Lance & Allison Johnson

Turkeys and Trees

2011-12-30T10:18:00.001-08:00

November

Amy and I started tradition of making these little turkeys at college. Once Amy left, Lance and I adopted it as our own. Last year we were making them and Cody Hunter showed up. He laughed at us then sat down and made some too. This year we invited him again with his cute, now fiance, Kristen along with Reid & Florencia who also just got engaged, our friends from the camp out.

Kristen and Cody

Reid and Florencia

Yes, both boys can shove a whole turkey in their mouths!

This year Jon & Lucinda's family along with my parents went up to Island Park. They stopped in Rexburg and said hi to us. We ended up following them to Island Park Saturday night. There was no snow in Rexburg then you hit just past Ashton and you were driving on white roads. Mom and Lucinda had packed lots of amazing food. We sat around eating and watching movies. Lance and Jon took the snowmobiles out for a ride. They both had a blast. My mom had them take a candy bar just in case they got lost. Lance's candy ended up on his sled ski, he picked it up and kept going. They both came back cold but happy. Jon went in his Levi's they were frozen to his legs!

Sunday morning we had a little testimony meeting. Church was an hour or more away on snowy roads and it was Stake Conference. Lucinda and I bundled up and went outside to play with the kids. Notice we have matching red coats with fur hoods! We didn't plan it but it was pretty awesome, we kept getting them mixed up.

My hat says "Hawaii or Bust"

Lance, Gage and Brayden got into a snowball fight which consisted of chucking huge pieces of snow at each other

Lance making a snow fort for Brayden and Gage

Lance could fit all the way in the fort and even sit up, he put a little shelf to the side for gloves, moments later the whole thing caved in, sad.

We ended up having Thanksgiving in Park City so we could share it with my family too. Sunday night we drove back to Rexburg so we could go to school and work the next day. Tuesday Lance surprised we and arranged to have me play at Devotional in the new BYUI center. The organ is a huge 5 manual electric organ, it is so powerful and amazing. I was scared to death. My parents came down from Island Park to listen to me play. Lance and I sat on the stand and it ended up going great. Luckily everyone was out of town so only the bottom layer of the center had filled up. As usual the hymn versus and words were all screwed up and out of order. It was really confusing to me which verse I was even on! I would hold the last chord a tad longer then watch for the conductor to start again. It was nerve racking! I survived and after President and Sister Clark told me I did a great job. I'm sure they tell that to everyone, but hey it made me feel good.My parents were super impressed too, which always makes any feel good. Thanks to them for all the money spent in lessons and for being inspired to have me even learn the piano and organ!

We went home to grab some warmer coats and Lance handed me an early bday present, POM juice. The super expensive juice in a fun container. Yay! My parents then took us to buy me a new dress which I love, then we took them to our special restaurant Rutabagas, in Idaho Falls. Lance and I went their last year for my bday. We all loved it and thought it was delicious. My parents drove back to Island Park and half an hour later I had a surprise party! Okay so Lance planned me a surprise party, but I sort of guess and ruined it. He bought me a cute little flower cake from Albertson's, the flavor was chocolate with raspberry filling. I was surprised we actually still had a few friends in town which included Bryce &Nadia, Chris, Katie & Lily, Kasey & Rebecca, Lindsay & Addison, and Jen & Dana. It was a lot of fun and everyone even brought me a gift which was very thoughtful. On my actual birthday I went to work at 6 am for freshman registration. I ended up skipping my lunch so I could get off a 3 pm. Tired and sick of talking on the phone I made it home. We went out to grab a quick sandwich and fell asleep watching a rented movie. It was a great 2 day birthday. Thanks Lance!

Thanksgiving weekend we drove down to Jill and Dave's house to celebrate Thanksgiving with them. Dave's whole family was their along with Jeff and Vivian. Jill made a delicious turkey and everyone brought really good food to share. There were so many pies you didn't have enough room to sample them all! While in Utah we decided to do a mini "Temple Tour". It's something we made up ourselves, whenever we go to more then one temple in a day we call it a "Temple Tour". Last night we counted we have been to 13 temples!

Jordan River, Utah we did a session.

Oquirrh Mountain, Utah, we did initatorys. Oh and yes I always have to look up how to spell Oquirrh!

Draper, Utah we did sealings

Christmas Tree

A new to us tradition consists of going with another couple, borrowing a friend's truck and picking out Christmas trees. We realize we could go up to the mountains and save $25 and cut down our own scraggly tree but this is an easy full proof way to get a nice tree with little effort. The main reason being, we don't own a truck, there's no way our cars could handle the deep snow or hold a tree and we don't own a saw and if we did we'd have nowhere to store it.

This year we went with Mike and Carolyn to three different places in Rexburg to look at trees. Lance borrowed Bryce's cute little truck. I forgot to get a picture of it! Basically it a short little truck with a cab on the back with no power steering. :) We found the perfect tree's at Broulims for $35. We measured the trees off Lance to see if they'd fit in our apartments! We call this tree our Doctor Seuss tree. It has long, little, random branches going out in every direction.

The McCullloughs' knew a friend who owned a saw so they borrowed it for us. As you can see we decorated our pillar in front of our apartment and our door with dangling, icicle colored Christmas lights. Lance tried twice to put up the star of David in the window but tape and cold window panes aren't very good companions.

October Activities continued

2011-12-30T10:09:00.000-08:00

Overnight canoe trip October 14 & 15

That’s what it said on the Activities homepage of BYUI. How fun does that sound? Well it sounded really fun to Lance and I. We immediately bought tickets. Two days before we got an email saying the trip would be canceled if we couldn’t find a chaperone. I jokingly told Lance to email them back saying I could chaperon. Guess what it works, I’m chaperone material! The employee over the event called me, refunded our ticket money, made sure I was good with being the chaperone and said to help everyone follow the honor code and represent BYUI. Peace of cake..

Fast forward to day of. We both got off work early to meet at the ORC on time. Started with a 10 minute walk from our apt hauling our backpacks and sleeping bags (because you can’t park overnight on campus) rented anything we wanted for FREE because of my chaperone title and packed all our stuff in a dry bag (an item new to me), we left 3 hours later. Drove to Beaver Dick unloaded canoes and waited for the cars to shuttle back and forth 1 hour, changed into our wet suits. The school has a rule if the water temperature and outside temperature aren’t above a certain number.. wetsuits required. They were hilarious and fit us so awesome as you can see.

Pushed canoes in the water and started the water journey. Luckily Lance knows how to canoe, it was a little tense the first half hour or so as we figured out how to work as a team and enjoy each others strengths and weaknesses. Our group had about 22 single students and was such a joke.

Everyone was going in circles, making no progress and kept running into each other. It was really funny to watch. After many bends and small currents we see the food crew who went 20 minutes before us camped on a little sand bar. We had reached our destination. That’s when I realized there was no outhouse or any sort of bathroom. Seriously I’m not that kind of camper I probably wouldn’t have gone.

The sunset was really pretty to watch as we set up camp and waited for dinner. It was cold enough you kept your shoes, coat, hat and gloves on so the sand slowly seeped into your shoes. Our tent was in the middle, boys to the left, girls to the right. We were the only married couple, which I feel gave us status because I was the chaperone and looked the same age as everyone else.

Surprise they had a outhouse tent! Of course it was only for #2 as they put it. Why would you think you could go #1 in there? I raised my hand and asked if we could get some TP from the tent to go squat in the trees somewhere. The girls in charge looked at me like I was stupid. They said I could just use leaves and not waste the TP. Luckily there were some other true girls who came up to my afterwards and thanked me for asking. We shared the tissues and hand sanitizer we brought after our bathroom trips. Lance set up two canoes for the girls to hobble across in the shallow water to get to the tree field to use the bathroom. Very thoughtful!

Dinner was dutch oven “goolosh” with giant cheese balls that never melted. It was actually really good and filling. The students did a really good job with the meals the whole trip, they were just a few hours off on their cooking times.

After dinner we sat around a small little fire and told embarrassing stories and red neck jokes. This guy Lance’s height with short pants and a crazy wardrobe brought his guitar. He started the group off with a painfully awkward version of Kumbaya, with everyone in the circle making up versus such as “River’s flowing my Lord..”, “Fire’s burning my Lord..” “Food is good my Lord..” you can only imagine that going on for about 25 minutes. Everyone breathing in the smoke of the fire and getting high, or that’s probably how it looked to the moose surrounding the island.

Next the tall man had written out all seven versus of “Puff the Magic Dragon”. Who knew there were that many, and who would want to sing them all, let alone listen?! More swaying and long dramatic versus of everyone taking deep breathes and singing “Puff the magic dragon…” At this point I was dying I was laughing under my breathe and clinging to Lance for support who was always trying not to laugh. What kind of people were we hanging out with? As he dramatically finished the last verse I jumped and asked if Lance could see a song. That changed the tone of things a lot. After that everyone passed the guitar around and played fun, happy, “cool” songs to finish the night.

One by one people would drift off and go to bed, I forgot we had to be the last to bed… I go to bed way too early to be a part of that group. J One girl laying in her sleeping bag yelled across the island and asked if I could get her a tissue. Just one of my cool chaperone tasks I guess, it was funny. Around 12:30am guitar boy took off with his hammock girlfriend walked across the canoes and set up camp together. I was freaking out. We walked over and invited him to join the campfire with the rest of the guys, he said no and walked back. We came back and brought the decision to the group. They said that wasn’t fair, so his friend went and dragged him back. The hammock girl wanted to stay out there all by herself, I think she was one of the TP critics too.

The next morning I was awakened to gun shots and heard some guys explaining what time of gun and shells were being shot. I was a little scared to sit up! It sounded so close. We got up waited 2 hours for breakfast and were on our way by a rousing 11am. The trip out was really fun! We had made some fun friends one engaged couple and one almost engaged.

Florenica and I held the front of the canoes together while the boys did all the work. We kept running into each other and laughing a lot. Lance and I had packed lots of snacks because we starved on our last overnight school outing, so we were freely sharing and throwing food back and forth between canoes. One student yelled to Lance and asked if he knew how deep the water was. Um why would Lance know how deep the water was?? I yelled back the time, just to be funny. We all got wind chapped and sunburned and loved seeing all the autumn colors along the river. It was over all a great trip! We still see the friends we made and love talking about how weird the campfire was!

Bishopric Dinner- October 15

Of course, never a dull moment with the Johnsons. After nice long showers and naps we woke up to go Bishop Wrightson's house for dinner. Sister Wrightson made delicious, Lasagna, salad, bread and a wonderful TANG dessert. As you can see we were very sunburned with cherry red faces that glowed all through dinner.

Halloween Concert- October 27th

Of course every year since I started ushering this concert back in 2006, it is a requirement to go. It was great as usual with lots of nerdy music major jokes and the them of Indiana Jones. Lane was a stunning Clark Kent and I was Cindy Lou Who. Maybe next year we'll coordinate costumes! Together we created his shirt with tape and spray paint. I love his little curl!

Cody's Wedding- October 29

Cody was the guy Joe set me up with, Lance just happened to be on the date with someone else. That was just the beginning of us later getting married, yay! We were so excited when Cody found such a cute girl name Samantha. There sealing was really sweet. It was fun to see the different paths planned in our futures.

That afternoon we met up with Amy to eat at Rumbi's one of our new favorite places.I made Lance napkin bow-tie, as seen below, he loved it. Thanksgiving Point Corn Maze has been on our "Possible Dreams List" for two years now, we never seem to be in Utah on the right day or have the means. Well this year it all came together. We got stuck in the haunted trailer and ended up pulling out a short lady stuck in between us. She accidentally grabbed Lance in an awkward place trying to get out! Did I mention we bought matching plaid shirts and we love matching?!

October 30

We got back from Utah and remembered our cute friends the Rutt's invited us over for some homemade caramel apples. Rachel and Abbey made a homemade caramel from ourbestbites, it was delicious. The boys watched Hocus Pocus while we talked and ate.

October 31- Halloween

I was very nervous to dress up at work, but decided what the heck go for it. I found these cool spider olive eggs. So cool, Claire crashed her van trying to see them.. another story. I started making them about 11:00pm of course, right after the caramel apple party, luckily the Dastrups had olives to loan us.

Luckily I had some friends dress up at work! Alicia Anderson-jelly belly, Travis Yost- sumo wrestler, Jerrod Guddat- pumpkin graduate, Catrina Wylie-Halloween dress, Brenda Hintz- witch, Kristy Linford-pirate.

We decided the whole month of Halloween can be a lot of fun. As far as the whole trick or treat thing goes, if you don't have kids not that exciting. We bought tickets to the haunted ropes course instead, another event to check off our "Possible Dreams List". They had cider and donuts, and had put orange lights and black cloth all over the tower to make it look eerie. Between the freezing cold wind and the slight shudder of the wind shifting in the breeze it was terrifying! I was so proud of Lance for making it to the top and getting candy!

Halloween PARTIES

2011-11-13T21:02:00.000-08:00

We love Halloween! At first it was more a Lance holiday, but we have made it really fun and I love it now too. Of course we don't do anything creepy or gory and the actual Halloween night isn't all that exciting. Maybe when we have kids to go trick or treating with it'll be more fun, but we love the buildup and parties!

Fun Halloween decor, with this random star decoration, I just finished making.

It just looked so cute, I wanted pictures to remember it.

Lance did a great job hanging up all the spider webs.

Our two favorite purchases from last year, the skeleton and candelabra

The first pumpkin carving of the season! We did this the night we got back from Utah, we were so excited. My pumpkin looked way cool in the picture I was trying to do. Well, it didn't exactly work so I came up with this guy! I know sad looking, sketchy and a waste of a good pumpkin, but I tried.

Lance found the biggest pumpkin he could in Utah and brought it home to Idaho. He did a traditional carving and it turned out great.

In front of our little apartment with our pumpkins! For Lance's Christmas present last year, my mom gave him a bag full of discounted Halloween things she bought. These cool posters and pillowcases in the first picture came from her. We love all the fun happy decorations!

We had our 2nd annual Mystery Dinner. Lance wrote the mystery himself. It took place at the haunted swing set in Rexburg, Idaho in the 1930's. We invited new friends from the ward, who we didn't know very well, we were hoping they'd dress up and think it was fun. We'll we chose well, they came super cute and made the dinner a blast!

Dinner was by candle light as usual. We even hung a sheet up again to make it seem more like a dining room. The menu consisted of: carrot fingers for the appetizers, rolls, lemon caper lasagna, ( my mom's recipe) and green bean casserole for the main meal all served in black buckets and passed around with large spoons.

Lance was the victim and I was his wife, hosting the dinner trying to figure out who killed my husband. It's all very morbid if you think about it. I'm so glad he's alive! Last year we made a bloody shirt then threw it away. Don't as me why! So we made one again this year and got smarter because we saved it for next year.

I had so much fun making the dessert. I saw the "eye ball" idea at a ward party and totally copied it, using various pieces of plastic silverware because I didn't have very many forks. The cupcakes half- worked, they were red velvet, cream cheese frosting, with shards of glass and red blood. The glass was supposed to be see thru not cloudy..

Stefan and Amanda Hofmeister as Filipio the rich engaged guy to Felicia prissy rich engaged girl. They got engaged at the swing set the night of the murder.

Caroline and Mike Mcclough as Barbara Farmer's wife and Levi Farmer aka the MURDERER. Their property is near the haunted swing set, and he was the dead man's brother.

Jessica and Dallin Pope as Ruth the squirrel shooter girl, and town Sheriff Gains. She loved shooting squirrels near the swing set, he was patrolling the area at the time of the murderer and had a secret crush on the dead man's wife.

Lance and Allison Johnson as Alder the murdered, and the mourning wife, who ended up dating like the whole town! Thanks to the group weaving the conversation that way. It was hilarious. Yes Lance is holding a giant marshmallow heart.

3rd Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest

Of course more eye balls to share and some fun Halloween cookies. I made like 3 dozen while talking to Jana Hope. Lance came out from doing homework and said I needed double the amount. We ended up having cookies coming out our ears. After our party it was fun to take them to all our friends who couldn't come so it was a great idea after all.

We get better at hosting this every year. Lance laid out cardboard and moved out the couch as usual. We set up chairs and had extra knives, candles and markers available. Lance set the timer for an hour and a half and everyone went to work.

Cody and Kristen had a different idea, but noticed another couple doing it so impromptu changed it to this one!

Jessica and Dallin with the Nightmare before Christmas pumpkin. This was the runner up pumpkin.

Katie, Chris and Lily made the cute jail pumpkin. I love the little hands they carved.

Spencer and Tahlia made this crazy pumpkin complete with a scary spider and makeup.

We both ended up carving one more little pumpkin. I decided small pumpkins are my thing. They have little guts and aren't very thick, perfect for me! Next year we need to wear matching shirts or Halloween colors..

Jen and Dana did there pumpkin sideways and used the stem as the nose, very creative!

Hannah, Edo and Casey also did their pumpkin sideways.

Caroline and Mike each did a pumpkin, they were both really cool.

Stefan and Amanda carved Boba Fett from Star Wars and won the Most Jacked-UP Pumpkin award. It was a cool trophy with a dog on the top. Each pumpkin had a number and I made the mistake of writing one number twice.. whoops. It totally threw off all the votes! I wasn't really sure what to do, so we picked the top two, voted pumpkins including the ones with the same names and re voted. Winner pumpkin!

Birthdays All Around

2011-11-13T20:01:00.000-08:00

Lance celebrated his 24th birthday this year. I knew I couldn't top last years surprise party, but I wanted him to feel just as loved. I made him green (his favorite color) cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

This is his favorite funfetti cake with rainbow chip frosting. It only took me a year to figure out the combination. It's two different brands, but essentially the same thing, Lance can tell the difference so I had him go with me to get the right ones.

College Avenue Deli, was the place Lance wanted to go for his birthday dinner. He got a Phili Cheesestack, we think it was called the "belly burner". It had tots, cheese sauce, green peppers, onion, phili steak, onion rings, barbeque sauce... He was soo excited!

Lance is so cute in this picture. He wanted an i-touch for his birthday and has loved using it for school as a study aid.

Of course the leaning cake tower had 24 candles all different colors! I bought 6 different colored patterned balloons and wrote things I liked about him on them. The lame thing was they only lasted about a day. I taped them to the wall for his cake party.

