good news minute!

happy BIRTHday to miss ruth lova woodruff!

little miss ruthie was born in the wee hours of leap day today and we're so happy she's here!

we'll get to meet her a week from friday!

little ruthie is so chunky and cute.

and two hips and a hooray for mama blair with having no epidural.

yowza, way to go sista!

this was the picture i woke up to this morning.

twin noses with annalee and phoebe!

blair and logan were so sweet to let me video chat with that cute little baby only hours after she was born!

she was just precious.

and then later in the afternoon we video chatted again with the new big sisters, annalee and phoebe, being there.

annalee loved holding little ruthie and phoebe was just so excited to show me her!

phoebe's enthusiasm got the best of her and she started patting on lil ruthie harder than she knew,

logan quickly stepped in and began with the whole "soft, soft, phoebe."

ruthie started crying as annalee was holding her, and annalee firmly declared "i got it, she likes me" and she pushes the pacifier into ruthie's mouth.

sucking noises quickly followed and no more crying was heard.

oh how i wish i were there!

***

is it just me, or does the vitamix guy at costco always have you hooked for, like, 10 minutes.
man that guy can sell a product well.
makes me feel like i NEED it!!!
a whole pineapple mixed with green pepper,
k i'm a believer.
he could put a the rubber sole of a shoe in there and i'd believe it tasted good.
yeah, i think i need one...

***

sewing is just so much fun.
i really am enjoying it.
i love that i'm learning proper techniques on how to do things and not just sewing blindly.
i'm hand hemming my skirt as we speak!
today i just sat at home fixing stuff in my to-fix pile!
putting darts in some shirts, taking in some pants legs on my jeans, lengthening and widening casey's pants.
i'm just so happy i'm confident in sewing now.
the next step is just buying the fancy dancy sewing machine, if only...

***

scott, megan, tristan, and meli are officially gone.
we helped them pack up the moving truck on tuesday (man, lots of hands make moving a breeze!!!)
and then they drove to warm, heavenly, family-inhabited arizona.
oh how i envy them.
i'm happy for them though, that's where they'll be happiest.

***

with scott and megan moving to AZ, that means they don't need their electric blanket.
guess what the means?!?!?!?!?!
we inherited the electric blanket.
i nearly cried in joy last night as i got into my nice pre-warmed bed.
best invention ever.
i will poprobably use that blanket for the next 7 years of my life all year long.
i promise, people, it's just the best thing ever.

***

had the most tender mercy on monday.
i stranger facebooked casey on monday and essentailly said,
 "hi, i'm a 1st year dental student at University of Nebraska in Lincoln right now. i'm a wydent student too. i know your name from high school football. i'm LDS too. what can i help you with? let's be friends"
i started tearing up as casey read this to me,
what a blessing!
we've been messaging him back and forth for a few days asking all the questions are little hearts desired!
what a kind person.
our worries have been slightly subdued and now we have a path to start on for looking into housing/the ward in Lincoln.
we could not be happier!
sidenote- he said there's currently only SIX other LDS dental school students right now there!
ah, we couldn't be more excited!
(sorry for all the exclamations in this post, i just don't really know how to end sentences when, if you were here in person, i'd be jumping/screaming/grinning like a kinder-gardener to you!!!
there's just so many happy things!!!!)

***

in other news that's not as much good new,

the downfall of bangs:

my forehead is now a perfect petri dish for zits.

i swear without a doubt, there's always a colony of those buggers somewhere along my forehead.

i'll be the first to admit, i've been greatly blessed in my for not having acne problems in my years.

i wash my face with warm water every night,

that's it.

it's usually when i do use cleansers/soaps on my face that something happens.

but other that, 

i completely adore my bangs.

it's been a very fun change that i may be keeping for awhile!

