Yet again, I'm a Slacker

Well guys, I am alive I promise! I just forget that I have this blog sometimes and then when I do remember, I have mounds of homework that I should be doing instead. 

That's the case today as well, buuuuuut I don't want to do any more homework right now so I'm not going to :) 

So, what's been happening lately with the Smith's? All sorts of stuff! 

Let's start with Halloween. We don't have that many pictures (and the ones we do have aren't that wonderful) but here they are! 

 I was Maid Marian (the dress is actually a deep purple but apparently my camera wanted it blue...)

And as you can see, Jake was a Muggle. haha silly boy

We got all dressed up for our ward Halloween Party and went. It was pretty good, but we snuck out before the games started. We're not huge fans of games, especially with people we barely know haha. 

This semester for one of the classes I get to go to Burton Elementary here in Rexburg and I worked with 1st graders until Halloween and then I was moved to the 4th grade. (don't tell anyone but I like 1st grade so much better) When I left, my cooperating teacher Mrs. LaRue had all of the kids sign a white gift bag and in it there was a Campbell's Soup to Go and a package of goldfish crackers. On the outside there was a note that said "Thanks for being so Souper!" It was so sweet!

Here's a picture :)

 I was really sad to leave my 1st graders. I got really attached to them. They were all sad to see me go too! They all kept saying that they wanted me to stay and not go. It was nice :) If we are still here during the Winter Semester I am going to go help out in this class again. Mrs. LaRue is in my brother and sister-in-law's ward and one night while we were out there making gingerbread houses (don't worry, pictures are coming), she stopped by and I talked to her about coming out and helping. She said she could always use help and that if I am able to come on a regular basis she will give me a group to work with. I'm pretty excited and I hope we are here so I can do that!

One day Jake thought I was mad at him I don't remember why, but I wasn't mad at him. Anyway, I came home to this one day after class. It was so cute that I had to snap a picture of it haha He made it out of our left over Halloween candy. We only had one trick-or-treater that night, it was kind of sad but also what we were expecting since we live in a 4-plex where the lights are always supposed to be on.

So as I mentioned before, I made a gingerbread house out at my sister-in-law's house. Every year my Mother-in-law makes gingerbread houses with the girls in the family after Thanksgiving. Since both Madaline and I weren't going to be there for Thanksgiving, she came up to Rexburg with all her gingerbread making goodies and we made them one day. It was awesome! We had so much fun :) here are some pictures of my ginger bread house. 

 

 My shot at icicles. Not that great but oh well  

I thought it turned out pretty good :) I was very happy with it. Now when I sit on my couch, I can smell it from the table, and it smells super yummy! 

That's what we've been up to lately. That and trying not to blow our brains out during finals. It's really tough this semester, very full and all at the end it seems like. But it's almost over. Tuesday is my last day of class and hopefully I can get my last test done that day too so that I will be completely done! It'll be tough but here's hoping haha

Another thing that happened in the last little bit, Jake interviewed with Brighton Homes out of Boise for an internship and then last Saturday was invited to come to breakfast with the company. There were only 3 people there that were "in the running" so to speak for the internship. We are hoping that we get the internship, the only problem is that it would start in January. So we would have to move. And I don't want to pack up all of our stuff and move it again. I also really want to help out in Mrs. LaRue's class so I want to stay here but it would be the best time for us to do the internship. We would both be off track so we wouldn't be giving up any of our on track semesters, and we don't have any kids so it will be easier to move in the first place. 

So I have mixed emotions about Jake getting the internship. I get really frustrated with internship people though because they don't let you know when you have to move until like the week before or week of. So we have to find a place to live, find someone to take our apartment, and get all of our stuff packed and moved. I am too tired for that! I don't want to! Don't make me! But do make me at the same time because I want to get it out of the way while we still can do so easily. 

Ok, Enough of my ranting. We will do whatever we need to and if that means moving again, we will do it. If that means staying here and finding another internship at another time, we will do that. We are just leaving it up to the Big Man upstairs :) 

Yesterday we went to the Temple and it was awesome. We went with some friends and it was so nice to go again. It had been a while and when we went I felt so much better. I love having the temple so close :) We need to take advantage of it more often. 

Well, I think this post is long enough for one day. I'm excited for the semester to be over. I'm excited for Christmas and I'm excited to see our families and give them the presents that we have for them. 

Merry Christmas!!

Fun Times!

Jake and I went out on the four-wheeler a few weeks ago and I got to drive it. It was way fun! First time I have ever done it and Jake said I did really good. :) (yes, in case you are wondering, I did pat myself on the back haha)

Here are just a few pictures that we were able to get while we were out. 

 Yes. I am Macho!!

The colors were just starting to turn up in Kelly Canyon and when they do turn, it is beautiful!!! I hope we can go up again this weekend and see the colors :)


On a very different note, Jake's brother Clay and his wife had their baby a month ago today. He is pretty much the cutest baby I've ever seen! Don't believe me? Here's proof!

