Pres and Miss Foster

The Zoo and Swimming

2011-08-28T22:26:00.000-06:00

This summer has flown by! I can't believe it is almost over! :(

Last summer I was in my first trimester and felt extremely sick most of the summer, so it has been nice to be able to go out and do fun summer activities. It is crazy how fast our little man is growing! This is Charlie and one of my dear friends Lins at the zoo!

Of course we had to get a picture by the gorillas

Foster 4 generations

Charlie was named after his great-grandfather. He has a great name to live up to. His great-grandpa is an amazing man.

Charlie and his Grandpa Foster

Swimming :) I fell in LOVE with this swimsuit. Preston picked it up while he was in Vegas.

Just chillin

Charlie's Blessing

2011-06-25T12:34:00.016-06:00

We blessed Charlie on May 15th.We decided to bless him in Miss's parents ward because there are usually seven baby blessings each fast Sunday in our ward. He was such a stud. It is crazy how fast he is changing. The blessing went well and we had so much support from our family and friends. It was a really cool experience for me to be able to bless him. Since Charlie is our first child the whole blessing experience was kind of intimidating, but I was trying really hard to be in tune with the spirit. For those family members that couldn't make it thank you for your support as well. We know that if you could have been there you would have. Here are some pictures of that day. (Compliments of Aunt April) I just have to say he is the cutest Charlie ever! Sorry Grandpa!

Our little family

He loved to play with his collar

Here is a close up of his shoes. They stayed on really well, and they matched the blue and white theme. (Miss liked the blue accents instead of an all white outfit)

Miss loved the little sailboat on his outfit

Little hands

Happy Boy

Our friends Marie and Kevin and their two girls

I LOVE this face!

My Boys

2011-06-17T11:08:00.004-06:00

I LOVE these boys!!! How did I get so lucky?

Charlie's Photo Shoot!

2011-03-08T00:02:00.006-07:00

A week or so after his birth, Charlie got to star in his own photo shoot. I won't explain too much other than it was a fun experience and Charlie did great. We got some great pictures. Here are a few for you to enjoy.

Charlie is here!

2011-02-07T23:16:00.007-07:00

It has been too long for us to go without updating you on this blog. You see our lives have changed a lot since we last blogged. Well On January 6th... you heard that right (I have procrastinated writing this) A new baby boy was born. He weighed 5 lb. 12 oz. and was 19.5 inches long. He came in style and he is a joy to have in our lives. His name is Charles Todd Foster. He is named after my Grandpa Charles E. Foster and his Grandpa Todd Johnson. So it's a very special name. I am so glad that he is able to carry these names on. My Grandpa Foster is a great man and every day that we were at the hospital he came and visited. We love Charlie so much!

Many friends and family came and gave us support. Charlie wasn't due for another 3 weeks so we were a little unprepared for his arrival, in fact the night before he was born miss went into the hospital to try to get his vitals. She really wanted to make sure he was doing okay (She is a great mom). Well she hadn't had her 37 week check up because of the holidays so they did some checking. That night I was really worried because I was at home and she was at the hospital strapped to a bed and couldn't reach her phone. It turned out that everything was okay.

The next morning Miss felt really uncomfortable, so I came home to take her into the hospital (because of the previous night Miss I didn't want her to go alone to the hospital again). When I got home Miss mentioned to me that her water broke, but it wasn't a lot, so it could be anything. Well I decided to pack what stuff we did have ready and we set off to the Hospital.

Turns out it was her water and within the next hour we were in our room. I think we were both a little unprepared for this to happen so soon. I think if Miss would have had her way we would have gone home that night to do this another day. Needless to say it was quite a shock.

Miss wanted to go natural (we took lamaze classes to prepare). Miss was so determined through the whole thing. Her blood pressure was really high so she had to stay in bed. They did end up giving her Pitocin to speed things up. She worked hard and still wanted to go without an epidural.
A little past 12 AM on the sixth a little boy was born. He is so handsome. I am so happy to be a Dad.
He is now almost 2 months I can't believe how fast that has gone. We have tried to enjoy every last minute that we can. It is so fun to see him smile at..the ceiling.. oh well he will smile at us soon enough. He is just so little and tender, but the kid does have a set of lungs and when he is hungry he will let the whole world know. I apologize to our neighbors down the street for his hungry cries. He really is so special.

Miss will have to tell you her side of the story, but all I can say is that birth really is a miracle. It was a really cool experience. All of the nurses and doctors at IMC were so great!

Christmas 2010 Part 1

2011-01-02T16:48:00.003-07:00

December is always such a fun month! I love the weeks leading up to Christmas!

This year we saw Savior of the World with my family, and enjoyed dinner at the Roof. Yum!

Even though my feet are super swollen, we were still able to enjoy some of the lights down at temple square.

We spent Christmas eve with my family this year. We had such a delicious dinner of steak and crab :-) My favorite gift that we got from my parents was a tent! Hopefully we can put it to good use this year! After opening presents we went to the annual Organ Recital at my parents ward.

This is a picture of our Christmas lights :-)

Utah vs. BYU

2011-01-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

This was our first BYU/Utah game that we have ever been been to. It was a thousand times better than watching it on TV. It was was such a great game to watch! BYU's last kick getting blocked was amazing! We love our Utes!

Baby Bump and Shower

2010-12-16T23:41:00.000-07:00

Preston's work threw us our first baby shower. Our little guy got some great stuff!

I wish I had taken more pictures, but here is one of some of the decorations.

Finally some belly pictures. 31 weeks

33 weeks

My biggest pregnancy complaint is my feet swelling. I have one pair of shoes that fit, and they are getting tight. What am I going to do? Even flip flops don't fit. Any ideas??? This picture does not do justice. I don't even recognize my feet anymore.

My friend Vanessa and I showing off our bellies. We are due on the same day!

Happy Anniversary!

2010-11-28T15:35:00.001-07:00

On October 13th we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. I can't believe how time flies! We celebrated by going up to the Foster cabin. This picture was taken at the Smith and Morehouse Reservoir.

Preston's cousin Jamon and his family came up for a few days. Preston and Jamon were trying to catch the horses, so that Lydia could pet one. However, it was super soggy and so Jamon is carrying Preston so that his shoes didn't get soaked. :-)

Jamon, Jen and Lydia

Our friends Russ and Elizabeth also came up with us. They are expecting a little girl on January 7th.

Pres and me by the Weber River

I love the yellow Aspens surrounding the Foster cabin.

My parents are building a cabin just up the road from the Foster cabin. This is the clearing where their cabin will be.

My dad poking his head out of the tractor. They were able to dig out the driveway and clear the spot for the cabin, but unfortunately the foundation will have to wait until next year because of the winter weather.

My parents at the top of their driveway.

Our friends Mike and Madison were also able to come up for one of the days.

My parents at Smith and Morehouse.

The four of us at Smith and Morehouse.

Halloween!!

2010-11-05T18:23:00.003-06:00

So this year we carved pumpkins with friends, but because there is so much construction going on around us we didn't plan on any trick-or-treaters. So on Saturday we ran errands instead of sitting around in hopes of a few trick-or-treaters. It was a pretty non eventful halloween, but our pumpkin was done free hand. I think it was an amazing job. If you feel inclined to comment on our handiwork feel free to do so.

How talented are we?

It's just too bad we didn't light him on Halloween.

Labor Day?

2010-10-24T15:56:00.007-06:00

I guess its been over a month or so, (why Miss is having me blog about it now... ;-).. I don't quite know) but we spent Labor Day with my family and headed up to Park City and then on to Mirror Lake for the day. It was a quick trip and we had some fun times. Here are a couple of pictures to share with you. We ended the day by finally taking the time to eat at the Road Island Diner. Its a pretty good meal, and my favorite was Casey believing that the waitresses real names were "Blanch" and "Doris".

Tessa and Wendy trying to get close to the water

The Foster Fam minus Nate (he had to work)

Here we leave you with a random photo of Canyon and Keisha

Brunch and Birthdays

2010-10-12T11:19:00.026-06:00

My good friends Linds and Jess and me went up the canyon to Ruth's diner for breakfast a few weeks ago. I love that place! I can't get enough of their amazing biscuits. I love this picture of us, I am never the tallest!

August, September, and October are quite the birthday months for our family. It started with Preston's mom, my mom, Canyon, my dad, me, and Preston's sister's husband Nate. Happy Birthday to us!

Preston's mom showing off her new bicycle helmet!

We celebrated Canyon's birthday on September 2nd. I can't believe that we have had him for an entire year! He is such a wonderful dog and is such a joy to have in our lives. This is a picture of him begging for food. He is sitting on the love sac, with his head resting on the coffee table.

My mom showing off the lemon/raspberry cake I made her. We went to Benihana for my dad's birthday, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures.

Preston's family took me out to PF Changs for my 26th birthday. How am I getting so old?

Hillside Floral delivered this gorgeous basket from my parents. They know that I don't like how flowers die after a week, so there are three house plants in there!

A side view of my favorite, Sunflowers...

My parents treated us to dinner at Ruth Chris for my birthday. Their steak is amazing!!! They even had birthday confetti that they put on the table, and sparkling pear cider that they brought out. The dessert in the picture was a banana cream pie, with carmelized bananas. It was delicious. We also got the chocolate duo. Yum!

Go UTES!!!!!!!!!

2010-10-07T17:47:00.005-06:00

Miss's parents picked up two more season tickets for this years Utah Football season. Each game has been really fun to watch. I have really enjoyed each game that we have been to. As of this post the Utes are 4-0, which is AWESOME! They are also ranked 10 in the nation. I love being an alumnus of the University of Utah! Well here are some pictures of the games so far.

The Smith family (at least Lydia knows whats up)

It's a...............BOY!!

2010-09-22T12:57:00.004-06:00

We are super excited to announce that our little baby is a healthy BOY! I don't have pictures yet, but I will post a couple as soon as I can. It was such a cool experience to see him floating around in Miss's tummy... it's kinda weird when you think about it. We got to see him move his hands, kick and suck his thumb (bad habbits really do start early). He did look a little like an alien, but that's okay. We can't wait to meet him. He is going to be one spoiled little kid. Now we can start getting stuff. We have decided on a western theme for his room with trains horses and cowboys and other westerny things. maybe we will turn his crib into a corral....who knows!

BIG NEWS.... WE ARE....

2010-08-28T13:57:00.002-06:00

GOING TO HAVE A BABY!

After trying for two years and two miscarriages...baby Foster will finally arrive on January 27th 2011. We are so thrilled and couldn't be happier! I can't wait until the little guy/gal gets here. For those of you that know me very well, you know that I am the world's worst liar! After lying to several of our family and friends, we finally started to tell the family about 14 weeks. I was slightly disappointed that no one was that surprised, but I guess that's what happens when you aren't a very good liar. The only people that knew when we first found out were our parents since we wanted a blessing and advice, and my friend Jeni that I taught with.

After our 14 week appointment we went to lunch with Preston's sister and her husband at Pei Wei. We each opened up our fortune cookie, and instead of reading what his fortune really said, Preston said "There is a Baby in Your Future." April asked if that's what it really said, and so he handed the fortune to her. When she read the real fortune she looked at both of us and then demanded to know if we were joking. Then she burst into tears, which surprised all of us and then had us all crying. She can't wait to be an aunt!

Next we told my extended family. Many of them were suspicious since my mom was trying to get all of the grandkids there for dinner. She told us that she had a special way to break the news, and that it would be a surprise for us as well! It turned out to be a delicious Cookies by Design bouquet. (If any of you know me, I hate flowers because they die. I would rather have something edible. These are my favorite! My mom knew how disappointed I was that I didn't get any for my recital since Cookies by Design was remodeling, and so she surprised us with these. I love how they turned out!)

My mom bought these cute cookies for the rest of the family, and my dad made amazing homemade strawberry ice cream for dessert.

After dinner we took some of the cookies down to surprise Preston's Grandpa Foster. He was so excited. I love his grandpa! I love that I am able to have grandpas again, since both of mine have passed away.

We went to dinner with one of my very best friends Lins! Guess what she was craving?? Pei Wei. It worked out nicely since we loved breaking the news with a fortune cookie.

My mom is so knowledgeable since she used to teach prenatal classes, and is a maternity nurse. I think I drive her crazy with my questions. It will be nice to have my own personal lactation consultant once I have the baby.