Lance with his birthday presents! The Fogelquist's gave him some awesome size 16 socks, my parents gave him sandals, I got him shampoo and his i-touch that he's holding. The Woodhouse's brought him a machete for camping, Yurko's brought him cheese brats, and Weston's brought him toy soldiers with a gun to practice his skills. A tradition Lance started last year is everyone tells something they like or hate about him or a funny story. It all ends in laughs and is really fun to be apart of. I bought the awesome frog balloon and wrote "sup". It was the joke of the week with Bryce. When I was buying the balloons, an older man with a long yellowish beard asked what I was doing with a huge frog balloon, I told him I was buying it for my husband. He then said, "He like's large frogs?" I said, "No, but he's a good sport and will think it's funny!"

It was my dream to go to conference in the Conference Center with my husband. I was sitting in RS when they announced the Stake had 6 tickets left for conference and if we wanted them we could go get them. Right after church I saw Lance and told him to go find us two tickets! He came back with two tickets and a parking pass. I was so excited I couldn't stand it. Jeff let us stay at his house which was perfect because he was about a 5 minute walk to the Conference Center. Jodi was down so we got to spend time with her, we also spent time with Vivian, Jeff's girlfriend, it was a fun group!

We woke up and walked over to the Saturday Morning Session of Conference. As we were walking toward our seats we saw Lance's Aunt Marie. She was ushering by our seats. It was so fun to see her randomly! We talked to her for awhile then sat down. President Eyring and Utchdorf walked in so we stood and kept standing for the prophet. President Eyring motioned us to sit down. They started the session without President Monson. They made no reference to his being gone, and also never showed him on the camera shots. It was a little sad, his presence was missing and everyone knew it. I kind of wished we could've gone to another session.

President Eyring announced the song and asked us to sing with feeling and raise our voices. I thought it was interesting that he announced how to sing the song, I've never noticed that before and thought I would've. As we were singing the second verse, President Monson walked in, I of course started crying and couldn't finish the song. Everyone started singing louder and happier, it was such a testimony builder to me of the importance of having a true and living prophet.

Immediately after the song, President Monson got up and said very happily with a smile, "Hello, good morning, would anyone like to take my place?" Everyone started laughing, so happy that he was in the building again.

Conference was great and just as wonderful as I'd imagined it, watching with my husband who I get to spend all eternity with!

We had the opportunity to meet up with my parents and Josiah in Park City, Utah. A beautiful place in the Fall. I've always seen a trail with fun scarecrows on it, but never had the chance to walk it. Lance and I woke up early before conference to enjoy the morning.

We took pictures by our favorite ones! I like how it looks like Lance is holding the sword.

This one was the "Top Chef". It was hilarious looking, the pantry shelf was full of gross things such as, rat tails, eyes, bugs etc.. I'm holding up a rubber rat that looks strangely real! I even liked the whole scarecrows office down to the shoes and tights.

Ever since our trip we feel like we can relate to things like Lady Liberty so of course we had to get a picture. The flame was made of Indian corn with the husks sticking up, so creative!

Yay, here's a scary picture of us on our morning walk, we were having so much fun in our matching tee's and basketball shorts!

This was our favorite part, a tunnel in the trees. Lance took a picture he using for his desktop background now.

Lindsay De La Cerda- Baby Shower at Work

Katie came over with Lily and helped me make all these cupcakes! She made all the pacifiers and frosted most of them, while I made another batch and frosted more. We made two flavors, strawberry and butter pecan.

I used my fun cup cake holder from my mom. It looked really cute at worked, and everyone loved the pacifier idea!

My dad had a birthday in September too. His was a few days after we got back from our DC trip. They had a business trip to get ready for and never had a chance to make him a birthday cake or sing. So when we went down for a weekend I wanted to make and bring him a cake. I ended up finding this cute cake online!

We ate the cake with Jon and Lucinda's family. Brayden and Gage loved Grandpa's cow cake!

Brayden and Lance helped me stick 57 candles in the cake. It took me so long to carry the cake over, trying not to let the candles blow out, the Happy Birthday song was already over before he even got the cake!

September "Ran" By

2011-11-13T15:07:00.000-08:00

We have great friends with great toys. Lance gets invited over for guys night and shoots guns, I get invited for girls night and have fondue parties and talk. We both have a blast.

This is a random picture from the summer. Lance's mission president was driving thru Rexburg. A group of missionaries that served together got together at College Avenue for a quick lunch. They did it during my lunch hour so I could go. We spent New Years with them in the mission home in Mexico, it was fun to see them again.

Here's a video of Lance shooting a gun. :)

We decided the only way to can is with friends. It makes it way more fun and half as much work. We borrowed an apple peeler, corer from Cody Hunter's parents in Rigby. We ended up breaking off one of the points, because it was so old and rusty. Lance and I seriously need to invest in one, it would make life so much easier.. We went to the orchards at the school and picked bags of apples with Katie, Chris and Lily. It was really funny, we tried every apple and then picked the ones we liked. Buying clear gel around southern Idaho is a joke. We ended up with instant clear gel that works just as well, but doesn't look as pretty as it cooks. As far as I can tell the jars look good and it tastes great.

Katie and Chris suggested caramel apples.We ended up eating tacos and making the most delicious caramel apples

Katie and I attempted to use the applesauce contraption but just weren't strong enough. After a couple minutes the guys took pity on us and did it. It was funny all the different ways we were eating/making apples that night.

Temple to Temple Relay

Rexburg, ID 6:30 am

This was my 3rd time running this race and my first time being team captain. I really wanted to do it, but didn't know anyone to join a team. I decided to put my own team together, it was slightly stressful but so fun, because everyone was my friend!

Karl started the race from the Rexburg temple at 7 am running 2.8 miles. He shot down the hill so fast and had no idea where he was going. We were laughing really hard running to our cars to try to catch him to point him around all the turns.

Justin Southworth was our next runner running 3.5 miles. It was his very first race and he was a bullet. He ran soo fast. I'm not sure why his pictures didn't turn out!

Dawna Southworth was next running 7.2 miles and ran all the way to "R" mountain. I love this picture. Dawna's a super runner, I ran about 5 miles with her on the Dam Half Marathon, and then she did like 6 more half marathons over the summer.

Lance was our biggest cheerleader as you can probably tell. He had the safety flag and was doing his flag dance as Dawna ran by to the song "Raise your Flag". I was so glad he came, he missed a ward party with the old ward. He was really sad about it, but such a good sport in driving and cheering.

Lindsay did a great job running too, she ran 5.2 miles. It was fun to have her come down with her family!

Kristen came along to support Cody, our last minute addition to the team. A runner backed out the week of, and he willing jumped in to run 5.1 miles and switched his work schedule. It was his first race to and he was super fast.

Lance and Cody just dancing in the parking lot waiting for the trade off and helping Cody get excited to run.

I was the next runner. I ran 6.7 miles. It wasn't enough to train for but enough that I should've trained. I hate running with a ponytail because it bounces on your head, but my hair came out and I couldn't fix it. It was about 70 degrees when I started running, way to hot. I got red in the face the first 5 minutes. Dawna let me borrow her awesome heart rate monitor watch so I was super hard core running. I ran next to this girl who was running 9 minutes miles. That lasted 4 miles, then I died. I need to figure out what my average mile is so I can be cool like that sometime.

Lance was of course, my biggest, bestest fan. He met me several times to give me water, along with the rest of the team. One of my secretaries from school ran the race. Delaina gave me water and her son, our IT guy took several pictures of me. All the guys I work with in the Online Department ran the race too. It was fun how many people I knew.

Alicia Anderson ran next, she is a graduation specialist I work with. She of course was very red in the face like me, yay! It was her first race and she ran 4 miles. She did awesome, Austin ran next to her for a little bit of it.

Felicia Harbison is a student employee in our office and works in Graduation. She is super cute and ran her first race. Felicia ran the last 2.7 miles in the heat of the day and made it to the IF temple for us.

I thought she had the prettiest run. She ran along the green belt and by tons of water, making it a little more refreshing.

We ran the last few steps with Felicia so we could finish as a team. Half the team was gung ho and ran like the last 1/2 mile with her. Alicia and I were dead so we met at the corner and ran back.


Idaho Falls, ID 1:30ish pm

We went out to eat at Famous Dave's afterwards to stalk up on all those calories we just burned. Cody and Kristen had to leave early so Cody to go to work. The food was great.

Love this guy so much! Some high school had decked out the restaurant with "We Love our Boys in Blue". I'm not sure what for but since we had blue shirts and our boys were in blue we thought it was cute!

Washington DC and New York- unabridged version

2011-10-25T22:17:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON DC

I can’t even begin to explain this trip. Ever since my best friend Kari went on a school trip back East in 6^th grade I’ve always wanted to go. My parents planned a trip back East during high school but it never happened. The Fall before I got engaged I think they were considering taking me for my birthday but I dropped the news I’d be getting married in the Spring and I think that killed the trip again, to many expenses at once.

After going to back to Lance’s mission at Christmas, which was my original dream vacation, whenever anyone asked where my dream vacation was I’d say DC. I know it’s probably not anyone else’s dream, but that was the one place I was dying to go, because I’ve been waiting since 6^th grade to go. Lance and I talked about it and decided to go summer 2011. I thought it’d be fun to invite my parents. One weekend we were in Jerome I asked my Dad if they might want to go with us. He asked if I’d talked to my mom, because apparently they were planning the trip the same summer and were going to invite us! Seriously how crazy is that? I told my dad the date we could go and he was available too, another blessing.

So I got into crazy planning mode and planned out the whole trip, hour by hour, which metro to get on and so forth. Of course the weekend before the big trip they randomly had an earthquake- AWWW! Then they day we were flying out the hurricane hit DC, then New York- AWWW! I don’t really enjoy thunder and lightning storms, they freak me out, so there is no way I felt safe flying into disaster zones.

Friday night Lance and I drove to Jerome to board a plane out of Twin Falls around 6am Saturday morning. We arrived in Salt Lake and sat for two hours. Several flights around us had been canceled going back East but ours was still on. We boarded the plan and started getting comfortable and excited. A cheerful voice came over the speaker saying, “Good morning, we have some bad news, this flight has been canceled, please take your belongings and exit the plane.” Your kidding, that’s what we were all thinking, he was way to happy to just have canceled my dream flight. I was kind of shocked and had no emotions, I just figured the trip was killed again and I should give up. My dad got on the phone and got us the next available flight- Monday Morning, it was Saturday morning.

Lance drawing a picture of me in the Church Museum, his first time there

We started the vacation in Utah. I have never not liked Utah so much. We made the most of it and ended up having a lot of fun. My parents rented a nice Marriott, we went to Mayan Restaurant and watched the Cliff Divers, my parents went to a movie, and Lance and I went swimming with Jill and Dave. The next morning we went to church with Lindsay and Karl who also fed us lunch. We then went to Temple Square and saw all the neat exhibits.

Dad at President Hinckley's pulpit

Vivian and Jeff were very kind and invited my parents, us Alan and Christy’s kids and Dave, Chase and Jill to dinner at Jeff’s apartment. Lance and I ended up staying later and hanging out with Jeff and Vivian and some friends. It turned out to be a great family weekend.

Monday Steps= 16,324

Waiting in St. Louis to board our final plane

Monday morning we were bright eyed and ready to start our adventure. We successfully boarded our plane to St. Louis. We kicked it for two hours and that airport than took off again and landed in DC. Yay we had finally made it! We were like little kids pointing at all the monuments, most of which we didn’t know the actual names of. My Dad got a rental car and Lance became the official navigator. My mom and I sat in the back seat and looked out the windows the entire trip. I have a cheap pedometer from the school that I throw on sometimes and have challenges with Lance to see who walks the most one grocery trips. To be healthy you should take 10, 000 steps a day. I charted our steps every day you can see the results next to the days.

Our Hotel in DC, we made it

We hit the ground running after checking into another wonderful Marriott hotel. This one offered free breakfast and dinner. We ended up walking through several monuments from the hours of 7-11:30pm, so excited just to be there.

National World War II Memorial, Washington Monument behind it

There were cops everywhere and very little tourists that time of day. It was so fun to see the monuments at night.

I made it to DC, I walked around with a big smile on my face, Washington Monument in background

We had lost 3 days of packed itinerary so I was glad that we were such an ambitious group right off the bat.

Mom & Dad first view of the White House

I can’t talk about this trip to anyone with going on and on, so I’m not really sure how to journal/blog this. I think I’m going to post my awesome agenda and just stick pictures in. If the pictures don’t tell enough I’ll just elaborate.

National World War II Memorial- Califonria

National World War II Memorial- Idaho

After a nice stroll through the dark we ended up at the Lincoln Memorial, it was huge and impressive. We sat on the stairs outside to enjoy the view.


Nobody ever looks at the backside of the monument so we took a picture, there is a flag draped over the back

We were so excited we just kept going. We drove all the way through Georgetown and found the Washington National Cathedral. After being spurred by that impressive building we drove to Virginia to find the DC temple.

Washington National Cathedral, organ thoughts..

DC Temple, mostly hidden by trees, the gate was locked to prevent driving closer

Tuesday Steps= 21,028

We made it to the White House! I sent an email to our congressman and got cleared to visit the white house and capital. We weren't allowed to have bags or cameras in the white house and didn't go back to our hotel the rest of the day, because we're just die hard's like that. So we didn't have our camera and we visited lots of cool sites! I learned that the president and family don't actually live inside the white house, but on the very top in a nice suite. We also visited the library of congress, and a great restaurant called the Shake Place and the National Air and Space Museum. If I can find the pictures on our phone I will post them and write more. Today was one of my favorite days touring these famous places.

We took pictures on our phones. We saw all the rooms with colored names, where the big Christmas trees go and lots of pictures of the president's looking normal playing with their dogs and children.

This was inside the capitol.

The capitol, amazing place we saw both libraries.

Wednesday Steps= 19,427

The National Museum of Natural History was a fun museum. We ran in and saw how the food industry was in the 50th century, a big blue diamond and lots of animals. Compared to other museums, I wouldn't say this was a huge must. It's fun for a one time thing though.

National Museum of Natural History

I found a lemur, like off of Madagascar

My little long neck Lance

I think I drew more attention to this T Rex posing for this picture than it normally would have received...awkward!

My parents decided to rent a car which made traveling to the far away places in different states a possibility. I was trying to figure out the metro and metro buses to get to Mount Vernon and it was crazy. Mount Vernon was one of my favorite places. I would tell everyone to go here and to plan on spending several hours. It was peaceful and had something for everyone.
We ate the restaurant the The Mount Vernon Inn Restaurant. Sue decided to try authentic style peanut butter soup. It was liquid peanut butter, we all tried a little and gagged it down.

Brewed root beer from Virginia. They said it tasted pretty good.

I got a glass of sparkling cider, delicious, but only one glass, a bottle would've been great

We ate so well on this trip, we both got sandwiches and had leftovers, the portions were huge

Here's a view of Washington's property, gorgeous. You can see my blue pedometer on my shorts!


Washington's Mansion was pretty nice considering the era, it was very hot inside, I guess they didn't have AC back then

I was excited to tour the mansion, but super excited to go on the National Treasure filming the movie tour. Lance and I watched the movie in preparation for the tour. Turns out #2 was filmed here, not #1 that we watched but it was still awesome. Our guide knew everything and was willing to give us the extra scoop on everything. Sue was looking into what used to be the ice house which they thru raw meat down back in the day. It was pretty crazy. They shot a scene here in the movie

This is about 15 feet away from the river, another exclusive spot they filmed the movie at

Washington's 16 sided barn, Jerry was impressed. He put wheat in the top and had the horses walk in a circle, the wheat then fell through the cracks where it could be collected below, genius.

I found a sow with little pigs nursing, loved it!


Jerry found a bull and befriended him, the bull even came out so he could rub it ears.

We wandered around the museums on the estate and the property for quite a long time. We all loved every moment of it, even the hot humid weather. There were a couple trees there fell down due to the hurricane there.

Thursday Steps=11,794
We were able to go back and attend the Washington DC temple and do sealings.

It was a huge temple!

It was so fun to have my parents on the trip

The hurricane caused several of the very top points to fall off on the spires. It was all taped off for safety reasons in the back of the temple.

Washington National Cathedral, I made it in the day time just to learn that the inside tiles and several spires were damaged in the hurricane so it was closed to public.

I think we walked around it at least an hour, it was so huge and impressive

We tried really hard to find the Darth Vader Gargoyle with binoculars but it was really hard to tell. Maybe we found it!

We made the news! The reporters were looking for sad tourists that couldn't view the cathedral. They were impressed we came all the way from Idaho. The church was going to open their doors on Sept 11 and they asked me then my dad how we felt about it. I felt like I was bearing my testimony about how everyone needs a place to worship God in hard times and so forth. Pretty cool!

National Gallery of Art- Julie Child's Kitchen, so fun to actually be there

All my culinary courses included videos of Julia Child and I love the movie Julie and Julia, I saw the real thing!

Most things we went to the guys enjoyed it, however this one was kind of a bust

The Folger Rose Gardens next to the Smithsonian Castle, which is just a visitor's center, consisted of this little strip of roses with construction going on in the background. It was hilarious, I made such a big deal of going and it was tiny.

We made it to the Jefferson Memorial. I had Lance stand back to back with him, two great men standing tall, I know super cheesy.

We toured the Arlington Cemetery. It was heart breaking to see how many people died for our country and to think of all the loved ones they left behind. This is John and Jacqueline Kennedy's grave site. There used to be a huge impressive tree that shaded this area but the hurricane took it out. Everyone was really sad. We took the trolley ride around the cemetery, highly recommended, we were so tired of walking!

This was the most fantastic little Napoleon, Lance loved it

NEW YORK Agenda

Friday September 2 Steps= 21,493

This place was incredible, everything the movies portrayed and so much more. We got off the plane at 10am and hit the ground running. People were everywhere, it was very fast paced and overwhelming. We kept trying to look at maps and figure out where we were but it was confusing and no one was very helpful. We ended up on Subway and came out at the Freedom tower aka old Twin Towers. That's when I realized how daring it was to hit the Twin Towers, they are in a hub of active with a huge subway transfer point underneath, so scary!
In all my research I found a New York City Pass that allowed us to go to several locations in a weeks amount of time for $60. Well we did most the locations in 3 days, but we're just crazy like that.

