Spokane Trip 2010

Every summer, we do our best to try to make it out to Spokane. Its nice that it is a 12-hour drive and we really enjoy our 1-on-1 time with mom and dad Monson. Rather spontaneously, three days before we left, Steve asked if it would be okay to take our trip that week. We weren't entirely sure (due to Steve's work schedule) if we really would be able to go until about 5 hours before we left.

Some of our favorite 'on the road' pictures:


Joshua built himself a little tent by pulling everying onto his lap:

On the way to Spokane, Steve and I found the road that leads to eternal life, but we decided to pursue that another day.

Being there was so nice! We got there early Friday afternoon (June 11) after spending the night at the Baker's home in Pocatello, ID. We sat and talked with mom until dad came home from work and we got lots of Monson grandparent/Joshua time. It was so fun for me to see mom and dad getting down on their hands and knees and chasing Joshua around the living room.


We also had some good park time while we were there. On Saturday, after we all did our exercise, dad mowed the lawn and we all had lunch, we went to a nearby park to play games and enjoy one another's company. We played a good lawn game. It turns out that mom, dad and Steve are all really good at it, while Joshua's Ring Wraith-like screams proved to be good cheerleading.

We visited a few other parks during our visit including Manito and Riverfront. At Manito park, we enjoyed the Japanese gardens and Duncan Gardens. We were a little disappointed that the Rose Garden wasn't quite in bloom. We were about a week too late last year and about a week too early this year! Sooner or later, we'll catch those roses at the right time!

Here is a new thing Josh has been doing:

At Riverfront Park, we got to play on the giant wagon. I love the slide at the end. I also got to feed the metal trash-eating-goat that they have to encourage people not to litter. It really was quite entertaining.

Many afternoons and evenings, we spent playing games. Dad was very excited to get to try out some of his new extension packs that he had gotten. The popular game was called Ticket to Ride Europe. Now here is my disclaimer: I seriously lost most of the games we played and I kept asking for a rematch. When I say 'seriously lost', I'm not kidding: dad and Steve smoked me every time. On our very last time playing the game, I must have just drawn the right cards, because where a player would normally complete about 4-9 routes, I was able to complete 14! I was rather proud of myself and I couldn't stop grinning all night long.

While we were there, we also got Steve's parents hooked on the show Stargate SG1. (Disclaimer: the pilot episode has some nudity in it, in case anyone decides to take me up on this recommendation. After the pilot, its very clean. We, luckily, had the edited episode that we borrowed from the Gibbons'.)

Probably the best thing we did in Spokane with Steve's parents was to celebrate Joshua's 1st birthday! I have trouble believing that he is already a year old! He brings so much happiness to us and we are just thrilled to have him as a part of our family.

So mom went out to Baskin Robbins the afternoon that we celebrated Joshua's birthday and brought home an icecream cake. After taking pictures and blowing out the candle, we set the piece down in front of him. At first he looked at it, then got a tiny bit of it between his fingers and tasted it. Upon deciding that he liked it, he went face-down into the cake and began to devour it! We couldn't have been prouder of his reaction! He continued to plant his face into the cake until he decided that the ice cream portion was much to cold to be enjoyable. He started picking up chunks of it and tossing them aside. Unfortunately, one fell on his leg and he shrieked until I got it off with a paper towel.

It was messy and SO fun!

Clean-up of the 1st birthday cake was a piece of work and I'm not sure I was able to get all of the blue frosting out of mom's high chair, but I think Josh really loved the experience!

Our birthday boy!
We had such a wonderful trip! Thanks mom and dad for letting us come and stay!

Family traits

Nufer family: who does this remind you of?

Memorial Day Weekend

So, for the 3-day weekend, we decided to have a blast and just do some exploring as we drove to a few different destinations.

Destination #1: my former roommate, Nicole Heaton, was married in the St. George temple on Saturday May 29. On Friday, we drove down to stay with my cousin Sarah Jade and her husband Brandon. They were so nice to let us stay with them in Cedar City and then on top of that, she agreed to watch Joshua even though she was 10 days away from delivering a baby. She said it was good practice. So on Saturday morning, we drove the hour to the temple and were able to go do a session while Nicole was going through for the first time.