My dad can't wait to be a grandpa! He keeps calling the baby his grandson, until yesterday he called it his granddaughter. We find out on his birthday what we are having. It is in less then two weeks! I can't wait! ANY GUESSES??

24th of July

2010-07-28T19:21:00.000-06:00

This year's festivities started bright and early, with a breakfast at Preston's Aunt Wendy's house. It was a fun gathering with family and neighbors. The food was delicious with a huge buffet and my favorite, belgian waffles.

After the breakfast we headed to Tanner Park with Preston's cousin Jamon, his wife Jen, their little girl Lydia, and their two dogs. It was our dog Canyon's first trip to Tanner Park. The dogs had so much fun playing and Canyon did great off leash, only straying once to follow another group. Preston beamed like a proud dad when Canyon jumped in the river and swam! He was a natural. But of course, we didn't bring our camera along to capture it. Unfortunately, Canyon tore part of the pad on his right front foot, so he has been limping a little this week, and hasn't been able to go on any play dates or walks. It should be healed in about a week, so until then he has to take it easy.

After Tanner Park we headed off to Preston's Grandpa Foster's for a bbq for his Uncle Ken's birthday and in celebration of the 24th. Two of Preston's cousins had babies within the last month, and it was so fun to hold the precious little boys. They are adorable! I can't wait to be a mommy someday! Of course we didn't take any pictures... I love pictures, I just always forget to take them.

After the bbq we went to my moms for a quick nap before the fireworks, and then were off to the Butlerville Days with Preston's family and our friends. I LOVE fireworks. The 4th and 24th of July are my favorite holidays. There is just something magical about fireworks.

Preston's dad and me at the Butlerville Days

Our friends Russ ad Elizabeth. They are going to have a little baby in January. :-)

Drive-up Redbox

2010-07-15T13:27:00.000-06:00

We were waiting in line for the Redbox behind this redneck guy who thought that it worked like a drive-up window. Notice that his car is totally on an angle because he had to drive up over the curb to reach the screen. He was also decked out in his hunting gear and orange hat. Can you say redneck? Sorry the picture is a little fuzzy. It was hard trying to snap a picture without him noticing. Some people just make you laugh.....

4th of July (aka 3rd of July)

2010-07-08T14:23:00.002-06:00

On Saturday the 3rd we headed up to Preston's grandpa's cabin for a bbq and then as per tradition to the Oakley Rodeo. One of the royalty queens fell off of her horse. It was pretty funny, and sad. Unfortunately we missed seeing a great firework show this year, since most of the fireworks were on Saturday. However, it was still fun spending the evening with family.

On the way home we had to stop at a gas station in Jeremy Ranch to use the restroom, and a few of these were on the sidewalk (what are they?)......... How random.

Preston's graduation!!!

2010-07-03T13:22:00.000-06:00

It's finally here! Preston's graduating from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Art in Business Management! He officially finishes in August, but got to walk with his class in May. I am so proud of him! It has been a long road for our family with him working full time and going to school full time, and I am so grateful for his hard work and dedication!

The speaker for the University was Ambassador Huntsman. He gave such a wonderful talk.

Right after the morning commencement for the whole University.

Preston and his parents

The happy graduate. My dad bought him this real lei. It was flown in from Hawaii the night before. It smelled so yummy!

Preston and my family.

The Foster's. After taking pictures we headed off to Gateway to go shopping and then to California Pizza Kitchen, one of Preston's favorite restaurants for lunch, where we met up with his sister and her husband.

April and Nate were able to come to the College of Business graduation. They didn't have any speakers since there were so many graduating and each college is only allowed an hour and a half for their commencement. They ended up reading over 700 names that took up the entire hour and a half!

Preston with his diploma... I remember being so disappointed at my graduation, when there wasn't an actual diploma inside!

Preston's Uncle Matt came for the College of Business Commencement

Since the College of Business Commencement went until late that night, we had Preston's graduation party the next day. We were so grateful that so many of our close friends and family came. It made for such a special evening.

Preston's graduation!!!

2010-07-01T18:21:00.001-06:00

So I started blogging about Preston's graduation and had to save it as a draft, because I needed to get pictures from my dad. Well when I finished posting it today, it got put before my recital post because I had saved it as a draft before I had posted about my recital. Does anyone know how to fix this? Please scroll down past my recital to see the post about Preston's graduation. Thanks!

First Master's Recital

2010-06-24T15:45:00.001-06:00

On April 17th, I gave my First Master's Recital. It was such an emotional and physical challenge. Working full-time, and practicing made my life absolutely crazy! With the stress of work and practice, I came down with strep throat two weeks before my recital. It was an absolute nightmare! Luckily I survived and passed my preview, and received an A from all of the members of my committee on the actual performance. It wasn't a flawless performance but overall I was very happy with it. There were hardly any dates available in April, and so I ended up giving a morning recital which was unusual. However, it turned out very well, and we had a breakfast buffet from Great Harvest.

My sister in-law captured this great picture of the keys!

My dad took some great pictures of the actual performance!

This picture makes me laugh...

After the performance. Such a relief!

My teacher and me. She is such an inspiration. I am so grateful for her patience, and for the countless hours we spent together to make this recital possible.

Giving my committee flowers. They were so supportive, and I am grateful to have such a wonderful committee!

My hubbie and I. I could not have done it without him. He was there for me at every nervous breakdown that I had the weeks leading up to the recital. Thanks for all your love and support!

Preston's family and me. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of my parents and me. My dad was busy taking pictures, and my mom was busy helping with the reception.

My darling teacher from high school who taught at the University for 23 years before she retired. She was like a second grandma to me. I love her so much! I played for her and her husband a few days before the recital, but she was not going to be able to make it to the actual performance. She surprised me by coming! I am sad that she left before I could get a better picture with her.

This is us with Preston's grandpa. I had such great support from friends and family.

It was such a special treat to have some of my students come! Thank you to everyone who came to support me!

Memorial Day

2010-06-17T17:57:00.000-06:00

As a tradition my family always visits the graves of my Grandpa and my Nana on Memorial Day. It was a big year for my Grandma. Since her stroke about ten years ago, she has always stayed in the car when we visited the cemetery. This was the first time since her stroke that she had seen my Grandpa's (her husband's) grave.

Park City Weekend

2010-06-10T12:32:00.000-06:00

Every year Preston's work has a managers and board of directors work retreat. The first few years of our marriage, it was up at the Homestead, and last year it was held in Deer Valley. Last year was amazing, and I didn't think it could get any better, but I was wrong. This year it was held at the Hotel Park City. Our room/condo in cabin 10, was absolutely amazing!

We had our own personal hot tub on our deck. It was so relaxing, and because the weather was still pretty chilly, it was perfect!

The Steinway in the lobby was incredible! Preston talked me into playing a few numbers, but it turned into a mini recital, for his coworkers. I did pretty good considering I hadn't touched the piano in the month since my recital!

This is a view of the golf course from our room.

It would be fun to stay at Hotel Park City in the winter, because the chair lift is so close!

This is one of the three amazing fireplaces that the condo had.

Preston and I have always wanted a shower head that is on the ceiling of the shower.

Ruth Chris Steakhouse catered our dinner on Saturday night. It was incredible! It is one of our favorite restaurants. The steak is so tender that it literally melts in your mouth! It was also fun to hang out with some of Preston's work colleagues. We went to go see Robin Hood on Saturday night with his friend Trevor and Trevor's wife Nikki.

To finish off a wonderful weekend, we headed to brunch on Sunday at our favorite breakfast cafe, Ruth's Diner. Their biscuits are to die for! I laughed pretty hard though, when Preston ordered the Ruth Chris breakfast special. I don't think the waitress noticed, but it was pretty funny.

San Francisco Day 7

2010-05-24T13:18:00.001-06:00

On Saturday morning we headed to the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building for breakfast. They had so many fresh fruits/vegetables and cheeses. There were also several artists selling things like candles, and jewelry.

We got these amazing strawberries from one of the local farms. The strawberries, along with fresh squeezed orange juice and bagels made quite the delicious breakfast. Just seeing the strawberry makes my mouth water!

This is one of the ferries at the ferry building. It was hard to say goodbye to the bay and the beautiful water.

We had a crazy time trying to get to the airport. It took longer to return the car, and drive to the airport than we had anticipated and we were nervous that we wouldn't make our flight, but thankfully we made it. However, we forgot to fill the rental car up before we returned it, and they charged us $7.99 a gallon! How ridiculous is that? This picture is a view of Salt Lake from the airplane. We flew right over our house. It was fun to see the temple and the lake. We tried to get our camera out in time to capture the temple, but we were a few seconds too late.

San Francisco was amazing! We ate at so many delicious restaurants from French, to seafood, to Italian. It's always hard to come back from vacation, since there is always cleaning, laundry and groceries to be done. (I went to the grocery store at 10:30 that night. What a way to spend Saturday night!) We did miss our little doggy though! This is our family picture after arriving home.

San Francisco Day 6

2010-05-23T15:57:00.000-06:00

On Friday we decided to head down the coast on Highway 1. It was a beautiful day! After a scenic drive down the coast, complete with fresh fruit stands and places where you could pick your own strawberries, we arrived in Santa Cruz.

I loved Santa Cruz! It was a darling little town with such a fun, amusement park type of boardwalk, complete with arcades, and rides. Notice that the rollercoaster is on its way to the top in the picture. It was very warm in Santa Cruz. People were walking around in shorts and sandals. Needless to say, I felt a little silly and hot with my turtleneck. However, it cooled down as we headed down to Monterey, and I was grateful to have it then.

Next we stopped at Carmel. One of my students had recommended the drive to Monterey/Carmel, and it ended up being one of the highlights of our trip. Now that we look back on the trip, we wish that we would have stayed the last few nights, down in Monterey or Carmel. It was beautiful! This is a view of the water at Carmel. Isn't it gorgeous? In the background you can see the elite Pebble Beach Golf Course.

Carmel was a quaint upscale Mediterranean town. The architecture was so beautiful! I love the little archway that leads to this little coffee shop. We went window shopping, and got some delicious pastries from a local bakery.

I love this picture of Preston, especially his cute dimples! Carmel was one of Preston's favorite places on the trip.

Of course we had to dip our feet in the water, and walk in the sand. I love walking along the ocean!

After Carmel, we headed to Monterey to the Fisherman's warf. Preston and I both agree that we liked the Fisherman's Warf in Monterey, more than we liked the one in San Francisco. There were more shops, and the clam chowder that we got for dinner was amazing! There were several places selling clam chowder, and many of them had samples so it was fun to taste all the different varieties and choose our favorite. We also bought a roasted garlic to spread on our bread bowl once the chowder was gone. It was delicious! (sorry Preston looks like he is in pain in the picture, it was just really bright :-)

This is a look from the end of the pier in Monterey. It was such a beautiful day!

One of the restaurants located on the pier in Monterey. I loved seeing all of the boats docked at the pier in the marina.

After an amazing day, we headed back along highway one, and were able to stop and capture this beautiful picture of the sunset.

After taking a picture of the sunset, I turned to the other side of Highway one, and captured this picture! What a gorgeous place. Preston and I were actually sad to head back to the city. I wish that we could have spent more time driving down the coast. P.S. If you drive in San Francisco make sure to take a gps, because if you don't have one driving is a nightmare with all of the one way streets, and streets where you can't turn left. It took us thirty minutes upon entering the city, to navigate our way back to the hotel. I would much rather walk in the city!

San Francisco Day 5

2010-05-21T19:13:00.000-06:00

On Thursday we rented our car. It was a much needed break from our walking adventures. We were initially going to rent the car a few days earlier, but it cost $35 to park our car at our hotel. How ridiculous is that? It was fun renting the car though, because the rental place dropped it off with the concierge. It was also Preston's last day in his conference, which ended around noon, so we had almost the whole day together! I was excited to finally get to see Golden Gate Park and the Pacific Ocean.

This is a picture from one of the many little lakes in Golden Gate Park. At first I thought the turtles were statues, until I saw them swimming in the water. The park is enormous! There are several museums, as well as the Academy of Science located in the park.

This isn't a very good picture, but this was a windmill in the park that was by the tulip gardens. Unfortunately, the tulips had already bloomed for the season, and so it was mostly just poppies. We also went to some of the botanical gardens.

The border of Golden Gate Park is on the Pacific Ocean. It was beautiful, but SO windy. This picture makes me smile every time, especially as my hair curls up to give Preston a mustache.

