Mark & Jodie

We've moved....

2009-07-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

....both literally (to Tucson) and blog sites. Since we have now left BYU and are moving on to new things, we decided to change our blog site. Come visit us at bremsohana.blogspot.com

4th of July

2009-07-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

For the 4th of July, the Brems have a tradition of going to Lake Powell to celebrate. We weren't able to get together last year, so it had been two years and it was a blast to have everyone together again. We have a TON of pictures of everyone (largely thanks to Dad's amazingly sweet camera), so here are some of my favorite pictures of the trip.

Well, it had been a long time since I've been wakeboarding and I was a little rusty at first, but it came back quickly. You can't see very well, but I'm showing off the Shaka to celebrate being back on the water.

Getting the feel again of jumping...

Here's Jason catching some air.

Angie showing both Jason and I how its done...

Jenna tearing up the water

Having never gone before, we got Jodie out on the water to give wakeboarding a try - I love the smile.
After a few practices, Jodie got up for a little bit, but the board got the best of her in the end. As you can see here, the board is pretty big and she was having a hard time controlling it. So, we'll have to go wakeboarding again soon to work on that, but I'm proud of her for giving it a try.

James helping Grandpa steer the boat

Robert and Emily then got on the tube... I love their faces in this picture.
Truth be told, Robert actually fell off shortly after the picture and that left Emily some time to rip it up on the tube.
Sorry Em, but I thought this was a pretty cool picture and I had to include it.

The next few pictures are of John's tubing run. Although Jodie and I missed the first day of tubing, I think that John won the prize for tubing this trip. Although it was a tough call for me becaues he didn't get the biggest air (see Thomas' picture later), but he definitely got tossed around like a rag-doll. Some of his faces also remind me of the slow-mo movies of boxers when they get hit. Anyway, here are some of my favorites...

After our first day on the Lake, we went back to the hotel. James wanted to drive the "Blue Car" for a little bit and I was really impressed by how well he can handle it, especially for only being two. This was one of my favorite pictures; I love the tongue sticking out.

The next day, some of us got up nice and early to take advantage of the calm water. The water was so smooth and we were practically alone for a few hours.

Here's my mom

Angie
Jenna
My dad
I was very impressed by this spin move my dad pulled off.

Jason
Me

I tried to pull off a spin move myself, but I twisted too far and caught my leading edge and quickly went down.

After wakeboarding for a litte while, we came back to the marina and picked up everyone else and went back out to have lunch. After we had lunch, we played around on some cool rocks and James started to get a little brave and jumped to Robert in the water.
Jodie watching Anna to give Emily a break and allow her to go into the water to cool down a little.
After lunch, we went to a little cliff and did some jumping. At first, I was taking pictures of everyone, but I got called out of the boat for this picture. Its a fun picture and you can see some people's personalities. We were all supposed to jump off at the same time... yeah... I kept messing that one up. Sorry everyone. I think the picture still turned out nicely though.

Next we piled everyone onto the tube. 7 people, not too shabby.

I love this one of James. Jodie set him up on the bench and gave him his two cars. A little bit of background info about James. Most kids want to fall asleep with teddy bears and blankets, but not my nephew. He wants matchbox cars. So, he grabbed the cars and zonked out in just a few seconds and I grabbed this picture of him.

Next we got three of the brothers on the tube for a ride.

Then Thomas decided to put on some googles and go for a ride by himself. With this ride, Thomas won the prize for the biggest air. Right after this picture, he practically did a headstand on the tube because he got so much air. It was one of the most impressive jumps I've seen by a tuber.

That night, we went back to the hotel to have some home-made ice cream and watch the fireworks.

I thought this was a very cute picture.

On the way home, Jodie and I made two pit stops. First, we stopped off at Coral Pink Sand Dunes National Park, just north of Kanab. Its a pretty cool place.

Next, we stopped off at Cove Fort. It was established by Pres. Hinckley's grandparents. They were called by Brigham Young to build a fort to protect the telegraph and mail office during the Indian Wars. He built a very impressive fort, walls of 18 feet high and at least 3 feet wide at the base, especially considering he had no experience. Luckily, they never had to use the fort and it was primarily a lodging for travelors heading between Filmore and Beaver (sometimes upwards of 30 people a night that they had to feed and provide shelter for).
This is a view from the top of the walls at the original cabin where Pres. Hinckley's grandparents were living when they received the call to come here. When they restored the fort, they brought the original cabin down to add to the site.

Jodie on top of the walls. The tree to the right is one of the original trees that they planted when they built the fort, nearly 150 years ago.

Well, that was a summary of our trip. It was so much fun and a very nice break from reality. Big thanks to everyone for making it such a fun trip.

Anniversary, BYU, and Oquirrh Mt. Temple

2009-06-21T16:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, we have three big things to report about.

First, two weeks ago, Jodie and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary. It's kind of crazy how fast time goes by; it doesn't seem like its been a year already. Our anniversary was on a Sunday this year, so it was a little bit more low key, but still very fun though. Here's the flowers that I got Jodie.

For dinner, we had a little picnic with the same food that we had on our first date at the BOCA soccer game.

The picnic was fun, but we had to do it inside because we got rained out. However, it was pretty fitting though because our picnic got rained out on our first date too. It was a lot of fun though.

The next big thing was that I finally finished my undergraduate career at BYU. Although I walked in April, I still had to take two labs for med schools. So, as of June 17th, I finished everything! When I got home from taking my last final, I found a gift sitting for me on the couch.

So, this was Jodie's prize for me for finishing my BYU career.

After opening my gift, I checked my email and I got my official acceptance to University of Arizona's grad school. So, now everything is all set for me to take the graduate certificate of Public Health program this year while I wait for med school applications to go through. It was a very exciting night.

Then to celebrate that night, Shaun came over and we played a few rounds of Wii Tennis.

The last one is that we went the next day to a morning tour of the new Oquirrh Mt. Temple. It was very fun to go through the open house and the new temple. It was very nice and pretty inside. But here is a shot of the four of us who went; Aaron, Shaun, Jodie, and I.

Here's a shot that Jodie took of the temple as we were leaving. It's a very pretty temple with a very nice view.

Well, those are three big things that we've had to celebrate lately.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARK!!!!

2009-06-09T21:06:00.001-07:00

The official birthday picture...

Mark had a great birthday this year. We really did have a lot of fun! I got to make him breakfast in the morning and a special birthday lunch. Since I work nights during the summer we have our big meal together for lunch. He chose to have roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Although I don't even know what Yorkshire pudding is supposed to be like, Mark seemed to enjoy it! It was fun.

The rest of the day was full of surprises....

First, Mark's favorite is peach pie. So I asked his mom for some help and I attempted to make my first peach pie. It actually turned out pretty good! :) I took this picture before I put it in the oven, just in case it didn't come out and I needed evidence of my attempt. the pie was waiting for Mark on the stove when he got home from work with a little note from me.

Next, I told Mark I had to work so I asked our friend, Aaron, to take him golfing- so he didn't have to stay at home alone all night on his birthday. Here are some fun golf shots...

Meanwhile, Mark did not know that I had actually taken the day off of work and was at home preparing for a surprise party! :) Decorating and setting up...

I just realized we didn't get a picture with anyone, except Mar. Oops. Well, it didn't help that Mark had taken the camera with them golfing, so I didn't have a camera at home until he got there. :) We had a few of our friends come over for the festivities- Erik and Michelle, Kevin and Vanessa, Aaron, and Karma Sue. Thanks guys for celebrating with us! :)

When Mark got home and opened the door we shouted the usual "Surprise!! Happy Birthday!" It was classic- it took him back for a few seconds while he tried to register what was going on. He later told me his first thought was "There are people in my house!?!"

Mark opening presents...
I found this goofy hat at a party store and just thought it was fun! :)

One of Mark's favorites was the card from our neighbors- on a sticky note. He really enjoyed that...he said he always loved getting presents wrapped in newspaper or random things...which of course gave me some ideas- toilet paper, maybe?

This is a nice shot of the goofy hat and Mark as we are singing "Happy Birthday!"

Make a wish...

As we were finishing up eating and stuff I got a phone call. The girl who was covering for me at work had locked her car keys in the building. So we had to quickly run out the door to open the school up for her. Of course a custodian randomly showed up on our way there, so we didn't have to go to the school after all. However, we decided since we were already halfway to Payson, we would use the free movie tickets we had received from my principal for the movie theater down there. So Mark got to end his fun birthday with another little surprise- Star Trek.

Well, we had a fun day! Thanks to everyone who helped make Mark's day extra fun and special.

Happy Birthday, Mark!!!

Memorial Day in Washington

2009-06-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

For Memorial Day weekend we went to Washington to visit my parents. It was so much fun! I had been really homesick for a while so it was a very nice break.

Mark had some fun taking pictures around the house...some for Chad and my dad's business website and some just for fun. Of course Mark always brings sunshine to Washington (he still has not seen it rain there) so the pictures turned out very pretty. A few...