This is the Freedom Tower, only 1/3 finished.

On the way to Liberty Island, enjoying the sailboats and reminiscing about San Diego

Our first look at the skyline, incredible.

Lady Liberty in all her glory, from the cruise ship top deck

Everyone was taking pictures of this angle, we were so excited, exhausted and overwhelmed, so fun!

The skyline looked like a backdrop it was unreal

Inside Lady Liberty is a museum and a pedestal you can hike a ton of stairs up or use the elevator. I really wanted to tour the crown but they only allow a limited number of people each day and when I looked 3 months in advance they were already sold out.

This is on the pedestal level, amazing

I know it's a shot up her dress but it blew my mind how close we were

If you look really close in the picture you can see the outline of the Manhattan Temple. It was so weird to be on a crowded subway going to the temple, walk a few blocks then enter by a security guard to check in your recommend to attend the temple. It was very peaceful inside and a little temple .We wanted to do sealings and overwhelmed the Staff because they didn't have enough volunteers that night to do sealings. We enjoyed the peacefulness of the temple and just when we were getting ready to leave they ran upstairs to do some sealings with us. After leaving we walked out on the street and saw some adults out on the town scantily dressed. It was quite the extreme.

This as a major walking intersection and we had to run out several times and hold tons of people up to even attempt to get a picture in front of this temple.

We went do this delicious Chinese place for dinner that a temple worked suggested. I then talked the group into touring the Empire State Building at night. I had looked up the colors that would be displayed and learned that a jazz saxophone player plays 10-1am to make it a romantic evening. I was sold, we were all exhausted but everyone was a really good sport. We stood in line about one hour, it slowly wound all through the building. They then crowd you into an elevator where you get to go to the top of the Empire State Building. With our New York City Pass we got the free headset that tells you everything you'd ever want to know. Lance is wearing his in the picture below.

He hated this picture, but I think it sums up how dead tired we were

That's how cool we looked listening to our head sets

The top, even more perfect than I'd imagined. A little cold, lots of people, but with jazz music and a breathtaking view. Pictures don't even give it justice. Sue even went out and looked she is deathly afraid of heights.

Our view looking up from the 86th floor; it changed colors of red, white and blue for Sept 11.


You can see the streams of cars running all over, it's about 1 am. Lance and I wandered around the whole thing twice and called it good. My parents were out there twice as long as us listening to everything on the head sets

Saturday September 3 Steps= 19,481

Lance pointed out how the ground was polka doted with gum, and it seriously was everywhere, I thought it was a weird kind of cement or something.

Guggenheim Museum- a place Sue had always wanted to go, being an Interior Design major and learning all about the building at BYU.

I just thought this was cute and hilarious. When do you ever see that many balloons with someone trying to drive. It looked so out of place surrounded by yellow taxis.

Central Park, our boys being twins in their matching outfits

Central Park was huge and beautiful, it was definitely needed in a crazy town like New York full of concrete and tall buildings. They walking paths were super intense, they had arrows and you could not go the wrong direction on the path or you would get plowed over!

We made it to Carnegie Deli, it looks like a hole in the wall put was pretty fun. They stack you in like Sardines and seat you with total strangers and bring out your food like 8 minutes later.

We got this huge sandwich to share. They bring you extra bread to eat with all the meat if you ask for it.

We ate very well on this trip. Lance asked all his friends for the best places to eat and boy did we hit them all.

The famous cheesecake that was thick and delicious

Metropolitan Museum of Art, was the museum of all museums. It was way cooler than all the DC ones and had everything!

I thought this was cute how Jerry was sitting like all the Egyptian Pharaohs in the room.

Lance liked this guy, it made him feel small

My mom and I wandered off and let the guys rest a while. Apparently you're not supposed to use flash anywhere in this museum or it sets of sensors and an alarm sounds bringing a secretary guard over to tell you to shut your flash off...Anyways oops my flash was on, but look it's my dream bed set I had to get a good picture of it!

Lance and Jerry loved looking at all the knights, armor and different weapons. We decided if Lance was a knight they'd have to remake the whole design, everyone guy he stood next to was below 6 feet tall.

In case you haven't figured this out yet, I'm a romantic. This was my dream vacation and I planned things to be extra special or romantic because we don't have kids yet and until we do I would consider us definitely in the honeymoon stage of life living it up. I arranged for us to go on a Harbor Night Light's Cruise. The 2-hour sunset cruise on an open deck provides remarkable views of the New York City skyline as the ship sails down the Hudson, cruises around the Battery, up the East River and back to the 42nd Street Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises pier. As passengers enjoy the landmark backdrop, colorful commentary from expert NYC tour guides punctuates the experience.(NewyorkCitypass.com)

It's just becoming dusk, here's another shot of the Freedom Tower

I can't remember all the different bridges, but each one was lit up making it so magical and romantic

The double bridge shot, with the skyline, love it

Going under all the bridges with the skyline in the background

After two hours of crusin' we were starving. We took a chance at death and rode in the taxis.... scary. We went to this place waited 45 minutes and finally sat down to eat around 10:30pm. It was good, but Lance makes a pretty good pizza and I'd say his rivaled it. We also found a place called Rags to Riches, it has every kind of rice pudding you could ever want. However, it is pretty pricy. We bought a tiny one to share with my parents while we were waiting in line for pizza.

Sunday September 4 Steps= 8,119

We ate breakfast at a place called Cosi, which we ended up eating at 3 times and think they should move out West. We started Sunday off with going to Church. However, no one told us that on that particular Sunday there was a big service project to clean up after the hurricane in New Jersey. So no church. We ended up walking a few buildings down and finding a Dunkin' Donuts, a place Lance had always wanted to go. We had some great donuts and some yummy apple cider. We thought since we didn't make it to church we'd go for a Sunday drive to see the ritzy houses in Long Island. Great idea but after 2 hours of car time getting us no where we vetoed that idea and decided to go to someone else s idea of church. The St. Patrick Cathedral. This beautiful huge cathedral in the middle of downtown New York was amazing. We missed the Music Mass Session but walked in for the current session. It was weird that we could walk around and take picture while someone was preachers and no one cared. The organ was on the opposite, we tried to get a picture but between the no flash and shaky hands it didn't turn out very well.

This is the outline of the Cathedral on a building across the street, Sue noticed it

A shot of the cathedral, yay for organs in cool churches


Yes I like cathedrals here's the top half of the picture above

You can see the huge impressive ball that drops on New Year's Eve, not that huge in real life!

We made it to Times Square, another one of my dreams, we just drove thru it, funny that this is a Sunday and most people seemed to treat it no different than a weekday

Different shot of everything

We ate lunch at a place called Bill's Bar and Burger. No one recommended it, we found it all on our own, walking by being starving. It ended being a cute place with great food, minus Lance's raw burger, which he consumed half of before noticing.

In the hotel room with all the desserts from the day.

Basically any dessert you could ever want in New York we got to try, it was quite a sugary night!

Basically the trip of a lifetime. My parents were a lot of fun and were very good sports with all the crazy late nights and eating schedules Lance and I had arranged. It was bittersweet leaving, I wanted to stay and do more, but at the same time I had been vacationing for two weeks an needed some stability. This trip was magical, romantic and a great family experience. Everyone was easy going and we did everything! I can't even begin to describe how great it all was. The END

Last Rays of Summer

2011-10-09T13:34:00.000-07:00

Jackson, WY, the other side of the tetons

It was a great Summer to sum it all up. We went camping about every weekend with different friends. Katie and Chris brought their baby Lily camping for the first time with us. They are such good parents and Lily enjoyed camping for the most part. Lance brought his signature donuts to every camp out. We realized that donuts make him sick almost immediately so we are coming up with a new signature treat for him to bring. I’m thinking parfaits or breakfast burritos…

Lance with his signature donuts

Chris playing in the water in the wee
hours of the morning aka fishing

Our favorite camping baby Lily!

Katie, Lily, and Allison still waking up

My strong Atlas husband

His inspiration

We went swimming at Monkey Rock after camping, it was cold but a lot of fun

Our new beautiful kitchen with the number one chef in it!

Chukar's Baseball Game- IF, with Yurkos Free BYUI Alumni Night

Lucille and Tod came down to visit for two days. I had to work but was able to spend evenings and one hour at lunch with them. Lance took them to the dollar theatre, monkey rock, flood museum and BYUI center.

We loved having the come visit. They were the first of our families to see our new apartment so it was fun to show it off.

SRR invited all employees and spouses to go to BAR J Wranglers near Jackson Hole, WY. It was a fun environment we got some great pictures. Working for the school is such a treat in every aspect.

Um, it wouldn't budge

Just enjoying a little appetizer with some Indians pre dinner

Andrea and Justin met us after dinner to take us to a campsite. It was Andrea’s first time camping! They borrowed our tent so of course we had to get a picture with both of the Johnsons tents, sizing each other up.

Lance woke me up around 5am so excited to show me two moose near the bathrooms.

I love how awesome I look in this picture, see moose in the far background

Lance was clearly more awake, closer to the two moose

We brought a lot of paper to burn and had really funny impressive 2 minutes bonfires then a bunch of coals. The next day we woke up and wandered around the Tetons and Jackson Hole, it was a fun weekend.

Ooohh, that's rough, nice pose

Stopped at this place on the way home for a huckleberry and chocolate shakes, sooo good!

My parents gave us their slightly used couch. We were going to sell our huge long old couch, but decided we’ll wait until Lance graduates. We currently have two very large couches so we can’t arrange our living room at all which we normally do, but we love having two couches now so we don’t care!

Three different oreos fillings for our homemade oreos

Grandma's House- Sacramento, CA

2011-08-14T16:52:00.000-07:00

Well as we do every year (for the past 2 years) we had another great trip to Lance's grandmas! It was a great stress reliever for us since the week before was madness! Lance had the HARDEST finals he has ever taken (and he did great) my cousin Joe was graduating so his parents came up to visit him and stayed with us and we had our house all packed up because we moved the day we got back. Sooo as soon as the clock struck 5 pm on Friday the 22nd we were on the road to Lance's Grandmas house once again!


We made Navajo Tacos for our meal at the Johnson Reunion, we had about 5 of these platters full

Most of the scones all finished!

A very long 11 hour drive but well worth it! We got there very exhausted at 4:00 am but Lance got up the next morning and was the first on the lake! Unfortunately we were only at the Johnson reunion for 2 days but the 2 days there were fun!

All were there except for Todd and his family, so it was a lot of people! Saturday night we got together as a family and his Dad gave a spiritual message; it was great. Lance was so tired he was asleep 30 seconds after Tod (Lance's dad) started talking. Lucille almost got up on the wake surf!

Sadly our camera was dieing and lots of people were taking pictures in Lance's family so we saved our camera. Lance's family left Sunday so Monday we spent cleaning the house with his parents to get it ready for my family to come.

Cody and Lance reliving mission stories while sunning

Our friends Cody Hunter and Kristen were near the lake house so they came down for a day to play in the water with us. We had a lot of fun. When they left Lance and I went looking/shopping a few towns over, we love seeing the variety outside of Rexburg! Below- Cody and Kristen.

Last year my brothers and Dad went down to buy an old wave runner from the Johnsons and stayed for a couple days. Well we were together for October General Conference when Lance brought up around the table that he would love for my family to go and spend time there like his does. My dad and brothers egged him on and we all made an agreement to go for the first Higley Family reunion outside of Idaho. IT WAS SO FUN! Below- Josiah was jumping all over the wake, it was very impressive!

Everyone enjoyed themselves, Tod and Lucille were so kind to let my family use the house for a generous price that could not be resisted. My mom thought it was a beautifully designed and furnished house in a great location.

Karleigh was surfing inside the boat!

I'm sure in the next couple years we will be doing it again! Lance wanted me to say that he doesn't envy anyone with a big house because he had to help clean it twice and it was a lot bigger than an our apartment! My family did an awesome job cleaning the rest of it, when Lance and I left early, thanks!

My family got there Wednesday morning and that's when the Higley fun began! Sun up 'til Sun down we were on the lake, Lance was the boat driver for the week unless he wanted to go then my brother Jon drove. Dad got out there and almost got up on the water skies, we were all very impressed!

It was a great time to be with family, we missed Jeremiah, Heidi and their family, but hopefully they can come next time.

We had great meals and my dad caught us up on what my parents have been up to. I was very surprised to see that my family was out on the boat as much as Lance's family. :)

Karl truly showed us his crazy side wake boarding!

Amy the pro at riding the glass lake outside of the wake

True California Boy showing us all how to wake surf

I just liked this picture!

It was a blast full of laughs and splashes, I think the pictures some the rest of the week up. We tried to get one of everyone, but our camera battery was dieing and died, sorry to the lovely sisters- Claire, Lucinda and Lindsay who didn't make it on my camera.

Jon in his trusty wetsuit

Doug's got the skill and the leg muscles!

Al- getting better at the wake surfer everytime

Scariest moment of my life- water plowing trying to figure out how to wake board!

We both love the water, sun and just being in our swimsuits

Joe and Brayden-very patriotic

Summer Lovin'

2011-08-12T12:47:00.000-07:00

Harp Recital- June 6, 2011
Shari Pack is the harp ensemble teacher at BYUI. She has the biggest heart in the world and owns half the harps we use. My mom came down to watch the concert with Lance, it was my 4th time playing in Harp Ensemble. It was a lot of fun and Lance surprised me with flowers at the end and my mom treated us to Dairy Queen. I think the harp is the most beautiful instrument, I hope one day I can have a pedal harp in my house to play. Lance took these pictures on his phone, we forgot the camera.

Appendicitis-June 30, 2011 The right side of my stomach hurt constantly for a week straight and was making me nauseous. Lance looked up the symptoms and said I probably had appendicitis. We barely slept that night and went to the QuickCare first thing in the morning.

They tripled checked I wasn’t pregnant. It would’ve been so embarrassing if I actually was pregnant, because all the nurses and doctors were smiling like I was a silly girl who didn’t know anything. I proved them wrong and wasn’t!

The doctor suggested we go get a cat scan. Of course not a big deal or anything, Lance just had to miss classes and I was supposed to be at work. Around noon we headed back to the doctor to hear the results. Mittelschmerz, oh and the doctor saw a small cyst on my right ovary, which would either explode or dissolve. It still hurt a few days after the doctor’s office but eventually stopped. Note to self, in the future, do not over react or get cat scans, check off girl problems first!

4th of July Wknd Lance, Joe and I headed to Jerome for the 4th of July. The plan was to go down Friday, Saturday and come back Sunday morning. We took one pair of clothes and no church clothes.

We had a blast Amy, and Lindsay, James and Karl were down for the weekend also. We talked a lot and had delicious food. Saturday morning Lance and Joe felt a little sick. Joe slept it off and felt better. Lance however took a turn for the worse.

I was running errands with my mom all morning, and then had Krista and her baby, Chelsea, and Jana come over for a few hours that afternoon. I thought Lance could sleep it off and keep resting. I got him some Gatorade and medicine.

My mom finally helped me realize what Lance does when he is sick. He gets really sick and doesn’t want to eat or drink anything, then he throws up which dehydrates his body very quickly. He becomes delirious and very weak so he can’t move without support. It might have something to do with low blood sugar too. Now I know, it’s all because of dehydration and food so I know how to help him better! It’s scary when he goes through all this, and it doesn’t happen very often. But I think we’ll keep a case of Gatorade on hand, because he’ll drink that when he’s sick.

Lance was sick all day Saturday and into Sunday. I ended up going to church in Amy’s clothes, while Joe and Lance stayed home. We left first thing Monday morning and came back to Rexburg with everyone healthy!

We slept all afternoon, then woke up and rode our bikes to the Rexburg Rodeo at 7:30pm. It was a little squishy on the benches and very hot, but so red neck and fun. My favorite event is the mutton bustin’, the little kids on the sheep. I totally want our kids to try that, it’s so fun to watch! They also had mini bulls at this rodeo which was the craziest thing to watch- pre teens riding bulls- scary! We ended up taking off around 10 pm realizing that we both had school and work the next morning. The rodeo was only half over when we left with a promise of fireworks at the ending.

Lance put on a small firework show for me in our parking lot which was awesome! We then watched our neighbors, who seemed to have invested hundreds of dollars in huge illegal fireworks, so it was amazing.

Mission Wknd July 7 Spencer Barnes, one of Lance’s friend from the mission got married. He married a cute Hispanic girl from Mexico. They were married in the Rexburg temple, it was my first wedding besides my own that I had been too. I loved it! The sealer sealed them in Spanish, and then English, Lance commented that he wanted to be sealed twice too. The sealer then had the parents stand next to the newly married couple and have them all look into the mirror as three separate families, but all striving to live together in the eternities. I really liked that. Lance was whispering while translating everything in English for me. It’s awesome to have bi- lingual husband!

The Clarks, Lance’s second mission president and wife, we’re having their homecoming July 9. All the returned missionaries were going to sing a musical number and then have a big reunion. Lance really wanted to go but felt bad he had already missed a Sunday he wasn’t planning on. It turned out that Jordan Pogue, the one person he really wanted to see anyways, was driving through Twin Falls early Saturday morning with his girlfriend.

We went back to Jerome and had a great breakfast at my house with them. We then showed them Shoshone Falls, the prime bridge, temple, and the world’s longest car wash. They were singing mission songs the whole ride and topped it off with Cokes from the Mexican Plaza in Jerome.

World's longest car wash- located in Twin Falls ID

After saying bye to them we met up with all my brothers, Jeremiah, Jon and Josiah and nephew Brayden at Wilson Lake. I wasn’t planning on doing anything behind the boat but they talked me into it. I wake boarded! It took me 2 tries to get up and then I was so scared to let go, it lasted forever. I eventually let go and was fine. Lance got up on his first try wake boarding, and then took a knee board out and body surfed behind the boat.

It was hilarious hanging out with all those guys. In the four hours we were out there, they created a band name Twisted Shorts, and a whole album full of songs with titles that only guys would appreciate.

