Goodbye 2011!

WHOA! We have been bad, bad people!!! I did not realize it had been 4 1/2 months since I last updated!! That is awful! I was flipping through the pictures on our camera and thought I should at least give you a quick run down of things I managed to get pictures of in the last 4 1/2 months!! I am including some pictures that some of you may think "Why would someone put that picture on their blog?!?" It is for history people!!! I have decided to publish my blog into a memory book type thing and I need the history!!!!

AUGUST

I know our last update was the end of August but I found this picture on our camera that I never got around to blogging about and thought I should throw it on.
The reason I look so bedraggled is because I did end up flipping my kayak at one point on our second time down the river. Note to everyone, you cannot kayak perpendicular to the current!!

SEPTEMBER

We had the fun opportunity to have Kory's sister Kami and her family come visit us for a weekend. It is always a blast when we get to see them. Unfortunately I only came out with 1 picture from the experience but it was too good to pass up.
Ha. Ha. I am pretty sure Stephen did not need help changing Maycee's diaper but Kory cannot pass up any opportunity to be involved in anything kid or baby related.Kory also decided he had had it with our back lawn, sigh. He tore up the whole back yard and replanted it, the quality of the grass just wasn't where he wanted to see it at. sigh.It was also the parade of homes in Logan, we LOVE the parade of homes. This is just one of many pictures I grabbed at the parade. A must in the house we one day build? A cozy fireplace to snuggle up by and read a good book.

OCTOBER

For being my favorite month of the year I didn't get many pictures. We went to corn mazes, carved pumpkins, helped at Harvest for a week, semi dressed up for Halloween and nada! No pictures of any of it!One highlight of the month involved BYU beating the Aggies in football. Ha! I made sure Kory didn't hear the end of it. :-) This was hanging up when Kory got home from work. :-)We also got to babysit our niece and nephew for a day and I dragged them to the pumpkin walk.

NOVEMBER

Kory got us tickets to an Aggie basketball game through work. It was a lot a fun.I have had secret desires my whole life of being a gymnast or a cheerleader so I went a bit wild with the camera at half time.

It was also our 4 year anniversary!! Kory kept trying to take a backseat the the planning so I gladly took control. That means our 4 year mark was celebrated with a hilarious play in Salt Lake, Legally Brunette. A day FULL of shopping!!! And dinner at The Garden at temple square.We even got to sit right next to the window with a gorgeous view!!! It was a great day but for the big 5 I am expecting great plans from Kory!!! (hint, hint)I love you sweetie! It has been a great 4 years!

DECEMBER

Ahhhhh what a happy month! I decorated our house to the nines and didn't get one picture of it! We tried to keep the Christmas spirit high this whole month, visited Temple square twice, got rear ended twice and again, nada!!! If you want excuses it is because we lost our camera charger for the month of December. We were able to find it and get it charged just in time for my battle wounds.6 stitches baby! I love having battle wounds and feeling like a warrior. (I do not enjoy getting them, however.)(Also, don't go asking what this is from, cuz I'm not sharing. It totally takes away from the warrior part of the story!)

And my one picture from Christmas. We decided to play a trick on Kory's mom this year. We bought her some sexy lingerie and snuck it into her stocking. Kory's dad is solely responsible for the stocking. It was hilarious to watch her pull it out, realize what it was and try to hide it while shooting her husband dirty, dirty looks. He responded by putting his hands up in the air while backing up to the wall, shaking his head over and over and saying, "It wasn't me! It wasn't me!" Both of them were so bright red! Ha Ha Ha! We would have gotten away with it too! Everyone was blaming Kory's sister Krystal but I just couldn't stop laughing. Ha Ha Ha! Priceless!

That about sums up our year of 2011. I can't say I am sorry to see it go! It was definitely a year of highs and lows. Kory and I sat down and made some awesome new years resolutions for 2012, it is going to be a GREAT year! You will be happy to know I plan on blogging at least once a month in 2012. (I know what you are all thinking! But look at my track record! That is a good goal for me.) Here's to an awesome year!

Official!

Many of you may already know this and many of you may not, Kory and I are trying to adopt a child to join our family. After 5 LOOONG months of paperwork, interviews, home studies, and classes we have finally been approved and are available for birth moms to see us. We wanted to share this here because you never know who is going to know someone. Please keep us in mind and in your prayers. We are so excited that we have this option and cannot wait for the day we can be parents!

https://www.itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/26245143/ourMessage.jsf

Day 5: Palmyra!!

Soooo sorry for the delay, we have had some internet issues along with some serious busyness. I know you were all checking every day to see what we did on day 5!!!! Palmyra!! This was by far my favorite stop on the whole trip. There was such a sweet spirit everywhere we went in Palmyra, the air was thick with history, and we had a very normal and fun missionary that showed us around. We met up with my parents for the Palmyra day. They had also always wanted to see Palmyra so with a little convincing we got them to meet us there.
We arrived there when everyone had just started church so we had some time to look around. We started off with a walk through the sacred grove. It was absolutely beautiful. There was a youth group there for a church lesson when we walked through. At one point they all started singing Joseph Smith's First Prayer. It was very special.
When we finished with the sacred grove we drove over to where Martin Harris lived and then to the print shop where the Book of Mormon was first printed.