***

i think that about sums up my ramblings on here folks.

peace out.

skiing vs snowboarding

 
 

i tried skiing again last friday for the first time in about 10 years!

i've kinda been wanting to learn how to ski again for awhile now.

i love snowboarding, i really do,

it's just that when you're with a bunch of skiiers and you're the only boarder, it's just easier to ski like everyone else.

and it's nice to know that you can easily do both.

so i borrowed a friend's set of skis and we went up to sundance for the day!

luckily it was decent snow.

it was actually way fun!

it was like going up to sundance for the first time all over again.

i knew the trails but it was a whole different experience,

you know, the whole, "am i gonna fall or not" feeling etc.

i picked up on it pretty quick surprisingly, and didn't fall for a long while.

once we got to the back mountain, i fell THREE times on the same spot everytime we went down the mountain.

i'd lie if each time i fell i didn't get all huffy and puffy and upset and cry, ha.

after about the first 5 seconds of being mad, i laughed at myself of my stupidity!

why the freak was i crying? it was my first time skiing!

i just didn't want to fall, it did make it worse that it was the same spot.

other than those 3 falls, i did pretty darn well, i'd say, for my first day.

not much pizzaing over here, rock on kimber!

let's get to the important stuff here.

snowboarding vs skiing.

what's better.

i've compiled a list of pros and cons for you all:

skiing is easy to first learn and catch onto.

snowboarding is hard to first learn and catch onto.

skiing is harder to get really good at.

snowboarding is easy to get really good at.

skiing has way more stuff you have to carry: TWO poles and TWO skis, it gets a little hard to carry.

snowboarding has ONE thing to carry, it's easy.

ski boots are heavier than snowboard boots.

it's hard to fall skiing.

it's easy to fall snowboarding.

when you fall skiing, it's like a train reck.
when you fall boarding, it's no big deal.

it's super easy to get off a lift in skis.
it's super easy to fall getting off the lift on a snowboard.

it's hard to inch down the mountain in skis.
it's easy to inch down the mountain on a snowboard.

it's hard to go down really steep mountains on skis.
it's easy to go down really steep mountains on a snowboard.

it's easy to always be in control on skis.
it's not as easy to learn to always be in control on a snowboard.

you pretty much never sit down skiing.
you pretty much always will have to be on your bum at some points of snowboarding (ie- putting your strap on or waiting for others.)

i'd say those other the major points i learned from the day.

will i ski again?
yes

will i snowboard again?
yes

over and out!

and the end picture of the cupcake?
that was my reward for skiing for the day.

everyday joy.

sooooooooooo

a little bit of life lately,

shall we?

1. when the cutler family came up for the farewell last weekend, they were able to come up a day early and go SKIING with us! yahooo! it was a blast with them. a little on the way cold side so only 1 picture that day. tay is rockin the whole snowboarding thing, and mom and dad c are excelente skiiers. lil karlee jo is still on the learning phase and let's just say skiing is not her most favorite thing in the world. the back mountain had some great snow and we just had fun being a family of skiiers/boarders that day!
2. yay for no school mondays and time to make german pancakes for breakfast!
3. kimber enjoying casey's birthday freebies at texas roadhouse.
4. casey enjoying casey's birthday freebies at texas roadhouse.

1. working at the library after it's closed. 1st floor view to the top.
2. working at the library after it's closed. 3rd floor view
3. this is casey's locker at work.
4. this is kimber's locker at work.

1. we're on the ward's intramural intertube waterpolo team.
2. it's pretty dang sweet.
3. sewing class. everying feverishly working on samples and assignments. i love that class so much.
4. working on my skirt in sewing class!

Casey Post #8 Senioritis

So we know that we are going to be going for Nebraska for Dental School, and I feel I am taking the most time consuming classes right now. I basically saved them for this last year, and I am glad I did because my GPA will probably not be so hot this semester, but the funny thing is I am still trying. I know that all I have to do is pass and it is hard to put forth the effort, but I still am doing a little here and there.

I learned in my business writing class that when you are writing an email you should vary sentences and you spaces between every few sentences so that the reader can stay tuned to what they are reading. I noticed that Kimber practices this very well when I read her last post.

Anyways, I have Senioritis! I know that there is only 2 months left and I am just ready to be done. Well at least done with stuff that isn't really relevant to what I am going to be doing the next 4 years. I am excited to graduate from BYU with a degree, and go on to bigger and better things. So I just wanted you all to know that I am so tired of busy work and having to turn in assignments, taking tests that really I don't care about, and sitting through some pretty boring classes.

