Fun Little Happenings

Sometimes I forget to blog about the fun little things that happen in our life.

My cool friends, Mitch and Jenny, had their second baby in September and Nathan and I happened to be in town. I was so excited to surprise Jenny and show up at her hospital room. (Mitch and I are pretty sneaky. He deleted texts from her phone so she wouldn't know I was coming, since I had text both of them to see if I could stop by.) Their sweet little Elyse is just perfect and they have the cutest little family!

While we were down that weekend in September we helped Spencer and Jackie move into their new house! As a house warming gift, we bought a "Pirate Flag" aka plastic table cloth, for their flag pole. It was a wet, stormy night, so the flag didn't last very long.

We had some fun visitors recently up in Idaho Falls. Nathan's sister, Amy, and her family came up for a weekend visit. We tried a new BBQ place called the Pit Master. Oh My! Best corn bread in my life! My cute niece helped me decorate the Christmas tree. We showed off the Falls in the freezing cold, and gave them a grand tour of my new school. It was great seeing them. Sadly, I failed on the picture taking.... We were just having too much fun hanging out. 

Carly and Daniel's Engagements

Nathan's sister, Carly, just got engaged to her lover, Daniel. We are so excited for the both of them!!! I was also super excited that they let me practice being a photographer on them in the fall for some fancy engagement photos. I had a blast and am pleased with some of the photos we got. Here are a few of my favorites!

Thanksgiving and 1st Advent 2014

Thanksgiving this year was at the Ballard's house. Nathan had a blast playing basketball the night before and football the morning of with all of his friends. I hung out at home and helped bake pies and prepare dinner. Everything was delicious!

I made a fancy cheesecake to go along with all of the pies. Mmm!!! I love cheesecake!!! And I have to say, I think this one turned out so pretty! But it definitely did not start out pretty....

Thank goodness for chocolate ganache to save the day. It was a pretty easy recipe. I wish the actual cheesecake was a little sweeter, but if you're not looking for something super rich and sweet, than this would be the perfect cheesecake to make. I found the recipe HERE. 

After stuffing our faces and relaxing while looking at the Black Friday ads, some of us got the crazy idea to go to Target for when they opened their doors. It wasn't too bad, and it was fun to see some people going crazy.

We also got to celebrate 1st Advent with my family. I love our German Christmas traditions! The four Sunday's before Christmas we light a candle and gather as a family eating our favorite German foods and listen to German Christmas music. Oh, I love it! We ate yummy German breads, meats, cheeses, and of course pickles for our Advent meal! We also decorated the house for Christmas. (We took a lot of pictures, but I don't have them, so I'll have to post them later.)

This is the best time of the year!

Karl's Senior Pictures

I have been wanting to get into photography lately and I had the chance to take Senior pictures for my little brother, Karl. I can't believe he's already a senior in high school. He's a stud!

Nothing too fancy with these pictures. Just practicing. I think they turned out alright though! I need to learn how to export them better because they lost some of their quality.... I swear I said to export them at full quality... But hey, I'm learning. Good enough for a quick post. :)

Lower Palisades Lake Hike

For our last hoorah of summer we went on a beautiful hike with our friends, Hailey and Keegan, and their cousin. It was a perfect temperature and the leaves were starting to change for Fall. The trail was a pretty moderate 4 mile hike up to the lake. Somehow we managed to confuse ourselves at the sign and had a little adventure going who knows where? But in the end we found the lake and it was breathtaking!

We walked around it for a bit, got some pictures, and then ate our packed lunch before heading back down. We thought about hiking up to the upper lake, but decided we hadn't planned enough time to do it.

When we got back home that night we got together with Karly and Wade, and Hailey and Keegan for dinner at the Olive Garden. It was just an all around awesome way to end summer.

Last Summer Trip to Yellowstone National Park

August had something against Nathan and I camping. Every weekend we'd want to go and it would pour rain. Somehow, we managed to get up to Yellowstone for one last camping trip. It rained while we drove into the park. It rained as soon as we put up our tent. And then we were good for the rest of the trip.

It was your typical Yellowstone camping trip, but we loved it! We saw huge herds of buffalo, and even some cute baby ones. We checked out all the major touristy spots, and did some sweet hikes. Pretty sure I made Nathan stop everywhere the map said, "Cascades" or "Falls". I love waterfalls so much!

The fog was incredible in the mornings.

The whole trip we were trying to find bears! And we did find one, but it was super far away. The Ranger said it was a Grizzly. Pretty cool. Can you see it?!

Here I'll magnify him for you!

Yellowstone made it up to us though for our not to exciting bear encounter. We were driving back to camp from up north and we saw a bunch of people out on the road pointing to these rocky cliffs. As we drove by I saw a horn. "Bighorn Sheep!", I yelled to Nathan. We quickly found a place to park and ran up the road... Everyone was leaving... A nice couple told us the sheep had moved and were moving along the mountain side. We chased them down and found them!

It was so cool watching them jump and climb over the steep rocky sides of the mountain. We walked down the road and admired the sheep from a distance. The next thing we knew... They had managed to work their way over the ravine that separated us and onto the road right in front of us. At first I thought it was the coolest thing ever and got some sweet pictures! But then Nathan and I both realized we were way to close to these animals and didn't want them ramming us off the road into the ravine!

