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Today was a Yellowstone free day, and considering we are only an hour and a half away, we took advantage of this deal. I wanted to go before we left Rexburg because we live so close to one of the largest national parks in the country and it would be a shame to move away without seeing it. We went with our friends Justin and Rachel and had a great time. I was surprised by the number of bikers in the park. It made the driving a pain because we were constantly passing bikers on the side of the road. Those are some very in shape people(however by the looks of some of them you wouldn't think it) because it was at least 20 miles to old faithful and people were definitely biking all the way out there, if not further, and there are a lot of hills. Ok i know for some people that would be a breeze, but definitely not for me. We didn't see any bears. I think we will have to drive the ten minutes south to go to bear world if i want to see some bears. We did see Buffalo though. Lots of them! And we were so close to them! However i kept a good safe distance away because i saw a girl get trampled by one on tv once. Our friend Justin was so close and some lady asked Brandon if he was crazy, he told her that he kinda was( which is true, haha no offense Justin) On our way home one was on the road and we had to wait a while for him to move, when we started driving again he was on the side of the road just feet away from our car and it startled us pretty good. he was sticking his tongue out at us too. We Saw lots of geysers and colorful fungi. it was actually really fascinating. My camera died when we got to old faithful, but i did get a picture of it starting to go. After we left the park we ate lunch in West Yellowstone at this cute little restaurant. We sat in this little covered wagon, which i don't have a picture of because of my dead camera. I had a really good bbq pork sandwich and Brandon had a buffalo burger.

 Our first sign of wildlife! a herd of elk!

 This one was called Fountain paint pots i think, it bubbled and was really cool

 Brandon and Justin being prepy

 This place was so cool, the water from the geysers flowed into the river and it was really pretty

 This was called the turquoise pond

 This is the opal pond

 This is part of the Grand Prismatic spring. It was so colorful and amazing

 Buffalo!

Here is my ONE sad picture from old faithful. I was so glad my camera revived itself for at least one picture. We went and looked at the old faithful inn after and it was amazing! it was the most amazing inn i have ever seen. It had three levels and then there were all these stairs that went up to the "Crows nest" The crows nest was at the very top and had all these crazy stair ways to get up to it. Unfortunately because of the earth quake at Hedgen lake(?) in 1959, it is no longer structural safe for all the visitors to go up there. I wish so bad. I would love to stay there but its quote expensive. like $120.00 a night for a cheap room, probably off season. haha maybe someday. Sorry no pictures, you will just have to go see for yourself!

Smarty pants

Brandon got some new glasses yesterday. his eyes were getting really tired so he thought he might need a stronger prescription. he uses his glasses mostly for reading and studying but he sure looks smart and handsome when he wears them. Don't you think?

 He wanted to be holding a book in the picture to make him look smarter. Hes so cute.


On a side note, school is going good for brandon. he is especially loving his raquetball class. I am also really liking the health center, however the days are far too long and i have killer headaches by the time i get home. Maybe i need some glasses too.

Brandon's First day

Today Was Brandon's first day!

We thought this would be funny for us to do since This will actually be Brandons seventh semester, not his first day of preschool or kindergarten, however he does have very similar movie interests as a certain kindergartener we know. I am not in school but i spend my entire day at the health center doing my externship. So far it has been good but i have a lot to learn.

This weekend we went Down to Utah to go to my friend Kelley's wedding. it was lovely and there was a lot of good food. We also got to see Grammy while we were in Provo. it was good to talk to her even though i do not think she knews who i was. She told us that she was "tripping down memory lane multiple times during the conversation but we tried to keep her on track. We got to spend a lot of enjoyable time with Michelle and Justin and Parker and Halle and we got to go to two of Parkers soccer games. he was so cute! Thanks for having us michelle and Justin!

Freedom!

