The Alligator named Steve

Don't mind the really great *cough* picture of me, that's my half terrified - half "I can't believe I'm doing this" look. But I had to share this...I got to hold a live alligator at school today! His name is Steve; named after Steve Irwin. He belongs to a guy in one of my classes (the guy behind me in the picture), who bought Steve off the internet for $30!! (I'm pretty sure it's illegal to have him, but who's telling?) He named him after Steve Irwin because Steve (the alligator) was shipped to him the week Steve Irwin died. I was just so impressed with myself that I dug up enough guts to hold him (I won't even hold D's snake!). Yay me! Besides, it's not everyday you get the opportunity to hold an alligator at school!

P.S. Thanks, Janice, for taking the picture for me!

In Loving Memory of Truman G. Madsen

Truman G. Madsen passed away this morning after a long, exhausting battle with cancer. Please go to this link to read more about the life of Truman Madsen. He truly was an amazing man. A man of God.

I personally had the chance to meet and talk briefly with Truman Madsen several times while I worked at Fillmore Spencer LLC. He always had a smile on his face, and made you feel like the most important person in the world. I had the privilege of working with Truman's amazing son, Barney Madsen, who was one of the attorneys there, and I also had the privilege of working with three of Truman's amazing grandchildren, Jed, Kelly, and David. Although I did not know Truman Madsen very well, I knew his son and his son's family. Darwin and I look up to the Madsen family with incredible respect. They are incredible examples to us, and we love them dearly. We hope our kids love each other and are as best of friends as the Madsen siblings are!

Barney, Cindy, Jed, Brooke, Kelly, David, and Caroline:

Our hearts and prayers are with you as you bid farewell to yet another grandfather who has made his way back to his Father in Heaven. We love and admire your strength and the inspiring examples you have always been to Darwin and I.

We love you, all!

Memorial Day Fun

What better way is there to celebrate Memorial Day than to be stuck inside all day doing homework on your day off? Just kidding. After being stuck inside doing homework all morning for Memorial Day, we were able to celebrate in the afternoon by partaking in a scrumptious BBQ at D's parent's house. A BBQ that consisted of the classic hamburgers, hotdogs, homemade potato salad and s'mores!

Before the BBQ, D & I (but mostly D, because I didn't want to get muddy...I wasn't wearing my work clothes!) finished planting the veggie garden (for now)! Woo-Hoo! I was excited to see that some of the seeds we planted a few weeks ago are already sprouting out of the dirt! Yay!

Pumkins for Halloween!

Working on the pepper, tomato, and eggplant plants.

For Christmas, D's parents got the grandkids a trampoline, and we finally set it up yesterday after the BBQ. It was like Christmas all over again for the kiddos!

Andrew and Emma couldn't jump for a little bit while the adults finished putting the tramp up, so they found other ways to entertain themselves :)

Allie had first privileges of jumping on the tramp.

Andrew & Emma pulling out some of their "moves".

Allie pulling out some of her "moves".

To finish off the day we went to the elementary school by my in-laws house to shoot off bottle rockets. The first one went so high you could barely see it!!

This is a really bad picture, but I had to post it because I love that you can see the stream and splash from the water coming out of the rocket as it shot up :)

Thanks for a fun Memorial Day weekend everyone! Now, it's back to work :(

Thank goodness for hair-dryers!!

We had the coolest rain storm yesterday!! We don't get storms like that very often here in Utah, unfortunately. I absolutely LOVE the rain, and thunder and lightning! And yesterday we had a pretty good storm...for Utah.

D & I like leaving our windows open to cool our house down in the evenings, and because it was fairly nice, but still cool yesterday, we had our windows open most of the day. We went over to D's parents house for our usual Sunday dinner...and then the rains came. You should have seen it pouring off the roof and bouncing off the concrete as it hit the road outside!! The puddles in the driveway were great, and the ones on the road were even better!! Like I said...we rarely get storms like that here, so I was ecstatic! While we were enjoying listening to and watching the storm, D remembered that we had left our windows open at home, so we decided we should probably rush home to shut them. It was still raining really hard when we left his parent's house.

When we got home, this is what we found:

Our couch that was by the 2 windows in our living room was soaked on the edges by the open windows. Ooops! D was a little annoyed by it:

I was still just so excited about the cool rain storm we had just had that I didn't mind having to use my hair-dryer to dry the couch. :)

Yay for cool rain storms!!

