here comes summer

Summer officially started on last Thursday at about 3:50pm for me. At 12:45 earlier that day, all my students RAN out the door (it didn't make me sad though...) and I had to finish cleaning up my classroom. So I guess I survived my first year of teaching. The thing that keeps me going is what every other teacher says: "You'll never have another first year". All I can say is Hallelujah!!! I had a rough year, but I can honestly look back and see times that I really did love teaching. Did I love it all the time? Absolutely not. But...I believe each day will get even better.

One of our first summer activities was going to Kennecott Copper Mines. They are just west of Sandy. I saw them all the time when I was at school. This is something that Darrin and I had wanted to do for a while, so we went on Saturday. After we drove up there, we came back through Sandy and stopped at Frogurt, a frozen yogurt place with lots of flavors and toppings. It's pretty expensive but one of my students got me a gift card so it was perfect! Darrin was really funny because he got a lot more frozen yogurt than he had planned on (he claimed he didn't know how to slow it down) and so his was really heavy. He got really giggly because of all the sugar. It was just him and me and one worker in the pretty huge place. It was a lot of fun, we haven't laughed that hard in a while.

This is what Kennecott looks like when you are driving up toward it. I'm sure most of you have seen it if you look west after you go north of the point of the mountain.

Here's Darrin looking at the pamphlet they gave us.

You can see how windy it was when we got up there. My hair was going crazy!

This is the mining pit from the visitor's center at the top. It is one of the biggest mining pits in the world. The little dots everywhere are giant trucks hauling the rock up and down the pit.

And this is a tire from one of those GIANT trucks!

playing catch up

A lot has been going on and this is my attempt at catching up on all that happened. I'll try to do it in order, but I'll try not to make it too long :)

First, since spring started appearing in Provo a while ago (and has since disappeared, reappeared, disappeared, etc.), Darrin and I wanted to plant some seeds in pots to see how we do at the whole gardening thing. Since planting the seeds they have grown a lot and no longer just look like the picture below of dirt in pots, but I was proud of our little garden.

We also wanted to do something fun one Saturday night, so I got some craft paint and we painted the little pots that we planted our flower seeds in. It ended up being really fun. Below you can see the results. We are pretty happy with our colorful pots.

Next, on April 22nd and 23rd, I graduated! Yipee! It was a little lame because my name wasn't even on the program (I postponed graduation to keep BYU insurance until August so my name will be with the August graduates). But, it was still nice to have a little closure. I forgot to take a picture of me in my cap and gown, but it wasn't a big affair, so it wasn't a big deal not to have pictures.

The very next day, April 24th, we celebrated our 1 year anniversary! I can't believe how fast one year went. I love Darrin even more than I did the day I married him. It just makes me that much more excited to be with him year after year until forever. For our anniversary we went up to Logan for the night. On the way we went to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy for Darrin's birthday. I made him touch a stingray :)

Making for an eventful weekend, the 25th was Darrin's 24th birthday. One of the presents I gave him was a remote control boat. Later that week we took it for a test drive at the little pond by Heritage Halls on BYU campus. The water there is nice and clean, not like the pond at the bottom of the hill. Here Darrin is trying his new boat out:

While we were there, we saw baby ducklings. I thought they were so cute so I followed them for a while and got a bunch of pictures. Darrin was more interested in his new boat :) This picture reminded me of one of my favorite books when I was little, Make Way for Ducklings. It made me really happy, to say the least.

And, to end my super long post, last weekend Darrin and I went to Kodachrome State Park for his Kenyon side family reunion. Darrin and I didn't end up staying very long because my parents had come to town, but the time we did spend there was very fun. We went on a small hike through a slot canyon. A creek made its way through a somewhat tall canyon and we followed it. We had to jump over the creek several times, which made it a pretty fun hike. This picture is of Darrin's little sister, Natalie, and his dad, Randy.

I can't resist the silly pictures, even when it makes my nose look ginormous...

Darrin liked to make his jumps a little bigger than the rest of us by climbing on the walls and jumping off of them. Makes for a pretty cool picture.

One of his favorites: the Spiderman stance.

A great picture of the slot canyon, it was like this most of the way. It was really pretty and the color of the rock and mud was so pretty. The mud was bright orange, not a color you would think to see in nature, other than on flowers.

Well, hopefully that wasn't too long and if it was, you shouldn't have looked at the whole thing. I am a bad blogger, but I'll do better...maybe.

Oh Boy...

I do love my boy. He is so nice to me. He is so much more than I deserve.

Last night I had an awful headache. It was probably the worst one I have had in a long time. The medicine didn't even work. As soon as Darrin got home from work he gave me a back and neck massage and then sent me to bed. When I woke up he brought me dinner and was so sweet to me.

Boy, do I love him! Thanks for being a sweetheart, sweetheart :)

More Drawings!

Here are a couple more drawings we have done with the oil pastels Darrin got me for Christmas. It has become an activity that we like to do together and maybe we'll keep improving while we're at it.

Darrin did this one above of the apple. He did great! Every time we use the pastels he gets even better, what a natural.

