No Texas for Us

We are in Washington now for Christmas. I just thought I would let everyone know that we found out the morning we left Rexburg that we will not be going to San Antonio for Drew's internship. Drew and I were disappointed because the company was really impressive, but we're both a little bit relieved that we don't have to move to Texas. The main problem is that we have absolutely no other prospects at this point. Since we've been in Washington Drew has spent lots of time looking for internships around here. We are really really hoping we can stay in Washington. We just love it here. That's as much as we know at the moment. I will let everyone know if something comes up for us.

Thanksgiving Break

Drew and I went home to Mattawa for Thanksgiving break. We both had plenty to do and we had lots of fun. Drew rode motorcycles and hit his chin on the handlebars. He said he thought he had bit off the tip of his tongue. He had a big cut under his chin and his tongue had huge bruises on both sides of it. In the process he hit his knee against the bike and got a big bruise on his knee too. When he walked in with his chin bleeding I questioned whether having a motorcycle was a really a good idea or not. He assured me that its a good idea. I'm still skeptical. We had Thanksgiving dinner with my family which I haven't done in a long time. We made way too much food (as usual) and ended up probably spending more time cleaning everything up than making everything. It was worth it though! :) The last picture is of Drew's flag football team. A group of guys got together and had a little game at the school on Thanksgiving morning. It took Drew a few days to recover.

Hiking & Golf

Saturday morning Jamie & Conrad invited us to go hike "R" mountain with them. It was such a beautiful day for a November morning in Rexburg. It was nice to get out and get some fresh and to get a little exercise. Mason and Mindy came too and it was fun get to hang out with everyone. Later when the sun was covered by clouds Mason called to see if we wanted to go golfing. I decided it was too cold to golf but that I would bundle up and ride in the card for something to do. I took my camera and had lots of fun trying to get cool overcast golfing picture of Drew. I think I'll have to make a collage for sure! :)

Me, Drew, Mason, Mindy, Kylie, Jamie, & Conrad at the top of the mountain in bent-knee pose.

Drew and I on the way up wearing out matching sweatshirts that we got on our honeymoon. So cute! (Said in the Bobby's World mom accent)

I loved the colors in this one. The white sand, green grass, and burnt orange trees came together beautifully!

A contemplative hazy picture. I really like this one.

My job. Freezing in the cart.

Good form! (as far as I know anyway)

Internship

So Drew has been searching for an internship for January. Originally we thought we were going to be in Provo. With only about two months we found out that wasn't going to work out. Frustrating! We just found out he has a follow-up interview with a company called USAA in San Antonio. I'm excited that there are some prospects but quite honestly I am struggling with the idea of living there. I lived in Texas before and it was not pleasant. That is just too far from home! I'm trying to adjust my attitude about it. If nothing else it will be good interview experience for Drew. The other prospect it a company that I can't recall the name of in Denver. We drove through and stopped in Denver on the way home from Nashville this summer and it really was a nice area and I think I would be happier about that one even though its still kind of far from home. We just had thought we were going to end up in Provo with family, Las Vegas with family, or Tri-cities with family. Now those ideas have gone up in smoke and it has just been hard to make the adjustment. I'm scared to go be all alone somewhere. Up to this point I have always had people I knew go with me to new places. Whatever happens I know we will make it work and mostly I'm just happy that Drew is so persistant and determined to make something happen. Hopefully next post I will have some pictures. Pictures are more fun!

New Do!

You can expect lots of new hair pictures from me. I can't seem to go to get a haircut and come back with just a trim. I love to change my hair all the time. I was going to go have Haley cut my hair yesterday and I had planned on just getting it trimmed until I watched What Not to Wear that morning and I loved the girl's haircut. So I took a picture of the TV and took my camera to Haley's. It really is just shorter with bangs. I was hoping it would look sort of high-fashion but I'm wondering if I really just look more like a little girl. Anyway, I don't know what it looks like to other people but I really like it. Thanks Haley!When I take pictures of myself I always look crazy, but here it is anyway.

Milas & Laura were here this past week with their two little girls Lydia and Liza. It was so much fun to have them back in Rexburg with us for a few days. On Wednesday night we have a big family dinner with all of our cousins that are here from my mom's side of the family. We had lots of fun and lots of really good food that I'm still trying to get rid of. These are some pictures from the dinner.

Milas, Laura, Lydia, & Liza gathered around the kids table.

Drew holding Liza. This picture makes me wonder how she really felt about it.

Haley, Me, Laura, Sarah. On Tuesday we got together and make a Halloween craft. It was really fun to do and we found everything we needed pretty cheap so it was great.

Me, Kenny, Laura. We're the same age and we took a picture of the three of us last year so we had to do it again this year.
The boys posing for a picture.

Sand Dunes!!

Last week Drew and I got to go to the sand dunes just outside of Rexburg with our friends Jon & Caralee. Jon's parents have a couple four wheelers that Caralee and I rode while Drew and Jon rode their motorcycles. It was soo much fun! The sand dunes here are amazingly huge. I was in awe when we got to them. I took my camera and had fun taking lots of pictures of Drew.

Conference

Drew and I had such a nice General Conference weekend. Its so nice to be able to watch it from home. We stayed home on Saturday and on Sunday we went to Haley & Brian's for breakfast and then the first session. We went to our friend's house in Mud Lake for lunch and we watched the second Sunday session with them. General Conference is such a nice boost for me. We are so blessed to have a prophet to steer us in the right direction.

