ZOO LIGHTS

Here is a way too old post I need to get up here. So Around Christmas time Marie and I took James and Katie with us to see Zoo Lights. It was really fun. And we wanted to share with you some pictures.

Guess Where we are?

One of our favorite things about Christmas is the lights. We got to see some of our favorite lights tonight, the ones on Temple Square. We invited Angie and James to come with us and we all had lots of fun. We got really lucky and found a great parking place right by the old planetarium. We found it as we were about to give up and drive home (we forgot it was a Christmas Concert night at the Conference Center and therefore extremely busy.)
We stayed until we were all too cold and couldn't stay a minute longer. Here are some of our favorite pictures.








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Matthew in Oregon

My brother is playing in a basketball tournament in Oregon. He made the news so here is a clip. This was the 2nd game they've played so far and they're 1-1 in the Tournament and 3-2 overall. Matthew averages 14.2 Pts and 11.2 reb. per game(that is currently good enough for 2nd in the state for all divisions) His school is 1A and their region has a lot of schools out in the west desert. He doesn't play in the Salt Lake area again till Jan 10 in Layton

Festival of Tree's

Marie and I enjoy the festival of trees. In fact we enjoy it so much that we try to go every year. This last time we found two really great trees a good number of fun ones. Our favorites were the tree made of blown glass and the one that is a marbleworks wooden tree. Here are some pictures. Enjoy!

The begining of the Holiday season. Nov 23- Dec 1

I love Christmastime a lot. For me it is the best time of the year. So I hope to blog often about what is going on. A week ago sunday Marie and I were asked to give talks in sacrament meeting, our topic was "Come Ye Thankful People." We had fun preparing our talks. I especially enjoyed thinking of all my Thanksgivings past. I guess it was this time spent thinking about the holidays that helped me see some really fun and special things to do that have made this Thanksgiving really great. I would love to see this year be the beginning of some new family traditions.

Thanksgiving for me always used to be a week long thing, I either had a week off from school, or was coming down for a longer time from BYU-I, or something like that. One thing I thought was really cool about this last week was that we did stuff almost every day.

Monday - Jeffrey's Thanksgiving.
On the Monday Marie and I were able to have an old friend over for dinner, games and FHE. It was really fun. Jeffery is a guy I knew right after my mission he was a soph. at BYU-I like I was but due to early graduation he hadn't yet served his mission. After our soph. year he left for a mission in Indiana and I hadn't seen him since. I got his mission e-mails and then recently got in touch with him on facebook, he had transferred to the U and came over for Dinner and FHE.
In some ways this was like our first Thanksgiving dinner, so we prepared the traditional.... hawaiin haystakes. It was great to visit and enjoy time together. Tuesday Ohio State vs. Texas

For a while now Marie's brother John amd I have been playing a college football season on the game cube. He has clamied Texas as his team, he reached the National Championship game our most recent season and Tuesday was the day we set to play the game. John started the game with a kickoff retern for a touchdown and an early 7-0 lead. Three plays later Ohio State(me) got John to bite on as play action pass that went for 60 yards and a score. Ohio State, benind an unstoppable running game ran out to a 21-10 lead on Texas. John however summoned up his best in the fourth quarter and rallied his team to a 24-21 win. We expect to finish one more season before his mission. The goal is a Texas vs. BYU national championship so we can both play as "our" teams.
Thursday -- Thanksgiving

My family and the Vogelers, my cousins, gathered at the Vogeler home for Thanksgiving. Marie and I brought candied yams and green bean casserole, we had turkey, stuffing, Jello, salad, and the whole fixings. For desert we had pie and cookies. The cousins played games, like "Ticket to Ride" and "Dutch Blitz." We all had fun. It was our first time doing it this and although different we all liked it. Early that day Marie and I were at her parents' and Marie and I gave our talks from Sacrament meeting again.
Friday -- Decorating day