I am glad you all made it through my complaints and I hope you never get this Senioritis like I have, it is terrible!

my dream job.

i've decided my dream job would be an assistant/secretary to member of the first presidency or quorum of the 12.

here's how i reached that conclusion:

i'm in a class here at BYU entitled the living prophets.

it is such an incredible class.

for the past month and a half we've focused a lot on president monson:

-his life growing up and the years in between those and now being prophet.

-his messages to men

-his messages to women

-his messages to young adults

-and about 50 other random conference talks chosen for us to read.

he is an incredible story teller and has a story for everything.

he focuses on serving others, listening to the spirit, and always having a spirit of gratitude.

what an incredible man to lead the church.

i truly love him and have full faith in him that he is the Lord's prophet today who is called to lead the people on the earth.

today we talked about the life of president uchtdorf and his journey of life that has brought him now to the 1st presidency of the church.

he is the sweetest man with an incredible background.

he's so genuine and has so much joy in him.

(i'd talk about pres eyring too right now, but i missed that day:)

i'm looking forward to learning about the rest of the apostles' lives in the coming weeks.

i know they are all amazing men with so much to teach!

so it was in today's discussion of president uchtdorf that sealed in me the dream job of being a secretary/assistant to any of those brethren.

to be around those brilliant, kind, inspiring men each day and their wives and family.

reading their talks always makes me so happy and fills me with so much joy,

going to "work" would be a breeze, 

i'd look forward to my job and the people i work with everyday!

****

last weekend with all the family in town,

we had lots of talks around the table together.

much of it on finances.

there are a few finance gurus in the family who we have so much to learn from.

so great to hear from them advice of things we may want to think about with dental school and beyond in our future.

among the discussion i brought up to everyone the question

if you could open up any business you wanted and it would be guaranteed to be successful, what would you choose?

a few of the answers were travel agents, travel tour guides, golf instructors, candy shop owners,
casey's was a bahama bucks shop owner or arcade owner
mine was a dance shop owner.

so what would your dream business be?

it's fun to hear other's respnses.

and who knows, maybe one day we can all reach for the stars and make our dreams come true!

provo bucket list: provo printing museum

#12 visit the provo printing museum.

13 done, 2 vetoed, 14 to go!

very cool place indeed.

the provo printing museum is way cool.

it's the most complete working printing press in the world today!

we went through 4 different rooms.

the first was where our tour guide told us all about the johannes gutenburg's printing press.

all the technology and methods that went into it.

you've all probably heard that they're individual types, the ink, yada yada yada,

but in this tour he SHOWED us they made each little letter,

with heating the metals, pouring them, carving one out, imprinting them and all.

it was really very fascinating actually!
i can't believe he ever figured out how to do it.

and did you know they're called "uppercase letters" bc the capitals were always held in the upper part of the case and the lower case letters were always on the lower half of the case.

cool, eh?
also the printing press was first patterned after that of an olive press, again, cool eh?

the 2nd room we went into was all about the declaration of independnce and constitution.

the printing press was the exact dimensions, settings, and style as that of benjamin franklin's.

(the owner of the place is friends with the smithsonian's head guy and gave him all the measurements and pictures)

i guess i never really though that in the beginning era of america they used the printing press too,

it just passed my mind, 

but it was so fun to look at all the types and imagined what it must have been like.

we are so fortunate to live in this day and age with computers and printers!!!!

the 3rd room was all about the book of mormon

and how the printing press paved the way for the book of mormon to be published.

it truly was inspired by the Lord!

he went through the whole process again showing us details of how it was exactly done.
we were also lcuky enough to have a tour of the original book of mormon printing place in palmayra IL this summer!

we were so very fortunate to have our very own guided tour of the place!

the final room was all about the printing press in utah in the early years of the church.

they even had a similar one to that of which president monson used when he was a young man working in a print shop with his father!

overall, we loved our experience there.

the provo printing museum is definitely a hidden gem in provo and more people should go and see it!

it was just on center so we had a nice little bike rode down to it :)

a weekend of family.

this cute couple is known as grandpa and grandma fran to the cutler/christensen family.

in about 2 weeks they will be leaving to serve a mission in the equador temple for 18 months!

we are so very excited for them!

happy and sad to see them leave.

many of casey's mom's side of the family gathered in for the weekend to send them off and we sent them off with a bang!

food all weekend.

grandma fran is a spectacular cook.

we were fed so well all weekend and with about 10 women in the kitchen to help cook and clean, eating was a breeze.

on saturday, the men were sent with all the children to jumping jacks, and the women were left along to "cook."

cooking was actually finished in the morning before they even left!

so we all sat together and crafted for hours on end,

all during one day and the nights of both days, such a hoot with these ladies.

we were so lucky to have 2 of grandma fran's daughters to join in on the fun too!

also, miss aunt malinda "pimped" out our nails.