Next we crossed the Golden Gate over to Sausalito and Tiburon. Sausalito had some darling shops, and some great restaurants on the pier.

We also drove all around Tiburon, which is shaped like a peninsula. They have some beautiful homes! I would kill for a view of the city like this! It was fun to explore outside of our walking radius. I just can't believe how large the bay is!

San Francisco Day 4

2010-05-20T12:32:00.000-06:00

Because we could not go to Golden Gate Park the day before, I was really hoping to go. However it decided to rain, which also made returning the rental bikes quite the nightmare. The place we originally rented the bikes from was closed, so we ended up spending all of Preston's lunch break riding around San Francisco in the rain trying to find the other location. After another afternoon of shopping, we walked over to the crookedest street. It just makes me smile. (sorry we are squinting in the picture, it was really bright)

This is a view from the bottom of Lombard "the crookedest street." I think it would be fun to have a house on Lombard, although it would be annoying to have people driving up and down all day.

Of course when we rented a car the next day, we had to drive down it as well :-) You can also see coit tower on the skyline.

This is a view of the cable car that runs from the crookedest street down to Ghiradelli Square. (and yes Preston took a picture of me taking a picture, but he claimed it was the view of the cable car that he was trying to capture.)

After taking pictures, we walked down to Ghiradelli square and got some more delicious chocolate samples, and then headed over to dinner at the most amazing Italian pizzaria called Tony's Napoletana.

San Francisco Day 3

2010-05-18T13:10:00.001-06:00

On Monday Preston's work conference began, so I had some time on my own to go exploring and shopping. Shopping was a high priority on my list, since the day before had been a record high for San Francisco, and I had only packed long sleeve shirts. The weather cooled down for the rest of the trip, but I did buy some cute clothes at H&M (it's like Forever 21) and Nordstrom (my favorite store). The Nordstrom there is absolutely incredible. It's four stories tall. I was in heaven! The cute girl that helped me even sent me a thank you note when I got home, and said that she hoped that I had had a great vacation! They also had some great boutiques and jewelry stands by our hotel. I walked for hours while Preston was in his workshop. I could probably navigate my way around the heart of San Francisco better than I could Salt Lake.

This is Chinatown. It was a half-mile or so walk from our hotel. It was exactly like the name sounds. A mini China. It was unusual to feel like the only caucasian. It wasn't as nice as I had always imagined in my mind, but they still had lots of great shopping, and fresh produce markets.

After Chinatown, I walked to Northbeach, which is the mini-Italy of San Francisco. They have one of the top ten pizza restaurants in the country there. After having a slice of pizza for lunch, I hiked up to Coit tower. It was quite the hike, but was well worth it. I didn't want to pay to take the elevator to the top, so this is a view from the base of the tower. I wish I had actually taken a picture of the tower. It was very pretty, you could see the whole bay.

After the tower, I ended up stopping for a delicious pastry at an Italian bakery in North Beach, and then hiked down to the ferry building. Here you can see the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge. All of the piers are odd numbers on one side, and on the other side are even numbered piers. I must have had a sweet tooth, because I also decided to stop for Italian gelato at one of the cute shops in the ferry building.

After Preston got done with his conference, we decided to do another highlight of the trip, biking across the Golden Gate! This picture shows just how enormous the Golden Gate is. I can't believe that a cruise ship fit under the bridge!

It was about a seven mile ride to the bridge. They claimed that it was all flat, but there were a few hills around Fort Mason that we had to ride across. This is a picture as we got close to the bridge.

Riding across the bridge was such a thrill! I loved every second of it. Preston says that he can cross it off his bucket list. It is such a different experience then driving across it. The part that made me laugh though is since they were doing renovation on parts of the bridge we passed several outhouses as we rode by. I asked Preston when we got across how many he counted, and he seemed perplexed. They had painted them the same color as the bridge, so they blended right in. They looked like all the other utility sheds and so Preston hadn't even noticed them. They also have several phones for emergencies on the bridge, so in case there is someone looking to commit suicide, they can talk to someone who will try and talk them out of jumping. I must say it would be quite the jump.

After we biked across, we decided to bike to Golden Gate Park, which is supposed to be a lot bigger than Central Park, and borders the ocean. However, our map was not drawn to scale, and so when we stopped to ask a local resident walking his dog, we were still four miles away. Four miles uphill that is. Since it was getting dark, we decided to just explore and then head back to the hotel. We happened to ride right by the Palace of Fine Arts. Since the bike shop was closed we stored our bikes with the concierge, and then headed to a delicious Italian restaurant for dinner.

San Francisco Day 2

2010-05-17T14:38:00.000-06:00

On Sunday, we were lucky enough to get tickets to go to Alcatraz, since they tend to sell out quickly. I wasn't too excited, but Preston really wanted to go and I figured it would be interesting to learn some history. However, Alcatraz was one of the highlights of the trip. I loved it. It was fascinating. We went on an audio tour that reinacts actual events and history through stories from the prisoners as well as the guards. I could not believe how small the cells were. 7 feet high, 5 feet wide, by 9 feet long. I would be so claustrophobic!

This picture shows how three men successfully escaped Alcatraz by widening the air vents in their room. (sorry about the poor quality of the picture, it was taken through glass.) However, the three were never found and more than likely drowned.

This is the view of the island as we were on the ferry back to San Francisco. The island was beautiful! They had very pretty gardens that the guards would let the prisoners tend if they were on good behavior.

After we got back, we decided to explore Pier 39. I loved the Sea Lions. They were so fun to watch. There was one sea lion that kept trying to get up on the pier, but the other sea lions would get mad because he kept climbing over them. I think he tried almost every one of the floating piers that you can see behind us. It was pretty funny!

On Pier 39, we found the most amazing crab restaurant. Although Preston and I disagree on many foods, we both LOVE crab. For dinner we ordered three pounds of crab. Unlike most restaurants, you don't dip it in butter, it comes pre-seasoned. It was delicious! An hour later, all that was left was a pile of shells.

After dinner, I saw it. A purse shop. I am not a clothes or shoes girl, I am a purse girl. Jokingly I went into the store to browse, but of course came out with the cutest new purse for summer. It has brown and white stripes! We also got funnel cake on the pier for dessert (funnel cake is a tradition that started when we were dating on our trip to Disneyland)

We stayed at the downtown Hyatt. Our room was gorgeous and looked out over Union Square. This is a view from our room. We stayed on the 27th floor. It was crazy being up so high.

I love Palm Trees. I didn't think they grew as far north as San Francisco, but I was wrong. This Palm Tree is in Union Square.

San Francisco Day 1

2010-05-13T16:09:00.000-06:00

I have been dying to go to San Francisco since Preston and I got married. I haven't been there since I was little. I didn't think that we would be going on vacation for awhile since we barely got back from our cruise in February. However we found out that Preston needed to renew his certification through his work, and we found out that the conference that he needed to attend was held in San Francisco. Needless to say I was so excited. Looking forward to another vacation was the only thing that got me through my recital and practicing thirty hours a week. Not only did we have an excuse for another vacation, but Preston's work covered his airfare and part of the cost of the hotel. Thankfully for us his conference was only three and a half days, so we had plenty of time for sightseeing, and I had fun exploring the days that he was in the conference. It was nice to spend time by the ocean and in the bay. There is something about water that I just love!

We left Saturday afternoon. It is always a tradition to get a picture at the airport. We decided that we were never going to let a vacation be like our honeymoon, where we have two pictures (of a bird, and an amusement park ride) from the entire vacation. The only thing that Preston and I hated, was not having his sister and her husband with us. Nate is a videographer, and I wish that we could have a video of the trip. Also April takes amazing photos. Preston and I hated asking people to take our picture. Maybe one day when we are rich, we can pay for them to come along to document our vacations.

We spent the first evening exploring and enjoying the sights. This is the delicious clam chowder that we got on Fisherman's Warf for dinner.

The famous fisherman's warf sign.

This was the first view of the water off the pier. It was a gorgeous evening.

There are lots of actors on the street that perform impressions, and act like statues and robots. This guy was my favorite. You can see him behind the bush. He would scare people as they walked by. He scared a german shepherd that walked by, and the dog freaked out. It was pretty funny.

The famous Ghiradelli square. It was pretty, but I think that I had always imagined it being on a boardwalk with sand. We wanted to go there for ice cream, but it was always before dinner when we went. I am convinced that we should have had ice cream for dinner. The chocolate shop gave out delicious chocolate samples. They had chocolate with carmel inside that melted in your mouth, and this is coming from someone who does not like hard chocolate.

The Cruise!!!

2010-03-05T18:23:00.000-07:00

So last Summer, on an impulse we decided to book a cruise with April and Nate in January. I have never been on a cruise before so I was excited to try a new experience. So here is a recap of the awesome adventure we had. We have a lot of pictures, but I will try and limit it a bit for the blogs sake. If you want an in depth behind the scenes look you will have to travel all the way to South Jordan to visit us.

Since Nate served his mission in Houston we decided to port from Galveston, Texas. It's about an hour away from Houston. Nate took us around some of his old stomping grounds. This is a picture of us in front of this giant water wall thing. It was pretty cool. Nate was able to have a cool family drive us down to Galveston that night. We stayed at the five star motel Howard Johnson... well at least it was a place to stay until we boarded the boat.

We booked with Carnival, Here is our fabulous boat complete with jumbo TV and water slide. It was very nice inside too. It was so much fun to watch the boat pull away from the port.

We had a couple of days at sea before we arrived at our first destination, Jamaica! Nate talked us into waking up early to watch the sun rise. It was cool, but it was a little cloudy. It actually rained during a couple of the days at sea. Lucky for us there was so much to do inside the boat.

Cruising is fun, but the excursions are where all the fun really happens. At our first stop Miss and I did zip lining through the Jungles of Jamaica. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done. It was so cool to fly from one tree to another. I wish I had more pictures of the experience.

After zip lining we went into town and went shopping in some pretty sketch places. Some guy took us down a back ally and talked us into buying some wood carved turtle that he said he carved himself. Which was really interesting because every other gift shop had the same carved turtle... oh well. Anyway on our way back to the boat we took this gem of a picture. Im not sure if that is a smile or an angry voodoo stare, you decide.

Here is a picture from the side of the boat on formal night. It was really fun. Some people really take formal night very seriously. I wore a nice suit and I still felt somewhat underdressed.

Here is the guy that cleaned our room for the trip. He was really cool, in fact all of the people that served us where awesome. I think this was taken after we found a baggy of green surprise in our room. We did later find out that it wasn't his... it wasn't ours either, because Miss found it before we got to Jamaica.

Next stop was Grand Cayman. We got to swim with the dolphins, swim and shop. Dolphins are the coolest. I could swim with them every day. We were going to swim with the stingrays too, but the water was too choppy.

Next up was Cozumel to go snorkeling. The water was so blue and clear we got to see the coolest fish. Also we learned that Miss looks super hot with snorkeling gear on.

Me on the other hand...

Just look at that water behind us. It was just so beautiful. We had a great time at each place we visited. It was sad to say goodbye. But the trip wasn't done yet we still had a day at sea and the final evening show for the cruise starring yours truly.

Earlier in the week I was talked into auditioning for some Karaoke contest. I didn't realize you had to perform it in front of everybody... and dress up as said artist. If you cant tell by the picture I performed as Sir Elton John. It was actually pretty fun, minus the feather boa around my neck. We have video of it, but I'm not posting it on the World Wide Web...

The whole week went by too fast. Miss and I really had such a great time. It was fun to spend that time with April and Nate too. It was so great to see so much of them...thats's what she said (inside joke).

Preston's 28th Birthday

2010-02-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

Usually we go to the cabin for Preston's birthday and invite friends and family, but this year we decided to celebrate more low key since we were leaving on our cruise the following week. His birthday fell on a Sunday, so we invited over family for dinner and dessert, and the night before we went to the car show (it was a high school tradition of mine) It was fun to sit in all of the nice cars, and wish that you had all the money in the world to buy one. However we ended up spending almost all of our time at the Subaru's. The new legacy is gorgeous! This is the only picture my dad captured of the event. I promise my kitchen doesn't always look like this!

