The Cullimores

2011-01-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

A month in Austin's life

2010-10-24T18:18:00.006-06:00

Austin has had a busy month...full of eating dogs,

bumbo sitting

watching BYU games with Dad

wishing he could really play in the park

getting squeezed by many many people

watching ducks in the pond

going for lots of walks

laughing at the funny things Dad puts on his head

trying out the 1950's basketball socks look with Lisa

and wishing he could eat chocolate cake when he turned 3 months old.

Labor Day

2010-09-08T12:55:00.009-06:00

We did the easiest kind of camping over the Labor Day weekend... drive up in the morning and leave in the evening of the same day! Although I know Jeff wishes we would have had the full camping experience, we still had a great time.

Austin's Grandma Cullimore and aunt Kristen gave him this dashing flannel shirt. It was perfect, it kept him warm and preventing sun burns. Jeff on the otherhand wasn't so lucky.

My sisters Rashel and Cheryl

Spending time with his Great Grandpa Blazzard

Sharing his charming smiles with Grandma and Grandpa Blazzard

So I knew Austin was chubby but I didn't realize how chubby he was until we put him next to my cute cousin Ruby who is one week older!

We played minute to win it games, archery golf, talked, laughed and wished we were there another day.

Austin the Comedian

2010-08-22T13:52:00.001-06:00

One of Austin's latest favorites has been smiling. Here are some of the best:

Well, the last one isn't a smile - Kristen brought these sandals back from Tonga for Austin, and we had to put them on before they didn't fit any more :)

Austin at 5.5 Weeks

2010-08-08T16:45:00.000-06:00

It's been a busy first month and a half for Austin. He's already been on a vacation, been to the doctor, and 'gone swimming' twice. :) Here's what he's been up to recently.

Austin has:

Started to smile quite a bit more...

... borrowed some sun glasses ...

... tried the pool (this went quite a bit better than his dip in Bear Lake) ...

... tried on his family reunion ~~dress~~ t-shirt ...

... showed his style with his hat ...

... and got everyone together for a party after his blessing!

Austin - Week Two

2010-07-07T20:45:00.000-06:00

Some more fun pictures from the beginning of Austin's 2nd week. He's awake a bit more often now during the day, so we can get some fun pictures.

Austin's Big Day

2010-07-05T10:02:00.005-06:00

Our little man has finally made it, and we're so excited! He was born on June 29th (his due date) at 9:06 am. He weighed 6 lbs., 4 oz., and was 19 inches long. Everyone came home Thursday evening and has been doing great (even Jeff!). He's a very mellow little guy, and loves to just hang out with everyone.

He made it just in time for Diana's birthday on the 4th, and we've had tons of fun with everyone in town to visit.

Being the first grandbaby on both Jeff and Diana's sides of the family, he's had quite a few pictures taken. Here are some of our faves:

Some Pics from Kristen's Visit and Our Trip to Seattle

2010-04-18T15:27:00.006-06:00

The question mark is now gone...

2010-03-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

Last time we visited the doctor, he told us that he was pretty sure we were having a boy, but that he wanted to put a question mark, because he wasn't 100% sure. Now the question mark is gone - we're having a boy (or, as the doctor put it, "a girl with external plumbing".)

The oldest son in Jeff's family has had a boy first now for six generations in a row - the streak continues! We're really excited for our little guy to come join us soon.

Not Yet!!

2010-02-01T22:56:00.000-07:00

The baby was a bit shy today (and we might be looking a bit early), so the doctor wasn't able to give us a "firm" decision on the gender. The baby might be a boy, but we're still not 100%. We did get a picture to bring home and a cool video of the ultrasound - the baby is happy and healthy (and active!) We'll keep everyone posted when we find out for sure!

Blue.... or Pink?

2010-01-28T08:12:00.001-07:00

We find out whether the baby is a boy or a girl on Monday! What do you think? If you want to be in the official "boy or girl" poll, vote in the comments. :)

Catching Up Over the Last Few Months...

2010-01-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy couple of months for the three of us. Since Halloween we've moved to a new apartment, been up to Seattle for Thanksgiving, spent Christmas with Diana's family in Morgan, celebrated Grandma's 80th birthday, saw Jake and Kim get married, and celebrated the New Year and Diana's mom's and Jeff's birthday. Now to the pics:

The classic family in front of the tree pose (minus Lisa - still in Hawaii)
After Thanksgiving dinner we made gingerbread houses. Our house lost the competition, but we all know it was still the coolest.
Before diving into dinner. Jeff's cousin Erin and her husband Randy joined us.

The group at Grandma's party:

The happy couple at the Timpanogos temple:

Random pictures from our New Years festivities: (we'll post some more pics soon!)

2009-10-20T22:11:00.000-06:00

This past weekend we went hiking up to Stewart Falls with Jake and his fiance Kim. Here are some highlights:

On the way up to the Falls

In front of the Falls

Another great pose...

Can you see the Falls? In the background?

Jake and Kim under the waterfall

Camping with the Blazzards!

2009-09-13T21:39:00.001-06:00

These are kind of out of order, but here are some pictures from our camping weekend with the Blazzards.

Janel riding on the back of Jake's new bike.

Jake and his cake (with a motorcycle on it)

The view.

Janel and her glow stick glasses.

Clark posing.

Family picture!

The tire swing!

Grandma and Grandpa Blazzard even got in on the fun!

Another picture of Jake and the cake.

Pulling some crazy tricks on the tire swing.

Jake and Jeff on the tire swing.

Four Wheeeling

2009-08-21T13:24:00.000-06:00

After graduation, we went up to a cabin in the Uintas with our friends Seth and Mariah to go four wheeling. Here are some more pics:

What is that, you ask? Yeah, it's snow. On August 15th!

Finally Graduated

2009-08-21T13:11:00.000-06:00

What?? A sample? I want my money back!