(those were her exact words in a text to me the day before :)

she is such a hoot. 

we all had the best time together.

a crowning event of one of the evening was to celebrate grandpa's birthday!

he 78 and is kickin like he's 60!

it is incredible to watch him go.

we had such a fun time making the cake (it was the only food project fran has ever let me be in charge of) and putting ALL 78 CANDLES on that baby.

he was a little surprised to see that cake all up in flames!

the weekend included lots of fun little kiddos as well.

jacob is the funniest 2 1/2 year old.

we got a kick from nearly every sentence that came out of that boy's mouth.

and to continue the tradition of baby whispering, casey yet again defied that odds and put another baby to sleep in his arms. 

the mother was shocked to say the least when seeing the babe went to sleep without a pacifier.

baby whispering continues...

last but not least was the sunday farewell.

they're talks were so spectacular.

fran is such an amazing lady and we are so lucky she joined the family.

grandpa is one of the most stalwart men you'll ever meet and ha stories of incredible opportunities and experiences after another.

we love them both dearly!

Casey Post #7 Charity never Faileth

So for our blog post this week, my teacher asked us to basically do a random act of service for a complete stranger like buying a coke and giving it to someone walking by. I decided to reminisce on a small act of kindness that a stranger did for Kimber and I when we were first married. We hadn't washed off our, "just married" writing from our car yet and we were going into deseret book to shop for some things, when we came out we found an envelope with 5 dollars and a note. The note said, to spend this money on something that you both can enjoy that doesn't come out of your own pocket, but that you can spend care free. I don't remember what we spent it on, but I remembered the act of charity. So a couple of weeks ago I was walking to school when I saw a car with similar writing like we had when we were just married, and somehow I had 5 dollars in my pocket! I tore off a little piece of paper and put the money in it with a note that was something similar to what we received 2 years previous. I felt pretty good spiritually because I was able to give back to someone else and hopefully pass on a tradition from newly married couple to newly married couple. A little act of kindness can really brighten up someone's day.

every day things.

i'm trying to work harder on taking pictures of the every day little things.

that's what life is about, right?

lots of little things that make big things about your life, eh?

here we go:
1. thank you notes with annalee actually writing words on it. cue melted heart.
2. looking outside of church to see snow finally.
3.walking to school and hating this intersection. always busy.
4. just in class trying to entertain myself...

1. walking to school and seeing a car filled with balloons, happy times.
2. learning that it's pretty much just been the new apostles that went to BYU, whaaaaaa!?!?!
3. sleeping during work...
4. waiting (no clue for what)

1. tristan. self explanatory. but babysitting baby gangster rocks.
2. casey and tristan, this picture makes me smile lots.
3. tristan is gonna be a body builder, how can a 15 month old lift 5 pound weights?! he totally did.
4. facetiming with phoebe and annalee. always so funny. phoebs is always asking "cahsee?" she loves males.

1. birthday freebie: buffalo wild wings
2. birthday freebie: red robin.
3. birthday freebie chile's chips and queso
4. birthday freebie: chile's AMAZING brownie sundae, probably the best we've ever had!!!

 

oh and our valentine's you ask?
we were both at school from 8-6 and then work from 6:30-midnight.
romantic, huh?

a ski day way better than our normal ski day.

we had the most wonderful ski day yesterday.

can anyone say canyons?

oh my heck, after skiing up there for one day, casey and i were yelling/asking ourselves why we don't have season passes up there?????

holy hannah, talk about 10 bajillion times better skiing than sundance.

it was incredible.

it was a legit ski resort, it had this whole village at the bottom with shopping and nice restaurants.

the actually skiing was crazy expansive.

we pretty much never went up the same lifts twice the place was so big.

the runs were awesome with dang good snow for how little snow we have gotten this season.

we were in heaven.

and what made it best, was the COMPANY!

some family members of casey's came down from montana!

they had whole week of skiing in park city and we got to join them for a day.

all 4 kids were totally awesome skiers, even little 7 year old kayla rocked it out there,

i was amazed.

and having a big group go skiing together,

where everyone is good,

and sticks together,

was just so spectacular.

we loved every moment.

let me tell you something crazy.

there was one lift that had SEAT WARMERS!!!

