Spring Break!

Last week Fred and I had spring break and we decided to travel out to Colorado Springs to visit Jeremy, Amanda, baby John-Michael, Derrek, and mom (who had gone out a week earlier to help out with the baby).

Angelynn got off work for that whole week and drove out with us. We drove her new car (we like to call her Sophie) because Sophie was nice and spacious. It was a nice drive out to Colorado.

We got to Jeremy's house at about 8 p.m. and when we got there Klondike and the rest of the family were excited to see us. We watched Klondike and Jerry (Derrek's cat) "play" with each other. Those 2 are so funny to watch. Klondike really wants to play with Jerry, but she knows if she gets too close, then Jerry will swipe at her.

When we were done watching the pets, we met John-Michael.
HE IS THE CUTEST BABY! He is also a very good baby.

Aunt Amberly loves her nephew!

Uncle Fred has not had much experience with holding such tiny babies, so aunt Amberly had to teach him.

Aunt Angelynn's turn to hold John-Michael

Jeremy and Derrek were doing a major plumbing operation because there were some clogged pipes. The water had to be turned off for 2 days while they fixed the pipes.

This picture shows the fixed pipes. I have some very handy brothers!

We did a hike close to Jeremy and Amanda's house on Monday.

On Tuesday Amanda and John-Michael left for Kansas because her grandma wasn't doing so well and she wanted grandma to see John-Michael before she passed away. Amanda's grandma was able to see John-Michael before she passed away; it was good that Amanda drove to Kansas to be with her family at this time, she needed to be there. Even if it meant we couldn't see John-Michael for the rest of our spring break.

The rest of the week we did fun things around Colorado Springs.

We sampled the 9 natural springs, which tasted like baking soda. YUCK!

Then we went to Garden of the Gods.

We hiked to pulpit rock, which we also like to call 'puppet' rock.

Don't we look like puppets???

We went to Focus on the Family and got some yummy icecream at Whit's End.

Ang and I both got a raspberry ripple.

We hiked to some partially frozen waterfalls. There were even some ice climbers climbing up the waterfall! It was cool to watch!

Since most of my family was together, we celebrated my 21st birthday. My mom gave me 21 presents!

Most of my presents were from Hawaii.

We also visited the Olympic training center. Yes, Olympians really do train here!

We also took a tour of Jeremy's work and on the last day in Colorado Springs we hiked the cog railway.

It was so much fun, but we didn't have enough time to make it to the top :(
We will just have to come back!

We spent our last night at our Uncle Mark's house in Denver...

(Notice Sophia in the driveway)
... and in the morning we visited our cousins and ate breakfast with them before we made the long drive back home to Utah.

It was a great trip! I love my family so much! We make so many wonderful memories together!

New haircut and other adventures...

On Saturday, I got a haircut! Nothing too fancy, I just got a trim to get rid of split ends and some layers. Can you see them?

Also on Saturday, I went to a gigantic book sale. I heard about a place that was selling children's books for $1. I thought this was a great opportunity to get some books for my future classroom. This book sale had tons of books. It had cookbooks, craft books, fiction, non fiction, pretty much every genre of book. I looked a little at the other books, but the children's books were the ones I was interested in; and boy, did I find some good deals on these books.
I got some pop up books and some classic books like Corduroy, Curious George, If you give a mouse a muffin, Amelia Bedelia, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (that is the big book) and some interactive science books.

On Sunday I had an orchestra recital! I am in a community orchestra, which doubles as a credit towards my fine arts emphasis, which has a good mix of non-music major students as well as older people from the community who want to keep up on their instruments. It is so much fun! I love being in an orchestra again! I never thought I would play violin at such a prestigious level! Even though some of the music is a little difficult for me, it is good for me to keep up practicing on violin and it doesn't hurt to be challenged!

Crochet Pillow

So, you know that yarn Ang and I bought during the sister retreat? This is what I made with the yarn! I know, I got it done fast! This is my first crochet pillow. I have sewn many pillows, but I never have crocheted any. Except, I don't want to snuggle with it too much because I want to put it in the fair so I want it to stay nice and fluffy.

Ok, for all you crafty crocheters out there, here is how I made the pillow:

Supplies:

• 12x12 pillow form
• 2 skeins angel yarn from Joann fabrics
• size J crochet hook
• large safety pins~6

Pattern:
row 1: ch 36, sc in 2nd loop from hook, sc across. ch 1, turn.
row 2: sc across, ch 1 turn.
row 3-?: alternate doing sc and tc (triple crochet) across rows, always ch 1 before turning. Continue with this pattern until you have crocheted a square. (fold corners together to be able to tell if you have made a square)

For the back: If you have enough yarn, you can to the same pattern as for the front, or you can just do dc (double crochet) all the way. I started the back the same as the front except changed to dc (ch 36, dc in 2nd lp from hook). Do dc all the way until you have made a square.