Some of the highlights were, Josiah in the bikini seat, Jeremiah getting stuck in the moss (Jon didn’t notice how shallow the water was getting and the jet sucked up a ton of moss and stopped moving. Of course, Jeremiah went down right in the middle of green thick moss and was coated. It was seriously so funny to watch, we were all glad it was him and not us. It took several minutes before we could pull him out! As we started pulling out, moss was flying off Jeremiah all over.)

More highlights: Jon kept accidentally drenching the front of the boat, Josiah was so cold I told Brayden Josiah’s bum looked like a little bunny tail, bobbing up and down. Brayden thought it was hilarious, Josiah just kept freezing and tried not to shake as much. Jon and his tight little wet suit, never gets old, Brayden the official flag holder, Jeremiah the hardcore person who wears a knee brace behind the boat, Josiah who kept trying to get up to fast behind the boat, (Jeremiah’s instructions were to sit on the couch, slap yourself and then get up). Worked every time, haha.

FRIENDS Our friends Alex and Jake Kent were moving at the end of the semester to California to go to Optometry School. We will definitely miss them and their new baby Carsten. We went to Snake Bite one last time, ordered our usual burgers and tried the chocolate cake, it was delicious! It's sad to see friends go, but Rexburg is just a stepping stone so we just have to work on keeping in touch with all these great people!

Furniture We enjoy change, but more then change we enjoy making the change. We recently re did our hope chest, that is basically a couch in our living room, and found an ottoman at DI and recovered it to match our glider. We are really excited with how they turned out!

BEFORE

AFTER

Moving Surprise we are moving, actually we’re getting kicked out. New owners have bought Academy Apartments and have decided to make it into Men’s Approved Single Housing, which means our contract ends July 31, 2011. This is only a year sooner than we were planning on moving. It feels like we just get it all set up and we move again, oh well.

We found a complex, Aspen Grove, I refer to it as BEAUTIFUL. It is only a year old, which means new blinds, carpets without stains, and it smells new! If this doesn’t end up being the best apartment we’ve lived in since being married, we are going to make it seem like it until it really is. It seems like the grass is always greener on the other side and everyone has really awesome huge apartments. We were excited when we signed our year contract because it meant no moving until graduation 2012, so we’re hoping we love it!

Ironically there are no hook ups for a washer/dryer but after living without out these perks for a year and a half, it’s becoming more okay. We’re deciding if it’s cheaper to keep hooking our washer up to our kitchen sink, or if selling it and using the money earned to do laundry for the next year is better. It is a two bedroom apartment with large closets, pantry, storage closet, large bathroom, and a living room and kitchen that flow into each other.

Some things we will miss from our old apartment: the little balcony- it’s fun to eat breakfast on, the staircase-fun to decorate and more fun to throw laundry off, double bathrooms- it seems like we always have to use the bathroom at the same time, utilities included-hooking the washer up and doing loads for free, parking lot- we’re the only ones who park in the back and no one ever gets towed, backyard- great for parties and nighttime talks, nobody is connected to our building so it’s quiet, and of course the 10 minute walk to work and about 7 minute walk to the Smith Building for Lance. Our new Stake President said it was not okay to stay in our current ward so Lance could finish out his 2nd counselor bishopric calling, so we’re sad to leave the Bishop and ward friends.

A few things we won’t miss from our old apartment: neighbor children, spiders/ cobwebs, yellow stained tub with mold underneath, hole in the closet with insulation coming out, zero water pressure in the shower, missing lights in the oven/stove/freezer/fridge, no overhead light in the living room, broken toilet hinge/ ruined walls in the downstairs bathroom, carpet so stained it’s embarrassing.

The good things were good and the bad things were really bad, I think our apartment could only get better from here!

BEST FRIENDS Lance and I are very blessed to each have two best friends. Of course we are each others best friends, but everyone needs different best friends also. It’s been a crazy best friend year to sum it up. Kari Green decided to go on a mission once she graduated. Lance and I were able to go with her as she took her endowment out in the Idaho Falls Temple, July 13. We then went for a “family” dinner to Texas Roadhouse, and said bye to her in the parking lot. It’ll be weird not having Kari around to text whenever something awesome happens and vice versa.

Green Family- Idaho Falls Temple

Megan Tidwell my other best friend and my cousin decided to join the military. She got deported shortly after finishing training and will be gone around a year and a half; she doesn’t have exact days or location yet. Megan will have Skype and I can email Kari, it’s just sad and a little lonely, but very exciting too! All the sudden my two sidekicks are gone.

Joe Tidwell, is my cousin and Lance’s best friend. Joe decided to move to Ecuador and work for his brother for 5 years. There goes one of Lance’s sidekicks. We thought it would be fun to throw Joe a surprise/graduation/going away/ see you in five years party. Joe is very loved and had lots of friends show up. We had a barbeque and everyone brought a hors d'oeuvre to share. The highlight was Joe standing on one end of the yard and everyone throwing water balloons at him, Lance's idea of course. We even had a little Joe Trivia which consisted of questions on Joe and the winners receiving stuffed bean bag animals.

"Running Around" costs $45 for an entrance fee

2011-06-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

Alex Kent is one of my favorite people and good friends in Rexburg. She is moving on with life and going to California so her husband can go to Grad school. I will totally miss her at work! Alex came over one night and picked out lots of cute fabrics so I could make her a bean bag to take as a goodbye present. I whipped it out in about a week; I was so excited to make it for them. I gave it to her at work on one of her last days.

Two years ago, I decided to prove to myself I could run a half marathon. Of course who wouldn't want to run the Teton Dam Marathon, where the shirts say "Dam "Marathon, and every mile marker says "Dam" Mile 1 etc. Well last year I dropped the ball and didn't run a half marathon and felt lame. So I actually decided to train and run one this summer. Anyone can run a half once, but running it twice means you really can do it. Of course that's my own personal opinion.

I woke up anxious and excited and started getting ready, Lance came in jumping up and down pumping me up with Pirates of the Caribbean on full blast. I blame it on being a music major, but I enjoy running to techno, classical and soundtracks, I know pretty unique. Lance made me a spinach smoothie which I barely drank out of nerves.

I started out running with my friend Donna who totally inspires me. She decided randomly to run 7 half marathons this summer, holy cow! We ran about 5 miles together and then I told her to go ahead, she was running a tad faster than I'm comfortable with for that many miles! Lance let me use his iPod and bought an armband and matching pink head phones to go with it. My iPod is a little messed up and my earphones were shot. I decided to wear the official shirt they give you when you register and my short shorts I bought for my first half marathon. We even bought a $3 watch from Wal mart so I could track myself. One day in the future I hope to have a Garmin GPS Heart Rate Monitor, of course everything cool is expensive, so one day!

Al, Bwest, Dawna- right after the race. Dawan has the cool GPS HR monitor.

I ran the first 10 miles in 2 hours! The race started at 7:30 am and I looked down near "Dam" mile 10 and saw it was 9:30am. Lance and I are a little out of control sometimes, Saturday was a day like this. He had volleyball games starting at 9 and going until 1 pm on campus. Before I took off he told me he'd be back around 10 am and he hoped he didn't miss my finish. Looking at me watch and thinking I only had 3 miles left I figured he might miss it. Turns out the last three miles almost killed me off and took me 40 minutes to run. Volunteers were handing out water every few miles, I would take two in each hand and drain them. The corner before the finish there were about 10 elders cheering the runners on. In my mind I thought I am so glad I married a returned missionary and he's waiting for me. As I'm running to the finish my left calf, then right calf cramped up. Seriously this never has happened before, I felt like crawling to the finish. The announcer guy announced 353 Allison Johnson, that was the first time I've ever been announced as Allison Johnson at some big event. He said give us a smile Allison, I of course was just trying to make it to the finish line and grimaced, trying to smile. He laughed into the speaker and said maybe we shouldn't make them smile as they are finishing. Ha guess I looked pretty bad.

Still working on the smile obviously! Look Lance and I both look sporty with him in his Volleyball Jersey and me in my running shirt!

Lance caught me at the finish line just as my legs caved. He put the medal around my neck handed me an ice cold Gatorade, the last one at the store he later told me, and a beautiful pink rose. I felt so loved, I love Lance and being married. I think it would stink to run a half marathon without having someone awesome waiting for you.

After recovering for about half an hour, we drove to the Hart so Lance could finish playing his volleyball games. I cheered him on for 2 hours and then we both went home and collapsed. I was supposed to volunteer in the temple 1-5 that afternoon but was to tired.

We went to a celebratory dinner with Bwest(who ran the 10K), Gretchen (who ran the half) and Brad her husband. We ate at Buffalo Wildwings. There was a big fight on TV that night so the place was packed. Luckily just as all the TV's switched to watch it we were finishing up.

On Sunday Lance made me a chocolate twix ice cream cake and had our friends sing Happy 2nd Half Marathon to me, to the Happy Birthday tune. It was extremely embarrassing, Lance even had the Lindsay's bring two candles for me to blow out. The cake was delicious and a very rich!

Car time=1 day and 4 hours

2011-06-12T20:17:00.000-07:00

Most people would probably be turned off after Google mapping all their hopeful adventures and learning that the travel time would be 1 day and 4 hours. Not us! Well actually when we were planning it, the week before we almost talked ourselves out of it. We had printed everything off of Google maps; it's our GPS!

The week before we left I planned out a great menu and we had an expensive Winco shopping trip. Our plan was to only eat out twice in four days while traveling and camping. I had no idea how much work it was to camp that long for just two people! I pre cooked everything and put it all in throw away containers. Lance had this bad habit of eating our pre cooked meals the next day because "it looked so good!" That added a little extra work for me.

We purchased helmets and even a bike rack for our adventure. We brought our 'new to us' tent from Jeremiah, and free wood from Alicia Anderson. After stuffing the Camry and strapping the bikes on the bike rack, we were definitely low riders!

We rolled out about 4:15pm on Friday. I had gotten four talk tapes at the library, the first one was terrible in every way imaginable, the second one carried us to St. George. We got to Cody Ballantyne's house around 11:30pm. He pulled out a mattress for us to sleep on in the basement. He had about 5 guys sleeping in his room next to us. It was funny to be married and the only girl, I felt like I had been invited to a guy sleep over!

The next morning we left at 6:20 am eating muffins and watermelon on the way to the gas station, which turns out was out of gas! What the heck, it's memorial day weekend they can't be out of gas, we thought our cards were broken...

After finding gas we headed to the Grand Canyon. We stopped for more gas at Jacob Lake's, had a moment of hesitation on which road to take and charged ahead. Well about 45 minutes later we ended up on the North Rim. Whoops, our goal was the South Rim. We flipped a U turn pulled out the egg sandwiches and charged on four more hours. About this time the wind picked up and followed us to the canyon. Multiple times during the trip I kept opening lotion/ water bottles/ sunscreen and had it explode all over me! We laughed every time, I obviously didn't realize all the different altitudes we kept driving thru.

We rolled into the South Rim about 11:30am and were soo excited! We got out, and set out our tent at Mather Campground, about .2 miles from the edge of the canyon. We went for a bike ride and had our minds blown.

We cooked dinner- pita pizzas, turns out the pitas were moldy, so I ended up throwing up in the campfire pit. We ate the rest of our egg sandwiches, and took a nap.

We woke up and watched the sun set on the Grand Canyon and had a romantic walk, for 2 hours it was very peaceful and beautiful. We got back and Lance built his first campfire all by himself and we roasted s'mores (with caramel marshmallows) on sticks Lance had carved and put in the tent poles to hold.

We blew up most of our mattress in the bathroom with the hand dryer, and then Lance blew it up to full capacity. We got into our new tent for the night in the breezy weather. The tent was soo big with so much wind hitting it; it was bending in half over us. We staked it down different ways and managed to only have it smoother us when the gusts of wind were really bad. In the middle of the night I woke up to flames outside our tent, I woke Lance up he ran outside apparently the fire had started again because of the wind.

Next morning we showered, it was awesome I'd never felt so clean in my life! We went to one last overlook on our way out. We traveled to Tuba City for church, more like we blew there. Lance got out to fill up the car and was slammed against the car due to the 30-50 mph gusts of wind. Tuba City was a dust town with a church surrounded by a fence, surveillance cameras and no trespassing signs, obviously not the safest area.

We parked our car and went in for Sacrament Meeting. Apparently we were off a little, on guessing the time difference and a little late. Besides two other couples, we were surrounded by Indians, Navajo Indians! The counselor spoke in broken English mixed with a Navajo Language. The closing prayer was all in Navajo, it sounded crazy, but we had felt the spirit the whole meeting. The church is true wherever you go!

The next four hours were miserable. Two lanes highways surrounded by a dust storm, red dust storms. Multiple times while driving we couldn't see anything and kept driving straight. I prayed twice out loud, Lance was white nuckled driving, we listened to Jack Johnson to try to relax. What a nightmare! We finally got to Moab and were terribly burned out on the wind. We met Steve and Michelle White in Moab and they did a great job of talking us into staying the night. That was our original plan, but we didn't think we could handle the wind or another tent night. We drove out to dead horse point and watched the sunset.

Lance and Steve threw a couple rocks off and Michelle and I walked around like models with our hair blowing in the wind. We drove to the middle of nowhere it seemed, to Sand Flats Campground. There the White's emptied out there Montero Mitsubishi and let us sleep in it, we crashed so fast in bed. We slept with the hatch open until the wind got so bad, that Lance woke up and shut it, that's when I finally fell asleep.

The next morning we woke up and Lance made breakfast burritos. He dumped the grease out of the pan and the wind blew it back on him and landed all over his nice shoes, whoops. We hiked to the delicate arch, the famous one on all the Utah license plates and had a blast. Lance suggested we run the trail. Steve ran the whole way, I ran about 2/3 Lance and Michelle walked.

We ventured off the beaten path and crawled up to a high cool view. Everyone was fearless and very agile compared to me. :) I got stuck in a few places. We walked back out and called it a trip. Lance and I had an 8 hour drive ahead of us. Like I always say- We're just Living the Dream!

April Snow brought dead May Flowers

2011-06-02T09:19:00.000-07:00

One night in Paris April 15, 2011 When we were engaged we really wanted to stay in a themed room during our honeymoon. Well since it was filled with a cruise instead we decided we would stay in one for our anniversary.

The Hotel, can you see the sign?? Yeah neither could we

We made the big trip to Idaho Falls from Rexburg Friday night (about 25 minutes). We started off with eating out, something we had not done for a long time. We drove around in circles in downtown I.F. missing the little sign stating Destination Inn. Checking in they gave us a box of European chocolates and a spa set. Lance had surprised me and bought a package.

My Chocolates Lance surprised me with

Side note, the Fall before I met Lance I was planning on going on a European Religious study abroad trip during the Winter semester and then go work at Disney World during the Summer semester. I worked really hard and saved my money. I felt I shouldn’t make the $500 deposit to go to Europe but I wanted to go soo bad I didn’t listen to that prompting. So in November I went in and talked to the teacher over the trip and said I couldn’t go. I didn’t know why but I couldn’t go, and I lost the $500 un- returnable deposit. Walking out of the building crying, I walked by a tree and seriously a ton of snow fell off at that moment and covered me.

We walked into our room with mood lighting and soft music playing. Sparkling apple cider and cheesecake awaited us with a note saying, “Congratulations on your 1St anniversary Allison and Lance.” The room was awesome. The ceiling was a painted sky, there was an Eiffel tower shower, and huge jetted tub. There was a projector screen with satellite TV, it blew our minds as we’re not used to having any TV.
The next morning they brought us breakfast in bed which consisted of juice, hot chocolate, pastries and parfaits. We decided to go to the Idaho Falls Temple to do sealings; it made us think about our wedding and what we had covenanted to do. Next we went to the BODIES exhibit. I had wanted to go for along time so I was very excited. It blew our minds, we learned so much about our bodies. I thought it would be a little eerie or creepy but it was the opposite. It was so amazing to see the design of bodies; Heavenly Father truly designed everything to work around each other. There was a baby room with different stages of development in pregnancy. It was sad to think that all those babies were other people’s lost babies, but what a miracle life really is. It was fun to see the tiny hands and to see how they really grow to look like babies instead of weird little blobs.

We went shopping at TJ Maxx were we each picked out a new shirt. Lance even let me walk thru a craft fair in Idaho Falls. Karina is a friend of mine from high school who I hadn’t seen for years. We met up with her and Daniel her husband at Texas Roadhouse to finish the day. It was so much fun to catch up; Lance can truly talk to anyone, put them at ease and enjoy himself. What a great trait! We drove home (30 minutes) and hauled our loot in and feel asleep for the night. We were very glad we didn’t venture out very far so the drive was short, but it felt like we had gone outside of Idaho it was awesome.

Cooking Spree! Lance made homemade tortillas, croissants, rolls, orange rolls and marshmallow cinnamon popovers all in one night. He’s the best baker in our home!

When my last name was Higley, it was cool to find your name anywhere. It's a little different with Johnson, but hey we found our name on this sign!

Our friends the Dastrups, threw the best Cinco De Mayo party we'd ever been to. Lance dressed up as a Mexican cowboy and we attacked the ugliest dog piñata in all of Rexburg.

After a long fun filled Saturday, we met my parents and Amy at the Burnt Lemon in Jerome, Lance got this awesome hamburger.

At work Lindsay, Lauri, Alicia and I threw a Baby Shower for 4 people in our office. Alex- boy, Britt- boy, Travis-boy and Kasey- girl. The theme was ALOHA which means hello and goodbye, because Britt and Alex were leaving. My mom donated all these awesome decorations!

New Happy Dresser
We had this sad looking dresser we got for free. I searched online until I found exactly what I wanted. (It only took like a month!) Before -weird brown color- then Yellow

Finished Product! I really hate how sand paper feels so Lance started this drawer and made it look awesome.

I put the handles, on we're missing two, that's what happens when you get things second hand. When I find the perfect handles I'll put them on. I was so pleased with how it turned out!

Bishopric Calling April 10, 2011 One morning Lance woke up thinking “I’m going to be called to be the counselor.” He brushed it off saying no that can’t be no one’s moving, not knowing that a counselor in our ward was leaving the next week. He then had thoughts about not being good enough. That morning in Ward Council they announced that the counselor would be leaving. Lance came home relieved that the bishop hadn’t called him aside. The month before when we went to the Alfie Boe concert we were sitting very near the Stake President. The bishop had also called to see how long we were going to be in the ward. Lance said he couldn’t stop thinking about seeing the Stake President.

