Laura and Alex's New York vacation!

Here are some of our favorite pic's from our trip to New York. Soon we'll post a video of ALL the pictures we took while there!!

SNOW!

Well we made it to our final destination.... a day later. We traveled to Chicago and were planning on flying to Buffalo New York next but our flight got canceled due to a huge snow storm. Then we waiting in a long line a finally were able to get new tickets to Buffalo. We waited and waited for our flight, which kept getting delayed further and further, and then it was suddenly cancelled too!! So we went back to the customer service to find that everyone in the airport was in line too. I'm not even exaggerating. It was crazy! It would have taken us until 6am to get to the front of that line.. and at that point it was only 8pm. So we waited for a bit until Alex overheard a lady mention there was another customer service line in a different terminal of the airport. We took the shuttle there to find NO line at that customer service!! We were able to get on a flight to Syracuse New York at 6am the next day. So yes, we spent the night in the chicago airport. It WAS NOT fun!

Once we got to Syracuse, we found that our luggage didn't make it (even though we did all the luggage transfer stuff right). So we are luggage-less, and exhausted. They told us they would mail our luggage to us as soon as they find it. So now it is just a waiting game. Hope they find it soon! We will update more on our fun adventures later!

New member of the Family?

Nope! just babysitting a friends puppy for a few hours. He was very cute, but loved to nibble and bite. We played with him at first for a while and he was SUPER active. After that we took him inside and after a little exploring he found the tiniest spot he could and conked out. He shifted around a bit and finally got to a spot where there was enough light to take pictures of him. So we did, and here they are:
And here is our beautiful (yet tiny) Christmas tree ^_^

I can see!!!

So I have been getting a lot of headaches lately when I where my glasses at school.... and when I take them off in the evening. I decided that my eye prescription wasn't any good anymore so I went to the eye doctor. After blowing air in my eyes and telling me to name a bunch of blurry letters (well I think they were letters, I could have sworn some of them were just square dots...) he told me my eyes have gotten a little worse. He was able to check the prescription on my current glasses by putting them on this little machine thing that told him how strong they were.

While I was waiting in the lobby before my appointment, I was looking at a lot of glasses that they had on display and they were EXPENSIVE!! So when he told me I'd have to get new lenses, I asked him how much contacts would cost. They would only be about $100 a year. I thought about it... and decided it would be much better to have contacts! So I walked out of the appointment with my new contacts on. They took FOREVER to get on and off while I was a the eye doctor, but the second time around was much better. I can now see all the time! It is amazing what I've been missing! When we walk out of our apartment, the Temple is right in view and before I saw a huge white building that looked more like a blur but when i walked out last night with my contacts in, I actually saw detail and individual lights that were shining on the Temple. It was so pretty!

My next step is to get colored contacts once I get used to these ones more. Of course I wouldn't want to hide my "beautiful" brown eyes, it would just be nice to just enhance them a little! lol.

I really like the smiley face contacts on the bottom row... what do you think?!?

Beautiful sunset

I took these pictures right out of my bedroom window. Our old apartment had great views of the pretty mountains and sunsets right out the front door... but at least in this apartment we get somewhat a view! This sunset turned our whole apartment an awesome orange color until the sun went down all the way. It was cool! If you look closely, you can see the Menan butte on the horizon. It is a volcano that last erupted 2000 years ago. There is another butte right next to this one that is also a volcano. Make sure to click on the pictures to make them bigger!

Fall, Harvest, and Snow

Alex and I went out last week and took pictures of the pretty trees on campus. There are a lot more pictures we wish we could have taken but it was so cold out and we gave up. Some of the pictures are sideways because I forgot to flip them... sorry!

We also went to my boss's house this last saturday and picked fresh fruit and vegetables from her garden. We got lots of delicious plums, apples, huge carrots and onions, and two pumpkins. Her youngest son harvested the pumpkins himself in their backyard and was selling them to make a little money. We got two big ones for only $11! I thought it was a great deal and he really appreciated it. The picture of the fruits and veggies doesn't show the vibrant colors that they really are. I washed all the dirt and stuff off of them before I took the picture too.

The last pic in the slideshow was taken right when it started snowing for the first time this season. It started right after we got back from the garden on saturday. We would have gotten even more produce but it was soo cold and the wind was blowing about 25 mph. Today is snowed all morning too.