First the Washington trees.

My parents lawn and landscaping.

Since the business specializes in sprinklers, Mark took some really nice sprinkler shots.

While Mark was taking some pictures, Shaun decided to attack me, pick me up, and run me through all the sprinklers...just like old times! :)

This looks like it could have come out of a magazine to me.

Pretty rainbow shot.

The yard.

Rhodies...

Mom and I spent a lot of time laying out in the sun. The weather was really nice all weekend. Of course, I am a total wimp so I was still a bit cold...but for a few hours everyday it was nice to enjoy the sun rays! :)

For Memorial Day, we went to Point-no-Point on the Peninsula Coast. Here is the lighthouse on the peak.

Cliff shot from the beach.

It was a super low tide- the lowest I had ever seen. But the sound of the waves totally soothed my soul- sounds very corny, but so true. There is nothing that makes me more comfortable and calm than the sound of waves on a beach! :)

Mark enjoying a walk on the beach.

Receiving some council from my daddy-o.

We came across a few Bald Eagles. It was interesting- they were perched on some tree branches and a ton of crows and other birds kept circling them. But the Eagles were huge and not even bothered by the other birds bugging them. You can see here that there is a crow next to the Eagle- and the Eagle totally dwarfs it. (you'll have to click on the picture and enlarge it to really see the two birds)

Washington Coast shot.

After we got back Mark and I took a nap on the lawn. Felt so good.

Dad washed his truck while we napped.

Then mom and dad cooked up the usual amazing dinner. Dad made his famous Chow Fun! I haven't had it since I got home from my mission about 5 years ago and it was just as amazing as ever!!! Thanks, daddy! :)

On Tuesday we went for a walk on a path near my parents house...

Stopping for a pose.
Well, that was the extended weekend for us. We had a great time in Washington! Thanks mom and dad for everything! It was fun to see you guys! :)

Congratulations, Mark!! We're so proud of you!

2009-05-08T22:16:00.001-07:00

April 24, 2009- a big day in our home! Mark graduated from BYU! Now we have two BYU Alumni...we know we are surrounded by Utes in the family, but we are still very proud COUGARS!

Mark graduated in Business Management with a minor in Spanish. He's filling out med school applications and we're hoping to start next year! :) His family came up for graduation and it really meant a lot to us to have them here with us. We really appreciate the love and support.

Emily dressed James and Anna up for the event. Here is James in his BYU Jersey!

Anna had a pink "Y" shirt on and Emily found this amazing BYU bow for her hair. It was so cute! :)
The grads! Mark is the first person on the far left, first row of graduates in the bleachers. If you look in about the middle of the row of random people just in front of the white half wall, you'll see me and Mark's grandparents. I got really lucky and was able to sit right by Mark!

Here's our grad...Walking up to the stage...

"Mark Williams Brems"
The degree! :)
Although we were all very happy to be there for Mark, graduations can get a bit long. Most of us make it through okay, others have a harder time. Anna represents the latter crowd here... (good shot of her super cute bow, though).Giving Mark his leis.
A close up of the money lei- it was the first one I had ever made.

Grandma and Grandpa Brems! We were so excited to have them there.
Father and Son...
Robert, Emily, James, and Anna...
After, we met up with Mark's family and had a bite to eat. Mark's cousin Shauntae also graduated so we got to see a lot of his family. It was fun to see everyone. CONGRATS, SHAUNTAE!! :)

After dinner we came back to our place for Mark's graduation present. Angie also got hers at the same time for her graduation from Idaho State. (Congrats, Angie!) The before shot...
Is this not the giddiest face ever....he got a MacBook laptop!!!!! He was so very excited. We have been watching Apple's refurbished website for a good deal and his parents made Mark's dream come true! Thanks guys! :)
The day before the Marriott School of Management's graduation was BYU's traditional Commencement Ceremony. All the graduates file into the Marriott Center and there is a short ceremony. There is also a main graduation speaker- this year it was Elder Nelson. Also, President Uchtdorf was given an honorary doctorate. It was a really fun event. Although, I was holding Anna so I don't have many pictures of the actual event. Here's a quick shot of the before.

A few after shots of our graduate...notice James and Anna are wearing BYU gear on Thursday too!

Notice Mark is no longer wearing the "white thing". It's called the Stole of Gratitude. You wear it during graduation to show gratitude and honor to your family and others who have supported you. You then give it to one of your family members as a token of appreciation. Mark gave his to Robert.We really had a great time and, again, thank everyone who helped to support Mark during this time! We love you all!

CONGRATULATIONS, MARK!!!! :) I love you! I am so proud of you and all you have accomplished!

Graduation Week

2009-05-08T21:13:00.000-07:00

The weekend before graduation, Robert, Emily, James, and Anna came to visit. It was so much fun!!! We truly had a blast!! It meant a lot to us that they sacrificed so much to be able to be here to celebrate Mark's great accomplishments, and to play!

Here are some pictures of a park visit they went on while I was at work one day...

I love this...James just looks like a little man walking across the bridge.

"Ooh, a water park! I want to go there..."

Anna enjoying some sun rays with her daddy...

I love Anna's hair...

He's going to be a true monkey some day....

So Robert and Emily went out to dinner one night and let us babysit the kids...it was so much fun! James and Anna are so good...and SO CUTE!

Mark took his last final on Wednesday and asked if he could have his graduation gift then since he was officially done. I was excited to give it to him so I did. (I was especially excited about the wrapping paper...Go Cougs!)

"Oooh..."

It's a Wii! That's right all you Wii playing folks....we can now play with you. Robert and Emily got Mark MarioKart for the wii so we can join their online games with Heather and Ethan! Woohoo! Happy Graduation, Mark! :)

The day after graduation our friends Kevin and Vanessa got married. Kevin was Mark's roommate last year, and Vanessa was my roommate. They met through our Sunday night dinners- we're so happy for them! We couldn't miss the sealing so we left the family for a few hours. We were grateful to have been able to take part in the sealing and feel of the sweet spirit there. Congrats, Kevin and Vanessa!!

Well, unfortunately we couldn't get any pictures of the bride and groom because everytime we tried we just got blocked. But here are a couple pretty pictures we took while waiting for them to come out.

After the sealing we met up with Mark's family at Rodizio's Brazilian Grill. His parents took us out in celebration of graduation. It was very nice of them and we had a great time. And of course it was a very exciting event for me- celebrate Mark with the surroundings of one of my favorite cultures. I even got a chance to speak some Portuguese...I really need to find more opportunities to practice, but it was really fun. We really did all have a great time together- a big thanks to Mark's parents for coming up and for taking us all out to spend some time together.

After dinner, we went to the Dinosaur Museum. It was a blast. Last time Mark and I went (see Valentine's Day blog), we kept thinking how fun it would be to have had James with us...this time we did...and a few other kids as well...

First, Emily let me hold Anna while we were there. I tried out her snuggle thing...it was fun. Although I felt like a total mom. It makes me laugh when I see the pictures though- I don't realize how short I am until I see pictures of me next to a baby and 2 year old- maybe it's just the camera angle. :)
James found a cave and had some fun running in and out of it.

Mark and James.
At the museum they have this great area for little kids. It's a canal of running water filled with sand and dinosaur and plant toys. It's the ultimate sand box! Here's James playing in the sand with some dinosaurs.
Well, James eventually had some other friends join him...some bigger boys. I'm not sure who had more fun, the big boys or little ones...
The big boys eventually made their own creation and blocked some of the water from flowing by making a dam. They found the art of erosion fascinating. Even better than that was there was a high strung grandma near by and she got all bent out of shape because they were taking all the sand from her granddaughter- who happened to be a little ways away and the boys had gotten all the sand from a little corner where no kids were playing. There is never a lack of entertainment when you are in a little kids area- if you get bored of watching the kids, you can watch the parents/grandparents getting all worried about their kid.
Since the boys were playing we made them put on their little aprons....I love how Jason and Robert are all big and tuff and Mark has his little toy dinosaur with a giddy smile- such a little boy...I love it! :)
James with a fun puppet.
"Oh, Hi!"
That night Angie and Jason came over as well and we all had a great time together. First we went to the mall. We had the guys meet us there so James could go to Build-A-Bear. It was funny, but we had to take a picture of him with his box after. The funniest part of it all was right after this picture. He quickly decided he didn't want his box anymore, but instead wanted my Victoria Secret's bag.

After the mall we went to Fro-Yo for frozen yogurt. We were all chatting and realized James had gone over to the next booth and found his reflection in the napkin dispenser. He decided to have a conversation with himself (which he had done earlier in the week with his reflection in our door knobs at home). He would say, "Oh, hi James!" "How are you?" "Come on, let's go!" Then he'd quickly run away and return only to have the same conversation with a few variations. It was so funny and cute! :)
The next morning everyone was leaving. Sad. :( Jason held Anna while Robert and Emily got ready and packed things up. They both fell asleep...

