Wednesday, December 15, 2010

We're Back! :D

Hello Blogging World!

It has sure been a long time since I blogged. A lot has happened since we went to Yellowstone in June. :)

Well, I'll try to make this a lot shorter than it could be.

During the summer Tyler got so sick of Summer Sales. He knew it's not what he wants to do the rest of his life. So he started looking into Air Traffic Control. He has thought about doing that for some time now. And yes we KNOW it is a very stressful job. ha, that is the first thing EVERYONE has said when we bring up ATC. Oh, and that it has the highest rate for suicide. Anyways, he researched and really felt like he would like to do it. We found the best school for him would be the University of Alaska in Anchorage. Now I still had one semester left so we were going to be apart for one semester... sucky! But we felt like it was the right thing to do. So we drove to Alaska!!!! What a BEAUTIFUL drive!!! We took about a week to do the drive. We stayed in a hotel only twice and camped the rest of the nights. It was a blast! As we drove through Canada we were able to get some of my favorite Canadian treats: Smarties (glorified m&m's), and Caramilk bars. YUM!! AND Tyler got to try Poutine for the first time!!! Poutine is nothing more than french fries mixed with squeeky cheese and topped with gravy. It tastes a lot better than it sounds!! ha!
Well, we got Tyler all settled in an apartment with a way cool roommate and then it was time for me to leave. I cannot describe how horrible that was. The night before I left and when Tyler dropped me off were the most horrible moments of my life. Even though it was only going to be for 4 months, it was still so hard.
Okay, sorry I'm taking too long! Well, we both started school. Tyler really enjoyed his classes and I began my Student Teaching. Tyler was in classes for a few weeks when he began hearing about the work schedules for ATC. It ended up being a lot different than he had read while researching ATC. So he set up a meeting with one of his professors. She told him that in the 15 years she has worked as an Air Traffic Controller she has not had a single weekend off. She works every holiday as well. She has no children so she doesn't mind it much. But for us that would be huge. We already knew about holidays, but didn't expect it to be EVERY holiday FOREVER. Tyler and I decided it wasn't worth it. Tyler wouldn't be able to go to church, or be there for Christmas. His life would be centered around work. That just isn't the lifestyle we are looking for. So............He came back to me! Hallelujah!!!
But there is one thing that we discovered. We both LOVE Alaska!!!!
Tyler came back and I finished my Student Teaching. I taught 1st grade at Aspen Elementary. It was a wonderful experience. I had the cutest kids any teacher has every had!!!! They would say and do the funniest things. I was amazed at how comfortable I was in front of the class. I loved every minute of it! I learned so much from my amazing Cooperating Teacher. Student Teaching was a priceless experience! I have been done now for almost a month and I miss it like crazy!
Tyler got a job at Inside Real estate. He sells real estate blogs. He's been there only a month and a half and they are already promoting him to manager!! He is killing it! I am so proud of him!!!
Tyler is going back to school in January. He wants to continue his degree in Public Relations. He is also getting a minor in History. He is seriously considering teaching in Alaska and then becoming a Principal. So yes, we quite possibly will be moving back to Alaska in the next few years.
Well, I turned in my Senior Portfolio last Thursday. That means... I AM DONE!!!!! I am a College Graduate!!! WOOT WOOT!!! I have been job searching for the last month. So far it hasn't gone the best. I would really love to teach in Alpine School District. I have had a very positive experience working with Alpine and would love to teach there. But we shall see.
Oh, we moved to beautiful Heber City! Oh, we sure love it here!! The commute hasn't bothered us at all. It's so much better to drive through beautiful Provo Canyon than having to fight rush hour traffic and construction on I-15. The canyon is almost therapeutic after working or school. We are living in Tyler's parents' home they are trying to sell. They moved to Rexburg because my Mother-in-Law is a professor at BYU-ID. They have had renters in the Heber home but now they are trying to sell it. We moved in the keep the driveway shoveled, heat on, and house clean during this time. One thing that has been very good for us is we have to always have the house looking perfect because people could stop by at any moment to look at the house. This has made us a very clean couple!! I love it! It's definitely a good habit to have! I hope this will make us more like my brother Shawn and his wife Monica! Monica always has a perfectly clean home! She is so organized, and genuinely enjoys cleaning. I have to say I'm impressed with my brother too because I remember what his room looked like and smelled like when he was in high school. ;) He's a changed man thanks to Monica! :D ha! (I know Shawn you were a lot better after your mission).
Anyways, life is very peaceful here in Heber. We are up on the hill so we get beautiful views. We have a nice large deck for Tyler to grill on! Two fireplaces, perfect for this time of year, and way more space than we can fill at this point in our lives. Oh, and we have a garage!!!!!! Oh, how nice that is during the winter!
We hunted a tree again this year! The poor tree went through a lot. We cut it down, drug it 4 miles behind a snowmobile, drove all the way from Rexburg to Heber with gross salt and oil getting splashed up onto it from the snowy roads, sprayed with the hose to get all the salt off, left on the side of the house to dry in the sun but left too long that it froze again, and finally brought into the house to thaw. Somehow it made it though and is the most perfect tree! It has several pine cones that hung on through all that and add a nice touch to the decor! :)
Well, now I'm just going on and on! I know pictures are more exciting but I can't seem to find the camera at the moment. Most of our Alaska pictures are already on Facebook so just look there. Well, there I'm caught up! Now I'll try to do better at blogging. I'll be better when we have kids and are more interesting. :)

