Ginger Bread Houses

A friend of ours from Snow College, Desiree, and her boy toy came to visit us During Christmas break. We ate our fill of deep fried shrimp and assorted vegetables and set out to make the best ginger bread houses the world has ever seen during our second annual ginger bread house night. I think we did pretty good. We got together with Desiree last year as well, hence it being the SECOND annual ginger bread house night, and I think they definately turned out better this year.

This is the house Chris and I constructed.

All in all it was a great night. Hopefully we'll be able to do it again next year!

Christmas Craft

Also while Brad and Lauren were here. All the guys went out to do whatever it is that guys do, and all us girls got together, ate some Cafe Rio salads, and got creative.

There is my completed project. I wish I would have taken some pictures of all the others. We all did the same set of blocks, but had different patterns of paper and different colors of paint so they were all different but all way cute.

After a day of feasting, Chris and I put up the tree and Christmas decorations, and I must say it all turned out pretty cute. Susie momma gave us a nativity set as an early Christmas gift and it definately made everything complete!

BYU game

During Thanksgiving Break while Brad and Lauren were here in SLC we went to a BYU football game. It was so much fun! And it was great game. Although our seats were about 5 rows away from the very top the view was awesome! Luckily it wasn't too cold either.

I'm just glad it wasn't anything like the Top of the Mountain Bowl with Snow College 2 years ago. It was snowing and it was that really wet heavy stuff. That was miserable, plus we got killed.

Mickey

Just too cute not to share... This is my mom's dog Mickey.

That is all.

A Summary

Here's a VERY breif summary of the last few months...

*started school *chopped my hair off *funeral *spent countless hours studying for the PCAT *drove to Missouri *another funeral *saw my brother and lots of other family *cried a lot *laughed a lot *got sick *got bronchitis *took the PCAT *got a calling. All the while in between enjoying work, spending time with my man and my family. If you are interested in hearing the long version here it comes. If not stop reading now.


Started school...Not much else to say about that. Chris hasn't really enjoyed his start at the U of U, but he's doing well. It just doesn't compare to Snow College.


I chopped my hair off...Susie made me do it! ;) I was just sick of the old hair due that I've had since junior high so I chopped it all off.

This is not the best picture of me...but hey you can see the new do.



Funeral...Chris's Grandmother passed away in September. The funeral was beautiful. It really made me thankful for the gospel in my life. The knowledge that I have of the wonderful things that are waiting for us after this life is such a comfort.



PCAT... I didn't do so good the first time, so I studied a lot harder this time. I hope I do better than I did before. I feel like I did, but you just never know with those stupid tests. I should be finding out in about 2 weeks.

Grandma and Grandpa Turley



My grandpa had a heart attack, and was a in the hospital a few weeks. He would be doing pretty good one day, and then not so good the next. They thought he may be able to get well enough for surgery, but he never did. Grandma and Grandpa decided it was best to go home with Grandpa on Hospice care. He was much happier at home than in the hospital. After a week or so of being home he passed on. At first we didn't think we would be able to make it to the funeral in Missouri, but it all worked out in the end and Chris, my mom and dad, and I drove to Missouri. It was great because we got to see a lot of cousins that we haven't seen for awhile. Not to mention my brother made it from Georgia. It was a really beautiful funeral as well. I have never cried so much at a funeral. Not because I was sad, but it was a really spiritual experience. I think that my Grandpa would have wanted it that way. He was such a good example of how to live a good, fulfilled life. One thing all of his children and grandchildren agreed on was that he had a way of making all of the kids feel special like they were his favorite. Which is not an easy task when you have 13 children and 66 grandchildren with I think 18 great grandchildren. He really was an amazing person and he will be missed.

The family after the funeral.

Wednesday Chris and I had a meeting with the 1st counselor of the bishopric. The whole time leading up to it we were trying to decide what it was that he was going to say. Were we going to speak on sunday? Do we have a calling? What calling? Maybe he just wants to get to know us better? It was a calling. Chris is going to be a primary teacher for the 11 year olds. I am going to be assistant girls camp director for our ward. It's funny because I have only been to girl's camp once. I wasn't really active in the church at that age, so they picked the girl that doesn't have a clue about girl's camp. I'm excited though. This will give me the chance to go to girl's camp again.

CALIFORNIA and other updates

I've been a big time slacker in the blogging department, but hey it's been busy. Chris is getting ready to start a new semester at the U of U. He can't wait to get back to school and start learning some new things. He has been interning in the chemistry lab at the Energy Solutions Clive facility. Although it has been a great experience and resume builder for him, I think he is ready to move onto more exciting things. I have started a job at Target pharmacy as a pharmacy tech. So far it's been great! I really love the people that I work with and I also like how the pharmacy runs in general. It is really organized and everything just flows. Everyone there really enjoys their job, and it makes it so much easier to enjoy mine.