Girl's Lunch

2010-02-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

My friends Andrea and Erin were in town for the holidays, and our group of friends were able to get together. It has been hard to get all of us together with Erin working on her graduate degree out of state and Andrea and her husband living out of state. (One of the things I miss about high school was being able to see my friends everyday.) It is so fun to see the exciting adventures life has brought to each of us since the last time we had lunch. Andrea had a darling little boy just a few months before, Katie's little girl is getting to be so big, and Preston and I moved into our brand new house.

New Years 2010

2010-02-07T20:49:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how fast another year has come to a close. It was an eventful year to say the least...

The annual car accident. In 2009 I was backed into at a gas station and the guy who hit me left out of the country for 6 weeks. Needless to say it took three months to finally get my car fixed. (Don't worry I have already fulfilled my 2o10 as well. I didn't get too far in the year this year. I was rear ended on January 4th)
The passing of my dog Penny, our bird Sunny and my dear sweet Kitty.
The miscarriage :-(
Preston being accepted into business school
The purchase of our new home
The new addition of our dog Canyon and our bird Melo.

I can't wait to see what the rest of 2010 brings us! To begin the year we had a party at our house. It was fun to start the year off surrounded by friends and family.

Christmas 2009

2010-02-07T20:48:00.000-07:00

Well Christmas came and went by really fast. It really doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but it was over a month...Crazy well this post will be short. I had to hijack Miss's login to be able to finish this post for her.

Miss's parents got us matching pajamas. Canyon had a fun time playing in the wrapping paper.

This year we spent Christmas eve with my family and April has all the pictures. I will post some when I get them from her. It was a great year and we feel so blessed to have such a great family.

Pre-Christmas Festivities

2010-01-01T14:12:00.001-07:00

I can't believe how fast the year has flown by. It was our first Christmas in our new home. It was fun to figure out where all of the Christmas decorations should go, and to put up Christmas lights on our house. I have been so horrible at taking pictures this Christmas. I hardly have any pictures of the events. I always love the excitement leading up to Christmas. Looking at Christmas lights is one of my favorite things. I can't wait until I am finished with my master's degree and can mail out Christmas cards, and go to more pre-Christmas events, it is just always hard as finals fall the weeks leading up to Christmas. Some of our pre-Christmas festivities included a gingerbread party with my family, the White family party, the Nutcracker (the picture above) we missed some of my extended family that wasn't able to make it this year. My mom is taking the picture. This is one of the rare instances when my dad is not hiding behind the lens of the camera. After the Nutcracker is delicious Benihana's and the lights at Temple Square.

Preston's family (the White side) celebrates Christmas Eve with a delicious breakfast. I got to bring my French Toast Casserole, which was a real treat because Preston doesn't like it, and so I hardly ever get to make it. We all brought our dogs over to play. I think there were eight dogs over at his parents. That night we went to the Roof for dinner. The view of the temple is just phenomenal. We tried having someone take our picture without the flash, so that we could see the lights of the temple, but it was too blurry.

This picture of Preston's sister April and her husband Nate is a little blurry, but I love the temple in the background. It is so beautiful! Later that night we got to open presents with his family. We got a bbq! I can't wait to use it in the summer! Now we just need patio furniture.

It's Christmas time!

2009-12-17T17:26:00.000-07:00

It's come again, and I finally have a little time to post something about the Holidays. We have been pretty busy with school and Miss preparing for her recital. Here we are just a week until Christmas so here are some pictures from our Christmas tree hunt.

Here is Canyon enjoying himself, I think he ran up and down the mountain a hundred times. Poor guy made himself sick he had so much fun.

Here is Miss carrying our tree. I didn't want to get sap on my hands, jk I helped carry her parents tree down because it was bigger

Here we are with our tree.

We got a big tree this year thinking that our ceilings were taller than they were. We had to cut it a little shorter, but it looks good in our new home. As soon as I am able I will post a picture of the tree in our house.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-28T00:09:00.000-07:00

As I reflect on the last year of my life, I realized how much the Lord has blessed my life. It has been a trying year, but I have received an abundance of blessings. Preston got into business school and graduates in less than a year. We were also able to purchase our first home without any financial assistance from family. We couldn't feel more happy about the neighborhood and the home. I feel safe to raise my children here. We also were blessed to rescue our dog Canyon. He has brought us so many smiles everyday. Last of all we are grateful that after trying for over a year to get pregnant that we were able to even though I had a miscarriage. I can't wait until the Lord blesses us with one of his children.

Pumpkin Season!

2009-11-13T15:30:00.000-07:00

Fall is one of my very favorite times of year. I love pumpkin and so I have been experimenting with pumpkin recipes. I made my first pumpkin pie which was yummy, as well as muffins, and a frozen pumpkin dessert. My husband also thinks I am crazy because I love to eat it plain right out of the can. Let me know if you have any good pumpkin recipes!

Mayor

2009-11-06T14:54:00.001-07:00

I just had to put this picture on here! It makes me smile! Apparently I won too!

3 Years!!!

2009-10-23T16:48:00.000-06:00

Can you believe it? Miss and I have been married for three years. Time flies when you are having fun. So this year was a little different... Miss and I didn't really get to celebrate it until last Saturday. We went to dinner at a really good sushi restaurant, and then went for some delicious ice cream. So this will be the second year in a row that we celebrated by eating sushi. If we aren't careful it will become a tradition. April took some photos of us up at the cabin.They turned out pretty good!

This is Miss's favorite. I am not really smiling though, because I had just gotten shocked by the lamp on the post. It left a big black mark on my hand.

I love this picture of our rings!

This one is my favorite....

In September the Foster family had a reunion up at the cabin. It was a lot of fun to see everyone. It seems like the Foster's get together less and less. I guess I can't complain too much, we hardly have time to do anything with our busy schedules. Well here are some of the pictures from the event.

I love my grandma!

The grandparents

the family

The whole Foster family

Canyon!!

2009-10-04T17:54:00.000-06:00

Miss was so excited about getting a home that as soon as our offer was accepted it was off to the animal shelter to get a dog. So.. we got a puppy. He is now about 7 months old and a lot of fun to have around the house. As for puppy things, he is actually really good. We have only had a couple of accidents, and his chewing spells are fairly brief. We sure love him. I now introduce you to Canyon!

He is definitely a puppy

He loves watching and listening to Miss practice.

He loves scoping out the kitchen for scraps too.

but he does have his moments when its time to leave or go to bed.

Oh the life of a dog!

This seemed like a good pic to end the post with.

Lake Powell

2009-09-27T17:34:00.000-06:00

Well I am finally taking a turn to blog. It's been awhile. This past Summer we finally got the chance to return to one of my favorite vacation spots. My family used to go every year when I was growing up, and It has been more than 13 years since I last went. Miss and I were looking forward to it all Summer.

We went with my family and the Smith family. We rented a boat and 2 wave runners. Instead of house-boating or camping we booked a few rooms in a hotel in Page. It was a new experience, but a lot of fun.

This is at a lookout point above Waweap just as we arrived from our drive

We only spent three days on the lake. Those three days really only felt like 1. While we all had to take turns on the boat we got to spend our time waiting on the beach goofing around. Here are a few photos of the fun we had on the beach.

We made a cool sand castle

I made some decorative sand art with just my big toe. Who knew I had such talent in my feet?

We even made a pyramid complete with a sphinx and a obelisk

We got to spend some quality time on the lake as well. We wake boarded, water skied and tubed. There was no end to the fun, well at least until I lost my glasses after getting thrown off of the wave runner. Next year I am buying a pair of chums. Well I guess on the bright side, one day in the future when people are digging for artifacts they will come across a nice pair of Ray Bans lying somewhere at the bottom of the lake.

Here we are posing in front of our rental boat. We definitely need to get one of these.

Every day I was really careful to put sunblock on every exposed part of my skin, but apparently sunblock does not stay on me. Every day I got more and more burned. I was constantly loading up on sunblock only to get more burned. Miss got burned as well. She didn't put sunblock on her legs the first day and got one bad sunburn that took weeks to go away.

Miss and Aimee suffered a similar fate. The sunburned swollen lips. That's got to hurt!

Here is the the family posing on one of the wave runners. We did have a beautiful spot.

The whole crew. A great bunch to spend time with.

No trip would be complete with out an adventure, and ours was in need of one. On the very last day as we were leaving the lake we got the chance to experience one of Mother Natures finest acts. A raging dust storm. Right as we were heading to the marina and boat ramp we saw a huge wall of dust heading our way. The wind was blowing and the waves were huge. I was driving one of the wave runners with Miss and Jake behind me. We fought the waves and the lack of visibility to get to some safety at the marina. As we got there we jumped off and ran for some cover. To make a long story short here are some of the highlights of the adventure in bullets

Miss, Jake and I tip over after swearing to ourselves that it would never happen again (we tipped over every day that we were there. We made for a bad combo on the wave runner)
Getting pelted with sand
Racing to go check on the wave runners that are now separated from the boat.
Helped Italian family off their boat
Watching one of the ladies on the boat getting the top part of finger chopped off, when trying to help
Jamon and Tessa (the medics of the family) helping her to safety
Securing the wave runners from further damage

I am glad everyone from our family was safe. it was a pretty crazy storm that lasted a couple of hours.

Here is a picture of the storm about to overtake us. It was an amazing sight.

Miss and I at the hotel. Sunburned and ready for a drive home.

Before I close out this post I want to mention one of the coolest parts of the whole trip. Miss has tried for years to get up on water skies or wake board and could never quite get up. A little every day Miss would get in the water and try and try to get up. I knew she was getting a little discouraged, but she was always just so close every time. Well I am proud to announce that on the last day on the last couple of tries Miss got up and stayed up for a couple of minutes. She probably could have stayed up longer if her arms weren't so sore from all of the tries. I wish I had a picture of her up. It was so awesome to see her hard work pay off. I am super proud of her. Next year it will be so easy for her. I cant wait.

Well this was a long post. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed being there. I cant wait to go again.

Good bye Lake Powell!

Miscarriage

2009-09-13T17:43:00.001-06:00

Preston and I have been trying to get pregnant for over a year now. We want a little baby so bad. We have been very nervous that we would not be able to get pregnant because my mom as well as his mom had a very hard time getting pregnant. I found out two weeks ago that we were pregnant, but that I was miscarrying the baby. (they think I was about 5-6 weeks) I found out the day that I left out of town for a work retreat and it was so hard, not to be able to talk to anyone about what was going on (at that point my doctor didn't know if I was miscarrying until they did the blood work) My HcG counts are still above what they should be after a miscarriage, and so I have had to have my blood drawn four times now. (which my insurance doesn't cover...) Because the miscarriage happened the night before we moved, I have been an emotional mess, as well as physically tired from the stress of moving/getting the dog as well as the miscarriage. I guess the silver lining in all of this, is that we were able to get pregnant.

Car Accident...

2009-08-29T08:44:00.000-06:00

I can't believe I haven't written about this yet. It's probably because it makes me very, very angry. So on July 7th, waiting to turn left out of a gas station parking lot, a gentleman backed into my car. Well I called his insurance that day, and the adjustor called me the next day. However, the gentleman that hit me went out of the country for a month. Fantastic. And because he did not report the accident because no damage was done to his vehicle, they are refusing to fix my car until they speak with him. Which apparently he still is unavailable to speak with?? And so I drive around with this awesome dent... My car has been hit THREE TIMES in less than two years none of which have been my fault. (remember the hit and run? or the golf ball incident?) The total amount that the insurance companies have spent fixing my vehicle since I have owned it, is more than I paid for the car.

Dog Lake

2009-08-23T22:03:00.000-06:00

When Angie called us to see if we wanted to go on a hike to Dog Lake, I assumed that there must be more than one hike called Dog Lake. However, it turned out to be the same hike that we had already gone on earlier this year, except we approached it from Millcreek rather than Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was a beautiful day, and it was fun to be able to take Keisha, since dogs aren't allowed in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was a shorter hike (5.8 miles roundtrip), and was a great way to start the morning.

I love this picture of Keisha running along the lake. She is starting to like water, but won't get deep enough where she has to swim. We tried throwing cookies further and further in the lake, but she just waited for the waves to bring them closer to where she wouldn't have to swim to grab them...

It was so much fun to have my dad come with us!

Ang, and I! We were like sisters growing up. We used to go on hikes all the time when we were little. Somehow she would always fall in Cecret Lake when we went :-)

My uncle and my cousins. Keisha actually is facing the camera! Dogs are so hard to pose for pictures, and she just happened to be in the way when we took the picture.