Scroll down.

I have posted 3 very important posts today, so make sure you scroll down! :)

What's a "pie man?"

D had a cancer fund raising assembly at school today, and he was honored to have a pie thrown in his face (sorry the pictures are so dark. D obviously wasn't the one taking the pictures, and the lighting in the school was bad anyway. We seriously need a new camera):

If you click & enlarge the picture, you can see that the teacher on D's left is pointing both hands mercilessly at him. Thanks, Mr. Motta!

D's the one in the middle, if you can't tell. Way to use those safety goggles, babe!

Love the faces!

Art (Miss Lloyd) vs. Science (Miss Muir)
I think art won this round!

Once you're down, there's no getting up!

D says I should share the story behind the title of this post:
Before we were married he was staying down in St. George with his best friend, Bard. D was hungry so he started looking through the fridge and cupboards and found the perfect ingredients to make a delicious cream-pudding pie. Bard's son, Josh, was in the kitchen with D, so D says to Josh, "Hey! We could make a pie, man!" Josh's response was, "What's a 'pie man'?" D still laughs about it to this day :)

Happy Birthday, Liam!

My cute little nephew, Liam, had his 1st birthday on April 20th, but we just celebrated it this past Sunday. He is such an adorable little nugget...I just want to eat him up every time I see him! I still can't believe how mellow and happy he is all the time. I hope my kids are just like him! It's amazing to see how much little ones grow in their first year - and he was soo teeny when he was born. I'll post a flashback picture so you can see the difference. Man! I love this boy to death! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LIAM!

Here are some pictures from the festivities:

He blew the candle out by himself...in the process of trying to eat it. Haha.

Just getting started, but already sharing :)

Icing vs. Body Paint? Who cares?

How can you NOT love that face?

Love this shot :) Good job, Uncle D!

He even got the icing on is ear :)

Me & Hannah Bear eating our cake & ice cream

Can't tell she's the big sister, huh?

He did really well opening his presents by himself, and just needed a little bit of help from Miss Hannah.

Me & my big-little brother, Sky (just look past the bad bleach job ;)

Mr. Cade
My nephew that was adopted out. We love when his family joins us for festivities! Thanks again for coming, Tammy, Cassidy, and Cade! It was great to see you guys again!

Miss Abbie
(I must have told a funny joke ;)

Startin' 'im young on his John Deere!

You cannot tell me that he's not a happy birthday boy!

Flashback Picture:
He was almost a month in this picture. Look how teeny he was! He looks like a completely different baby!

Quote of the Day

D and I have been wanting to start this for a while, but we've been a little bit slow jumping into the water...At the bottom of our blog, we'll be adding "Quotes of the Day and other Had-To-Be-There Moments." I'm sure they'll probably really only be funny to us as we read back through them, but hopefully some of you will also get a kick out of our goofiness and random moments that we record. I'm sure most of you as you read them will wonder what the heck we were talking about and think that they make no sense, at all, whatsoever. However, it's the funny things that usually don't make sense that happen to stick to us the most. We love it, and hope you might start a similar tradition of your own!

Don't worry, they'll all be either G or PG rated. Who do you think we are? ;)

Yes. I did it.

I created another blog. I know what you are thinking. You're thinking, "Doesn't she blog enough already? I swear there's a new post on here three times a week!"

Well, I've been wanting to start another blog for a while. One with a different feel that entails more of my own inner thoughts, rather than just the adventure of mine and D's life together. I wanted a place to reflect upon the little things that happen in life; the things that make me ponder. It's my Inspiration Point. I hope you'll enjoy walking through my thoughts and that you'll leave lots comments there so we can learn from each other.

I hope we all have our own inspiration point. A place we can go to explore the things of life that help us learn and grow- to become better people.

I hope none of you think that I'm trying to divulge everything about my life through my blogs. The Inspiration Point is really a personal place for me to record the things I think about on a daily basis and to remember where my inspiration comes from in the little moments of my life, to remember where I learned something, or when I had an "Ah-ha" moment. I'm just inviting you to take a peek into this funny little brain of mine, and hopefully I can help some of you to have more of your "Ah-ha" moments, or even to just reflect upon your own lives in a different light. I hope you'll visit Inspiration Point every once in a while, but that you'll ALWAYS leave me a comment. :)

*Note: Inspiration Point is still under construction. Thanks for being patient with me!