The Brimhall building, where I spent the last three years.

Wait... which camera are we supposed to look at?

Smile!

Smile (again)

My cousin Brad in the color guard.

Now you can feel like you were there, too!

Monster Twucks!

2009-08-21T13:06:00.000-06:00

We went to a monster truck rally a couple of weeks ago with some friends and got some awesome pictures.

Bridal Veil Falls

2009-05-18T05:29:00.000-06:00

[caption id="attachment_182" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Although we have been in Provo for a while this is the first time we have been to Bridal Veil Falls. It was a quick little hike to the falls but very pretty. "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_190" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="We climbed up a side trail but decided to come down the the water fall instead of back on the trail. Couldn't get the shoes wet :) The water was freezing.Although we have been in Provo for a while this is the first time we have been to Bridal Veil Falls. It was a quick little hike to the falls but very pretty. "][/caption]

Another Catch Up Post!

2009-04-29T17:29:00.000-06:00

Wow - it's been quite a while since I've been on here! Things are going well for us. I'm finished with my last full semester of school, and Diana has one day left of finals before she has the summer off. We'll both be off for the spring and I've got one class in the summer and then I graduate! It's going to be nice. Diana will student teach in the fall and then graduate in December.

We're working hard to take care of business over the summer, and my main job is looking for a new job. I've finished my internship and I'm still working with the athletic department until I can find something a bit more permanent. Well, a lot more permanent. If you know anyone who's looking for someone to do their advertising for them, let me know!

Our garden is coming along (we think) and hopefully we'll start seeing some little plants shoot up soon. We've planted enough stuff you'd think we'd already have a lot to eat already, but apparently we've got to wait a while.

That's the update for now!

Out with the winter clothes again

2009-03-29T17:31:00.000-06:00

Isn't this the greatest sweater you've ever seen! We found it at a store and Jeff had to see how it worked. This will keep him warm on his long walks to and from school and work.

[caption id="attachment_169" align="alignleft" width="455" caption="Before it got all cold on us we decided we would plant a garden. It was so nice that day! We'll have to wait for it to warm up a bit before we can plant anything."][/caption]

Now we can go sledding!!

2009-01-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

We found these sweet snow pants for Jeff! (the poor guy didn't have any) So now we are set to go. We just need it to snow when we aren't swamped with school or work :)

Belated Christmas, Thanksgiving, Anniversary Catchup Post

2008-12-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

We're back! The lack of posts recently can be attributed to the end of the semester, Diana's brother and sister getting home from their missions, Jeff finishing his Maybelline perfume project, finals, snow, and the holidays. Let's get to the pictures!

[gallery]

Halloween Fun!

2008-11-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

Can you guess what it is? My brother starred at it for the longest time and couldn't tell what it was (we even gave him tons of hints). [gallery]

Vacuum Mysteries

2008-10-13T03:41:00.000-06:00

So our vacuum hasn't been working for a while. Jeff disected our vacum and now everything is fixed. Look what he found...

Life as a celebrity spouse

2008-10-07T03:05:00.000-06:00

So I really liked my MTC teachers, a lot. They were really neat people who influenced my mission. I looked up to them, and wanted to be like them. Little did I realize they were really super-celebrities in disguise! Since marrying Diana, I've begun to have a little taste of life in the fast lane. ;)

Example One - Most of you know we found our first apartment in Orem in about three hours - not a planned decision. We moved in and didn't get out much for a couple days.... unpacking and stuff. Our first or second trip to the grocery store we pulled up to our apartment and were unloading the groceries when the missionaries (who lived on the floor above us) came home and were walking past us - Diana recognized one of the Elders - it was someone she had taught in one of her English classes. We saw them a couple times a week until the Elder transferred.

Example Two - This summer we were out in the middle of nowhere in Salt Lake test driving a car for my parents, and we pulled into a random parking lot to check the car out, take pictures, etc. A couple of missionaries on bikes pulled up and we said "Hey Elders - how's it going?" - mostly so they didn't try a new approach on us, and one of the missionaries says, "Hey - Sister Blazzard!" - Yup - you guessed it - another one of the missionaries Diana taught. I wish I had a picture so I could show you how much in the middle of nowhere it was. Anyways, they were late for a dinner appointment and wanted to know if we knew our way around and could give them directions.

Example Three: We scored some General Conference tickets for the Sunday Afternoon session (thanks Seth and Mariah!) and after the session we were walking back through Temple Square to the parking garage where our car was. We got about halfway through and were walking past a big bunch of missionaries when it happened - again. At least two different Elders recognized Diana, and we stopped and talked for a while. Turns out they were there with their whole mission for conference, and Diana knew a bunch of the missionaries. The Elder than ran into us on his bike was there, too - it was pretty impressive. They all love Diana and think she's the greatest and they take pictures and give her their addresses so she can write them and keep in touch - which she usually does a pretty good job of.

Really, it's getting to the point where we can't even go out in public anymore - they're everywhere. Now we know how all those other 'famous' couples feel. ;)

School is.... school. I can't believe it's already Oct. 7. Diana's brother Jake gets home from his mission (in Mexico) tomorrow! We're headed up to the airport to say hi. Daren's birthday was yesterday, and Kristen's is on Thursday.

Make sure you check out the picture page (the tab is up at the top of the page) - Diana has been good about adding new pictures when we take them - hopefully you enjoy.

So we went camping...

2008-09-28T15:12:00.000-06:00

in our living room!!! We were organizing emergency preparedness stuff for family night. We decided to get the tent out, that Jeff's parents gave us, to make sure it still had all of the parts. Then since we hadn't been camping yet this year, we decided to finally go.

Seven years later...

