Beautious Places with two Beautious Faces

I guess I have some catching up to do. I haven't been too well lately so now that I am recovering, I think I have the strength to type. Last weekend was the bomb and was made that way with a visit from Rikki. Not only did we get to spend three days with Rikki, but we get to visit her this next weekend, bonus!!! Jacob one night mentioned the idea of inviting Rik to YellowStone and plans were confirmed a few weeks later.

Right before we entered the park, Rikki had us bet how many buffs we'd see. I guessed 30-40, Jacob 75-100, Rikki 2-3. Here is the picture of the first buff we saw upon entering the stone.

And here is a picture of one of the 8-10 large herds that we came upon, boy were we lucky. All good guesses though... even Rikki's.

This was one of my favorite attractions that we came upon and it wasn't even well signed. The colors were so vivid, we even ventured to touch it (of course I waited for the real guts to touch it first i.e. Rikki).

We love inviting Rikki to places because we love getting our picture taken.. and many many other good reasons too. We were hoping the vapors would flow around us so it looked like a whimsical setting, but no good.

This was a breathtaking waterfall and the mountains around it were an amazing yellow color. Rikki told me her friend from work told her to bring back a yellow stone from Yellowstone, welp.. there you go. Unfortunately this was a 15ish minute walk down and it started raining on us right before we began our trip back up, but it was worth it.

After Yellowstone, we decided to find a place to camp. Memorial Weekend is a suprisingly difficult weekend to find a place to stay the night, especially around Yellowstone. Who would have thought. Here is a dog I so patiently cooked on the fire, dogs are good.

Not even kidding, this was the most delicious campfire anything I've ever consumed. A good portion of the sausage I personally consumed, I'm talking a good 75% of it.

Overall it was a tastey and enjoyable trip and we are so grateful that Rikki chose to make the trip here and spend this special weekend with us. Having been in her presence really made the following week of work endurable, the memories lived on so pungent in my mind.

What a lovely time and to think, it will be followed by an even lovlier time this next weekend.

One MoNTh!

This saturday was our one month anniversary and to celebrate our survival, Jacob planned out the perfect day. He had been telling me all week of these plans and of course when Saturday morning came and it was time to wake up, I made up all kinds of excuses of why it would be better to sleep in. He prevailed however and it turned out to be one of those extremely memorable days.

We went to a place called palisades and Jacob took me to this beautiful waterfall.

After we explored the waterfall for sometime, we decided to move onto our hike. After unsuccessfully finding the place Jacob had previously designed to go, we decided to follow a trail. This trail ended about ten minutes into our hike and so we decided to climb the nearest mountain. I had always wondered why people feel the need to find trails, why don't they just climb a mountain? Well, after the hours of shale and climbing with my hands, I realized that people don't climb mountains because they are heck to climb. Really though, it was actually a lot of fun and I look forward to doing it again sometime soon.. maybe next weekend?

This was the view from the hill that eventually became known as "our mountain".

Here is the view from the other side of the mountain we climbed. It doesn't look that big and bad, but you have to know... it was. Even though it looked easy, coming down was basically putting one foot to the side and sliding all the way down. It was pretty fun, but my bum is a bit bruised.

Later that night, Jacob had bought tickets for us from the school to go on a wagon ride and dutch oven dinner. Unfortunately, the wagon never came and so we instead took "stationwagon" rides in the school's giant buses.

This was a memorial we passed for the Beaver Dick Family. Interestingly enough, the beaverdick wife found a deserted baby and took it in. Sadly, the baby had small pox and the entire family except beaverdick himself died within a two week period.

Overall, we had the best of times and I've come to know even better that I have the best of husbands.

I just want to show everyone this little mess Jacob made the other day. He made such a big fuss and was so angry that all his milk had spilled out, "ruining" his milkshake. Anywho, I had such a good laugh, I ran and grabbed the camera to document the event. He didn't like that very much.

