Guess who is now a great, big two year old?!  I can't believe so much time has passed already.  Jamison went from this:

to this:

Blows my mind.

I think my little man enjoyed all his birthday festivities.  The weekend before his birthday we had a family party for him.  His Grams and Gramps are truckers but they had the weekend off so it was the perfect time to have a party that could include them.

We chose some of Jamison's favorite foods for dinner that night (hot dogs, chips, pasta salad, strawberries and apples) and ate outside.  Jamison was so distracted by everything that he didn't eat much though!  Then we had cake and ice cream (he chose the ice cream flavors, by the way: Oreo and Strawberry).  After that we went inside, since it was getting dark, and he opened all his gifts.  He was so spoiled, and so happy!  I wish I had recorded his reactions to everything because his excitement was just adorable.  Love that kid so much!

On his actual birthday, he had a play date and lunch with his best friend, Brek.  Lunch consisted of more of his favorite foods (Mac and Cheese and left over hot dogs). And then when Tyler got off work we let Jamison open his present from us (an adorable little camp chair!) and the presents from family who couldn't come to the party.  We also took him to dinner at Cracker Barrel where he was happy to eat chicken strips and fries.  He gulped down tons of lemonade and then when they brought his free dessert (chocolate cake and ice cream) he wasn't even interested!  So Tyler and I enjoyed it instead.  ;)

The rest of the week and weekend have been dedicated to cleaning, packing, moving, and unpacking.  It is crazy!  Anyone who believes a close move is an easier move is confused.  It's a huge pain because instead of being on the ball and having everything packed in boxes and organized, and getting the move over in one day....it's dragged on for weeks!  We've been taking small loads of stuff to Grandma's all week and then just tossing stuff in boxes without labels.  Though that may be more because my pregnancy has been just difficult enough that I can't do much and Tyler has been left pretty much on his own when it comes to the packing.  Luckily I have the BEST family in the world and they have been incredibly helpful.  We are now mostly moved in Grandma's basement.  We still need to clean our place in Provo and of course we have weeks of unpacking and settling to do.  But I feel like we might finally be on the tail end of this move.  Phew!

Now hopefully we'll have time to relax and enjoy the lovely weather we have right now.  Not to mention Mother's Day coming up AND I have my Poppa (My mom's dad) and my cousin coming from New Zealand for a visit!!! YAY!

We are busy.  That probably goes without saying.  Who isn't busy?  Especially when you've just moved?  Since moving in we've been trying to unpack and decorate and find furniture as well as work in the yard.  There is always something to be done.

Last weekend Tyler and I spent hours raking all the dead leaves and grass off the yard.  It looks so much better.  I should have taken before and after pictures.

 (Jamison is such a big helper ;) )

Oh, we also found out that we have a second apricot tree in the front yard and a grape vine by the garage.  And...we don't have blueberries.  We have Oregon something or other berries which look similar to blueberries.  Anyway...there's still lots to be done before I'm ready to debut any part of our house.  We're getting there though.  And we've hired my little brother to help us whip the yard into shape.  So hopefully by next weekend I'll have something to show off.

Last Friday was Tyler's birthday.  I asked him what he wanted to do and he said he wanted to do yard work.  So we worked in the yard while Jamison slept and even when he woke up.  You see...there's this swing that Jamison has fallen in love with...

After sweating in the yard all afternoon, we went to my sister's play in Springville (don't worry, we took showers and changed clothes first!).  She played Amy in Little Women and did an amazing job.  Everyone did an amazing job.  I laughed and cried throughout the entire play.  I'm so glad we got to go!

Then Saturday we had a BBQ for Tyler's special birthday dinner.  It was delicious.  Tyler always does an amazing job.  And it is so nice to have a backyard where we can do things like this!

Church on Sunday was a new experience.  We've gone from a ward that is all young married couples/families to a ward that is probably 50% above the age of 60.  I'm not even exaggerating.  I think it will be a nice ward though.  Just a bit of an adjustment.  I made a comment about it on Facebook and apparently people thought I was complaining.

Side note:  How are so many of my statuses considered so offensive?  Do people really not know me well?  I do not use Facebook to start fights, insult people, or generally be rude.  So why does everyone take the things I say as an attack?!  They are meant to be informative and/or funny.  Anyway...sorry for that tangent, it's just been really frustrating to be misunderstood so much....

Then we had Independence Day on Wednesday.  The Cope family had their reunion, so we went to that.  I have always enjoyed going to what we refer to as "the ranch" which is owned by my aunt's family.  It was Jamison's first time going "swimming."  He's stood in the ocean before and he takes baths, but I have yet to take him to play in a body of water.  So this was a fun new experience for him and once he warmed up to the temperature of the water...

he loved it!  He was a little upset when I took him out but the child was shivering.  

Now it's back to trying to keep the house (and yard) in order.  I'm very grateful that we had rain yesterday.  There have been a lot of fires in Utah, so the rain was a definite blessing.  And on a more personal level, some of the sprinklers in our yard haven't been working properly, so our grass and trees were also very grateful for the moisture!

