September

So, school started, and now I never post. It is a sad fact of life that school takes up time. Anyway, I thought I should at least take the time to post a least once during the month of September. And guess what is so special about September? It is my birthday month! My birthday is actually on the 3rd of September, but we have pretty much been celebrating it all month long. Brad and I actually celebrated my birthday on my birthday. He took me shopping for some new clothes which I truly needed. I had a bell recording that night, but when I came home, he had made cupcakes. The funny thing is, is that we only had one egg in the house, and the cupcake recipe called for 3 eggs. So what did Brad do? He used his awesome conversion skills that he learned in pharmacy tech class and convert the whole recipe to 1/3 the size to account for the lone egg.


The next birthday celebration was about a week later with the whole fam. We met is Salt Lake and went to this delicious pizza place called Setebellos. I highly reccomend it. Guess what my siblings gave me? New KNIVES! We have a pretty shoddy set of kitchen knives and I constantly complain about how I can't even cut a carrot decently. So thank you fam!

The final birthday celebration was on Sunday. Mom made angel food cake, and we had fresh peaches on top with whipped cream. MMmmmm... that is so good.

This month has really just flown by. We are already in the 5th week of classes at Weber State. That means we're almost a third of the way through the semester (can anyone tell that it is my last semester of school, and I am a little more than eager to be done?) . Brad has made wonderful strides on his applications for pharmacy school. He is meeting with his professors for letters of reccomendation and for guidance on his personal statement. I am very impressed with how ahead of the game he is. He is really doing great despite his very hectic school schedule. So, all is going well for us.


This is the only picture I have of all the birthday festivities. Isn't it a becoming picture? Brad's pose in the background is also one in a million don't you think?

Pictures

Hawaii 2009

Here are a few pictures from our Hawaii adventure with the whole Winter family. It was such a fun experience, and we are so grateful to Mom and Dad for planning the whole thing for us! This is Brad and me being Tahitian warriors. I know, we're fearsome.We went to the Polynesian Cultural Center while we were on Oahu. We got to go to a really fun Luau and drink mango shakes from a pineapple. We ate fresh shrimp from Remy's shrimp shack. It was literally a shack on the side of the rode. But the shrimp was fresh, and it tasted great. It was a messy meal though.

When we got to Kauai, we went on a awesome hike along the Napali Coastline. It was so lush and green and just full of spectacular views. The whole trail supposedly takes about 3 days, but we only took the first stretch. It landed us at a very pretty beach, with some severe warnings

The last day, we went Kayaking along a river after playing on the beach. The kayaking was way fun, and that is where I received my sunburn of all sunburns (see previous post). It was totally worth it though.

Wear Sunscreen.....

I would like to bear testimony of the importance of wearing sunscreen. We were so good throughout our whole Hawaii trip to apply generous amounts of sunscreen, and because of our earnest efforts, we were not burnt at all until the last day of our vacation. But the sun had it out for me, and my legs now look like swollen tomatoes. We went kayaking the last day of our vacation, which means our legs were a perfect target for the sun, while the rest of our vacation they had been well hidden in the waves of the ocean. To make the matter even worse, I spent the whole next day on a plane where I could not elevate my feet. I wish I had a picture to show of the moment we landed in Salt Lake. It wasn't pretty. I had kankles! This picture is 4 days after the sunburn occurred, and the swelling has gone down drastically. However, I can still make polka dot pictures with the edema that remains after elevating my legs for significant amounts of time. So, yes, sunscreen does work. It prevents cancer. It prevents unnecessary pain. And it prevents kankles.

Hawaii

So we've spent about the last week in Hawaii with Brad's family. We have been having a great time, and really have not had time to sit down and post. I am just logging in to say hello since we have a little down time this evening. Let me tell you, Hawaii is amazing! We started out our trip on Oahu where I discovered what I want my new hobby to be... snorkeling! I know there isn't a lot of supreme snorkeling spots in Utah, so it wont really blossom into anything more, but I highly reccommend snorkeling. We went to Shark's cove where we saw angel fish, clown fish, a turtle, the Hawaii state fish, and all sorts of other amazing tropical fish. We got to Kauai on Sunday and went on an beautiful hike on Monday morning along the coastline near the Napali coast. Today we went to the ocean and played in the waves and did more snorkeling. This has been such a great adventure, but unfortunately, probably the only think Brad and I forgot was the memory card to our camera. I know! pretty stupid, huh? We were able to buy one, but I can't transfer the pictures to the computer until we get home, so I promise a few pictures next time. Until then... Aloha!