July 17th we made a long journed to California with Chris's parents and little bro spencer. Luckily with so many people to talk to the trip went quickly and we arrived in Escondido in no time. We stayed the first couple of days at Lauren's (Chris's brother's wife) grandparent's home. There home was absolutely beautiful. There were orange trees, nectarine trees, and avocado tree's. Grandpa made us orange julius's right when we walked into the door from fresh squeezed oranges....ohhh it was delicious!

Grandpa Urry's House

I soon found myself with two new attachments. Lauren's little brother Luke and little sister Taryn became my new barnucles, attaching themselves to me wherever they could. Don't get me wrong they are the cutest little kids around, but it was hot and it didn't help to have warm bodies on me constantly.

Monday afternoon we headed to San Elijo beach where we would be camping for the remainder of the trip. Luke decided he wanted to ride with us, so he packed up his squirt guns, and his books to read and hopped into the truck with us. Boy, that kid loves to talk, and he says the darndest things! We coined a term for his funny sayings, Lukisms. One example...This was like the third day camping, and we were sitting around a camp fire just relaxing and roasting smore's. Luke gives me this weird look and says, "Your thighs are barking at me!" Where he got that from, and what it was suppose to mean I have no idea! Another memorable one was also half way through the week. Luke had done a lot of swimming, and had a little bit of a chaffing problem down below. Before we had left for the beach we had watched Paul Blart Mall Cop, and I don't know if you remember, but there was a hot sauce stand in the movie, and the owner of the stand gave Paul a bottle of a hot sauce called Devil's Crotch. Luke being the smart boy that he is remembered that, and said "I have devil's crotch." Those were just two of the many Lukisms that we ran across that week. We had a lot of good laughs because of Luke.

Our camp on the left and the beach down the stairs on the right

Lucky for us the whole week that we were on the beach we had wonderful weather. The mornings were always a bit gloomy, but it cleared right up by afternoon. We spent the week swimming, boogey boarding, sunbathing, swimming, and more boogey boarding. There was never a dull moment. Chris and I also spent a day at Sea World since I had never been there before. It was so much fun, I really enjoyed it!

One of the day's we drove to La Jolla Cove so that the guys could scuba dive, but the waves were a little rough that day so there wasn't much scuba to be had, but we did have a good time anyway. We also dressed into matching outfits and took a few family photos. (seen at the beginning the entry)


The Tide Pools at La Jolla

It was a great trip, Thanks to the Urry's and all of their planning and hard work! It was sad when we finally had to head home, but at the same time I couldn't wait to be home in my own bed, with out all of the sand everywhere.

Chris Holding the Sun

Worst day ever

Two days ago was one of those days where you just want to crawl into a hole. Chris and I bought a 96 Honda Accord a few weeks ago, like I mentioned in another blog. It needed a few repairs so it was at a friend's getting fixed. Tuesday we got it back and we just needed to get an oil change, alignment, and safety and emissions done before we could get it on the road. We took it to the shop to get all that done in one stop, and it didn't pass safety for a few reasons. Two of the problems were small, a dim light and the battery needed to be secured. That was no problem. The third problem was that the exhaust was leaking and it needed to be replaced. It was only a 300 dollar part, don't worry. So we said to just go ahead and do it. So all together we ended up spending 400 dollars for that plus another 400 dollars for the other repairs we had done on it. Chris then drove our fixed car home, while Thy and I headed to the gym.
I got out of the car and shut the door. Thy then says, "Where are your keys?" Then I turned around and desperately tried to open the already locked door, but it was no use. Luckily we were close to my mom's house who had a spare key. Then I look down and notice that I don't even have tennis shoes on. I had forgotten that I was just wearing flip flops, so we can't work out at the gym anyways! We decided to just go back home after my mom saved the day with the spare.
Later that evening Chris and I decided we wanted to take our fixed car out for a spin and.... IT WOULDN'T START! That was the final straw. I tried to be happy and just laugh all the other stuff off, but I was just angry now. We took it back to our friend the next day to check it out, and it needed a new starter. While he was fixing that we told him to replace the timing belt while he was at it. That ended up being another pretty costly repair.
Then later that night we were trying to replace the burnt out headlight on the car, but even the new bulb wasn't working. Oh great, now there's a costly electrical thing going on. Turns out it was just missing a fuse in the fuse box. After about an hour of dinking around under the hood we finally figured out that that was the problem.
10:30 pm last night we finally had all the problems fixed and we now have a working car without any problems! I hate cars!