Summer Vacations!!

So we have finally updated our blog. It has been a long time coming. This past summer not only did we have great visitors, but we also got to go on some great vacations as well. It started out with the Jaussi Family Reunion at the Westergard's cabin. Now, these pictures are not in order.
On the drive back to Colorado, we drove through Farson and stopped to have ice cream. Growing up we often stopped here to grab ice cream. This is their 2 scoop ice cream which is their small. They go up to 4 scoops. Megan says she will never get 2 scoops again.

This trip was so fun and exciting that it wiped us all out especially Eliza.

There were canoes, kayaks, jet skis, four wheelers, and the motor boat. Plenty of things to occupy our time.

And of course, smothering the newest member of the family, Makia.

A Jaussi Family tradition is stopping by Big Judd's to have lunch. Big Judd is famous for 1 lb hamburgers, which nobody gets. :) Don't we look cute in our matching shirts?

Our other great adventure took us to Florida. My sister Liz and her husband Dave adopted their first little girl Jessica. The family all came together for the sealing of Jessica to her family. First stop, Orlando. One day was spent at Universal Studios Island Adventure.

Harry Potter land at Universal Studios. This was by far the best part of the whole park and most popular. The set and buildings were amazing.

There were great ways to immerse yourselves into the World of Harry Potter like drinking Butterbeer (cream soda with butterscotch topping) and lunch at the 3 Broom Sticks.

Second stop, Jupiter. Liz and Dave took us letter boxing. Basically, people post clues on line that lead you to hidden boxes that have stamps in them. When you find you stamp your book with the stamp in the box and use your stamp to mark the book in the letter box.

If you go to Florida you have to experience the ocean or at least the inlet right next to the ocean. We got to see a bunch of neat fish!

Ok, this is back up in Orlando, but we went to Downtown Disney. Megan did not mean to wear this shirt to Downtown Disney. We stopped at the lego store. The dragon behind us is made of legos which is awesome! All and all we had a pretty amazing summer.

Summer Visitors

We had a fun and busy summer this year. Really fun summer. Our first visitors of the summer, and in our new home, was Mom and Dad. This is at Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

We spent one day in downtown Denver. We went to the Capital Building had dinner at the 16th Street Mall and then wen to a Rockies game. A very long and hot Rockies game.

This is a cute little marmot at Rocky Mountain.

And the highlight of the whole trip, at least for my Mom was the Keith Urban concert. It had rained a couple of hours before the concert so the ground was nothing but a muddy mess. But it was still fun to go.


A couple of weeks ago we had the Liston's come and visit.

Russell was so nice and helped Kenny replace our counters.

Look at how much better our kitchen looks. Thanks Russell.

We spent one day at Water World, the largest water park in America. This picture is at the end of the day, so we are all pretty worn out. The day was kind of cloudy, but that was okay because the lines were really short.

This is the beach at the Cherry Creek Reservoir. Also a somewhat cold and cloudy day. We tried to go on a little walk afterwards, but we were eaten alive by mosquitoes.

And once again this is Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a lot of fun having the Liston's here and my parents. Can't wait for the next visitors to come.

Stake Youth Trek

The cutest grandparents ever! On the trek we were the grandparents of our little family. They called a Laurel and a Priest to be the Ma and Pa and they were in charge. We were just there to make sure no one got hurt.

Our family. The kids arrived at the church for the trek at 5:30 am to find out that they were in assigned families. They were given a number and told to find their family. They weren't with their friends or even people from their ward. We didn't know anybody anyways so it didn't really matter. Though it would have been nice to have some kids from our ward, but whatever we had a great family.

Walking through the mud. Probably the best part of the whole thing. :) (I am being serious it was a lot of fun going through the mud).

This was a huge muddy and unexpected hole. There was a huge drop off the went right up to my thigh. You can see me in the background with two of my girls. The three of us decided to cross the mud holding hands, we could have walked around it, but I'm glad we didn't. Luckily, we were holding hands, or I would have fallen at the drop off, my girls held me up. A lot of flip flops were lost in the mud. Note to people in charge of the next trek: flip flops are not good water or mud shoes.

Going as a grandparent was the best way to go. It sounds horrible but I could get away with not doing anything, unlike the kids. I only pushed the cart once during the Women's Pull, "Oh you want dinner, you better go get it," "What clean up time, I guess you better do that." Our family was really great. They were hard workers and very proactive about helping. Since they were all away from their friends it was hard to keep them together. That was the most tiring part, getting the kids to stay together. All in all it was a lot of fun. Will we do this again in four years...maybe ask us in eight.

Rocky Mountain National Park II (The Bear Lake Excursion)

Here we are at Rocky Mountain National Park. We were feeling bored and I needed a break from studying for my Prelim Exam. So, we decided to make a spur of the moment trip up to the park.

Bear Lake is a little lake that can be reached easily by the roads. There is about a mile trail that circles the lake and the hike was a little harder with snow drifts. Obviously, it is a beautiful little spot.

It is great being in Colorado with the mountains nearby. Makes a great trip and vacation, wink wink.

Megan is our little tour guide. There were sign posts all along the trail, we stopped at everyone and Megan read very enthusiastically all the fun facts about the lake, wildlife, and region.