And I did the one above of the calla lily. I love these flowers so I wanted to at least try. It is hard doing white things because the white won't go over other colors, so what you see that is white is the paper.

Valentine's Day

A couple weeks before Valentine's Day, Darrin got me some flowers and on the card he asked me to go to our stake dance for Valentine's Day. It was cute of him, especially knowing how he feels about dancing. The Friday before Valentine's Day, I had a really bad sinus infection, I couldn't sleep because my face hurt so bad. Luckily, we got to the doctor on Saturday morning and by Saturday night I felt so much better and ready to have a good Valentine's Day.
We went out to eat at Mimi's Cafe-yum! Then we went to the dance. Below, are some pictures we got before we went. It was a great first Valentine's Day as a married couple-Thanks Darrin!

Here are the flowers he got me, so pretty!

A couple pictures before dinner. Doesn't he look cute?

And the picture they got of us at the dance. It was a pretty good turn out. I was afraid I would feel over dressed because my mom sent me a dress I had worn at a high school dance, but luckily, many other girls had the big fancy dresses, so it turned out perfect! We had a lot of fun and got some fun pictures from it.

Christmas in Idaho

Darrin and I spent Christmas in Idaho this year, with my family. I hadn't been home for a while, so it was nice to see everyone there and to feel the comfort of my old home (which doesn't quite feel like home anymore). My sisters were both there with their kids so that was fun. I love seeing my nieces and nephews and seeing how much they change between the times that I get to see them. I was a complete dumb dumb and forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures of the cute kids, but you'll just have to take my word for it...

Lincoln, my sister Mindy's little boy is now almost 6 months old. His eyes are always opened wide and he looks surprised as Mindy's in-laws say. He is a very good baby.

My nieces, Hannah and Hailey are cute as ever as well as full of energy. It is tiring to be around them for a long time because of how much energy they have-I don't know how Angela does it, she's a great mom!

Little Matthew is so cute too! He is always happy and full of energy, just like his sisters. He was into everything, including my chocolate bar that he managed to unwrap and get a bite out of before my mom caught him.

Well, the pictures I did get were after Christmas. For Christmas, Darrin got me oil pastels. I have never used them and he thought that they would be a good thing to learn together. He is so sweet. They turned out to be a great thing to do together. We did them the day we got back to Provo and here are the results:

Here are the oil pastels with the sketch book he got me (he got two, one for me and one for him!)

My first attempt at using the pastels, not bad for the first time. I think I'll really love this new hobby of mine.

Here is Darrin's first page of using the pastels. He has never taken any art classes and I was amazed by how much natural talent he has.

Our first Christmas as a married couple was wonderful, even though I forgot the camera to capture any of the actual day...oops!

Ely, Halloween, & Christmas!

Although when just thinking about the past couple of months I don't feel like that much has happened, a lot more happens in our lives than I realize. I will start with a while ago and work my way to today!!!

Darrin's grandmother passed away in October. She was 93 years old! We traveled to Ely, Nevada, where Darrin's mom was raised to go to the funeral. I guess it wasn't too unexpected, but it was still a sad funeral. It was especially hard for me to see Darrin's grandpa and how he was dealing with his wife being gone. I don't think it would have been as sad if I weren't married now... just thinking about that makes me so sad!

Below is our niece, Maia, on the car ride to Ely. We rode with Darrin's sister there. She is such a happy girl!

We also went to a favorite of the Bronson family--Garnet Hill. It was pretty cool. All you have to do is watch the ground as you walk around and you see sparkling red--you guessed it, garnets! Here is Darrin standing on the hill, and below I am holding a small handful of the garnets we found in less than an hour of looking.

Halloween Time! For Halloween, Darrin and I got a giant pumpkin. It was so big the grocery store scale couldn't measure it, so we were given the 30 pound price :)

Darrin is doing part of the dirty part-digging out the guts!

I was in charge of the mouth and Darrin did the eyes. Together, it was a masterpiece! I loved how my teeth turned out and Darrin created perfect eyes to compliment them!

More guts!

Here he is, all lit up. On the back we did the Chinese symbol for dragon backwards so that it would reflect behind the pumpkin. It worked...sort of :) but it looked great all the same.

Our Halloween decorations. Ghosts hung in our window and our giant pumpkin (looking not so giant in the picture) next to the door.

Today, we picked up a Christmas tree at Home Depot. I was so happy! It was a really good price, especially for a real one. It is so cute and fits our apartment perfectly. My goal is to keep it alive for next Christmas too!

All cutely decorated with silver and blue, plus my ornament from Kendra that she brought me from Jerusalem. I think it looks great!

While we were at Home Depot we picked up some sandpaper and paint and sanded and painted our little end table. We had gotten it for free from our last apartment complex but it needed a little tlc. It is outside drying right now and I'm excited to have another good piece of furniture!

One last exciting bit is that Laura, Darrin's sister, had her baby! She was beautiful and Laura was so tough, giving birth naturally. Her name is Lillian and we are so excited to have her here. Welcome to our family, baby Lily!