A New Home

After months of searching and two failed offers, a thir time's a charm. We found a new house for our expandin family. And within a week we became landlords (renting out our condo in record time)! We had to tweak a couple of things in our new home. As you see the wall color was a vibrant green and purple.

Adam had to hand a couple sets of blinds and was excited to use his new power tools. Other than the blinds and the paint, this forclosure was in fantastic condition. We are slowly working on unpacking the guest room, and the baby room will be a work in progress for the next few months.

The first weekend in December was the big moving day. Luckily we had 10 very kind ward members helping us pack up the truck and haul everything. For only two of us and a year and a half of marriage, we sure had a lot more stuff htan we realized! After the move, we vowed to not move again for a very very long time.

Thanksgiving in SLC

Before we can update what we have been doing lately we should first at least try to go back and update some of the events we missed since the last update.

For Thanksgiving this year we joined my side of the Family in Salt Lake. We had a great feast over at my aunt and uncles house with about a dozen of us. It was such a nice spread and good to catch up with family. That night we played games at my sister Becky and Shane's house. Turns out the only game that they had was Pit. It had been a long time since anyone had played it. Turns out it is a really fun game when you have a lot of people around a big table. It also takes a long time to win when you have that many people, it was after midnight by the time we finished.

The next morning we braved the cold and the crowds to get a black Friday deal that we found advertised in the paper. They were selling certain gliders at Babies r Us for half off. We got the last one in stock that they had and felt very pleased with our purchase, even though we have not set it up yet.

On Saturday we watched the Utah vs BYU game. Not the best performances by either team, but a win is a win and we will definitely take that one. At least it was close which made it more dramatic. We did a bit more shopping around for home goods and gift stuff before we meet up with friends for diner. It was fun going out with some of my old roommates and reminisce on some of the good times we had. There was also lots of stuff going on in their lives that was exciting to hear about.

The drive back to Vegas on Sunday was an eventful one. With the big storm rolling in Sunday we knew to get an early start. We got off at 9am and had bad weather for most of the drive but it only added about 1-1/2 hrs more than usual. We will include some pictures of the snow. In the end we were very happy to return to the warmer weather in Las Vegas and very grateful for a fulfilling holiday with family and friends. It reminded us of how truly blessed we are.

Baby Girl

It will take a while before we get in the habit of making posts during the school year. It is easier to do in the summer. This last week we did have something worthy of a post. We had an ultrasound of the baby at the doctors and found out that we will be having a baby girl.
It was fun to see the baby move around, which was surprising because Corrin can't feel the baby move yet. Corrin is really excited to do the usual girly stuff (pink, bows, flowers, etc.) that comes with having a little girl. We spent the rest of the week thinking of girls names. We both really like the name Sophie.
Otherwise all things have been going well since the last post, sometime in Aug. Corrin is having a good year at school. She has a good sub set up to take over her classes when the baby comes. We visited SLC for a wedding and my mom's b-day. We will be going back up for Thanksgiving. We hope the weather will be unseasonably warm when we arrive, as we are too accustomed now to the warm Vegas weather.

Tada!

A week ago Adam and I went to the doctor and confirmed that we're expecting (he had to come with me for moral support as needles and blood were involved) uggh! We are very excited to start this new adventure. I was fully expecting to leave the doctor's office with a fabulous photo to post, but alas, we must wait until week 18 or so for that coveted ultrasound. I'm at 9 weeks right now and the baby is due March 29th. The only symptom I really feel is tiredness, but that could be the extreme boredom of the last days of summer:) I am ready for school to start and to get back to a routine. I went into my classroom today to start getting it into shape and felt enthousiastic about a new school year...weird!

Catching up

It has been a while since we last posted. Here are some of the activities that we've been up to in the last month...

Our latest adventure was a ward activity at Lake Mead. We went on boat rides, ate and just hung out on the beach. The highlight for Adam was wakeboarding! I didn't dare give it a try, but I ventured with a ride on the innertube which was lots of fun!

