Temple Work and Other Matters

Hi everyone! This is Adam again.  I am here to give you my perspective on our trip and what we have done since then.  So... to begin:

The trip was a wonderful break from the normal life found here in Utah.  Prior to this trip, Ashley and I had not made a trip outside of Utah since January.  We both needed this trip.  It was a lot of fun to be around Ashley's family, which had all gathered for our nephew's baby blessing.  Ashley loved spending time with her new nephew.  In fact, Ashley and her mother were in what I considered a lighthearted competition to hold the new baby the most.

After going to Seattle, we returned to Vancouver where we got to spend a lot of time with Ashley's friends and visiting new places (or old places that Ashley remembered, whichever you prefer).  We also got to go visit the beach, which was really special for me, since I have only gone to the beach a few times and I have never spent a long time there and never in Summer.  It was a lot of fun, and a special day with just Ashley.

Ok, so moving on... we then returned to our home where we began our temple assignment.  Saturday was our first day and we were quite nervous when we got there.  Fortunately, there was a lot of willing assistance, and we had a great time.  It was a very spiritual experience.  Not only were we able to serve other people, which was a delightful experience, but it was also a chance to learn as well.  I am really looking forward to our shift each Saturday.

Trip to Washington: Day 5-8

So after we came back to Vancouver, we got to do more stuff :) On Monday, we got lunch at Gustav's, a German restaurant in the Vancouver/Portland area. We had delicious fondue! After that we hung out with a couple of friends of mine, Chelsea and Alex. We all went up to a waterfall that my family discovered north of Vancouver. Its a beautiful drive and the waterfall is kind of hidden from the road so we've always called it Hidden Falls. haha not sure how we found it. Anyways, it was fun to go there and cool down. We put our feet in the water but it was of course freezing (it's basically snow melt). We did get to take some fun pictures!

 There's also a little trail that leads to an old railroad which I discovered one time from going to the falls with my family. Chelsea and Alex had fun playing chicken :)

 Then Chelsea and I went to the mall and got pedicures. Yay for girl time! Then the next day was temple day!! We got some great pictures from our wedding but I wish that it hadn't rained at the temple and I hadn't had bronchitis xP So Adam and I attempted to take more pictures in our wedding clothes at the temple but when it was sunny. Alex and Chelsea helped us and we used one of my dad's cameras which sadly we couldn't figure out how to turn on the flash but we did get some good ones. It was very hot as well haha it made us appreciate the coolness on our wedding day. We tried not to get in the way of a bridal party that was doing stuff but it was interesting to see people stare at us haha. Since I got married in December, the grounds weren't exactly crawling with people. A family with two little girls (about 5 or 3 was my guess) came up to me and asked me my name and wanted to look at my dress and my ring. So cute!! I kinda felt like a princess at Disneyland haha. I thoroughly enjoyed it. My dad will help edit them but here's one of them :)

We then got to go through a session which was absolutely wonderful!! It was great being back in the place we got married and feeling the spirit there. I love Adam so much more now than I did when we got married and I know it will continually be growing with time. We also got to go into the new visitors' center briefly :) Then we traveled back to have an early dinner with my friend Sarah and her boyfriend. We went to Dok Koon Thai food and it was very yummy as always :) It was great seeing Sarah again however briefly since she's been my friend since we were 13 :) After that we went over to my aunt and uncle's house with my mom and my sister. Haha that morning we got a surprise by finding out that my aunt Amber had come to visit from Idaho and brought her kids!! She got to meet Adam when we went to Idaho Falls last year but I hadn't seen her since. She also had a baby boy in that time! My other aunt Sarah (the house we went to) had a baby girl too. So I got to meet my two new cousins who were completely adorable. Naomi was a very content little one and I got to hold her a lot and watch her make funny faces haha. Benjamin was cute as well in all his attempts to crawl but getting thoroughly frustrated.

I am so glad I got to see them all and Adam got to enjoy being around a bunch of little cousins who like to kick him and hit him with their toys haha ;)

The next day (Wednesday) Adam and I went to the coast (Cannon Beach, OR to be exact)! It was so fun to be there with him because he's only been to the beach twice in his life. Once when he was ten but it was cold and rainy and in March, and another on his mission but of course he didn't get to do anything. It was fun to show him all of the places my family would go. It was a gorgeous day at the beach and relatively warm for the Oregon coast. We walked along the surf collecting sea shells, getting our feet wet, and running from the waves. We also got to go to the tidepools and see a starfish and little fish that change color to their surroundings. We then ate at a seafood restaurant overlooking the ocean. A wonderful time :) 

 Then the next day we drove all the way back to Utah which was very long and very tiring. I'm so glad that we got to make this trip and Adam could experience a little bit of WA summertime :) So glad I got to see so many friends and family :) Now for relaxing and preparing for the coming semester of school!!