SEAT WARMERS on a ski lift!

haha, we were laughing bc we couldn't believe it.

they also had this bubble type thing that came over you so you got nice and toasty inside.

above:
bottom left: bryce was SQUISHED with 2 other random kids on a ski lift due to how the chair worked, funniest thing ever looking back at him.
bottom right: one of these isn't like the others...not gonna lie, that day i wished i was skiing so i wasn't the only boarder, ha!

we seriously had the best time together.

family makes everything better.

we loved every minute.

a GINORMOUS thanks to Kert and Catherine for inviting us to go up with them.

tip: if you come to utah to ski, spend the extra money and get your bum up to the canyons.
worth every penny.

after a LONG awesome day of skiing,
we went back to their little condo, had a yummy dinner, and just talked with the family
so wonderful to hear all their stories of med school and family times.
so much for us to look forward to still in that area!
such a loving family.
we are very lucky to call them thus:)

casey's surprise party and giveaway winner

 out of 27 entries, #26 won, which means

our giveaway winner is miss clarissa!

yay, you won!

if you could email kimberwo{at}gmail{dot}com

with your shipping info, J3LL will be sending you your two favorites!!!

thank you so much everyone else for entering!

the other day when i was in the byu bookstore and there was actually a whole section of J3LL watches by the jewelery area!

go check em out next time you're in there!!!

onto to casey's surprise party!
i can't believe it actually worked. 
worked as in it was actually a surprise to him.
it did have a few kinks in the plan that had to be fixed, let's start from the beginning:


i kept telling casey he should maybe go to nickle city with some guys friends in the afternoon on saturday.
it was supposed to be like my little "gift" to him, you know, guys time, an arcade.
after lots of prodding, no men were found to accompany him.
luckily, his good friend brock knew of my plan of trying to get him out of the house for the little partay.
so, he set up a few guys to go to the RB to play basketball at 5.
that'd give me perfect amount of time to get it all ready, 2 1/2 hours, i got that.
at 6 he calls to tell me he's rolled his ankle and he wants to come home.
really? really.
ha, so i tell him i'm still out grocery shopping and he'll need to wait a little while.
i'm actually in the middle of making the batter for the cake!
bah!
so i finish putting the batter in the pans, throw everything i had out in the back room,
including the uncooked cake :)
i'm literally running around the house doing this while laughing thinking the party won't end up being a surprise.


casey then calls to ask how far away from home i am bc he just decided to limp home.
ha, really, casey!!!
i tell him i'll be finished soon, bc he doesn't have keys to get into the house.
i rush out to the car, jump in, drive like a mad woman out of the driveway, and see him about to walk across the sidewalk 3 houses down!!!
i don't turn his way, but instead take a loop around the block,
by the time i "come back from grocery shopping" he's sitting at the door.
woah, that was close.
things i can't believe he didn't notice:
how i came into the house with 1 fake bag of groceries.
a crockpot with tons of meatballs in it sitting on the counter, wow.



so about 6:45 i somehow get him out of the house teling him we'll go get some free birthday stuff.
luckily he came, even though he totally didn't want to.
we went to firehouse subs (so rude, it had to be ON your birthday, his birthday is on sunday, come on, it's utah!!!!)
and del taco- 2 free tacos and a shake.
during this time i had gotten a few texts from people saying we're here, and getting it all set up!
what a relief!
i left a note on the stairs with lots of directions, ha.
we arrived home at 7:30 with a big old surprise at the top of the stairs!
casey had no clue and was very happy.
(i was kinda worried, bc on the way home from del taco, he said "i just want to go home, sit, and watch basketball..." oh jeeze, what had i done!)
the girls did such a great job setting the house up with my decorations through out both rooms and cake and drinks,
the whole she bang!

we played lots of games, as always, and had a great time.
oreo cake which turned out good enough with a sparkler atop that was impossible to blow out, but looked awesome.
 



we kept the rest of the food simple with meatballs, m&m's, carrots, and an oober yummy drink from suzie.
we had the perfect group of friends there:
2 mission/work friends: brock/emily and andy/kylie
2 family friends: scott/megan/tristan and suzie/ryan.

thank you everyone for coming and helping.
it was so fun!
and, again, happy birthday to casey!

quarter of a century!