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Buffalo, Bears, Fish, Gold, Dinosaurs, and Airplanes

Well, we've done some fun things the last few weeks... We've driven through Yellowstone about 6 times and we've seen LOTS of buffalo.


We saw a mother grizzly and her 4 cubs!!!
Big Horn Sheep
More of the mother and her cubs.


We had a picnic, but it started snowing and only Julie and Grant were brave enough to finish their lunch outside of the car.

Awesome view....the scenery is cool too. ;)


QUESTION: How can this....
Start out like this?!?!?!


REVENGE OF THE BUFFALO!!! We were stuck here for about 20 minutes.

We camped in the muddiest camping spot ever! It rained all evening, night, and the next day. The Barrott MEN had their annual fishing contest and guess who won.... DAS RIGHT T-WILL!!!

Tyler caught 7 fish. Second place was 3!
Then we stayed the weekend at Uncle Brad and Aunt Michelle's cabin. We played on their new wave runners and did some boat surfing. :D

Then, Tyler, me, Jacob, Grant, and Emily went camping again. Tyler researched a spot for gold panning....
We found a few tiny specks! But it most definitely was gold!
I love camping!
I used my chard fire poking stick to draw this masterpiece!
No one new this rock was actually a furious velociraptor head!

This was a cool shed we drove by with license plates covering the entire outside.

And tonight was such a beautiful summer night, I suggested we make paper airplanes and launch them off the Willis' back deck! So fun!!!
We found some good designs online!

Lots got stuck in funny places...
By the time the sun was down we had made a few different kinds of planes. Some awesome, some not so good.
Here is Tyler with the best airplane of them all.

And this was my not so good one...

Monday, May 10, 2010

Our FUN, yet not so great ADVENTURE!!

Well, a few months ago Tyler read a story online about someone who decided to launch a weather balloon with a camera and GPS tracker attached. His hope that he would get pictures of the ground like you would get from an airplane. Instead he got pictures like this:

The balloon went to about 90,000ft before it burst! We decided we wanted to try! So we got all the supplies: camera, boost mobile phone with GPS tracking system, hand warmers, weather balloon, rope, bags to create drag when falling, helium tank, duct tape, a big 2 GB SD card and tin foil. We used an online program to determine where we should launch the balloon so it would land in a reasonably good location that it would be easy to spot and retrieve.



Finally, Saturday arrived and the weather looked pretty good. We raced out to our launching location. Got everything set up, and launched the balloon.





