A Year in Review

January Family pictures February Cross Country Skiing to Mesa Falls March BYU-Idaho Wedding Show April Graduation  May Phoenix Wedding June Palisades July Camping in the Tetons August Huckleberry Picking September Labor Day Camping in Great Basin October Yellowstone November Thanksgiving 5k December Hardware Elk Refuge

2013 was a great year for Robert and I. There were certainly a lot of ups and downs, with hills in between, but I think we have come out of this year much better off than we could have imagined. We both graduated, got teaching jobs, Robert rocked the MCAT (96%-ile, baby!) and got into medical school, played and then played some more. We have loved living up here in Rexburg, and are sad that this next year will bring us miles and miles and miles away, but are excited for a new stage in life. So here is to a year that brought us new friends, challenges, rewards, and most of all brought us closer together as a couple.

Have a Happy New Year!

A Happy Christmas

This year we went to Logan, UT to spent Christmas with Robert's family. The whole family came up from Vegas to spend Christmas with Grandma Keeley. It was fun to spend time with family, and to celebrate Christmas!

(Side note, pretty much all of these pictures were taken from Linda since I didn't take a camera. Thanks Linda, you're awesome!)

 Christmas Sunday 

(It was cold....you think I'd be used to it by now)

 Hardman Ranch 

(Logan's own Elk Refuge)

And Robert just making a Spencer roll. You know, Robert just being Robert. Winning over favorite uncle with every child, ever. 

One of my father-in-law's good friends is the HR director at Pepperidge Farms (think goldfish) in Richfield, and he was kind enough to give us a tour of the factory. On the particular day we went they happened to be whipping up some good ole' fashion Goldfish. Call me nerdy, but it was incredibly fascinating. Bonus: we got to wear fetching blue hair nets.

On Christmas Eve we had the annual tea party, or Christmas Teave (as referred to by Megan :)

Christmas Day

Later in the day we had our Christmas Nativity play. My personal favorite was Megan's wise man hat. It doesn't get much classier than that right there, folks. 

Christmas night we drove home to Rexburg, and stopped in Blackfoot to see my family and grandma. 

 ^^ That, right there, Is the ultimate 14 month old death stare ^^

He really does love me. I hope.

Friends, it truly was a very merry Christmas. I hope your Christmas' were just as full of love and happiness as mine was! There are just those moments in life when you can't believe it's actually your life. The past few weeks have been that for me. I just take a step back and think, is this really my life? Because it's pretty awesome. It doesn't get much better than this.

Fall Semester Update

The months that have gone by since September have just kind of been a huge whirlwind. I was going over the final in my class, and I could hardly believe I only have 2 weeks left to teach before the end of the semester. I haven't given much of an update this semester, so here are some brief updates. 

We moved into our new apartment back at the end of August, and I have been trying to spruce it up since we moved in! I stumbled across this lovely little table on Rexburg Garage Sale and figured white coat of paint would do the trick. As I learned from Centsational Girl (my favorite online decor blog), a fresh coat of white paint is pretty much the cure for any sad furniture, and so it holds true. 

Side note- I stumbled across Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint about a year ago and was dying to paint it with a white chalk paint, but I wasn't about to spend $60 on a can of paint. So if you do have the $60 to spare, I highly suggest using Annie Sloan's chalk paint. 

 Along with painting furniture, I also whipped up curtains for our family room. There is this wonderful home fabric store close by with highly discounted fabrics (like $3/yd for home fabrics). I would go in periodically to browse over the course of about two months hoping something would scream at me. I am a very hesitant seamstress because it's hard for me to picture the final product. One day I finally just decided I had to pick fabric, and I felt like the final product turned out quite lovely.

My sister and her husband moved up to Idaho in September, and so over the course of a few months we have been helping them paint and clean up their yard. Their house turned out absolutely adorable, and Natalie did such a good job picking out paint colors! I am a big fan of color, but nothing that goes out of style or gives the room weird vibes (like obnoxious yellows). You can see her final tour, here.

We have been spending a lot of time with Nat & Mark since they live so close, and chances are we are going to be moving across the country in 7 months. It has been a loads of fun living 5 minutes away from them, especially since Nat and I were always so close growing up. 3 cheers for built in best friends. Nat is a better blogger than I am, so if you want better updates on adventures with them, you can find them here (thanks, Nat :)

Emerson absolutely adores Robert, it's pretty cute. Every time I come over without Robert he looks at me and then runs to the door, points and says "Robbob" or "Bob"? Or he grabs my phone and want to look at pictures of Robert. The guy is going to be a pretty good Pediatrician (a non biased opinion).

Speaking of medicine stuff- Robert has had two interviews so far, and they both went pretty well (according to Robert). He finds out about the schools sometime between Dec 15-Jan 15 and still has 13 other schools to hear from. So things are chugging a long.

And, that's a wrap.

Little Vacations.

Once upon a time Robert and I were expecting a little baby Davis, set to make his/her big debut on March 7th....and then at 14 weeks we weren't anymore. Life was pretty stinky for a few weeks, and so on Saturday Robert and I decided to take a little vacation in our own backyard and headed over to Yellowstone.

I love that Fall has finally arrived, making it was one of the most beautiful drives I have ever been on. Natalie and Mark suggested we go through the South entrance, driving through Grand Teton National Park (which I HIGHLY recommend). Our National Parks pass got put to awesome use (since we can no longer use it until the Government decides to reopen).  It snowed that morning, so we got the best of both Fall and Winter!

Three cheers for beautiful country, open National Parks, and the best husband in the world.

Labor Day in The Great Basin

Over the Labor Day weekend, Robert and I met my family down in Great Basin National Park (Nevada's only National Park) for a little camping weekend. Natalie and Mark moved back up to Rexburg so we made the drive together. 4 adults + a baby and carseat + camping gear made for a packed little Corolla, but we made the almost 8 hour drive and Emerson was actually really good and highly entertaining.

My oldest sister frequently says that Emerson's smile looks like a fluffy bunny and a vampire made a baby.

We arrived at our campground Friday night and the rest of the crew slowly rolled in. Collette and Justin were the only ones who couldn't make it; we missed them but it was fun to be with the whole family.

The weekend was spent playing a lot of games under the canopy (it rained. a lot.), hiking, dutch oven cooking, and camp fire bonding. We also celebrated Ernie's 11th birthday! I still remember the day he was born so vividly (which is surprising because Nat my dad and I drove up to Rexburg at about 3 in the morning) and I can hardly believe he has grown up so much!

I hope everyone had a very happy Labor Day!
Also- these pictures were stolen from my wonderful sister Natalie....if you couldn't tell from the large amount of pictures of her son. :)