Immediately following the session, we went into the sealing room and were able to watch as she and Mike were sealed together. I was so grateful that we were able to be there and share in her joy!

Nicole and Mike

The St George Temple
This is a picture of three of us that were really close roommates. It was so nice to see Lindsay, since the last time I saw her was just a few days before she left on her mission to California.
After we went back to Cedar City to pick up Joshua, we drove out to the reception, which was Alton. Now, you've probably never heard of Alton because it has a population of 120, and I'm not kidding. It was teeny, but it was a gorgeous drive through the canyon that goes past Cedar Breaks. We really enjoyed the drive.

The reception was very beautiful and we were happy to have been able to talk with Mike and Nicole a little more before they move to Washington. I will definitely miss her!

The drive home that night was similarly beautiful. We took more of a scenic route home that joined up with the highway a little ways further north. It was fun to explore new areas and get to know the land a little bit better.

Destination #2: The following morning, we left our apartment (after getting home at 11:30pm) at 8am to get ourselves up to Idaho. We had received an invitation from the Baker family to hear Mark Baker II's homecoming talk in their sacrament meeting. (It was an excellent talk, by the way.) We got there right on time but then had to change Josh into his Sunday clothing before getting into the meeting.

One of our primary reasons for visiting was that Julie (my cousin with whom I get along the best) is staying in Pocatello for the summer (as versus Lincoln, Nebraska) and we wanted to make sure that we got a chance to visit her. We weren't expecting her husband to be there and we were very surprised and excited that we got to spend time with both of them. After a rousing game of Risk (well, no, I don't actually play), some excellent cookie-making and lots of talking, the day was over.

On Monday morning, because we didn't want to have to entertain ourselves for several hours before people woke up (since Joshua was up anyway) we decided to visit Rexburg, ID, home of BYU-Idaho. I can't say there was much to see, but we enjoyed seeing the temple there and seeing what the campus was like.

The drive home was also a bit of an adventure. Because I had heard so much about Logan, UT and had never seen it, Steve suggested we drive home by way of this city. It was also very beautiful and worth the trip.

One of our favorite parts of our trip was that we got to see 11 LDS temple just in a 3-day trip.
Utah temples: St George, Provo, Mt Timpanogos, Draper, Oquirrh Mountain, Jordan River, Salt Lake City, Bountiful and Logan.
Idaho Temples: Idaho Falls and Rexburg.

It was so neat to see such beautiful Houses of the Lord! I know that the temple work is important and I am grateful for the chance to more fully worship our Lord in His houses.

I hope you all had a great weekend! I look forward to reading the blog posts!

Its all fun and games until someone gets stuck

Joshua is definitely developing skills, but most of them include standing up against some kind of surface and being unable to get down. Once that occurs, he yells until we come to his aid. He sure is cute while its happening though!

Rachel's Run

Early this morning, (it was FREEZING today!) Camille and I were able to participate in Rachel's Run--a 5K or 1-mile walk with proceeds going towards fighting cancer. Rachel is a girl from Camille's ward and we wanted to do something to help out. We ended up doing the 1-mile walk (primarily because I'm not sure I can actually run a 5K, but also because Camille is pregnant--isn't she CUTE?!), and we were proud that only 5 runners beat us! :D
Steve and I have made workout schedules for ourselves so that we will be able to participate in the Onion Days 5K on Labor Day. I'm pretty excited! Steve's goal is to run it under 24 minutes, and mine is just to run it. I'll worry about times once I have actually worked myself up to running 3 miles. Wish us luck!

New experiences

I learned the name of a bird today. This pretty little thing was sitting in the tree right outside my apartment while I was working on my primary lesson for tomorrow. I thought it was probably one of the more beautiful birds that i had ever seen, but by the time I had the camera out, it had flown away. Isn't she pretty? Its called a Western Tanager, just FYI.

