Primary Teachers

In our ward, we are primary teachers. (We teach the 4 year olds). It has been such a blessing! We have learned so much from their humility, love, willingness to serve, and simply their ability to learn the teachings of Jesus Christ.

In the class, a boy, Reagan is deaf. So his mom helped Matt and I learn sign language. It has been so neat to learn it and to be able to communicate with Reagan.

Heavenly Father definitely helped us learn sign language and we saw His hand in every aspect of that calling. He loves those children and we could feel that love for them. So naturally it is sad to leave.

We are moving tomorrow so today was our last day in our ward and in our primary class. It is a bitter, sweet situation. We are so grateful for the experiences that we have had and the people that we have met. Our lives have been blessed and enriched because of it.

We are excited to meet new people and have new experiences. Stay in tune to find out what they are! :)

My hair cutting skills!

Matt was in DESPERATE need of a hair cut. It was getting quite unruly. He didn't want to spend money going to a hair dresser. I didn't want him to do it because he just buzzes it and makes it WAY too short. I like it to be longer for him to style. So me, who really hasn't had ANY haircutting experience, was the one that was going to do the cutting. YIKES. So, here are the pictures. And with the little experience that I have... I am quite proud how his hair turned out. I think that I shaded his sides quite well :) And the experience was really fun. I don't know if Matt would agree because it took me about 45 minutes to cut it. BUT his hair is cut and he looks nice and groomed! Yay for saving money :)


Before...

AND

After!

The Shame of Tombstone

Matt and I went to a Melodrama tonight at a little theater in Shelley, ID called the Virginia. The Melodrama was called "Shame of Tombstone." It was hilarious. Matt and I love melodramas. We find it so much fun to interact with the play with "Booo"ing at the villain and cheering for the hero. We decided to give the villain a thumbs up. We thought that he was the best actor.

Thanksgiving 2005

This is so funny! I was looking on Matt's computer and found these pictures. They are from Thanksgiving in 2005! (When Matt and I first met!):) Don't mind the braces :)

Driving to Idaho! Matt, my cousins Tiffany and Jason. (In the front seat was Dane and Christy- also, my cousins).

Apparently, this is how fast they were going on the way to Idaho.... WAY too fast!

Beautiful Grandma Later!!!

Tiffany!

Christy!

Christy and Dane!

Katie and Jason!

Joshua!

Sick Braces :)

Joshua.... he was so little here! Sliding down the stairs! Good times!

Jason... after eating Thanksgiving dinner. (Should we add that Mom accidently made lemon gravy? She cooked the turkey with lemons and then made gravy out of the juices... haha no one ate the gravy after the first round and finding out it tasted like lemons... BUT the rest was delicious! Pretty impressive to cook so much food and only mess up one thing :))

Jason and Matt!

Snowing in Idaho the day after Thanksgiving. (They started to head back home to UT and CA and decided to stop in SLC so I drove with them - in a separate car- and we stayed in Dom and Nina's townhome. The heat wasn't on.... so we froze. Good times!

Matt at the SLC temple.

S'mores!!

I have been craving roasted marshmallows for a few months now. And since it is warming up, Matt and I went to the sand dunes and roasted marshmallows. It was a beautiful experience. My craving has been satisfied! I have such a loving and patient husband who will humor me when I want some s'mores!

Couch Deals!

Matt and I went furniture shopping for our new apartment. Since I was sad about not buying a house we splurged on furniture :) WELL.... I thought it was a splurge but it has turned out that we got some GREAT deals. At Furniture Row they have a 200% guarantee promise. That if you find the same piece of furniture for cheaper then they will not only price match but also give you some money as well. (200% back). Well, we found this couch that we love for $998. We decided to go wild and get it. We continued to shop around and found the same couch at Odell's furniture for $898. So we told Sofa Mart and they kept their promise... they gave us 200% back. THEN, today we went to Ashley's furniture and AGAIN found the same couch for $698. So we again, called Sofa Mart and they priced matched it.... AGAIN!!! So we ended up getting a $998 couch for $600!!! We saved $400!!!

The salesman at Sofa Mart that was doing all of the adjustments said that he never had to do an adjustment for someone in the 2 years that he worked there. So we got a good kick out of it that he did it twice with us and never before!

The morale of the story is that if you need any furniture go to furniture row!! They keep their promises and have the best furniture!!

(We will take pictures of the furniture once we get moved in to the apartment so that y'all can have the FULL picture)

Bamboo Ladder

I also made a bamboo ladder for decoration to hang blankets on and such. It turned out pretty cute if I don't say so myself :)

In the Making....

The materials for the frame that we wrapped the paintings around....

Us hammering the frame together.... team work!

The wrapped painting with our home made frames... yay for us! But the work wasn't done yet!!

Matt cutting the bamboo for the frames....

Me putting the bamboo together....





And the finished product!!!

Late Night Crafts....

All day Saturday we went shopping... we went price hunting for what different places charge to customize a frame for some paintings Matt brought back from South Africa. The prices ranged from $40 - $150 a peice! Yikes. Well, Matt decided that we could do the framing ourselves. What we would do is stretch the picture over wood (so we would wrap the picture) and then make a frame. Great! I didn't think that it would be too difficult... and with surprise it wasn't! With much success we created two frames to wrap the paintings on AND created two picture frames. Of course, by the time we decided to do all this it was about 7 o' clock at night. We finished by midnight and with spending a total $9 at home depot for materials for the stretch bar and $50 for materials to create the frames... we definitely came out ahead.

At least Home Depot advertises honestly.... "You can do it, we can help"

Friends

These are some of our friends, Natalie and Aaron. These pictures are from when we went out to breakfast together at Smitty's. Natalie's pancake was HUGE so we had to take pictures. We also went out to a waterfall a bit north from Idaho Falls and it was beautiful there. So of course, we took some more pictures. We are so grateful for good friends!!!

South Carolina

Matt and I loved swimming in my Grandparent's pond. We found a HUGE wasp nest. Like the knight in shining armor he is, he came to my rescue and killed the wasps and got rid of the nest.

The huge wasp nest.

Matt and I in our Beaufort, SC shirts.

The family at breakfast. Left to Right: Dad, Mom, Joshua, Katie, Matt, Grandmama, and Papa.

Uncle Rudy, Matt, Joshua, and me getting the boat ready to go shrimping out on my Grandparent's creek behind their house.




Cleaning up the shrimp gear.







The shrimp that we caught.




Mom and Matt heading the shrimp.





A messy but fun job... that I was glad I wasn't expected to do. :)





The finished product!




Enjoying the finished product!

Matt and I at Hunting Island Beach.

Matt and Mom at the Hunting Island beach.

MMM... the ice cream at a cute ice cream parlor in Beaufort, SC.





All gone.

Visiting an old building in South Carolina... a little creepy.

After 4 days of being home from his mission, my family swooped Matt up from TX and took him to South Carolina. We had a lot of fun. Doesn' Matt look SOO good here? Little devil :)