2008-09-11T02:57:00.000-06:00

It's been an interesting trip back in time to read some of the news coverage surrounding the anniversary of 9/11. I can't believe it's already been seven years - time flies. Last night Diana and I were talking about where we were when we first heard about the attacks. I remember that I was late getting to seminary with my friend Ryan and when we walked in the one of the teachers who wasn't teaching asked us if we were late because we were watching planes crash into buildings. We had no idea what was going on and laughed it off and quickly sat down. After class was over, our teachers turned their tv on (class was in their home then) and we began watching. The first plane had already hit and we watched the second plane hit the second World Trade Center tower. It was a scary experience. I remember we watched TV for most of the rest of the day in school.

Diana remembers being in her first hour of school and she was tutoring a girl in a wheelchair in math when the school news program came on with information about the attacks.

It's interesting to think about what has happened since then, and what kind of impact those attacks have had on millions of untold lives. No matter what side of the political fence you fall on, there's no arguing that our lives will never be the same. What drew us together as nation for the first time in a while has led to other events that have divided us sharply.

There's a very interesting piece of 'social' art on the second floor of the library that I reccomend you check out if you get the chance. It's a good way to remember those who died in that horrible tragedy. There's a link about it here. We'd be interested in hearing about where you were when you found out, and what your feelings are now, seven years after the fact. If you're interested, go ahead and leave us a comment. Thanks!

Fair and Seattle Recap and more

2008-09-04T15:49:00.000-06:00

Hey - if you're reading this we're glad that you've been able to find us again.

As promised - the long awaited second edition of what happened during our summer. A week after Bear Lake we headed to the Morgan County fair and had a lot of fun. We're still working on getting the picture posting part of this straightened out, so they might come slowly over the next couple days.

Then we headed up and spent about a week and a half up in Seattle enjoying the sites. We went to a Mariners game, cruised Seattle and Pike's Place Market, went kayaking and hung out and relaxed.

[gallery]

After our trip we came home and worked as much as we could to try and save up for the school year, so it's been pretty busy since then. Diana started school on Aug. 27 and I started the Tuesday after Labor Day so now we're both back in the swing of things and ready for another school year to be over already.

We have a new home

2008-09-04T12:01:00.001-06:00

We're moving again...

Our blog has a new home!

The address is:

http://cullimores.wordpress.com

We won't be posting on this blog anymore, but we will keep posting like we always have (except for this extended summer break) on our 'new' blog - come on over and check it out!

The Summer

2008-08-17T17:37:00.001-06:00

We're back!! Sorry for the lack of recent posts - soon after our post early in July our summer became super busy with vacations, friends and family in town and a whole lot going on - but we've got tons of good pictures and stories to tell.

Shortly after enjoying our new couch Jeff's mom and sister Kristen came to visit for a weekend... and then came back a week later with Lisa.

We were able to get everyone from both our families together for some good ice-blocking fun at a park in Ogden.

Alex and Diana make the opening runs.

Rashel, Jeff, Lisa, and Diana

Janel was a super trooper - she went down at least as the much of the rest of us - and carried her ice back up the hill each time!

Jeff had better form than Lisa this time down.

Mom and Lisa bringing their ice back up.

Diana, Angela, and Rashel. Rashel is the only one who seemed worried....

We tried a train.... but that didn't work out too well...

Lisa's not the only one who had a wipeout - but she had the best pictures!

After that we headed to Blazzard's for a tasty BBQ and some fun riding their horses.

Janel loves to ride with whoever will take her.

Kristen was terrified of the horses at first and wouldn't get near them, but a few minutes after she hopped on she was riding just like an old pro and loved it.

Lisa loved the whole thing.

We all had a great time.

Our next task was to get ready for our annual Ellertson family reunion to Bear Lake (about which you've no doubt already blogged and read other blogs about, if you check other sites in our extended family) - but here's our little take - We both had a great time, especially at the beach and the Ellertson Idol talent show - we have some extremely talented family! Most of the good pictures have already been posted on other sites, there are some great ones on dad's site.

That next Saturday we went to the Morgan County Fair to watch Diana's sisters auction off their lambs at the livestock auction and enjoy the fair.

After Bear Lake we were home and worked for almost a full week and then we headed up to Washington with Jeff's family in the car. Long drive, but fun vacation. We'll include pictures from the fair and our Seattle trip in our next post.

The Summer

2008-08-17T17:37:00.000-06:00

Fair Fun

2008-08-12T11:18:00.000-06:00

Living Room By Online Classifieds

2008-07-09T09:09:00.001-06:00

We've been looking for a couch for quite a while because:
a) I can't lay down all the way on the love seat (there's pictures of this lack of space in previous posts)
b) We didn't have a lot of things to sit on in our family room
c) Everybody needs a couch

We've been looking online for about a month now, trying to find the right couch, but everything we could afford was pretty darn ugly, everything we wanted was expensive, and when we found something that was just right, it was already sold. We finally lucked out yesterday and found a great couch on the KSL classifieds, and were able to bring it home. We'll probably never really use the hide-a-bed, but its got one if we need it. (And therefore it is extremely heavy).

In this picture you can see what color the couch really is. It looks like a couch from a hotel or a furnished apartment. It came with the green cover, which is much better. It now enjoys a place in our family room, right next to the loveseat we found on craigslist.

Other Random Things:

For those of you who are iTunes users, there's a cool free audiobook download of the book The Alchemist. I've never heard of it, but apparently it's a pretty amazing book, so if you're interested, it's available till the 14th.

On a more serious note, a guy from the first ward I was in after my mission drowned in Utah Lake over the weekend.

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=3711831
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700241691,00.html

I didn't know him very well, just mostly knew who he was, but through mutual friends had found out that he had lost his right hand in a fireworks accident about a year and a half ago. He was the kind of guy that didn't let it faze him at all. He posted a bunch of videos on Youtube
demonstrating different ways to do difficult things with his prosthetic hand and his remaining left hand. It's a very sad thing, but it's neat to see someone who was able to turn a disability into a tool and not let it get him down, and it's also nice to see that his family, while justifiably extremely sad and devastated, is comforted by the truths of the gospel. I'm glad we know what we know.