Love,

Ashley <3

Trip to Washington: Days 1-4

So Adam and I just got back from our summer trip to Washington to visit my family. This was the third time Adam had been to WA and the first time coming as a married couple. We drove the long trek with a friend of mine who had her first term this summer at BYU. It was really fun having her along to talk to and to have an extra driver was nice. We got in Thursday evening and basically went straight to bed. The next morning my parents, sister, Adam, and I drove up to Seattle to spend the weekend with my other sister, her husband, and NEW BABY!!! This was very exciting for me as this is my first niece/nephew that I had not inherited by marriage. He was blessed that Sunday and my mom's birthday was Saturday so it was a pretty eventful weekend. Little Anders is about a month and a half old and so adorable. He makes the funniest faces and looks a lot like my dad. He's also started to smile and giggle and make noises. SO CUTE :) I got to hold him and cuddle him lots to help pacify me until I get to see him next time whenever that may be.

On Saturday, we got to go to Snoqualmie Falls, which is east of Bellevue (where my sister lives). It was very hot and crowded but very beautiful :)

We also got to go to The British Pantry, a British shop with a little restaurant, for lunch which was yummy. And in the evening, we went to Claim Jumpers. By the end of the day, Anders was completely tuckered out, poor guy. But the next day he slept through all of sacrament meeting (including the blessing) and through being passed around for a zillion pictures. Then we drove back to Vancouver. Overall it was awesome and I can't wait to see him again :)

Work Responsibilities

Hey all, so no pictures for this blog post.  The past few weeks has kept me (Adam) very busy.  My boss at the testing lab has been gone for two weeks on vacation and has no access to his e-mail.  In his place, he has asked me to make sure things would run smoothly.  When he left, he created a list of things to do, which consisted mostly of printing out exams and compiling four exams.  However, as it always happens, there were many unexpected occurrences.  One teacher forgot to let my boss know about an exam, so I had to scramble to create the exam and schedule the time.  I was also asked to proctor a few credit exams on the first Saturday.  Well, a few students didn't show up, so I had to set up another Saturday session for the credit exam.  I was able to manage it all, but I did have a few days worth of work and had to conduct many e-mails worth of conversations with teachers.

In the end, it was a very great opportunity to gain experience and also to impress professors and secretaries.  Tomorrow, my boss will come home, so we shall have to see what trouble I shall get into.  That is all for now!

I have one of the best husbands!! (not to gloat haha)

Hey guys! So Adam and I try to go on a date every Friday if possible. Usually we don't do anything super exciting. Well Adam decided to switch it up on Friday and surprise me a bunch! His goal was to try to make an ordinary day extra special and boy, did he succeed! The day started off with me going to work at noon. On Fridays, Adam doesn't work until 2 so he drops me off. After he dropped me off and I got settled in at work, in he comes with roses!!

 This is obviously not at work but a good picture of the flowers in our kitchen :) Anyways, my job can get pretty boring so I chat with Adam on facebook. He would constantly tell me how excited he was about our date and that it was going to be really fun and special but he wouldn't tell me what it was. After work, we came home and he blindfolded me. He had me pick a piece of paper out of four of them and then took off my blindfold and this is what he had :)

So if you can't tell from the picture the papers say Bingo Dating!! haha so Adam spent his shift in the testing lab creating this bingo dating game for our date! He completely came up with the idea on his own (not even enlisting help from the internet). Needless to say, he's incredible :) So, we started off at our favorite Provo thai place, Thai Mango (the BEST thai food is sadly all the way in Washington at Dok Koon). It was quite yummy. And then we started the game. Basically, the hat is filled with little pieces of paper each with a letter (D, A, T, or E) and a number for the Bingo part of the game. On the other side of each piece was an activity that we had to do. We then had to draw pieces until someone got bingo and we had to do all the activities that we drew. Adam got bingo :P haha so some of the things we drew were eat cookies, arrange a fort, speak only in questions, go to a bowling alley, play name that tune, annoy friends, speak in a British accent, exchange little gifts, taste the rainbow (eat skittles), enjoy the view, play phase 10, and some more!! There were more that he had made that we didn't do because he got bingo so we'll get to do this again! It was so much fun running around Provo together :) I always thought that I would never get a date like that again because that amount of creativity is usually reserved for if you want to impress someone but I got to have that while being married!! We had lots of fun bowling :)

