Christmas Decorations

Here are a few of my Christmas decorations....I'm still working on a few so I didn't take pictures of them but this is what I've got so far. My pictures aren't the greatest quality either because I have to use my camera phone until I get a new camera! Since we live in Dave's grandparents old house, a lot his grandma's old decorations were still here so I tried to incorporate them as best I could. Some of them are actually really cool and just needed some updating!

Our Main Tree The Entry Way Christmas tree #2

Snowflake Garland

Thanksgiving Weekend!

This Thanksgiving weekend was really fun! It started off with Dave's 26th Birthday which was the day before Thanksgiving! We went out to dinner at Sizzler in Provo with Dave's family. Then we came back to our house and had cake and ice cream. I made a double decker german chocolate cake...it was delicous!! I love celebrating birthdays!! Thursday morning we headed up to Logan. We left our dog here and I really wanted to take her with us but Dave didn't want to! :( Anyways, Thanksgiving dinner was at my mom's this year. My dad's side of the family came. The food was AWESOME! I didn't take any pictures on Thanksgiving but it was still a fun day! Later that night, my mom, Virigina, April, Tatum and Regan and I went to see New Moon. I seriously thought it was going to be the best movie ever after I heard all the hype from everyone else. Suprisingly, it was not really that great! Sure, I'll probably go see the 3rd one but I was not impressed. Friday, my mom and I went shopping with Virginia ,my grandma Gerry and aunt Pat. We hit the Novemberfest, Hobby Lobby, Sugar and Spice and all sorts of fun girly places! This is Dave trying on Bubba's coveralls that they bought! Later that night we decided to hang up some Christmas lights at Brady and Virginia's house in Logan. IT was quite the event. We had a lot of fun and it looked really cute when we were finished. Saturday, the boys went pheasant hunting! Me and My mom went and got our hair done. I chopped my hair off to about my chin and colored it blonde again. I don't have a picture of it but once I get the styling down I will take one. We put up my mom's Christmas decorations the rest of the day. She gave me a bunch of the ones she didnt' want anymore :) Dave's not excited about the fact that we brought home maybe 4 times more things than we went with.

It was a great Thanksgiving Weekend! I was so happy that Dave was able to get the weekend off of work to go with me! It was a much needed vacation from our every day lives! Now we're back to the real world. :(

Last night was our Ward Christmas party. We were asked to bring a salad so I made Italian Pasta Salad. It was gone within the first 10 minutes so it must have atleast looked good. There was a really good turnout and I actually knew like 50% of the people. We love our ward family. I will be really sad when we have to move out of this ward, if/when we move into our own house.

We're only about halfway done with our Christmas shopping! Even though I really love shopping, it feels like it is neverending right now. I need to go shopping today but it's Dave's familiy Christmas party today so I don't know if I will have time. Maybe we'll go later tonight! I still need to plan my Sunbeam lesson for tomorrow too!!!

Labor Day Weekend

Well this will be sort of a mixed up blog entry but oh well.

A few weeks ago, Dave had to go to work at 10pm and was driving his truck down the long road to our house when he hit a big bucket of tar that some stupid kids strung across the road from our orchard fence to the neighbors fence. It was dark so he couldn't see it and it splattered ALL over the front of the truck and all over inside the front wheel wells. Dave was so mad that he got out of the truck and threw what was left in the bucket and the bucket over the neighbors fence in with their cows. Dave found some miracle product that removes tar so we bought 4 big bottles of it. It took us probably 3 or 4 days to get the majority of the tar off the truck. Some splattered on my car too just from driving down the road.

A few weeks later, over labor day weekend, my mom, dad and Grandma Gerry came down because my dad had to ump baseball games in Salem and Spanish Fork. So they stayed with us for a few days. On Friday, me, my mom and grandma went to Swiss Days over by Heber. We spent pretty much the whole day and bought a TON of really really cute things and fall decorations. I have my mom's syndrome where I have to have millions of decorations for holiday's and I don't believe in accumulating it gradually! Dave doesn't like this about me. But we had a lot of fun and even though grandma has knee problems, she kept up and had a lot of fun.

On Saturday, we decided it would be fun to make freezer jam at my house, so we bought a bunch of cases of raspberries, blackberries and strawberries from Dave's uncle Lynn who owns a Fruit Ranch in Genola...(Genola is a few miles west of Santaquin) (Brady is holding the vacuum hose in the above pictures because we had a little fruit fly problem so he was sucking them up mid-air)

We went to the store and bought all the jars and ingredients...once we got making the jam we realized that we had a lot more berries than we thought so I ran to the store to get more. Brady and Virginia came to Santaquin around 4:00 on Saturday so when they got there they wanted in on the Jam so they started helping us. We ended up with about 70 pints of Jam!! Luckily, we split it between my mom, my grandma, me and my brother and his wife. My freezer is full of jam now so we'll be eating a lot of peanut butter and jam sandwiches I think. It was really fun having my family here for Labor Day weekend.