Living Room By Online Classifieds

2008-07-09T09:09:00.000-06:00

Week of Celebration

2008-07-06T17:28:00.001-06:00

Well, it was definitely a week to remember. We'll start at the beginning....

Monday, June 30th, we went to a concert at UVU (pronounced ooooh-vuuuu - just kidding - and formerly UVSC) for the changing of UVSC to UVU. We got cheap tickets and it was a pretty good concert for the price. We saw Josh Gracin, Collin Raye and Joe Nichols (we weren't impressed with his site, but you can check it out on your own if you want). The concert was held in the baseball stadium on campus, and as you can see there was a ton of people there (we heard about 15,000). The red arrow shows the stage.

Some of you might remember Josh Gracin from when he was on American Idol a couple of years ago, and now he's hit it big. We were excited to see him and Collin Raye.

The red arrow is pointing to Josh. He probably just said something like "Raise your hand if it's hot today" or something like that. He has a pretty cool story - he was an active duty Marine while he was competing on American Idol - you can read about it at his site.

Even though the music at the concert was great, the most entertaining thing was probably the people dancing around us....

This guy was getting a kick out of Collin Raye's songs. Sorry it's sideways.

These ladies looooove Josh Gracin.

Later in the week, we headed up to Park City and enjoyed a great lunch at Baja Cantina.
It was great. After that we checked out the outlet malls and then headed up to Morgan to spend the weekend with Diana's family. It was a lot of fun. We had barbecues, went on a long horse ride, played water kickball with a big inflatable water slide, played with their new puppy, Pokey, watched Singles' 2nd Ward (pretty decent movie, actually - at least as good as the first one), had a bonfire, played 'Ticket to Ride' (classic), hung out and completely forgot to take any pictures. Ooops. If we get any from Diana's family we'll put them up. It was a good party week - we had a lot of fun!

Week of Celebration

2008-07-06T17:28:00.000-06:00

Flower

2008-06-29T22:10:00.002-06:00

This is the real family picture ;). For FHE we did this time capsule thing for posterity. We listed music, movies, activities, news, and many things about our time. It was pretty fun. To end the night we took a picture to put in as well.

(I think this is the only picture we have that I'm taller than Jeff.)

This is Jeff hard at work on our blog

We finally have a plant that hasn't died! I received this beautiful flower for mother's day in our ward. It bloomed for a day and then all the flowers died. I was a bit discouraged. I watered it consistently for about a month and it looked the same. Then I began to give up and Jeff took over. A few weeks later it bloomed! He must have the magic touch.

Flower

2008-06-29T22:10:00.001-06:00

(I think this is the only picture we have that I'm taller than Jeff.)

This is Jeff hard at work on our blog

The Big Six...

2008-06-29T20:03:00.001-06:00

Well, it's hard to believe, it's gone by so fast, but Diana and I celebrated our sixth anniversary on Friday. Yup - that's right, we've been married a whole six months. ;) It's been great. We celebrated by hanging out and then going to Seth and Mariah's for pizza, a movie, and a game. Then on Saturday we went to the mall to do some shopping and I decided to use my See's Candy gift certificate Diana had given me for Christmas. (I know, I can't believe I waited this long either, it kind of got lost in the shuffle of moving...)

It was for a free 1 lb. box of chocolates and we got to pick which ones we wanted. It's great! Now we don't have to tentatively bite into each piece, hoping we didn't get one of the gross ones that really can't be classified as candy. Our box has tons of goodness (also known as chocolate, dark chocolate, peanuts, and peanut butter).

Now we're all excited for this week for two reasons. The fourth of July is on Friday - AND that same day is Diana's birthday! So we're planning on having a big party with all the good stuff and lots of rest and relaxation. Just for fun, I went to wikipedia to see who else has this famous birthday. The list (of many) includes the following people:

1804 - Nathaniel Hawthorne, American writer (d. 1864)
1872 - Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States (d. 1933)
1918 - Abigail Van Buren, American advice columnist
1930 - George Steinbrenner, American businessman (owns the New York Yankees)
1965 - Horace Grant, American basketball player
1971 - Koko, sign-language gorilla

That's pretty neat. A big diverse group of people and..... animals. We're just glad we can celebrate. We took family pictures for FHE a couple weeks ago. I'm not sure if they turned out the way we wanted, but here's what we got:

I guess this is how our kids are going to remember us 100 years from now. Classic.

The Big Six...

2008-06-29T20:03:00.000-06:00

Updates

2008-06-05T22:00:00.002-06:00

It's been a good summer so far. Our neighbor problems have vanished, we're into a good work routine, and we're excited to go up to Rexburg next weekend and watch Lisa run a marathon. I'm pretty impressed mostly because marathons are pretty HARD. I'm not speaking from experience or anything, but even the fast people finish in around 2-2 1/2 hours. Running straight for that long - :P whew!!! No can do. We're proud of Lisa, though, and excited to see the fam.

On the blog front... we're trying this new blogger thing (the links on the left) that shows recent posts on the blogs we like to read - if it's too much information (TMI, as my mom would say) then let us know and we won't put yours in the new fancy one.

I'm working as the Sports Information Director (SID) for the BYU women's soccer team, so it's been a lot of fun. I write a lot - you can check out some of the stuff I've done here and here. It's a lot of fun - I really enjoy it. I'm also close to finish working on the media guide for the Men's Soccer team, so even though I'm not in class - the days have been pretty packed. Our intramural softball team kind of bombed, but it was fun to get out and play. It's been rainy and chilly this week so we're excited for summer to really get here and for it to get really really hot. Well, maybe just really hot. But at this rate, we'll take anything!

Updates

2008-06-05T22:00:00.001-06:00

We love our neighbors...