Parlez vous Fracais

With Steve's help, I have begun my French instruction. When my older brother Kevin got his mission call to Uruguay, I thought it was cool that he would get to learn another language. So, while he was gone for two years speaking Spanish, I thought I would try to learn a different language by the time he got home. I chose ASL and it was exciting for me.

Now that my little brother, Scott, is off on his mission in Brazil speaking Portuguese, I decided that I wanted to learn French. So, if Eric goes foreign-speaking, I guess I'll have to learn a 3rd foreign language!

DISNEYLAND!!!

As a graduation trip for both Steve and me (Steve will graduate in December), we took a trip to Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Thank you Shauna and Pat for taking care of Joshua while we were gone!

These pictures are in no particular order, just so you know
We used our maps so much, that they really started to fall apart.
This is California Adventure, which we actually went to each of the three days. We enjoyed the tall white roller coaster (California Screamin') and we entertained many people on the ride by making different faces for the camera each time we went through. We ended up buying our favorite, where we agreed the look as scared as possible. We still haven't stopped laughing about it. The ferris wheel was pretty cool. The middle contained gondolas that swung back and forth on their own track.
We posed with several characters including Sully from Monsters Inc., Jesse from ToyStory, Mickey Mouse, and Princesses Mulan, Belle and Tiana. Our wait to see the Princesses was by far our longest wait of the whole trip, and we seriously had people giving us strange looks because we didn't have a little girl with us.

This was my very first carousel ride. I promise I wasn't really scared...

We enjoyed a couple of water rides, but Steve forgot that the person in the front of Splash Mountain got the wettest. Although we didn't get a picture, can you guess who was in the front?

Classic Disney hats.

We loved the parades! They had some really fun dancing and all of the kids got so excited to see the Disney and Pixar characters that came through! They also had some pretty neat floats!
On our second day, after we had exhausted our feet the first day, we decided to try and see some shows. We got to see about 5 or 6 and all of them were spectacular! We had a great time!

One of the buildings had a class that, every half hour, you could learn to draw a different rough sketch of simpler Disney characters. The three we learned were Goofy, Winnie the Pooh, and Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Strong man in ToonTown

We enjoyed Muppets 3D, but I didn't particularly like the Bug's Life 3D. I was seriously freaking out. I took this picture for Karen.

Out in front

Legoland was fun. This is Darth Vader and behind Steve, you can see the legs to the giant giraffe

Yet another classic shot. I loved the princess themes and especially all of the Disney music that played throughout the park.

Dapper Dans--they entertained us almost as much as the Asian girls to the right who shrieked with laughter any time the song was specifically directed to them.

Favorite show: Aladdin--the genie was fabulous and the effects were awesome

Favorite ride: Natalie--Space Mountain

Steve--Toy Story Mania

We really did have a blast and it was so nice to come home and be with our baby boy again.

BYU Grad!

It has finally happened! I am officially a BYU graduate!

On Wednesday April 21, I took my last final and finished my formal schooling. I'm pleased to say that it only took me 8 minutes, and I'm fairly certain that I got an A on it! :D

Thursday was the huge Commencement walk. I got to walk with my brother Kevin and his wife, Kristen. We also found my cousin, Maggie Richards, and Kevin's friend and former roommate, Jeremy Alsup. It was fun to be able to walk with so many friends! There ended up being over 6100 graduates and we got to sit in the front row right behind the podium.

My parents were also excited to have gotten to celebrate Steve's graduation while they were here. We found out about a luncheon for the 2010 Food Science Graduates and since he will be graduating in December, he was invited to bring his family. It was fun to celebrate with him as well!

Because Elder Christofferson, the commencement speaker, is related to us through my Aunt Brynn, we were able to get three tickets for Steve, dad and mom to sit in the nice seats down on the floor. They also got to meet Elder Christofferson and also the BYU President, President Samuelson. It was pretty neat!

Friday was the smaller convocation. I opted to walk with Kevin and Kristen again so that mom and dad didn't have to sit through two ceremonies. We ended up being the only threesome that walked in his convocation. I'm so happy to be done!