Home Owners

2009-08-17T22:29:00.000-06:00

Last week after waiting three months for our offer to be accepted on a short sale, we found our perfect house! We love it! We realized that things always happen for a reason, and that it was a blessing that the short sale didn't work out. We saw it on Wednesday, made the offer on Friday, dropped off a check on Saturday and today found out it's ours. Less then two weeks until we close and it's official. I can't wait!

Family

2009-08-15T15:55:00.000-06:00

I can't believe how my extended family has grown in the last few years with great-grandkids, weddings and boyfriends. This is just some of the extended family that was at my aunt and uncle's surprise 25th wedding anniversary party.

Melo

2009-08-08T11:34:00.000-06:00

We would like to welcome our replacement for Sunny to the family. Melo (pronounced me low) According to Preston it is a combination of mellow and yellow, although I still haven't quite figured out how that works... I decided to post this picture to show that he is quite the climber. He will climb almost anything. He doesn't stop on your shoulder like most birds, he will climb all the way to the top of your head. It is pretty amusing. So far they seem to be getting along pretty well.

In Loving Memory of Penny 1996-2009

2009-08-01T11:04:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we had to put our dear sweet Penny down. She is the first dog that I remember picking out, and remember her life from that first day until the last. As many of you know Penny in the last year suffered from osteosarcoma (bone cancer) and that was why we had to amputate her leg in March. However, after the biopsy, there was a 90% chance that it had spread. At the beginning of June, she lost the ability to use her other back leg, and it caused her to have to drag her back end around, and involved carrying her outside to go to the bathroom. Because she dragged herself around, she developed rug burn, where the fur had rubbed off. It was so sad where she would drag herself all the way down the stairs when my dad was taking the other dog for a walk. Then within the last week she was not even able to chew a tiny cookie, and so yesterday we took her into the vet to look at her tooth. (my dad had started making her scrambled eggs for breakfast) After the vet examined her mandible or jaw, he realized that it was in fact the cancer that had spread to her face, and was causing her to not be able to chew. At this point it was agreed to not let Penny suffer anymore. She was a wonderful dog, and will always be my Petsmart puppy.

One of my favorite things was waking up with Penny snuggling next to me on the bed.

She loved to listen to me practice and teach. I will miss her!

Red Butte

2009-07-24T15:11:00.001-06:00

My best friend Steph and I have started a lunch tradition this summer. Some of my favorite lunches have been going on picnics. We went to Red Butte a few weeks ago. It is so beautiful up there. I love our lunch tradition. It is so fun to see Steph and Sophia. I love her little sunglasses. She is growing up so fast!

Federation

2009-07-20T23:19:00.000-06:00

This year was my first year participating in the popular music festival Federation. I only entered two of my students that were transfer students because I just wanted to get get my feet wet the first year and see how I liked it. I was a little nervous when preparing my students for the festival since they had received superior ratings the previous two years (the highest rating). If they received a superior rating for a third year, they would receive a gold cup. Needless to say, I felt a little pressure when choosing their pieces and helping them learn them. I also had them skip four levels since I felt that they had surpassed the material from those levels. However, they are both wonderful students and are very artistic and musical. They not only impressed me, but the judges as well. Good job girls!

4th of July

2009-07-16T20:49:00.000-06:00

My favorite holiday of the year is the fourth of July. There is just something about the magic of summer nights, bbqs and fireworks. We also have been lucky enough to be able to go up to the Foster cabin and the Oakley Rodeo as part of our fourth of July tradition.

I love that they hung the parking sign for the rodeo on the tractor.

Dog Lake

2009-07-12T21:22:00.000-06:00

For another hike we went to Dog Lake. It was a rainy Saturday. (back when it seemed to rain everyday). All of the mountain bikers coming down the trail were just covered in mud. However, it was nice that it wasn't so hot, and the views were absolutely stunning. We are just loving playing outdoors this summer! Let us know if you know of any other really great hikes!

Our friends Katie and Reed, and their cute little girl Addy! Addy just loved being outside, even with all of the rain. Reed is an incredible athlete. He had already biked all the way to the top of Big Cottonwood that morning, and wasn't even the least bit tired on the hike.

Our friends Mike and Madison. The four of us have made a goal of going hiking every other weekend. We are just loving it!

Isn't this picture with the mist on the lake beautiful?

Sunny Jo 2008-2009

2009-07-06T11:31:00.000-06:00

If any of you remember our cute little bird we got last summer (the yellow one), he passed away on Sunday. While we were house sitting for my parents, I was going to clean their cage, and so I had left the cage door open. Well long story short, I got distracted and my dear sweet dog Keisha caught and killed Sunny. I feel just awful. I hope our other bird Buddy will be ok, he is not eating. What a month with animals.

Wagon Ride

2009-07-02T12:19:00.000-06:00

My dear sweet dog Penny, although recovered from her amputation caused by an infection managed to hurt her other back leg, and now cannot walk, but drags her back end as a mode of transportation. It is really heartbreaking. However, my dad and I know how much she loves walks and so we take her on walks in my old red wagon. I love my dog!

Student Recital

2009-06-27T15:23:00.000-06:00

I have been meaning to post these cute pictures of my dear sweet students. These are just a few of my students at their recital. Aren't they just adorable?

They are such a joy to teach, and they say the funniest things. One of my students told me that my piano was old fashioned, and that hers was much cooler because it could play all these different sounds (she has an electronic keyboard). Also there was the day that I didn't flat iron my hair and I was convinced it was too poofy. Everyone that I asked assured me that it looked cute. Well I asked my cute student Bella at her lesson if she cut her hair, and she said that she did and that my hair looked different too... that it was frizzier. Finally honesty :-)
My cute student Avery. She played one of my favorite pieces that I played when I was little called Jungle River. My mom leaned over to me during her performance, and was like I remember when you played this. I like this one.

This is one of my newest students Sophia. She is from Canada and speaks French. She hadn't learned how to read notes on the staff yet, and so I taught her piece by rote. It was an experiment on my part, but she did awesome!

My cute student Bella. She always says the funniest things. Apparently she has three different boyfriends right now. When I was asking her if she was talking about Grant one day, she said no my other boyfriend.

Finally my cute student Addy. She is one of my smartest students. I have never had a student fly through the method books the way she does. She could almost teach herself.

Felicity

2009-06-19T14:13:00.000-06:00

I buried my cat today. No matter how hard you prepare yourself for that moment, you are never ready to say goodbye. My kitty was no ordinary kitty. She never really went by Felicity. Instead she was lovingly referred to as "kitty", "frito", "freeze" and "fissy"

She loved to sunbathe!

I told my mom when I was little that I wanted a kitty, and with a stroke of luck, a stray cat came to live with my family. One morning, the day that my uncle came home from the gulf war, our stray cat had kittens, and my dear sweet Felicity was born. She was an identical twin. I loved that cat. She has been a part of my life since I was 5 years old. My dogs slept in my parents room, but my kitty always slept with me. Being an only child, my kitty was more of a sibling. I spent hours just hanging out with my kitty. Whenever I was upset my kitty always seemed to know, and countless times I would bury my face in her fur and cry. She always made me feel better.

She liked to eat plants!

One of the hardest things for me was leaving her at my parents when we got married. (Preston is allergic to cats) However, every time I would practice she would curl up on the orange chair in the living room to listen to me practice. In the past year her health declined. She could no longer eat hard food because of a bad tooth (she was too old to have surgery) And then two weeks ago, she stopped eating and became so thin that she looked like a holocaust cat. Yesterday after trying to force feed her with out any luck, I made an appointment to have her put down so that she would not starve to death. I am grateful however that we did not have to put her to sleep. After giving her a bath yesterday, she went downhill. We wrapped her in a blanket and held her.

The famous orange chair that she loved to sit in!

She died in my arms last night. As hard as it was to see her that way, I am glad that I was there. A part of me kept thinking that she would wake up. I kept expecting to see her walk up and meow when I got there this morning. We buried her with her favorite toys and an old shirt of mine (she liked anything that smelled like me) My dad and I had a hard time laying the first scoop of dirt on her. It's been a rough day. We planted a flower over her grave. I miss my kitty.

Blue and White Day

2009-06-17T11:10:00.000-06:00

The name for the field day at the elementary that I teach at is called Blue and White Day. It is a fun day in which the students are placed on either the Blue team or the White team (which are the school's colors) and the teams battle out to see who the victor is: the Blue Team or the White Team. The winning team then gets their color put on the plaque in the hall of the school. It is fun to see all of the teachers and the students in either their blue or white shirts. (Notice the neutral status of some of the teachers above.) The park was so beautiful that day. (It was before we started to have all of this rainy weather.) My favorite moment was when one of the founders of the school (who is in his eighties?) squirt with a hose everyone who participated in the tug of war. We also had delicious popsicles from Paces in Bountiful. (I would highly recommend them.) The white team were the victors. Hooray! It was a great end to a wonderful school year!

Hike

2009-06-11T12:21:00.000-06:00

For our birthdays this last year, Preston and I both got hiking shoes. Hooray! I have been wanting some good ones for quite awhile now. I love to hike and we decided with our friends Mike and Madison that we are going to try and go hiking every other weekend. Madison and Mike have a great book called 60 hikes within 60 miles that lists hikes all around the Salt Lake Valley. It also listed details about what the hike is like: how steep, how long etc. Well it also lists difficulty levels. Since it was our first hike of the season we decided to go for one that was listed as easy. However, I guess we must all be a little out of shape, because none of us thought it was easy. Maybe average....
Check out the view from the top! Isn't it beautiful?
The hike was called the Living Room and it is up by Red Butte at the U. It was really fun. There are sandstone slabs that people have arranged to look like living room furniture with ottomans and couches and chairs :-) This one is my favorite. Note the remote control that someone made with the rocks :-)

Next time I want to hike further and go to a place called the tower. Has anyone been there? It sounds neat.

Night on the Town

2009-06-05T11:01:00.001-06:00

This summer has been a blast so far. We went on a double date with my good friend Lindsey and her boyfriend James. We headed downtown for some delicious pizza at Stoneground. After dinner we went shopping at Gateway and then we went to the Off Broadway Theatre for the comedy show Laughing Stock. It was such a fun night.

Lindsey and her boyfriend James

When we turned the flash off on my camera, we were able to capture the lights of downtown. I love the street lights in this picture.

Side note: Linds has been such a great friend and has helped me to clean out my closet. (I am a major pack rat and still cannot seem to part with my old shirts and shoes from high school.) Thanks Linds!

Pres and I before the show

Work Retreat

2009-05-30T18:26:00.001-06:00

Every year in May the company that Preston works for has a strategic planning meeting and weekend retreat. For me this means swimming, relaxing, reading and other fun-filled activities. The past few years the retreat has been at the Homestead in Midway, but this year they decided to try The Lodges at Deer Valley. It was beautiful! We could not have asked for better weather. Our room was enormous! It was nearly twice the size of our apartment, and came with an amazing kitchen, a washer and dryer, a balcony, and two bathrooms to name a few.This is a picture of our room that I took while sitting on the couch.

On Saturday before the company dinner, Preston and I went on a walk around Deer Valley. There are lots of little paths, and gorgeous rivers.

Friday night on our way up we ate at Baja Cantina, and on our way down from the retreat we had brunch at the Eating Establishment, which I used to eat at with my family when I was little. It was a great weekend!This is us at the company dinner on Saturday night.

Cute Husband

2009-05-23T16:33:00.000-06:00

So the other day at work, I noticed that I had missed a call from Pres. When I had a break between classes I called him back. After talking with him for a minute, he told me that I needed to go check my car. I was completely puzzled. He should be at work? Well it turns out that he left early since his work retreat was that weekend and had put flowers in my car. How sweet is that? Thanks sweetie!

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-19T21:22:00.000-06:00

As a tradition on Mother's Day, I cook a big dinner for our moms. This year was my mom's turn. I really love cooking dinner. It's one of my favorite things. (Except during the week we usually don't eat until late because of work.) I especially love making Mother's Day dinner when I get out all of my serving dishes and tablecloth. Preston even knows how to fold our nice cloth napkins in some oragami like shape. I feeling like I am playing house when I was little, or at least with one of those easy bake oven kitchen sets.

