It's about TIME!!

This blog is just to catch up on a few things that have happened in the past few months. It's quite long, so if you're up for the challenge, here it goes...I really wanted to blog at least once a week after we got back from Yellowstone, but school papers took priority. I’m pretty sure our blogs would have been too formally written because we’d be in “school paper writing mode” anyway.

I am graduating in May and I got all A’s this past semester. Mike was finally able to go to his advisor and they told him he has 5 more upper level classes he has to take. This means he’s going to take 4 in the coming semester and one in the summer. You may be wondering why he doesn't just take 5 classes this semester….history majors read A LOT. A LOT. So there is no way he would be able to keep up. He’ll still walk in May.

Mike got a job working as a supervisor at the Rock Wall at TWU. He LOVES his job. I’ve never seen him so excited to go to work every day. He loves the people he works with and what he does. If that job paid more and had benefits, I think he’d want to work there forever. 

This is Craig on the rockwall

At my job, I got to put together a play with the kids. They wrote most of the plays, we just fine tuned them so they were intelligible. That is one of my favorite things about this job. Silly as it sounds (because I want to go into counseling) I love any sort of live performance. Perhaps it’s because of my childhood and dancing for so many years, but I digress. The kids were awesome and the iPhones of the parents were filming. I love to see the pride of the parents and the children after their performance. Those big goofy smiles warm my heart. I’m really going to miss this job. I have to work as a substitute this semester because of one stinking class I HAVE to take to graduate. As much as I love those kids, I would LOVE to graduate more. I’ll be going from school to school to fill in where needed. This means I will not build relationships with the kids. Hopefully I’ll get to visit Newton Rayzor at some point.

The Turkey Trot went great. I ran for most of the 5K and Mike (because of his knee) walked it. It felt good to run. The only bad part was the amount of people. I’m glad so many people ran because of the donations to YMCA but to actually run was difficult. I’m pretty sure I ran at least 4 miles dodging people. We ran around down town Dallas. The roads in down town are very sloped. Unfortunately for the runners the walkers walked in the middle of the road where it’s relativity level so we were forced to run along the sloped part of the road. All in all it was fun but I think our next run will be one that is less crowded.

After running with my brothers

Nancy, Nathan, Mike and I went camping one weekend in the middle of November. Nancy and Nathan went up Friday night but Mike didn’t get off of work until 9:00 so we went up the next afternoon. Apparently, camping Friday night was a total nightmare. Nancy bought this new tent that is at least quadruple the size of ours. They had never put the tent up before and arrived after the sun had gone down. Let’s just say new tent + dark = unhappy campers. When it was time for them to go to bed, someone forgot the sleeping bags and it was pretty cold, so they were freezing all night. They seemed ok when we arrived Sat afternoon, but honestly I’m surprised they stayed. I would have packed my bags and gone home. That’s one thing people can say about Nancy and Nathan, they stick it out even when it’s tough…or in this case, dark and cold. We left Sat and went into town. We ate at this amazing BBQ restaurant. As I’ve gotten older, I don’t like red meat as much, but a good BBQ restaurant sways me from giving it up all together. We then went exploring and found a (supposedly) haunted old hotel. The place was empty but the architecture was amazing. I wish we still had architecture like that on the new buildings. I know it costs more but it’s so amazing. We went back to camp and started up the meal. That night Nancy went to bed (with the sleeping bag we brought them) and the rest of us stayed up. The guys talked and I listened for the most part. I realized how much I missed when all my brothers went to camp. Talking about farting and poop for HOURS. HOURSSSS. For the most part, I looked at the stars. The next day we went to place we came for, Mineral Wells. The rocks were amazing and super fun to climb in, on and around. Mike was scouting it out for his job. They have amazing climbs for beginners all the way to expert. I’ve never climbed on real rocks before and hope to tag along when the rock wall staff go on the trip.  

Christmas was super fun. Mike and I went to my dad’s house in Texarkana a few days before and hung out with him and Valerie. For the most part we just relaxed which was nice. On Christmas Eve we went to my dad’s parents. We had our annual Christmas eve presentation. It’s where we sing and do goofy games. We also watched the nativity which brought the spirit. It is always fun. Mike says he loves it but it was a lot to take in the first year he went. Mike and I are in charge of it next Christmas eve. 

My silly family

We drove back to Denton that night. The next morning we had Christmas here. I got an onezie which I will wear while camping because I’m always cold at night. You’re welcome for the picture.