Breaking News

Celebrity Swine Flu Fatality:

And we all know who gave it to him. ;)

What would we do without MOTHERS??

We just wanted to give a shout out to our moms and wish all of the moms out there a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!! We both have amazing mothers and grandmothers and wanted to express our love and thanks for all they do for us. Thank you for being such amazing women and being such incredible examples for us. We know we have some pretty big parenting shoes to fill, and hope we can do at least a little bit of justice. Thank you for all of your sacrifices and for your unconditional love for us.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY, WE LOVE YOU!!

P.S. Happy Birthday U-Ma! One year older and wiser too, happy birthday, to you!!
P.P.S. Thanks Sara for letting me borrow your baby for a "future baby" photo shot for me! :)
P.P.P.S. Here's a cute little tribute to all of our Mom's hard work...I actually do look forward to this someday :)

Say "hello" to...

...your 4.0 students, yet again!! Yes, D & I both got 4.0 GPAs again this semester! What an accomplishment!! I'm so proud of D because of all his hard work! With him teaching middle school and then having to come home every day (well almost every day) and work on his Masters degree and his amazing ability to still pull off a 4.0!! Incredible!! Way to go, honey!!

And for me, this was my heaviest loaded semester yet! I was taking 18 credits and thought I'd get close to a 4.0, but didn't think I'd actually get it! My Research Methods class was by far the hardest class this semester, and from looking at my test scores throughout the semester I thought for sure I'd maybe get an A-, and that was a long shot, or so I thought. But no! I looked up my grades this morning, and sure enough....4.0!!! Woot! Woot!

Just wanted to share our good, exciting news! Yay!!

Class of 2009

UVU's graduation was on Friday, and since I didn't have anything better to do, I decided to go and support my classmates who were walking, listen to the Prophet speak, and then watch J walk. I graduated with my Associates (FINALLY!!) but I decided not to walk because I'll be walking next spring when I graduate with my Bachelors.

President Monson's talk was great. Short, but great. I think it was a bit of a surprise for everyone that President Eyring and President Uchtdorf were there as well! We got the whole 1st Presidency for our Commencement! (D says that's what separates us from BYU ;) President Monson gave the graduates three pieces of advice. Here's some of the small notes I was able to jot down from his talk.

1. Glance Backward - Only a glance, because it's not practical to return to the past. Glance back at the sacrifices of yourself, your parents, and your family to get you through your schooling. Glance back at the inspiration you received from some of your professors.
2. Reach Outward - True happiness comes from serving others. Try as we may, we cannot escape the impact of our lives on others. Serving others gives us the power to lead.
3. Press Forward - Accountibility is not for the intent, but for the deed. To cease learning is to cease existing.

Bad picture, but I wanted to post it anyway :)

A shot of the crowd that came to hear President Monson

R waving at her daddy.
(We actually did find him, so she really was waving at him.)

Right after he got his diploma.

Now that he's done, he thought it was appropriate to buy his first UVU apparrel :)

R getting driving lessons from D after J's graduation BBQ.

J graduated in Aviation Science, Professional Pilot, Cum Laude. He was actually done in December, but UVU only walks in the spring. Congratulations, J!! You did it!!

*As a side note, even though I didn't walk, I graduated with my Associates in Behavioral Science, Honors. I was soo excited that I finally have at least some-what of a degree. And I was actually done with my Associates in December as well, but didn't apply for graduation until this semester. I can't wait till next spring!!!

As another side note, Saturday night there was the biggest moondog I've ever seen. (A moondog is basically just a halo around the moon. The sun gets them too.) J & T were leaving our house and called us to have us come outside to look at it. It was amazing and this shot doesn't do it any justice at all, but it was really beautiful!


*Tailbone update: I did end up going to the doctor on Friday after all the graduation fun. She put me back on anti-inflammatories, but my tailbone has gotten worse since then. Hopefully this goes away soon. We're driving up to Idaho on Saturday, and sitting in the car for 4 hours with my tailbone hurting like this will NOT be my idea of fun!