One last shot before they hit the road. We really miss these guys a lot!!!
Thanks again everyone for coming and celebrating such a special event with us. We really appreciate all you do and for all your love. Robert and Emily, we had a BLAST with you guys!! Thanks so much for spending so much time with us and letting us enjoy your cute keikis (kids)! We love you guys!! :)

April 15- The Best Day of the Year! :)

2009-04-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to me! Minus all the snow, I had a GREAT birthday!!! Thank you to everyone who helped to make it so special! I love you all!!!! Here is my birthday shot...

A close up of the roses Mark got me....I love pink!!! :)

Feliz Pascoa!

2009-04-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

I've decided Easter is my favorite holiday (of course Christmas is a close second)! I just love all the colors and the feel of Easter. I love the time we have to dedicate to the reflection of our Savior and His atonement. People don't seem to get so stressed and burdened by the holiday so it's more enjoyable. And, of course, I also love the candy and fun that goes with Easter.

Easter morning Shaun came over and he and Mark searched for their Easter baskets I had hidden. After, we had breakfast and watched the church's Easter short film and read the First Presidency's message. It was a very good day for us!

Mark's basket...

Shaun's basket...

Then for dinner I made some pasta...with some Easter shaped pasta my friend Jill got me one year. It was fun...here are some of the shapes...

The night before Easter we had the annual Easter Egg Hunt- a tradition in my family since I was really young. It was always so much fun! Although we didn't have nearly as many people as we used to have growing up, it was still a blast to be with friends and have some fun!

First, I decided to make some Easter cake...here's the body...

Shaking some food coloring in the coconut for grass...

Body surrounded by grass...don't mind the huge mess on the counter...

Eyes and a mouth...with some jelly beans in the grass...

Finishing touches....

The final product...with cupcakes...and chocolate covered strawberries that Vanessa brought.

So here were our participants...Shaun of course! :)

Our favorite neighbors, Erik and Michelle...

the almost newly weds, Kevin and Vanessa....

...Mark, of course...and our friend Aaron came by later too. Another successful Easter full of the fun spirit of Spring, the beginning of life, and the reflection on the great Atonement and our great Savior! Happy Easter!!! :)

Mark's Masterpiece

2009-04-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2007 Mark made a website for BYU's PreMed Club. He wanted a graphic for the page but the club had no logo- so he made one himself. This is what it looks like...

This year the club presidency met and decided on designs for this year's t-shirts. One of the guys said he really liked the logo on the website and wanted that to be on the shirts- and that was what was voted on. Of course Mark just quietly enjoyed the praise of his logo and didn't say anything...so I'm telling his secret! We went to this year's banquet and there were about 250 shirts there being handed out....here we are modeling Mark's beautiful work...

In addition to his artistic skill...he also has some great husband skills! :) I came home from work on Friday (he was supposed to be home way before me) and he wasn't home...he left for a minute to get me some flowers. Notice they are bright, beautiful tulips!! Oh they made me so happy! :) Mark Rocks!

Conference Sunday!!!

2009-04-17T19:50:00.000-07:00

I love General Conference! We wanted to be sure to go up to it this time. We planned to go on Saturday but the weather was horrible- snowing and cold. So we got up early on Sunday and got in the stand-by line. After the morning session the weather was beautiful. Here are some pictures...

Mark and I striking a pose in front of some flowers.

Shaun and I relaxing and enjoying the sun shining on our faces! :)

Tabernacle shot...I am always amazed at this building whenever I walk in. The spirit of such great things that have happened there for so many years is so strong. It truly is a sacred place.

Of course the flowers totally brightened my day! I couldn't get enough of them...so Mark took some shots for me to enjoy them even after we left temple square. Here are a few...

I love tulips and daffodils. I love the bright, beautiful colors!

They really do a great job of keeping the grounds so beautiful! I love it...and have really needed to see some of it with all the rain and snow we've been getting. The feeling of the sunshine and colors of flowers just make me so happy and giddy- I'm truly the daughter of a beach boy/landscaper! :)

Anna's Blessing

2009-04-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

Last month we were lucky enough to fly down for Anna's blessing- our new, and only, niece. Even though it was a quick trip, it was so much fun to see everyone! We really had a great time and hated to leave so soon. But here are some pictures...

Anna's blessing was beautiful! Here is Mark and his mom with the little angel. Notice her hair- it's so cute!!!

Afterward we went back to the house for a little lunch. Behind me you can see Emily's dad and two missionaries- one of them is Emily's brother. He is serving in the Phoenix mission and his president gave him permission to go to the blessing.

The cake...so pretty!

Jenna stopping for a pose- when I got our camera back we had about 50 pictures of Jenna- thanks Jason! There's a few more as we go...

The table decorations...they were so cute. Mark's dad took some very nice pictures of Anna so each table had some in the middle.

The flowers in the backyard. Random picture, but I just really like them and can't wait to have my own garden to work in. Dad, I'm going to need some help! :) (Especially if we're in Arizona- only the Sprinkler Mechanic will be able to make a good enough system for us!) :)

The food...

Jenna poses...

Meanwhile Mark was inside playing Legos with the boys. I think he might have had just as much, if not more, fun than they did. This is Mark's robot- the little boys attacked it shortly after the picture.

James got bored and went out for some cake....mmmm!

Then the kids went to the pool area...we watched them closely...but they had a BLAST! It was so fun to watch, we were all cracking up! They kept splashing each other and making themselves laugh.

Then Pam took them up to the waterfall...

and they were even more entertaining here! It was like a kids' dream!

We brought James some cars...he's opening up his present. I don't know what I'm doing...looks like I'm trying to sit on an imaginary chair, or throne...

Anna and I! Isn't she the cutest. And notice the shirt- My auntie loves me! :) I was so excited when we found this.

And of course a bib that says "I love my uncle."

Well, we had a blast! We're excited to see some of you this week again! Thanks Robert and Emily for letting us take part in celebrating the arrive of your little princess! :)

St. Patrick's Day

2009-04-17T07:38:00.000-07:00

We had our annual St. Patrick's Day dinner- cornbeef patties with pork and beans. Yum! I also made green rice krispies for dinner- as Mark is modeling in this first picture. He is also modeling one of his new shirts- BYU's Business School was recently ranked #1 by recruiters and #5 overall by Business Week. They made shirts with 5-leaf clovers to celebrate! Of course Mark is proud- he graduates from the Business school in less than a week! Congrats, Mark! ...and Go Cougs! :)

Birthdays

2009-03-01T19:20:00.001-08:00

Well, this week we got to celebrate to birthdays. First, on Monday night we drove up to SLC to have sushi for Vanessa's birthday. It was a lot of fun to catch up with some of our friends and relax a little bit from the normal routine. Here's a picture of our group.

Jodie and I.

My old roommate Kitt and our friend Marcie.

Here's the birthday girl on the right, with Kevin (also my old roommate), and Shandy (Vanessa's roommate).

Here's an action shot of the birthday girl blowing out her candle, makes getting your wish a lot easier when you only have to blow out one candle.

It was a lot of fun going up to SLC and having some sushi- it was very delicious. The best part though was going and hanging out with our friends, some of whom we haven't seen for quite some time now. Happy birthday Vanessa!

The next birthday we got to celebrate was Shaun's on Wednesday night. So, Jodie decorated the house a little for his birthday. Also, Jodie made him chocolate cupcakes, which is one of his favorites.

In order to light the candles, I got to use my butane torch; I don't get too many excuses to use it. So, I was having fun but Shaun got a little worried.

Shaun blowing out his candles.

Shaun starting to open up his gifts

Jodie and Shaun

Shaun with all of his presents.

Happy birthday Shaun!

Well, it was a fun week and we were glad to be part of two birthday celebrations. Happy birthday again.

Snow Shoeing

2009-02-22T19:49:00.001-08:00

Well, Jodie and I decided to go snow shoeing on President's day. We went with some of our friends, Denise and Diana, to go snow shoeing at Aspen Grove. It was a lot of fun and the first time Jodie or I had gone before. So, here are some of the pictures.

Here are the girls putting on their snow shoes

Here we are starting on the trail.

It was pretty cool to be able to walk out into fresh powder on sink down only a few inches compared to my waist as it normally would be. The only bad part was if you fell down or something and tried to push yourself back up, many times your hand would just sink further into the snow.

Here is Denise watching Diana and I climb a little hill

Here we are at the top. The last few feet were pretty tough because the snow kept slipping down/compressing underneath your weight.

By far the easiest way to get down was to slide down on the back of the snow shoes. So, here I am coming down the hill.

Here is a ledge that Jodie reached the top of.

Diana quickly followed her up to the top of the ledge.

Here is a picture of the view we had from up on the mountain trail, very pretty.

