Jewels

There are some precious objects that we have in our home. Some are of great value monitarily and others cost cents to produce. These are some of those that are precious beyond all measure. I found these pictures of my beloved David as I searched through his many boxes of junk. (love you) You can't get two more classic pictures. First you have Dave with his two older sisters. Dave was kind enough not only to give his sister bunny ears, but himself bunny ears. How could you not love those big blue eyes.

 

Then this gem. Dave's face plant in the sand with the water all around him. This picture had to be taken at the perfect moment where he hadn't even had the chance to push himself up. My joy was great to the point of laughing aloud while I was all alone.

 

Priceless.

When Dave gets an idea...

Watch out. I'm not kidding you, there have been numerous times where Dave will get an idea and then he's figuring out how to make it happen right now. For example, during the summer Dave decided we should sell our car (granted we had talked about it, but we were not positively set on it). I came home from teaching one day he'd posted the car had had a couple of offers and we sold it in 2 days--leaving us with one car for about a month or more. Now for a more recent experience.

We have had our wonderful couch set for over a year, but realized a couple of months ago that we would have to switch things around when we inherited my grandparents piano (we needed a wall for the piano and a wall for the new entertainment system my dad and dave are going to make). We had talked about moving the love seat upstairs into the study and buying two chairs to add more seating downstairs. Well New Year's Eve comes around and Dave saw an advertisement for a sectional. He got really excited about having a sectional couch. So we went to look at some (I was mostly humoring him!) Next thing I know we were seriously considering it. My biggest concern was the fact that we already had a living room set and wasn't quite sure what we would do with what we have. We put on hold what we were looking at, put an add on KSL for the couches and the next morning we had 3 callers, ended up selling our couches to a woman who definitely was in need, they came and picked the living room set up at 6pm on New Years Day and we had the other set delivered to us at 7:30pm that night. Ridiculous! We ended up making $75. Not bad. And I actually love the sectional. Always and adventure with Dave!!!



BEFORE



BETWEEN



AFTER

Our Christmas Card

Okay, so we actually didn't make a Christmas Card--didn't even think about making a Christmas Card. You can pretend that we sent some of these pictures to you!!!!





And of course our Christmas Card would include how we are doing! Dave and I have had a wonderful year. We went to Brazil, Lake Powell, and Zions. Dave has been teaching seminary at Amiddle school and loves teaching 9th graders--they are quirky and immature, but they don't feel like they are too cool for seminary yet. Dave has loved to learn from them. The past 4 months I taught 2 classes at BYU (which was awesome) and taught 4 classes for my sisters' studio (which was also awesome). This next semester I will still be teaching the same classes at my sisters' studio, but I'll be teaching 3 classes at BYU, and substitute teaching seminary. I am looking forward to the experiences I'll have! We hope that you (whoever might read this blog) are doing wonderfully well. Merry Christmas!

One of My Favorite Things

My best friends pre-marriage, and their wives. Dave and I had so much fun going to dinner and catching up with them--one of my favorite things we did during the month of October.

How Much Can You Do in a Weekend?

Dave's Fall Break was at the beginning of October. We had wanted to make our trip to Zion's longer but was only able to fit in one day because of all of the other things we already had planned that weekend. We drove down to Zion's Wednesday night, slept in our car and were on to our adventures Thursday morning.

 

 

That night we went to Tuachan and saw Aida. They did an excellent job.



(they didn't have an Aida board and I learned from my sister that you can't pass these up!)

Friday morning we played with my niece and nephew at a park in St. George area called the "dizzy" park. It was a blast. I have never seen a park like this. Dave may have had more fun than the kids. We then did sealings at the St. George temple. And ate at Brickoven in St. George. (Dave loves Brickoven and was excited to eat there.) We then drove back to Utah Valley and attended the BYU vs. Utah State football game.



After the game Friday night we drove to my parents house to spend the night.

Saturday we watched conference at my parents with a special visit from our good friends. Sunday we went to Dave's house and watched conference, ate a delicious meal, and had family pictures taken. Conference was wonderful. I appreciated all of the talks on receiving spiritual revelation and on loving others!

It was a fun weekend, but not very relaxing. I don't think we've relaxed on any vacation that we took. Even our honeymoon we were on a cruise but we ended up going on shore every day to go kayaking or biking or something! Oh well. We get to do and see a lot.

One Year

So it has been one year since we've lived in our townhome. When we first moved in everything was green! From the walls, ceilings, doors, and trim (well, the trim had been painted over with cream in some area--and poorly done at that!). So we spent the first 4 months painting EVERYTHING! Here are some before and after pictures. You can see the green in the pictures--not a bad green, but it was every where. We are slowly trying to put finishing touches in each of the rooms. It has been fun to play house.

 

 

Summer

Time flies by when you are having fun. Dave and I have had a lot of fun this summer. Here are just a few things.

After Dave and I got back from Brazil the beginning of July we were able to spend some good quality time with family for the 4th of July, as well as with the Jonas Brothers at the Stadium of Fire. (Ok, we didn't actually spend one-on-one time with them, but I think all of the people around us felt like they were best friends with the Jonas Brothers.) It was nice to be back in America to celebrate how much we love this wonderful country and all of it's freedoms.

My Grandpa Layton's health had been getting worse and worse. When Dave and I came home from Brazil we were amazed at how much he had changed. Within a couple of weeks, we were told he wasn't expected to live much longer. Dave and I went to Bountiful to visit him in the care center he'd been in for the past month.



We were so grateful that we went that night. He struggled to make sounds as he was trying to talk. We could understand very little of what he was saying. Some of things we did understand were his "good, boy" as we sang to him. It was a very special moment for both me and Dave. That was Thursday night and Grandpa died in the middle of the night of Friday. I have loved all of the time that I was able to spend with my grandparents. I used to go to their home twice a week and play the piano for them. My time spent with them was precious. We will miss grandpa but he'd been wanting to "go" for a while!

Conveniently enough, a Layton reunion was planned for the next weekend. The reunion turned into an opportunity for almost all of his grandkids to be at his funeral. We had a wonderful time remembering grandpa, doing service projects, playing games and singing! It waw wonderful to be witht the whole family. Here are some pictures of the group: grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins and kids.



And Mom and Dad's Family (aka my siblings and their kids)



It was a neat experience to be all together again and remember our grandpa.

The end of July Dave and I went to Lake Powell with his family! We were there Monday night through Saturday night. It was awesome. Dave's parents rented an RV so we had protection from the afternoon storms. We slept in tents, had campfires with smores and starbursts, and of course we boated. I had only been to Lake Powell a couple of times before so I didn't remember much about it. I remembered boating, camping, and getting sunburned. I didn't remember the absolutely incredible scenery. It was just as much fun to go explore the different canyons as it was to wakeboard or tube. We had an absolute blast. Thanks Mom and Dad!











We also sold this...



Dave got this...



(He got in a fight with a 5 year old little girl...you should've seen her!)

And finally we have officially been in our little townhome for a year! (Next post will be pictures of all the fixing up we've done). It has been a great summer.