Happy New Year!

(apparently Dustyn thought it would be fun to slobber on my cheek. :P)

Welcome 2010! Hoping for the best year yet!

T-15 hours until a Thanksgiving Celebration!

Is anyone else so excited for Thanksgiving?

I am!

Today I made Spinach Dip, Cranberry Sauce and a Red Velvet cake. Mmm...

Tomorrow I am making Roasted Carrots. Yum.

Can't wait.

Well things have been moving along here in the DK household.
I have been sick, sick for at least 2+ weeks. It has been terrible. I haven't felt like doing anything. At. All. I am finally starting to feel better today and I am hoping by tomorrow I will be closer to healthy. So not a fan of being sick.

I have been subbing quit a bit. I have been helping out at the Middle School. It's 6th grade math and I love it. Sadly, I don't think they will be needing me anymore so that is too bad. I really enjoyed being there with the students. I would love to go get my teaching degree and teach middle school or high school math. Maybe someday. Probably not. ha ha.

If you haven't heard, my awesome brother is engaged to the cutest girl ever. Katie. We love her.

So excited for them!

Last week they came over and made a Pre-Thanksgiving dinner for us (including deep fried turkey). It was yummy. Afterwards we went to New Moon. Loved it. My parents came with us too. Great night! (although i think my dad may disagree a little).

We laughed at the first picture, so we had to try for a second. :)

Oh my! Can I just tell you, I absolutely love Glee. Best show ever.

A few weeks ago we went to Logan for Zach and Danyl's Wedding. It was a great weekend! On the way home we stopped in Ogden and visited Dustyn's grandmother. She is so sweet and so sharp! She can remember everything. It's fun to visit her and hear her stories. I wish we lived closer to her so we could spend more time with her.

We also saw some pretty sweet clouds in Logan! This is one of the Walmarts there. At first glance I thought it was a mall. :)

Well I think that is all for today.
I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving.

What happens...

when my dad takes Barbie hunting...

Way too funny.

He's a professional.

My dad planted us some tomatoes!

They started looking really good today!
Can't wait!

Labor Day

Wow, what a weekend we had!

On Friday we got everything all ready and packed up and headed off to Fishlake. It was a perfect weekend. I don't think it could have been any better. (well maybe the noisy neighbors that kept us up all night.) Dustyn's mom, Myrna, came up and spend the weekend with us. The weather was perfect. Of course, once again, I did not take my camera, so no pictures. Sorry.

On Sunday night it started storming. The rain was coming down so hard. Our awesome tent kept us safe, dry and warm. But man, that lightening was close. It was a little scary. I don't think I have ever been in a tent when it has been raining so hard. But all was well in the morning.

On Monday we came home early and spent Labor Day doing just that. Laboring. We got a lot done in our yard though. We mowed down all the weeds (hopefully we will be putting in grass soon! YAY!) dug out an old stone path (to get ready to till it all under), and trimmed all of our trees in the front yard. If anyone has ever seen our yard, you know that was a major task. I was going to take pictures, but by the time I thought about it, we had most of it cleaned up. My dad came and helped and did a lot of cutting with his chain saw while Dustyn and I worked on the ground (well Dustyn was sawing a huge limb down by hand). It was a lot of work, but hopefully we will have a nice front yard soon to show for it. (if anyone knows where to get affordable sod, let us know!) We have a few loads to take to the dump today, then hopefully we can get it all tilled by the end of the week. I am so excited to hopefully have a yard soon!

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad

My amazing parent have been married 30 years today!!
Maybe when I get home I will post some older pictures. But I don't have any on my computer at the moment.




HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!

We're Home!

We are finally home. Okay . . . we got home late Sunday night. The conference was amazing and I am so thankful we were able to attend. I met so many wonderful people (I even met Carly on Saturday, she is too funny and super cute! Love her!). It was so great to go somewhere and hang out with other couples that all have something in common. Adoption. We have all felt the ache and experienced the miracle of adoption around us or in our own family. Although I have to say that listening to the birth mothers tell their experiences was my favorite part. I don't think I have ever felt my emotions so close to the surface. The spirit was so strong.