Again, the quickest (and funnest) way to get down a hill was to try and slide down it, so we began looking for opportunities to sled down the hills. Here's Diana and Jodie going down the hill.

We found a really good hill and so we stayed and sled down that one for a few minutes. Here's Jodie taking the lead.

Here's Jodie and Diana sliding down the hill.

Here's Denise at the top of the hill; it took some encouragement to get her to come slide down.

To get her to go down, Jodie had to go with her, kind of like a two-man sled. You can just barely see Jodie's hoody just behind Denise.

Here they start to go down the hill- Denise has a look of terror on her face.

But once she got to the bottom of the hill, she really enjoyed it. The proof is in her grin.

After some fun, we started to head back towards the Lodge.

Here's another view of the scenery, very peaceful.

Denise and Diana posing on the bridge back to the lodge.

At the lodge, we had some doughnuts and hot chocolate to warm up. All in all, it was a very fun experience and I'm glad we got to do it before leaving Provo.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T23:19:00.000-08:00

We had a fun day...and hope everyone else did as well! It started off with breakfast...

I made Mark heart-shaped pancakes...

This is what it looked like with all the goods...heart-shaped pancakes, strawberries, and bananas, topped with berry sauce, coconut syrup and whip cream. It was yummy.

Then we were off to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. It was really interesting...a much better experience than our adventure to the aquarium.

This is Mark with some fossiled fish. Look at the size of those suckers...

In the middle of a battle...a dinosaur one one side and a pack of alligators on the other. Run!

Brontosaurus....Oh my hugeness!

This Utah Raptor is sneaking up behind Mark, just about to claw him.

This was cool. They had an open area for kinds to create what they thought dinosaur days might have looked like. It was full of sand and lots of trees, plant, and dinosaur toys for kids to create their little worlds. There was also a constant stream of water running through to make it more fun. We wished we had James with us.

A close encounter with the Brontosaurus. "Hello, what's your name?"

Check out those skulls...

Look at the teeth and mouth on that sucker! I wouldn't want to get caught in his path.

My first 3D movie. It was on the ocean...very cool...almost as cool as our awesome glasses.

Mark's encounter with the T-Rex.

"Hello, little dinosaur."

"Maybe if I hold very still, he won't see me...."

Mr. Triceratops

I felt just like one of the kids when I saw this. I got super excited and yelled to Mark, "Look, Mark, it's a giant honu!" I had to get a picture!

Mark found an even bigger fish...

Mark thought this was fun/funny....he calls this the "Jodie-sized elephant."

"AHHHHH!!!!!"

"If I can't see him...he can't see me!"

Mark's favorite! The happy alligator...

Well, hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!

PMS in the Brems house

2009-02-14T22:58:00.000-08:00

Well, before we get to my funny PMS story...let me show how awesome Mark is. I came home from work one night and this was what I found on our bathroom mirror. He's so good to me...I'm very lucky....

...(cute side picture of Mark....)

...ok, and then I have my girl moments...

Well, I'd say I'm not usually a very emotional person. Things usually hit me and I just ignore them or get over them pretty quick...that's why when I do occasionally get emotional I can't handle it very well...I don't know how to deal with it. I usually just get mad at myself and my stubbornness comes out...so here's a funny story...

A couple weeks ago Mark told me about a pizza they had eaten at lunch that day at work. Ok, no big deal...except for it sounded so good. That's when the craving began. Usually if I get a craving I either satisfy it or it stays until I do. I waited a couple weeks and then it hit hard. I just wanted that stupid pizza. It actually kind of made me mad because it shouldn't be such a big deal...but it was. Anyways, long story short. Mark thought it would be fun for our date night to make a pizza together. It was a very good idea...just one problem, I had already been craving a specific pizza- Papa John's wheat crust canadian bacon pizza. Well, we got the stuff to make it and got a recipe online for the sauce. For whatever reason, the sauce ended up being SUPER sour and tasted like rotten tomatoes. I took one bite and got nauseous. Since it was our date night I didn't want to leave the table so I just pushed my plate aside. But the smell of the sauce was making me really sick to my stomach. I got up and made a bowl of cereal- usually very safe- but that made me even more sick. So I had to get up and go to the couch and lie down. I ended up crying because I felt so bad. It was definitely a dumb girl moment! Poor Mark! He felt bad and didn't really know what to do. So our night was kind of ruined after that...the mood anyways. I felt horrible...and to top it off, my craving was worse than before.

On Saturday I decided to make a homemade pizza from scratch and use a different sauce recipe- to try to make up for the night before. Mark was set on just ordering the pizza from Papa Johns and being done...like I mentioned before, I can be stubborn sometimes...not too often, of course. :) The next pizza turned out much better, minus that I burned half of it. But it took care of the craving a bit so that made life a little better for us.

Oh, isn't it fun being a girl sometimes. We are convinced that we are both in trouble when I get pregnant....I can't even imagine how bad cravings are going to be then. Sorry, Mark....and Good Luck! :)

Haircut

2009-02-14T22:39:00.000-08:00

Well, Shaun came over last Saturday and Jodie wanted to cut his hair for him because it was getting a little long. So, with a few pointers, Jodie gave her first hair cut. Here's a picture of them getting started. On a side note, we got an awesome clipper set for Christmas from Jodie's parents and this was the first time we got to use them- thank you Mom and Dad.

She was a little excited to get started and have some fun, so she put some clips in Shaun's hair, but they weren't in for long though.

Taking some of the first cuts.

Another picture, you can see that Jodie is having fun by her smile (not so sure about Shaun though).

She was a little nervous at first though because she had only one previous experience with hair stuff. Her other brother Chad wanted to bleach the tips of his hair, but ended up not liking it; so they buzzed his hair. However, the bleach had seeped down to different levels and resulted in a leopard print hair cut; not exactly styling for a 13 year old boy. However, it turned out very nice and she did an excellent job and Shaun was a great sport too.

Our day with Lainie

2009-02-14T22:29:00.000-08:00

This is my friend Lainie. My friends Aaron and Jenae let Mark and I babysit her- it was so much fun. She was so cute, we had to share some pictures. We're going backward though...this was after playing for a few hours- she was pretty much ready for a nap as you can see.
At first I put some snacks in a little bowl for her, but it was too fun watching them all scatter all over the floor when she threw the bowl. We went to ziplock bags after that. Then it was more fun to just eat the fishies. We also put one of her DVDs on...she is in the zone. It was so funny. She would just sit in a daze in front of the TV ...then dance a little with the songs...daze a little more...etc. So cute!

This is my favorite part. When Aaron and Jenae came over the first time, Lainie discovered my stool. (It stays in the kitchen and is pretty much my favorite kitchen item!) Well, Lainie seeemed to like the stool even more than I do. When she was dropped off she got super excited and as soon as Aaron put her down, she booked it for the stool. She entertained herself with the little stool for at least an hour. It was so funny...and cute. She would just run it back and forth and whatever.

Thanks, Aaron and Jenae for letting us play with Lainie! :)

Grandpa Nettleship

2009-02-08T18:11:00.000-08:00

Well, I wanted to share with everyone something that I recently found. While applying to the University of Utah medical school, I was searching through their page and I had an idea. I wondered if the university had a picture of Grandpa Nettleship in their archives since he was a professor there. So I did a search and sure enough, the university archives had to pictures of him. One is from 1962 and the other from 1965. So, I ordered a copy of them and they scanned them in and emailed it to me. So, here are the pictures and if you want a copy, you can try downloading them (click on them first to get a bigger picture), or leave a comment with your email address and we'll send it off to you. Hope you all enjoy.

Creating Memories In Seattle

2009-01-09T21:42:00.000-08:00

Mom has been wanting to take a family picture for many years- we finally got one! We went to the temple and had someone take this picture for us.

After the temple we went to Red Robin for lunch- nice picture of mom and dad.

Shaun and I have a special spot we used to go to together. We would drive over to Poulsbo and go to the bakery and chocolate store near the waterfront. It was our secret getaway whenever one of us needed to escape or just get out of the house.

Here are some quick poses at the waterfront.

One of Shaun's favorite donuts are the men sold at the bakery....here he is just before he devours it.

Well, it took us a while to finally post some pictures...but we hope you enjoy! :)

Museum of Flight

2009-01-09T21:13:00.000-08:00

We spent a day at the Museum of Flight while in Washington. It was pretty cool...here are some fun pictures.

The first thing we did was a flight simulation. Mark took this picture- it was the height requirements for pilot, co-pilot, and passenger. Yes, I passed all requirements! :)

Before getting into the simulation, you get to practice piloting. Here are the boys in training.

Buckle up, get ready for the ride.

Afterward...it was fun. Mark piloted us the entire time. My favorite part was flipping in circles.

Just some random pics...

Mark in some of the aircrafts....

This was a manikin.

Pilots' chambers of a commercial airline.

Mark dreamed of being an astronaut when he was little...he wanted to go up in space...this is the best we can do for now...