I pointed out that if he was going to be called it wouldn’t be the bishop who talked to him but someone in the Stake Presidency and they would call to set up an interview. That night we went to our friends’ house for dinner, upon arriving home Lance had a missed call from the Stake secretary. Sure enough he had an interview with a Stake Presidency member that week. We went on Tuesday and ended up waiting 45 minutes, we were dying from the anticipation. Eventually it was our turn and Lance was extended the call by Bro Kip Harris. My parents ended up coming down when Lance was sustained and set apart. It was really neat and made it feel more special than just the two of us like normal.

Wedding Cake For our anniversary my mom gave us our wedding cake. Well, to begin with my mom’s friend who made the cake said she could only do a fake cake. So she made us a separate part which we cut into and ended up eating right after our honeymoon. We didn’t want to wait a year.  Anyways so my mom had us take our big 3 layer Styrofoam/ fondant cake to our little counter lacking kitchen. We had many ideas, shooting it with guns, dropping it off our balcony.. of course it was always raining or our friends with guns weren’t available. One night we were inspired to use it as part of our FHE activity. Lance painstakingly chipped the cake off the glass stand with a razor blade which took about 15 minutes. Then we went out to the dirt by our parking lot, set the cake on the opposite end, 6 of us lined up and threw Bocce balls at it until it was no more. Everyone loved the game! Upon picking up the pieces there were huge corsage pins sticking all through it with lots of glue. No wonder she couldn’t do a real cake; we would’ve died!

Graduation Kari Green, my best friend for as long as I can remember graduated with her Bachelor in Biology with Honors from ISU. Of course we had to go be supportive. It was a little long 2.5 hours, but we were sitting with her family and were texting her so it kept things entertaining. Jakob Dylan from the Wallflowers performed. We thought this was hysterical, because we had attended a Wallflowers’ concert when Lance worked at Overstock.com and were so not that impressed! Every song ended the same….

After graduation we took lots of picture and I even worked up the courage to ring this huge random bell. Of course no one else in the whole Holt Arena did it except for me which I thought was weird that nobody else had any desire to! Luckily I had worn the bright orange color of the college on accident so maybe I looked legit, minus my burning red face. Lance and I made her this awesome Monster Cake, we got the idea from Albertsons. It turned out so cute!

Kari opened her call after graduation. New York Rochester Mission- Hill Cumorah Visitor’s Center, leaves July 26 or something close. We’re so excited for her! She called me and told me how her family talked about how great a guy Lance is, and how happy they are I married him, for the last week since we hung out with them. Lance is a great guy and I love that he likes my friends too, because I like his friends.

New Bike The past few weeks I have been riding my beach cruiser to work. The Kimball, the building I work in, is on a slight hill. I put leggings on under my skirt and try to zoom up the hill. Well, I end up going about walking pace and panting a ton. I have had my bike for about year and wanted to upgrade eventually to a bike with gears. Lance and I started looking at bikes last week. We put my bike on Craig’s List and sold it 14 hours later! I was so excited $40 for my bike Lance spray painted for me last summer. It was a little sad to see it go. The same day we put the $40 toward my new bike. It’s pink and has full suspension, which I definitely need for all those curbs I bounce off! I’m not much of a daredevil so I don’t really need it, but it’s fun to have. We always left my bike outside and never locked it up. Lance’s bike we always brought inside at night and locked it up wherever we rode. My bike’s cool now so I got a pink lock and it comes inside at night now. Our whole apartment smells like new rubber tires, it’s a weird smell to walk into! I’m so happy about my new bike, I’ve never gotten to pink a brand new bike before and bring it home. It’s a little scary to figure out how to ride with gears but it is so cute and fun I’m learning it quickly!

Schedules Life is always busy and packed with fun. I’m taking a water aerobics class which is MWF 630-730 am. I fall out of bed, jump on my bike ride to campus, workout with 12 ladies with white hair and 1 girl my age, jump in the shower and run to be to work at 8am. The whole thing is a workout in itself! The class is actually pretty hard core, I have water weights I bought for my ankles, so I’m official now. Lance brings me a smoothie and fruit to work around 830 for breakfast. Something I carried over from the cleanse is smoothies every day, they are healthy and invigorating to me.

Tuesday night I teach piano to Brynn a girl who just turned 12, I think we’re going on year 2 of piano with me as the teacher. Wednesday night I have harp ensemble from 545-8. I’m trying to re- remember how to play the harp, it’s so fun! Sister Pack is the teacher and always brings us fruit snacks and granola bars for a snack. This is really nice, because the girl next to me does early morning custodial, and I have water aerobic that morning, and we’re dead about an hour into it.

I volunteered to work in the temple, what an experience! I work every other Saturday 1-5 with a RM named Jessica Cassinet, in the clothing issue room. So anyone who needs to rent clothes talks to us. Let’s just say if they fired volunteers we’d be the first to go. We were trained for about 10 minutes on the cash register and credit card machine and left on our own; both of us were brand new. We had to have the supervisor come void a few transactions. Every time the cash register drawer flew open it would hit us in the gut and we’d fall over laughing because it surprised/took us out EVERYTIME. Picture this for 5 hours… lots of laughs quietly of course.

Lance is working very hard in all his computer classes. He loves his Networking and Web Page Development classes. Programming is really hard on him. He is auditing a class to help, has a tutor and is meeting with his group. He is very good at befriending the teachers and friends in the classes to have questions answered.
Every once in a while he has a church meeting during the week, but for the most part they are really good about doing everything on Sunday. He’s gone from about 10-530 every Sunday. I get to see him at church from 1-4 so it’s all good.

Lance is also playing competitive volleyball this semester. He practices Tuesday/Thursday from 6-730 and has games on Saturdays. I’ve never watched guys volleyball so it’s fun for me, especially because I check out the tallest, hottest player the whole time. We were talking about how he always gets put on the worse teams and it’s totally true. Poor guys, they held their own but almost got slaughtered. Lance has his hands up the whole time ready to block the ball.

They of course don’t make clothes long enough for Lance at this school. Under his BYUI clothes he wears a big grey shirt. XXL means square not long here, you can only imagine how he looks in it. He got his volleyball outfit and put it on for me, I laughed out loud. It looks like he is wearing my shorts, a belly shirt with a popped collar with his stomach showing about 3 inches or 7 inches if he moves. He ditched the shorts, wears his own, and bought a long white shirt to go under his tight short one. Gotta love the height, and I do!

One Year Anniversary

2011-04-17T20:32:00.000-07:00


This about sums up our whole relationship, Lance's idea. Thanks Lucinda for catching the truth in photography!

We are so excited we’ve been married a year. We absolutely love it! We thought it would be a good idea to write down “Our Story” while the details are fresh. Here is our Love story narrated by me, with red narration by Lance.

In October 2009, Lance had just returned from his mission and was living in California. I was dating the Music Major King of the Snow building in Rexburg.

January found me very bitter and single and not wanting to date. My cousin Joe—seeing my patheticness—offered to set me up with one of his roommates. That night this cute, skinny guy with curly, blonde hair named Cody Ballantyne picked me up. We climbed into the backseat of Joe’s tiny car where we were squished next to a guy named Lance who had his date Ingrid sitting on his lap. There was no more room in the car!!! I of course assumed they were boyfriend/girlfriend and wrote him off in my mind.

We went to their friend Cody Hunter’s house in Rigby and played different games and had dessert. Cody and I were the champions of the pool table, so everyone challenged us; it was the best date I’d been on for a long time! Ingrid basically couldn’t stop sitting on Lance (this is false), which kind of grossed me out. Allison was flirting with me the whole night and I thought she was really cute. I thought my date was cute but not my type.

That night I was texting Cody thanking him for an awesome date. Joe, my cousin started texting me. He asked what I thought of Lance, I told him, I didn’t really care about Lance, he wasn’t that cute, but I’d go out with Cody again. She later admits that she thought I was TOTALLY cute but thought I had a girlfriend!! Turns out Lance was texting me on Joe’s phone … haha whoops!

Saturday lots of people were going to Green Canyon Hot Springs. I’m not sure whose party it was. My friend invited me, so I invited 15 other people and I told Joe to MAKE SURE Allison was invited, I ended up inviting this boy named Peter, who tried multiple times to date me but he was too much of a friend, and his cute roommate Jake..

Basically I was the only girl with all these cute, tall guys. We got in the water and the Music Major King (my Ex-Boyfriend) was flirting it up. I had a relapse and hated boys all over again. Cody was bouncing everywhere so I started talking to Lance; he made me laugh and promised to go beat the crap out of the kid who hurt me. Come on me? I wouldn’t hurt a fly! I followed Lance around, and Peter and Jake followed me around. I knew Allison was following me at the hot springs, so I would purposely switch pools just to wait for her to get there and then switch again. Jake got up the courage to ask me out and I let Lance drive my car home with my new date in it. I never let boys drive my car; he was just so cute and kind. Right where I wanted her—I knew she thought I was cute on the date. We sang songs very loudly the whole way home, another thing I don’t do with boys I don’t know.

I LOVED his handle bars!

We texted and flirted for a week. Yeah actually it was the worst two weeks of my life! She was sarcastic and would purposely avoid my calls even though she wanted to talk to me! I am best friends with her cousin, so I talked to his sister (who was Allison’s best friend) to see if she made any hint to liking me. Allison would go out with other boys and do whatever she wanted and she would never tell me—sometimes she would just not pick up the phone! It drove me CRAZY! One day she went ice fishing and she was supposed to call me when she got done. Well, nine hours went by and it was 10 o’ clock at night! We had plans to hang out, but she never called me so I was frustrated. I called her as I was in the Hart building watching a basketball game. She only lived a two minute walk from where I was. She acted like nothing was wrong, and I decided it was my turn to get back at her!

So she said “Yeah, we just got back. It was really fun! Are you gonna come over now?”

Here was my chance. “No, I think I’m good.”

“What?” she said. “You’re right next to my house. I thought you were going to come over?”

At this time in the conversation I was already on my way to her house, I just thought I would give her a taste of her own medicine.

“No I was, but I think I’m good now. Just watching the game.”

“Oh OK,” she said, and I knew she was mad hahaha.

I was at my FHE brother’s house and as soon as I hung up the phone around 10 other people she yelled, “THIS IS WHY I DON’T DATE!! UUUHH!!!”

I walked very slowly to her house and called her about two minutes later and said “Still wanna hang out? ‘Cuz I’m here,” haha that taught her not to mess with me! So needless to say it was like this for two weeks before we finally cut the sarcasm and started dating! He then came over and decided that we couldn’t just be friends, we needed to date. I was so not about to do that again, so I said “Oh, well it was fun to be your friend, ttyl.” That night he came back and decided we could just be friends. See what I mean, two weeks I had to put up with this! We went to a park in the snow and he carried me on his shoulders to the swings. That’s when I decided that maybe I could actually date this kid. Yeah it wasn’t the awesome guitar playing, or ditching my whole date with other people to drive her around oooooooor showing her my big muscles by carrying her on my shoulders.

Camping Trip, Lance gave me his white sweatshirt, I slept with it every night and obviously shrunk it.

This is what I consider our first official date, Allison considers this our first official date. So I had planned a fun night to have two other couples over at my house and we were going to make chocolate chip cookies and drink hot chocolate play games and watch movies. However Allison had a terrible night at work. I worked with two guys, they basically ganged up on me at work and told me how rude I was, that I was a player and no one deserved me. Of course I cried and after the event walked home sadly not wanting to ruin/ go on a date with someone I actually liked. I ignored Lance, I figured if he never heard from me maybe he’d forget our date. My roommate Kristen made me text him at least. And so she texted me and said she wasn’t going to be able to come on the date. Well I wasn’t having any of that in my relationship so I called her and said sorry I’m coming to get you right now. So I got in the car and drove over there I guess her roommates talked her into coming or something but she walked out in sweats and it looked like she had been crying. Okay, so I looked good at work all dressed up, came home put on huge sweats that fell off my body and a tight shirt so I’d feel skinny. Lance showed up, I said I didn’t feel like putting shoes on or changing, so he picked me up and carried me down three flights of stairs, while I was holding my sweats on! Basically they kept sliding down all night and my shirt kept rolling up, it was awesome! She got in the car and we started driving back to my house ( I remind you this was my roommates car) and I realized that she didn’t want to go on the date AT ALL so instead of driving to my house I just kept going and drove right passed. We started driving to the date and I couldn’t handle it. He said oh well, we just won’t go; I was so impressed he would care about me. I was so embarrassed to have to face all these people I didn’t know and look like crap too! I had NO IDEA he was the one HOSTING the date at his apartment. She was surprised but relieved I’m guessing and we drove around for a couple of hours. The people who were waiting for us kept calling me and I said we weren’t going to make it. We talked about life and I tried to make her feel the best that I could. As we were driving in the middle of nowhere, he quoted something he remembered President Hinckley saying about happiness. I totally started crying, another thing I normally don’t do on dates or usually in front of people. It was relaxing and fun, at least from my point of view and to end the whole night we went and got some ice cream afterward. I took her home and we called it good! It was a lot of fun. The best part about the entire night was, Allison found out later I was the one who planned the date for everyone, and the two other guys were at my house with their dates. The two guys and girls didn’t know anyone else in our apartment! Haha so they played games made cookies and watched movies in a totally random house! Hahahahahaha Our first official date we went out to eat at Wingers. I let him drive my car because it turned out he didn’t have one (expounding my resources :D). On the way home the song was playing- If you like it then you should’ve put a ring on it. Randomly I said, hey let’s go ring shopping, it’d be hilarious. Ha that freaked us both out a little, then we laughed it off. As soon as she said that I thought she was a freak, I almost decided never to talk to her when the date was done, I quickly got over it.

We realized we had matching coats, apparently I weigh to much!

We started dating, he was so cute! I’d go watch his games, he’d come to my recitals, we both felt very out of place at each other’s events. I freaking HATED walking into the Music Building! I would see her ex-boyfriend EVERYWHERE and kids would be doing weird things to each other… Something about musical instruments I dunno. Luckily Allison was a normal type of person pursuing a not normal kind of person major. He lived at the Ridge, I lived at Carriage House, opposite sides of campus with only one car. He worked at Little Caesars at the bottom of campus and I was an usher working on campus, I let him borrow my car all the time to go to work and would pick him up. Like I said hooked from the beginning. :D

He was so tall and so thoughtful he made me laugh all the time. This took place before we started dating. There was a group of people at our house and we started playing guitar but of course I was playing with the intent to woo her. One night he tried serenading me with a love song he had written right off his mission. I started laughing, I could not believe the cheesiness of the whole situation. My friend Jana, hit me, saying I was such a brat, she loved the song. It was a little to cliché for me- boy meets girl- boy play guitar for girl- girl falls for boy- yeah that was to typical! Point proven, love song worked hahahaha.

He always had the best date ideas!

Valentine’s day was so cute, I went over to his apartment and he made me breakfast and sang a song he wrote for me. It was really special. The next weekend we had his dream date- flying kites. If you ever see me don’t bring this up, every time I hear this I wish I could go back in my life and erase it. I still feel bad. Well, it’s super windy in Rexburg and in February there is still lots of ice and snow with freezing temperatures but we flew kites. It was a blast; we had several other friends flying them with us. That night I had to go to work, as we were walking back to the car, he asked me how I felt about our relationship and if we needed to change anything. I instantly felt sick, basically I drove him home, he dumped me, and I sat in the parking lot and cried hysterically for about 20 minutes before I was able to drive away.

Flying kites in sweaters! We were crazy. The day I got dumped.

We sent each other pathetic texts asking how each other were doing and if we could be friends. Joe- my cousin- Lance’s BF- was our mutual friend. Joe came over and let me cry while he hugged me, he referred me to a scripture and said it would be okay. That night my room roommate Katie Johnson dumped her fiancé because it wasn’t right, and my other roommate got dumped. It was a depressing apartment. I walked around like a zombie for a week, everyone thought I had been the engaged one, because Katie was happy and relieved at her decision and I was a mess. I again went into the practice rooms to practice organ and would cry for an hour instead of practicing. I was alone, no one could hear me or would bug me for my allotted hour. My mom came down for the weekend to take care of me. We invited Joe and his roommates (Lance) to go get cookie monsters at Craigos. I ended up sitting next to Lance- awkward! My mom gave us both teddy bears saying, love/ hate the teddy bear it’ll be okay, but don’t let the bears touch. Worst 2 weeks of my life, I didn’t cry like she did but I went for walks everyday trying to clear my mind of her so I could do my homework… Do you understand? I went for WALKS EVERYDAY IN BELOW 0 WEATHER WITH NO JACKET TO CLEAR MY MIND… So stupid! Hahahaha.

Same day we broke up, I was looking for a bridesmaid dress.

The next week I decided I was going to date the world and all those boys I had ignored since meeting Lance. I had a date every night that week; I was pathetic all day and would get cute at night. Wednesday Lance randomly showed up at my apartment. He sat on the couch for an hour in the middle of the day showing me all these pictures of us together and how much fun it was. He then got up and left.

I was going crazy, what the heck was he doing?! As he was walking down the stairs (I lived on the 3rd floor) I ran out and yelled I HATE YOU! He of course turned around and looked really confused. We met on the middle of the stairs we were so close we could’ve kissed. I asked him why he came, he said he was wondering if he could give this another chance, he walked away saying he was unsure, this time I let him go. Yeah what she didn’t say is that I purposely got that close so she would try/want to kiss me because I KNEW she was miserable. So I put in pain at that time to see if she was really as pathetic as me. And yes when we were talking there on the steps she got upset and said “uuuuh! WHY DID YOU EVEN COME HERE IF YOU DON’T LIKE ME! Again she fell into my trap.

Thursday night I was on a date with a kid who I actually liked, we went out to eat and had a fun night planned. I got a voice mail from Lance; I excused myself and went to the bathroom to hear it. It said Hi my name is Lance and I was wondering if we could be friends.. Again what the heck does that mean?! I felt sick, tried to eat and told my date we’d have to end after dinner because I had something due I had forgotten about. Master of the house.