Mother's Day

See that beautiful mixer I'm sitting next to? That was my wonderful Mother's day present from Kenny. Along with the flowers. He really spoiled me. I love holidays that give an excuse for me to get presents!
We've really been needing a mixer. Up to this point I've been making bread by hand, and that pretty much sucks.

To celebrate our new mixer we made cookies! It was so much better than with a hand mixer.

Don't those look delicious? They were, especially the cookie dough! I love my mixer!

Near Death Experince

Yesterday, I had just finished taking a nice hot relaxing bath, when my world almost ended. I was grabbing the towel to wrap around me when I noticed a big black spot on the towel. I pulled it back to have a better look at it and the spot was moving! I screamed and threw the towel and spider into the corner. My bathroom isn't very big, so throwing the towel in the corner is also throwing it in front of the door. I stood in the bathtub trapped. I grabbed my phone (yes, I had my phone in the bathroom. I try to bring it in with me when Kenny isn't home in case I fall and crack my head open. I might have a few seconds before I black out) called Kenny. He was still in class. I realized that I couldn't stand there all day waiting for that creature to come out of the towel to get me. I stood in the tub building up my courage. Finally, I jumped out of the tub, threw open the door and ran into the bedroom screaming at the top of my lungs the whole time. The rest of the day I kept checking down the hall to see if it was coming after me. I wouldn't walk back to the bedroom without shoes on. Six hours later Kenny came home. Surprisingly, enough the spider was still in the towel and I was saved! Though now I am on the constant look out for another one. Kenny says I'm being too paranoid about it. But is there really too paranoid when it comes to spiders? I almost put a spider onto my body. I would have wrapped it up right next to my skin! It would have crawled all over me. Who knows how many bites I would have received? I could be dead right now.

Easter Egg Hunt

This year Kenny and I had a little Easter egg hunt of our own. We had clues in the eggs that led to our basket full of candy. (The basket was actually a gift bag, because I live with a holiday scrooge).
We had such clues like: Mmm.... ice cream
$cha-ching$ money money money
It is in 4-18-25-5-18
One person set up while the other hid in the bathroom. We both had a lot of fun running through the place looking for out clues. I was so excited that when I got the number one it took my brain a while to calm down long enough to figure it out.

It was a very happy Easter in the Eyring house!

Snow Day #2 and Housing Update

Yes that's right. I have another snow day. This is the second one this school year. One in October and the other at the end of March. What kind of crazy weather place did we move into? Friday, we got about 4-5 inches of snow and then had 50's and 60's. Now, another 6 inches of snow on the ground and we were on the low end for Denver. Oh well, day off for me!

We finally broke into the garage, and you will never guess what we found! It was NOT our garage. Our closer that was sick and hopped up on cold medicine misread our property description. Not to put all the blame on her, when we called the title company about the garage that was not ours, it took a conference call with 4 people from the company to figure it out. Luckily the actual owner was understanding about the whole thing.

Home Improvements

Well, being proud homeowners is exciting, but a lot of work! It is the night before we are going to move in and we did not get as much done as we wanted to. However, here is the progress so far. Finishing off the red.

Mmmm, pistachio ice cream. Doesn't it look bright and cheerful?

The previous owners really liked dark colors. It is not too bad since there is a lot of windows, but we like it a little toned down. Megan's first time painting, not too shabby.

Not pictured is the hall which still needs another coat, but it is the same soft suede as above. A lot done before we moved in our stuff. Now, we will just have to paint around our stuff. Also to come, new countertop, sink, and faucet in the kitchen. And, what will we find in our mysterious garage that we have not been able to look into?

Hip Hip Hooray to the Homeowners

We did it! We finally did it! As of the 26th of February, we are homeowners. Though we quickly realized that there are many adventures one faces. Besides actually finishing the process, the most exciting part was finding out that we own a garage with our condo which we did not expect. Well, we have started to transform our place and make it our own. So, join us on our journey.
Here is the kitchen as we bought it. Very very red. I was feeling very ambitious but luckily Megan talked some sense into me and just decided to paint the cabinets instead of reface them.

Step 1: Paint off white and red cabinets white.

Step 2: Tone down that dark red to pistachio ice cream

Now it is starting to look better, but still much more to do. We will be busy busy busy! Stay tuned for more.

Happy Birthday Kenny!

After two years of marriage I finally made Kenny a birthday cake. Yup, I didn't even make him one when we were first married. To be fair I was making what I thought was a cake mix, but then turned out to be a brownie mix. (and that wasn't even on his birthday, it was the day after. ;) ). And the next year his mom made him a beautiful cake, so I didn't feel like he needed another one.
I asked if he wanted a store bought cake and he said no. He wanted a homemade cake. (why I don't know.) So it was up to me to make him a cake. I saw this cake on Jamie's website. She had easy instructions on how to make this cake. (it's a football if you couldn't tell). I was doing great until it came time to frost. It was then that I realized that I don't think I've ever frosted a cake. I know I've started, but then I was usually pushed out of the way because I was doing such a horrible job. Well this time there wasn't anybody to save me. In the picture, the cake looks prettier than it actually was. It started falling apart on top and it was just a mess. Luckily, I didn't need to live up to a very high standard. I just needed to get the cake made.
And Kenny loved it! He didn't even care that some places didn't have frosting and that others had huge chunks of it.

Happy Birthday Kenny!