LOOK AT THESE CHILLY TEMPERATURES!

It is only the beginning of october and the temperatures suddenly drop a lot! We are expecting snow this weekend too! BRRRRRRR I'm cold just thinking about it!


10-Day Forecast

Tonight
Oct 07 Partly Cloudy 39° 20 %
Wed
Oct 08 Partly Cloudy 59°/27
Thu
Oct 09 Partly Cloudy 52°/27°
Fri
Oct 10 Rain / Snow Showers 46°/28°
Sat
Oct 11 Rain / Snow Showers 39°/23°
Sun
Oct 12 Rain / Snow Showers 43°/17°
Last Updated Oct 7 08:05 p.m. MT

Scripture cookies!

My new ward is pretty neat. The relief society does a lot more stuff than my other ward did! One thing I think is really cool is that they have a blog for recipes. They post all kinds of recipes for us to try. One of them was scripture cookies. I think this would be a great activity for family home evening with kids! You guys all should try it and let me know how they turn out! I'll try it sometime soon too.

Enjoy!

Scripture Cookies

This is a recipe and a FHE all rolled into one. You have to find the ingredients in the scriptures listed and then follow the directions. :)
Beat together:
3/4 cup Psalms 55:21
1/3 cup 2 Nephi 26:25
1 1/2 cups Jeremiah 6:20
2 Isaiah 10:14
Add:
2 cups 1 Kings 4:22
1 tsp Song of Solomon 4:14
1 tsp Doctrine & Covenants 101:39
1/2 tsp 1 Corinthians 4:6
3 cups Doctrine & Covenants 89:17
1 cup 1 Samuel 30:12

Drop by spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, BUT not before reading Joseph Smith History 1:37 and Doctrine & Covenants 133:11!

Random pictures from Summer Trip

I thought that I should post some more pictures from my expedition this summer! There were a lot of really cool things I did, I wish I could post all my pictures! About a month ago Alex saw Havasaupi Canyon on the news. Havasaupi Canyon is an Indian reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. My expedition group had hiked the ten or so miles to the base of this canyon and camped for a few days. Just one month after our visit, a large dam upstream broke and flooded the entire canyon. Almost 40 people had to be air lifted from the canyon one at a time in the middle of the night. Many of the indians in the Havasaupi tribe also had to be airlifted out. I feel so lucky that the dam didn't break while we were there! You can view some pictures from my trip to Havasaupi in my post from June 22.

Our new Apartment!!

Here are some pictures of our new apartment. We lost the awesome view we had of the mountains, and we are much further away from campus... BUT the place is a two bedroom and comes with a washer and dryer and big pantry! I can't believe that I could be excited to have a washer and dryer in the apartment.... I'm growing up so fast! ha. Oh and this place also has a bar at the counter so we don't have to eat on the floor or on the couch anymore! We haven't been able to get bar stools to put there yet, but we will soon.

HI!!!!!

Don't worry, we didn't fall off the face of the earth, We are still alive! Right after school ended this summer, we went to Texas to visit our family, and since then we just haven't had much time to update anything! And on top of everything we are moving into a new apartment this weekend. Once we get moved in and settled, I'll post some pictures of the new apartment. It is a two bedroom, one bath apt. It also has a washer/dryer in it, and that is SOOO nice. No more quarters and trips to the laundromat! I think the best thing is that there is a pantry too. The bad thing is that the new place is 1 1/2 miles from campus so we can't walk to school anymore. Our current apartment is right across the street so it only takes a few minutes to walk to class. I'm going to ride my bike as much as I can until it gets too cold or it snows, and then it is going to get tough since we only have one car. Hopefully it will all work out well though. I'll also try to post some pictures of our family vacation as soon as I can!

1st Anniversary!

For our 1st anniversary, Alex and I went to the Stadium of Fire concert in Provo Utah on the fourth of July. It was so much fun! They had these men parachute into the stadium, over 1000 dancers perform, the Blue Man Group perform, and Miley Cyrus also performed. Afterward, there was this HUGE fireworks show... that's why they called it Stadium of Fire! One of the people parachuting down. He landed! Some performers pulled this huge flag over part of the stands, it was neat to be under the tarp. There's our flag! Here are all the dancers performing an interpretation of the Olympic games. There were so many of them! The fireworks were amazing and they were so close to us! There were these spectrum glasses that were handed out so you could make the fireworks look even neater. I took a few pics with the glasses up to the camera and it turned out pretty cool.

the first part of Laura's Field Expedition trip!