Right after the big upset, I was making Jacob's Kool-Aide and spilled making a mess of my own. Needless to say, Jacob was again rather upset and just to give me a taste of my own medicine, ran and grabbed the camera to take a picture.

New THis Week

What a brand new week full of brand new things, people, experiences, feelings, and thoughts. It's been about 7 months since I've had a job and I always get anxious around job finding times. Recently I aquired a position with a few companies and then I had to let them go for what I hope will be the ultimate job in the land of Rexburg. I have found my place at Walmart! I hope my anti-Walmart mother does not dissaprove.

Today was my second day. Just like any other job, it's left me feeling exhausted, confused, and a little depressed. It's important to remind myself that I've never started one of my other sixs jobs feeling happy and comfortable, that it always takes about two weeks for you to feel helpful and useful, to get to know the rules and to know your role. Other than that it has been great. I was on the sales floor today for three hours and had about six customers ask me where things are and I had no idea. I had no idea, I had no idea where anything was in Walmart, but I really don't. I usually say something retarded like, "well I know we have it" in response to a question like "where is your laundry detergent". I'll learn in time I suppose. Anywho, here is a picture of me in my working garb:

I was in charge of the activity for this week's FHE and I thought to give these lovely chocolates to some of our neighbors. What a fine prize. I consider these chocolates the type that no one buys for themselves, but wait patiently to be given and it was those neighbors lucky day. We dropped them off annonomously with a note that contained a poem authored by Jacob which goes like this: We wanted to share our love with you, now share your love with another too. We're hoping that they continue the tradition and pass something on to other neighbors next week. I'm not sure if it'll work though since the poem was a little vague, but if it did, I hope they bring us chocolates next monday (we purposely targeted the neighbors close to us)!

Jacob spent quite a while contemplating the message he would leave.

He spent a lot longer than I was expecting and when I made a suggestion on a quick phrase like, have a nice day, he freaked out...

Ok, I know this picture is terrifying and I considered not posting it, but I want everyone to see some of the faces Jacob can make. Sometimes, just because he knows I get scared, he'll crawl around with his lazy eye face and scare me. He can be pretty scary, but he always stops when I start to cry, what a wonderful husband. We really do have a good time making faces at one another.. actually, I think that's about all we do and we laugh and laugh.

Home Again Home Again...

Yesterday, Jacob and I went to target and bought some furniture. We're very excited and thought that maybe some of you would like to see our home (and I'm sure Jacob wouldn't mind me showing off his amazing handy work).

Welcome!

Here's what everyone see's when they first walk in, I guess you could call this our living room.

Jacob's been very patient with my pile of crud I keep in the corner, the truth is, we don't really know where else to put it right now. those are the two new furnitures, imagine this room without those, that's how bare it's been the past two weeks.

Just wanted to give you a closer look. Jacob became a man yesterday when he put those pieces together, even though they require no tools.

The dining room is one of my favorites because it's really easy to clean. I have to give a shout out thanks to our mums, I never realized how quickly homes get dirty and dusty and yet somehow (because of our mums), they stay clean. Let's just say that I have to do a run down in each room every other day to keep it looking decent.


I love the kitchen here, it's very nice, the perfect size. I've been working on spending more time in there, I even made noodles for lunch today, even though I was home alone.

Our bathroom is perfect, it doesn't really have a color theme though. We've just decided to get whatever pieces we really like and go with it.

And last but not least, the bedroom!!! There is our recently obtained mattress, I wish I had taken a picture of our little nest we'd made on the floor before, basically a pile of blankets. We're very happy now.



And there it is, coming together quickly. We're extremely grateful that we were able to start out at such a nice place, especially with a clubhouse with the two main necessities, ping pong and theater room!!!

The Things We Like

Since I have been married, I've come to terms with the fact that I won't be spending a fourth of my income on the objects of my desire (namely clothing), but that doesn't mean you can't look.. right? I thought at one point that being married might make you desire less, but that certainly is not true. Now I have a whole other arena I am interested in.. apartment goodies.