SIBLING ADVENTURE 2009!

So, BriAnn and Derek really instigated this whole thing. And for that, I give them a great big THANK YOU! We went camping "siblings only style" this past weekend and had so much fun. We stayed at Spirit Lake in the High Uintas and I highly recommend it. The camping trip really only consisted of fishing, eating, card games, and sleeping. But really, what could be better? Derek and BriAnn went up a day early and set up camp. Nathan, Janel, Brad, and I drove up after I got off work on Friday. Here are some of the pictures of all the fun we had.



Having fun at our campsite



Derek and Nathan being men with their fish. Derek caught 2 fish, and Nathan, I think, had 4 within his sight, but for some reason we couldn't get one in the boat for him.



Brad and the canoe.




Yes, believe it or not, I even caught a fish. It has probably been at least 10 years! Brad caught 2 fish! We were in this great little hole and caught all 3 within probably 30 minutes! I love fish cooked in the fire. It is so good. BriAnn also caught one, and we got to reap the benefits of her fine work because she doesn't like fish.



Isn't the scenery nice?



Nathan :)



Janel and BriAnn on our little hike while the men fished



Packing up



Everyone on our last day.

Yes, we truly enjoyed ourselves. We had fun improvising during the camping trip since none of us are pros at the planning part of the camping experience quite yet. We cooked pretty much anything we wanted to on a stick in the fire including rolls, starbursts, and bacon. When you're camping anything goes.

CAMPING ROCKS!


He He He.

FHE Catch Up

Tonight for family home evening, we wanted to think about our family history, it being pioneer day last week and all. And besides, we went to a family reunion this last week. As we discussed it, the thought came up how will our future generations know us. Unfortunately, since being married over a year ago, neither of us have been very good about keeping our own family history (ie we stink at writing our journals). We decided the next best thing would be to post in our blog the "goings ons" of this past month.

So.....

First off, toward the beginning of July one of my families I (brad) home teach had a bounteous crop of rhubarb. Brother Stewart, being the amazingly nice person that he is gave us a tour of his "secret garden" and also gave a a ton of rhubarb. Teri was wonderful! She used it to make strawberry-rhubarb crisp and then she made her very first pie from scratch. It was delicious! I'm glad I have her; I thought that rhubarb was a berry :)



Next on our list, can I get a little sigh from everyone? We celebrated our first year anniversary on July 12th. We knew we were going to have a super busy weekend, so I made Brad a lovely steak dinner complete with the only real silver we own, candle sticks, on Friday night. We didn't do much else, and I (Teri) will not lie, I didn't think Brad was going to remember. But he did not fail me, he just kept it a great secret. He had our neighbors keep a custom made bouquet of flowers that were similar to the flowers at our wedding, and had them sitting on the breakfast table on Sunday morning. The table was also decked out with my favorite breakfast, WAFFLES! By the way, my husband probably makes the best waffles ever.





(Brad again) I really do. Anyway, moving on...
To keep this brief (too late) I will let the pictures tell y'all how much fun we had at our family reunion this last week end up in Eden.




Hot tubbing with Joely-pooh.



Me driving the boat.



Sisters chillin.



Milly blowing a kiss.



Cousins on the boat.



Teri falling down:) but with such grace!


Well that's about it. We hope you enjoyed our FHE mega post. (We switched off back and forth who was writing. Hope you got that)

Happy Independence Day Slave!

I hope everyone had as great of an Independence Day as Brad and I had. We did all the normal things you would do on the fourth, you know... shop at Walmart, pea in your parent's garden, and sit on the roof. Ok, so those types of things really aren't that "American", but we had a great day. First of all, we slept in. That is a good thing. Then we ate waffles. Yet another wonderful thing. Then we went to Walmart. Not so great. But it was Saturday and of course we had those few items that we needed before the sabbath, so we made a quick trip to Walmart. Yes, I know, what could be more American. Then we went to Brad's parents' and picked peas in their beautiful garden since they are out of town. We had a wonderful barbecue dinner at my parents house complete with homemade icecream! Wahoo! We then made the trek back to Hooper for fireworks. Ok, so instead of sitting with the hoards of people at Hooper Park like everyone else, I bet you can't guess what we did. Ok well maybe you can, but I thought it was pretty much the funnest thing I have ever done on the Fourth of July. We watched the fireworks show from Brad's family's roof, and it was probably the best seat you could have. We had such a great day, I hope ya'll did too.