The first part of my trip was amazing! There was a ton of stressful learning, but it was totally worth it! I made a slide show of my favorite picks.

Trip to Mesa Falls!!

So during our short break between winter and summer semesters, we decided to take a little trip to these beautiful water falls about 30 minutes away called Mesa Falls. It was a pretty nice day in Rexburg... (about 40 degrees and no snow in the forecast) so we assumed it should be about the same, or maybe just a little colder, in the North where we were traveling. It was a really pretty scenic drive toward the falls, but before we actually got to them we hit a block in the road... literally. Check out the Video! The road just stopped! We were going and then suddenly there was this sign that said "Road not maintained beyond this point". The website we looked at said that the road was open year round. What it didn't say that it was also only assessable to snowmobiles and snowshoes. You can see where the road should be going by following the lines. To the left of the pic there is a turnaround and a parking lot. Thats a restroom in the background. We had no idea that only a little further north of us there would still be THIS much snow! Its about 31 degrees outside, so the snow still wasn't melting. Even though we had to turn around and couldn't see the falls, we were ok with it. The short trip up there was really beautiful. This is a cute cabin on the snake river close to where the road had stopped.

apartment update

For those of you who don't know, Alex and I live in a tiny one bedroom apartment. It's nice for the two of us and the lack of furniture we own, but we really wanted to spruce it up a bit since we'll be living here until the end of next year. I found this stuff called "wall pops" at the university bookstore and thought it would be cool to put on our walls. Its like window clings for your walls. We cut the material into small strips so that we could make red stripes on our wall. It took FOREVER to do, but it looks awesome.

Another thing we did was go out and buy a plant to put in our living room. The guy that sold it to us nicknamed it the dinosaur fern because it has been around since the dinosaurs. We had told him we wanted something that wouldn't wilt and die, and this was it. We named our first plant Spike, because every time one of us waters it we get all scratched up!

The last thing we got to help our poor living room was a new little entertainment center. We rearranged our living room too, to make it feel more homey. I really like the arrangements and the changes we've made. If you don't know what our living room looked like before, or if you can't remember, check out our "Home in Rexburg" blog in January.

I think our new space looks a lot better and a whole lot less cluttery. Check out the pics!
We found the wall hangings at linens and things... I like the box mirrors the best.
We used to have the Neko keyboard here, but I thought it would be better to have a place for our laptops instead. They used to just stay on the floor in front of the tv with all their wires and such everywhere. The Neko is now in our room where this desk used to be.
This is our new TV holder. Isn't it cute? Just the right size for our little TV. Check out our plant!
EVENTUALLY we our going to make our own art and hang it on this wall. As of now, it is just a blank space.
I just put this pic in because I thought it was pretty. I am always taking pictures of the mountains, I just wish they were closer!

Laura's Grand Canyon Trip!

I went on a Grand Canyon trip with my Geology class this last weekend. It was so beautiful, but so cold at the top of the canyon! We left for Arizona on Thursday morning when it was snowing. We we so excited to get away from the snow, but it followed us there! There was snow at our camp and on saturday night it snowed on us again. And Sunday morning as we were just about to head out, it began snowing again and we had a white out, couldn't see the road to drive and the wind shield wipers kept freezing over. The snow followed us all the way home and it took us 14 hours to get back to Rexburg. Needless to say the trip was still awesome and I got some great pictures. We were lucky that the day we hiked down the canyon it was sunny and 60 degrees at the bottom.

things to FEAR in Iceburg!

I hear locals from this town talk about how great it is when it snows so much. I just don't get it. It snows for at least three months straight and it never gets above freezing to melt it a little! I just piles and piles... its never ending. The farmers like it though. The city workers shovel all the snow from the roads and sidewalks and put them in huge trucks to dump on there potato fields every morning, because there's no where else to put it! This door obviously hasn't been used in a while! After it snowed about eight inches the other day, I was walking by the college dorms and noticed that the windows were almost covered! It'll be good for the girls that like to take naps in the day, no sunlight to keep them awake! I really hope that canopy is strong enough to hold that much snow... Every day the snow on the roof creeps further and further down. I just know that it'll all fall when I'm walking down the stairs :-( This is the one good thing about Rexburg, the view from my front door.