For dinner we had a delicious pot roast with veggies and rolls. As an appetizer I made an amazing strawberry poppyseed salad with marinated mushrooms, avocados, red onion and strawberries. For dessert my mom loves lemon, and so I made this delicious lemon chiffon cake, whose topping is whipped cream and lemon pudding. Doesn't it look yummy? We also got a chance to take Mother's Day cards to our grandmas. It was a fun filled Mother's Day! I love you mom!

Congratulations Honey!

2009-05-14T10:07:00.001-06:00

So this morning on my way to work I received a call from Preston. He met with his counselor this morning to find out if he was accepted into upper division for business school. HE WAS!!!! Hooray! Only 1 more year of school! I am so proud of him. He has been through so much and has worked so hard! He has even gone to school full time while working full time to support our family. I love him so much! Congratulations sweetheart!

Preston's Random Thoughts

2009-04-14T14:34:00.000-06:00

So I'm not allowed to post dumb things on our blog, so I decided to start my own were I just post random things about me, our life or anything else that is stupid or funny. Feel free to check it out here http://thoughtsofpreston.blogspot.com I actually started it a couple of months ago, but haven't posted much.

So if you want to read what random thing I am thinking go ahead and take a look otherwise stay here to keep up with what what we have been up to, because I don't plan on doing that very much in this secondary blog. I haven't abandoned writing on this blog, but I don't ever seem to blog about the right things, that is why Miss does it mostly :) Anyway pop over once and a while if you would like to read something really unintelligent and stupid. lol!

Penny Lives!

2009-04-05T10:46:00.000-06:00

Around St. Patrick's I noticed that my dog's foot that she had held up since she had torn her acl last summer (we had decided against knee surgery because of her age) had started to swell. That Friday I made her an appointment with the vet. The next day when we took her into the vet. Her foot had began to bleed because it had become so swollen.

The vet originally thought that it was a spider bite that had caused the necrosis and death of the skin on her foot from where the infection started. He put her on antibiotics and took a culture of the infection. However a week later the swelling had gotten higher and her fur had turned green.

It turned out that the green was caused by a the pseudomonas bacteria that was growing. Penny was having a rough time because she hated staying in the laundry room. (because her foot was bleeding she could not be out on the carpet) We took her back into the vet and he did an x-ray and it turns out that she has osteosarcoma (bone cancer) and that it had completely eaten away her heel bone. He drew blood to see if the cancer had spread. The vet had said that if the cancer had spread that we would have to euthanize her, but if it hadn't spread the only other option was to amputate the leg to catch the localized cancer and the infection that was not healing.

I apologize for the graphic picture, but this shows the extent of how bad the infection had become.

We didn't get the results of the blood test for four days. I was such a mess all weekend. We were up skiing, and I kept bursting into tears and would have to sit down in the middle of a run. It was so embarrassing.

It turned out that her blood work came back clear, but that the surgery would be hard on her since she was an older dog. My mom asked the vet for his opinion and he seemed to be pushing for putting her to sleep as was my dad and Preston. However that night she was able to go on a walk and was eating well and seemed to be in good spirits that I couldn't bear to take her in for in her appointment the next day to be put to sleep.

Monday was a rough day for me, I had a final that I walked into nearly in tears, and I got pulled over on the way to my mom's. Luckily I got out of the ticket because after telling him that I was on my way to decide as a family if we were going to put my dog down ( I was bawling the whole time) he just let me go ;-)

Well I talked my dad into the surgery. The next morning they were able to fit her in for the surgery. She was able to come home that night, and seemed to be doing well, but was still on a cocktail of drugs. She has been in great spirits and the wound seems to be healing very well.

She seems to be doing great without her leg

Here is a close-up look at her stitches

Unfortunately, we received a call from the vet, and after he had sent off a sample of the infected foot to a lab for a biopsy, the results came back that there is a 90% chance that the cancer has already spread. But at least for now she is doing great, and we are hoping to keep her around as long as possible.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-21T16:59:00.000-06:00

St. Patrick's Day is always one of those fun little holidays that I have come to cherish over the years. Any excuse to celebrate or have a party is fine by me :-) My mom always makes a delicious Irish dinner that I look forward to and made St. Patrick's Day sugar cookies for dessert which are always a treat.

Black Jack

2009-03-15T16:03:00.000-06:00

My first experience with gambling was on my senior trip; a cruise to Mexico. (the legal age to gamble on international water is eighteen) After the quarter machine ate five dollars I decided that the gambling thing was just not for me; although my friends seemed to take to it more than I did. However, for my grandma's birthday some of the family is heading to Wendover. So last week when my friends decided to play blackjack I thought I would give it another shot. After Ryan and I decided to go all in, we lost big time and had to eat 17 pieces of bubble gum each. Needless to say, I guess gambling is just not my thing.

This is just a few of the pieces of bubblegum that I had to eat. Oh and yes the big pink wad in my mouth is bubblegum.

President's Day

2009-03-08T16:57:00.001-06:00

This year for President's Day we spent a fun filled evening with family. We went bowling and to dinner. Thanks Brian and Deanne! I am so glad that we have such a great family to spend time with!

After all of the kids losing to Preston's parents in the first game, I came back and WON the second game! I am usually such an awful bowler. I was so proud of myself. I called my mom and she was just as surprised since I usually get gutter balls. She was even more shocked when I told her that I didn't even use the bumpers!

Happy Valintien's Day!

2009-02-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

This year was a great Valentines. Isn't the cake hilarious? My aunt bought it at Costco. They tried to give it to her for free because of the spelling error, but my aunt thought it was great! We were grateful that Valentine's fell on a Saturday this year so that we could spend the entire day together. Usually it falls on an evening when Preston has late class, or that I am teaching late. The celebration began on Friday. One of the great things about teaching at an elementary school is being able to celebrate holidays with fun activities and games. A few of my students gave me Valentines. I even got a plant from Cactus and Tropicals, which is one of my favorite stores!

This is one of my cute students with her Valentines box that she made. Isn't she cute?

On Saturday morning I woke up to flowers being delivered from my cute dad! He is so thoughtful! For gifts Preston and I got each other the Wii-Fit and a new cover for our Lovesack, since the zebra stripes don't really go with the rest of our furniture. I still can't believe how much they charge for just a cover!

Somehow during the years, my Lovesack came unzipped. We were very grateful that it was not a hole like we first thought. But needless to say swapping the cover was a larger project than we originally thought. I think we will be finding miniature foam pieces for weeks to come (they are like those foam peanuts that stick to you when you open a package).

For dinner we were craving sushi and went to Mikado. Unfortunately, we didn't think to make reservations, but it was well worth the wait! My cute cousin who was working decided to buy us dessert (a delicious bananas foster) it was amazing! Thanks Ang!

Horn Happy

2009-02-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

So for many of you that don't know I have a minor case of road rage. It mostly involves me honking at drivers that make me angry. It bugs Preston because when he drives, because I will reach over to honk at someone making us angry. Needless to say, it is probably not the best habit to have. Well the other day on my way to work this truck pulled in front of me as I was getting into the left hand turning lane, and so of course I honked. Well as we started to turn left (we had a green arrow and a green light) this car in the lane to go straight tried to turn with me (even though there were not two turning lanes.) Keep in mind that it was some lady in a gold Camry. Well I honked and glared at her as well. The next thing I know, she flips her lights on. She was a cop! Great! I totally thought she was going to pull me over, but she ended up pulling over the original truck that I had honked at. I still can't believe I honked at a cop! Maybe I need to be more careful who I honk at... especially since my plates are expired (long story).

What are the Odds?

2009-02-03T21:29:00.000-07:00

I don't know if any of you feel this way, but I always get nervous to use the handicap stalls in the bathroom, I am always afraid that some handicapped person will be standing there when I come out. Does anyone know the bathroom etiquette of handicapped stalls.... are they only for handicapped people? Well see at the Jazz game, I had to go to the restroom during half-time, which is when everyone decides to go, so it was of course crowded, and there was a line. When it was my turn, the stall that opened up was the handicapped stall, so I went in. However, while I was in the stall I heard an elderly woman talking to someone that was cleaning the bathrooms who told the woman that there was a stall on the end, but that it was occupied. To my embarrassment, as I emerged from the stall there was the elderly woman using a walker waiting for me to come out. I was mortified.

Happy Birthday to me!

2009-01-25T22:20:00.001-07:00

So I turned 27... that's weird, I never thought i would live to see 27. I don't really know why, I guess I always just thought that the second coming would have happened by now, anyway weird.
It was indeed a happy birthday. I got what I wanted, a Wii! I really didn't think I would get one either, but Miss and my parents came through. I know it seems dorky, but I am a Nintendo geek. It was kind of embarrassing how much I wanted one (I'm sure glad Miss still loves me). I have some friends at work who were trying to steer me towards an Xbox, but I am super happy with the Wii.

So we have a tradition that I love and that is to spend the weekend around my birthday up at the cabin. This year we continued the tradition and had a really fun time. I feel bad that we hardly took any pictures of the event.

I love winter cabin! I love the smell of snowmobiles and a fire burning in the fireplace. Miss and I have this discussion of which cabin is better, Winter or Summer. I guess in the end I just love having a place to go and relax.

We invited a whole bunch of people up, but I guess only the people that really care about me came... Just kidding! We missed those who couldn't make it. There is always next time.

This is Lindsey and Miss. in front of the fireplace.

This is Lindsey and James. James gave me another awesome gift, almost all of the original Nintendo library of games. I think I played Super Mario Brothers too much. (editors notes: Sorry for the Nintendo geekness of this blog. I just realized how much of a nerd I really am.)

The fire Miss built. The last time we went to the cabin It became the joke that I could build a better fire than Nate. Well this trip getting the fire going didn't go so well for me. This is Miss's fire that she built. So I guess she can build a better fire than me. I will have to redeem myself next time.
I sure hope this year works out well. We have big plans... not telling what those are yet.

Our "Other" Anniversary and New Years Eve

2009-01-13T23:15:00.001-07:00

So today is our "other" anniversary (it would have been our anniversary if we hadn't gotten married) I can't believe that it has been three years! I am so grateful to have such a wonderful companion. I love him so much, and look forward to many more wonderful years and memories. This year we had such a great New Year's Eve, and spent the evening playing games with friends and then headed up to the cabin on New Year's. I am so glad that I didn't have the flu like last year! :-)

Christmas Eve and Christmas

2009-01-11T01:13:00.000-07:00

We started off our Christmas Eve at Preston's parents for the annual White family Santa breakfast. As a sort of tradition, my father in-law wears a yellow sweater that he bought in England ages ago, and has now become a joke in the family because he wears it every year and it's not even a Christmas color. Well after many emails and forwards that later ended with my father in-law defending yellow as a color of Chrismas, the rest of us decided to wear yellow ribbons on Christmas Eve in his honor.This is us wearing yellow ribbons in my father in-law's honor

This a picture of the famous yellow sweater

Later on Christmas Eve we went to my parents to open gifts. We got matching 13" macbooks and a desktop monitor. They are beautiful! On Chrismas morning we went over to Preston's parents where we got a Tomtom gps and a lovely desk chair. For the afternoon we headed to Preston's grandpa's for the annual gift exchange, and then to my grandmas. We had such a great Christmas this year, and are so blessed to have such wonderful families. We love all of you!

Us opening our stocking!

This is our desk chair

Progressive Dinner

2009-01-04T14:32:00.000-07:00

Every year, the Sunday before Christmas, Preston's family gets together for a progressive dinner. This is us and his best friend/cousin Jamon and his wife Jen.

Today we just got back from a fun relaxing weekend up at the cabin. Luckily for us, we were still able to watch the U game. Go utes! What a game!

Nutcracker and Benihana

2008-12-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

As a tradition in my family we go to the Nutcracker and Benihana the Saturday before Christmas. I look forward to it every year.

In this picture we are showing off the drink cups which say Benihana.

Each year we get a girl cousin picture at Benihana. We were able to get everyone there but Kayla.

After dinner, we headed to go see the lights at the temple grounds. They were beautiful! I love this red tree. I think it's so pretty, how they make a "tree" with the lights.

I love this picture. We changed the lighting on our camera, so that we could get a great view of the temple and the lights.

My favorite part of the temple grounds was the marble nativity. It was so gorgeous in the water with the candles.