Putting it together: Put the front and back squares on the pillow form and pin it with safety pins. Sc all the way around the pillow connecting the front and back panels.

Ta-da! Your pillow is all finished! Now it's time for a nap! :)

Sister's Retreat!

I had President's day off from school, so I decided to go have a sister's retreat with Angelynn down in Ogden! She had to work on Friday and Saturday, so I left for our fun weekend right after church on Sunday. It had started snowing on Saturday night and I was a little scared that driving down the canyon would be a little dangerous; but it mostly stopped snowing by the time I drove down to Ogden, so the driving was nice and safe.
I guess this sister's retreat was meant to be!

Since it had just snowed a whole bunch, Ang and I decided that we wanted to go sledding. So we drove up Odgen canyon and did some back country sledding. But first things first; we just had to make snow angels!

After the snow angels, we began sledding. There were some people snowshoeing who were watching us sled and they called us "super adventurous" to be doing back country sledding. We didn't think we were being that adventurous, but I guess the average person doesn't try to go sledding in the back country!
We found the best sledding hill; do you see that telephone post in the background? That is where we started and we ended up where this picture was taken! It was a long run! (In more than one way, too! haha, I just had to put that pun in there)

However, the snow was REALLY deep, like up to our knees deep, and we didn't feel like walking all the way back up to the telephone post without snowshoes, so we just kept on sledding down the mountain. It was slow going at spots, but we got a good arm workout! We sledded until we hit a no trespassing sign and until my cracked sled wouldn't sled anymore. So, we climbed up a steep hill to get back up to the road.

We followed the road back to the car. The walk back was nice and peaceful because it was snowing gently while the sun was still shining! My, what a sledding adventure we had!

But the fun didn't stop there, after sledding we went back to Ang's house and made yummy pork chops and Gold Rush Brownies with Christy (Ang's roommate) and Ben (Ang's boyfriend). Then we did some girly stuff like foot baths and painting nails while watching a movie.

The next day, we both did a waterfall braid in our hair and then we did some shopping at JoAnn's to find a craft project to do together. We found this super soft and cuddly yarn and decided that we wanted to make a pillow out of it.
See how soft it is? We are already snuggling with it!

Then we made some pretzels and gobbled several of them up while we watched an episode of Project Runway before I headed back up to Logan. This nice little sister's retreat was fun, but too short! We'll have to do it again sometime, Ang!

First come love, second comes marriage, then comes...

A BABY!!!!

John Michael Long was born on February 23, 2012.
He weighed 6lbs 8oz and was 22in long.

Congratulations Jeremy and Amanda! You will be excellent parents!
Isn't he the cutest?

I am so excited to be an aunt! I can't wait until March when I get to hold this little bundle of joy!!!

Valentine Girl's Date

On the Friday following Valentine's day, Katelyn and I went on a "date." It was super fun! It all started because Katelyn saw the trailer for The Vow way back in December. We both thought it looked cute and agreed to go see it together on Valentine's day. We were both too busy to go see it on the 14th, so we planned to see it for that Friday instead.

We started off our "date" by wearing matching heart socks! Isn't that sweet?

Once we had our matching socks hidden in our shoes, we headed over to Chili's for lunch before the movie. I had a $25 Chili's gift card from helping with nursery at church, so we basically got a free lunch! We both got delicious burgers and drinks. The burgers were so gigantic, we had to squash them down to fit them into our mouths. It was a delightful treat!

Yep, we ate the whole thing. I don't know how we fit all that in our stomachs!
We were prup full! (Dutch translation-overfull)

After Chili's we headed over to go see the movie. It was a cute movie. I would not mind seeing it again. If you like cute romances you would like this movie.

The fun didn't stop at the end of the movie; after we watched the movie we headed over to Coldstone to redeem, yet another, gift card. We were still so stuffed from our lunch, but we just couldn't resist ice cream! It was scrumptious!

I ordered coffee ice cream mixed with caramel and brownies, while Katelyn ordered cake batter ice cream with brownies.

It was a great day! It was a plus that this date was cheap! I couldn't think of a better person to share the use of my gift cards with than with my wonderful roommate! Thanks for coming with me Katelyn!

Happy Valentine's Day!