We now have so many ideas to promote our adoption and have a new found hope. It is so exciting.

After we left the conference on Saturday, we went to the Salt Lake Temple to do a session. Neither one of us have ever been there, so we wanted to make sure we made it to a session while we were up north. When we walked in the worker was talking to us and strongly encouraged us to go do sealings. I wasn't sure if I wanted to at first, since it was my first time in the temple and I really wanted to do a session. But it was so neat to do sealings again. It has been a few years since we have done them. It was neat to hear the promises and blessings of an eternal family. It just helped my testimony of Eternal families and of the sealing power of the priesthood. I know we will be with our adopted children as an eternal family, even as if they were of our own flesh and blood. What an amazing blessing. The Salt Lake Temple is beautiful and now I am wanting to go back up and go to a session as soon as possible!! :)

After the temple we went to the Cheesecake Factory. Yum. It was so good! They had cheesecake a few times at the conference and I was craving a "good" piece of cheesecake! And it was so worth it! So good!!!

We ended up staying at Dustyn's mom's house and going to church with her on Sunday. Dustyn's brother and sis-in-law gave really good talks in church. I was happy we were able to be there! After we got home, we went to my parents for the evening to tell them about our awesome experiences. We finally made it home Sunday evening. It felt good to be home.

Yesterday, Dustyn and I went to the school and started working on the yearbook for 12 hours!!! It was a long day, but we did get a lot done. Finally at 8:00PM we went with Jace, Chet and my parents out to dinner for their anniversary. Which brings me to my next post . . .

Guess who's birthday is was last Saturday?

My Dad

If you would like to know 100 things about my dad, you can visit my blog post from last year, HERE!

This year we were at Flaming Gorge to celebrate his birthday! We were hoping he'd catch a big fish for his birthday, but that just wasn't the case. Dang. One of these years we will get you a big Mac for your birthday!

I hope you had a good birthday dad! Love you!

And I can't forget my dad. He rocks too!

Last week we were having some electrical problems. We ended up having to change out the breaker box. (many thanks for that too!) In the process we had to cut down lots of limbs. We have huge trees in our backyard and the limbs were seriously interfering with the power lines. Anyways - my dad went and cut all the limbs out. I couldn't even help with my lame leg (this was the day after the cortisone shot when I thought I was going to die). So he did it all by himself. Nice, huh?

Camp Big Springs

Last Wednesday I decided to drive up to Provo and visit Dustyn at Camp Big Springs. The drive up was so beautiful. I took a few pictures through my windshield. (i know, how great could they be, huh?)

It was good to see Dustyn. I forgot how lonely and boring it gets at home alone. But I survived!

This is Camp Big Springs:

It is so pretty and green up there! I love it.

This is the kitchen tent/dining tent.

Here is a student coming down the zip line.

Here is Dustyn and Bill catching on the zip line.

I really should have got pictures of the skits and camp fire. Dustyn does a couple of skits that are hilarious. One of these years, I so need to get them on video. Such a silly husband I have.

He really enjoys going to camp. I miss him terribly when he is gone, but luckily they don't mind if I visit! So that is nice!

On Friday we drove back home. We got packed and ready and headed off to Fishlake. It was a fun weekend. Of course I gave Dustyn his Birthday present earlier, since he would be gone on his birthday. So here he is checkin' it out.

We spent all day (seriously all day) fishing in the boat. It was a blast. Love it. We trolled and trolled and trolled and caught . . . nothing.

Dustyn did however catch a couple of fish while we were anchored and fishing with spinners for a moment. Here is one . . .

Whoops. I mean here is one that he caught. (and caught again!)

By brother Jace is always entertaining. Such a goof ball, but we love him. He LOVES posing for my camera. And believe me, I have some awesome pictures of him. ;) Someday, someday I will share. Bwahaha. But seriously he is cool.

And of course, we can't forget my cool dad.

He likes to drive fast, but couldn't with all our fat butts in the boat. :P

We had so much fun camping and spending time with my family for Father's Day and Dustyn and my mom's birthday. My mom stayed at camp and read her book and cooked lots of good food. Chet was there too. He came fishing with us in the afternoon, but I didn't get a picture of him. I totally slacked off with taking pictures this weekend.