Martin Harris Home.

As it says, Book of Mormon Printing Site.

It is crazy to see how far apart everything is there and to imagine what it was like without cars to get from place to place!

Our next stop was Hill Cumorah. I was most excited to see the Hill Cumorah. It is soo amazing that Moroni was once on that very hill, as well as Joseph Smith. Crazy! Here is a view of Hill Cumorah from the top monument.

At this point church was over so we headed over for our tours of Joseph Smiths and Alvin Smiths homes.

Day 4: Kirtland and Niagara Falls

Day 4 was our short driving day! We only had about 5 hours of driving to do and it was all split up in 1-2 hour sections. We were extremely excited about this! We knew we wanted to see the Newell K. Whitney store and the Kirtland temple. Those were our 2 big things we HAD to see in Kirtland. We started with the actual church owned sites. As we started our tour and began walking towards the Newell K. Whitney store my insides dropped! It was under construction!!!! This had been on the top of my list of sites to see on our trip.

Don't worry they still let us in. Phew! Apparently they were just fixing the old paint on the building and we just weren't allowed to smoke by it but could go in. (Ha ha ha, I thought that was funny that there were signs everywhere that said you couldn't smoke by it when I'm pretty sure we weren't allowed to smoke there anyway.) The store was extremely cool to look at. This was the original store and everything inside was made to look like we had really stepped back in time to the pioneer days.Here is Kory in the actual store downstairs.

Upstairs of the store, I did not know this but Joseph Smith and his family actually lived here for a time. In this room it is said they would look over plans for the temple.
The School of the Prophets. So many great men gathered here and learned more of the gospel. It was one of the most overwhelming rooms we visited the whole trip. Visions took place in this room. Also, happenings in this room inspired the Word of Wisdom.

We saw a couple more places owned by the church and then hurried up to see the Kirtland Temple. The temple was beautiful, no pictures were allowed inside. It was exciting to see the different floors and see where visions had taken place.After we finished with Kirtland we headed to Niagara Falls. I think this ended up being one of Kory's favorite places to see the entire trip. It was AMAZING! I had no idea they let you get as close to the falls as they do but it was almost frightening to be right up next to it with only a bar separating you from falling. As we stood there we would be completely dry one second and the next the wind would change and it would be as if it was a heavy downpour when in reality it was just from the falls.I had to include this picture because really? Have you ever seen Kory look this excited!

Can you see how close we are to the water there!?! Holy cow. It still gives me the willies.

When we were done there we drove to Rochester, New York to meet my parents. Coming up: Palmyra, New York!

Day 3: Nauvoo and Carthage

We knew we would want extra time in Nauvoo, not to mention time to go inside the temple. This is the first time we had to actually reserve a time to do a session! The inside of the temple was absolutely gorgeous! I was in awe the entire time. We stuck around and saw some different places in Nauvoo. Then it was time to move on. Carthage and a long drive were still waiting for us. Carthage was amazing. It is so crazy to know that you are in the exact same spot as Joseph Smith once was.

Day 2: Lots of Driving and Beginning of Nauvoo

Day 2 was our super long driving day. We had stayed in Sioux Falls, South Dakota the night before and realized that one of Kory's areas from his mission was on the way if we just added 20 minutes to our trip. This was the best decision ever. It was so fun to drive through one of his areas in Minnesota and hear his stores about different haunts he had there. Unfortunately since it was such short notice nobody was home that we tried to stop and see.

That afternoon we arrived in Nauvoo, we had just enough time to make a couple stops before everything closed up.

This is in Wilford Woodruffs Home. That is Wilford Woodruffs actual glasses and hat box. Kory and I about to head across the Mississippi with our handcart.

Then we ate at the YUMMIEST restaurant ever. It was a buffet of really delicious home cooked food. WOW! We were both amazed. Unfortunately no pictures of the delicious food, we were too busy stuffing our bellies. Later that night we went to one of the funnest outdoor shows.I had to throw this in. This is what happens to your windshield when you drive along the Mississippi at dusk. In case you can't tell these are bugs. They were huge! We literally could barely see out of our window.

Trip Across Country: Day One

As most of you know we recently took a trip across country. I have been planning this road trip since before we got married. My parents live in Maryland and I have always wanted to see all the church sites. Easy solution? It took some convincing for Kory to go along with it, but after much insistence we had it all planned.

The first night we stayed in a truck stop in Rawlins, WY. I don't know why but this seemed like such a mature thing to do. Ha Ha. Saying that seems funny but I really did feel that way, roughin' it on the road. We left there bright and early the next morning to stop at our first main sight. Mt. Rushmore. Along the way we passed Martin's Cove, Kory has never seen Martins Cove and since this was a church history tour it made perfect sense for a pit stop.

Mt. Rushmore was cool. It was not as large as I expected it to be. I was expecting those faces to take up a lot more room then they did but very cool all the same.