Last weekend we had the opportunity to attend the open house for the Draper temple.  It was absolutely breathtaking!  It really was unlike any other temple I have been through.  There was something about the simplicity of everything that really made it beautiful.  Our stake is one of the many that have been assigned to attend the Draper temple once it is dedicated, so we also have the opportunity to volunteer for the open house.  We have not been given an assignment yet, but we are crossing our fingers that we will be able to help.

My parent’s stake has also been assigned to attend the Draper Temple, and with my dad being in the Stake Presidency they have had many opportunities to be involved.  Back in August of 2006 our family was able to attend the groundbreaking for the temple.  President Hinckley, President Faust, and President Monson were all in attendance to dedicate the site for building.  It was a really neat experience, we even had the  opportunity to dig at the site once the prophet had broke ground.

This is my younger brother and I moving a little dirt.

This is exactly one year later in August of 2007.

Two years after the groundbreaking in July of 2008 the angel Moroni was placed on top of the temple.

And on January 15, 2009 the doors to the temple were opened to the public.

We are grateful for the chance we had to take a small part in the church’s 129th temple.  We are so blessed to have so many beautiful temples just minutes away from our home and cannot wait for this temple to be dedicated so that the lord’s work may continue to move forward.

So we have lived in our basement apartment in Sandy for exactly one year now and have really loved it. We love the  three bedrooms, the quiet landlords upstairs, the two giant dogs who jump on us in the backyard, our fireplace, the fact that they let us get our puppy, but above all we have really enjoyed our ward.  Immediately after we moved in we got called to be in the nursery…BEST CALLING EVER! We got to sit in giant lazyboy recliners reading books to kids while eating snacks for two hours, who could complain…oh wait I didnt mention the fact that we had 18-22 kids in the nursery which makes about 10 kids to one of us, mass chaos! We really did love it though, but when it was time for the new year to roll around we were asked to move up with the 3 year olds from nursery to the sunbeams…9 sunbeams! Last Saturday we had a “meet your teacher” primary activity, it got us pretty excited for our new calling.

I am not sure I am supposed to post pics of other people’s kids on the internet…oops! Check out the bowl cut on the kid in front, strait up legit!

Only 6 of the 9 kids showed up but we quickly learned that we are in for quite the experience.  Sunday was our first official day of primary, one word…headache. We had kids running up to the microphone screaming jibberish, Scott got a set of scriptures to the head,  I chased an escapee down the hall and up on to the stand of the chapel during the elders corum lesson, popcorn was smashed into every square inch of the class room, and quite a few tears were shed (I too felt like crying.)  As long as we all make it out alive we will call it a success. All in all…best sunday ever.

2008  was full of big accomplishments and amazing experiences, Scott and I did some reminiscing and came up with a pretty good list of things to remember from 2008…

• I was admitted into the BYU advertising program in January
• We got our precious little puppy, Feebie
• Scott graduated in European Studies from BYU
• We celebrated our one year anniversary on Aug. 15
• We fulfilled our dream of backpacking Europe together
• Scott landed an amazing job with an angel investment firm
• We bought our first car together, a 2005 Honda Accord

These are just the highlights, everyday brought new excitement and joy into our lives.  We ushered in the new year with my family’s tradition of fondue.  My mom started doing fondue on new years eve a few years ago and it is such a fun tradition!

My Brother-in-law Jared and my little bro Garrett, so so happy!

Yeah!

Later we hung out with some friends and brought in the new year with some sparkling cider and a game of acey deucey

Happy New Year!

This year for Christmas we went up to my parents cabin to celebrate Christmas the old fashioned way.  We had such a great time. Their cabin is up in Weber Canyon just outside of Kamas and Oakley. In the winter we get so much snow up there that we have to snowmobile in, so you can imagine bringing all of our Christmas gifts, a weeks worth of food, bags/clothes, and people up on snowmobiles was a bit of a chore. (but a chore well worth it!)

My older sister Erin is 32 weeks pregnant, she is such a good sport she suited up and jumped on the snowmobile without a second thought!

We got up there on Christmas eve and got right down to business, we went out and cut down our own tree.

It was pretty cold when we got up there, at one point it was 9 degrees!

So we definitely had to bundle.

Our beautiful tree… I have to admit that I picked the winning tree!

We then had fun stringing popcorn, cranberries, and lifesavers into our homemade tree decor.

My not so little bro Austin switching out the tree topper from the ghost of Christmas (made by my other brother garrett) for a bow.

WE LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! (I am pretty sure I could send this picture to my dentist for my yearly checkup…yes i have a very large mouth!)

Our finished product

Christmas morning was magical as always. I am pretty sure that this was the first year that my younger siblings let us sleep in past 7 am! Santa Claus definitely spoiled us this year.

Scott couldnt wait to put on his new gifts, they went straight from the box and onto his body…tags included!

Feebie carried her new bone around all morning, can you say protective!?!

Gotta love the swollen eyes after just waking up

We spent the rest of the week having a blast around the cabin and all that the Utah winters have to offer. We played board games, ate tons of yummy treats, snowmobiled, sledded, watched movies, snow shoed, and took nice long naps. It was such a relaxed holiday celebration, we loved every minute of it!

Merry Christmas Everyone, We love you!