The Lunar Rover

No more dreaming of a White Christmas...

2009-01-09T19:51:00.000-08:00

We spent Christmas in Washington this year. It was the first time all three of us Vidinhar keikis (kids) were home together in 5 years...it was a special time. We had a lot of fun- cooking with dad, watching movies, relaxing, and Mark even had his first white Christmas (well that he can remember).

First off, Christmas day....Each year it's tradition that we open presents and dad begins cooking an amazing meal- it is an all day affair in the kitchen. This year he decided to make my favorite- Chinese Pot Roast Chicken. I decided to take some cooking lessons from the master chef himself.

Alright, daddy-o...I'm ready!

Everything has to be done absolutely perfectly- the master chef will accept nothing less than perfection. Here he is showing me exactly how to cut the carrots- let's just say he makes it look very easy but it's far from easy. But it was an honor to have lessons and exciting to learn.

Chad and Shaun can't be near each other for more than 5 minutes without some wrestling. This was a very common occurance throughout the entire 2 weeks.

Quick Kodak moment- Mark's white Christmas...although it's hard to see the snowflakes falling, they were. There was actually record snow falls in Washington while we were there- the last time there was that much snow on Christmas day was in 1861- so much for leaving Utah to escape the snow.

Presents time....

Later on in the day...just messing around in the house. The sweater I am wearing under the vest was a Christmas present from Mark.

After Christmas.... The day after Christmas was spent taking down all Christmas decorations and dad and the boys shoveling the driveway. The next day we shoveled the easement. This is us after the shoveling, stopping for the pose.

Funny story....mom, Chad, Shaun, Mark and I all shoveled the entire easement for about 2 hours. We finally finished and dad showed up with a plow truck. Not so funny at the time...but very entertaining now.

View of most of the easement we shoveled.

Mom made us pose for a picture after...then Shaun threw me into the snow. A snowball fight followed.

Snow angel.

Say cheese....

Well although we wanted to escape the snow, it was still a blast in Washington! We hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year!

Thanksgiving

2008-12-04T10:22:00.001-08:00

Ok, we know that its a little late, but we are making up for it with pictures; there's over a hundred. If anyone wants higher resolution versions of the pictures, just let us know. Anyway, for Thanksgiving, Jodie and I drove down to Phoenix to spend it with my family. We left the Saturday before Thanksgiving because I had to interviews for med school, one in Phoenix on Monday and one in Tucson on Wednesday. So, here's a few pictures of the ride down.

After 6 hours of driving, we arrive at one of the best places on earth... Lake Powell. Here's some of the cliffs just north of the lake.

Jodie and I decided to get out at Glen Canyon Dam and stretch our legs a little bit. Here's a picture of the bridge that crosses over the colorado river to get to Page.
Us at an overlook spot.
Here's a picture to show just how big the dam is; we even got a picture with a tour group walking on top of the dam for a reference.
We went out along the bridge and took this shot of the full height of the dam. I'm not sure how tall exactly it is, but our boat's depth gauge says there is about 600 feet of water on the other side.
Here's the other side of the dam, or the beginnings of the Grand Canyon. Very pretty view shot from on the bridge.
Here's a picture of the river side during one of the worst floods they've had. The water was almost about to overcome a thirty foot extension built on top of the dam. They also had all the spillways open, the smaller streams of water, and two jet powered spillways open. Kind of crazy how much water there is.

At the bottom of the dam, they have a grass field. Apparently the workers will have picnics and activities on the grass.
Back on the road again.
Jodie's attititude about getting back in the car for 4 more hours- which also reflected how I felt inside too.
Here's one of my favorite spots on the trip down. The highway is cut through the rock and then opens up to a cliff that allows for an amazing view.
Going through the chasm.
The view on the otherside. Not nearly as impressive as on a clear day, but you can still see some of the finger offshoots of the Grand Canyon.
Well, that was the drive. After 10 hours of driving, we both were very glad to get out of the car. However, when we arrive in Phoenix, we arrive perfectly to catch the last half of the BYU vs Utah football game. And sadly to say, Dad had lots of reasons to brag about his team, it wasn't pretty for us.

On Monday morning, I went to the Phoenix campus of U of A's med school. I had an interview there and it went well. They have some very nice facilities and it really impressed me.

On Monday night, we went with my brother and his family to my mom's house for an early Thanksgiving dinner. The food was very delicious and the company was even better. So, here's some of the pictures we took, which sad to say, weren't too many.
Here's James, at this time he was trying to sing popcorn popping on the apricot tree while saying cheese for the picture. Needless to say, very cute.
James, once again, is the center of attention.
I thought that this was pretty impressive, James would take Robert's iPod and play a turkey hunt game. He did very well at it too, like got to level 12 or something. Easy to tell who his dad is.
Then on Tuesday, we went down to my dad's office and Jodie had her eyes checked. I figured that this would be a great time to take a picture, she couldn't move to hide at all.

Next stop we made was to the Gelato Spot, one of the most amazing ice cream stores on the planet. Besides being very delicious, they have the best selection of sorbet that I have ever seen. This is definitely handy for us because milk products don't get along with Jodie very well. So, we went to the gelato spot a grand total of three times while we were in Phoenix.
Then on Wednesday, we sent out early to spend the day in Tucson. It was a nice trip though, but with rain on and off throughout the whole time down. However, it did provide us with a very pretty sunrise and sky for our trip.
After I had my interview, which went very well. Jodie and I spent the day getting familiar with Tucson incase we end up moving down there for school. At the end of the day, we met up with my brother John and went to PF Chang's for a celebration dinner for being done with the two interviews.

Then, we had Thanksgiving. It was a banquet of great foods with a total of 10 pies- I was in heaven. But anyway, here's the pictures.

Here are the boys building up an appetite by playing some mario kart on the wii. James and I are playing with some marbles and I have to admit, I think I was having a much fun as he was.
Here's the table waiting for us.
Here's one of the turkeys we cooked, it tasted really good.
Here we are trying to carve up the turkey.
Jodie made some amazing place settings. The feathers are from James' hand, pretty impressive for a two year old.
A picture of the kitchen hard at work getting everything ready.
Here are the girls enjoying some time in the sun.
Ok, so after the amazing Thanksgiving dinner, we went and played crochet. This is a traditional Thanksgiving game that gets pretty intense and cut throat by the end of the game. But anyway, as we got to the park, Jenna ran to go play on the pull up bars. So, here she is.
Setting up the course

Ok, so when we got started play, per the usual, Dad took a quick early lead.The girls posing for a picture.
Here's a picture of Thomas trying to get through the first hoop.
John's attempt.
There's not much room for error with our hoops; they are solid cast iron (the box in the back weighs a ton when fully loaded). So, here's John trying to get through the hoop again. However, as you will notice, the blue ball (mine) is no longer around the first hoop. Woohoo.
Here's Jodie battlling it out with Robert, the red ball, to get through the second hoop. However, she was at a serious disadvantage because the mallet was so tall.
John getting through the second hoop.
While Dad was getting through the fourth hoop (still in first place), Robert and Emily attacking each other around the second hoop.
Finally, the rest of us catch up to the fourth hoop.
Emily makes her come back from battling it out with Robert; wedding rings even came off during the heat of the moment.
Robert and John protected each others' interests around the fourth hoop.
As did Jodie and Jenna

Emily takes a commanding swing to get back into the game after being knocked away by Robert.
Here's a picture of dad reaching the pin first and becoming the first poison ball.
Dad, not wanting to single out one son for attack (Thomas, Robert, and I are hiding behind the hoop for protection), Dad closes his eyes and hits toward us. However, he hit the ball too hard and goes out of bounds and is the first to leave the game.
Thomas and Robert then battle each other as poison balls.
Both quickly were eliminated and found other ways to occupy their time.
Jodie made a long attempt to get Jenna, but fell just short. So, Jenna hit Joddie's ball and the game quickly came to an end.
Three monkeys.
The next day, John, Dad, Jodie, and I went out Jeeping. It was an awesome ride. But here are the shots.

At this point, John took over for a little bit and started taking us through the desert.

A picture of my arch nemesis, the Jumping Cholla. They are a very sneaky cactus and very prickly. The spines have little barbs on them like fish hooks. It's a nasty little cactus.
We got out for a little break to enjoy the view.

Our chariot.
Jodie exploring the cactus.

Posing for a shot after climbing the boudlers.
Next, we took a little detour from the road and followed a wash of some sorts. But here's the trail.
We climbed about 200 feet up and then had to turn around because it was too muddy to climb further. That became a very interesting adventure as we began sliding while trying to turn around. But we made it safely. Here we are coming down the mountain, it was pretty steep.

Still coming down our trail.
Johnny boy navigating.
I took the wheel and had some fun coming down the rest of the path.

Here, you can see the skeleton of a dead Saguaro cactus.

The road also took us through a creek bed for a little bit.