(last year i was really excited that i'd be able to use that title in 2012:)

a big happy birthday to my wonderful husband!
another day i get to celebrate him in my life!
  twenty-five!

i keep teasing him that he's now closer to 30 than he is 20 :)

 

i'm so lucky to have him.

sometimes when we're sitting at a restaurant,

i'll tell him 

"can you believe we're married!?, i still can't believe that you picked me as your favorite person!

because you're my favorite person!!!!! what are the chances of that!?"
he then laughs, and smiles, squints his eyes, tilts his head, and says "i know, me too."

we're very lucky to get to spend so much time with each other.

compared to other couples, i feel like we spend TONS of time with each other

which i most totally love!

we're beyond blessed to get to work together, and have very similar school schedules.

he's always making me smile and laugh.

i feel like such a lucky girl to have gotten such a great one!

i'm constantly reminded by family how lucky i was to have married casey, ha, and i agree, he's just the kind of husband and companion i need

i love that he makes everyone feel like close friends.

i love that he's so on top of the ball when it comes to getting things done asap.

he puts up with all my stupidness and can make not funny things funny.

he has the funniest faces when he gets pouty.

he's incredible with children, they all love him instantly.

he's thoughtful and caring when it comes to doing small things.

he loves and serves the Lord with all his might.

i love this boy.

i'm happy i get to celebrate him in my life today!

 

more about birthday celebrations coming this week.
somehow i through him a little surprise party!

and last day to enter the giveaway is today, ends at midnight tonight!

scenes of lately

1. Abby coloring 

2. Abby coloring all over our budget sheet (i gave it to her) and look at that skinny bum! that skinny bum is a sign of one potty trained little girl!

3. the laundromat

4. marketing class in the tanner.
i've realized i NEVER take pictures while at school.
i'm going to make it a goal to take more to remember my times here at BYU!

last day to enter the giveaway is tomorrow!
go here to enter!

moving.

our friends are moving.

our game mates our moving.

our go-to people to hang out with are moving.

our meli is moving.

our tristan is moving.

our brother and sister in law are moving to arizona in less than a month :(

so sad.

on super bowl sunday, us siblings gathered for food (SO MUCH FOOD), commercials, games, and football.

i put football last bc we (except casey) really didn't watch much of it til the last 3 minutes.

i haven't eaten that much food in ages!
tristan and abby were the funniest/cutest things ever.
the 6 of us adults have gotten to a stage where we can just have the best time together,
and it will all be ending quite soon with scott and megan leaving and we will follow in just 2 1/2 months!

but late, late in the night,

once children had gone to bed,

we brought out settlers with the expansion pack.

scott and megan are the absolute funnest and best people to play games with.

we love them.
we all want to win, we all laugh, we all help, we all steal, and we all selfishly keep cards to ourselves.

scott had us laughing the whole time.

alliances formed and crumbled in seconds.

cards were constantly being exchanged/stolen.

casey tried breaking rules.

scott was practically selling his soul for paper.

casey couldn't build anywhere.
megan kept having to give up half her cards.

after 3 hours of both megan and i trading off being 1 point away from winning, megan won.

longest, but best game of settlers ever.

we're going to miss our gamers.

Casey Post #6 Birthday Freebies Begin

Birthday celebration kind of begins!!! So Kimber and I used 2 coupons yesterday and she will probably get mad at me for posting this because I know how she loves to state everything that is going on. BUT…. We went to Tucano’s Brazillian Grill yesterday because they give out a free coupon for a meal during your birthday month. I tell you what it is the best ever!!! I love the Grilled pineapple and spicy wings the most! We also were able to go to Buffalo Wild Wings and get a free dessert, which was super tasty. I printed out a few hundred free things to go do during the week and until the coupons expire. Ok it wasn’t a hundred, but there are a lot of them and they are mostly all desserts so I kind of Love it! Anyways so the birthday freebies have begun and I actually think it is one of the best things about having a birthday!

giveaway below

provo bucket list:temple square saturday

#10: do a temple square saturday

we attempted to also do #14: a session in the SLC temple,

but alas, it was closed 3 weeks for cleaning.

boo for closed temples

yay for clean temples.

the only good thing about not getting to actually go into the temple was that it gave us an extra 2 and a half hours to do temple square activities!