The Clothes

http://www.orlakiely.com/usa/

Really like this designers stuff, too bad it's all up in the hundreds

http://www.target.com/gp/browse.html?node=16275561

Can you believe Target had such cute stuff, I missed out

http://31philliplim.com/

Lis, I came across this and I thought of you.. the clothes only get more cute from here

http://www.heidimerrick.com/collection/08/fall/index.html

http://lookbook.nu/

No, I have not spent more than an hour on this website.. yet

http://www.loefflerrandall.com/

Gotta love that coat, I've noticed really short dresses have been in for quite some time. The good thing about it is they look great with skinny jeans underneath

https://www.shopbando.com/Home.aspx

It's times like this I wish I were a personal shopper, I'd definitely get the belt and the headband

The Home Accessories


http://www.isabelle.se/default.asp

Take a look at that awesome tile work


http://www.dwiseman.com/

I love chandeliers. This one is one of the more attractive ones that I've liked

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5215348

This is a more expensive version of a set I wish to get from Ikea one day

http://www.jarengoh.com/

Must I say anything?

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5854721

Absolutely adorable, if I had this I promise I'd keep it full of flowers all year long

Our Own Amazing Race Across America

So some of you might be wondering, what in the world did Allison and Jacob do on those four days across America. Why didn't we hear anything about it? Did something terrible happen that they want to cover up? THe answer.. NO! We want to tell you all about it. First we'll share our wonderful view that we had from the Trianon Hotel.

This was by far the nicest hotel I had ever stayed in. You were even allowed to leave your dishes from breakfast on the table, I even spilled water on the floor and didn't even have to clean it up (I'm assuming), that is rich.

The first leg of the trip was rather boring as you can see, but things were about to get more interesting when we entered...

GEORGIA!!!

In Georgia we decided to eat and went to Cracker Barrel for Jacob's first time. Even though the food isn't that good there (it's actually quite terrible), it's the experience that counts. By the end of day 2 we were exhausted and extremely grateful for our favorite part of the trip, our visit with Lauren and her family (who I greatly enjoyed meeting). We spent some time at the botanical gardens and saw all sorts of beautiful greenery and Jacob took me to the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial which was very touching. We then went to our hotel and got ready for the fanciest dinner I've ever been allowed to attend. Below are pictures of the hotel.

We had three sinks in our hotel room, THREE SINKS!!!

This bathroom is about the size of our entire apartment we are currently residing in. Ok seriously though, that shower is the size of our entire bathroom no joke.


No, that is not the hotel lobby, that's actually part of our room!

THis hotel was even more grand than the picture and we even found a dollar on the ground (we were the luckiest two people as far as I was concerned). I wish I had taken a picture of the lobby, the granite was amazing. That night for dinner at a restaurant I can't pronounce, we had three appetizers, an entree, and a desert that consisted of...




Escargot

Smoked Salmon


Baked Brie

Roasted Duck


Pana Cotta

Each of the things that we ate I had never tried before, what an experience.. you think you've tasted it all, but let me tell you. They all looked twice as yummy as the picture (especially the duck which didn't look even slightly scary like the picture above) and I enjoyed each one, especially the pana cotta, wow that was good! We were lucky enough to dine with Lauren and Brandon and a wedding party of about 60 (a wedding was unfortunately rained in and so we got to people watch some of the most interesting specimens). It was all such a lovely experience and one we will never forget, thank you sooo much Lauren and Brandon!!!!

So While I'm on a road trip, I like to take an inventory of something, anything, just to keep my mind on my surroundings. On this trip, my inventory included all of the dead animals I saw along the road. My list is pretty impressive and I will share.. Racoon*, armidillo, possum*, rabbit*, deer*, owl, cow, skunk, duck, large bird, cat of sorts, and fox. The starred ones are those we almost hit.