Pictures!

The Christmas Tree

Eric at our before Christmas

Stephanie at our before Christmas

Blue funness

OH Canada!

We went to Canada this weekend for Eric's old mission companions wedding. We left on Friday morning and drove and drove and drove and drove with our GPS (named lola) leading the way. We stopped in Seattle to eat lunch at Qdoba's, a great meal for two including drinks all for under $4 because we played MASH on their web-site. Stephanie ended up living her dream life, marrying Eric, living in a mansion in Antartica, and was an Engineer. Her end words were "Watch this!" so pretty much is a true and believable story, especially her final words. I on the other hand ended up happily unemployed, married to a pizza delivery driver, and playing WoW in my spare time. I ended up driving...er...going places on a pogo stick and Stephanie ended up with a super fast speedy car. I was very jealous.
Anyways, we went to Canada, they asked us many many questions at the border and wanted to know why we wanted to visit, after we told them we were allowed to continue and made it to Eric Jeannotte's appartment. We met his family and friends and drove in heavy traffic to watch them get married. They had a beautiful wedding and afterwards had a dinner reception where many toasts were given to the bride and groom, embarrassing both of them with their past. After being in the same chair for over 2 hours we wanted to see a little bit of the city so we drove around without having any specific goal in mind and enjoyed looking at the suburbs of Vancouver. That night we slept on our air mattress in Jeannotte's old appartment and had a restful sleep.
The next day we awoke and set out to see the town. We drove through and walked around Stanley park, a very large park on the peninsula of Vancouver. There was many things to see and enjoyed a long walk on the short beach. We went to Lighthouse park, and Lola(our GPS) sent us through some small residential roads and we finally made it to the park. We apparently missed the memo of having to bring a dog on the hike because everyone else had at least one if not two dogs. We were quite hungry after that so we went to subway and got us some lunch. We headed back downtown to another park to eat lunch and looked at the pretty but cold ocean. We decided that if we wanted to make it home that night we better get moving, so we left for a long, wet, dark drive. It was funny at the border when they asked what province our plates were from. When we told them Utah he quickly apologized and asked us the normal questions and let us through. We arrived home completely tired and worn out eleven and were out like a light. We had lots of fun, and were glad to be able to see Eric and Kim get married. We now have Canadian money and seashells and dont really know what were going to do with them, but I guess we have souvenirs of our adventures.

Have a garbage-free day!

This is a short story that I found today while randomly stumbling on the Internet. I think we all have experiences, but sometimes we just need to forget them

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us.

My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really very friendly. So I asked, ‘Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!’ This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, ‘The Law of the Garbage Truck.’

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they’ll dump it on you.

Don’t take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don’t take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life’s too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so… Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don’t.

Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!

Have a blessed, garbage-free day!

Home again home again

We are back in Spokane after spending 15 days in Utah having lots of fun and enjoying time with family. We drove home on December 22nd and made it home after 15 hours of driving thru mostly clear weather except for a few strong wind storms in Idaho. We spend Christmas eve at Eric's brothers house with his family, and Christmas day at Stephanie's home. It was lots of fun, and we got many new toys like a GPS and ice cream maker. :) We will get the most out of these considering how we have already gotten lost using our GPS and who can say no to ice cream? We spent a week snowmobiling at Eric's family cabin with most of his family, and Steph's family came up for a day. We also enjoyed relaxing, shopping, and played many games. We sadly had to return to Spokane, and did so on the 7th. Stephanie is preparing for her last semester at Gonzaga which starts this upcoming Tuesday. We are looking forward to being "done" with Spokane and able to move to wherever Eric gets accepted to school.

What a year!

Well it is the start of a new year! We are excited for the things that 2010 will bring us and enjoyed looking at things that happened in this past year as well. Here is our update from 2009.

January- We arrived back in Spokane, WA after making a trip down to Utah for the holidays. Spokane received record snowfall and we were drowning in it for forever until it finally melted away.

February- We took a trip down to Utah over President's Day weekend. Stephanie had bridal showers and we made sure everything was going to be good for the wedding.

March- Finally the big day arrived! Stephanie and Eric were married during Gonzaga's spring break with the event actually taking place on Friday the 13th. We then had a brief honeymoon in Salt Lake, before heading back up to Spokane so Stephanie could get back to school. There we had an open house and Stephanie's parents came up.

April- A busy month trying to keep up with school and enjoying being newlyweds. Eric started working for American Nursery Services wiggling plants at Home Depot.

May- School finally ends! Well at least for the summer. Stephanie's mom came up to visit. Stephanie started working at Home Depot in the Hardware department. We took a trip out to Round Lake State Park in Idaho for some camping.

June- Enjoying the summer weather, we rode bikes and starting playing tennis together. Stephanie's family came up to visit.

July- Another summer month full of work, play, and BBQ’s.

August- We took a trip down to Pullman, WA to check out WSU and also went out to see a waterfall to make it a camping trip. We headed home for a trip back to Utah to see family and friends.

September- School started up again for Stephanie. It was the beginning of a very busy semester, but also her last fall semester. She is looking forward to being all finished up. This year she is working on a senior design project with Goodrich. She and a team of three other mechanical engineers are designing a machine to help Goodrich manufacture various components out of carbon fiber. Eric's job with ANS ends.

October- Eric gets hired on with Les Schwab. He enjoys learning about tires and cars. Stephanie's parents come up to visit. We also took a trip to Seattle to check out University of Washington.

November- As the end of the semester nears, Thanksgiving break was very welcome. We made up our own Thanksgiving in Washington since Eric had to work the day before and after.

December- As the year came to a close, Stephanie was glad to get finals over with. We were both excited to be able to go back home to Utah for Christmas.