 Warning: Massive Post

 School ended end of July. It was my best semester yet! I got all A's and loved my classes. It really was a lot of fun for me to go to school each day. After school ended we packed up and went to Kennewick. We spent a week there with Brandons Family. We had family pictures done as well. After we went to the Oregon Coast for five days with Brandons family. For the most part the weather was beautiful. We stayed in a house in Pacific City, Oregon. its a really tiny town but the beach is Beautiful and there is a huge rock in the ocean (much like the famous Haystack rock in Cannon Beach) One day the weather was so nice that we all got sunburned. Brandon was the worst i think. His back was so gross and he pealed forever. My shoulders were the worst for me. i couldn't lift up my arms for a few days, and i too eventually began to peel. The house we stayed at had a pool table which we made quite a bit of use out of. I was the pool champion. I know you think im just saying this but really i am. I beat Brandon's dad three time, His brother Michael twice, and Brandon twice. the only person to beat me was Brandon, and if you ask me it was out of pure luck that he was able to actually win. Also while we were there, shark week was going on on the discover channel. We watched a lot of shark week and i became quite afraid to go in the ocean. It was a really fun and busy trip. We saw more of the oregon coast than i really needed to. We saw everything from seaside down to Lincoln city basically. Our favorite was probably going to the Tilamook cheese factory. We loved their ice cream and reallly loved the self guided tour where you can observe the cheese being made. I think some of the workers forget they are being watched because they gave us quite the show.

 This is the view from the neighborhood we were staying in.

 Brandon And Michael at the beach.

 Us at seaside Beach

 Brandon kissing a shark during shark week.

 Brandon loves the tilamook cheese factory so much

 The rock at pacific city

 Skim Boarding

 Lincoln City, oregon

 Sorry this is sideways, this is a  hike we went on in lincoln city to a waterfall. It took us loner to drive the windy roads up to the hike then the actual hike took. There was this really scary suspension bridge over this massive canyon thing. I didnt want to stay on there for very long. It was very shaky and a really far fall to the bottom.

 This cute little place is called oceanside oregon. we almost stayed here but ended up staying in pacific city. it was so cute how all the houses are built on this hill and they have really great tide pools here.

 Theres this cool tunnel you walk through to get from one side of the beach to the other. It was kind of dark and scary inside.

 There were lots of starfish

 This is Cape Mears Lighthouse.

 This is a very friendly squirrel. I probably could have touched it but i was afraid it was going to jump at my face.

 Sid actually did touch the squirrel. After Bubba gave it an entire Bagel to eat.

Brandon did a lot of sand art our last day, here he is sitting inside a zia(?) for sean and sam.

After we got back from Oregon we drove up to snohomish to spend time with my family. We had such a good time and I love western Washington so much! I miss it! And i love dad and kristis house. We had fun feeding their fish in their pond. Brandon Read The Help while we were there and then we went and saw the movie with Kristi (which i loved! such a good movie!) We spent two days up in Canada with Greg, Melissa, and Nighean. We were able to go do a session at the Vancouver temple which is beautiful. We went to Tim Hortons for the first time, we went the the beach in Tswassen and we went into Vancouver. Melissa also made the most amazing homemade icecream!

 This is at a place called Grandville(?) Island. those are a bunch of floating houses down behind us and vancouver across the water.

 This is at a market there. it kind of reminded me of pikes place, but a little nicer.

 This is Brandon with his first ever Nanimo Bar. Grandad use to always by them for us when we would come visit and they are so good. Brandon was impressed as well.

This is the view from Gregs office. He is on the 26th floor of a building.

We are now back in Rexburg. Brandon is working and since there is no school he works from 7-4. I am at home doing nothing. I am enjoying every last minute of freedom though. Yesterday i sewed a pillow for our bed. It took me pretty much all day. I also cleaned, vacuumed, and put away laundry, so i feel i am being productive. In a couple of weeks i start training for my externship(basically its an unpaid internship for Medical Assisting.) I will be doing mine at the student Health center here on campus. I chose to do it there so i can get hired on for the rest of my schooling and have a job! I had an interview with one of the doctors on Wednesday. he wants to train me to be his personal assistant. Basically i will be with him his entire shift preparing patients, setting up for procedures and assisting in the procedures. This will give me the best training i could ask for and i got the position! I am nervous out of my mind and i have a lot of reviewing to do before i start my externship. I am so excited though for the learning opportunity. With this position however, i have to work 40 hours a week unpaid! yikes! can you say slave labor! i realize though that its worth it for the training i will get and for my future resume! I will aslo be taking three online classes while doing my externship! we will see how long that lasts before i drop those classes! 

Here is my pillow i made btw

Time for a change.

As of 9:30 this morning i am done for the semester! I feel so free! Now i have to clean, do laundry and pack before we leave on Friday Morning. Our Bathroom sink is leaking and we are frequantly emptying the bowl that sits under the sink. I put in a maintanence request last week and they still havent fixed it. They better get on it before we leave or they are going to have a flooded apartment building seeing as we are gone for three weeks and we do not own any bowl large enough to occomadate that much H2O. Anyways, yesterday i went and got my hair done. I got highlights for the first time and its nice and short. I dont really love it today, so hopefully i will like it later on.I think i just dont look good no matter what they do to me so i dont know. Here is my before...