 Some of my favorite gifts this year were gift cards and money. Why? You may ask. Patti, Nancy and I went to San Marcos this past weekend. We went shopping ALL day Saturday…I mean ALL day, 8:30am-9:00pm. It was relaxing and crazy at the same time. We literally mapped out the stores we wanted to visit and got there right as they were opening. The deal of the day was my boots. Originally they were $200. The tag said they were marked down to $130. I loved them and they were leather so I was going to do it anyway. When I got to the cashier, Nancy had a coupon and it turns out the boots were reduced down to $50!!! You heard it from $200 to $50! I was so excited. I got adult clothes, something I think I’ve been needing seeing as how I’m about to graduate. No more dressing like a college student for me.  We had so much fun together. I’m really glad we did it. If Mike and I are here next Christmas, I hope we can do it again.

For New Year’s we spent it with friends. They made an amazing turkey and everyone brought some side dishes. We played a game that may be my new favorite game called sentences. Basically everyone writes a sentence down and passes the paper to the person next to them. That person draws a picture of the sentence and then fold the paper so the next person can’t see the words of the sentence. They pass the paper to the person next to them and they have to write a sentence based on the picture. It gets pretty funny. When the clock hit midnight we kissed and said goodbye. We’re not late nighters. All in all it was a good time. 

If you made it to the end congrats!

Thanks for reading,

Jess

Hallo-weeeeeeeeen

On Sunday we met for our weekly family deener. Since our kitchen is being remod3eled we met at nancy and nathans house. Nancy cooked food and afterward we decorated sugar cookies(bats, frankenstein monster heads, tombstones and punkins). We also carved real life pumpkins. Mines is the best. Howl-oween is fun. ENJOY!!!
Did you do anything fun for Halloween?

-MiChAeL

It's crazy intense in here...

Sugar cookies are good. When I was a kid I used to be able to eat more...what happened?

Mine is the third from the left or third from the right. Take your pick.

Nathan is a gangster...kinda. 

Tails and Trails

A little history...

My mom and I were talking a few months ago about how we would both like to get back into shape. She ran a half marathon last year and has expressed how much she liked the feeling after she crossed the finish line after all her training. So I suggested that we sign up for a run and told her to invite the family also. We’ve been training ever since. I was sick all through the beginning of Oct and got off track of the training but Mike has been doing great.

 To get him excited to run our 8 miles we’re gonna run, Mike decided to sign up to run in a race that was a little shorter. He ran his 5k on Saturday that was hosted by the Denton Animal Shelter. He has been pretty busy so I’ll give the update. He ran the first mile and was doing great. This is the first time he has been able to run in many many years so this was a HUGE DEAL! He sped walked for the next two miles and when he was getting to the finish line started to run. Right as he was about to finish he heard a loud POP in his knee. Yup, right at the end he hurt himself. It’s been about a week and he’s healing crazy fast. He’s not able to run yet, but hopefully he’ll be able to continue training for the Turkey Trot next week.

~Jess

Mike's second biggest fan (leaving his biggest fan to yours truly) 

They had little shops and displays set up around the area

Sharon and her dogs dressed up in 80's costumes came and did the one mile

Finishing the race! He's so good looking! 

He did it! This may have been where he heard the loud POP.

A Leather snob

This by no means is a blog about fashion. In fact I think Mike would have a heart attack if I wanted it to be. Regardless of his feelings, I have been thinking lately about getting some cute boots like THESE or THESE or a leather jacket like THIS one, but I obviously can’t afford to purchase both or even one of these right now. I refuse to purchase something that is fake leather. I just can’t bring myself to do it. There is a certain feel and smell leather has that I’m not willing to sacrifice even if those other boots are cute. In fact Mike has a Scentsy travel tin that has the smell of leather even though the car he drives has absolutely no leather in it…ha ha.  I wonder how our 4 readers feel about pleather or fake leather. Am I the only leather snob?

Jess

Anniversary 2

We had our two year anniversary! We decided to go to some off the wall museums.

First we had a healthy breakfast at Mi Casita. We did this just to make sure we had salsa breath for the entire day. J

Second on our list was, of course the Boy Scouts of America museum. We did it as a joke but we were really impressed with the museum. I said if I ever worked with the boy scouts, I’d defiantly bring them there. (Guess who is the new Cub Scouts Master?? I guess I’ll learn to keep my mouth shutJ )

We were then off to the Frontiers of Flight Museum. Mike was super excited to see all of the planes and air crafts. I’ll admit it was pretty stinkin’ cool.

Mike loved this one "The Flying Tiger Moth" 

Yea, that's one of the Apollo Space Module and I'm touching it....so I've touched Outer Space 

"The Flying Pancake"

I loved her uniform...

The other places we were going to visit…including a porcelain doll museum (I wanted to be creeped out) and the AT&T phones of history…don’t exist anymore. I was kind of bummed so Mike surprised me and took us to a place where there are a ton of trampolines. It was awesome and a great way to end our day.

