The 500th Post

I want to take a break from our usual updates to celebrate the 500th post on the blog!! For those who know my commitment to keeping a journal, this is a big deal. I probably logged only a dozen entries over a decade, but a few years after we got married I decided to to try a blog instead. I thought it would be a good way to keep a family record, stay in touch with family/friends who we don't see often, make use of photos so they weren't just sitting on my computer, and encourage me to take more pictures so I would have something to blog about. After seven years later it's still rolling, so I'd call it a success!

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed trying to stay on top of things and not fall behind, but I've never lost the motivation to keep it going, and today I'm so glad we have it. I refer back to it often. It's fun to take a little trip through time to remember what Sophie was like as a baby, or see what we were up to during the MBA years, or relive a vacation. I would eventually like to have it printed as a book, which I'm sure will cost a fortune, but you can't put a price on memories, right? Here's to hoping we reach 1000 posts someday!

Us in the fall of 2009 when the blog was born

Seven years and 500 posts later!

10 Years

We celebrated our 10 year anniversary while we were in Texas. Has it really been that long already?! I feel like we really haven't changed that much, and yet I know we have. We in our thirties now. And parents! And almost not students! And right now we're on the edge of an unknown future as Dave starts to apply for teaching positions all across the country. This time next year we really could be living anywhere, and that is the place where we'll start to put down deeper roots and raise our family... After 10 years of a pretty transitory life style, the permanence is exciting, but also a little scary, and I know that there is no one I'd rather do it with than Dave. He is the best husband and father and I'm looking forward to whatever lies in store for us.

Our Engagement Picture

One of my favorite photos from our wedding day

We hardly ever get out on dates, so it was so nice to have Dave's parents and sister offer to watch the kids for us so we could enjoy some time to ourselves. We celebrated conservatively, since we're going on our 7th consecutive year of student life, but had a great time and packed as many dates as possible into one night. We started with the new Star Trek movie, then we had dinner at Outback, followed by glow mini golf, and then a snow cone treat, and finally we ended with the new Jason Bourne movie. So fun!

I won at mini golf!

These tasted as good as they looked

10 Years of Us

- 2 amazing kids -

- 5 beta fish and 1 plant (it died) -

- 8 years of school - 

 - 3 (almost 4) degrees - 

- 7 employers - 

- 5 addresses and wards -

- 3 cars, including 6 years as a 1 car family - 

- About 45 trips & vacations -

- 1,800 loads of laundry - 

-  3,650 dinners - 

-  No major illnesses or injuries! -

Family Picture 2015

This year's Christmas card was quick and easy, even though it took two attempts. The first time was just after Sophie's nap and she was a completely grump, but the second time went much better. We were staying at my aunt's house with my family over Thanksgiving and literally just stepped outside the front door, sat on a bench, took a series of 20 pictures and chose the best. Merry Christmas from the Howes!

Three weeks in review

The last few weeks have been busy for us! I went back to work at the beginning of August, and just survived the first week of a new school year. Dave is in the final stages of his 2nd year paper for school, and has started studying for comps (aka, the test he will take in a few months to show that he knows everything or will get kicked out of the program - no pressure!). Sophie has also been busy getting into mischief, learning a new word a day, and killing us with cuteness.

The school had an employee picnic dinner the week before school started. There was a bouncy house and Sophie LOVED it. We only managed to pull her out to eat some chips before she ran back for more. 

Now that I am back at work, Sophie is going to her babysitter again 2-3 times a week. She LOVES her babysitter so much, and so do we.  She runs to the door when I drop her off, and runs away from me when I come to pick her up. She was excited to find a picture of her on our front door where I hang all the Christmas cards. 

We were given a puddle jumper from my grandma's neighbor a couple weeks ago. It took Sophie a few minutes to get the balance right, but once she did she had so much fun! I love that I don't have to hold her the entire time in the pool now, because she is getting so big! She cried when we took it off to go home. 

Jumping in the pool to daddy

Sophie has been on a bit of a naughty streak lately. Her first offense was coloring the seat of her pink chair with a blue dry eraser marker, which does not come out - ugh. Then she found Dave's glasses on his nightstand and broke the arm off. She also loves to eat Desitin (pictured), soap, shampoo, lotion, etc... and sampled some hand sanitizer in nursery last week. And today she learned to open the fridge by herself, and I'm hoping that doesn't turn into a new play land. 

My cousin got married a couple weeks ago and my Grandma and Grandpa Lambert came down for the wedding. Sophie loved the time she was able to spend with GG (great grandma), and even learned to say her name while she was visiting. 

