Ellie, Graduation, etc.

Well now that I've finally gotten the Hawaii trip finished I can continue on with our frost-bitten lives back home. First off, we are finally starting to recover from the swimming pool that tried to take over our basement while we were gone. While the most emotional part was throwing away soggy wedding presents and pictures, along with the rest of my house decor that was in the basement, the smell has been even harder to get over! After countless bottles of febreeze, odo-ban, and several cans of extremely expensive cement paint, ourhouse is starting to smell bearable. Not that the work is over, next we are going to shampoo all our carpets and wash every single item of clothing to hopefully get rid of the last of the smell. It's been an adventure, one that I might laugh about...much later. :)

We do have a new addition to our family! No it's not a baby :) we're not quite there yet but I did convince Morgan to spoil me with another puppy! Her name is Ellie and I found her on petfinder.com where she was advertised by the Humane Society of the Upper Valley. They bring pets to Petco on Saturdays and it was love at first sight! She's a Lhasa Apso mix and so adorable! We've decided she looks like a little albino Ewok from Star Wars but we love her anyways :) She's very sweet and definitely has a personality of her own! For instance, when she gets too warm, she'll go lay on the tile floor on her belly. She'll follow me or Morgan around the house and wherever she goes, her toys have to come with her. So when we sit down to watch a movie, she'll go get her toy rope, bring it over by us, then go get her stuffed elephant and bring that in too. Then when we switch to a different room, she makes sure to bring her toys along. She loves riding in the car as long as she can sit on your lap and look out the window. The hair around her eyes grows really fast. Up until the other day it was so long she was running into doors so we figured she needed a trim. Now it's like she's living in a whole new world! She also likes to sleep on her back so her legs are all sprawled out. It's so funny!

Here's some more exciting news! I get to graduate in April! After a lot of frustrating calls and e-mails trying to figure out how I can graduate in one more semester, I finally went in to the student counseling center and they told me I've got enough credits to graduate with an associates in generals! I was originally going for a Special Education major, but after getting married I realized there was no way I was going to make it through three more years of school. I didn't want to wait that long to have kids and I didn't want to miss out on time with them because I was in class all day. So I decided to stick with generals, take classes that I really wanted to take and it worked out pretty well! (Not to mention that Morgan and I are both sick of Rexburg and all the problems we've had with BYU-I...shhhh don't tell.)

Well that's the latest news for us...more to come!

Hawaii finale!

So on our last full day, Morgan convinced us to rent some surfboards and hit the waves. He was so excited to go...

He and Tanner were the first out. About ten minutes later Morgan came back with his own personal souvenir...

He stepped on a sea urchin! Lucky for us, there was a girl nearby trained in first aid with a Melaleuca bag and all! He was going to be ok but had to sit out for the rest of the day :(

We all tried our hand at surfing. Tanner, Courtney and I were all able to get up on our knees. The waves were really high so they didn't carry us very far but Nikelle and Rhett were both able to stand so that was really exciting!

Go Rhett! He was so proud :)

There were so many more pictures I wish I could put up! We had such a great time and every time I have to scrape frost off my windshield in the morning I miss it even more. Everyone should get a chance to experience how amazing Hawaii is :)

Hawaii Part 3!

This is ridiculous I know but I'm almost done!

These pictures were from the road to Hana...the longest, windiest, skinniest road around a mountain I've ever been on! Needless to say I got sick but the waterfalls and other sights were worth the drive.

This was called the Three Bears

This is what most of the bridges looked like. Everything was so humid plants grew out of cement and rocks!

The seven sacred pools. They were gorgeous but surprisingly very cold!

We woke up at 3:30 in the morning to make the drive to Haleakala for a gorgeous sunrise! It was about 40 degrees but felt like it was freezing because of the humidity. Despite the cold and the early hours the view really was incredible!

It felt like we were sitting on top of the clouds :)

Hawaii continued!

Ok so I'm embarrasssed at how long it's taken me to finish this post! A little ridiculous I know but here it goes :)



The whole family at Lahaina...this is an ancient wall built for something that I don't remember :) Morgan kept better track of those kinds of things

Walking down a bumpy mountain to our next adventure...

This was one of my favorite things we saw! It was a blowhole and every time a big wave came up it spouted tons of water! The waves were gorgeous and it was a really neat view!

Needless to say...we got pretty close and ended up a little wet :)

The Iao Needle...it was so humid and green! I felt like we stepped into the set of Jurassic Park.

What a cute family :)

Snorkeling!!!! This was definitely the best part of Hawaii! Turtles and fish and coral everywhere!

It was incredible how close we were able to get...we probably looked so funny to them

Me and Morgan! I tried to touch it, then I found out later that it's against the law...oops :)

Well I'm starting to run out of space...more to come!