December!

Well so much for blogging every week during November... I just have one question, where did December come from? It came out of no where!

Here's what's going on in our life now...

* Greg is almost done with his first semester of grad school!
* I am almost done with another semester of undergrad (some day I'll apply to nursing school...)

For Thanksgiving we headed down to Price to hang out with the Palmer Clan. It was so fun to have just about everyone there (the Pennsylvania Palmers will be here in June sometime). We enjoyed a whole bunch of turkey and alotta laughs! Thursday night we went with Lorin and Christi to scope out the black friday deals at Wal*Mart. We ended up staying, preparing to get some good deals for them (toys that we really don't need... but they wanted for their kids!) The sale started at midnight with the sale items wrapped in plastic and people standing around ready to pounce. At about 1155pm some random customer shouted "GO" and everyone started tearing at the plastic filling their carts. It was crazy! But so much fun.

On Friday, Greg and I headed home to meet up with my mom's side of the family. My cousin Dave and his cute lil wife and baby boy were in town from Wyoming. We had dinner and played games. It was so fun to just hang out and catch up.

Let's just hope we survive the next 2 weeks :) then we'll have 2 free weeks... well free from class!

Until next time (and something else interesting happens...)

Being grateful during the holidays...

I love the idea of posting or blogging everyday about things that I am grateful for. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen for us! Not that we don't have a lot to be grateful for, but I'm not going to remember to do it everyday :) So... I am going to do a weekly grateful for list!

This week I am grateful for family and a reliable car! Right now we are in Cedar City for a baby blessing. Greg's younger brother is blessing his little baby tomorrow and all but the Pennsylvania Palmers were able to make it. We made it safely :) thank goodness because I get paranoid about our car and every little sound it makes. Being poor college students that have had to fork out a lot of money towards car repairs, I'm entitled to worry.

This is my first trip that I remember to Cedar City (I guess we drove through when I was 5...but I don't remember it!). We got here last night when it was dark so I only could see the lights of the town. We when walked outside this morning I turned to Greg and exclaimed "Whoa! There's a mountain!" He just laughed and said, "Yes dear. It's always been there!"

I love our families! Even though we drive each other nuts sometimes, I'm so grateful families are forever!

Last grateful thing for the week... Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish! They are my saving grace somedays :) As long as they are not the whole grain ones (apparently I am allergic to the whole grain ones, but not any of the others... Go figure!)

Where has life gone?

Holy Moly! Where has life gone? Life has flown by... this is what has happened in our lives so far this summer!

(Kenz... I UPDATED THE BLOG! aren't you proud?)

For Mother's Day, my brothers came over and we made chocolate roses and hearts to put in a bouquet for our AMAZING mother! It was fun to spend time with them and a make home-made gift :)

On May 8 my Lucy Loo got married to Mr. Spencer Thackeray in the Salt Lake Temple. It was an amazing day :) we are so proud of them and their opportunity to be married for time and all eternity.

After Lucy's wedding and before her reception, Greg and I explored SLC. We ate lunch at the Lion House, and hung out at This is the Place Park. It was fun to spend time together enjoying the little things in life :)

To help Lucy Loo and Spencer (haven't come up with his nickname yet...) with their reception, I put together their guest book. It turned out pretty darn cute if you ask me, and if you ask Greg. 

At some point close to the end of Lucy and Spencer's reception, I ended up with her real bouquet of flowers. She had a separate one that she tossed to ALL THE SINGLE LADIES, all the single ladies :) she even had the song played as she tossed it :)

For Memorial weekend we headed down to Price to spend time with the Palmer Clan. Wow they have some AMAZING neighbors and ward members! Friends had helped level the front yard and put in a sprinkler system. When we got there, the sod was ready to be laid :) what an adventure! I had never laid sod before, it was kinda fun! After we got the front lawn laid, we realized that they had A TON of sod left over. The next day we thought it would be fun to lay sod in the part of the backyard. Then we realized that they no way of watering the sod SO... WE LAID a SPRINKLER system and then laid the sod. It was a weekend of first for me! 

After church on Sunday we took a drive up Nile Mile Canyon. It's this 40 mile long canyon with a whole bunch of old Indian pictographs. Kara, Lorin, Christi and the 4 kids went with us. 

The kids just cling to Greg. Maybe it's because he can relate to them :) but they love to listen to him and follow him around... He got them pretty excited to go to the canyon and see the Indian things.

More Good News!