I ran up the stairs and called Lance, I was so mad he had screwed up my date and my heart. He said he had a dream he wanted to share with me. After hearing the dream I mocked it and still didn’t get it. (I told her my dream, I was walking on the side of the road, it was the perfect day, sunny bright blue skies and I was out for a walk with my girlfriend! (In case you didn’t notice those are the kind of days when I feel like I’m in Heaven literally I wrote a song about them because I like them so much.) We kept walking towards the grocery store when a Mexican couple(I was recently off my mission so Mexicans were my Pride and Joy) crossed over the street and the short round little Mexican lady yelled to me, “why don’t you just date her again?!” I don’t know why, but my heart was pounding, I immediately awoke got on my knees and asked God if this was what was supposed to happen. I promised myself that if I were to date her it would only lead to marriage so it better be right. With the overwhelming confirmation of “DO IT!” that’s when I called Allison. So I told her my amazing experience and she laughed at me. I was so mad I almost hung up the phone. I can’t really remember what changed my mind but I think she just apologized really really good a lot of times or something) Apparently he could date me again.

I started crying in the bathroom and wasn’t sure what to do. I started to fast and pray, I went over and saw him Friday morning, cuddled with him (CUDDLED!!) and left again without an answer. I fasted all day Friday and prayed all through my classes. Hahaha apparently the only learning done was the subject about Lance. During work that night I called my mom she said that it would be okay to date him again even if he dumped me. I was too worried what everyone would think if that happened. I prayed really hard that if I dated him again he wouldn’t dump me again. As soon as I decided if he dumped me again I would be okay, I realized I needed to date him. I sent him a text saying “Okay, let’s date.” I showed up at a b-ball event all dressed up from work and sat there and held his hand. Everyone was very confused, including us. In the picture below you can see Lance's cold sore, it was so gross and nasty, the night we got back together it started to go down.

The night we got back together! Playing sardines in the Ricks Building bathroom.

Things got better- we dated more. In July we realized we loved each other. That night I told him it was okay to say what he was thinking. We were both too scared to verbalize it. He said “Do we,” I said YES, then he said I love you. I freaking hated being the first one to say it. It felt so funny to me to say that because I didn’t know how I could love someone after six months. I was so excited I hugged him and kept smiling. 5 minutes later he was like so are you going to say it to me or what? Aww that was hard but I said it and we loved each other.

Dance Night

The whole time we were dating I wanted to get my answer reaffirmed that I was supposed to marry him. One morning I prayed that Lance would prove his love to me. I know, a little extreme, but I needed to know. I dropped him off at 11 pm at night and drove home. I felt terrible inside: he hadn’t done anything wrong, but he hadn’t proved it to me. I sat on the couch and started crying. Minutes later, there was a knock on the door. I screamed, “It’s Lance,” I was so scared to open it. I opened the door to a panting Lance. He had run from the Ridge all the way across the temple road, down the hill to my Nauvoo apartment on the third floor. He was wearing slippers and sweats. He said he didn’t know why, but he felt like I needed him now and that he had to run there. His roommate offered him his car but he said no. The cutest part is he sang a song by Metrostation “I’d swim the ocean for you, whoo oowowo Allison,” the whole way up the hill to keep him going. Now I listen to that song and it has sweet memories. After explaining to him why he had to run over to my house, he asked me that I not pray for things so strongly.

One of our favorite most embarrassing things to do together.

I wanted to get married in December. Yeah heck no, that was never happening in my mind. He said we needed to date a year. He was in Utah and I was in Idaho, so we saw each other every weekend. We looked at rings online and decided on April, right after I graduated.

Lance, on day 89 my heart belongs to you, Love Allison

He had the ring for two months and broke the box looking at it so often. It was just really pretty .… I knew he’d propose to me in California in a special park, so I waited until after Christmas to see my ring again. Yeah what she didn’t say is that EVERY WEEKEND SHE WOULD ASK ME WHEN I WAS GOING TO PROPOSE! Geez! Cut me some slack girl! Let me plan it out how I KNOW IT WILL BE GOOD! Instead of just on some grass by the Rexburg temple!

December 28th we woke up and went to Lance’s favorite park. He was silent the whole drive. We got out of the car and grabbed a blanket and his guitar. I was thinking, this is it! I searched for a ring box but didn’t see one anywhere. I noticed a piece of paper folded hanging out of his back pocket. Sneaky, sneaky.

We went on a 20 minute hike in silence. He asked why I wasn’t talking. I replied that he wasn’t saying ANYTHING. Ironically, the place he envisioned was green and had water, in real life it was muddy, brown dirt. Hahaha see? Exactly how I planned it. Better than random green grass by the temple …. We sat down on the blanket, and he started serenading me with songs. He sang three I recognized, it was killing me. He finally started a new one. It was so cute, he started singing “ I have just one question ….” Pause, the longest pause ever ... then he kept going! This happened three more times, and I thought I was going to go crazy with all the suspense! Finally, he paused again and said “Oh crap,” stopped playing, and pulled my ring out from the inside of the guitar. His original plan was to “accidentally” drop the pick in the guitar and pull out the ring, but he was playing with Todd’s guitar which had holes in the top instead of the usual hole in the middle of the guitar.

He pulled out the ring; it was taped in with black electrical tape. Lance ripped off the tape, got down on one knee, (he was towering over me it was very intimidating!) and proposed. I said “Heck ya!!” and we were engaged! We then spent the next ten minutes trying to scrape the black off my shiny new ring ….

Julian, hours after being engaged!

We went home and showed his mom and borrowed the car for the day. Our first stop was the family diner in Ramona called Boll Weevil. It sounded too close to weevils for me, but the shake we got was awesome. Our “song” was made known to us, Uncle Kracker –Smile. We heard it about five times that day, so we deemed it ours! Julian, CA is a touristy little place known for apple pie, so we wandered around being giddy in love, freezing in the windy weather, and eating some very expensive apple pie.

24 hours later, at the beach loving life!

Another Snowy Week in April

2011-04-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I have the strongest desire to create something beautiful but am unsure of where to start. I don't like junk or things taking up space so I try to really think about what I sew before I do it. I've been noticing that everywhere has really amazing pillows. I decided to start there. Lance bought me a glue gun! It changed my life, I didn't realize you could burn yourself roughly 35 times and still want to use one. The first two pillows I sewed and they were a breeze. The rosette took me out. The online blog didn't warn me about the peeling fingers, burning glue and 4 hours of time it wasted. None the less I am very pleased with how they turned out.

Lance worked so hard to be a good student this semester, I am so proud of him! He took 12 credits and so far has earned 2 B's and 1 A. We're still waiting for the other grades. This is how he looks every night. I think he looks really cute with his glasses on. This particular night I smoked out the entire apartment a few times, he got up shut the fire alarm off, opened the door and kept studying. What a trooper! I kept apologizing but he was fine with the whole thing. Probably because it kept me occupied running around opening doors and windows so he could study without interruptions!

Britt from work was telling me about these amazing nothingbundt cakes. They are all the rage in Nevada and some other places I've learned. I checked them out online and decided that my mom needed one for her birthday. So several hours later, I smoked the whole house out, made a huge mess, dirtied several items, about 4 towels, and made this yummy cake! Lemon cinnamon swirl with cream cheese frosting.

Of course I've never had a real nothingbundt cake, but mine tasted great and my mom loved it. That's good enough for me!

Blessings came from heaven to us. 5 gallons of milk?! What more could you possibly want. My friend Jessica Tinsley, was moving and gave us tons of groceries. We are very appreciative of ALL the food.

Yep, it snowed about every day this week.

The flakes were huge! Lance was very impressed.

We had a YAY finals are over appetizer party. With finals being over and a whole week of freedom most of our friends ditched Rexburg as quickly as possible. Of course the few who remained we made wear wax lips and photograph them. The appetizers were yummy that everyone brought to share.

Jake and Alex, I think Lance didn't want to look like the mirror twin image

There was artichoke dip, chocolate strawberries, twice baked potatoes, trifle, chips and dip. Yum.

Andrea and Justin, they claimed me as their child in this picture.

Lance is an amazing chef. I was upstairs sewing away and found him making onion rings from scratch. He made me my favorite burger which includes onion rings, patty and bbq sauce. Best surprise!

I love making things for other people. When I remember, I take pictures of them to inspire me to keep going! If this blog is going to be a journal it might as well be of our accomplishments and talents!

I made these placemats for Britt's birthday.

So Happy Together

2011-03-24T07:00:00.001-07:00

Lance and I are very different people. We are learning how nicely we complement each other and are having a lot of fun trying!

We love to work out together. Of course we don’t really work out together how most people would. Lance plays basketball in the new BYUI center. They have an elevated running track above all 16 courts. I run around the top and watch Lance. We both watch each other the whole time while enjoying doing our own favorite sports. He hates running and I have no desire to play basketball so it works out great!

March 18 Lance had his last JV and Varsity games on Friday. We ran home after work and school and came back at 5:30pm so he could be there early to pump up his team. They played really hard, they love Lance as a coach, he is so funny and doesn’t get to up tight. Anyways we left at exactly 7; luckily Lance was already dressed up, and walked over to the Barrus Concert Hall. We had tickets to listen to Alfie Boe, Britain’s number one singer and the new Jean Valjean lead in Les Miserables. Lance left his team’s last game with 9 minutes to go. It was a really big deal, but he did it and we’re so glad he did.

Alfie Boe was a fun performer whose voice rang out in the concert hall. It was a very intimate group. We could have listened to him all night; his voice was really amazing and very soothing. His final song was “Bring Him Home”, Lance’s favorite song.

After a very musically stimulating concert, we ran back and Lance was able to help finish coaching the last 10 minutes of the varsity game. How fun! Basketball, mixed with a great concert, back to basketball. Life doesn’t get any better than supporting each other in what we love.

March 19 I’m training for a half marathon. I ran one two years ago and didn’t really train. I decided to train this year and I feel so much better about the whole thing! Saturdays I love running outside. It’s like a reward to myself for running on the indoor track/ treadmills all week. Yes, it’s usually freezing outside and I run/ jump over lots of snow, but hey I get to run outside for my long runs!

The girls I usually go running with weren’t able to go until later in the day, and I wanted to go sooner. Lance volunteered to go with me on his bike. He even downloaded this cool app on his blackberry that tracked calories, distance, mph and average speed. It was so fun! We started off our run/bike ride in a slightly windy over cast morning. By the time we passed the Sugar City cemetery, a common running landmark, we’d gone about 5 miles. We were running past open fields filled with snow, the wind picked up and just about took us out. I was running soo slow, Lance was struggling on his bike. The wind took our breath and slapped us in the face the whole time, it was really rough. We made it 6.5 miles and Lance offered to get the car. I figured either way one of us had to go home so we might as well go home together so I could run my 8 miles. Our noses were dripping and we were dead tired when we finally made it home. The wind was exhausting, but I ran 8.1 miles and Lance was there the whole way supporting me on his bike!

The rest of the day was what Lance called his “dream day”. He found March Madness showing live online. He made us some lunch and we laid on our bed all day. Lance was so excited to watch basketball, I was excited to relax and read my book. As you can imagine it was not a very productive day, but it was another dream date day. I half watched bball and read my book all day. Lance watched bball and heard some of my book. We were together doing our own thing and really happy about it.

Moccasins
I think it all started with sleeping in a yurt, we decided that we definitely had to attend the workshop on campus to make these awesome mocassins. Lance made the lounger ones, I made the hunter ones, not ironic at all! A few needles and some pliers later... Lance finished his moccasins. I took several weeks but finished mine too. It was funny we thought we'd go, follow the pattern and come home with two awesome moccasins. It was a lot more detailed then that! FYI if you ever make them, just know that you probably won't leave with one finished moccasin.


That wknd Lance diligently finished one!

Size 16 the finished product, the teacher said he'd never seen such big moccasins!

A Good Samaritan
Lance and I have a negative example of this. It affected us so greatly, I thought we should write it down so we remember it and always do better.

Friday night we were overwhelmed with running home grabbing dinner and going back to basketball and a concert all night. I knew if Lance didn’t eat he wouldn’t make it through the concert and I wouldn’t make it through 2 basketball games. Lance ended up writing a paper on this experience so, I’ll just use it.

I would like to share a story that happened to me recently about how I didn’t do a good job of making my influence known and how I learned from it. On Friday night I got off work at 5 pm. I had to coach a basketball game at 6 so naturally I had to be there a half hour early to get everyone pumped up to play. When my wife and I arrived at home we changed and decided we were going to get something to eat before the game. There is a new place in town that we heard makes good sandwiches for really cheap so we went there. We walked in and saw a man he looked a little sad and looking around at his newly opened store there were only 2 other people there. Everything looked kind of disorganized and it just didn’t look like it was doing very well. However my wife ordered her sandwich and it was literally a SANDWHICH like a homemade sandwich. There was nothing wrong with that just not what we were expecting. Then he took a while to make it. So I was really stressed out because I needed to get to my game we just bought a sandwich we could have made at home and I felt weird being in there.

As we walked out I started to feel terrible. For the next 6 hours I could not stop thinking about that man and how inconsiderate I had been. My wife and I both felt the same and it didn’t ever go away. Finally at 12:00 am we were going to bed and we both starting crying from anguish of not starting up the conversation or even SMILING at the man. He looked sad, he looked defeated and we did NOTHING to make him feel better. After getting chastised by the Almighty for 6 hours we finally decided we are going to go back and get two large sandwiches, and start up a conversation while smiling at the guy. In fact we are evening going to try to do that to ANY person we see who looks like they need a smile or laugh in their life.

We might not be spreading the gospel but hopefully by our happiness people will ask why were are so happy and we can tell them because we have the truth. Or maybe we can just keep smiling and keep being who we are so as to spread a little more cheerfulness and love to everyone else in the world that needs it and seeks it.

Exciting Upgrades in the Johnson Home

2011-03-09T15:41:00.000-08:00

Obviously off the cleanse, cake donuts were the first thing made

Lance got so excited, he didn't realize how good homemade donuts can be!

A TV Story    Back in March 2010 Lance and I were happily engaged. One day I was watching him bowl on the Wii with his roommate Jamison. Jamison had this awesome huge TV and also owned the Wii. Lance was swinging forward to bowl and hit my knee which knocked the controller from his hand into the TV. It smacked really loud and the right side of the TV appeared with a large spiral crack. Jamison being such a nice guy, wasn’t to mad about it. We of course offered to replace it, Lance looked it up, TV’s like this were a couple thousand. That was going to destroy all of our savings that we had together. Lance took it to two different shops to get it repaired and spent about $150. One person said they could take the screen out and replace it; turns out this particular TV wouldn’t let him do that so he just ended up making the spiral grow. Side note- Of course, we are great at wearing the Wii wrist bands now and are huge promoters of them, so don’t be nervous to invite us to play!

Jamison found a new used TV with a minor problem he thought he could fix and gave us the old cracked TV. Awesome! Starting off we couldn’t believe we had such a great TV. Blonde moment… When we first moved in we actually had TV channels. Lance watched it a couple times. When I went to watch it, I couldn’t get anything but static. Lance fiddled with it and decided our cable was bad. We emailed the managers… turns out you have to buy TV and what Lance was watching was the rest of the previous owner’s contract. Whoops!

About 5 months later, Tod and Lucille were driving through Rexburg and gave us a big tube TV they were getting rid of. We decided to store it for awhile since we had our big cracked TV. The next day I received a text from Jamison saying he couldn’t fix his new old TV and could he get the cracked one back. He came and took the cracked TV and dropped off the unfixable one. We stared at the big unfixable TV for about a week and thought about dropping it off the stadium, throwing it out the car driving 75 mph, shooting it, and kicking it. We ended up being reasonable and dropping it in our empty dumpster around midnight making it ring out for awhile and sounding really scary.

February 2011 In Utah, at Alan and Christy’s house, they offered us their huge TV! We hauled it home and Lance, with a little help from me, carried it up our spiral staircase. We gave our old TV to DI. The ironic part of this whole thing is that we hardly ever watch movies and we decided that we would be most productive and smart with money if we don’t invest in TV at this point. Thus ends the TV story.

CLEANSE Results     It is day 8. We have been eating vegetables, fruit, smoothies, and brown rice for a week now. It is so hard! We have self control, but holy cow everywhere; everyone is eating something yummier than us!

I’m not sure what day it is now. We can eat chicken and fish! We are on the tail end of the cleanse. We are feeling very healthy and have lots of energy. I feel like our immune systems have greatly benefited from all the oranges we keep eating. Lance has lost 16 pounds and I lost 7 pounds. We love that part of it!

Once there was a table…    Tables mean a lot to me. Don’t ask me why, maybe because we always ate family meals at the table, not the couch, or bar, the table. When we first got married we had no table. A week later Lance surprised me and bought a black card table with 4 black folding chairs! I loved them but still wanted a real table. That’s when I got the idea to redo the seat cushions. July 2010 the chairs become covered in bright green and blue fabric. It was very perky and fun!

The first table Lance brought home to surprise me, when we didn't have one.

Since then I have been watching for cheap real tables. I wanted one soo bad, but I realize there are more important things than owning a real wooden table. Well last week I was cooking up a storm and placed a very hot cookie sheet on one hot pad on our table. Normally this works great, but this particular cookie sheet was warped so it burned opposite holes in my card table. I realized too late and just about grabbed it without hot pads, but Lance was one step ahead of me, grabbed it and started laughing. I just about cried; I had ruined my beautiful black card table. About this point I realize from an outside source named Lance that I place to much love on worldly possessions. Whoops.

I was telling my friend Kasey at work about the white foam you can now see in my ruined table. Jessica who also works in the back room heard my pathetic blonde story. She is moving and offered me her beautiful wood table with four wooden chairs for $15. I got permission from Lance to buy it, I was sooo excited. He went and picked it up with Dana and brought it home. It was like Christmas and my birthday when I saw the table in my kitchen. It looked better and was cuter than I ever imagined!

CA to ID
We finally made the change, after driving around with his new plates in the back of his car since August... Lance put his new Idaho plates on.
It was a very big deal. The CA plate is now hanging above our doorway.

Spiritually and Physically Enriching our Bodies

2011-02-23T09:00:00.000-08:00

Ogden, Utah Temple- I was super excited about the fountain being on.