Adam took a bowling class his freshman year so of course he slaughtered me. But it was still fun. We did enjoy the view at our favorite spot at Rock Canyon :)

 And we had fun playing games, eating things, going to the Dollar Tree to buy little gifts for each other, and annoying our friends Steven and Kayla (we made up for it by giving them a Spiderman puzzle though). All in all an amazing day, thanks to Adam. I'm just incredibly amazed that he did all that for little old me :)

 I know that I am one lucky girl to have Adam as my companion for eternity and I don't mind being mushy to say so!!

Love, Ashley <3

Adam's Birthday

Hello everyone!  This year, my birthday happened to fall on Independence Day!  Ashley and I enjoyed the chance to celebrate without going to work.  Earlier in the week, we had been helping our close friends move into a new apartment.  Since they had been unpacking the night before and unable to get everything ready, we had them sleep over at our house.  It was a fun morning hanging out with them.  We decided to go out to a restaurant  where they were offering all you can eat french toast and pancakes.  It was quite delicious and very filling!  Afterwards, my friend and I played a little bit of Axis & Allies. We didn't end up finishing but we had a good time nonetheless.  After hanging out a while, we decided to have our own little barbeque with our friends and we left to get ready.  As we were waiting, my friend and I decided to play a little foosball. (He was kind enough to let me win.)

We had a lot of fun with our barbeque which could be considered a feast with bratwurst, hot dogs (which I did not consume), pasta salad, chips, corn, soda and (later on) cake!  We then started playing a board game while waiting for it to get dark.  We had a bit of fun with the camera as well...

Finally, it got dark enough to head out.   For the first time ever, we went high on the foothills to a spot where we could look out at all the fireworks going up in Utah Valley.  What a sight it was!  The only problem was that none of them seemed really large or booming.  When we decided to head back, we passed by the stadium where they started to set off a few fireworks so we got our big booms and show but we wanted to avoid the traffic so we went back home after a few minutes to have cake.

We ended our evening with a few sparklers, where we got some good pictures.  As soon as we ran out of supplies, we said goodbye to our friends and went to bed.  It was a very fun, if a little low-key day.  I really had a great time though!

Love, Adam

(and Ashley)

Ultimate double-header w/ pictures :)

Hello all! This is Adam again.  Ashley was kind enough to join me at my Orem City League ultimate frisbee games last Thursday and take these pictures.  It was a double-header so I was pretty tired by the end of the evening.  Orem City League is a league made up of 10-12 teams and we play every Thursday night for about two months.  It is a lot of fun and there are many players or various skill levels and ages.  I started playing last year with my friend Shep and I knew very little about ultimate frisbee.  Three seasons later (Spring 2011, Fall 2011, and Spring 2012) and I feel like I have a lot better grasp of the game.  I like being a part of a team made up of very different people.  One of the teams we played against on Thursday had a player who I knew from home.  He was my older brother's age, so about 10 years older than me.  (Maybe I could convince my brother to play, hmm....)  Anyway, it is a lot of fun, however my team has been on a big losing streak.  We lost both of our games on Thursday.  

The first game, we played with an extra man for the first half (for those who don't know, ultimate is played 7 v 7 and Orem is co-ed.  The other team did not have any girl show up for the first half so we had an extra player.)  We kept it close and I caught the disc for the first point but even with having one less player, the other team started to pull away.  There was one deep throw that I was defending where I managed to block the disc but it flew forward into the waiting hands of an opponent in the end zone! Grrr!  Anyway, we lost our first game.

The second team we played against had some members of our BYU Intramural team and Ashley was delighted to talk with one of the girls for a while.  The start of this game was super sloppy.  Each team dropped the disc quite a bit, but we were guilty of carelessness more often and we found ourselves down 4-0 fast.  At halftime we were down by four or five points at least.  However, we came out firing after halftime and clawed our way back into the game.  Our offense was clicking and we were getting some turnovers on defense.  We were tied 10-10 with a cap at 12 (this means that the first team to get to twelve would win the game).  However, with a couple of close misses in the end zone, resulting in turnovers, the other team scratched out two points and we ended up losing.

However, ultimate is great sport.  It definitely keeps you fit and is very exciting and I have really enjoyed playing this year.  I have one more regular season game and then we have a two-day tournament in Alpine to finish the season.  I will give an update later!

-Adam