Through the trail, I tried to get a picture of the water splashing up as we went through the water. So, this was the best one I could get. The water is completely covering the windshield. I didn't think it was going to be that much.

Finally home.

Next step, wash the Jeep.

On Saturday night, we all decided to go to the Mesa temple lights. So, here's the pictures from that.

Here's James, ready to go see the lights.

Here we are arrive at the temple.

I really liked the Bethlehem scene this year, the lights they chose for the star were very, very bright.

Classic pose.

Nice shot of the front of the temple; I love the reflection.
Jodie and I posing in front of the temple.

My favorite palm tree, it was blue.
Another one of my favorites, the wisemen.
They also had an international nativity exhibit. I've seen it before, but every year they have different nativities from around the world. Its very pretty. But here was one of our favorites.

Jodie and I infront of the Christus.

Well, I hope that everyone enjoyed all the pictures and had a great Thanksgiving.

Partying with the Mia Maids...

2008-11-09T19:49:00.000-08:00

For activity on Wednesday, the Mia Maids and I decided to have a surprise birthday party for the YW 1st counselor. We asked her husband about her favorite colors and cake and such. A couple of the girls came over at 6 and helped me to decorate...

This is Dominique (just an inch taller than me) trying to hang the streamers on the ceiling- Cassidy helped keep her up. We had so much fun decorating! We had streamers, balloons, confetti, and lots of candy on the table.

Well the Beehives decided to join us...here we are awaiting Sister Brown's arrival.

Surprise! I was behind the door but I heard she looked a bit startled when all the girls blew their birthday horns and the other leaders all shouted "Surprise!"

After the Personal Progress spiritual moment and value, we had some fun. Although the girls ended up in our hallway laughing hysterically. We all tried to figure out what was going on and what the girls found so funny- I didn't get it. They said the blood rushing to their heads just made them have the giggles...it was interesting. Mark was in the back room studying...when I went in he was working on a website- not much studying can get accomplished with a bunch of teenager girls giggling and shouting. He was a great sport though!

Here are three of my Mia Maids....Abby, Cassidy, and Dominique. Although I don't understand what was so funny...I love these girls! :)

Young Women's rendition of "Happy Birthday"...it was very theatrical, as you can see.

Blowing out the candles...you can see some of our fun decorations.

Well, after the girls left Mark decided to have some fun of his own. He tried to see how many balloons he could get to stick on me at once. You can only see three here, but at one point he had five. Who would have thought balloons could be so fun- we've had some fun wars with them since the party! :) We're just a bunch of kids ourselves.

What can I say, I'm goofy....

Halloween Night

2008-11-02T15:07:00.001-08:00

Happy Halloween to everyone, we hope you all had lots of fun. Jodie and I wanted to have a special dinner and invite some of our friends over. So, here's a few pictures of us setting things up.

So, we decided to split up the tasks for dinner. Jodie was in charge of making the salads, bread and desert, cupcakes. I was in charge of making spaghetti and sauce. So, here's Jodie getting things ready for the salad (more pictures later of how it turned out).

With the spaghetti sauce, we wanted to make it black and dye the noodles orange. The noodles kind of worked, we should have used more dye in the beginning, but the spaghetti sauce turned out really good. So, here's what my sauce looked like in the pan, a few drops of black food coloring can make quite a difference.
Here's a picture of the spaghetti and sauce, you can't see it very well, but the noodles have an orange tinge to them. One thing I learned from this is how much color and appearance can affect the food. The sauce tasted very good, but you didn't expect it at all because of the color. Once you put the parmesan cheese on it, it really looked like you were eating worms and dirt; not intentional, but still fit perfectly for our Halloween dinner.So, here's a picture of the salads that Jodie made- they were pumpkin faces. I thought it was very clever and they turned out very nicely.Here's another picture. She used orange bell peppers to make the pumpkin, olives for the eyes, celery for the nose, and a tomato for the mouth.

Here's the dinner once we got everything set up. Jodie also made french bread with a green spread on it. We didn't get a picture of that.

So, here's our group for dinner. Although, Jodie's brother Shaun come over later that night for a late dinner. Apparently our spaghetti was a little too gross for him and he had a hard time keeping it down. One of our friends, Kitt, he's sitting next to me, brought over some piña colada mix and made some smoothies for us- they were very, very delicious.
Just in case anyone was wondering what it looked like when you were eating it, here it is. It was totally unintentional, but worked out perfectly for our spooky Halloween dinner. Despite its appearance, it tasted very good.Here's our last picture. This is the tree that is right out of our window. It's very pretty colors, nice red and yellow. However, I'm glad that I snapped this picture yesterday because this morning it rained pretty hard and knocked down at least half of the leaves on the tree. So, much to our dismay, its starting to look more and more like winter. But, I thought that I would post that for anyone who wanted to see some of the nice fall colors we get here in Provo.

Pumpkin Carving

2008-10-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

Well, Jodie and I decided to carve our pumpkins yesterday. We've been wanting to carve them for a little while now, but I'm glad that we haven't because the weather got a little warmer and some of the pumpkins around here have withered away a little. But anyway, we decided to carve our pumpkins yesterday. So, here we are all set up:

Here we go getting started at cleaning our pumpkins out.

Getting a little messy...
We don't have many pictures between this point and Jodie's final product because we had messy hands. So, here's Jodie's pumpkin. One of my favorite parts was the stem with the face, they just seem to go together.For mine, I saw a picture online of a cool pirate ship, so I decided to try and duplicate it. So, this is about the point that I was at when Jodie finished with her pumpkin; needless to say it took a little while, but it was fun. I can't say I've ever gotten this into pumpkin carving before.
So, here's a little further along.
Here's the finished product, I thought it turned out pretty good.

Here's a close up view.
Here's both of our pumpkins in front of our house. We decided to light them and do a trial run of it.
So, here's the final project. I thought they turned out really good and we had a lot of fun.

Well, I hoped that you all enjoyed the pictures and Happy Halloween everyone!

Fishies

2008-10-19T19:42:00.000-07:00

Well, Jodie and I have been wanting to get a fish tank for the past few months. So we saved up and we finally bought a fish tank. Now, its pretty simple and small, but its fun to have the fishes swimming around. We have it set up in our room, so its fun to wake up and watch the fish swimming around. However, going to the fish store and looking at some of the fish, holy cow, those things can add up pretty quick. But anyway, here's our 4 fish, not seen in the picture are two little hermit crabs. Not much, but it definitely fills up our little tank.

The other piece of news that we have is that yesterday we went to go see Body Worlds in SLC. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's a museum exhibit of human cadavers. It was very fascinating to see the human body in action; proof that our bodies really are amazingly complicated and intricate machines. Another thing that made the experience even better was while we were waiting in line to buy our tickets, a man came up and asked if we were going to buy tickets, and so we replied that we were. He then said, "Well, here's one to start you off." So he gave us a ticket and a voucher for an audio tour guide. So, we just bought one student ticket and shared the audio thing and it worked perfectly. It was very nice of the guy. We don't have many pictures from the experience because photography is forbidden within the museum. So, here's the one picture that we have. I took this in the lobby, they had a skeleton that was projected on the wall that would display text messages that were sent to a certain phone number. As messages were displayed, he would change poses. I thought it was a pretty clever idea, so here's that one.
This other picture is a little blurry, but still worth posting. We had Jodie's brother Shaun come over to watch conference with us on Sunday morning. We had breakfast together and then sat down to watch conference. Towards the end of the afternoon session, we took this picture. We love ya Shaun, but couldn't resist putting it up. Although, in his defense, he opened his eyes after we took the picture. The hardest part was trying to keep a straight face afterwards.
These last two I thought were kind of fun, random pictures. The other day, this car pulled into our parking lot at work as I was running some mail over to the office next to us.
This one is classic of insurance bureaucracy and how ridiculous it can be at times. This check we received in the mail; a grand total of one cent. Kind of sad I thought because it is not even worth the value of the stamp, ink, or probably paper used to print the check. Oh well.
Well, there's some pictures for ya, hope that you enjoyed.

Conference Weekend

2008-10-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

Well, Jodie and I were able to get some tickets to go to conference this weekend for the Saturday session. Our Bishop gave us four tickets and asked us if we could try to take two of the mia maids with us to conference. So, we got everything all set up with them and one of them got sick friday night and the other didn't want to go without her. So, we had two extra tickets to conference and invited Jodie's brother Shaun to come with us. So, we left Saturday morning and watched the morning session in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and then went to the afternoon session. It was a lot of fun and the only damper on the day was the weather, it rained non stop on Saturday. Oh, we also had lunch in the Garden room on top of the JSMB between sessions; it was a lot of fun because Shaun hadn't been up there before either. But here are some pictures of the day.
Today for conference, Shaun came over again and watched conference at our house. By the time conference finished, the sun was finally starting to come out again. So, we decided to all go take a drive up Provo Canyon and see the trees. It was really pretty to see all the colors, especially right after the rain because everything was very clean, especially the air, so the colors were very vibrant. Here are some of the pictures that we took.

ok, so in those two pictures, you don't see much of the vibrant colors, but I had a request from a certain, unnamed individual who wants more pictures of us in our blog. However, you can kind of see the trees and colors in the background and a little better in the next picture.
Here's Shaun and Jodie.

