Thanksgiving in Utah

My family came out to visit for Thanksgiving and we had such a good time. 

We attended a BYU basketball game altogether.

We went to the Provo temple. It was the first time that our whole family had ever been in the temple together at the same time. I can't believe Joey's old enough to be going to the temple already! We all did baptisms together and it was amazing. We loved it!

                                                                    We went out to eat at Brick Oven before the BYU football game we all went to. It was yummy, as always.                                                                                                                                                    Here's a picture of everyone in front of the football stadium, bundled up for a freezing cold evening. Mom has some awesome connections (she's good friends with Kyle Van Noy's mom), so after the game the family got to meet him, which is awesome!

 

  

We also did a fun trip by hiking the Y. It was a very pretty day and we had a lot of fun going up to the top. It's a pretty view!

Here is some action shots from the Turkey bowl before our big Thanksgiving dinner, including some of the strategic planning from our team. 

                                                                          

Here we are planning out some of our purchases for Black Friday after Thanksgiving dinner at Uncle Kent and Aunt Kay's house in American Fork. 

                                                                           

Black Friday Shopping!                                                 

 

It was so good to have my family come out for Thanksgiving. I love getting to be with them and we had such a fun time while they were out here. 

Fall Fun and Football

As the summer ended, we began another school year.  Here are some pictures of how we spent fall semester.

This picture probably should have been included in the last post, but Sarah officially graduated in August, even though she finished all her classes in June. I'm so proud of her!

Fall means football! We got tickets with a bunch of our friends. Here are pictures of us with Michelle and Brian, and with Sarah's sisters Katie and Shana.

We've become really good friends with Sarah's classmates in the Master's of Public Health program. At the beginning of the school year, we went up the canyon and had a campfire and a bunch of food. 

We even had a special visitor looking for some handouts.

He literally was within 10 feet our table the whole time. We had to be on watch to make sure he didn't steal anything.

The beautiful colors up the Provo Canyon.

Sarah's sister Shana plays on the BYU women's rugby team (She's number 9 in this picture). We went to a lot of her games to support her. Go Shan!! She will be on a 18 month hiatus, though, as she serves a mission in the California Carlsbad mission, Spanish-speaking. Again, Go Shan!!

We Love Summer!!

I don't think there is any question that summer is our favorite season.  In addition to the Hill Cumorah Pageant, Van Clan, and our anniversary, we had lots of other fun adventures last summer.  Here are just a few:

Our apartment happens to have blackberry bushes along the fence of the parking lot.  It is a nice little perk of living where we do.  This past summer we went out and collected blackberries several times a week.  They were delicious!!

We put them in smoothies, and even made simple homemade blackberry jam.

Two of the boys who were with us in the primary at the pageant got baptized on the same day and they both live close enough that we were able to go to their baptisms.  We had gotten so close to them, so we were very happy that their families invited us to share their special day with them.

This is Christopher...

and Parker.

We took a day hike up to Stewart Falls with Leah, Jonny, Brad, Sara, Jonny's brothers Nick and Cole, and Sara's roommate Melissa.

It was a beautiful day and a perfect summer activity.

We had a little garden outside our back door during the summer.

It wasn't much, but we did get quite a few cherry tomatoes and a couple of bell peppers.  Not bad for a garden grown on a balcony!

One Year Anniversary!

Here are some pictures of how we celebrated our one year anniversary. We had been gone from home and traveling for about 5 and a half weeks so we decided just to have some time alone together with nothing too extravagant planned for our first anniversary. 

 This is the most impressive cake ever! Kurt and I were so excited to actually have some of it, because we only got that one tiny piece at our wedding reception and had both loved it, but hadn't had a chance to actually eat a piece. My family put the top layer of the cake in the freezer and our plan was to get it for our one year anniversary. We didn't really think of the logistics of how exactly that would work out, but it ended up being pretty intense. First my family brought it in a cooler from Abingdon, VA to Palmyra, NY where it then sat in an RV freezer for 2 and a half weeks. Then we stowed it with one freezer pack in the car when we drove back to New Jersey with Kurt's family. Once we got it to New Jersey we put it in the freezer for a week and then packed it very strategically for the big flight back to Utah. On our way to the airport we realized that the back window had flown open and were so terrified that we had made all this effort and then were going to lose our cake. Nothing had fallen out yet, and we had to check on our cake to be reassured that it was still doing okay. The cake had been put in tupperware, wrapped in foil, surrounded by ice packs in a lunch box, and stowed deep within Kurt's checked bag. So by the time we got to our one year anniversary we were a bit concerned that the cake would be totally destroyed and hardly edible.

However, we unwrapped it and were so impressed with how perfect it looked for such a rough experience and it tasted even better than we had remembered it so it was totally worth it!

 Right before our big dinner day to P.F. Chang's.

 Outside P.F. Chang's. We were so excited to be eating here and had talked about it for a long time.

 The food was so delicious!

 Enjoying our food!

 Our presents and cards to each other.

And the best part curling up to watch The Notebook and eating popcorn together. Such a fun and relaxing one year anniversary!

1 Year Anniversary Photo Shoot

I had a friend ask us if we would be willing to do a photo shoot for a newspaper article that was going to be coming out. We gladly agreed and had such a fun time taking pictures together right around our one year anniversary. I love these pictures and thought it was fun and it felt like we were taking engagements all over again, only it was so much more exciting because we were married and not waiting to get married. I love Kurt and I am so happy to be married to such an amazing and fun person!