What a week we have had! Sunday night my parents came up to visit me for my birthday. They were so sweet. Even though they could only stay for less than 24 hours, they didn't want me to spend my birthday alone. Then Monday morning Tyler called and told me he was flying into Salt Lake Tuesday afternoon! So we quickly packed and Jamison and I followed my parents to Utah.

It was so nice to see Tyler. Jamison smiled and giggled so much to see his daddy!

My uncle flew in from New Zealand on Wednesday and we have spent the week visiting with him. It's been really nice. I haven't seen most of my New Zealand family in 12 years.

We thought Tyler would be around until the 12th but then we got a call and he is flying out tomorrow (the 5th). What a week!

Today we went up to Park City and saw the Olympic Park. We also had shakes at a cool restaurant in Heber. It had a train theme. Jamison loved it! I took a lot of pictures. So here they are:

A Walk Down December Memory Lane

Am I the only person who can't believe it's already December???

Every time I listen to Christmas music, I tear up. I blame it on hormones, though I think that missing my family has something to do with it. This year has been so crazy, and it's so hard being away from everything I ever knew! I can't tell you how much I look forward to phone calls with my mom...and visits from my husband. Is it absolutely ridiculous that my husband and I live in different states? I think it is.

Last night I was thinking about my memories from past holidays. A lot of them revolve around family traditions. Tyler and I haven't really established any traditions for our family...we hardly spend the holidays together anyway! But we will...eventually....hopefully...

Some of my favorite Christmas memories include:

*Breakfast with the grandparents before opening our presents.

*singing Christmas songs every single hour of every single day leading up to Christmas.

Sometimes we'd dance to the Nutcracker in the kitchen while making Sunday dinner. And Leisl and I would ALWAYS sing the duet our music teacher taught us. A medley of "It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas" and "Pine Cones and Holly Berries." Ask us to sing it sometime. We rock. Oh, and on Christmas Eve my family reads the Christmas story in the bible and then sing more Christmas songs. Love it.

*Visiting Temple Square, seeing the lights and watching the nativity scene. And always, always visiting the Christus statue.

*Christmas countdowns. My mom makes an amazing countdown to Christmas every year, complete with various Christmas foods, activities, and traditions from around the world. Plus making and opening our Christmas crackers! Candy would fly everywhere. :)

*Driving around town to look at Christmas lights. Plus there is the Festival of Lights that Spanish Fork puts on...and the Light Parade! Oh the joy of pretty sparkly lights.

*Movie madness.

My family has about 5 movies that we HAVE to watch in order for Christmas to be complete: Arthur's Perfect Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life, A Charlie Brown Christmas, White Christmas (Okay, that's just Leisl and me....), and Santa Clause is Coming to Town. Plus I'm a personal fan of Mr. Kruegar's Christmas and Nora's Christmas Gift.

*decorating the house and the tree with my siblings.

We each took a year being in charge of what decorations would go on the tree...since we had way too many decorations to put them all on every year!

But through all these fun activities, sparkly decorations, and delicious foods....my family always tried to remember what Christmas is really about. Christ. His life, His love, and His amazing gift to the world. That is one tradition that will definitely be passed on to my children. The only gift that really matters, is the gift of our Savior.

Just a Reminder

When I look at pictures like these....



































I am reminded how lucky and loved I am.

A Sister's Love

This post is dedicated to my sister...whom I have been missing a lot lately.


We have always gotten along together. Any fights we had were very minor, and we quickly made amends. We couldn't handle being mad at each other.


We always have fun together, and growing up we were practically inseparable.


My sister was always there for me when I needed a helping hand. She didn't always like it, but since the first moment I was daring enough to hand her a pair of scissors, she has been my personal hairdresser.


We also have about a million, gazillion inside jokes. When we get together, we talk and laugh and talk and laugh...late into the night. I think we drove my parents crazy when we shared a room because we would talk for hours every night when we should be sleeping. And because we were girls, we'd giggle too.


My sister and I share practically everything: secrets, jewelry, candy...


So here's to you, Leisl. I LOVE YOU!!!

4-3-3 Reminiscing

The Rules: Go to your picture files. Open up the fourth file, and pick the third picture. Blog about your memories around this picture.

*I had to turn it into the 4-3-3 rather than 4-3 because I've micro-organized my photos to the point that I have folders inside of folders inside of folders. Pathetic, I know.

Bottom Row, L to R: Emily (Geslison) Bennet, Stephanie (Ames) Dickson
Top Row, L to R: Vanessa Abbott, Tenika (Cope) Dennis, Sarah Lund, Sarah Fish

This picture was taken May 24th, 2005. High School Graduation. We had a party at the high school that night after graduation (our graduation was at 10 in the morning). I went with some of my best friends, and this is a picture of us...our last night together...We haven't all been together since then...no wait, we were once. When Vanessa left on her mission, we were miraculously all in the same state and not busy a few nights before she left...so we had a get-together. Anyway...back to the picture...Party at the high school. Then Sarah Fish, Stephanie and I went to Vanessa house for a sleep over and the next day we went to the zoo...along with Emily Geslison, Matt Clyde, Regina Lauridsen and David Burrows. I left for school a month after that. Crazy fast. That night was full of excitement, and a little bit of fear and sadness. I hate goodbyes! I'm glad that we are still friends though. They have always been such wonderful friends, full of love and support. This blog is random, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to reminisce about my awesome friends. I've been missing them lately.