2008-05-25T19:48:00.000-06:00

So... we moved into our new apartment last week, and things have been great. Well... almost great. We got together with our friends Seth and Mariah and had dinner at our place before we headed down to the mall to watch "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (by the way - decent movie, but nothing like the old Indiana Jones - so don't get your hopes up too much) and when we got back home we'd discovered that our neighbors upstairs (who are in the process of getting evicted) had conveniently left the sprinkler on all evening and put it in a place so that it could spray down into the basement, where the washing machine and dryer are and where all of the apartments have storage space. There was about an inch of water in the basement, and all of our stuff was getting wet. It was exciting.

Here is the Love sac on top of the truck. While we were driving to our new apartment, it fell off right in the middle of University Avenue (up by the canyon) and luckily everything worked out fine - we washed the cover and it's good as new!

Trying to get motivation to unpack everything we'd just packed two days earlier.

Fixing the windows.

All the water in the basement (can you see the reflection of our stuff in the water?)

Trying to figure out what to do with the neighbors. I don't usually strike this pose, Diana caught me in an off moment.

Making ripples in the water...

My toes are almost completely under water.

Everything worked out in the end - our stuff dried out quickly and the landlord came and cleaned up all the water the next day, so no damage was done. Hope every one had a good Memorial Day and Happy Birthday Lisa and Alex!! (again)

The Move

2008-05-18T17:36:00.000-06:00

Well, we finally did it - we've moved. Some of you knew that we've been going back and forth on moving for a while, and once we decided to actually go through with it, everything fell into place and know we're living in a nice four-plex just off of University Avenue in Provo. We moved on Friday, and only had one minor problem - Diana's dad strapped our love-sac on top off a lot of our other stuff in the back of the truck but while they were driving down University, somehow the wind got underneath it and lifted it up off the truck and down in the middle of the road. Luckily no one was hurt and the love-sac wasn't too bad after we washed the cover, so it turned out alright. We're really happy with the new place - it's going to be nice to be so close to campus. We'll post some pictures soon!

Adventures in Moab

2008-05-04T09:54:00.000-06:00

We went to Moab this weekend with our friends Seth and Mariah. It was a ton of fun. The weather was great - about 70-75 degrees each day with a little breeze to cool us off. We went to Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. They were both really interesting, we saw a lot of really neat things (mostly having to do with rocks and things like that) and were able to do about 6 hikes in the two days we were there. Here are some pics from our trip... it's a bit long, so hang in there... (p.s. if you click on the pictures to look at them up close - they are really big, so they might not fit on your screen or might take a little while to load, but they will come up!)

This is us standing beneath the delicate arch. We're tiny compared to it, as you can see in the next picture.

Here's us in the arch again (you've got to look pretty close to see us). As you can see - it was a perfect hiking day - about 70 degrees, not too hot, and a nice breeze to cool us off when we took breaks.

We climbed up into another little arch and took a picture - that's still the Delicate Arch in the background.

We took a stab at doing some rock climbing (we've been working out, so now we had to put our money where our mouths are and prove we'd actually gotten stronger) and here's my attempt.

Diana did better than I did.... she got all the way over to this ledge and she was hanging out 200 feet in the air and almost pulled her self up....

Ok.... well, kinda.... :)

Here we are at....I forget but I'm pretty sure this is called Park Place. It's a short hike through a really skinny section between these big rock walls.

This is us with our friends Seth and Mariah at Landscape arch. This one looks quite a bit more delicate than the real 'Delicate Arch,' but I guess they'd already used that name so they had think up another one. You used to be able to walk right up to it and touch it but in 1991 a huge (the sign said 60-ton, so it's more like huuuuuuuuuuuuge) section of rock fell off, making the arch much more unstable. So we had to take a picture from a distance. We met some people from Holland here. Nice folks. (on a side note - it was interesting how many foreigners we ran into in these two parks - people come here from everywhere!)

We took this picture at the almost end of our 2-day trip. As you can see Mariah is the only one with enough energy to be a 'pole.' Jeff and Seth didn't really get how or why we were being poles. Good picture, though.

Here's Diana and Mariah hanging out while we rested and waited for our turn to take pictures at the Delicate Arch.

Me and Seth. Resting.

Here we are again. Smiling. (Because we're at the BOTTOM of the hill. See the hill behind us?)

This was right before we got to the Delicate arch. (It's just around that big rock to the right).

A zoomed in version of the picture above.

Hard at work...

This is us at the end of a hike in Canyonlands taking a water break. It's an amazing view, tons of canyons and the Colorado River. It was beautiful.
This is us on a ledge....

Another ledge.... that was as far over as we dared to go....
Diana and Mariah found a little cave..
Diana went a bit further..
And then Seth and I found our own cave to cool off in..

Tired feet at the end of the day.....

It was a great trip - sunburns and sweaty feet and all. We had a lot of fun and the hikes were all relatively low-key so if you're looking for a super fun cheap vacation, check out Moab! (and if you go to the restaurant on the hill, don't get the prime rib!!!)

Ellertson Idol!!! - Bear Lake 2008

2008-04-22T19:24:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks - and - it's still busy, but I thought I'd just post this info for everyone in case some people didn't get it e-mailed to them.

Ellertson Idol Offices - 482 E 2320 N - Provo, UT 84604
From: Norman and Carol Ellertson, Executive Producers
To: Your Family
Date: April 22, 2008
Subject: Congratulations – Ellertson Idol Invite

Congratulations! You and your family have been invited to the prestigious Ellertson Idol talent and song competition. This year’s competition will be held at the luxurious Sweetwater Resort on the shores of Bear Lake, in northern Utah. The competition will be held July 25-28, 2008.

Our show invites you and members of your family to compete in one of three categories:
1. Vocal/Instrumental Performance (this is for you serious musicians and vocalists)
2. Talent Performance (this is for those of you with awesome non-musical talents)
3. Humorous/Impersonations/Other (this one is just for laughs)

We are looking forward to spending time with you over the course of the competition. Of course, group and individual performances are welcomed. The performance will be held Saturday night, so please prepare in advance. We will be featuring three surprise world-class judges, who will assist us in enjoying the night.