I went to Girls Camp with the Young Women. It was my kind of camp. We stayed in the dorms at Southern Utah University and didn't have to build one fire or cook one meal! Our events were diverse and expanded our skills from play watching (Pride and Prejudice), scavenger hunting, team building, to hiking (the most insane hike I've ever been on...grrr...). All in all, it was a fabulous time! Look how colorful we all are :)

We went to Salt Lake to celebrate the 24th of July with Adam's family. It was my first time the "Days of '47" parade downtown. Later on that day we had a wonderful barbeque and Adam entertained us all with his pyrotechnic skills! He had a little too much fun and got a few singed hairs !

Family Reunion 2010

Best summed up "We put the FUN in disFUNctional"! The family event was a whirlwind of adventure. We appreciated the gracious hospitality of Todd and Adelle in Wisconsin. They had many things for us to do, see and eat!

Bienvenue à Saint Martin!

We stayed at the Radisson.

The first adventure was to visit Pimel Island. It's about a 10 minute ferry ride from St. Martin.


We went snorkeling.


Out of the 5-or-so beaches that we visited, our favorite beach of the vacation was on Pimel Island.


Here are some random buildings in the thriving metropolis of Marigot.



The clear, blue, pristine pool at the hotel (we did not spend enough time here!)

At Orient beach Adam went parasailing. He is getting to the boat by jetski.

He's way up there in the air...and I'm way down here on secure ground!

Adam navagated the narrow streets of St. Martin like a well seasoned European driver! We rented a car and we definitely got our money's worth.

The airport is extremely close to one of the beaches. We watched some airplanes land and take off while swimming.

This is Baie Rouge. We were told it was a prime spot for snorkeling, but Adam's treasure was finding this cave in the rock. He loved swimming through it.

Pictures of St. Martin from one of the highest points on the island.

Fortunately the only day it rained was our last day there. We spent the day driving around seeing random sites.

Although it was on Adam's list of things to do, we didn't quite get around to enjoying the nude beach, so instead we just took a picture by the sign.

A sunken ship.

One Year Anniversary

Happy one year anniversary! We celebrated our one year in the best way possible. Today we were sealed in the Las Vegas Temple. We were honored that so many of family and closest friends were able to share in this sacred experience. We are blessed to have such a support system! We loved seeing everyone and catching up and we can't wait until the next celebration! Now we're off to Saint Martin!

Down by the river!

Saturday took us down to the Colorado River for stake youth conference. At 6am we drove 45 min to an old mining town in Eldorado Canyon. You would never believe the history of the mining that occurred down there in the 1800's. It was a wild west gold rush town no law and at one point a gold mine that was producing more gold than anywhere in the US. The longer we live here the more we learn about cool Nevada history.

We had a bit of a heat wave this weekend with temp around 108. The river water was really cold because it was below the dam. Canoeing on the Colorado was definitely the highlight of the day. The youth had a good time and no one had heat stroke, no one drowned and no serious injuries, so it was a big success.

Mom is in town and we decided to take her out on the town. We started out with some good eats from Memphis BBQ. We then joined our friends in downtown Henderson for dueling pianos. The city put on a free concert in their amphitheater. We rocked out to the classic Bon Jovi, Billy Joel and others. Tonight it is pizza and wings for the b-ball game. Good weekend so far.

Sin City Sumo

Check out the bodies on these guys. This was not our typical Friday date night. Usually we stay home to wrestle around in our underwear. This week we went out to watch others do it. We went with another couple to dinner and sumo wrestling. Our neighbor is the promoter for this event that had been in the works for quite some time. They even had some of the scouts selling tickets as a fundraiser.

We had a good time watching these big guys slap each other around. There was also some pre-game entertainment where the ref jump roped with three people on his back. We also had good eats, in honor of the nights events, we ate pizza, wings and a burger at Johnny Mac's. Hopefully by next year we will be entering in the event. There actually was one wrestler who was only 180 lbs. He did really well wrestling but also real well at looking creepy with a crazy twisted moustache and pimples on his bare butt. It was a fun night that left us with a lot of images that will take us a long time to get out of our heads.