Cross-Country Skiing

While we were in Utah over the break, we took a day to go cross-country skiing with everyone (minus Gramps - ha! - and Baby Michael). I can't even express how fun this was. And funny, too. For so many reasons that I will not be sharing publicly. Feel free to send me an email if you need a good laugh though :) Anyway, I have limited time today, so I will let the pictures tell all:

We went up American Fork canyon and didn't think there would be enough snow, but it turned out to be perfect. Icy enough to keep us all on our toes.

People were walking around on the lake that was clearly not frozen enough to be safe. Freaked me out a bit.

Jess was totally made for winter. She looked so cute.

The girls. Well, half of them. Jess's roomie from BYU-Hawaii came to spend the holidays with us. Love her.

Such a pretty tree. Too bad Michael's head got in the way. Just kiddin'. I just need to figure out how to work my awesome new camera.

Jess the very creepy winter beauty.

This was Anna's victory pose.

We had to take the skis off and walk part of the time. This was one of those times.

This series of pictures cracks me up every time without fail. Anna kills me. Every time.

Can you say gnome?

Ah, true love.

Lookin' good, kid.

Yeah, you too, princess.

So cute.

Love.

How fitting that this post should end with this picture. This sums up our experience pretty well...in more ways than one :)

4th of July Fun

Both Emily and I had a nice 4-day weekend to celebrate the 4th of July. It was pretty awesome being able to do so many fun things like BBQ, go to the movies (we saw both The Lone Ranger - which was fairly good, but a little on the violent side - and Despicable Me 2 - which was pretty funny and the movie that we enjoyed more out of the two), and hang out with friends and family.

The week before 4th of July, I got to go rafting with the youth group in our church. Some of my favorite boys!

We also went out to eat at a new Thai restaurant called Ta Ra Rin. I had some yummy BBQ chicken and Emily enjoyed some yellow Thai curry and some mango sticky rice for dessert.

We also had fun doing a Wasgij puzzle.

We went up to Portland for most of the weekend and enjoyed a day on the river boating. Here is our cousin Candace drying off with a shammy. She tried to do some knee boarding and the beginner skies. Most of the time she was outside of the boat was spent on the tube.

Our cousin, Kellie, did an awesome job on the wakeboard and also spent a bit of the time on the tube.

I thought this was going to be a nice picture of me because when Emily took it, she said that I was such a hunk. However, I just look like I'm bored... which I wasn't. Emily and I had a fun time wakeboarding, slalom skiing, and riding on the tube. 

Here is Kayla in the water. She thoroughly enjoyed her time boating both skiing and tubing.

Carter also had a blast on the tube and helping pull the rope in whenever it needed to be pulled in. 

This is what one of our walls looks like in our apartment now instead of just a blank white wall. Emily finished one of her projects for the summer in helping our place feel a little more homey.

A little random, but we had tacos rice this past week and took a picture because that there on top is lettuce from our garden. Go us! Our garden is doing wonderfully. We hope to be eating some of our tomatoes and peppers soon as well.

I hope that everyone else enjoyed their nice little weekend as much as we did. We send our love!

Up On the Mountain.

Although I enjoy my work with special needs kids very much, it wasn't exactly my idea of fun to come back to Oregon and have to start working again. To break things up a little bit, we spent the weekend with the Jensen family up in Portland and had a blast! Words can't really describe how much fun it was, so I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Here is Emily and Candace all ready to start out a day of skiing. We went up to a small place called Cooper Spur (or something like that). 

I actually got them to pose for this one; Aunt Tricia, Candace, and Emily.

First lift trip of the day... I can't really tell if that is Kellie sitting sitting next to Emily or not. 

Wow, aren't we just great at taking pictures? We should totally be models! (From the left: Emily, Kirsten, Garret, and James)

We went out to eat with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Tricia at this awesome burger joint  of the beaten path. I don't remember the name of it, but it is famous for awesome burgers (I think it is ranked in the top 5 places in Portland for burgers)

Looks like Aunt Tricia is posing here, while Uncle Jeff is watching her, and maybe chewing on a hot tatter tot.

I had a chipotle-mayo avocado burger that was awesome. Emily felt like a little of Hawaii and ordered an Aloha burger with pineapple and other yummies in it. You can also see part of a chocolate peanut butter shake there with whipped cream, chocolate syrup and peanuts on it. That was also very yummy! :D

 Back to the skiing, here is a video from the extravaganza... 

Well, I'm glad we had such a great weekend with family in Portland. Unfortunately, both Emily and I are a little under the weather, but hope to be getting well soon. Hope you all have a fabulous week!

If I could describe the perfect date...

Last Monday was one of the best days I (Emily) have had since coming to Japan...and that is saying something because we have had a lot of fun days here. For Valentine's Day, James gave me a homemade coupon for a free ski trip, so I cashed it in this week and took a day off work to hit the slopes. Though the trip was far from free (wow - who knew hurdling yourself and two sharp metal poles down a hill with boards strapped dangerously tight to your feet could be so pricey?!), it was worth every cent...or yen. It was the first time for both of us, so it was a great adventure to take together.  


Skiing is a lot of work! My legs felt like Jell-O a few times during the day, but it was so fun that I didn't want to stop (and let's face it - even if I had wanted to stop, I didn't really know how!). Amazing day that I hope I remember forever. Here are a few videos and pictures from the perfect day.

There were not very many people there, which was probably a really good thing because we didn't really know what we were doing at first. Can you see the fresh powder?! So awesome!

All decked out and ready to go! Oh wait, how do you put the skis on?!

Gotta love him! He was so handsome in all his winter gear and made the day so perfect for me.

Probably my favorite picture of James...ever.

Probably James's favorite picture of me. No, this is not how I spent most of the day, but when I fell, it was EXTREMELY difficult to get back up...obviously. 

Yes, we are riding on two different lift chairs. Why? Because the first time we went up the lift, we tried to ride together and ended up with James smashed on top of me and a bent ski pole. That's why. We eventually mastered the lift and rode together. I swear that was the hardest part though...

The next night, we had the missionaries and a couple friends over for dinner. Tomomi, a teacher from my base school and probably one of my best friends here, came over to learn how to make pie crust. We experimented with real banana cream pie (only because I couldn't find pudding mix here!). You can find the recipe here. I strongly recommend it.

I had an end-of-year party this week with the teachers from one of my schools. This school was a "satellite" school that was evacuated from the west side of Japan last March after the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown disaster. After this month, this school is being disbanded and the students will integrate into surrounding schools in the area. That means that many of the teachers aren't sure what their jobs will be next year or where they will be living. Needless to say, this end-of-year party was a bit emotional. These teachers are great and I'm really going to miss them. The party was fun - can you see all the food?!! It didn't even all fit on the table!

And a couple other random goodies. James and I decided to make smores for date night. I don't know if we were too giddy about it or what, but it resulted in some pretty horrid pictures that I just had to post because I thought they were so funny.

And finally, The Grad School Update: I had a great interview with the University of Oregon this week. It just solidified my excitement for grad school in general, and made me even more excited about the possibility of grad school in Oregon! I should hear back in about three weeks, so keep your fingers crossed for me!!! I'm also applying for a couple graduate teaching fellowships which would be a huge blessing to get, so if you could send a few prayers this way, it would be much appreciated.


Love to all our family and friends! Thanks for your support!