Well, it is once again my turn to blog. Since Ivy does it most of the time I thought that I should give her a break and tell you about my wonderful day. As many of you now know I was accepted into the History Graduate Program at USU. Ivy mentioned in our last entry that we had not yet received my letter of acceptance. However, last Friday the letter finally came and the part that most excited me was that I was also rewarded an assistantship. That means that I don't have to pay tuition and I get to work with one of the History professors in a survey class. I didn't think much more of this over the weekend because my parents drove up from Price to spend some time with us for my upcoming birthday and we did a wonderful temple session here in Logan. It was my dad's first time ever going through the Logan Temple and my mother's first time since I was only a few months old. The reason I mention this little tidbit is that for my birthday gift they gave me a book (because I love reading) and some money (because they don't know which books I have). Well today, Tuesday, I took that money and went to Borders to go shopping for books. I love to peruse the book store and wait for something to catch my interest. As I was wandering through the store I ran into my favorite professor from USU, Jamie Sanders. Jamie was one of the three people I asked to write a letter of recommendation for Graduate School, so he asked me if I had been accepted and I told him that I had and thanked him for writing me a letter of recommendation. I then informed him that I had also been awarded an assistantship. That is when Jamie informed me that I was one of the very few that he had heard of that had graduated from Utah State with a B.A. and then been granted an assistantship to Utah State. Assistantships are used to attract out of state students to campus. I was more than pleased to hear that wonderful news. It just went to show me that the Lord loves me a great deal. It looks like I won't be paying for school again this year. I have not yet paid for any schooling; more proof that the Lord truly loves me deeply.

Grad School Here We Come!

After much anticipation and anxiety we found out today that Greg was accepted into the History Grad program at Utah State. Funny thing is we've yet to receive the letter...

Okay so let me explain... There is a way online to check the status of your application. Let's be honest, Greg's checked it a couple of times a week. He's also been in contact with the head of the History Grad program (which I fully believe that sucking up to your professor is a good thing!). So we sorta had an idea of when they would make their final decision and sending the letters. Last night Greg was checking online and next to "Decision" it said to contact the admissions office. Well Greg starting wondering what that meant and almost began to panic. We knew the admissions office was closed for the night (he checked at like 630ish...).

This morning he called the admissions office to ask and found out he had been accepted! The lady helping him asked if he'd like to accept at that time... hmmm pretty sure was all giddy when he said "YES!"

I'm so proud of him and what has and will accomplish :) Our future is looking a bit like this... 2  (3 years at most) in Logan then off to work on his PhD. Our ultimate goal is the University of Texas (GO LONGHORNS!) but we will go where ever the Lord directs us.

Family History... Bringing the Past to Life!

Greg and I are almost finished with our first course in the new Family History Sunday School class. It's been interesting to learning as we teach. We have an amazing class! They are so eager to learn about their ancestors and do their family history and temple work.

On Saturday, Greg and I had an urge to get out of Logan for a bit. We headed to Salt Lake to visit the Family History Library. WOW! It was so amazing to see all of the information that is available. There are 5 floors of world history and the cutest little old ladies to help every step of the way. I even saw my friend Elder Shelton (although I didn't go say hi. Greg said it was okay, but I felt weird and didn't want to distract him).

Anyways... check out the website  new.familysearch.org  it's really interesting to look through your family history and see where you come from :)

Life... The Crazy Life We Live!

I can't even believe that January is almost over! Where does the time go? In the past month I've had more emotional break downs (my poor husband...) and more joyous occasions than I deserve. Christmas was hard, just stressful and emotionally hard. I had hoped that after New Years I'd just snap back and be happy again... well it's been harder than I thought (and the stupid inversion hasn't helped).

Greg and I have stayed busy. We're both still working full time jobs (very grateful for that!) and Greg has officially submitted his application for grad school. We came to the decision that it's best if we stay at USU for him to get his master's degree. We're just waiting to hear if he's accepted or not (we're pretty sure he'll get it, but we never know what life will throw at us).

I attended my first BYU basketball game this month. It was interesting... I'm used to the intense crowd of USU basketball. BYU wasn't as intense. But it was still fun. We went with 2 of Greg's brothers and their families. We don't get to see Greg's family as much as we'd like. It's hard to find a free weekend to go to Price and well, they don't really come to Logan very often (on the other hand, Greg sees my family everyday... yet he still loves them!).

Greg and I have a new calling in our ward. We are the Family History course teachers. It's been fun learning about both of our families and playing on the church's new family history website. Apparently in my family line I am a descendant of royalty :) ain't life great!

Well after an interesting day at work, I love to relax by playing with Photoshop Elements. I've been editing pictures from the past year, including my Grandma Dodo's life and funeral. I love looking back at all of her pictures and reminiscing of all of our fun times and memories. Until I have an emotional break down start crying because I miss her so much (Greg is so amazing because he'll just cuddle up with me and let me cry) (fyi... I started tearing up just thinking about thinking about her... and Greg just turned to me and told me I didn't have to make myself cry for him to cuddle with me. Ain't he great!)

Here are some of my favorite photos that I've touched up...

My little Trevor... he's a goof!
My 3 stud muffins... Kevin, Trevor and Greg.