My Dad (Stan) and brother (Shawn) tracked our balloon until it got to 20,000 ft when we...lost signal and.... never...got...it...back!!! :( We hoped it would eventually pick back up, but nothing. We've gone out looking for our balloon by calculating where it should have popped and then where it should have landed, but to no avail. Sadly, we lost our experiment, but we are all determined to try again. Next time we will use an actual GPS tracking system instead of Boost mobile. For now we just hope someone will call us if they find it. :)


While looking for our balloon we split up into two cars. Tyler and I drove all around these fields out in the middle of no where, when we suddenly approached this beautiful canyon!!!! It's literally just out in the middle of miles and miles of farm land! No balloon, but awesome discoveries!


Tyler was excited that he got to try out our four-wheel drive for the first time in our new "manly" Exterra. The tires on this this are HUGE!!! We love our new car!! :D And yes, that is the "road" we drove on.



Well, we will most definitely try this again now that we know a few things to do differently. ha, oh yes, and after we sent our balloon off we all took a turn sucking helium that was left over in the tank. SO FUNNY!! I have videos on facebook, so check them out! :D

Friday, May 7, 2010

Recent Doins

So pretty much it's hard to come up with interesting blogs when we don't have kids yet, and when we're in between vacations. :)

But here's a list of our recent doings:

  • I finished my second to last semester of college!!! All I have left is student teaching. Woot Woot!!!
  • May 1st was my brother Shawn's birthday as well as Tyler and my anniversary. 2 Years! We celebrated by going out to eat in Salt Lake, going to the Jazz game, and staying at the Hilton. :) It was wonderful!
  • Tyler is working for Big Dog once again. This time however, he is selling insulation, solar panels, and windmills. He's enjoyed it so far, and we are excited to see how the summer goes.
  • We are currently living in Rexburg, ID and it has been FREEZING!! We're living here while Tyler completes some training as well as everything ready in Oregon for us to go sell out there. We will be leaving to Oregon the end of this month or beginning of the June. Tyler's family has been kind enough to allow us to crash at their place during these weeks we're in Idaho.
  • I am learning how to play the piano. Tyler's sister Emily is teaching me. :) I can now master the right hand of Lullaby, Ode to Joy, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, and It's Raining It's Pouring. Amazing, I know! :)
  • I am so excited to read a book for FUN!!! Yay! I am currently reading Fablehaven. It's nice because it's fun, super easy read, and pretty much I'm just happy to be reading. Tyler's brother Jacob has all 5 books. So that's been nice!
  • I am also working on finalizing a short children's picture book that I will hopefully get published. :) Shawn has agreed to drawing the pictures if there is good enough potential for him to make millions. :) jk... but he did say he was interested whether or not it bombs.
  • Next weekend Tyler and I will head back down to Utah to visit because Shawn and my adorable nephew Lincoln are coming up from Arizona to visit. It will also be my 22nd birthday. So I get to party with them. :)
Well, that's about all for now. I can't find our camera or I'd post a few pictures from our Anniversary.
We hope everyone is happy and well!!!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Lost


Well, this weekend Tyler and I decided to see what all the fuss is about. We watched the first episode of the first season of Lost, and were instantly hooked! I'm glad we haven't started watching it until now because now we don't have to wait a week to find out what happens next! Now it's just hard to stop watching it! ha!
Now no one is allowed to spoil anything! We're only on the first season!

Monday, February 8, 2010

Update in a hundred words or less!!!

Well, shoot it's about time for another update! I really should be doing homework right now, but at least I'm not on facebook! :)

I really don't have much time so I'll let pictures do all the updating. :)


Lots of snowmobiling in Idaho with Ty's family.





We finally went skiing!!!!


My first time at Sundance and I LOVED it! Beautiful!


We went up to Idaho this weekend to spend time again with Ty's family. We snowmobiled, skied, watched the Superbowl, and took some pretty pictures!


The End