In order to determine what supplies and other necessary items will be needed to produce this competition, we ask that you please RSVP with your talent/performance information to this e-mail address: hoopsfam@gmail.com, by Friday, June 27. This will allow the show’s producers to assemble any necessary items. We appreciate your cooperation. Please consider performing, as the more performances we have, the more we can all enjoy ourselves and have a lot of fun. Almost anything goes, so if you’ve got something you want to try, please let us know.
Participants and spectators alike will be rewarded with great prizes.

Once again, congratulations on your selection to this prestigious competition – and we look forward to seeing you all soon.

Sincerely,
The Ellertson Idol Production Crew

Doughnuts!

2008-03-29T21:38:00.001-06:00

Today we made doughnuts with Diana's mom's recipe. They are really good. One batch made about 30 doughnuts so we've got plenty to keep up busy for the next couple days. Everything tastes a lot better when it's homemade. Here are some pictures.

Here are some of the doughnuts after we rolled them out and used a mason jar top to cut them out:

Then we dumped them in some oil in the frying pan and cooked them.My job was to take the doughnuts after we cooked them and dip them in the glaze that we made out of powdered sugar.

Here is a doughnut fresh out of the glaze.
Most of the finished product!
We made doughnut holes too with the insides that got cut out and we also did letters. (notice the 'J'

Swimsuit abs

2008-03-29T13:24:00.000-06:00

My old roommates and I have been working out about 3 times a week since beginning of last semester. We've mostly been working on our bench presses and abs and such (I'm up to 133 on the bench - not too much, but quite a bit for me). So as we've been lifting we've been looking around for new ways to naturally (and healthily - if thats a word) maximize our muscle growing potential, and I stumbled on this article the other day as I was reading on ESPN.com. It's talking about the University of Michigan football team and a new coach they got and new strength training techniques they are using. This is the important part (it's talking about the strength coach):

"Barwis is equal parts old- and new-school. The old part: He believes in "Olympic movements," so his players perform a lot of power cleans and squats. Another old part: Don't tell the energy drink industry, but when his players finish their workout, he has them drink -- I kid you not -- chocolate milk

Barwis is happy to explain how milk is the best delivery system for casein and whey, the proteins your body needs after a workout. The chocolate syrup replenishes glucose. But he also can explain it in a way that any former kindergartener can understand.

"It's pretty simple," Barwis said. "What did you drink when you were a baby? When did you grow faster than that? Never did. Evidently, Mom and Dad knew right in the first place."

I was pretty excited when I read that - I have loved drinking chocolate milk since I was a little kid - and now I had a good reason to! I knew there was some hidden potential in there. ;) Well, I guess you could say I'm on the chocolate milk diet (not really, but I'll sure try and drink some after we work out) so we'll see how it goes!

2008-03-23T12:13:00.000-06:00

H A P P Y E A S T E R ! !

We had cholcolate covered strawberries on Saturday!! Yum :) instead of coloring eggs.

I fixed it!!!

2008-03-20T21:08:00.000-06:00

Well, I sort of fixed it - I just used a different browser... Anyways - here they come - enjoy!!

Friday in Salt Lake/Kamas:

Diana's sister Janel modeling some sunglasses for us.

Diana borrowed them.

But they worked better on Janel, despite the fact that they were a bit big.

Goofing around for the camera (this never happens)

My turn with the sunglasses.

Completely home-made quesadillas!

Corn flower for the tortillasMaking the little tortillas...

The World's Biggest Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Diana found these at the store in the Easter candy. They were about an inch thick. Lots of chocolate and peanut butter (as you can see) - I'm going for the dramatic effect in these pictures...(find out more about this monstrosity here)

Don't mind my open mouth in that last one....

Complete and utter disappointment, and... oh yeah - some pics

2008-03-20T20:18:00.000-06:00

Allllllll season long we waited - we watched as they defeated every team that came to Provo, beat Utah twice, defeated #6 Louisville and took #1 North Carolina almost to the wire, completely dismantled almost every team they faced, and became the Mountain West Conference regular-season champions. Could this be the year? Could it finally be time for BYU to get past the first round of the NCAA tournament - something they haven't been able to do for the past 15 years? They had a chance. A great chance, but in the end, it wasn't so. An extremely disappointing end to a season with an incredible amount of promise - BYU loses to Texas A&M. Frustrating.

Blogger doesn't like any pictures I'm trying to upload for some reason...... more frustrating. Hmmm... I'll try and figure it out and we'll have a post full of pictures.

We're getting ready for a fun Easter weekend - it should be good (sarcastically) - I have two papers to work on - I'm trying to get anywhere from 6 - 10 pages done Friday and Saturday, and Diana, as always, has lots to do. She starts 'practice teaching' (not student teaching - that comes later) at Rock Canyon Elementary (right across the street from my grandparents!) next week, so she's busy getting lesson plans and a lot of other things ready for that. She's excited for it. We'll be closer, so it'll be less driving and much less $3.00/gallon for gas!

Speaking of $ - I have begun a new 'job' and begun to acquire an important skill - I am the official scoreboard operator for the 2008 BYU Softball Team (I know - you're all jealous). They needed someone to step in and I had some time so I decided to give it a shot. It's part-time, usually 1 or 2 games a week. I love baseball and being outside, so this job is a pretty sweet deal. I can sense some definite challenges, though - in the two games I have worked I managed to:

1. give all of the home team's runs to the visiting team

2. put 2 innings' worth of runs into 1 inning

3. misspell at least 3 peoples' names (we show them when they come up to bat)

4. confuse both umpires and coaches with my erratic, inconsistent and incorrect scoreboard operating, causing no less than about a 5-10 minute game delay.