1.we visited a visitor's center about the SLC temple

2. we went to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and watched a beautiful new movie on Joseph Smith and the Restoration.

3. we went to the Lion House for lunch and saw lots of fun people we knew,
namely the giffords and my SILs dad, we see him in the most random places!

4. we went to the beehive house next door. the house the prophet brigham young called home.

5. we walked around temple square without throngs of others being around.

6. we went inside the old tabernacle building (can't believe conference used to be held in that SMALL place!)

7. we took a tour of the LDS conference center including the green roof atop, that building was divinely inspired.

and boy were our feet sore and tired afterwards!

we will be heading back once more before graduation to finish our visit off!

don't forget to enter the J3LL watch giveaway below!

provo bucket list: snow shoeing

this past weekend we passed off another TWO bucket list items!

can i hear a "woot woot!" from all you peeps out there?!

#3: go snow shoeing.

the landscape management major/aboriculture class on campus organized a night for anyone who wanted to to go show shoeing up to the largest white fir tree in Utah.

my overall feelings of snow shoeing in five words you ask?

 hiking with 100 pound legs.

ha, i'm not going to lie, it wasn't my favorite hiking experience ever, but i'm still glad i did it.

there were 45 of us who went and strapped these snow shoes to our feet and hiked about an hour and 45 minutes to the tree.

regardless of the minimal snow utah has received lately,

we had wonderful,.sparkling, fresh powder in the mountains  that made it much nicer.

we began the hike at 6:00 pm, excited to  be going!

at about 6:30 i thought/complained to casey "how much longer"

at 6:45 we began the much steeper part of the trail

and about every 5 minutes i said to casey "i want a break."

did we break very much though?

no, because i felt peer pressured into not stopping from all the 43 other people around me.

i was NOT going to be deemed the most out of shape person on this adventure.

soooooooooooo,

we kept going

and we kept going.

let me tell you the basic experience of snow shoeing:

each foot becomes about 6 inches wider with the inside and outside added together,

and then sometimes on the steep parts your snow shoe doesn't claw into the snow nice enough and you totally start tripping up,
casey had good laughs about every 10 minutes watching clumsy kimber trying to not fall with huge clown shoes on...

and my tree hugging professor, phil allen, (literally he LOVES trees and is obsessed with them, that's why he teaches the tree class) would say "oh you're about 20 minutes away from the meadow"

45 minutes later we reached that dang meadow.

and then at the meadow he said we were "5 minutes away from the tree"

15 minutes later we reached the tree.

LUCKILY, that tree did not disappoint.

the pictures don't do it justice but it was a rather large tree,

i was glad i made it.

love this picture my friend chase took after climbing up the tree a little ways

the way down was awesome.

it took us maybe 35 minutes?

you could take a giant step and slowly glide with that foot a little more.

the snow made the pounding on your knees/toes not bad at all.
i'd go snow shoeing down hill any day :)


ps- don't forget to enter the giveaway below if you haven't already! there's pretty good chances you could win since only, like, 8 people read this here blog!


pps- i read the conference talk from Pres Monson called "Charity Never Faileth"
it is indeed an incredible read.
reminds us of the importance of not judging and just loving.
i needed that.

J3LL giveaway!

WHAT!?

a giveaway?!

crazy, right!?

i know!!

as you can tell from the times above, i just got the square ones and hadn't changed them yet :)


remember when i posted about how cool these watches were last fall?

well now i get 2 give TWO watches to you readers for FREE!

watch why these watches rock:

J3LL Color Change from J3LL Watches on Vimeo.

i love that if you have two watches from J3ll (jell),

in reality you have four!
the faces interchange between the bands and are seriously so comfy.

it's like your options for watches multiply like rabbits before your eyes,

if you just said woah out loud, props to ya :)

without fail, every time i wear these watches i get complimets on it, always.

they're such a great accent to the outfit!

and they're bold without overdoing it.

i could have done about 10 different watch combos with this outfit with only 3 watches!
PLUS, casey and i actually share the watches.

they can adapt for his style and mine!

two birds with one stone,

i'm all over it.

so let's list the ways you can win 2 of these puppies yourself!

