Thanksgiving

I have so many things to be thankful for... but I was most thankful to get to see my family for a few days. I don't mean to brag (well...maybe just a little bit) but I pretty much have the most awesome family. Trust.
Thanksgiving was at our house this year which means ALL of my cousins and aunts and uncles came. There was a lot!

I truly have THE cutest grandparents ever. Try and tell me this picture doesn't make you smile?! 

Rachel and Diane. My beautiful seesters!

Con Bon, giving the stink eye. 

Dale and Babo (pronounced babe-o). 

Jas and I! True love at its best. 

The infamous teeter-totter. Countless children have been injured on this thing. I believe my great grandpa made it probably close to a hundred years ago and it somehow ended up in our backyard. This thing is the wonkavator of teeter-totters. It doesn't just go up and down it can pretty much go any way you like. And if you get someone in the middle to spin you around, you can get going pretty darn fast. And if you're in the devious mood you can drop to the ground mid super spin and get the other person to fly off! How do I know this...? I don't know. My cousin tried to see how many little kids it would take to balance him out. I think it took  like 5 or 6. Haha! 

This picture captures the beautiful weather that is Arizona Fall/Winter. Clear skies, green trees...perfect for a little joy ride! Oh how I miss it!

I love times together like this with the fam. And I love this car. 

Harry Potter Love

I realized I never posted about Halloween! Let me just preface by saying, I thought our costumes turned out pretty awesome! I was pretty humble about it too. We were Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter. By the end of HP 7.2 Neville Longbottom was pretty high up there on the awesome-HP-character list! So I only figured it was appropriate that Jason get to be Neville since he's number one on my just-down-right-awesome list! Here's what we looked like:

Our attempts at a self portrait before the wards Halloween party in our usual pose of me trying to be taller and Jason trying to pretend he's shorter. 

At the party we ran into some fellow Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws!

Jason's wand that we picked up at Ollivander's. (aka, he pulled it off a tree on our way to the church. Haha!)

Mug Shot

A few weeks ago Jason and I went to one of those paint-your-own-pottery places and made Christmas mugs! This was such a fun date. You get to sit and paint and talk for like 4 hours. It's simple and such a blast!

Jason's mug was amazing! A cute little snowman giving a gift to his cute little snow woman. What a thoughtful little snowman. 

I was proud of how his snowflakes and icicles turned out. 

I chose to go the ornament route. 

My two favorite ornaments. I replicated the ornament that Jason and I made for our first Christmas last year. We mod podged a wedding picture to the back of a canning jar lid. It's definitely my favorite ornament! And I was pretty proud of how it and my snowflake turned out. 

I love Christmas time. It's so fun to make your own Christmas traditions. 

So THIS is what Fall looks like!

Jason took me on a picnic yesterday because he is sweet like that. I could just end this post right there and be completely satisfied with it. However, I have some awesome pictures to show off so I will continue. :)
We started off by getting some Jimmy John's subs, the best, and heading up to Bridal Veil Falls/Vivian Park. The weather was perfect...when we left. When we got to Bridal veil, which happens to be in a canyon, it was way windy and cold. So, sadly our picnic ended up being in the car watching the wind. When we were done we decided to head up the road a little bit further just to see what was up there. We thought it was just going to be cabins and stuff but it ended up being such a beautiful drive! The Fall leaves are amazing! AMAZING, I tell you! I've never seen a Fall season like this due to Mesa's not really having any other season but hot and less hot so I was really excited to see a real Fall. As Jason can attest, I can get just a little too excited about Fall or ANY kind of seasonal changes for that matter. We found a park, parked (haha, funny words to put together) and ended up going on a totally unplanned, yet beautiful hike. I love how there are things in life that are totally unplanned or unexpected and they turn out to be some of the best things. Yesterday was one of those times. The plans we had made didn't turn out but turned into something so much better than we could have planned.

*WARNING: picture overload ahead.

I'm completely in love with these yellows.

We got to walk along this beautiful stream through most of the hike.

Again with the yellow! Ugh. Can't get enough. Especially against a bright blue sky like that.

This log was at just the right angle in the water that it looks like i took the picture just as it was falling in the stream.

Puffs!

Orange, black and blue. Coolest Halloween picture.

