Good Morning Beautiful!

I love when I go to the gym in the morning and when I get home I have to rush to get ready. Zach was in zombie mode and had barely rolled out of bed. I gave him a kiss and wished him a good day as he was making his toast, then I hopped into the shower. He opened the bathroom door to let me know he was leaving. After I got out, he had left this napkin note on my pillow on the bed. What a sweetheart. Guess he couldn't find any paper...or was trying to be funny. Either way, it's a great way to start my day. Thanks, babe!

Bronxy Baby

Zach and I went to see Jessie and Jason's new baby, Bronx, before church on Sunday. What a cute little guy! They were at the Mountain View hospital in Payson so we decided to swing over really quick. Can't wait to watch him grow up! What great parents he will have.

Winter Fun with the Jewkes Fam

We did a few fun things with the family over the winter.  I went on the "Jewkes Annual Brian Head Snowboarding Trip." Yes, it has an official name. Every year when mom and dad go to the Cooper Tire Convention in Mesquite, they drop Tayler and T off at Ty's in Cedar City. I meet the kids at Ty's and we stay there for the weekend. The first year, I was still living with Ty so I didn't even have to drive "down to Cedar" to make it.  I instruct my parents to bring back my annual Cooper Tires shirt.  I swear to you, they are always the best t-shirts.

So we had a lot of fun hanging out the first night, playing X-Box and laughing.  As usual, my "adopted" little brother Mark came with T for the trip.  We watched funny videos on YouTube. It's tradition. Tayler stakes out the twin bed in the guest room, T and Mark pick their respective couches or the floor. This year, I skipped the floor and brought the $10 queen blow up mattress we got with an RC Willey purchase when we bought our appliances. That little guy is worth the ten buckaroos we spent.

In the morning we woke up and got all ready. We loaded Ty's truck and...it wouldn't start. We had to maneuver the car out of the garage, then back it in so the batteries on the car and the truck would be close enough together to reach for a jump.  Then we had to push the truck into the driveway so that the car backed into the garage, and the truck (now in the driveway) were nearly bumper to bumper. It was great engineering on our part.  We finally got the truck going and off we went.  We had a blast, except for the time I almost broke my neck. I ate it really hard and did what I like to call a "triple back flip." It sounds less embarrassing that way.  All-in-all though, it was a great trip.

Beautiful view of the valley at the top of one of the runs on the Brian Head Resort.

My baby SSEEESTER!

Beanies have always been a good look for me...not!!

The other thing we did with the fan over the winter was snowmobiling.  My parents bought a trip at a ward auction.  Troy Winters and his family donated the trip along with a delicious lunch and my parents bought it.  We had a blast! We went up Huntington Canyon by the state road buildings.  It's really close to the top of the snowboarding run there, so we had to bring our boards and go down a few times!  It was Tayler and Teigen's first time going. We all had a ton of fun and it was a beautiful day!

What's with the parents? Trying to keep up with the styles a decade behind? :)

Say what you will about those boots, but I've already claimed the "Moon Boots" in the will.

My sister and my dweeby little bro

First Valentine's Day

Since Zach is in the young men's, he had his boys doing a Valentine's activity.  He had them write their mom's a note about why they love them.  He wrote a letter to me. His boys were making fun of him because of how much he wrote to me and he said, "Well yeah, I want my marriage to last!"  That was Wednesday night and I knew the boys were writing the letters to their mothers, but I had no idea he had written one for me. Valentine's was the next day (Thursday) and I couldn't find my car keys anywhere. I thought, "Oh he must have driven my car to young men's last night and left my keys in it."  I went out to my car, and sure enough, there were my keys on the driver's seat, next to this...

What a sweet husband I have!

I was really lame and gave him a talk on tape about marriage from Deseret Book called "For All Eternity" by Dr. John L. Lund.  I gave him two tickets to do the zipline in Provo so we'll be doing that in the summer.

Then, I got home to find this:

AND...a belt for my belt buckle with my initials on it!

What joy marriage brings to our lives. I sure love my Valentine!  It's not secret that I don't really care much for the commercialism in holiday, especially Valentine's, but don't jump to conclusions too quickly, I did participate in the romance of the holiday by creating this little diddy and sending it to him in a text message randomly during the day!

First Jazz Game

Zach's wonderful Aunt Julie and Uncle Bill have season tickets to the Jazz.  They wanted all of the nieces/nephews to enjoy a game this year, so they offered us some really awesome seats to go to the game.  We had a lot of fun, and almost witnessed a record breaking game.  Did I mention it was a near record-breaking loss? They almost broke their record of "biggest point loss."  We left a few minutes early with Brent and Jan in an attempt to miss traffic and listened to the end of the game on the radio though.  Someone drained a three at the end of the game to put them back in the "safe zone" to not break the previous record. As much as I love the Jazz, it would've been nice to say that at least for attended one of the worst games in the history of team, that we at least saw a record breaking, historical game!

Terrible pic of us, and the lighting is horrid, but it's the best we got at the game. I think we sat in like row 6 right behind the opposing team.  We still had a lot of fun though and really appreciated the opportunity to go to the game!

Logan Temple

We decided to go visit each temple in Utah during 2013. We started off with Logan, and went and stayed at Kent and Suzanne's after. This temple is so much like Manti on the exterior, and the inside is old too, but surprisingly, they don't feel anything alike once inside.  It was a really small session, maybe 15 people total! We had some really good experiences and of course enjoyed some time in the celestial room before leaving!  We had so much fun visiting with Sam, Kent, Suzanne, Amanda and Jordan.  They told us all about their adult session of their stake conference that night, which sounded amazing! If we didn't have callings, we would've stayed and gone with them to the actual conference, but we had to be back for our own church. Suzanne made us breakfast before we left Sunday morning. It snowed all the way home and Kent and Suzanne got dumped on up in Weston after we left.  It was a great little getaway for us for the night!

First Snowfall...and First "REAL" Snowfall

As proud new homeowners, and Christmas just around the corner, we'd been waiting for a "real" snowfall.  Our first little snowfall was exciting and just in time for Christmas! Here is the beautiful white view from our back door of our FIRST snowfall. Don't get too excited until you scroll on though!

We were so happy for the snow and it looked amazing we couldn't wait for more. Then, the "REAL" storm hit. Less than a month later, we were blessed with what I can describe as nothing else but, this:

Yes, Zach shoveled the driveway.  And only half of it. The result is the massive pile to the right.

View on our street looking north.  Notice how deep the garbage cans are buried?

Feeling very "blessed" from all the moisture :)

Yep, up to the door!

Needless to say, Zach tried to drive Charlie Brown out to the ranch that morning. He called me from the driveway and said, "Can you come outside and help me? I'm stuck in the road."  I thought he was joking, but went out anyway. Sure enough, there was our little brownish/gold Mazda B2300 stuck in the driveway. Well...half in the drive, half in the "road." There wasn't much of a road to be stuck in though. It was under around 14 inches of fresh snow.  

Luckily we had at least somewhat of a relationship with our neighbors to the north at this point, so Sally and Josh Cook came over to help us get it out. Zach and Josh pushed as I drove it back into the driveway and then into the garage.  I had to drive him out to the ranch in the dodge and then drove it to work.  Thankfully I have the world's most awesome boss, and she was more than understanding. She couldn't believe how much snow we got and I couldn't believe how much they didn't get.  Barely a skiff...so pretty much, Payson gets the "lake effect" but anything north of Benjamin doesn't.  What a winter!!