Kyle and Courtney's Wedding

So it has been an extremely busy couple of weeks. And we have more fun to come, so we're attempting to get these blogs out before we have more to blog about! :) I'm devoting this blog though to Scott's brother, Kyle's wedding. Kyle and Courtney were married in the Bountiful temple July 14th. I have to say, it was a lot less stressful and more enjoyable being guests and not the bride and groom ourselves! Monday night we enjoyed an outdoor picnic and games with Courtney's family up in Ogden. We had to drive back a little earlier that evening so that Scott could make it to work that night. Poor Scott got about an hour and a half of sleep before we headed back up to Bountiful tuesday morning for the wedding. Courtney was beautiful and Kyle looked great in his tux. We are so happy for both of them. After the wedding, Scott got another hour of sleep before we headed to the reception at the Ogden Union Station. I loved their decorations and the kids were so interested in the trains, it was cute. :) We had to leave the reception a little earlier that night also so that Scott could make it back to work again. Yes, he worked after only about 3 hours of sleep...without any complaining. I don't know how he does it sometimes. The rest of the week was spent getting ready, packing, working and then driving down to Texas for the reception down there. We blew up a bunch of balloons for the balloon fountain at the texas reception...at the end of the night all the kids had the fun of popping the balloons, we were a little scared...;) Overall it was a great week. Busy, but so much fun and we are so happy for Kyle and Courtney. :)

The Scarlet Letter

I finally finished it! This was a very boring, slow book to read. I thought it would be better and easier since reading it in highschool...but no, I think it took even longer! But it can at least be marked off from our list as being read! :)

yay! amber made it!

i’ve discovered two things about myself recently: i am not original and i can no longer keep a secret to surprise my wife. both of these realizations came as i prepared to honor my beautiful amber for her 26^th year of not dying. in days of old, living to the ripe old age of 26 was so unheard of that, very ironically, it would get you killed during monthly town witch hunts. (source: the salem gazette, issue 27, 30 feb 1683) so in honor of such a great accomplishment, i had to do something special. problem was i used my best (and only) ideas last year and i had no clue of what to do this year. i also had the extremely daunting task of trying to keep par with amber after the awesome birthday she gave me.
the first obstacle was getting work off so i could be with her. i wanted to keep it a surprise, but sure enough, i can’t do that anymore. i cannot keep a straight face with that woman for longer than 3 seconds. this unprofessional fault of mine haunted me yet again as i attempted to make a dvd of our wedding for her, complete with our photo slideshow and wedding video, including all the bells and whistles (cool menus, a soundtrack, dvd cover, etc.) unfortunately, she caught me in the act of making it, and instead of being smooth and cleverly hiding what i was doing, i sung like celine dion on canadian boxing day (i have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, but it sounded snappy and i like it. J) so i showed all of my project to her right then and there and ruined what was supposed to be my “special” present for her.

our weekend began on friday with a drive to the utah arts festival in salt lake. one of my sister-in-law’s many weird habits is belly dancing (love ya sherry), and she was performing. sidenote: there are a lot of weird people in this world… and all of them seem to like art festivals… and not to like showers. well as luck would have it, right as their performance ended, the clouds rolled in and it began to POUR! as luck would not have it though, we were parked four blocks away. at least we got our exercise for the day as we sprinted to our car in the typhoon. we then all met at my sister’s place for a little party. played some games, ate some food, watched some tv, and socialized. we spent the night there, did a round of golf in the morning, then headed up to my cousin’s house in logan for another party. played some games, ate some food, amber rode a horse, and socialized. we came home that evening, hit the sack, and arose the next morning for church.

for breakfast, i thought i'd make her german pancakes. i've never heard of them, but amber once said they she loved them, so i gave it a try. to my horror, i pulled them out of the oven and what once was just an interesting looking batter had now become an alien birth pod! i was just about to throw it out when amber ensured me that's how they're supposed to be. they were pretty good. after that, it was off to church.

then the real work began, as well as my unoriginality. i dropped amber off at relief society, then hurried home and built a big fort in our living room (stole the idea from ‘the holiday’). dragged out our mattress, hung some sheets and christmas lights, worked up a good sweat, laid out a couple gifts, then back to church. a couple hours later and we’re heading home, my excitement barely being contained. she walks in and beholds castle ambott. we crawl in and on the mattress are 103 pieces of candy, each with a different reason why i love her (stole the idea from amber – she did this for me last valentines). we then opened her presents which included a movie, a book, and a new “special” present – a coupon book (again, stole the idea from amber – she did this for me for my birthday last year), which included coupons for a new skirt, swimsuit, shoes, and a few other things that you need to mind your own business about. J after presents, we watched a movie in our fort, had dinner, birthday pie, and games with her family, then ended the night with some ice cream cake, one of the few cakes that my cake-hater wife likes.

i apologize to amber that i’m neither the most creative of men, nor the most original. and i know it’ll only get worse as the years go by. i should have set the bar really low here at the beginning and pretended to have forgotten the day all together. J

Sunday Photo Shoot

Our matching sunday outfits

(not planned...well maybe a little planned)