I am so happy that Drew is so willing to go to his priesthood meeting. I know there are some guys that fight having to go to another two hour session. While he was at his meeting Haley and I went to our friend Tiffany's house. I decided to surprise the guys with a cake decorated as a shirt and tie to show them that I was thankful for their willingness to go. They didn't seem quite as excited about it as I was, but it was fun to do anyway.

I have to give some credit to Tiffany for the design. I was making it way too complicated and she just drew up this little design and I just transferred it to the cake.
Me & my fancy creation.
I'm not sure what's with this pose. It was Brian's idea. I think they were congratulating each other for going to their Priesthood meeting or something like that.

Guesstures!

Sunday night Haley & Brian were here and we played a few rounds of Guesstures. I think mostly everyone who looks at my blog knows what that is but just in case it is basically an electronic version of charades. We play is a lot and we have become more and more animated and comfortable acting crazy in front of each other. It is soo funny to watch. I decided it would be funny to capture some of these moments and took some pictures. Haley and I are very serious Guesstures players and we know each other well enough that when we are on the same team we generally win but Drew & Brian did get pretty into it this time and beat us a couple times.

Haley is probably the most animated of the bunch. I have a million funny pictures of her. It was hard to choose which ones I should post. If you hadn't guessed already the word she was acting out was "motorcycle" and you should definitely zoom in on her face for this one.

Drew's word was "tag". He tagged me and ran out of the room and was on his way back in when I snapped the picture. He is also VERY animated and intense when he plays this game.

Haley & I laughed so hard at this picture. We were just way too into it! My word was "beckon" and I grabbed a picture with Drew's mom Becky in it to get her going in the right direction but she just wasn't getting it and obviously both of us were very concerned about it.

Brian is funny to watch too. He doesn't generally act as crazy as the rest of us but sometimes he just can't help himself and he really gets into it. He was acting out "bashful" here.

Drew was acting out "old woman". I love his facial expression in this one.

Sometimes I'm not sure if I should really post these crazy pictures of myself or not, but honestly I have so many of them its hard to filter them out. My word was "abnormal" and Haley actually got it. It was amazing.

Drew's Tricks

Here are a few videos of Drew doing some fancy tricks on a wakeboard. I hope they all work. This is my first time trying the video thing. The first video is of his doing something called a raley. He wrecks in this one. He hadn't tried it for around three years. Its so crazy to watch though. The second one is a 360, and the third one is a flip. Its so fun to watch so I thought I would share.

Here are a couple more pictures from our boating adventures that I'm posting just because I like them.

Drew jumping. I love the lighting in this picture.Letting Kylie dip her feet in the ice cold water. Brian & Haley hanging out on the water.I went tubing with Abbie & she screamed the whole time. Love the worried face!Drew & cousins Jacob & Kenny

Mattawa!

Drew was burnt out and done selling on the 27th of August. We quickly packed everything up and left Nashville the 29th. We stopped in Denver the next morning to see Drew's brother Bryce, his wife Sharee, and their new little guy Case. It was so fun to see them. Case is such a cutie. We were there for a couple hours and then went on to Spanish Fork to see my brother Luke, his wife Natalie, and their new baby Whitney. We loved it. She did a lot of smiling and making baby noises for us. I love making baby stops! We are so happy to have finally met these new additions to our family. The next day we dropped our stuff off in Rexburg and headed home to Mattawa (Washington for those of you who don't know where this thriving metropolis is).

We had quite the week. We had some down time while we were there which was really nice, but we had our fair share of action too. We went to the river a few times for tubing and wakeboarding. Drew got to ride his motorcycle. I went on a bike ride with my mom. We went swimming at Drew's grandma's house. We got to ride the fanciest homemade go-cart in the world, and Drew got to fry his brian with countless hours of Guitar Hero. Its always so much fun to go home. We have lived quite a few different places around the country, but we still feel like central Washington is the best place to be!

P.S. I've given up on trying to limit my number of pictures for the most part. Its just too hard for me to choose!Me, Drew, & Ashley. When Ashley's turn was over she just kept saying "That was awesome! That was so awesome!" It was pretty funny.

Drew doing some kind of a back flip on the wakeboard. He is very tricky!

Justin doing a grab.

Nick jumping.

Drew and Nick tubing.

I tried wakeskating this time. When you wreck on a wakeskate it seems like it hurts a lot more.

Me & Emily tubing.

Drew jumping on his motorcycle.

I made Drew pose by his bike, but he was too tired to try to look chipper.

This is that fancy go-cart I mentioned before. My dad and my cousin took some parts that were laying around and made this. There were no brakes and you could only really turn to the right.

Drew playing Guitar Hero. Thank goodness he had the rocker stance down! I think it really helped him!

Miniature Golf/Lake/Opryland Hotel!!

This was the second to last day my mom and the girls were here. We started off the morning by going to the Opryland hotel. Almost everyone who looks at this knows what that is already, but for those who don't it is a giant hotel here that has a huge garden (practically rain forest) inside. Its kind of a must see thing in Nashville. When the guys went to work the girls headed for a water park that Ashley had been anxiously waiting for the whole trip. As we drove up there was a big sign that saying that the park was closed for the day. Disappointment! To try to make amends with Ashley I suggested we go to the lake instead. I played with my camera the whole time setting up photo shoots. I loved it! When we got tired of that we went to a black light miniature golf place and played 36 holes! Emily won the first round and I won the second. It was a miracle (that I won, not Emily)!

Serious miniature golfers!

We spent most of the time at the lake trying to get this running picture right.
This was my mom's idea. I won't tell you who is who. I'll let you guess.
Posing in the Opryland hotel.
Looking down at my mom and Ashley by the pond.
This one is so mysterious!