This year I was persistant. There was nothing we needed to buy or find at our parents' houses before we could set up our Christmas tree, so I said "we are making the day after Thanksgiving our decorating the tree day." Marie and I had a lot of fun putting up the trees and deciding how to decorate them. We pulled out the Christmas carols; the family favorites are Manheim Steamroller, Chicago, and for me John Denver and the Temptations, Marie likes James Taylor and Canadian Brass. After we were done with the tree we enoyed time with Marie's family and had kinda a 2nd Thanksgiving dinner there.
Monday -- Giving night and Christmas FHE
The Ward here does a giving night every year where they gather donations (money, toys, clothing, ect) to give to others in the ward to help bring Christmas to those less fortunate. There is also hot chocolate and donuts Additionally I wanted to do someting like happened to me on my mission. My first thanksgiving in Dallas we had 3 dinners planned. We were able to move one to the Monday after Thanksgiving. They were a less active family who had moved from Canada. They had a Newfie dog that was so cute. Anyway they wanted to deep fry a Turkey and invited us over for a dinner and to watch "Joy to the World" the Churches brand new Christmas DVD. They wanted to move it to Monday so they could have their house Christmas-afied; and it was! The dinner was great and the movie accompanied by after-eights(a wonderful Canadian mint candy) and hot chocolate made this evening one of my favorite memories of Dallas. This Christmas we decided to have one of our own, we invited the new upstairs neighbors over after giving night and we watchned the "Nativity Special Edition" it has the whole Luke II, plus testimony from Elder Ballard and Pres. Packer. It also has some Mormon tab. Chior music. Due to giving night there was no dessert but it was still fun.

Fall Orchid Show

Last Spring I was reading the Davis County Clipper and saw an article for an up coming Orchid show at Red Butte garden. I had been getting into Orchid growing and at that time I had two. My wife's cousin Chris had also owned 2 Orchids and we both wanted to go. It ended up being part of a busy conference weekend then. Well that has established what looks like a tradition, again Chris his wife Cyndi, Marie and I ventured out to Red Butte Gardens to see the Garden and the Fall orchid Show.


Chris now has a few more plants as do I. I even have five Orchids. It has been really fun going to the show and talking with the Orchid Society members (maybe someday I'll join). After the Show we also took some fall pictures on the grounds. I think this one of Marie and I looks great.

All in all it was a very fun day. We love the beauty of nature and it is amazing the things you can find in your own back yard.

Moving In

Story 2: Moving In
On Monday morning, Sept. 29th JP still wasn't feeling well and stayed home from work. So we contacted the landlord and since JP was home we were able to sign the contract in the morning. Then we spent the day looking at beds at different stores. We found a great one at Bradley's furniture for half price, since it was a close-out floor model. We're really happy with it. They delivered it Tuesday morning. Then my parents brought the Suburban and family my helped and we spent all day Tuesday (JP came home from work early) moving stuff down to the apartment.
The one draw back of this apartment from the first one was that it had washer/dryer hookups, but not the actual washer/dryer. Well, that changed on Thursday when my dad was looking in the KSL classifieds and saw a free washer and dryer that had been on there for 5 minutes. So he and Lee drove out to Salt Lake in the Suburban and picked them up. The my mom spent the afternoon cleaning them up using 409 and this paint thinner stuff. She's superwoman, nothing grosses her out. She just cleans it all up. So I now have a "scratch and dent" like new washer and dryer!!!
Over conference weekend my family helped some more and we set some more things up and moved in a little more. It was great to have John and Emily down for the weekend. John helped my dad move our family's old hide-a-bed couch into our living room.
Also, during the week we moved, and conference weekend we ate nearly every meal at my parents house. Then Monday we came over and made fajitas with them. So last night was our first meal in the new apartment. We had a "hot and ready" pizza from Little Caesar's, which is only a block away.
There's now a few things left at Grandma's house, and I'd like to do a little more cleaning there, and some more organizing in the new apartment. But it's really starting to feel like home. We love the location and the apartment, and we're so happy to have found it.
P.S. The reason it's taken me so long to post all of this is because we're now without internet, so I have to "fight" for computer time at my parents house.
P.P.S. We're so grateful to my parents for all the furniture, time, Suburban usage, and food they've given us over the past 2 weeks, and the help they're giving us now with use of their computer and many other things. They're so great to help us!!!! I'm grateful to be living near them.