These pictures were from just below the reservoir, heading up Provo Canyon. We decided to turn back and go up to Sundance/Aspen Grove.
It was really pretty going up this canyon, lost of yellows and reds, with the occasional snow on the mountain. These next three were at Aspen Grove.

At this point, we turned back to go to Sundance. Here are some that Jodie got while she we were driving down.

Then at Sundance, we got this picture.
Shaun took this picture after we left, very pretty scene.
Here's a little bit of the ski resort. This was actually the second snow storm we've gotten up on the mountains since this summer. Kind of scary because we both are hoping for as little snow as possible in the valley this winter.
Well, there are the pictures from this weekend. Hope you all enjoyed and are proud how quickly we got the pictures up - hopefully we can keep this trend up.

Twilight Report...and other stuff...

2008-10-03T22:31:00.000-07:00

This first picture is from last year- I had it on my phone and it made me laugh....

Well, we moved into a new school building in April. It was in the middle of the last term so it was pretty crazy- hence the very bare walls. Anyways, this is my classroom. The school ordered a podium for each classroom- the students hated them. They felt like we were all preaching down to them all the time. Well...at least until they came to my room....then it became a joke! I am barely taller than the podium and so the students could barely see my face when I would stand behind it (which wasn't often). I came to class one day and found my podium on top of my front table where I usually teach. They begged me to teach from it- so we made a deal, I taught from there and they would do their entire assignment. The best part was when the campus supervisor peaked into my class and had to do a double-take. Maybe you just had to have been there...but it was classic.

Another quick side note. The student in the picture is the one who was a body guard at a club...for those of you who know that story. (Basically he tried to be tough with me and I did not take it- he backed off real quick....it was great!) Anyways, for one of my observations last year I had to video tape myself teaching. It was pretty entertaining watching it because the camera was set up in the back of the classroom and he sat between myself and the camera. Periodically I would disappear behind him- I was standing, he was sitting. :)

The Twilight Report.....
.....that's right, I finally read it!

Well, I'm sorry to report that I am not going to run out and join all the big fan clubs...but here's my story....

...first, some background. There are two genres I do not enjoy reading- fantasy and romance. Hmm...vampires and wolves....and Bella's love story. That pretty much explains how I felt about the first half of the book. Although I thought it was well written, the content made it very hard for me to get into. (Like Shaun said, sometimes I need to be more of a girl.) Anyways, I was getting to the point of giving up when one of my students turned in a very detailed book report about the book. Of course I read it and found out how it was going to end. So then I had to read on to see how all the fun action would play out. Once I got to the fun action- running away, adventure, and killing- the book became much better and I actually got hooked. I was excited and relieved because I didn't want to let all the Brems girls down. So, although it was hard for me to get into.... I ended up enjoying it.

Will I be continuing on? Well my same student wrote a detailed book report for the entire series, including Breaking Dawn. I think Twilight will do for me. But I am glad I at least know the jist so I understand whatever everyone is always talking about! :)

Mark kicking back on his precious chair. Every man has to have their special chair....

Mini Golf

2008-09-14T16:02:00.000-07:00

Well, Jodie and I went mini golfing on Labor Day with some of our friends (I know, were pretty quick with getting our blog updated, sorry everyone). It was really fun, we went up to the Cascades in Orem, definitely one of the nicer mini golf places that I've been to.

Here's a picture of Kevin, he went fishing while we were there. However, all he ended up catching was a hat that someone had lost in the water hazard.

Here's a picture of our group- Kitt just barely putt
Here's a picture of Kitt's dad; it was really fun to met him. He also sponsored the golf game, which was very kind of him.
Here there was a water hazard, it was fun because if you didn't hit it far enough, it would end up in the water.
And lastly, our pioneer Jodie. She got into the wagon for a quick picture.
Well, there's a little bit of our fun Labor day weekend.

Summer Fun!

2008-08-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

Well Mark had a long summer break of a total of 2 weeks. We thought we would take advantage of the time we had. First off, we went to the Jack Johnson concert. We got there a little after 5pm and the sun was out and it was a nice summer event...as you'll see in the pictures, the concert started in the dark.

This is where our seats were. We put out two blankets and then laid out in the sun waiting. We even snuck McDonalds in for some dinner. :) Sneaky us...although not really... Mark had the bag in his hand and I accidently distracted the lady with my big bag. We laughed about it later- we figure it's a blessing for being honest about our food.

Just basking in the sun, waiting for the concert to start. It definitely was a very nice break.
Well, before Jack came on...as you can see here....Neil Halstead played. We really liked him a lot! Look his stuff up. Another band played as well...not as good though. Then Jack came on...Oh how we love his music! :)
More Jack. He had some pretty cool screens behind him with fun scenes...I think, I could only see people's backs and heads most of the time.
Oh the waves...makes us miss Hawaii Nei.
Toward the end of the concert...stopping for a quick shot. :)
This was the best part of the concert! Jack did the usual exit and return as all artists do at concerts. His last song was a special treat. One, the blue lights came on- Mark's favorite color for anyone that does not know. (Ha, Robert...even Jack agrees with Mark more!) Then he began playing our song- Better Together. It was the perfect way to end the concert.

The next event was the following weekend. We went up to SLC to visit Grandma Maxwell and made some stops first. We have been wanting to go to the zoo....so we did! :)
But first we stopped at the 'This is the place' Heritage Park...or something like that. Here we are stopping for a few poses. We used their parking lot since it's across from the zoo.
I like the idea of Mark being up there with all those faithful, amazing men.
First stop, the monkeys! There was a brand new baby monkey that you can see hanging on the mom (she's on the right). The baby is all white.
Then the camels.
How Mark measures up to a gorilla. I think he could take them. This is how I measure up...not quite big enough.

...hands too small...
...but we do enjoy some of the same snacks- he's eating a box of Wheathins. Of course I like the actual crackers...but it was the closest I could relate.
Mr. Gorilla posing for the camera.
Mark took this picture. He was confused about how small of a ladder this is to use in an emergency. A bit ineffective.
Playing soccer with elephants.
Hanging out with the rhinos.
As we got to the black bear, she came out to play in the water.
I was checking out the lion's teeth- he brushes well.
Penguins!
A red panda chilling up in the tree.
Zebras...so pretty!
This llama was determined to eat his way out of the fence. He was really going at it, knawing on it.
I decided that if I were to be an animal, the last one I would be is a giraffe- they are so tall!
This is a view from the second story. You have to be there to be at the level of their heads. They are so tall that their newborn babies are even taller and bigger than both Mark and I- on average, they are 6 feet tall.
This was a fun sign..another one Mark had to get. Can't think of many things groser than having a Tiger mark you as his territory.
Here's the rhino sharpening his horn. He did a good job too...I wouldn't ever want him charging at me.
Us with the elephants.
This was kind of cool, an albino crocodile. He was white and had blue eyes. I think he was creepy looking.
A baby alligator...or crocodile. Whatever it is, it's much less creepy than the white, dead-looking one.

That was the zoo! :) Here are a couple shots from yesterday....
Mark's car, Lucy as he refers to her, is now a Washington resident. We decided to use my residency to get Lucy registered with Washington since it would be $78 as opposed to Arizona's $400. She looks pretty good, I think. We just wish it was XYZ...so close.
Yesterday was BYU Football's opening day- woohoo! We dressed accordingly. Go Cougs! :)

Well school starts on Tuesday so life will begin to get busier...but we will try to do some fun things to take pictures of and blog. :) Love you all!

Weekend at Grandma & Grandpa Brems

2008-08-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

On Friday we headed down to Boulder, Utah to visit Grandma and Grandpa Brems. Robert, Emily, and James drove up to spend the weekend as well. I had heard so much about Boulder so I was very excited to finally be able to experience the home cooking, peacefulness, and fun small town living of Boulder. I also got to see the Garden of Eden- as Mark refers to their house.

Here's James...he was so fun to play with! Such a cutie! :)

James playing with his truck...check out the cute tongue...I think it means true concentration.