A week in Ghost Town

I have discovered that Rexburg, which I have always considered a quiet town without much going on, is even more quiet and boring during college breaks. This town caters to the college, and while the students are gone...there is nothing going on. So Tyler and I have had to be creative to keep ourselves entertained. And we have a lot of time we need to fill up because I'm still in the process of getting a job, and Tyler only works part-time.

One thing that Tyler and I have been talking about doing for a while is going to the Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls. From March to September they have a Titanic Exhibit, and I really, really, really wanted to see it. My sister went to one a few years back and said it was really fantastic. So, since we need things to do, Tyler and I took the time this last week to go see the exhibit.


This is a picture from the outside of the museum. They wouldn't let us take pictures inside, which was a bit of a bummer, but oh well.


You can see that Tyler was just as excited as I was to see the exhibit ;p Actually I think I snapped the picture while he was in the middle of saying something...


The exhibit was very informative. When you first walk in, they give each person a boarding pass, and you become a person from the Titanic. It gives the person's name, what class they were in (Tyler and I were both first class passengers), who they were traveling with, why they were traveling, and a few other little background things like where they are from.

Then you walk around looking at things that were uncovered from the Titanic, along with the underwater picture of the item before it was brought up. There was a model of the Titanic...that ship was huge! They talked about the design, who came up with it, how long it took to build and what sort of effort was put into it.

Then you learn about some more passengers and learn about the first day on board, look at what it would be like to be a first class passenger as opposed to a second or third class passenger. They had a menu for the different classes, and there were probably twice as many choices for the first class passengers as for the other two classes. And all the items on the first class menu were written in French...I guess to make them seem more exotic???

Then of course they talk about the fateful day, the size of the iceberg, how it hit the ship, how many people died. They even had a huge block of ice you could put your hand on to feel how cold the water would have been. It was super cold! At the very end you got to look at a list of the passengers who lived and died and see if you were a survivor or not. Tyler and his wife survived. I was a male too...weird...and I didn't survive, but my wife did.

It was really a fascinating exhibit, very informative, and sad...of course. And it put me in the mood to go home and watch the movie. I'm really glad we could go, and if that exhibit ever comes back, I will be there!

Another fun thing Tyler and I did with our time this week was a game night. Tyler and I don't exactly agree on the same games, so we had to both sacrifice a bit, but it was a lot of fun. I love to play Phase Ten, so we played that. And then Tyler taught me how to play poker. Thank goodness it wasn't for real, I'm horrible at it!!!

After the games, we did a Tim Tam Slam. For any Americans who have never heard of such a thing, it's not some sort of Sumo wrestling tournament, and no spouses were harmed in the making of this activity. A Tim Tam is a cookie. They have them in Australia and New Zealand, and I recently learned they are a big thing in Taiwan as well.

Anyway, it's hard to explain, but there are layers in the cookie of actually crunchy cookie and soft chocolaty stuff. Tyler says he would compare it to a chocolate Milano covered with chocolate and with a different kind of chocolate in the middle...if that makes sense.

A Tim Tam Slam is when you try to use your cookie as a straw to suck a hot drink through for as long as possible before the whole thing melts and collapses. The best is if you have Milo, but we just used Hot Chocolate, since Milo is hard to find here. So you bite off opposite corners of the cookie, put one corner in your drink, and suck through the other end like crazy! Here are some pictures to maybe help you visualize...sorry, I'm no good at explaining!

So here Tyler is sucking like crazy. lol. And you can see the package of Tim Tams in the corner.


And there I am...sucking away. Mine completely melted and fell into the cup. I kept finding little chunks of cookie when I was drinking my hot chocolate.


This was Tyler's first Tim Tam Slam and I think he liked it.

Alright, one last fun thing we did this week, to help break up the monotony of life in Rexburg during the ghost town break, was to go to a drive in movie! It's something neither of us had done for a while...I hadn't been since I was a kid. Originally we chose to go because we had a coupon for a free admission, but when we got there they said the coupon wouldn't work because there was new management now. Still, it was worth the extra $5 to see two movies.

We saw Transformers 2 and The Proposal. I don't want to poison any one's desire to see the movies, so I won't say much (I'm pretty critical of movies) but it sounds like a lot of people feel that the second Transformers movie wasn't as good as the first. I haven't seen the first, but I sure found the second one long and boring. I kept looking at the clock and wondering when the movie would end. Two and a half hours later...it was finally over. The Proposal was kinda funny. It had the usual slew of sexual references and the normal predictable ending, but they did a few things to shake up the predictableness, and I appreciated that.

That's me waiting for the movie to begin. I tried to take a picture of Tyler, but he kept turning his head away. What a spoil sport!

All in all, we've been pretty successful at entertaining ourselves this week. Here's hoping next week brings more fun, more excitement...and a job!