My grandparents even came up on Sunday and attended church at the Fishlake Branch and had dinner with us. I was sad to come home. But I know there will be more time for camping this summer! Yay! It was a beautiful WARM weekend! (Right now I am wishing I was up at Fishlake in the COOL air instead of sweating in my warm house.)

Sportsman Expo

Over the weekend we went to SLC to go to the Sportsman Expo.  My mom's elk was in the show.  It was a lot of fun and we saw a lot of cool things! Alan Jackson was in town as well.  So my dad bought us tickets to go to the show.  It was cool!  :) 

I know this is a really bad video, but it is off my cell phone. But this is how mom and dad viewed the sportsman show. It was pretty funny!

On Saturday night we were able to meet up with some friends and go to the Cheesecake Factory!  YUM!  I love that place!  But . . . it took FOREVER!  We had to wait over an hour to get in, then about another hour to get our food.  I think we were there for a good three hours.  It was fun, but I had a MAJOR migraine!  I couldn't handle all the loud noises and chaos!  Maybe that is why I was so irritable!  But I was quite annoyed at the whole situation.  We have been there quite a few times before this and everything went smooth.  But I guess it just wasn't our night!  But at least we ate good food! 

And of course, no pictures!!  I am slacking off when it comes to my camera!  Bad, I know!  But I forgot it in the car for most of the time.

Ice Fishing

On Saturday Dustyn, Dad, Chet and I went Ice Fishing. My dad's friend also came along. We went to Yuba Reservoir. Of course, dad still has a cast:

on his ankle, so Chet and Ron pulled him across the lake. Nice!
It was a COLD day. Luckily we had our Ice Fishing Tents. This is the part that makes Ice Fishing fun! We turn on the little heater and get nice and toasty and then just sit back and relax. The fishing was slow. I caught 2, Dustyn caught 2, Dad caught 2 and Chet caught 1. (if I remember correctly). They were all perch. It was a lot of fun. The tent that Dustyn and I were using was the same one that we were using last year. The smells of all the fish we caught and all the bait we used last year sat in there all summer. Lets just say, the smell was less than desirable. Blech. It kinda smelled like the poop pond. :p Yuck.

Of course Dustyn took a nap. I played around with my camera. Not much to photograph in a small Ice Fishing tent, but it was entertaining.

We came home, got warm, and took a nap! That evening we all went to Frontier Village to celebrate Chelle's birthday. It was fun! The twins are getting so big and are so cute. Dustyn and I get to babysit them next week for over night. I am pretty excited!

After we went to Grandma and Grandpa Dotson's for Hot Fudge Sundays and Banana Splits. They were yummy! :)

Happy Birthday Chelle!

Good 'ole Cedar City!

This afternoon we drove down to Cedar City. Dad was here having surgery on his ankle and is coming home tomorrow (well today since it is 12:40AM). We just came down for the night to visit. By the way, in case you were wondering... he is doing well. Just hanging out waiting to go home.

Anyways, we went to IHOP! I love IHOP and I have no idea why. But it's so good! :)
Here is Dustyn thinking about the YUMMY salad he's about to eat... too bad it wasn't yummy. Wrong choice!!
My silverware waiting patiently to be used!
I LOVE green Tabasco! Dustyn was joking with me wondering if I needed a straw because I just love it that much! YUM!
And my coke.

Of course, I had to take pictures to entertain myself! Surprising, I know!

Then we noticed my friend Toni driving on the freeway heading to Cedar City as well... so we finally got her attention (by calling her!) and decided to meet up at our friend Nicole's house. We were all friends in high school many, many years ago! Ha ha!

Toni (refusing to look anywhere near my camera!)

We played games and just hung out. It was loads of fun and good to see everyone again.

Here's Toni and Nicole playing Apples to Apples! Fun, fun!
Chip and Dustyn. Of course I was taking the photos... so no pictures of me. Sorry. I know you are all hurt and sad about that.

Nicole and Chip's son was being so cute. He was chewing on an orange! YUM! Cute kid!



It was a good day! Now we get to drive home tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will cooperate with us!