Heres what it looks like now....

Sorry these pictures are sideways. I dont know if i will ever color my hair again. Brandon likes it but I'm still not convinced it is the bet look for me.

Procrastination

Not only have I procrastinated writting on the blog for what is it, 3 or 4 months now? I am procrastinationg homework. Writting papers just isnt inticing me right now. this beauty is however...

 

Oh my goodness i just ate the majority of this hunk of watermelon. Watermelon is so good on hot sunny days.

On a different not we have three weeks of school left. not even that because next week is our last full week of classes! We are so excited to be done and we cant wait to start our seven week vacations! Next semester Brandon is on track and i am going to take three online classes and (hopefully) do my medical assisting externship(two people actually called me back today about them, maybe my luck has changed) I am terified for my externship. I feel like i know nothing. Its been an entire year since i took the first medical assisting class and i feel like i have forgotten it all! yikes! I pitty the poor person who I have to draw blood from or give a shot. I am not very well practiced anymore!

Anyways once school is finsihed we are packing up and going to kennewick for a week, then we will spend another week at the Oregon Coast with Brandons family. After that we will drive up and see my parents for a week. Then we have to head back to rexburg so Brandon can work and i can spend the rest of the break crafting. haha


This semester has been really good actually. I think it has been the easiest i have had in a long time. I have had a total of five tests in the testing center the entire semester and I have three classes that do not have any tests at all. I think im living the dream right now. haha On monday wednesday, and friday i am done with class at 10 am so i go work out and then spend the rest of the day relaxing and doing homeowrk. I know im such a bum. I do not feel like going into details about this semester, so i will just share some pictures of what our semester consisted of.

 We went to the duck pond a few times. We love the duck pond. So many memories at the duck pond, my favorite being the time I went with sean and sam and this kid picked up a goose. Im sure sean and same remember.

 We rode bikes. We are quite the little cyclists now, however my bike does have a tendency for the chain to break when ever i am peddling and going over a bump at the same time. its an inconvenience and it makes me nervous to ride my bike when Brandon isnt around to fix my chain for me.

 Here is at the skate park doing jumps and stuff.

 We had a lot of bon fires with our friends Justin and Rachel. Seriously there were a few weekends in a row where we had a bonfire both Friday and Saturday nights. we found this amazing park in rexburg with campgrounds and fire pits that has free wood(at least we hope its free) and it feels like you are in the woods. we love it and we saw a baby moose there a few weeks ago!

 This semester also consisted of Michael, brandons brothter. I just met him in April. we are good friends now. We were also very involved with flag football. it was freezing the majority of the season but i still watched every game. This is brandon and michael before a game in my pink blanket.

 And here is Travis, brandons cousin and the quarterback. Brandon is behind him

 We also went down to Utah and had so much fun with family. It was crazy to see lexi and how big she is now. And all of my nieces and nephews are so cute and we have so much fun everytime we are with family. thank you michelle and ustin for having us we had a great time and michelle, you are a great cook.

 We went mini golfing. this is Brandon "K-towining" it. We played a lot of crouquet this semester as well. Im sorry i dont have any pictures of us playing but Brandon and his friend Justin do this when we play croquet. thankfully it works in golf as well.

 For fourth of july weekend, Dad and Kristi came and spend the weekend with us. We had so much fun with them. Dad and Brandon went golfing while Kristi and i went shopping. We did Crafts, ate good fooe, and on monday for fourth of July we went to Jackson Wyoming. We had nevver been there before and we were very impressed with how pretty it was. Seriously coming over the pass and down into Jackson is stunning.

 Here I am being a bear.

 We watched fireworks in rexburg at the temple. This was more than a disapointment. We saw one firework about every five minutes. the fireworks from peoples yards were better than the ones rexburg shot off from the fair. needless to say we didnt stay too long. We decided to go home and we watched Project runway to prepare us for next season, which starts July 28th on lifetime and everyone should watch! :)

 Here is Brandon and I watching fireworks.

 While we were in Jackson we ate at Bubbas Barbeque. I was supposed to go to fulfil a communications assignement. It was actually pretty good and we liked the name.

 Look how cute my dad is in a cowboy hat.

 We had such a great weekend with them and we are so grateful for everything they did for us while they were here. And i really appreciated Kristi's help decorating the apartment. And im sorry that i wouldnt eat the raisons in the trail mix and left you guys with all of the. Hopefully some day you can forgive me for that.