I’m really grateful for him and how much he takes care of me. It’s only been two years but it seems like we’ve been together forever…in a good way. I’m lucky he puts up with my crazy. I’m glad we have the opportunity to spend eternity together. 

The drive home

Home is like a nice warm pair of socks that are still 80% wet and 106 degrees.

Well, at this point we’ve been home for a little over a week and life is back to normal unfortunately.  Jess is back at work and we’re getting ready for school to start back up on Monday, we even bought books today…that was fun. Our drive home was relatively uneventful but we had a blast and saw some really good friends on the trip.

When we left Yellowstone we headed south through the park so Jess could see the Tetons and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  We didn’t really see a whole lot as we drove south through the park. As we drove up on the Tetons we saw some of the most beautiful mountains we have ever seen. We took a scenic drive through Grand Teton National Park and enjoyed the views.  If you’ve never been to the Tetons, I highly suggest it before you kick the proverbial bucket if you know what I’m saying. On our way out of the Tetons we hit a lovely little traffic jam because some genius decide to go all Dukes of Hazzard over a dried up creek bed…everybody looked like they were ok but I’m sure it was awesome to see. We made a quick trip through Jackson Hole taking in as many sights of the city as you can from a car. All I can say is that place was CROWDED!!! After we made it through the metropolitan city of Jackson’s Hole (that’s what the sign in front of the Methodist Church calls it…) we continued on our way to Orem, UT. The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful other than it rained on us pretty much most of the day. We didn’t end up arriving in Orem until 23:00 hours. It was a veeerrrrrrrryyyy long day.

While in Orem for the one night that we were there we stayed with our close family friends the Kurt and Mitzi. They made us a wonderful roast dinner for that night and we very promptly crashed in the basement (basements are fun). The next morning we woke up and took our time getting on the road, we only had a short drive that next day. That morning we picked fresh fruits and veggies in the backyard garden and had Danish apple pancakes (ebelskivers) for breakfast, they were amazing. We hung out for a little bit and had BLT’s for lunch. Then we hit the road to Cedar City, UT. We made it to Cedar around 18:30 and had a tasty dinner waiting on us. We stayed with some more family friends, the Garner’s, who used to live in Texas but unfortunately had to move to Utah a few years ago.

Upon our speedy arrival we were greeted with open arms and a wonderful taco dinner. It was a nice sensation to be back in the city the past two nights. Because we were in the throes of civilization Jess decided she wanted to watch a movie…so we did. We perused the extensive movie collection and chose the longest film in our world’s existence…The Lord of the Ring’s: The Fellowship of the Ring. Jess decided a while back that we needed to watch the trilogy so we can be sufficiently prepared for when The Hobbit comes out at the end of the year.  The next day it was stake conference so we went and enjoyed a lovely conference and a wonderful day with the Garner’s. Two of the Garner offspring came over for dinner and we had a great time and enjoyed catching up.

The next morning we hit the road around 10 and with a few detours we were finally on our way to Albuquerque via the Grand Canyon.  After a few hours we finally arrived at the turn off to the north rim of the canyon another hour after that we finally got there. We suffered through the oppressive heat and walked out to Bright-Angel Point and took in the view. It was beautiful. 

The next part of the drive was incredibly depressing. We were driving through the Navajo Native American reservation. This land, for the most part, was desolate and dry with little to no resources. This once proud tribe has been forced onto these reservations and been given these large tracts of land by the government. I really don’t want to go on a government fueled rant so I will stop there.  Our drive to Albuquerque was a long boring one.

 We finally arrived late that night and checked to our hotel with no issues. Luckily this place was remarkably nicer than the place we stayed while in Denver. The next morning we woke up and got on the road headed home. I will say this to summarize the drive, most of the time we were driving through west Texas. Fortunately we brought some rain back to Texas with us. Once we passed through Childress it rained on us almost the entire way home. That was definitely needed and welcomed rain as we found out. We arrived home safely and got back into the spin of normal life. It’s been a little weird being home. I keep walking outside thinking I’m going to see mountains and amazing wildlife when all I see is great expanses of flatness, squirrels, skunks and the occasional armadillo. We loved our time in Yellowstone and our great adventure that we went on this summer. It was a great experience for us as individuals and as a couple. We met some amazing people, got to reconnect with some old friends and saw some wonderful scenery. Overall I would for sure say that we had a successful summer, one we will never forget.