Look at the background in this picture. Are you not in love? 

This one was for my sister Rachel: Safari grass!!!! 

Bliss

Scandalous.

The fire leaf. Totally looks like a flame. 

This was the only one I edited. I thought the little white chairs were so cute. 

The end

Goblin Valley

In July, Jason and I got to go down to Southern Utah to Goblin Valley. This place was SO neat to see. It's filled with loads of crazy land formations and tons of little nooks and crannies to explore. 

Night time view of the goblins. 

Lately i've been seeing more and more of my dad in my facial expressions.
I've always been told I look like my mom but i'm seeing more of the papa. 

 We were soon to be on the top of that thing!

Ya, it doesn't look all that big from this picture.
Trust. It was a pretty fair hike.

 Half way to the top. It's crazy how the valley behind is so flat in comparison to all the lumpy goblins.

I just have to give a shout out here. See the girl in the pink? She's 4-5 months pregnant. I cannot BELIEVE the things she was doing on this hike! Things i'll bet she'll never be telling her doctor about.

From the top! Look at all the cute little boglins...i mean goblins! 

Why'd they choose to call them goblins anyway?

I know this shirt is a little...odd. But it's probably my all-time favorite. What's on it you ask?
Ya, I don't really know either. A happy dancing girl with large, splotchy eyes? 

We were awesome and got to wear cool headlights while doing 

a little spelunking. One of the coolest, scariest things i've done. 

Thanks Connie and Travis for the sweet head light! 

Slot canyons! This was my favorite part of the hike. We still 

had a long way to go so we didn't want to get our shoes wet 

(some of us were better at it than others...)We had to straddle 

the walls to get through the parts of the slots that were filled 

with water.  

I couldn't help feeling like this the whole time...

Can you not look at this picture without getting the song stuck in your head?
"Hup two, three, four. Keep it up two, three, four!" 

 It was so nice to go on this trip and be away from everything. No cell phones, computers or work. Just friends and fun. It's good to get away like that every once in a while and just be one with nature, as my good friend Sully would say :)

Hooked on DQ

I know I am not the most consistent at writing on my blog. However. I had made a resolution to try and write more often. I even made a list of things I wanted to blog about. And have I posted anything from that list? Nope. Is it because I'm extremely busy or something? Nope. Probably the opposite, in fact. Since graduation and the disappearance of homework I have indulged in getting addicted to online TV shows and feel no shame in doing so. Some of you may recall the hit 90's show, drum role please... Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman! DQ for short. I'm hooked! It's SO good. I'm amazed at how "good" this show actually is. Dr. Quinn, ahem, Michaela, teaches her kids to make right choices, to be honest, and to respect people who are different, among other things. It's so refreshing to watch in comparison with most of today's shows. Plus, you get a good mix of humor, romance and indian chants. And nothing beats Sully's tomahawk throwing skills that always save the day in the end! I'm telling ya, if you've never seen this show, please do. If it's been a while, it's high time for a refresher. You will love it.

AND guess what?! Jane Seymore will be hosting this years Mormon Tabernacle Choir Chrismas Concert! Coincidence? I think not! Already trying to get tickets.

So if anyone cares to watch a few they are ALL online! Enjoy. Dr. Quinn

You're welcome.

Family

The month of July was awesome! We had family either staying with us or near us the entire month! We had a reunion for Jason's side of the family for the first part of July and almost all of Jason's family got to stay up here for about two weeks! It was SO good to see them. I loved having them here. I really wish we didn't all live so far apart. After they left we drove to down to Arizona for the week and saw them again as well as my family. Then my sister Rachel drove back with us and stayed for a week. Best month ever! I really have such an awesome family. They truly make me so happy. I am a terrible picture taker so I don't have very many good pictures of our reunion but alas, i'll post a few of what i've got. More posts to come about other family adventures

We had a blast playing Minute to Win it games. Sadly the left over balloon was the only picture i got of it.

Carter, my nephew, had a blast with the sparklers!

Riane and Kaelin are Jason's cousins. They are so cute and i'm pretty sure we're they're favorite. Hee hee! :)

Such a little model. I told her I was taking her picture and she whipped out this little pose.

This picture doesn't do it justice but i'm pretty sure Carter was dancing to the fireworks. I miss that little guy!