Thankfully, we survived and were able to check a new animal sighting off our list at Yellowstone. I'm glad we were able to make it up for one last camping trip of the season.

We are Softballers

This summer and fall our friends, the Leavitts, recruited us to play on their softball teams.

It was a BLAST! 

Pretty sure Nathan and I were the best..... I mean worst.... players on the team, but it was still super fun. Our team names were "The Big Whiffers" in our red baseball tees, and "iJump" in the black baseball tees. (Sadly, we didn't take any pictures... We were too focused on our game.)

Just some sweet pictures of us and the Leavitts in action.

I got decent at catcher, or chilling in the outfield. Nathan had an awesome triple base hit and some nice snags of pop flies in the outfield.

Good times. Good times.

Summer Partying With Friends

Our friends Scott and Wade, and Wade's Dad, signed up for the Spudman Triathalon. We decided to go down to Burley and support our friends in this sweet accomplishment. We set camp up at a park right next to all of the transitions. After getting dinner and enjoying everyone's company we went straight to bed.

Bright and early the boys were off swimming, biking, and running. It was awesome seeing everyone doing the tri. Kinda made Nathan and I want to do it... Maybe next year? Maybe...

Anyway, all three of them were amazing!

After the tri we partied in the river with jet skis! It was a blast! Especially when Wade pulled Karly and I on the tube... Oh my goodness we were screaming like little girls.

Nathan got all these photos from the kayak. He's pretty awesome!

We all went back to our normal lives when we got home, and that next weekend we got a text from Scott and Kylee inviting us all to go camping that weekend. We were all over that! They had a perfect spot right next to the river by Heise and Kelly Canyon. The first night we all stayed up until 2 a.m. playing games and talking.

This is what happens when you stay up way too late and Karly steals your phone. hahaha

The next day we woke up to a delicious breakfast, went swimming, played some games, ate some amazing dutch oven potatoes and raspberry cobbler (Let me tell you, Scott and Kylee are perfect camp hosts!), and just enjoyed each other's company. The only downside to the trip... BUG BITES!! Oh my poor feet had about 15 to 20 total. Oh man they itched. But other than that it was perfect. We have some pretty cool friends!

Steamboat Springs

I'm so behind on all our adventures... Slowly but surely I will get caught up....

So this summer we went to Steamboat Springs, CO with Nathan's fam. It was super super fun! The area is gorgeous and we did lots of exciting and relaxing things! Here's how it all went down.

Left Saturday and drove all day... and saw lots of pretty rainbows on the long drive.

Hot air ballon rodeo Sunday morning, followed by an art festival. There were balloons everywhere! They were all colorful and vibrate. I loved watching them fly over the little pond and reflecting in the sunlight.

Throughout the week we did lots of fun different things. We hiked to a waterfall! Everything was super green and beautiful.

Nathan and I enjoyed a few bike rides by the river and downtown and taking beautiful pictures of the sunset in the rain.

Tubing down the river was a blast! We tore a little hole in our kayak, some bums were bruised, and family was separated down the river, but it was totally worth it!!

We went down the Alpine Slide as well. I was terrified I was going to crash. I survived thankfully.

Rocky Mountain National Park was incredible. I love visiting different national parks and seeing the diverse beauty our Heavenly Father has given us. We did a couple of fun hikes, and saw lots of animals as we were leaving.

These Elk were right next to the road. So cool! 

I can't get over how cute this little baby moose is!

Every day we were able to go swimming in heated pools and hot tubbing. We also made and bought delicious food while enjoying downtown. Gelato was a favorite of ours. Everything was awesome and it was fun to spend time with everyone.

This cute nephew of ours was our partner in crime the whole trip. I think we wore him out. :)

Our 4th and 5th of July Celebrations

July 4th was super fun and relaxing this year! Nathan and I did the Firekracker 5k again with our friends Karly and Wade and their family. This year I ran it in under 30 minutes, which was my goal! Woot! I came in at 29:15. I shaved off more than a minute from last year. Nathan didn't even train and he still finished in about 25 minutes.... of course!

After the race the four of us decided we didn't want to stick around for the parade, so we went and got Jambas and Egg McMuffins for breakfast. Then we went our separate ways.

Nathan and I enjoyed a bbq lunch at home and accidentally took a super long nap right in the middle of the day. We hardly ever take naps!

When we woke up, we biked to the green belt, grabbed dinner from the Cafe Sabor food truck, and soaked in the fourth of July atmosphere. Then we went and found the perfect spot for the fireworks! We were so confused that there was such a big spot open still just an hour or so before fireworks.

Well as luck would have it we ended up about 40 feet away from Karly and Wade and their family. We moved on over to join them and watched the fireworks. Their little Ivy wasn't the biggest fan of fireworks, but she did awesome!

Once the show was done we zipped home on our bikes! We were home in about 10 minutes. It's the best way to travel down by the crazy crowded Green Belt.

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The next morning Nathan and I headed down to Utah for the Blietschau Family Reunion aka Crazy Germans Party! Ever since our Oma and Opa had pasted away we haven't been able to all get together. It was the first time all of us Germans were able to all get together for some fun and delicious food. 

It's so cool to see what just two amazing people could create starting their lives in America!