Happy Graduation, Kate! And Going through the Temple, Shan!

Here we all are with the little graduate! We are so proud of you, Kate! You are the best elementary school teacher there ever was, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you teach my kids :)

 Here we are doing a "silly picture"...oh dear! Yes, I do look like I have one leg, and Kurt has tried to convince me that he loves when I kiss him. I am here to say that I have not recently lost a leg, and in regards to Kurt's face, this photo may be a bit incriminating for him.

 We love you, Kate!!

Here we are at the Mount Timpanogas temple, right after Shannie went through the temple. It was so awesome to all be together in the temple and I'm so happy that it worked out so perfectly for us to be there for this important experience for Shan. 

Winter Semester 2012

Winter semester was by far the hardest semester of school I have ever experienced. I was at my office almost all day every day, even on Saturdays. We didn't have nearly as much time to play this semester or do a lot of fun and extra things, but here are some of the fun things that we did over the course of the semester. 

We had a birthday party for the Brittany's who are two of my fellow MPH students during January. Here is a picture of the girls with Yukiko, who made their birthday cake. It was delicious! We had a good time having everyone come over to our apartment to celebrate with our friends. 

Here we are with our mocktails following the birthday party. 

We went to Uncle Kent and Aunt Kay's for a little get together because Erin and Jeff were in visiting for the weekend. We frosted heart cookies to celebrate Valentine's day that was only a few days later. Here is Erin with the beautiful cookie that Jeff made for her. 

Here we are with the Valentine's Day cookies we decorated. 

 

While watching a movie with the family at Uncle Kent and Aunt Kay's, my dear cousin Kelsey gave me an awesome Henna tattoo. I loved it!! I wish it could've lasted even longer, but it lasted for almost a week. It was so cool! 

I was invited with four of my fellow MPH students to present some of our work at a conference in Florida in February. We were of course ecstatic for the opportunity to present our research and even more excited that we would get an all-expenses paid trip to Florida in the middle of February. However, the biggest difficultly about the trip was being away from Kurt for 5 days (I had never been away from Kurt overnight before so this was sad and hard for me), and to make it even worse the first day of our trip was Valentine's Day :( I was prepared though. I spent a lot of time figuring out how I was going to make it a good day for Kurt even though I wouldn't be there. Below is a picture of the Reese's trifle that I made for him and put in the fridge for him to find when he got home from school. He loved it!!! Also, I left some yummy panini and dessert in my office on campus for a Valentine's Day lunch for Kurt. After dropping Kurt off at work at 5 am I came back home and started a crock pot dinner for Kurt. He was so surprised when he got home that day and had a yummy dinner waiting for him. It was still hard to be away from him, but I enjoyed planning and getting things together to surprise him. 

 Here is a picture of us on our first day in Florida before the conference started. It was beautiful and warm and we had so much fun together!

We also rented some body boards to enjoy playing in the warm water. We had so much fun being at the beach! 

Here we are on our way to the conference. 

Here is a picture of us with our poster demonstrating the research we had done. This is what we presented at the conference. 

The big party at the conference was a Geek Chic theme. They gave us plastic glasses and here is a picture of all of us partying together, with our professors too. 

 

Here we are trying to look geekie...however you do that!

 

To make up for being gone for 5 days and Valentine's day, Kurt and I went out to eat at Brick Oven. It was delicious and so good to have fun and be together again. 

We got an eggplant in our Bountiful Basket and here is the delicious eggplant parmesan that we made. 

Also during winter semester (at the beginning of March), my whole cohort of MPH students went to Washington DC to participate in a public health advocacy summit. 

Here we are on our first night in DC. We went out to eat in China Town. So good! 

 

Brittany and I posing under the big China Town display. 

 

Here's a group of the girls at Grand Central. 

 

Here we are at the White House. 

 

This is me, Yukiko, and Brittany at the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. It was phenomenal and very inspiring! 

 

Here is a group of us at the capitol ready to storm the capitol and meet with senators and representatives. It was an amazing experience and I definitely learned a lot about advocating for what I believe. 

Also my birthday was in March. 

 

Here is one of the cupcakes that Sara made for me. They were awesome!! They tasted really good and were so cute. 

 

Here we are posing with the cupcakes. 

 

Here I am Skyping with my family with Shana in the background holding mine and Kurt's niece, baby Cora, and Grandpa Peterson saying hi to my family. 

 

Here we are at my birthday celebration with Lisa, Grandma Peterson, Shana, me, and baby Cora, Sara, and Leah (the proud new Mama). 

 

Me and the beautiful baby Cora. 

 

Here are Shana and I modeling my new sunglasses that Shan got me. This is at my birthday party at our apartment. 

 

This is the amazing and tastey cake that Kurt made me. 

 

And this is the amazing and tastey cake that Kate made me (the kind that my mom used to make me every birthday).   

 

During Priesthood session of conference my dear friends from the MPH program and I decided to go shooting. Here are a few fun pictures of our adventures. It was really fun! And not to brag, but we really were quite impressive. 

 

Here is a picture of Katie and I waiting outside after Nathan and Katherine Hixson's wedding reception with long sparklers. Needless to say we were a little bit nervous. 

Winter semester was so busy and difficult, but we still had some fun times and it was such a relief to have it over with. I also had a lot of good learning experiences with school and with the conferences that I got to travel to. 

Christmas Break

At the end of the semester all of the students in my graduate program had a big Christmas party to celebrate the completion of our first semester in the MPH program. It was a busy and difficult semester so we were definitely ready to party together. We got to go to a business where Yukiko's husband, Eric, works. Yukiko is one of my fellow students in the MPH program. At Eric's office we played on Kinnects they had there, ate yummy food, had a white elephant gift exchange, and watched Elf projected on a huge wall. It was so much fun to have a break from school and just get to play together. 

Here is a picture of Kurt playing baseball on the Kinnect.

Here are Yukiko and Eric playing a fun game on the Kinnect.

We had to leave the MPH Christmas party a little bit early to finish packing and drive to the airport to fly home to Abingdon to spend a week with my family.

Here are Kurt and I opening our stockings and presents the day before Christmas Eve. Christmas came early for us. It was actually our year to be with Kurt's family, but Kurt's younger brother Brad was in school until the day before Christmas Eve so we got to spend a week with my family at Christmas first.

All of the kids in front of the Christmas tree together.

Kurt and I dressed up in our costumes for the annual family Christmas Eve play. Kurt was a wise man and I was a dancer in King Herod's court. 

Here is a picture of all of the kids dressed up in our costumes for the Christmas Eve play. 

We left Abingdon the day before Christmas Eve and flew back to Utah, where we were going to have Christmas with Kurt's family. We all stayed in Leah and Jonny's house (which is Jonny's parent's house, but they are currently mission presidents in a mission in Mexico). All of Kurt's siblings and parents were able to be together for Christmas and we had such a good time. 

Here is a picture of Kurt and Brad getting food ready for our Christmas Eve dinner. 

Here is a picture of all of us getting dinner ready. Kurt's mom had a great idea to have a "Nativity Dinner", which meant eating a dinner with foods that are eaten in Jerusalem.  

Here's a cute picture of the sisters :)

We even ate our "Nativity Dinner" on the ground. Here is a picture of the yummy food we had. It was such a fun dinner. Kurt and I loved it so much we decided that we want to do it every Christmas Eve. 

A picture of us on Christmas day after church in front of the Christmas tree. 

We all went up to Temple Square to enjoy the lights. It was beautiful!

We also saw these bags with candles in them lining the walkways. We found one that said "Love" in Russian so we thought, what better picture than kissing in front of it :) Isn't he so darling?!