Temple Tour

When Lance and I were dating we decided one day we would go thru all the Utah temples. We decided when we got married that we wanted to go to as many temples as we could and take a picture in front of them. We blew them up 8 x 11 and put them in random black frames so they would all match. There are about 4 temples hanging on our temple wall. This weekend we decided to go on a Temple Tour.
The plan was to start at 7:30am in Logan attend several temples in Utah ending with Provo. Friday night we spent the night at Grandma Green’s house in Chubback. We went to the Lava Hot Springs with Kari and Christy. That morning we woke up at 6 left by 6:30am and made it to Logan around 7:45am.

Logan, Utah Temple- Wow I look short!

        Lance had never been to the town before and we’d both never been to the temple so it was a great experience. We ended up doing sealings. The chandelier hung so low it brushed over the top of Lance’s head, the temple workers thought that was pretty crazy. We told them about our Temple Tour they got really excited for us.
       The next temple was Ogden. We planned on doing a quick ordinance but the wait was 45 minutes so we did sealings again. That temple is a big circle inside it was awesome. In both temples we visited the Celestial Room.
       We met up for lunch with Jeff and saw his new apartment in SLC. Time stopped for us. We parked our car underneath the Conference Center at 1:50 pm walked over to the temple, chatted with the front desk, changed and magically made it to the 2:00 pm session. We planned on waiting for the 3 pm one, and were so happy that we had made the 2:00 pm. That temple was awesome! I felt such an appreciation for the pioneers and all they accomplished.
       We got out around 4:15 and volunteered to babysit Alan and Kristi's kids so they could go out. We felt really good about that other than trying to make another temple. They have 3 kids who are very cute and fun to be around. Sunday night Ally had her 7th birthday party and we saw Dave and Jill. After that we went to Lindsay and Karl’s.
       Lance has GPS on his phone which we love, so we made it there pretty swiftly. Lucinda and the boys were there so it was fun to see them, then my Dad stopped by. James is so cute. I know I am probably biased being the Aunt, but seriously what a cute little boy. He is so tiny and snuggly. Lance held James and he fell asleep every time on his stomach. Both families fed and loved us; it was really fun to be with family.

James & Lance- so cute!

   We were able to return Lance’s new dress shoes, which were falling apart already and get brand new ones again! Men’s Warehouse is fixing both of his suit pants. They might have to replace the blue, blown out pair but they think they stopped carrying that color, so they are trying to fix it. We went to IKEA for the first time. It blew our minds! We didn’t realize there was a restaurant in there. We fell in love with the $200 soft, fur rugs. One day when we’re rich we’ll let ourselves buy one!
       We were sitting at IN N OUT waiting for our food order, when this nice looking gentleman stepped in line. Lance said his stomach flipped and he said that’s an apostle. I couldn’t stop staring at him, I was drawn to him. Lance said I think that’s Elder Christofferson. I looked at his jacket and sure enough it said Christofferson Family Reunion. Lance worked up his courage and went and talked to him. I came over and met him too. I honestly looked down to make sure the clothes I was wearing were modest. Of course, it would’ve been too late, it’s winter and I don’t tend to dress immodest, but I looked anyways! He was using a gift certificate from his aunt. He asked us how long we’d been married and where we were from. We loved it; we met an apostle of the Lord, how neat! We were on fire for the next 2 hours, and couldn’t stop smiling.

The Cleanse

       Lance and I decided we needed to do a cleanse. Matt and Lisa, Lance’s sister and brother in law have done it several times and love it. I don’t believe in “fad diets”, I took the health classes and aerobic classes and learned all about being healthy. When I heard about the cleanse it felt good. :) Purifying your body through fruits and vegetables for 3 weeks to help flush the processed foods and toxins sounded awesome. I think this idea started on our Honeymoon Cruise. You could do wraps and get your body fat tested and all these crazy things. Of course we were sold on all of them but didn’t have the money to do it.

       We started the cleanse February 22. I think pure excitement might carry us through for the first week. Lance told me it was two weeks, we got the package and it’s actually three weeks. I almost quit before I started. Day 2 is going well, we feel healthy and still excited. If we feel tired, or weak, or any other random thing, we blame it on the “poisonous toxins” leaving our body. It makes us laugh, we’re really mature.

       We’re going to do before and after shots just to be motivating. We did an initial weigh-in just to see the difference.
       Oh PS, if you ever read our blog and there are no pictures, or pictures without words, it's because we are in the process of posting them. Lance posts the pictures, I post the words. :)

Love February- lotta snow, lotta love, lotta fun

2011-02-16T17:32:00.000-08:00

Look closely you can see the inch thick ice on the inside of the window in our apartment, brrr!

Valentine’s Day February 12, 2011

Sweetheart Dance, almost..

I really enjoy Valentine’s Day it’s just an excuse to wear red/pink and be happy that you have a family to love you or someone to love you. Of course as a single bitter girl it was a great Single Awareness Day that never ended! Luckily I made it past that stage. I love the color pink and I love flowers that smell good (for my wedding bouquet, I picked the flowers by what smelled good and were pink) so another day to appreciate those two things is perfect!

Lance and I started a tradition of making goldenrod eggs for Valentine’s breakfast; it is our 3rd year doing it. We got all dressed up to go to the Sweetheart Dance on campus on Saturday, only to find out that Lance got the dates wrong and it was really Friday. Oops, we went to Dairy Queen and came home and watched YOU AGAIN. A movie I got for Vday. Amy was visiting for the weekend so she joined in on the fun and didn’t laugh at us when we came home so soon from the dance.

We looked great- it was hilarious that we didn't actually get to dance!

Sunday we invited the Caseys, Hermansons, and Cody with a GF over for a ham dinner. Thanks to my mom for providing us a huge beautiful ham! We set the table all fancy in red, cloth napkins, goblets, rose petals etc... It turned out to be a great meal. We laughed and told stories for about two hours, Lance and I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. Since all those guys had been roommates prior to getting married they had a lot of crazy adventures that seem to never get old hearing about. It was a blast, we love our friends!

Valentine's Party Dinner

Apartment #9
Since we really do live here now and it is almost fixed completely here are some pictures.


Our kitchen, to the left is the backdoor that leads to the community laundry room and the parking lot.

Our big beautiful windows with our Valentine's sash and heart pictures turning in the corner- to the right of the couch.


Our living room with the temple wall- kitchen to the left.

Spiral staircase- half the reason we moved in here, I put bows on it for Valentine's Day.

What's a yurt? Who camps in the Winter time?!

Sometimes I get really random ideas in my head that I really want to do. I came across a BYUI Activity that read overnight snowshoeing and camping in a yurt. I told Lance about it and he decided it would be a great idea. We signed up and both had to get work off early as the van was leaving at 3:30pm on Friday.

The most snowshoes I'd ever seen!

I learned some fun things- apparently blondes and /or married couples don’t go on trips like this. Out of 9 girls I was the only blonde, out of 12 people we were the only ones married, and minus the girl who was 26 everyone else ranged from 18-20 and were brunette.

They ran out of girl snowshoes so I had really long ones

We rode in a van to Badger Creek, a school owned area near Tetonia, Idaho. We got out and snow shoed in about a mile on a groomed trail. Some of it was uphill making it slightly challenging. We ended up next to two yurts.

The first yurt, we were grateful we didn't have to sleep in it!

Morning Sunrise by the "Lower Hilton"

The group outside the yurt in the morning

One was a functioning covered structure the other only wood and in the works. We saw our breath the whole time we were in the yurt. There was a wood stove that we left open to heat it up faster. Luckily you can open the top of the yurt, to avoid lack of oxygen due to tons of smoke! There was a nice wooden floor, stacked wood, the blue chairs from church with arm rests and some shelves in the yurt. It was so crazy! The outhouse was about 200 feet away on an un-groomed trail. It was labeled “Lower Hilton”.

That night we played games to stay warm. In the game, “never have I ever”- some things included, been married, worn size 16 shoes, been over 6’5’’… obviously they were very creative! We had chili and hot dogs for dinner which was great and omelets for breakfast both meals included hot chocolate. We totally guzzled that, it kept us warm. For dessert we had smores, seemed appropriate for camping. We ended up going to bed around 9:30 pm, everyone just laid down. It was body to body; luckily I got to be next to Lance. We slept in our snow pants, gloves, coat, and hat. Lance and I had “little hotties” that my mom gave us last year for Christmas. We stuck one in each sock and each hand- that kept us pretty warm. Next time we will definitely bring a sleeping mat, the floor was so hard.

Lance and his little friend "flying" they totally won the game!

That night the student in charge slept thru the fire going out 3 different times. Luckily the advisor over the student was on top of things and started the fire every time it went out. She had brought her 5 year old who bonded with Lance. They played Ninja Destruction together and Lance had him flying all over the place. At night he came up to Lance with his I touch and they watched Aviatar together, it was really cute.

The students we were with, I can't remember anyone's names, whoops!

The next morning as we were all laying there Lance announced that he had drooled and his drool had frozen to the floor from the side of his mouth. I was a little grossed out but everyone else thought it was hilarious.

Freezing cold mummies

Inside the yurt

Hiking out, we went straight down a hill with tons of powder. Lance had a sled behind him carrying some supplies and it kept dragging him down the hill. He finally decided to sit on it and ride down, which didn’t really work either, he kept getting stuck! One girl thought Lance was so cute she threw a huge armful of snow at his face that ended up down his shirt. She of course ran off afterwards missing his annoyed face.

This is what we slept in, I think we were both high off smoke and hot cocoa at this point.

On our way out there was a sledding hill with a rope tow. Our sleds were too big for the rope tow, Lance ended up falling on one of the girls who was sledding down with him and folding her up like a taco. I don’t think she realized how big he was until he squished her on accident. Like a trooper he hiked to the top of the hill and tried sledding down with the girl, they went about 10 feet and stopped. Again the sleds weren’t that great for the hill.

I love this picture- who's pulling who??

We made it home took showers, ate pizza and slept for about 4 hours. What a great trip, we learned how to snow shoe, all about yurts, why we normally don’t camp outside in the snow, how great a sleeping pad probably is and that we can do any adventure together we put our minds to and have a lot of fun!

Pretty glad I married this great guy who would even go snow shoeing with me!

A Yurt is a portable, felt-covered, wood lattice-framed dwelling structure.

Lance Webpage
Lance’s Web Design class requires him to make a web site- here it is:

http://www.californiasons.info/

Lance’s BBall team he coaches- Thunder JV-is 2-1 in games so far. He is really fun to watch coach; he is constantly laughing and yelling at his team but in a funny way. In watching the coaches who get really mad and scream like crazy, I think Lance’s approach for his team is working out great!

Wearing his Christmas shirt from my mom!

Jeremy and Lance coaching a tough game

This was a tough game, the other team almost doubled their score

The girls at work are really nice, we all get along great. It was Kasey's birthday and she had been craving Red Robin. Since we all apparently love it, we decided to go out one night after work to Idaho Falls.

Britt (prego), Kasey (prego), Celeste- birthday dinner at Red Robin

Lindsay, Me, Alex (prego)- girls from work!

Life Full Speed Ahead

2011-01-28T06:55:00.000-08:00

Academy Apartment #9

Everyone has their own story about their first ghetto, miserable apartment. They usually end up laughing about it when they tell you how pathetic it was. Well, we have our own story now to share. Eventually I’m sure we’ll laugh.. Umm yeah it might be awhile!

1- Walk into a frozen house without heat or water Monday Jan. 3 about 11 pm. Found snow tracked all over house that we haven’t been in for 2 weeks, and got scared by the manager bending over in the kitchen.

2- Blessing- Spent the night at the De La Cerda’s home so we could go to work and school the next morning. All our bags were still obviously packed from vacation so we had everything ready to go. The same couple brought us over heaters to warm our house.

3- Took 2 days to get the heat working, eventually the water unthawed around Thursday and they flooded half the house.

4- Blessing- Since everything was still in boxes they just threw it all to the half of the house that wasn’t flooding.

5- Huge hole in the closet and downstairs bathroom; the oven was pulled out in the middle of the kitchen. The internet was broken and the washer/dryers weren’t working due to the frozen/flood pipes. The shower wasn’t working. Day 9.

6- Blessing- You can shower on campus in the locker rooms! We have great friends who let us shower multiple times in their home! I learned to blow dry my hair or it would freeze in the average 10 degree weather at nighttime.

7- The kitchen sink doesn’t drain; instead it floods the dishwasher which flows onto the floor. We haven’t been able to cook in our kitchen since we moved in. Jan3-26. Since the sink doesn’t work, we can’t wash dishes.

8- Blessing- A friend from work took all our dirty smelly molding pots/pans home and cleaned them for us, they were spotless! She even replaced a rusted muffin tin with one of hers and brought us a bag of disposable dishes, we were almost out . Another friend brought us dinner, multiple friends invited us over to eat, one let us cook dinner at their house, and some invited us to dinner at restaurants. Lance has taken over preparing breakfast and lunch.

9- The previous tenants left cobwebs and about an inch of dust of the fans, vents and throughout the whole house.

10- Blessing -I have a DYSON, enough said.

11- There were 8 burned out/ missing light bulbs in our apartment that probably has about 14 light bulbs total. There is no light fixture in our living room.

12- Blessing- A friend and sister let us borrow huge lamps to light our apartment. 3 weeks later we finally got light bulbs!

13- Thinking the house was empty, we’d been home for 15 minutes, I walked upstairs to change from work. Turns out the plumber was sitting in the closet…

14- Blessing- I had lots of layers on and have a great husband who’s good at making me feel better.

15- They poured tons of black acid down our kitchen sink and made it smell like burnt rubber and other toxic smells.

16- Blessing- we have great jobs, school, BBall and a gym so we were gone from 730am to about 730pm every day.

17- The shower started working with minimal (dinkiest amount in the whole world!) water pressure.

18- Blessing- Lance taught me how to hold the shower plug up for about a minute to get enough pressure to get it to come out. It only worked every other time for me so Lance did it.

19- The toilet was frozen solid and we were unable to use the water Mon-Friday.

20- Blessing- we live close to campus and were able to brush our teeth and wash our faces morning/night. Grocery stores have bathrooms, you can buy bottled jugs of water, and when you wake up in the middle of the night and have to go really bad and there’s a snow storm outside, you husband gets creative.

How does the story end? Well currently we have been living with a kitchen sink full of dirty water that doesn’t drain, so we can’t use the sink, water, or dishwasher. If we cook we dirty more dishes that we can’t wash. We still have a hole in our closet and the shower has minimal water coming out. It’s been about 25 days since we walked in to our apartment. We’re praying that this whole thing is wrapped up by February! So currently there is no Real ending.

Meanest Wife
I would of never considered myself to be a mean wife; however based off the following two experiences I think I would fit in the category momentarily!

Since our shower wasn’t working we showered on campus one night. Lance asked if he could rent shower shorts. They have started charging money for renting things on campus now, so I said no I think you’ll be okay. He was asking me if it was awkward for me and if I take everything off. Of course it’s a shower why wouldn’t I? I go shower in my nice individual stall with lots of hot water, water pressure and a nice curtain. We met up after in the hallway. He told how embarrassing it was to go shower with tons of guys and to not have shower shorts. That’s when it finally clicked; he didn’t have a nice little stall but a group shower! I felt so bad and like the meanest wife in the world. If he had told me not to get shower shorts and that was my situation I totally would have gotten them anyways! Luckily some of the other guys didn’t have any either, so he wasn’t the only one mooning the world. Aww definitely the meanest wife in the world on that night!

A few days later Lance was working delivering heavy packages around campus. He was dressed up in his nice suit slacks, white shirt, and wool dress coat; we were going to the temple as soon as we got off work. He was bending down to set some really big boxes on the floor and had the thought I hope my pants don’t rip…. Of course ripppppppp they totally ripped! Not just any rip, we’re talking from his belt loop all the way down his thigh to the back of his knee. He backed up against the wall and tied his jacket around his waist. He then called me to ask what he should do. Trying not to laugh I realized it was 4:15 pm he only had 45 minutes left of work. I asked him if he was okay with sticking it out or wanted to run home, he said it was fine. He came to visit me about 15 minutes later and showed me the rip. If it was me I would have definitely gone home or asked him to go get me pants. Laughing out loud I realized what a mean wife I was again.

The funny thing was at the temple that night he rented some white socks and ripped a hole from the heel to his ankle. The whole time we were doing Sealings, he’d show me his sock and I’d just start laughing all over again. I didn’t realize how strong my husband was! He was ripping clothes off his body right and left. :D

New Semester New Job New Coach
Lance started school again this Winter semester. He currently is pursuing a degree in CIT (Computer Information Technology) with a minor in Business. All he has left to take are a few general classes, and all his major and minor classes. This is not the most balanced work load, but he is working hard and determined to get good grades this semester. The good thing is he loves learning about the computer so he is enjoying most of his classes.

Lance is blessed to be able to get jobs all over Rexburg, most people, including myself, aren’t that lucky. We decided that Sears was a little scary to work at during the Winter, not being in the safest truck delivering, and it would be easier if he had a campus job to work around his schedule better. He now works at the BYUI Delivery Center. He drives a van all over campus delivering packages. He even delivers them to my office so I get to see him doing work, it’s the best!

Lance loves playing Bball. This semester he decided to be a coach, it was a really hard decision for him but already he is doing great! He is the assistant coach to his friend Jeremy Sant. Lance is in charge of the THUNDER JV players. I go work out during his practices and normally meet up with Jeremy’s wife Bethany. We end up watching the end of them. He loves helping them with their shooting and always compliments them. Lance told me he doesn’t like it when they call him “Coach” he’d rather be on a first name basis, I told him it was a compliment.

Christmas Miracle, Snowless Christmas, Feliz Navidad Mexico

2011-01-13T20:11:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas Miracle

The night before Christmas Eve I got off work at 5 pm as usual. I was so excited to go home, it was the night before we flew to California. We had arranged to possibly spend the night at our friends' house Alex and Jake, because our house was all packed up and they were turning off the heat and power the next day. They were out of town and gave us the keys to their apartment. I got home and found Lance getting sick. Our apartment was so overwhelming we decided to get out. We used some coupons for dinner and went to our friends' apartment. Lance ended up laying on the couch and watching sports, I took a needed hot bath and feel asleep on the couch not feeling the greatest either. We woke up a few hours later and decided to go home to move our possessions into our new apartment. 1st Christmas Gift- the kindness of Alex and Jake for letting us use their apartment to relax in.

