We're LOST

To pass the time on our big road trip, we started watching the first season of lost. We got about half-way through the season and were totally hooked. One day in December, there was a preview for the new season and it said, "Go to abc.com to watch all previous episodes of lost." So that's how we've been spending our free evenings, in front of the computer watching lost. We're on the beginning of the fourth season now and the current season is number five so we're almost caught up! This show just keeps getting weirder and weirder and never answers your questions but we're addicted. If you have some free time on your hands, I would recommend it!

Road Trip!

For Thanksgiving we went down to Arizona with the whole Morby clan for the big Schvaneveldt reunion. It was nice to get out of the cold. It wasn't way hot down there, just jeans and t-shirt weather. The boys all went golfing a couple times while the girls went shopping and Grandma Schvaneveldt taught us her guilty pleasure... a gambling game called pokeno. It was way fun! We didn't take a whole lot of pictures, here's a little shopping photo.
The day after Thanksgiving we went to the lighting of the Mesa temple. It was like temple square except not as big or nearly as freezing! We were fortunate enough to find my old roommate Meliss who is serving a Spanish speaking mission there! She's great!

Here are Zack's G&G Schvaneveldt. Those little sunbirds.

This is one thing you definitely don't see at temple square!

Zack's little brother Carson was the youngest one in our group, he is 15. Unfortunately, you had to be 16 to operate the waffle makers at the hotel. He got a lot of crap for this. I offered to make him a waffle every day but he insisted he didn't want one. I think he just didn't want to hurt his pride.

The Big Popularity Contest

So this year was our first time ever voting! It was pretty exciting. I don't know a whole lot about politics and I don't pretend to. My friend Noelle posted a link to a site that listed all of the issues. You could choose how you felt about each issue and how important you thought it was. Then, it would show how much you matched with each candidate. That was ultimately how I chose who to vote for because it showed who was most like me.

I thought that's how grown-ups voted, by really figuring out their own values versus each candidates. I was wrong. Noelle also posted a link to a clip from a radio show where a guy went around and asked people who they were voting for. When they said Obama, he asked if they agreed with him about certain issues like being anti-abortion, for the war in the middle east, against gay marriage, all of the things that McCain obviously stood for. They always agreed and said they felt the same way. Lastly, he would ask if Obama was elected, would they support Sarah Palin as Vice President. They all said yes, definitely. Idiots. I guess I just thought that presidential elections were different than jr. high school student body elections. It appears otherwise, many people just vote for who they "like" better, who they think is cuter, whose race they think is better. And I'm not just saying it was only Obama voters, I'm sure people voted for McCain for stupid reasons too.

Well, that's my political rant. You probably won't have to see another one of those for the next four years. Now that Barack is president, I really do hope he does a great job.

Fall Festivities

The weekend before Halloween we went to the Banburys to carve punkins. Here's a picture of the group minus Michelle.

probably my favorite fall tradition

the girls

Here's little Jeb. He was being so dang cute and liked eating the pumpkin.

And here are the masterpieces. Mine is the one with eyelashes and a half-smile and Zack's is the one with the weird nostrils. Trey's skull is pretty sweet.
On actual Halloween night we didn't have any plans. A couple people called us to see if anything was going on so we said "Come on over!" We watched the scariest movie in existence... Fire In The Sky. If you haven't seen it, you should. With the movie and the six trick-or-treaters who came to the door, it was a pretty good night.

Also, I don't have any pictures but after a couple weeks we carried out our annual punkin' splodin' tradition. We took Zack's family to the middle of nowhere and shot all of our pumpkins, apples, milk jugs, etc. It was a good time.

A Little Getaway

The weekend of October 18th was fall break. We weren't planning on doing anything out of the ordinary until my Mom suggested that I call my Grandpa and see if his condo in Bear Lake was being used. I had completely forgotten that once you're married, you can go up there without your parents! So we went up for a night with the Fullers. Our first stop was Bear Lake Pizza where we attempted to take down the 28" old ephraim pizza.

The slices were too big for the plate!

That's ONE slice in a normal-sized pizza box.

We needed at least two more couples to defeat it but we were proud that we ate more than half (thanks to Nate.) Maybe next time we'll bring more people and get our picture on the wall!

This is how full we were.

We also watched movies and ate lots of junk food. I found this amazing discovery! No, it's not one long one, just two in one long wrapper but still, how many times have you found one of these? I was excited.
We spent most of Saturday outside. It was a gorgeous day! We went down by the water for a while, played volleyball, frisbee, lawn toss, and practiced a little whiffle ball. It was fun to get out of Logan and just hang out for a while.


I never notice how much shorter I am than everyone else in the world until I see pictures like this.
Thanks Sara and Nate for making it a fun weekend and thanks Grandma and Grandpa Toolson for letting us go up without "adult" supervision!

Domestication

The day after the wedding, Saturday the 12th, was the first snow storm of the year. Even so, we were determined to learn how to make homemade grape juice so Zack got up early with his parents to pick grapes and apples. I conveniently stayed in bed. I helped with the juice making process though. It took all day long but it was really fun to learn! Here is the fresh juice dripping out.

Here is the end result of our day's labor. We made grape and grapple and they are both excellent!

Too bad these didn't last us very long. Zack is such a juice drinker, he can easily go through one jar a day!