Just thought I'd give a little update about our ward and callings. We're in a BYU young married ward, chosen over the family ward for the benefits of being able to play in BYU intramural sports. :) Scott played football in the spring on a small team and is planning on playing again in the fall. Sometime we also want to put together an ultimate frisbee team that we both can play on. We also like being in a ward with other couples with similar circumstances as us. So after a few months of being in this ward, we got a calling together as primary teachers. I have to say we were both pretty happy with this calling. We thought it'd be fun and easy. However, we never even got a chance to teach before we were released and I was given a new calling. We were a little sad to lose our first calling so soon. I am now one of two secretaries in the relief society. They decided two were needed because of all the different assignments and things that needed to be done. So far it's been a little difficult and frustrating at times but it's been a good experience too. I have already learned things from it and it's helped me feel more a part of the ward which I know is important. Scott also has a new calling as sacrament coordinator. He's happy for something to do also to keep him involved and something he can use those amazing organization skills of his. :)

gulliver's travels - jonathan swift

from the land of little people to the land of giants, from a floating island to sorcerers to immortals, gulliver’s travels did not lack in imagination and wonder. unfortunately, i felt it lacked in so many other areas that halfway through the book, i put it down and found myself needing to labor through the rest of the story. it started wonderfully enough. i always dread that time when i’m first getting into a new book. i have become so connected with the characters and world of the last book, that i find this new story foreign and uninteresting as the author maps out their new world. to gulliver’s travels' credit, it made this transition much easier and enjoyable, bypassing the tedious job of character development (sadly), and jumping right into the action of the story (happily). unfortunately, the action quickly grew stale once the initial introduction of the new land was finished. then, rather than a magical adventure, the story became more of a history, political, and/ or law book. gulliver would then set off for a new land and the intrigue would once again be renewed, but would soon fall into another rut. this routine was repeated numerous times, leaving me mixed feelings about the book. at times i was captivated by the imagination of the book, but far more often i felt i was in my high school government class, mrs. anderson teaching about some foreign country’s governing and legal systems, and me having to hand in a drool-soaked class assignment. i’ll never be a politician. :)

Scott had a Birthday, Shout Hooray!

So this blog is to prove to you all that Scott isn't being deprived of a proper birthday celebration just because I don't like cake. I'll have you all know he did get a real birthday cake, and I have pictures to prove it! :)

For his birthday breakfast I made waffles. I actually like waffles okay, they aren't as bad as pancakes (pancakes have more of a cakey texture to me so I don't like them as much). I gave Scott his choice though and he wanted waffles so I lucked out. I'm not the best cook, and I made these from a waffle mix, but hey, I'm still cooking right? :)

I did make a bit of a mess though. oops. :)

After breakfast we decided to go golfing. Golfing is something I've just gotten into. Scott's golfed a bit with his family and has his own clubs, so we got out his clubs and went to the East Bay Golf Course here in Provo and did the shorter executive course. It only has seven holes and they are shorter distances, which is good for me since I'm still learning. I think we both did better this time too. It was fun. :)

I'm still learning the right technique to hitting the ball far...

Scott the pro, look at that swing! :)

Birthday boy and me, at the end of the course

After golfing we came home and ate lunch and went to see the movie "UP". I would definitaly suggest seeing this movie. It was so cute! I loved it. :) After the movie we came home, had pizza and Scott opened his presents. It's difficult present shopping for your spouse...I wanted to get him something I knew he'd love, but it's hard to do that without ruining the surprise. For those of you who know Scott, he loves football, and cuz he loves football, he loves football gloves...

Scott with his new football gloves. :)

And last but not least, we had cake and ice cream. I told you I made it for him! :)

My little boy is all grown up! I love you Scott, Happy Birthday!

optimus sleeping bag

it all began with a crazy idea.

the thinkers and thinkees sat outside enjoying another beautiful evening and said to one another, "hey, let's go camping this weekend!" all schedules and calenders were checked. our people called their people. we facebooked about it. it was made an official activity. preparations were made (we bought these awesome sleeping bags that totally zip together and transforms to make one super sleeping bag - cool - thanks kyle) and that friday we and some friends were on our way. we went to a small piece of land up hobble creek canyon owned by a friend. we initially weren't quite sure if we were in the right place and feared getting shot for trespassing, so jake and i hid in the car and bravely sent our wives to scout out the land. once we were reassured it was the right place, we set up our tents and cassidy earned her fire making merit badge and got the blaze going. smores (with a slight twist thanks to jake's world famous recipe) and other fatty snacks were roasted. i got burnt by a starburst - can't say i ever thought i'd say that. :( well it got pretty cold pretty quickly that night, and while we entertained ourselves with games for a little while, the temperature got the best of us and we hurried off to our tents. it was fun climbing into a sleeping bag together. being married rules! :) no worries - the story isn't turning "r" from here - it was way too cold for any hankey pankey. but the cold also meant we didn't sleep too well, which was the only drawback of the trip. we arose the next morning and were happily warmed by the glorious rising sun. we enjoyed a delicious meal prepared by jake. our wonderful chef was even clever enough to serve the breakfast promptly at noon so we were warm enough to enjoy it. ;)

well long story made short - we went camping. we maybe jumped the gun a little early as we would have liked it to be a little warmer, but it was a lot of fun anyways. thanks jake, katie, jordan, cassidy, and, of course, my beautiful wife amber. why are your feet always so cold? :)