However, the softball team is undefeated when I work the scoreboard. (Read in to that what you want.)

You can read all about the softball team and the field (you can't see the scoreboard, but just imagine it's there). Come check the games out if you want - I'm pretty sure they're free - no one really comes so you can get a great seat and it's outside and the weather is nice - what more could you need? (If you're looking for more - the games aren't as long as baseball - they only go 7 innings...)

Also, thanks to our friends Seth and Mariah, we found out about this great movie:

We saw it in theaters and really enjoyed it - I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. We had a gift card from amazon.com we hadn't used so we ordered it! It's pretty darn fun - highly recommend it if you haven't seen it.

P.S. We get to talk on Sunday - that should be interesting.

March Madness

2008-03-15T10:44:00.001-06:00

Yes, its that wonderful time when college basketball is on 24/7 and it's crazy crazy. Isn't it great?

New link and other updates

2008-03-09T10:23:00.000-06:00

Well, we've been a bit busy around here. Last night was spent on the phone quite a bit with Lisa. She is on her way to Germany to nanny for a family that used to be in our ward but moved (for work). She flew from Seattle to Philadelphia, and was expecting just a four hour layover. Long story short, that 'short' layover kept getting longer and longer and she kept me updated with texts. She was originally supposed to leave at around 8:30 PM yesterday (March 8), but ended up not leaving until about 10:30 AM today (March 9 - both of those are Philadelphia times) and the airport told all the passengers all the hotels were filled so they just hung out in the boarding area all night. No fun at all. She's on the plane headed over right now, but I'm sure she'll have a very exciting recounting of a very long night on her trip blog, which you can read here, or by clicking on the link on the right.

While we were on the phone coordinating with Lisa last night, we decided to make some quick quesadillas for dinner, and Diana taught me how 'true' quesadillas are made (the way she learned on her mission in Honduras) and they ended up turning into little sandwich-type quesadillas. It's different because instead of just pulling the tortillas out of a bag and throwing them onto the frying pan, they actually take corn flower and make them. They were really good. Here's some pics of the demonstration:

Well, blogger isn't working right now, so we'll try and put the pictures up later....

We spent Friday up in Salt Lake and Kamas because Diana's aunt (who's only a few years older than we are) got married. It was very nice, a great day and the whole family was able to be there. We got some great pictures that we'll try and post later.

Daylight savings time is nice, it'll really start to seem like things are warming up and summer is on the way since it'll stay light past 5 or 6 now, and we're really looking forward to that.

2008-02-29T22:26:00.000-07:00

So in case you were wondering why I haven't been contributing to the blog...Here is proof of why. I have been practicing my professional "love sac" tricks :)I tried to get Jeff to join but he said he already knew how, so we played tick tac toe instead. You better ask him who won.

Valentine's Day Update

2008-02-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

This last week was quite busy - we tried to squeeze in quite a bit, so it's a good thing we have the last part of a 3-day weekend (one of the few things I"ll miss about being in school full-time) to recover. The week started off great, with actually some really warm (well, about 40 degree) weather. Then, Wednesday night, things got messy, and a storm that was supposed to move through really quickly just kind of ended up sitting right in front of the mountains, and we got about 2-3 inches of snow to go with the ton we already had. On Valentine's Day we got to exchange gifts and surprisingly we actually ended up getting each other pretty much the same thing - mugs. When we first moved in we didn't have any and it was really cold so we were always making hot chocolate in whatever else we had, usually glasses. So independently we both decided to get each other mugs, and now we have a ton. It's great.

We ended up doing some more minor 'housekeeping' things around the apartment - including getting a display case for the basketball everyone signed at our luncheon and reception. Here it is...

We also headed up to Morgan this weekend to catch all of Diana's little sisters' basketball games. It was a lot of fun - except that we got stuck right in the middle of rush hour Friday afternoon and spent quite a bit of time in the car trying to stay busy. Diana was driving, so I was responsible for documenting the momentous experience for posterity....

I was having a pretty good time....

Taking lots of pictures.....

I randomly got this semi-patriotic nice shot of the mountains....

And this doesn't look that bad.... but just imagine all the cars are moving about 2 miles an hour.

Anyways, we finally got there, and had a great time. The girls all did very well, it was a clean sweep for the weekend. It was a fun trip!

Chocolate Asparagus

2008-02-09T22:37:00.000-07:00

Every one of you who is married understands the give-and-take art of meshing traditions, likes and dislikes, opinions, and habits after you are married. Things like Christmas traditions, where you spend Thanksgiving, and summer vacations are among the big things that dominate conversations surrounding family traditions. These are usually things that are important to the family. With this in mind, I tell you of a discovery I made two weeks ago, which could become something of a minor 'tradition' in our family.
This is asparagus. According to Wikipedia, "Asparagus officinalis is a flowering plant species in the genus Asparagus from which the popular vegetable known as asparagus is obtained. It is native to most of Europe, northern Africa and western Asia. It is now also widely cultivated as a vegetable crop." My mom had cooked asparagus pretty frequently while I was growing up, and I thought it was pretty good. Nothing amazing, but still, it's good. Well, Diana and I were walking through Costco last week picking up some things we needed and kind of poking around to make sure we didn't miss out on any of the good deals. As we were strolling through the vegetable section, I nostalgically said, "Hey, look - that's cool, asparagus." (or something similar to that). I could tell by the look on Diana's face that she'd never had it before, so we bought some and brought it home. I don't remember if it was that night or the next or when exactly it was, but we pulled some out, cooked it in the microwave, and sat down to dinner. We started eating, and Diana was pretty impressed with asparagus - she really really liked it. In fact, she liked it so much she couldn't figure out whey her family hadn't cooked it at all while she was growing up. Well, since then, I think we've had asparagus almost every night. It's a good thing we bought it at Costco, cause otherwise we'd be out by now. It's nothing huge or monumental, and probably not even something that could be classified as a tradition, but something of an example of the funny things that happen when people start sharing parts of their lives with each other. And yes, we did have asparagus with dinner tonight.