The Last Week of Yellowstone Bliss

Last week in Yellowstone

Our time in Yellowstone ended with a bang. On Sunday the branch had a taco potluck. I made my salsa. It was delicious, if I do say so myself. We said our goodbyes to some of the families that we wouldn’t see again before we left. It was pretty sad and delicious. I’m gonna miss that branch. I’ve never felt so welcome in a ward. We never had to prove ourselves. We didn’t have to do much to stand out (seeing as how there were only 3 other families in the branch). They just accepted us for who we are and never felt anyone was talking behind our back. They knew we were there to help and we were glad to do what we could. I’m gonna miss that. 

The next day we went to the Gilbert’s home to have a little FHE fun with badminton. Don’t worry, we never improved on our skills and still looked like complete morons while playing. It was wonderful. One day, we wanna be like the Gilberts. They were the most welcoming family I’ve met besides a few families I met while on my mission. They understood we were there for the summer and they were more than willing to be our surrogate family until we could return to our own. They were always so happy to have us over and play games and laugh with/at us. The kids were especially sweet as they told us multiple times how much they were going to miss us and didn’t want us to go. 

The next night, we thought we’d go to lamar valley just to see if we could find anything. Guess what we saw? Yup, a BLACK grizzly bear. It was pretty far off in the field and just walking along. We tried to get some good shots, but some are better than others. We heard someone saying something about wolves that were by Roosevelt (which we had passed on our way to see the grizzly. SHOOT! So we got in the car and drove back to see if the wolves were still hanging around. Apparently we just missed them as we drove up. One 16..yea 16 year old…kid whom we’ve seen every time we’ve been wolf watching told us that there was a bison carcass not too far off and they may be back tomorrow. I convinced Mike we needed to come back in the morning. Normally in the morning means around 8:00 or so, not so much when one is looking for wolves. Morning means 6:00 am. So we and our friend James woke up with the sun around 5:00am and left around 5:20 to be able to get out to Lamar by 6:00. James insisted that he was going to be angry if he didn’t see any wolves seeing as how he didn’t go to bed until around 1:00am. He was saying bye to a few friends and lost track of time. After we arrived, we were not disappointed. We saw a few wolves standing on the top of a hill and then walk down behind the ridge line. There was a heard of bison across the road and as mentioned in earlier blog posts, it’s rut. We saw the males slamming their heads together pushing each other back and forth. It was super cool. Mike missed it because he was crossing the road and saw the wolves hanging out in a field. We got lots of pictures and even got a video of them howling. One bison was crossing their path. One wolf started howling and then other’s joined in. The bison never stopped or faltered his steps. The wolves continued to howl and gathered together to look like one massive creature. Bison are known to have poor eye sight and I’m sure it looked like one HUGE wolf howling. The bison, however just continued on his path, as if to say, “ok, thanks for your howling.” The wolves continued to walk on keeping one eye on the wolf. One lone wolf stayed back and ran around the bison as if it was teasing it. The bison just did one big head movement and the wolf went flying in the air. Not really… but that would have been awesome. The bison did move its head like it was going to send the wolf flying, but the wolf was too fast and ran away. Don’t mess with these bison, especially during rut. 

Sun rise

That's the bear

Wolves from the "Molly Pack"

Howling at the pack

Same wolf still howling

The day before, we decided to go and see if we could go white water rafting. The problem was their last ride went out at 3:00 and we didn’t get off work until 5:00. Luckily we knew Kirby and Allison who were friends with the people at the Flying Pig. After we named dropped (never done that before) the worker said she’d go and see if anyone was going out the next night. The Lord really was looking out for us because one girl that happened to be there that day needed to get certified and was going that next night to do it. We set everything up for the next day. So after an awesome morning of watching wolves we went to work for a few hours and then went rafting for FREE. My favorite price. It’s ok to name drop every now and again. The girl that was getting certified was a crazy red head that before this summer had never had a tan. She was a blast and Mike and I, being the newbies, were required to ride in the front and get extra wet. Yellowstone river water, in case you didn’t know, is NEVER warm…EVER. It was fun despite the really cold water. I figured it being August; the water would be a little warm, nope. The water was low because it was late in the season, but I was grateful we even got to do it at all. I felt kinda hardcore rafting in the Yellowstone River with no helmet or water shoes.    

Our last full day we spent hiking Fairy falls. *Note to self: always wear HIKING shoes while HIKING* The hike wasn’t terrible, but the path was full of volcanic ash and therefor full of ash that would conceal the little rocks on the trail. Being clumsy and all, it’s always better to wear shoes that allow one to trip on rocks and not stub one’s toe….30 times. When we finally reached the falls, it was totally worth it. They were beautiful. Of course, I had to get in the water. Guess what? It was cold too…VERY COLD. Hence, the awkward poses in the photos:

This is Grand Prismatic. Notice the little yellow man in between the trees. That's Mike.

We ate lunch with our friends that night and said our goodbyes. We miss them terribly.

Until next post of our travels home.