping without an air mattress and that was definitely a lifesaver especially at 7 months pregnant (glad we found one on sale at Cabela's a few weeks ago). For dinner we decided to forego making hotdogs and we all went to Frostop Drive-in down the road. They have really good homemade root beer and really good huckleberry shakes. We ended the night with a bonfire until it started raining.....the boys found something else to do which included catching wild rats/mice.

This is by far my favorite picture from the trip

It seriously felt like we were at a resort! I love this place!!!

Sunday morning we all got up and made breakfast burritos over our camp stoves (so good). We then decided to go to Warm River to feed the fish. There is a part in the river where you can't fish, swim, or boat so there are always lots of fish to feed. It was a lot of fun and they were all hopping of out the water to get the bread.

Steve and I

All the guys

L to R: Michael, Steve, Dan, and Brett (the 3 on right all lived in the same townhouses when they were single and Michael is from the same city Steve grew up in). They are all married now, crazy how time flies. 

After feeding the fish we went on a small hike up the road. It was a lot of fun and it was nice to see the scenery around. It is so beautiful up in this part of Idaho.

After our hike we made one last stop at Lower Mesa Falls and then turned back around towards our camp spot. The rest of the day we just enjoyed the land and camped again that night. The weather was so perfect and I even surprisingly made it without getting burnt (thank you sunscreen). At night it was also a perfect temperature and only got down to 45 or so degrees.

Playing sand volleyball

Polly caught the 1st fish (15 inch Rainbow Trout)

Steve kayaking

Steve and I canoeing. I was really reluctant at first because the canoe had a small hole in it and was letting in water. I don't know what I would do if the canoe flipped, but I grabbed a life jacket and went out hoping things would be ok, and it was. 

Kayla and Polly canoeing

Kayla and I. It was so good hanging out with her and the other gals for the weekend! 

Monday morning we all packed up our tents and played one last game of sand volleyball before heading back to Rexburg. We hung out the rest of the day with the Greenwood's, made our last stop at Karie Anne's again, and then made the drive back to Ontario later that afternoon. This was probably the best Memorial Day Weekend I have ever had. It was good to go camping and spend time with friends we love so much.

Aside from all of the fun we had I would like to thank all of those men and women who have served our country and who are serving our country today. They don't receive enough credit for what they've done/are doing. I love the country I live in and the freedoms we have.