Also, another thing my mom introduced to me was Nutella (it's French, she learned about it on her mission).

Apparently, February 6th is World Nutella Day. This is a new discovery for me, but I am sure we'll celebrate it from here on out. Nutella was the other big purchase we made at Costco. It's actually a hazelnut spread, but for all purposes its chocolate. For those of you who've never had it before, it's kind of like chocolate peanut butter. It's very good, but of course, not extremely healthy. The French like to rip off a big chunk of a 'baguette' (or French bread, as we gringos know it) and then spread some Nutella on it. I really like it on toast; it mixes well with Peanut Butter. I just read a recipe where you put strawberries on top of the Nutella on French Bread and make a sandwich. Sounds really good. Anyways, this is the other 'tradition' item we bought at Costco, and we're hooked. Someone keeps sneaking into the kitchen and getting spoonfuls of Nutella. I just use my fingers, so I'll let you decide who the culprit is. ;)

Broken legs, cholera, typhoid, and LOTS of snow!

2008-02-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

No, don't worry - we didn't have an epidemic of deadly diseases and unfortunate mishaps. What we DID do, however, is fine a place online where we could play Oregon Trail! (Here's the link: www.virtualapple.org/oregontraildisk.html - you have to install an add-on, but it works!) Yes, it is the same sweet game everyone played in elementary school where you have to buy supplies and then travel across the plains to Oregon while braving all manner of thieves, fires in your wagon, deadly contagious diseases and a wonderful musical soundtrack. We probably won't spend too much time there, but it was fun to remember for a bit what it was like to get out of class, go down to the computer lab and fire up those old Macs that took fifteen minutes to start.... good times. Also, we've been getting quite a bit of snow, almost every other day, and it's been a lot of fun, but also made driving a bit of an experience. We're getting plenty of practice in driving in the snow, especially in the dark in the morning before the plows get to all of the roads. It's great.

Trip to Seattle!

2008-01-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

We just got back earlier today from our quick weekend trip up to Seattle. We spent time with my family and had an open house so a lot of our family friends up there could come say hi to me and Diana. We had a really good time. It was only a quick break, but it was a good one. We got lots of great stuff, and were able to spend most of Saturday in Seattle. There is a slide show of the pictures below.

Famous...

2008-01-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

So, as I was fixing the picture of us up at the top of the page (which I can't get to fit in that little box, and I'm not sure why) I had the random thought - Wow, those two guys whose legs are in the background are going to be famous because so many millions of people are going to be reading this.... or something cool like that. Anyways... school is in session and things are good! Gotta love the snow - about 5-6 inches over the weekend. But life rolls on as usual.

Moving In and the New Year - Finally Turning 23

2008-01-02T18:05:00.000-07:00

Alright, so we're moving in now. Well, I guess I could safely say 'moved in'. Things are going well, it only took us a couple days to get unpacked. My cousins Brad and Tim and Diana's family helped us move in, which was great because we had quite a bit more stuff than we thought we did. Diana's family was also able to bring down a lot of our wedding gifts and Diana's stuff from Morgan, so it worked out very well. We spent all of New Year's Eve and New Year's Day moving, shopping, organizing, and unpacking. By the 2nd, we were able to see the floor and most of the stuff that needed to be done was minor, and we feel almost all moved in now that pictures are on the wall, there's food in the fridge, and the bed is made. It's a good feeling knowing all of that is taken care of. I turned 23 yesterday, but I really don't feel much older than when I turned 18, or even 12. I wonder when I'm going to start feeling old. It was a great birthday - getting mostly unpacked was fun and then Diana and I made chocolate cake with chocolate chips in the chocolate frosting (wow - it was good) and I got some sweet basketball shorts and a great shirt. You can never have too many pairs of basketball shorts. Diana starts school tomorrow, which isn't going to be very fun, but at least she doesn't have any classes on Friday, so we can keep getting organized and things taken care of. 2008 is finally here and we're moved in, so things are good.

The BIG Day

2007-12-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

Well, it's over now, but it was perfect. On Thursday, the 27th, the wedding festivities began. You can look at all of the pictures here at my Dad's site (or click on the link at the right), but we included some of our favorites here.

Here we are, posing at the reception...

All of these pictures with my Dad's camera, and he was just snapping shots on the side when he wasn't in pictures, so in a lot of them it looks like we are looking to the side but we're actually just looking at another camera. We haven't seen any of those pictures yet, but we are really excited to because we thought that the photographer and videographer did a great job. This was at the reception in Morgan.

This is the two of us posing with our parents -- Mine are next to me and Diana's are next to her. (obvious, probably, I know, but I just wanted to make sure every one knows) I think the guys look pretty snazzy in their tuxes. This was before the reception started.

This is us, seconds after getting sprayed in the face with Silly String by everyone just after we cut the cake. They got us really good - there was silly string everywhere on everything and we were covered - it was great.

We're in the middle of getting everything set to move (hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest) so I'm not exactly sure when we'll have internet again, but we'll post more pictures and news when we can.

The very first post...

2007-12-16T16:15:00.001-07:00

Well, here it is, the very first post. It's the beginning, so it's fitting then, that we start with post number 1. There's 12 days left, not counting today, until the BIG DAY, on December 27th. I've been poking around on my family's site and it works out, but I like the more 'free' format of the blog, so I think we'll give it a shot from here on out. Here we are chillin' at a ward Christmas party - officially our last ever official 'Singles Ward' activity - we were pretty excited about that. I don't know how often it will be, or how much will be said, but hopefully we can keep this updated and keep everyone in 'the know' - where ever that is. Hopefully I'll survive finals week and we'll both survive the next week and a half trying to get all of the last minute things taken care of. Here goes nothing!