This was when he was only maybe a week old and we went to see him and I just had to snap a few pictures of this handsome boy :)

My mother-in-law came down when Luke was born and helped Madaline out and came over one night to help me make bread. She brought Landon with her and while we were grinding the wheat for the bread, i looked over and found him playing in the bucket of wheat. It was so cute because he was being so good and not getting it all over, just playing with it between his fingers. It was cute enough that I just had to get a picture or 4 of it :P

The last couple pictures were kind of fuzzy but that's what you get when you use a cell phone camera :)

Can you tell that I'm a very proud aunt?
I am :) I love all my new nieces and nephews! They are awesome! I love hanging out with them when we visit :)

Thoughts About Conference

This weekend was General Conference for church and it was amazing. There were so many good talks that I can't decide which one is my favorite. There was also a big announcement for the entire church and that was that the missionary age has been lowered to 18 for young men (as long as they have graduated high school) and 19 for young women! This was so awesome! I know so many people that will benefit from the opportunity to serve a mission earlier than they anticipated. 

There were many things that stood out to me during this conference 

but one of them was when President Monson said 

"Take an inventory of your life and look specifically for the blessings, large and small, that you have received."

This was amazing and it made me really think about all the blessings that we have received in our lives. And so, I decided to start keeping track of the little things that we are blessed with every day. It is my plan to write a few of them on here everyday buuuuuuuut for those of you that follow along, you know that that never happens, even though I keep saying that I am going to write on here all the time.

So I decided to keep a journal of it and write in IT every night and then I would post a few of the coolest things on here every once in a while. 

So my first blessing that I recognized was from the other day. If you pay attention to facebook, you may have already seen this, but oh well, you're going to see it again :)

This semester, we put ourselves on a budget because, lets be honest, how else are you supposed to save money? So we put ourselves on a pretty tight budget and for our bills section, we gave ourselves $125. That covers phone, gas, electric and internet. Well, we had paid for the phone, internet and electric and only had $12.52 left in the account for bills. I was worried that we would go over when we got our gas bill and that we would have to pull from some other section in our budget.
I got the bill, and nervously opened it up to see what the damage was and the bill was for $12.30. I know that for some people it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but for us, it was a big realization that we are being looked after and that we are being blessed every day.

I can't wait to keep looking for the small little blessings that happen in my life. :)

Blog Super Slacker

Wow, I am a really big blog slacker! it's been almost a month since I posted on here last time and I have lots to tell! Ok, so maybe not all that much but I do have a few cool pictures from our adventures :)

Ok, let's start at the beginning! 

We made the trek across the state from Nampa to Rexburg the 25th of August. That was a Saturday. We spent Saturday afternoon, Sunday and Monday unpacking and getting things settled into our apartment. We relaxed Tuesday and then packed up to go to Utah to see Jake's family on Wednesday. We stayed there for almost a week spending time with everyone and we were able visit with everyone and get to know them better. It was awesome! Thanks for making me feel so welcome guys! :D It's great to have Girl-Days!

So when we got back from our trip to Utah on Tuesday, we relaxed a little and then went to Idaho Falls to get some groceries from Winco because we can't afford to buy ANYTHING in Rexburg! We went to Broulims to get just a few necessities and it came to $75 dollars! $75 DOLLARS!!! All we got was a small bag of potatoes, a few onions, apples, one gallon of milk, western family ziploc bags and some garbage bags! It was such a rip off!!!! So we have opted to go to Idaho Falls and go to Winco to do our grocery shopping. We figure that we will save money not only in gas but also on the groceries. Complete rip off.

Soooo anyways, we got home from Utah on a Tuesday, (this one's for you Megan "Stewart's father left us on Tuuuuesday" :P) and Wednesday we went to Idaho Falls to go shopping for our camping trip that us and a couple of friends had been planning since the beginning of the year. Jake and his friends Paul and Nathan had been planning this trip and so this was the weekend it was to take place. We went shopping Wednesday and then Thursday morning we left for the weekend to a campsite above the old Gilmore Townsite. Gilmore was a mining town in the early 1900's. It was so cool! They have a lot of old run-down buildings and a few of them you can walk around in. And since I can't do it the justice that it needs by speaking, I will let the pictures do the talking. :) So here goes!

This is our campsite. See our awesome new tent??

And of course, the dirt bike :) 

Look how big our tent is!!! There is so much room! 

We even have a queen size air mattress to show it!

See our new tent? We got it because I couldn't stand the thought of going camping in that little tiny tent again. So we got this one for only $40 from Target and it has been great!! :) Nice and roomy haha

Classic picture with us and the bike :) I do enjoy that thing! 

The following pictures are pictures of the old houses and other buildings in the old Mining town of Gilmore. It was way cool and some of them we were able to go into!

So to preface the next couple of pictures, I want to say that it was FREEZING the first night we were there. I don't know exactly how cold it got, but it was cold and I didn't sleep very well at all because I was frozen. so the next night Jake gave me his mummy sleeping bag that is meant for -5 degree weather. I bundled up all tight and Jake thought it was hilarious so he took a couple pictures. But I am happy to announce that because of that sleeping bag, I was able to sleep soundly and warmly haha :) It was so nice to be able to sleep since I hadn't slept the last couple days.

Yeah, we're weird, get over it :P

We went on a ride and found a little cave, so we all went in and looked around. It was cool....after I got used to it haha i'm not a big fan of the darkness and it took a while for my eyes to adjust. Afterwards, it wasn't as bad :)

Here are a couple more pictures of old buildings we found

And finally a picture of the cute couple ;) haha 

All in all, we had a great time camping and it was definitely a great way to finish off the summer before school started back up. 

If you're wondering how school is going, it's going. Not much going on but it's been alright. Aside from a few irritations, we have survived. 

I'll write more on school another time. For now, I'm going to get going on some other posts :)