We're Not the Only Ones!

Zack and I are both the oldest siblings in our families so we were both the first to get married. We were the only ones being complained to about sharing holidays, pestered about giving our parents grandchildren, etc. Well, that has changed. On October 11th Zack's brother Mitch married Amy in the Salt Lake temple. We were really excited to have a married sibling! Here's the happy couple.

It was a beautiful day! Chilly but sunny and gorgeous.

The old ones. (Even though I'm the same age as Mitch and younger than Amy.)

The wedding was fun and the peacock feather decor was pretty cool. The only bad thing was that I had to miss school and I had two exams that day, one of which I couldn't make up so I got a lower grade in that class. Hey, what can you do when your brother-in-law gets married on a Friday? We still love him.

Not the Best Day We've Had

On October 3rd we went to the Utah State football game against BYU. Afterward, we decided to go to coldstone for a treat with the Fullers. It worked out that Sara was with us and we were meeting Nate there. I'll try to explain what happened as best I can. We were in the turning lane to turn left into the parking lot. There was a car in front of us that was passing up every opportunity to go and Zack was getting impatient. Finally, the light behind us was backed up far enough that those lanes were stopping and one of the lanes was letting us through. The car in front of us started SLOWLY turning so Zack was almost passing them. He really wanted his ice cream. So that car stopped in the middle of the road and it seemed like they were letting us pass because Zack was being aggressive. So Zack went. We saw that there was a car coming toward us in the lane that wasn't stopped but we were sure they saw us and had plenty of time to stop. That was a bad assumption to make. The girl driving must've been adjusting the radio, texting, talking to her friends, or all of the above because she didn't even touch her brakes. She just slammed right into us going at least 40 mph. The jeep tipped up and spun around. It gave us a good whip and my glasses even flew off! Nate heard the crash and called Zack to warn him that there was an accident. He was surprised to hear that it was his wife in the accident! Here's the aftermath. This picture doesn't look as bad as it is. Neither of the passenger-side doors will open so it will need two new doors, framework, and a paint job, and one of our rims is bent too.
Their car was a lot more mashed up than the jeep! Hey, it's a jeep thing. I think this was even the good side that still had a headlight. Their radiator was like dragging on the ground! The funny thing is (or not really) that their car was still running and they could drive it and the jeep won't even start.
Here's Zack feeling like an idiot. Even though this was a mixture of people's faults, Zack felt guilty and claimed responsibility for it. Since the jeep was completely paid for and we are generally safe drivers, we only had liability on it so our insurance paid for the other car but not our jeep. Since we're not exactly made of money the jeep is sitting in Zack's parents' driveway with a tarp over it. Kinda sucks.
Luckily nobody was seriously hurt, just some soreness and bruises. There was a girl in the other car who has seizures when she is shocked so she had a seizure when the accident happened. When the cops got there she was fine but her jaw was locked up. We were across the street from the hospital but they called an ambulance to come and take her to the hospital. She could've easily walked across the street for crying out loud! Of course, our insurance had to pay for that. Lame.

So with this, me backing into our gti with the jeep, etc. we have decided that we have the worst luck with cars out of every couple alive.

Peach Days!

We've made it to September! Yay! Well, I had never been to peach days in Brigham City before and we happened to be in the area so why not? This was the first weekend in September. First of all, there was the food. We've always wanted to try a deep fried twinkie before (we've seen them on the travel channel, food network, etc.) and now was our chance. Here it is in all its glory. The lady in the background is even jealous.They also had deep fried oreos, so we had to try those too. HEAVEN! They were so good! The frying process made the oreos soft.

Mmmmm delish. Oh the days when I had a tan line..

And, of course, some beverage.

Try not to laugh.

Then there were the cars. There were tons of really cool cars there but, of course, we focused on the VW section. (For those who don't know my husband that well, he is mildly obsessed.) Here is a sweet bus.
The next two were Zack's favorites. This one because he likes that color and it is so "clean."
This one because he likes the coloring but mostly because it's slammed so low it's practically sitting on the ground.
This one was my fav. They cut out the whole back seat area and welded it back together to make it a cute little shorty.

Yeah, BC isn't half bad.

The grand finale

Merrisa emailed me the pictures of my Labor Day cake, so here they are. We learned how to do bows, those little "sweet pea" flowers, and finished the rose. I think the decorating went well but I couldn't square it off very well or frost it really smooth so it's a little lop-sided and lumpy.

Have you ever had a cake specifically for Labor Day before? Didn't think so.

Snotty-Nosed Kids

From April to January of this year I had the privelidge of being the primary president of our ward. Before you get all impressed, it was a married student ward and, for most of the time, the oldest child was 3. So I was pretty much a nursery leader. These are some of the kids I got to hang out with on Sundays. I don't have pictures of all of them, just the ones who were there the week I had my camera. Anyways, I ended up falling in love with these little guys. First of all, they are hilarious! I would laugh and laugh every Sunday about the things they said. I should've written them all down because now I don't remember most of them. When Zack and I have kids, I'm definitely keeping quote journals for them. Also, they're just dang cute. Sometimes they were a little out of control but hey, that's how kids are right? Anyway, I had a really fun time with them and I do miss them now that I have to be with adults.