As we started moving our boxes over Lance was getting really worn out and started panting really hard. After several minutes he sat on the couch very delirious. It was up to me to move as much as I could. He fell asleep while I made trips back and forth between our apartments. After about half an hour he woke up and decided to call some friends to give him a blessing. 2nd Christmas Gift Realizing he couldn't help me, he called more friends to help us move. 45 minutes later Rob, Whitney, and Casey showed up. They gave Lance a blessing and Lance was able to start helping again. In the midst of this our neighbor decided to play in the snow with his bald tires and got his Explorer stuck. 3rd Christmas Gift Just then our friends Jen and Dana showed up with their nice truck. Dana had just gotten his tonsils out but wanted to come help. 4th Christmas Gift I ended driving the Explorer while they pushed then we hooked up the truck and got our neighbor out. I think that was only the second time I've ever talked to him since living there.

5th Christmas Gift All five of our friends worked for an 1hour and a half with no breaks, laughing and having a great time moving us. Lance and I were so grateful and overwhelmed by their help I think we both cried at different times. They even managed to get our mattresses over the tall balcony so Lance and I would have a warm new apartment to sleep in. That was our Christmas miracle. The love of our friends in the late hours of the night, right before Christmas, with no family to celebrate the holiday with, they truly reminded us what Christmas is about.

In Idaho we celebrate the season with white snow, here it's white wave caps

Ramona Christmas

We landed in Long Beach and of course my ears had freaked out on the plane ride over. I ended up not being able to pop my ear for 2 days, it was miserable. Jill and Dave picked us up at the airport and helped us meet up with Tod, Lucille, Suzette, and Jeff. Lance really wanted to go to this hamburger joint for dinner. It was the strangest Christmas Eve dinner I think any of us ever had, but was awesome! We ordered our food at the window, Lance's parents were to cold to eat outside so they sat in the car while the rest of us squeezed on a tiny bench to eat our food.

Christmas morning we woke up and opened a present from Lance's Aunt Saundra. She had finished making our wedding quilt that included all the bibs from our wedding luncheon. It was so special and thoughtful full of music fabric with the Twin Falls temple in the middle, the back side was even fuzzy for Lance which he loved.

Santa had brought us stockings with Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider, gift card to IN and OUT, and candy, we loved them. It made me laugh, you'd never get an IN and OUT card with a Christmas palm tree on the front in Idaho.

Christmas afternoon, obviously we just rolled out of bed.

We went for a walk to Dos Picos the park Lance proposed to me at around the same time last year. It was a lot greener and a lot more fun to be married this time!

Lance holding the ring. Last year he proposed in the middle of the lake, it wasn't there before!

Most of Lance's sibilings ended up at his home, we had lots of great food and it was fun to listen to everyone's stories. The present of the year were PillowPets. Every niece and nephew had them, it was really funny.

Lance playing catch with his nephews.

We went over to the Tidwell's and saw Grandma Tidwell. We had a slumber party, Lance slept with Joe and I slept with Megan. Megan and I had a blast talking allll night.

Good thing Lance brought his jacket for his freezing cold wife to wear.

Monday we went to the beach all day. It was pretty windy and a little chilly but when the Johnson's plan a day at the beach they go to the beach. Lance, Suzette and Alan surfed. Lance said he just ate a lot of waves but I had fun watching him. I've never been around a surfer boy that belonged to me. I was his biggest fan, watching him disappear behind all those waves waiting for him to surface again.

Making sure it fits, notice the wave poster in the corner hanging in his bedroom.

My California Surfer, with a small surfboard that kept sinking

I learned something- apparently you don't wear anything under wet suits. Umm kinda gross but hey whatever works.

Toast to Mexico with our Christmas Drinks

TORREON

Tuesday morning Lance's mom drove us to the San Diego Airport to catch our flight to Torreon which was our Christmas present to each other. We ended up in Houston, Texas with a couple hours of layover time. I thought Lance would die of anticipation, I realized I was slightly feeling the same way. We took a picture of the flight to prove to ourselves that we really were getting on it in a couple hours.

Upon sitting in the plane, they bust out the information in Spanish. That's about when it hit me what exactly I was doing. I made Lance translate everything for me in case I missed something, who knows maybe it's different when your on a Spanish flight! About 10 minutes later they repeated the whole thing in English, ha whoops, guess I could've waited. When we landed Lance starting re-living the last time he was at this airport waiting to go home. I didn't know him then, but you can bet I was praying that he would come find me and swoop me off my feet.

This was Lance trying not to show how excited he was in the airport.

We got off the plane and went thru customs, the employee working was speaking Spanish very quietly and rushed. Lance had a hard time understanding, that kind of scared me. It was customs, what if we did something wrong and were stuck there FOREVER?! Luckily we could see the very American looking mission president and his wife waving to us on the other side. I had a small taste of what it would be like to be a missionary who just stepped into the mission. AWWWWW!

This is where the missionaries sleep their first night, Lance always slept in the top bunk.

We spent the night in the mission home. The Clark's were very generous hosts. Every night we watched an episode of Castle together. We talked for several hours about the days events, and they fed us several yummy meals.

Some things I noticed in Mexico:

Nobody obeys any kind of traffic law, and nothing is really posted.
Traffic lights are sideways. The green light starts to blink right before it changes to yellow, then immediately turns to red, which has two red circles. Of course nobody really watched these except for me.
There are speed bumps everywhere! Going down the freeway about 90 kph whatever that is, they would slam on the breaks and gently go over the speed bumps. This averaged out to be about every 5 minutes.
The roads are very broken, so you obviously drive on the wrong side of the road and only get over to the right side inches before colliding with a car coming from the opposite direction.
Nice buses are the way to travel, they provide small lunches, a bathroom, and movies in Spanish! Of course if you don't understand Spanish it might take you a few minutes to realize where and how to flush the toilet.
Toilet paper is scented and is thrown in the trash can. Why flush it when you can trash it? Actually I think it has to do with a tradition of having poor water pressure.
No need to worry about leaving the toilet seat up when there's just not one! The first time I asked to use the bathroom at a members home, I wasn't sure what to do, I held on to the sides scared I'd fall in, and then forgot to NOT flush the toilet paper in my flustered state.
Everything is surrounded by gates and bars: windows, doors, houses etc. You tap on the gate with a coin and magically someone actually hears you steps out and lets you into their front yard.

Lance and I lived the posh life of sleeping in until about 9:45 am and getting on the road around 10:30 am. Our bodies were so confused with our third time change. The first day we took a taxi to one of Lance's areas. Lance knew exactly where to lead the driver. The taxi ended dropping us off at the beginning of a very dusty road that led to small looking shacks with graffiti, trash and wire fences surrounding everything. I was instantly humbled and we were both quite dusty, but this was Mexico and were Lance served for two years so I didn't say anything and followed him holding his hand very tightly.

The first house the members saw him and said Elder and got all excited. They invited us in and we ended up talking to them for several hours. They had recently gone through the temple and were sealed. They were so excited to share that with Lance. The family was sad I didn't speak spanish, but were so excited Lance had brought me with him.

Guadalupe and her daughter(her husband not pictured) Were sealed in August!

After that we went to his next area. Same idea but this time we almost died in the commute when the taxi driver cut off a bus and then slammed on his breaks not to hit the speed bump. About this time Lance leaned to me and said these cars are illegal in the states, they aren't safe enough. Awesome timing!

Lupe(goes for her endowment sometime this month) and her 2 children Antonio and Bania

Driving in the taxi to the next dirt road, Lance yelled something to the driver who stopped. The random guy walking by the taxi Lance knew. I was so suprised what are the odds. This guy brought us to other members houses were we talked to them. We ended up going to another family's house. The kids remembered Lance and let him in, we found their mom sick in bed but so excited to see us. Her daughter went and bought us pig skin chips and pop. I ended up feeding my pig skin chips to the scrawny looking cat with no meow. I couldn't handle eating anymore after one, Lance didn't seem to have a problem.

This family was sealed December 11 2010

Sister Manuela (I'm wearing the scarf she gave me around my neck)

We went back to the one house. The lady was so kind she made us quesadillas. She brought out a box of little handmade clay animals, and let me pick three out. She then proceeded to let me pick out a scarf that she had knit. I was so overwhelmed. I couldn't even speak her language but she was showering me with gifts because she loved Lance so much. Turns out they were having a ward party that night; so was the last place we visited. We hoped back in the car and went to the other ward party. Lance only knew one family. Back in the taxi we went to attend the next ward party. Everyone there seemed to know Lance they were so excited to see him and his wife.

They kept telling us we would have beautiful children. Two teenagers came up to me and asked if my hair was fake and if I wore contacts. I looked at them super confused and said to speak to my husband. He started laughing then translated for me. They asked if they could touch it, after some translation, I bent over and they touched my hair, the girls kept giggling and were so excited about it.

Lance thankfully asked a member to take us home, telling them I felt uncomfortable taking a taxi so late at night. We got back to the mission home about 11 pm.

The next morning we got on a bus and traveled for three hours. Lance got us a nice room for the night and we went off to visit.

Lance always went right to the houses with little hesitation it was amazing to me. He remembered everything; they all looked the same to me. One family remembered Lance but felt bad they hadn't been to church in several months.

The next family was the Stake President, he was such a happy guy. He even spoke some English to me when Lance went to the bathroom. The invited us to stay for dinner and we asked if we could have Arizona Pizza.

We left to go visit some more. We visited a single sister who seemed to be up on all the latest gossip. She had so much to share with Lance. I heard her chastise him several times for not bringing back any babies and a wife who couldn't speak spanish. :) As we were leaving she gave me some hair things and chocolates from her store; they have so little and gave so much.

Sister Toca and her daughter in law

We stopped by the bishop's house and they gave us the most amazing hot fruit punch. They invited us to go to a nativity village portraying the life of Christ later with them after dinner.

We went back to the Stake President's house for dinner. They have such a cute family. The littlest boy kept making mess after mess, and would try to clean it and made a bigger mess. His mom kept looking at me throwing her arms in the air, she was really sweet. We took turns telling how we met our spouses, they even laughed again when Lance translated it for me so I could feel included.

The Stake President and his family

They shared this story with us saying that it was the reason they have only fought once in their 15 years of marriage. There was a lady and her husband riding in a carriage and the wife's favorite horse was drawing the carriage. The horse wasn't obeying so the wife said uno, and he kept dinking off. She said dos, and he didn't obey. She said tres, and then shot the horse because he didn't obey. The husband was in shock and said something to his wife. She said uno....

At that point when Lance had finished translating it and I laughed they all started laughing again really loud.

In Mexico they put cold catsup on their pizza, I tried it, it wasn't that bad considering it was more tomatoes but it seemed weird. I also tried the hot sauce salsa that came with the pizza, that burned my mouth! Lance was downing it the whole time. No wonder he had stomach problems that week. :)

As we were finishing up the Bishop's family came knocking at the door. They had come to pick us up to take us to the nativity. Both families supplied us with coats and scarves. It was about 78 degrees everyday so we had light jackets. They told us how cold it was on the hill.

We drove through the city and saw tons of nativities all over. When we got to the big one it was amazing. Next to this huge town of Bethlehem was a beautiful lake in a park that was decked out with the most Christmas lights I've seen in my whole life. It rivaled temple square.

The Bishops wife and daughters

On the way home the bishop accidentally ran a red light. Right behind him were 6 police trucks loaded with army men in full uniform with masks over their mouths and huge machine guns. I was a little freaked out. They basically were annoyed that we were in the way and honked a few times. After the excitement they dropped us off at our hotel. We gave them back the coats but they told me the red scarf was mine to keep.

The next morning we got back on the bus and headed to the mission home. We ate at Carl's Junior. They have 10 different kinds of juice to choose from to drink it was awesome! That night was New Year's Eve, the mission president and his wife took us to this yummy restaurant. During the night I kept hearing big explosions. Some of them were fireworks, I opened the curtains to try to see one and the was a big boom. I fell to the bed thinking I'd been shot! Lance just laughed, but I refused to open the curtains after that. Apparently they shoot off cannons for the New Year.

President and Sister Clark at Los Farolitos

The next day we toured the city. Everything was closed down due to a party night the day before. We got up early with the President and several missionaries and went for a walk/run around a huge park. At the end of it we got smoothies/ milkshakes. They put them in a huge ziploc like bag, stick a straw in the top and tie a rubberband around it. It was crazy! We managed to find some earrings for me to remember the trip by. We even found the oldest house in Torreon, that someone famous lived in. There were big army guys guarding that who yelled at us to get off the property, I ran off the property, Lance nicely walked off. Of course I had no where to run to, we were in 4 lanes of crazy traffic and had just walked out of the grossest smelling market place. So I waited for Lance and we walked thru a rough looking part of town to find the city again.

That night we went and spent the rest of our pesos on some candy and cookies to take back. The next morning the Clarks took us to the airport. Later that day we were back in San Diego.

Our mexican breakfast! Pastries and Nutri Leche(milk) with Yogurt that was rotten

Mexico taught me a lot. I saw the love of people I couldn't even communicate with and how much they loved my husband and accepted me. They gave so much when they had so little. I was blessed to be able to understand most of what they were saying, due to my little bit of high school spanish and answered prayers. I love America, I feel so safe here and am so blessed to be surrounded by so many people of the same faith. I'm so grateful my husband was humble enough to serve for two years. It helps me understand him even better after seeing where he lived for two years.

Walking IN A Winter Rexburg Land

2010-12-22T08:14:00.000-08:00

FAMILY and Lauren- BYUI Center Dedication

Welcome to BYUI
To begin with I am so blessed to be working in the Student Record and Registration office. I started April 26, 2010. I would like to say that I broke my record of longest consecutive full time job which was four months. Go me! I’d like to remember some of the special gifts that come with being church employed so here it goes. It’s not supposed to be a brag list, but I am pretty excited about it all.

3 cards from different Administrative Offices in the Kimball where I work, including a special card from President and Sister Clark. All the cards had pictures of buildings on campus. I also received a card and a message from the First Presidency. It was in a box with an Articles of Faith book by James Talmage, leather bound with scripture pages. Ooh so neat! I studied the First Presidency’s signatures I think it’s so awesome. Of course if you ever went on a mission you probably had similar experiences with a mission call, I didn’t so I’m living it up now.

Black was the color for the Grad Banquet, good thing we all got the memo!

BYUI CenterWe have our own mini conference center. It was named the BYUI Center. In my office since we schedule that building, in our system Center is abbreviated to CTR, ironic. Today was the Dedication of it. President Erying, Bednar, Nelson and Johnson (70) all came for it. Brother Kerr my organ teacher was put in charge of ordering the organ for the BYUIC. It was fitting that he was able to play at the dedication. It was so beautiful; I think the center was 80% full, rough guess. We were seated in the 2nd huge cluster right in the middle, Lance and I sat with my office. Amy and my mom were to our right in another section.

The music made me cry, what’s new, but it was for so many different reasons. Just a few were thinking of the dreams that have been fulfilled of people from the past toward the school, how exhausted the musicians were (finals, graduation, cleaning, multiple huge concerts) and how beautifully they played. The spirit testified to me very strongly when President Erying got up to speak that President Monson is a true prophet who can receive very vivid revelations, and also that tithing is a very real thing that can proceed miracles based on faith. It made me reflect on the second coming and the volume and amounts of angels that will be singing praises with us and that the most beautiful music will be song and heard. Whoa, I’m making myself cry again, anyways it’s going to be amazing.

BLESSINGS
Since we’ve been married Lance and I love to feed people, friends, family, etc. We realized at the end of every semester (of course based off of our own experiences) a ton of food gets thrown away. Literally brand new bags of chicken breasts, sealed cans of soup and various condiments TRASHED. In the moment it’s such a hassle to clean everything out and redistribute it so of course it’s way easier to chuck it. Being married and being more aware of a budget than as single students, we realized the need to save the food from the trash! We ask all of our friends and friends’ roommates if they are sticking around, if not we then ask them to call us night or day when they are throwing everything away to invite us over to save the food! We have gotten three huge laundry baskets full of food, tons of blessings right there. So back to the beginning, we’ve learned that the more we give feeding people; the blessings are poured back out towards us. If anyone asks we call it our FOOD STORAGE.

Luckily someone else built it, we just got the cool picture..we found something taller than Lance!

Rexburg Tundra
When you live in a frozen wasteland people tend to get cool with snow.

On the corner of Broulims... Rexburg perks.

This is a Jamba Juice Santa, a guy in our ward carved it out. The giant snowman taller than my tall husband was found as I was walking home from school in a boy’s complex. Our eyes our pealed for fun things to appreciate this frozen wasteland.

No Jeremiah and I are NOT holding HANDS!

Graduation BYUI Center Amy graduated from the BYUI Center this last weekend. Jeremiah, Davis, Claire, Josiah and my parents came down to support her. I went into work at 7 that morning to prepare for graduation; my department at work is over graduation so we hand out the programs. It was fun to be in the center without anyone else being in there. It was very tiring running up and down the aisles and rows fixing programs.

After graduation we had a big lunch at our apartment. It was really fun sharing our apartment. Claire and Jeremiah and Davis slept at our apartment. They left then it was Amy and Claire. Claire bought us cleaning supplies and took us out for breakfast. When my mom was there she ooh and awed over everything and feed us several meals also. Claire taught me how to make Doug’s special recipe of alfredo and chocolate, chocolate chip banana bread. Obviously we were having so much fun we forgot to add 3 cups of sugar to our triple batch of bread. I think I was supposed to add it but she side tracked me, we tried the batter and realized our mistake, it was kind of funny.

Getting ready for Graduation to start after passing out programs

The other memorable thing would be lounge hopping with Claire and my mom. Let’s just saw when we came back to my apartment we were all laughing hysterically and Claire and I were playing the game of whoever put the clothes on first got to keep it. I think we were up until 1 am going crazy. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.
Lance and I will miss Amy, she became our third roommate and we had a lot of fun with her. Hopefully we can entice her to come visit us for cute boys here! My friend Jana graduated and Joe will be off track. Hmm, time to make some new friends so we don’t get sad our family friends are gone.

Amy Graduated! We're both 2010 Graduates of BYUI.

James exists now! Lindsay and Karl had their baby James Karl Young. He looks really cute in the pictures, we can't wait to see him in person.