1. visit J3LL's website, come back here and leave a comment with which 2 colors/styles you love most.
2. like J3LL on facebook and tell me you've done this
3. follow J3LL on twitter and tell me you've done this
4. google plus J3LL and tell me you've done this!
which brings you to a grand total of FOUR entries per person!

#2-4 can all be done on J3LL's website in one spot, once you hit the follow/like/+1'd buttons, coupons codes also come up for your order, facebook=free shipping, twitter=$2.50 , and googleplus=$2.50 off!
so you could potentially get $5 off and free shipping.
valentine's is only a week away, hurry and order for your sweetie and benefit from the watches yourself!

feel free to share this giveaway with others!

let the giveawaying begin!


giveaway will end this Sunday, February 12 (in honor of Casey's birthday) at 11:59 MST
and the winner will be announced the next day!

Casey Post #5 Crazy Casey email!

This week I decided to do something daring, and crazy, but any United States citizen can do. Any guesses? Well I was accepted to the University of Nebraska dental school and along with this the state of Wyoming has a WYDENT program that allows the state of Wyoming to pay for my dental school if we come back and practice in Wyoming for 3 years.; however, I received a letter that the state legislature wanted some budget cut proposals from the program in case they decided to cut part of the program. So I called the WYDENT department to see if I needed to do anything or do I just wait until March when they come out of session. Both times I called they said, “well you can always call your representatives and talk to them. “ So I decided to find out all of the state legislature’s emails and I sent them an email yesterday. I was surprised at the amount of replies thus far and they have all been positive. My dad called our local ones here and a lot of them were unaware that the WYDENT program was even being brought up because they thought that nothing was going to happen to that program. So it was relatively good news because we don’t have to worry as much that they are going to cut any of the funds to that program. We won’t know for sure until March, but the results look promising. I just felt funny emailing all of my state legislature and I felt daring sending them an email haha.

goodbye january, hello february!

oh my heck!

can you believe january is gone and february has come?!?!

we were walking to school yesterday, and were gawking over the fact that we've FINISHED 1 month of our last semester already!

wowza.

this is my last ode to january 2012 in provo, ut.

(cue 1 tear trickling down face).

1. 1st ski trips of the season: some awesome days (remarkably with what little snow there is) and some terrible ones (not surprisingly, again, cue large goose egg bruise on both knees from sheets of pebbled ice)
2. finished my 1st project in sewing class: pajama pants!! (mom, aren't you proud!?). sewing class is awesome.
3. lots of toast with butter, sliced avocado, all sprinkled with a little salt: yummo.
4. the first time we ever cooked salmon

5. Meli dog. you only feed my need of wanting my own dog. thanks for being the best dog ever. don't ever die.
6. seeing tristan, lots. love that cute boy.

7. cousin/friend get together at Suz's.
8. mission friend get together where we all were laughing for hours straight. great group of boys, and a great group of girls those guys picked
(tim and kelly, yay for moving back to utah!
andy and kylie, flipping funny stories.
brock and emily, you two are perfect, get married, k?).
usually when you get together with other couples it's bc the wife thinks they would be a fun couple and the husband agrees.
usually the wives end up being great friends and easy to talk to and sometimes the husbands just don't mesh.
where in this situation, the guys brought everyone together and had all these happy memories with one another, and the girls just fit (like most girls always do).
twas great.
8 peeps around our small table is THE MAX, but it works!

9. little snow.
10. tons of cheap blueberries. ate those suckers like candy
11. watching debates, lots of them, GO MITT!!!!!
12. relief society super saturday which included a crepe class from the awful waffle woman herself!

what february will bring us:
1. casey's birthday!
2. valentine's day
3. cousin sleepover
4. snowshoeing
5. more skiing
6. game nights
7. the last month of scott and megan in utah :(
8. leap day!!!