Christmas Tree Hunt

2008-12-22T17:41:00.000-07:00

Finally now that the semester is over, I can post some blogs. The day after Thanksgiving we cut down our Christmas Tree. This has been a fun tradition in my family since I was little. We always go to Chicks for breakfast in Heber. It is delicious! My parents always get a twenty foot tree, so our poor little tree always looks dwarfed compared to theirs. This year the only dog that we could bring was Keisha, since Penny tore her ACL and walks on three legs :-(I love this family picture. Keisha is such a gorgeous dog!

My parents and their tree. (notice that you can't even see the whole thing in the picture) I still think they should have used this on their Christmas card.

We always go with my parent's friends the Bowlers. This is them posing with their tree.This picture just makes me laugh. We were pretending to do a cute kiss picture but instead notice the white powder on my jacket from the aspen trees (why we wear our old ski clothes) and that I am fogging up Preston's glasses. :-)

Last day of finals...for this semester.....

2008-12-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

Well it has finally come, the last day of finals. Its December 19th and Miss and I are just a few hours away from a whole 3 week break. This has been a tough semester with trying to fit everything in. I have constantly felt that I never got to see Miss. Well at least next semester wont be as trying and our schedules are a little more flexible... or at least thats how it is looking. I cant believe my stats professor decided to have the final on the last day of finals week. Its been 4 weeks since our last lecture so the material is not as fresh in my mind. I hope all goes well. Look to see us post some more blogs once we get some more time. The Christmas season can now begin...at 5:30 p.m.

Why I do what I do

2008-12-09T23:53:00.000-07:00

It's nearly midnight, and most normal people are in bed. Unfortunately I have to write a paper... one of the joys of grad school. During weeks like this, I often wonder why I do this. I never see my husband, I don't sleep, and I have had a cold almost the entire semester. Last night after teaching my cute student Mia, I was reminded by her parents that I had promised to play for them. I had a big final this morning, but I figured I could spare a few minutes. After playing I was astonished to see tears rolling down the mom's face. She told me that she had never heard anyone play like that before, and how different it was than listening to a recording. I was so flattered. I am glad that my music could touch someone like that. It's nights like those that remind me why I do what I do and give me the strength to survive the next week.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T17:56:00.000-07:00

This year it was Preston's side of the family for Thanksgiving. We started off the day at his Aunt Wendy's house for the White side Thanksgiving. After a yummy lunch, we headed over to visit his Grandpa and Grandma Foster and some of his cousins. That night we watched a Christmas kickoff movie at his parents.The Foster family: Preston's parents, his sister April and her husband Nate, and Dolly.

As I think about what I am grateful for this year, I want to thank my sweet parents and friends for feeding me during these last busy weeks when I have been unable to cook. Also for my dear hubby for not only helping to cook, but staying up late with me to help me on my homework, and for cleaning the entire house! Thank you, Thank you!!

We realized that we hadn't taken any pictures during the day. So unfortunately after the movie, the only extended family that was over there was Wendy and cousin Montana.

This last picture just makes me laugh! We are all pretending to be stuffed! Notice the whipping cream and the pillow shoved in Tana's shirt!

Things that Must Go

2008-11-20T00:31:00.000-07:00

So in the mornings I love to listen to the morning radio shows, and on one of them, they have a list of things that must go. Well I have one to add to the list. Leaving flyers/advertisements on people's cars at the U. It must go!

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-02T00:53:00.001-06:00

Last weekend we got to hang out with our friends Nicole and Bryce and carve pumpkins and watch a scary movie. I also found out that apparently Preston doesn't like carving pumpkins... this was news to me since we carve pumpkins every year, but yet every time I tried to carve our pumpkin, he would tell me that I wasn't doing it right :-)
This is Preston's pirate face. Our pumpkin is supposed to be a skull with cross-bones. Also you can see Bryce's Utah pumpkin that he designed himself. It turned out so good! Nicole's also turned out awesome, but you can't see it in this picture. Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

Yellowstone and Jackson

2008-10-26T23:43:00.001-06:00

Preston and I celebrated our second anniversary on October 13th. I can't believe how the time has flown by. Preston had the day off because of Columbus day, but I still had to work :-( but we still did have time to grab some yummy sushi for dinner. It is usually so expensive but we decided that we could splurge. I have never had sushi leftovers before! Since Preston got me an expensive present last year (a third band for my ring) this year was an expensive gift for him. We got him a nice new suit and some dress slacks for work and are still looking for some good prescription sunglasses since he can't wear contacts. Together we got the office, and a new willow tree figurine to replace the one beheaded last year in the flood. (you can read all the details of this in last December's post :-) He also suprised me with two dozen roses! We also had a fun getaway to Jackson the weekend after. It was a much needed relief from school. Jackson always has the best food, and cute little shops.
This is us in the town square. It had snowed a few days before but it turned out to be beautiful weather. The only down side of this beautiful weather was that the spiders blew in! Literally it is some weird migration thing. They have their strings that they blow in on and so the whole town is covered with cobwebs and spiders. Can you imagine any worse nightmare??
Thankfully though the spider thing only lasted one morning. I love this picture because you can see the antler arch of the town square.
On our drive into Yellowstone we stopped at this beautiful lake. It was so calm you can see the reflection of the mountains. (except for the times that Preston kept throwing rocks which were more like miniature boulders in. You see he can't skip rocks, so instead he tries to throw in the largest rocks he can find to see how big of a splash he can make :) In Yellowstone we drove into La Mar valley and since it was dusk the animals were starting to come out. We got to see a coyote, a fox, a bear, a pack of wolves, and of course Bison and Elk! We stayed at the lodge by Old Faithful and walked around the geysers the morning that we left.

My Birthday!

2008-10-17T23:41:00.000-06:00

My birthday this year turned out to be a two week event, and I loved every minute of it! To start things off two of my very best friends took me out to dinner at Citrus Grill. It's a tradition of ours to take each other out for birthdays. Thanks so much guys! The gals.

Then unfortunately on my birthday I had an exciting fun filled work day from 10-7, but I was still able to squeeze some celebration in. First we went to Ruth's diner for breakfast up Emigration Canyon. Their biscuits are always delightful. Preston got me hiking shoes and and cute pearl earrings with a matching necklace.This is us at breakfast. Look how yummy it looks!

Then for dinner we headed to Ruth Chris steakhouse. It is amazing. If you have never been there you should go. You will never have a better steak. It is well worth the price. This is the family at dinner. It was amazing!

My dessert the chocolate duo (lava cake and mousse) was super yummy. My mom also ordered pear sparkling cider that was already waiting at our table when we sat down. My parents got me a cute dress for work and running shoes.

This is my amazing chocolate duo desssert, with the cute little birthday candle!

My cute inlaws also came over when we got home to give me their present. They got me the cutest skirts and tops for work. The next day my mom made me my favorite yogurt pie since we had had dessert at the restaurant on my birthday. My cute friend Linds came over and gave me the cutest wallet and some yummy lotion. She is such a gem. She even called and sang me happy birthday at 7am on my birthday! Linds your the best!

The delicious cake. You can even see the birthday plates.

You can see in this picture the cute necklace and earrings Pres got me.

To top off an amazing birthday we headed up to the cabin. It was so beautiful I loved every minute! This is the Bird family on the gator. I can't believe how big Sophia is getting!

Em and Ry love riding the horses. Em is a pro, she knows so much about them since she took riding lessons when we were growing up.

The Louder family. Their baby is so cute! Little Abby has so much hair! I love Hailey's face in this picture. She wasn't feeling in the picute mood :-)

This is us in the horse pasture. It was so pretty up there!

This is a shot of the barn and the cabin. The colors were absolutely phenomenal!

It truly was such an amazing birthday. Thanks everyone for making it such a great celebration!

What happens when your hubby cooks dinner

2008-10-05T19:17:00.000-06:00

Because of my crazy schedule this semester, I have Preston cook dinner on Thursday. After teaching I hurried home to eat so that we could get to my friend Jeni's play at Hale Center Theater. Well this is what I saw when I walked in the house (just imagine the look on my face.) He was making sloppy joes and I guess the onions were really getting to him and so he looked up online how to avoid crying while chopping onions :-) He said it worked. Snaps for my cute hubby for making dinner and letting me capture this priceless embarrasing picture!

Todd's Birthday

2008-09-28T21:52:00.000-06:00

We celebrated Todd's birthday I guess it was a couple of weeks ago now. We went up into the mountains and had a good meal. Miss wasn't feeling so hot, but here are some pictures from the event.

Just enjoying myself, waiting to get grubbing on some good eats.

It was an awesome brownie cake.

There was a really big full moon unfortunatly the camra ruins it a bit.

Happy birthday Todd we love you!

Happy Birthday Miss!!

2008-09-24T10:15:00.000-06:00

Its Melissa's birthday today. She is turning 24 on the 24th. Today we went to Ruth's Diner for breakfast and then tonight we are going to Ruth's Chris for dinner. I have to leave my class early to go... I know what you're thinking what a hardship.
Well I wont take up too much space on the blog I am sure we will be posting some pictures soon.

The State Fair!!

2008-09-21T18:06:00.000-06:00

I haven't been to the state fair in years, actually the last time I went was back in 2003 when I tried riding one of the bigger rides. If you are ever interested, ask me sometime about my experience... Lets just say I wont be riding any carnival rides for awhile.

I forgot how "diverse" the crowd can be at the fair. Miss and I saw all types of weirdos, but I am glad we can all get together and admire the animals and deep fried everything.

While we were there we watched some truck pulls for about 15 minutes and then the beer and cig smoke finally got to us. Interesting story while were watching the pulls the guy standing behind us was a real winner! He was wearing a pair of crappy cowboy boots wranglers that have well seen their prime and a wife beater. He even had a cowboy hat and he had his cigarettes tucked under one of the straps of the beater. Here is the best picture we could get of him without being noticed.

We had to pretend we were taking a picture of me, but if you look close you can see his cigarettes under his strap.

There really isn't a whole lot to do at the fair so we decided to take a look at all of the animals. I had to endure the constant " Can we get one :) " from Miss when we were looking at the rabbits. I am convinced that one day we will have an entire farm at our house. Miss loves animals, side story once we were driving up to Miss's parents and a rabbit ran in front of our car and I hit it. It was a total accident, but you would have thought I ended the world. Luckily Miss found it in her heart to forgive me. Note to self don't hit bunny rabbits.

Here is one of the rabbits Miss wishes we could have bought. Hopefully one of these days we will actually buy a home and we can have wild animals of our own, or we can buy a rabbit or a dog. When I say wild animals I really mean kids.

All of the animals were pretty tired by the time we got to the fair. Miss liked how they were all piled on each other.

I will say the fair does a really good job of making you feel like your health and food cleanliness is their priority. If you cant sense my sarcasm then let me explain. All of the food vendors and carnies usually smell bad and look pretty disgusting. The vendor shacks look like they haven't been cleaned in years.

Here is the Fair's attempt to make us feel like this is a clean place.

We tried to get a picture with the rides. It didn't work too well.

We finished off our night with a four dollar ride down the big yellow slide. Its a state fair favorite.

To everyone that said they were going to go with us and didn't, you missed out. We had a fun night wondering around and people watching. The fair sure isn't the coolest place, but the atmosphere is enjoyable and I am glad I have someone to share the fun with. Thanks Miss for going with me.

Cecret Lake and Snowbird

2008-09-17T20:10:00.000-06:00

For my new job, we had a retreat up at snowbird. It was fun to meet some of the new teachers, and I am now certified in CPR. The retreat was also a great chance to hear some "food for thought" and words of advice. We were blessed to hear John Bytheway speak to us everyday! (partly due to the fact that his kids go to our school ;-) The only downside of the retreat was that I still had to drive down to the U every day and it was the first time Preston and I have ever slept apart :-( One cute story about the retreat was that as I was checking in for my room, the lady looked over at Emilee and was like I think I have a package for you. As Em started to unwrap it, the package started ringing!!! And she pulled out a brand new iphone from her hubby. He had even programmed his picture to pop up when he called. Lucky girl! No wonder why she didn't return my text earlier, he had had her other phone shut off! That girl goes through phones like crazy! Her other one was a couple months old and the buttons were already falling off :-) The one funny thing about the Cliff Lodge is the shower, there is a window that looks into the bedroom while you shower! Apparently this is so you can look at the mountains while you shower. My thought is Sure.... You be the judge!

This is a view looking into the shower from the bedroom!