Loving the porch swing at my aunt's house while we were visiting GG

We have also been enjoying the cooler weather as summer winds down. This has seriously been the wettest August in my memory here in Utah. Now that it's not so hot and Sophie is bigger, we've been spending more time at some of the local playgrounds. 

Digging with daddy

Peeking out at mommy while climbing up to the slide

Unfortunately her naps have taken a turn for the worse again and she turns into a fuss bucket in the evenings. Tonight was a early to bed night, and she conked right out with her blankets, binky, and animals. Love this sweet girl :)

Playing 9 Holes

Our new apartment complex is located across the street from a golf course. We brought our clubs with us from Washington and always say "sometime we should go golfing", and on Saturday evening we finally did! We had so much fun and hope to go again before it starts to get too cold.

We are definitely amateurs, but getting better. Dave is working on learning how to use a driver and hit straight (he only had to yell "fore" once when we went). I am trying to be more consistent with my swing - about half my shots are great, and the other half go 10 feet. I think we are both slowly improving, and hopefully with practice, we won't embarrass ourselves if we ever go golfing with people that actually know what they're doing.

I looked back, and I am wearing BYU gear in three of the last four posts. I guess you can tell which team I support!

Dave did great and even made par a few times!

Orienteering at Brighton

It's been awhile since the last update (oops), and it's not because we haven't been up to anything. We've actually done a lot of fun stuff over the past two weeks, but all our spare time has been spent watching seasons 1 & 2 of Downton Abbey. Who knew life in World War I era England could be engrossing?? Oh the drama. Dave and I are now eagerly waiting for January and the start of season 3.

Now that I am playing blogging catch-up, there should be a post everyday for the next seven days! First up is orienteering at Brighton a couple weekends ago. We've been orienteering several times now - it's a geeky hobby of ours :) This time was different, however, because it was at a ski resort instead of a park, which added a lot more elevation, rocks, trees, brush, and leg scratches. It was pretty much like speed hiking without a trail, and by the time we finished I was seriously regretting not wearing long socks.

We completed the course in about 50 minutes, which was 4th place for the day - not too bad!!

Hooray for orienteering!

Bash, Smash, Crash!

Last year we went to the Bluffdale Demolition Derby and had a great time, so this year we decided to go again with some friends from our ward. The derby was great, but unfortunately it was pretty chilly and I was very glad that I had changed from shorts, t-shirt and flip flops to jeans, sweatshirt and shoes. Brrr!!

Dave did not change and had to use the emergency blanket from our car for warmth :)

The cars I chose to cheer for this year didn't do so well and in the end Dave had three cars in the winner's match and I only had one. Here's what happened to my poor car "Skinny" (he fought bravely and died quickly):



There were 21 cars total, and the #12 station wagon didn't look like much, but ended up winning it all. Even more impressive was the Bluffdale Lions Club car. For five dollars you can buy a raffle ticket and enter a drawing to become the driver of the Lions car. The guy that won the raffle placed in his heat, advanced to the winner's match, and went home with second place and $1,700 in prize money!

Another Day, Another Deal

Today Dave and I went to Holdman Studios at Thanksgiving Point to use another LivingSocial deal we bought a few months ago. Today's activity was making glass flowers!

We were surprised by a couple things:

First, the flowers we got to make were much bigger than what I was expecting. I thought we'd get to go home with a little tiny blossom, but the flower was the size of my palm and the stem was as long as my forearm.


Torching the stem of Dave's flower to make it round and smooth


Second, each flower only took about 7 minutes to make from start to finish. We got to choose two colors, and then using glass heated to 2250 degrees and a combination of spinning and pulling, a molten blob suddenly became a flower - it was very cool!

Our flowers have to cool slowly over night and we will probably pick them up early next week. While they were hot it was hard to tell what color they would become, but in the end mine should be green and Dave's should be blue. I can't wait to see what they look like!

Awesome Day!

Today was an awesome day! Snowbird got over 20 inches during the last few days - what a treat! This was probably the best day we had so far. We were even lucky enough to get a few hours of sunshine before the clouds rolled in and it started snowing.

Amazing views from the top of Hidden Peak (11,000 ft)

Dave thinking "Why did it have to start snowing?"

The best snow we found was in Mineral Basin - we did 8 runs on the backside before taking a break for lunch. This video was taken on our 3rd run so the hill was a little skied out at this point, but our first couple runs here were on untracked powder - so fun!

Spring Ski Day

On Saturday we went skiing and it was a beautiful day - 45 degrees and not a cloud in the sky!