On Monday(Labor Day), my whole family was gone and I thought I was going to have to spend the whole day by myself because Dave always works, even if it is a holiday. But, the boss decided to let him have the day off so we went to the Payson City Onion Days parade and to the fair afterwards. It was a lot of fun to spend the day with my husband. I love every moment I get to spend with him!

Ute Stampede and 4th of July

So I have some fun pictures that I'm finally able to put on here but they're a little out of order. Every July there is a Rodeo in Nephi called the Ute Stampede. It's a pretty big rodeo and it seems like everyone from Utah County and Juab try to come. Well, Dave's family entered us in the stock parade so that we could get free tickets to the rodeo! I'm not a very skilled horse rider, especially when were not on a trail in the mountains. Being in a parade was kinda scary cuz I knew that my horse could hurt someone if I couldn't control her. Anyways, the parade turned out to be really fun and my horse didn't do anything crazy. Dave's 3 sisters and 1 brother rode with us and his cousin and her friend and then our friend Thomas Hales. Dave getting Royal ready for the parade. Dave and his ancient horse Royal. Me and Cherokee. The Robbins Rough Riders!

Katelyn and her horse Hannah

My mom and grandma Gerry came to Santaquin to visit me for the 4th of July. We went to the Freedom Festival in Provo and shopped all day. Dave had to work but he hung out with us for lunch and had a BBQ with us at our house and we lit fireworks on our driveway. Grandma Gerry is a trooper. She just had knee surgery a few months ago and then a couple weeks before she came to Santaquin she found out that she had a blood clot in that knee. She was really sick for a few weeks. I was so excited for her to come even though I know it was really hard for her. She is one of the sweetest ladies ever!!

And this is a random picture but this is my front porch and if you look really closely under the door on the left you can see a snake. I walked out of my front door and that thing was hanging out on my porch. He is probably about 4 1/2 to 5 feet long and I think he's a blow snake. I have seen it a few times so we decided to name him. His name is Patrick..I don't know why but it is.....

Crazy Dog!

So, this is my cute dog Oreo! She is about 6 months now and getting very big. Last time I took her to the vet she was about 35 pounds! She loves riding in the back of Dave's truck but I can't get her to jump in and out off of the tailgate by herself! Does anyone have any good training tricks to get her to do this?? She's getting too big and crazy to lift in and out of the truck. I know this is a totally dumb thing to ask but it's one of those things that just drives me nuts!

New Job!!

Since being in Santaquin, it has been sooo hard to find a job! I finally found one that I absolutly love!!! I started this last Monday. I work for Dr. Cloward and Dr. Fairbanks in Spanish Fork. They are General Dentists. Dr. Cloward has been in practice for over 10 years and Dr. Fairbanks is pretty new. But they are both great dentists and good to work for. My job position is the Office Manager and it's kinda scary being in charge of stuff but oh well, I guess I better suck it up! The office is only about 4 years old and is VERY nice. All of the girls that work there are sooo nice and fun and everyone seems to get a long very well, which is a relief from my experience in other offices. Anyways, just thought I'd updated anyone that is interested!! :)

Mass Blog

Dave graduated from Utah State on May 2nd!! Wow what a day! I think he's really excited that it's over with. We went to the big commencement at 9:30am then the College of Agriculture had their own graduation thing at 2:00pm so we were able to go to both. My parents, Dave parents and grandma Geniel and grandma Gerry came. Dave has accomplished so much and I'm so proud of him!! He is such a motivated and hard working guy!!

Brady and Virginia FINALLY got married on May 5 in Portland. We flew up the night before and then went to the wedding the next day, then flew back home the next morning. The temple in Portland is so beautiful. I love all of the trees and flowers up there. Dave and I decided that we couldn't ever live there though because it rains WAY too much and the traffic and roads their are horrible. It rained the whole time we were there almost. It stopped for maybe an hour during the reception. But it was very nice and they looked so happy! It was fun seeing someone else in my family get married and it brought back really great memories for Dave and I.

We moved to Santaquin on May 12. It took the truck, the car AND a huge U-Haul to get all of our stuff down there. I swear we've accumulated so much stuff for only being married less than a year....We bought a puppy after we moved into the house. She is an Australian Border Collie and we named her "Oreo". Dave thought the name was perfect considering she looks like an Oreo Milkshake. We're having fun training her and playing with her. She is only about 12 weeks old and has already jumped off the tailgate of the truck by herself 3 times!! She's our little baby and we're having tonz of fun with her.

This next Tuesday Dave, his dad, and brother and I are driving to Reno, Nevada to sell a sheep at the sheep show there. I've never been to it but apparently it's a big deal and people will pay big bucks for a nice ram. That will probalby be my next update!