This is the view from the shower looking into the bedroom "and at the mountains"

Preston and I headed up to Cecret Lake by Alta for Labor Day. He had never been there! How crazy is that! It was such a beautiful day! Can you believe that it snowed up there two days later? Funny story about that is that a guy who had come into the pharmacy and had gotten pretty upset the day before was the one who was driving the shuttle up to the trailhead. Thank goodness for dark sunglasses :-)

Preston was complaining the other day that the only pictures we have in our house are either of us or me, so maybe I will print this one off and frame it :-)Not to mention the fact that we suck at taking our own picture! Usually one of our heads is cut off!They had these cute salamanders that all of the kids enjoyed catching, not to mention Preston!

Mom's Birthday!

2008-09-06T19:20:00.000-06:00

All of the Johnson birthdays fall within one month of each other! My mom was the first to start us off! Her birthday was August 20th! We were supposed to go to dinner at Lugano, but at the last minute she had a craving for fried chicken! (a personal favorite of hers). So the Sunday after her birthday, we decided to head up to Rustler Lodge for brunch, which is always super delicious! We got my mom a new hand mixer for her birthday! Happy Birthday mom! Thanks for all you do!

It turned out to be such a beautiful day! Isn't this picture gorgeous? I took it from our table.

Unfortunately despite the fact that Preston claims that I am not fat the look on his face seems to say otherwise :-)

After brunch we walked around the lodge and saw this moose and her calf grazing!

I always love to take pictures up at Rustler, but Preston was just not feeling in the picture mood I guess. He looks so annoyed in this picture :-(

Park City

2008-08-30T18:04:00.000-06:00

Last weekend we headed up to Park City to ride the Alpine slide which is something I have been wanting to do for like the last five years! The plan somehow seems to just get foiled each year! For example last year it started to pour! Since when does it rain in Utah?

Anyhow Steph and Preston and I headed up to the outlets for a little shopping (My new job requires me to wear skirts/dresses and so I was in much need of some new clothes) and then met up with Lindsey and James and April and Nate. We rode the Alpine Slide and the Alpine Coaster (which is soo fun!!)

This is Preston's attempt of an action shot on the Alpine Coaster!

Cute April and Nate back from their honeymoon!

Linds and me! I miss seeing her more often! We have the best times together!

Then we went to head down to dinner and unfortunately we should have made reservations at the Baja Cantina because it was a two hour wait! So after much debate we found ourselves at the Pie! It was super crowded when we got there, but eventually died down so that we could get all sit together! It was such a fun night!Me, Steph and her cute little girl Sophia! She is the cutest baby!

April attempting to show me how to take pictures of myself without cutting off my head. Obviously it didn't work :-)

Another weekly update.

2008-08-24T20:43:00.000-06:00

One of these days Miss will have to contribute again to the blog, I'm sure most of you would rather read her writings than mine, anyway here is a week update for you.

Last weekend we hung out by ourselves. It was really fun, Friday we went to Pei Wei for dinner and then saw Iron Man. It was a pretty good show. I am always up for a good comic book movie. Saturday we went on a fun picnic to liberty park to eat with the ducks and geese and to skate around the park for a bit. one of these days we will have to ride the ferris wheel. After we wnet to see The Incredible Hulk. Two comic book movies in a row. I had to promise to watch a few chick flicks to make up for the two man movies. I think Miss liked both of them though.

Right by the pond at Liberty Park. Does anybody know if they still do the paddle boats there anymore?

All the birds decided to join us for dinner

My cousin Heather got married on Tuesday in the Bountiful temple. In true form we barely made it to the ceremony by the skin of our teeth. We are really happy for them. They make a great couple.

At the reception. It was a pretty yard they had it in.

April & Nate's Wedding

2008-08-16T17:18:00.000-06:00

Well I can't believe it. My little sister is all grown up. This past month I have thought a lot about growing up with her. I have some really great memories. I was glad when Miss and I were married because it expanded our little family of four to five. Last August, April started dating Nate. Three weeks after they met we were having our family pictures taken up at the cabin. Miss kept trying to convince Nate to join us (you know just in case they got married and we needed a new family picture.) But no he was not in any of the family pictures, and now Miss loves to rub it in that she was right :-)

This is Miss and I at the temple that morning. It was such a crazy day. It was pouring before she came out, and then turned to a drizzle as she came out, and then was sunny for most of their pictures! It was beautiful!

Here is another picture of us! Who needs the bride and groom :-) I have got to say that I am glad that Miss let me choose my tux and that we didn't have weird colors for our wedding. The winners that day for best dressed was a kid with a top hat and cane and a bright blue sash on his tux. He was kinda lurpy looking and the hat was just much too big for his poor head. ( it nearly covered his eyes!) It ended up being such a busy day at the temple. (which is why we rode trax) and were early for a change! It was 08-08-08; which was the actual day when April and Nate met, but since of course many other couples thought it would be cool to get married on 08-08-08 waiting to get pictures on the steps was kinda like waiting in line at an amusement park.

This is Miss's bridesmaids dress. Her colors were very classic. Burgundy, and black with red roses. Her bouquet was beautiful. They even left in a classic old mustang.

April and Nate were in love from the day they met, which was on myspace too... :-) Miss and April went to lunch just after they had started dating and April had told Miss that she wanted to marry Nate. We are glad Nate is a part of our family, He is a really great guy. I couldn't wish for anybody different for her.

I love dancing with Miss. I think that night I ended up singing six or seven songs. Got to love the Ken Foster Trio.

After everything was finished we decided to take the party to the Belgium Waffle at midnight. Seriously who hangs out with their parents on a Friday night at the Begium Waffle? :-) We had the funniest waitress, I think she had a different nickname for each of us. If I can remember, the names were sugar, tiger, honey, sweetheart, and darling. (there could have been more but I cant remember.) She took this picture by nearly sitting on the guys lap in the booth next to us. You should have seen the guys face! It was really funny.

The temple, a birthday and something to sit on

2008-08-09T16:02:00.000-06:00

Last Friday April went through the temple in preparation for her temple marriage to Nate. It was a really good experience. It is cool to have the whole family now endowed in the temple. While we were in the temple we had a family hug, it was something my mom had wanted to to ever since April and I were young. What a cool feeling. Good job April getting to the temple.

The family outside of the Bountiful temple.

Wednesday was my mom's birthday. I think she thought that it would just get passed by because of the wedding. We celebrated by taking mom and dad out to dinner at Tres Hombres. April and Nate gave her a new casual top and Miss and I gave her a candle vase with rocks in the bottom. We had a great time. Just a couple of days until Auper's (Nickname for April) wedding.

Dinner at Tres Hombres

Mom posing with her gifts

Thursday we picked up our new couch. We were grateful to our friends for Bryce and Nicole for giving us their old couch while we saved for a new one and Mike and Madison for letting us borrow a couch cover. The new couch is awesome I am sitting on it right now as I type this watching the Olympics. The only down side to having a new couch is not being able to eat in front of the TV anymore. Lame! Well I guess that's it for an update right now. Stay tuned for pics and commentary of Auper's wedding.

The new couch, pretty comfy. I have already taken a nap on it... Its a keeper!

Cabin Fun!

2008-07-30T21:15:00.000-06:00

I had some PTO to burn so we thought we would spend some quality time up at the cabin. We had so much fun. It was nice spending time with our friends Marie Kevin & Hailey and also

Em & Ryan. We got to enjoy picnics, horses, the river, and reservoir. Here are some pictures of the good times.

It rained while we were there. It was so beautiful! I loved the rain.

While trying to catch the horses a friend tried to get to the oats every time we turned around.

This is Miss taking the saddle off Lexi. She is our new horse, Miss really liked riding her

After the big ride we brushed the horses. It was such a great ride. It was a little stressful for me. I always worry about someone getting hurt, but it was a great trip.

Once we let go of the horses they all rolled around in the dirt. It was pretty funny.

We all jumped in, it was refreshing. Here is Miss enjoying the water.

It started to get cloudy so we got out. I am so glad we got the opportunity to have such a great time. I think we need to spend more time up there. It is nice to have such a fun place to go, and it is not that far away.

Tessa and Casey's Wedding and Real Game

2008-07-20T22:33:00.000-06:00

So this summer is the summer of weddings in the family. Three to be more specific. Two of Preston's cousin's and his sister. Tessa (Preston's cousin) and Casey got married on Thursday.

This is us at the temple after their ceremony. I love the reflecting pond. Tessa almost tied my record of how long it took her to get ready and come out for pictures after the ceremony. I think I still hold the record for the longest. It took me nearly an hour and a half :-)

It has been good to get to know Casey over the past few months. He is such a great guy and we are so excited to have him in the family. Both him and Tessa love hiking and mountain biking as well as many outdoor activities. (I wish we were in that good of shape!) They had a camping shower for one of their showers to get all their camping gear, which reminds me that all we have is sleeping bags. We need to add that to our wish list that we are saving for. Unfortunately there are a few that are more of a priority. At the top is a couch (the stuffing is now coming out....)This is us at the Real Game. Preston's dad gave grandpa tickets for father's day and invited the whole family. It was such a blast. Since we are up in the box seats, we always get Famous Dave's for dinner that they cater. Thanks Brian!This is a picture of the whole family that went. We also invited Tessa and Casey to go with us. (since Tessa is his cousin on the other side) We had a ton of fun.

4th of July

2008-07-13T15:22:00.000-06:00

So for many of you that may know, the 4th of July is my favorite holiday! I love it! First and foremost I love fireworks. I mean literally LOVE them! It is always fun to not only spend time with your family, but without having to worry about gifts. And you can't beat summer nights and bbq's. Plus it's one of the few holidays that is such a community day. There are activites in the parks, and concerts just to name a few. It is so fun to feel so patriotic and feel like I share something in common with the whole community. It is fun to see everyone dressed up and wish everyone a happy fourth without worrying if someone is from a different religion. The past two years I haven't been able to do my usual 4th which involves walking on a beach in Cannon Beach, Oregon to have strawberry shortcake and watch the cute local parade which always has a dauschaund dressed up like a hot dog. Then off to lunch at the Lazy Susan, concert in the park, and then driving to Seaside, which is a cute carnival town, to have elephant ears (similar to scones) and then watch fireworks over the ocean, which is absolutely unbelieveable.
Kiss Kiss!!

Well because of school this year we spent the 4th in Utah. But it was so fun! Thursday night we went to a bbq up at the cabin and then off to the Oakley rodeo! It was fun to feel I was part of the old west and was a cowgirl!

This is Preston's mom Deanne and me getting ready for the Rodeo!

Preston and me before the Rodeo started! It was such a nice night!

On Friday we went to his grandpa's ward for breakfast and they had good old Clayton productions perform. Then after we went and laid in his grandpa's pool and had lunch.

At breakfast they had his grandpa help participate in the song "Passenger Train" and he got to be the passenger. It was soo funny!

Then we went home to shower and were off to his Aunt Wendy's for tinfoil dinners. (we were supposed to do them up the canyon, but it was super crowded.) Then after we got home we headed to our favorite ice shack, Island Flavor for the usual (Tiger's Blood, Raspberry Colada with Ice cream in it!) Delicious! We then walked to my gram's to see the cute puppy my cousin was babysitting.

The puppy loved our icee! He got his head stuck in the cup and walked around with it on his head! It was hilarious!

This is my mom and her annual star head band! It looks more like bug antennas! ;-)

After we walked home we got our camp chairs and then walked to Holladay Elementary for the concert and fireworks. It was such a fun 4th!

This is the family before the fireworks. Mom and Dad and my Aunt Michelle and Uncle Rick!

Kickstands

2008-06-27T17:35:00.000-06:00

So on Monday Preston and I went for a bike ride. good times.... I felt like I had almost forgotten how to ride a bike and those bike seats, I forgot how truly uncomfortable they can be. I guess it's one of those few times that I am glad to be a girl :-) well Preston got our bikes out and he had put them in the driveway and both were lying on their sides. I asked him why? mine had a kickstand. You have a kickstand he exclaimed chuckling. Bewildered I looked at him. Aren't you supposed to have one? He then informed me that only kids are supposed to have them, and that when he went on his group bike ride a few weeks ago, they made fun of this kid that had one. I then began to get defensive as I claimed that my dad has one and he should know because he rides his bike to work every day. Well days later...the thought is still on my mind. I love my bike. I think it's super nice and it even has an air pump to pump up the tires when they get low. So I open up the floor to you ladies and gentleman to enter into the debate. Kickstand or no kickstand. You be the judge.