Pretty much perfect if you ask me :)

There hasn't been a lot of snow lately, so the bumps were icy, but we had fun cruising on the groomers. Woo-hoo!

Finally Some Snow!

Utah has had a less than spectacular ski season so far this year. It's been much warmer and drier than normal, and the mountains have really suffered. This last week, however, a storm blew in and Snowbird received over 3 feet of snow - hooray!!

This meant that come Saturday, we were anxious to get up to the mountain for some powder. Because of all the snow, however, Little Cottonwood Canyon was closed for a time while crews performed avalanche control work. We were in the line of cars at the mouth of the canyon waiting for the work to finish when our car reached a milestone - 100,000 miles!! Since we were currently creeping along at less than 5 miles an hour with frequent stops, I got out the camera to take a picture. :)

It was a good ski day, and hopefully we will have more like it this month. It was nice to finally be able to cruise down the mountain without having to worry about dodging all the exposed rocks, trees, and and other obstacles that are normally buried under the snow. And even though it was cloudy for most of the day, the sun did peak out just long enough to give us both a small sun burn on our cheeks and noses. You can't really tell from this picture, but our goggle tan line looked pretty awesome at church the next day.

And on our way home we passed this guy on I-15 - did you know that you can rent your own pirate ship and Captain Jack Sparrow impersonator for only $150 per hour? Just a tidbit you might want to keep in mind for your next party.

Best of 2011

I have tons of pictures on my computer just taking up space on my hard drive. Some of them make it on to the blog, but I hardly ever have them printed, and if I do, they just sit in an envelope in my closet. Last year I decided it was time to do something more.

I searched through all the pictures we had taken since 2006, picked my favorite 10-15 from each year, and then had each year printed as an 8x10 collage. These are now hanging in my hall and I LOVE to look at them. It's so fun to look back at our life over the past 5 years and remember all the fun things we've done - trips, dates, family events, holidays, etc...

The 2011 Edition (that will join the photo wall as soon as I get a frame)

 

Some highlights of 2011 include: skiing at Snowbird, cheering on Jimmer and the BYU basketball team, our 5 year anniversary, a trip to the North Carolina coast with the Howe family, attending the final Harry Potter movie premiere, spending time with the Lamberts in Utah, and Christmas with the Howe family in Texas. It was a great year!!

Snowbird in the Summer!

We had never done anything "special" for our anniversary before, not even go out to dinner (unless you count the time we ate at a Korean restaurant with a family of 4 visiting from Beijing). This year we decided to try something a little more exciting and made a quick two-day trip up to Snowbird, our favorite ski resort. This was our first time at Snowbird in the summer and we had a wonderful time!!

The place we stayed at had a shuffleboard court - Dave smoked me the first couple times, but I was winning 2 out of every 3 games by the end!

Our room came with two tram tickets so we rode to the top of Hidden Peak (11,000 ft) for some great views

From Hidden Peak we hiked to the top of Mt. Baldy. Last time I did this hike was in the snow, wearing ski boots, carrying skis. This time it was a lot easier, although the way back down wasn't nearly as fun.

Dave at the top, looking back at the trail we just hiked

We also rode the Alpine Slide - it isn't as long as the one at Park City, but was still a good ride!

 

If you're looking for a fun getaway, I would highly recommend this! The mountains are beautiful at this time of year, and it was nice to escape the heat of the valley for just a few days.We got a unit with a kitchen and were able to save a ton of money by making our own meals. I wish we could have stayed another day or two so we could spend more time at the pool, do more hiking, or maybe try some of the resort's other fun activities.  Now that we've done this, if we are still in Utah next summer, I'm pretty sure this is where we'll be on July 29th!

Five Years

Today we are celebrating five years of marriage. Five wonderful happy years. Life right now is perfect. Day to day things aren't always perfect, but I can't think of anything I'd want to change (except adding some kids to the picture). We are best friends, always challenging each other to be better and go farther, and more in love every day. We've made so many memories together, and I am so looking forward to our future together!

Looking back at July 29th, 2006 - It was difficult to sort through 1000+ photos of the day to choose just a few favorites, but I did my best:

The happy, newly married couple

Our family and friends

Dave with his boys

It was a gorgeous, picture perfect day

The "mother-son" dance - I had to throw this one in because it makes me smile every time I look through our pictures

 

"And for always, forever, Beyond here and onto eternity
For always and ever, You'll be a part of me

And for always, forever, A thousand tomorrows may cross the sky
And for always and always, We will go on beyond goodbye"

 

** The lyrics are from the song "For Always" that Dave sang at our wedding dinner