Robert playing with James. It was right before our fishing trip with grandpa, but my favorite part of the picture is Emily's hat in the background.
Grandpa took us to a reservoir to do some fishing, but first we went on an ATV ride. Here's James posing on one. He's ready to go.
Robert and James. James learned to love the ATVs and later in the weekend would go up to Robert and say "PEEEASE!"...asking for a ride. He even learned how to start it up just by watching Robert. He's so cute..and so smart.
After the ATV ride we went fishing with Grandpa. He brought an extra pole for Emily and I. He called me over immediately and said "I assume you know nothing about fishing so I will teach you." It made me laugh but I was so grateful. What a fun opportunity! He taught me how to worm the line, cast, hold the pole, and reel in the fish.
Here's my first fish! :) And it took less than a minute to catch, which I was very grateful for.
Mark decided to do some fishing while Grandpa was helping Emily. He caught a couple but they would escape before he reeled them in...
Emily's fish. She claims hers was the biggest...we'll let her continue to think that. :) My favorite part of this picture though is grandpa. I love his laugh!!! He would just start laughing...more like giggling...every once in a while. I loved it. He also had some fun little inserts to say occasionally that always made me laugh. He's a cutie.
Grandpa helping Mark cut the line from his first fish.
Mark's first caught and reeled in fish!
Me trying to cast. Emily says I look more like a ballet dancer...whatever, the line got in the water. :)
Robert's fish.
Mark's next fish.
The boys.
Grandpa had already caught four fish when we arrived and as we were getting things packed up decided to go for another. I swear he knows the place so well that he puts his line in and in no time he has another fish. It was a lot of fun to fish with him!
Scenic picture of Grandma and Grandpa's backyard at night.
Well, Mark and I brought some sparklers for James to play with. It was his first time...this is the before shot....
Robert had just lit the first one...this was James' reaction. Not too sure what to think...
"Ooh, maybe it's not so bad." He got into a little more...
The three boys and their sparklers. It was fun to see James playing with it. Emily was sure to write his name and some other words with him- a must with sparklers! :)
Mark and his favorite little buddy!
We were trying to get a picture of James smiling. Emily taught him to raise his hands and say "cheese." So here he is saying it with so much enthusiasm..."cheese!!" I should have been video taping..it was so cute!
Before we left on Monday we stopped to take some fun family shots.
These are all taken by grandma and grandpa's stream running through their yard. It was so beautiful and peaceful there!
So when we were sitting down and getting situated for the picture, grandma leaned back a little and realized grandpa was right there. She was resting on his shoulder...she snuggled in a bit and said..."ooh, this is very nice!" It was so cute. They truly love each other very much and show it in all their actions. I hope Mark and I can be like them when we're their age...all energetic and still madly in love.
A look up at the property from the side of the stream. Thanks, Emily for the picture. It's so beautiful and I know we will cherish our memories from this weekend for a long time!
Mark went off and took some scenic pictures as well...the stream.

The boys.
The girls.
The rest of these pictures are pretty much for Mark's bragging rights...he got some pretty cool pictures of the hummingbirds outside of grandma and grandpa's house. We would eat breakfast at a table just below this feeder and if you sat in the seats closest you could hear the sound of the hummingbirds' wings. It was so fun...there were swarms that would come to eat out of the feeder...they were so cute.

Well after the pictures and fun, Emily, Robert, and James headed back to Phoenix. Since Mark hadn't been feeling well we decided to stay another little while so he could take a quick nap before we drove back. So we headed in house. Grandma went out to water some plants and do some gardening. Then grandpa....well I think we pooped him out...we found him in the same spot we'd all left from, taking a little nap himself.
This was kind of neat. When we were heading down fishing we drove by this house and grandpa told us the story of their rock wall- Repentance Fence. Every time one of their boys got in trouble (I think I remember that there were a few boys in the family) they would have to go out and get so many stones- depending on what they had done. The fence went all the way down to the house...it was pretty intense. But I thought it was kind of a fun story.
Here's another view of the fence...a bit harder to see but you can see that it really did go on a ways...this was only the beginning of it...about a third. The story reminded me of my dad's story of having to pick out the stick you were going to be hit with.
This was a little building we passed in one of the small towns on our way back home. I just thought it was pretty fun.
Some scenic shots...I was getting bored in the passenger seat and we passed some really pretty areas and cool rock formations.
So that was our fun weekend in Boulder. We had a great time and look forward to future family trips like this one!!! :)

July 24 - Pioneer Day - Our One Year

2008-08-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

Well, before we start the July 24th blog...here's a fun picture from the Sunday before. Shaun was in desperate need of a hair cut so Mark ventured to help him...however Mark has only really cut Robert's hair so that is the only style he really knows how to do. So we laughed cause Shaun ended up looking like a Brems boy...but it was very handsome! Mark did a great job.

Okay...July 24th. It's a special day for us- just one year ago on July 24th was our first date. Mark took me to the Real Soccer game- they were playing Boca (Argentina team). It was lots of fun and who would have known that one year later we would be married. So much has happened in the last year for us both, but it's been a lot of fun and we are looking forward to many more fun years together!!! In the last blog Mark talked about how lucky he felt, well of course he didn't mention any of the wonderful things he does for me. On the 23rd I came home from work and had a few fun surprises for our special day. Plus I had been sick so he wanted to help cheer me up- he got some of my favorite treats from the store, a dozen roses, and sparklers. He really does do a lot to make me happy.....

Okay enough mushy stuff...here's how we spent Pioneer day....

First we decided to go to the famous SLC Aquarium. There are big ads and lots of commercials for it and we had been wanting to go. It was fun...but definitely still in the works. Below you will see about half the Aquarium....

This was a HUGE lobster...and an old one. The guy working at the Aquarium said he's 104 years old. Pretty cool...but look how bit he is- looks like he's about to eat me for lunch.

This was a typical site...just some fun scenery. The starfish is called a Chocolate Chip Starfish (sounds yummy, but I thought it just looked like it was diseased with little bumps all over) and the sea cucumber was fun looking too.

This is a decorator crab. He looked like he just had a bunch of stuff all over him. They had a big touch pool and then little tanks for touching. Since I was so sick I decided not to be spreading germs everywhere...but Mark had fun touching different fish and sting rays. They also had some fun sharks...we didn't get any good pictures of that though.

Here's Mark in one of the kids corners- I wanted a picture of him here because it had a clown fish and a really fun turtle. So cute!

This was a fake reef they had for little kids to crawl in. I just barely fit and while Mark was taking a picture a little boy was next to me, tapping my side and asking what I was doing in there. He thought I should go play in the little cave area with them. It was cute.

After the Aquarium we went to a fish store and looked at some fish and some Aquariums- we saw just as much at the store as we did at the actual Aquarium...but it was still very fun.

On our way back down to Provo we stopped off in Lehi at the cemetery where a lot of Brems have been buried. It was really fun to see them all and hear some of the stories Mark could remember about his ancestors.

Mark next to his great grandparents' headstone. I remember Frances Brems, but can't remember his great grandmother's name. (oops, sorry)

This was another really old one we found. It was pretty neat because you could see the stones were all hand carved.

Mark on a bench next to a few of the Brems' headstones. It was in memory of one of the children who had died.
The headstones and bench.

After the cemetery we headed home and I made a special dinner for Mark...or at least I attempted to do so. I had never even heard of Yorkshire Pudding but he always talked about it so I thought I would try the famous recipe his grandma gave me. They didn't turn out great...but they weren't too bad.
Oh, first here's me in the kitchen. Mark kept trying to get pictures and I would turn my back...I thought I'd add this picture so he doesn't decide to add any of the other ones. :)

Here's the table set for our dinner. To go along with the Yorkshire Pudding, I made a roast with some veggies and of course we had some gravy as well. It was pretty tasty. Also, notice the roses- they were so pretty!

Well, that was our Pioneer Day. Not the traditional Utah way of celebrating, but we had a lot of fun and definitely enjoyed the day off! :)

Being Married...

2008-07-17T16:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I just got home from work and I have some time to kill before Jodie gets home from work herself, so I wanted to post a few pictures. Firstly, I wanted to say that being married is awesome because I always have my best friend around nearby. Secondly, I personally feel that I have the best wife in the whole wide world : ) Here's pictures of two things that Jodie did for me recently that I really appreciated.

First, she made me an apple pie. It was really good and here's a picture of the chef.

And yes, those are hearts cut into the crust, here's a better view.

The second one, this was waiting for me when I got home from work today...

These are two reasons why I think that she's the best wife in the whole wide world.

4th of July Weekend

2008-07-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

Happy Fourth of July everyone!
Well, we are on a roll with our blog... two weekends in a row. This weekend we had a lot of fun because we had some family come into town and visit us and we wanted to share some pictures. To start off, I wanted to put in a nice picture of the flag, I took the picture at the USS Arizona Memorial and thought it would be nice for the 4th. Jodie and I watched Hotel Rwanda yesterday and have been talking about blessing we are to be born and live in a place like the US. We are all very lucky and have much to be thankful for. We hope that you all had a lot of fun this weekend to commemorate our freedoms.

Well, the start of this week, we had my sister Jenna come visit us. We picked her up at the airport and she spent the night at our house before she went to EFY. It was really fun, we had a nice BBQ with mashed potatoes (per Jenna's request). We took her to EFY on Monday and helped her check in and get all situated. Then later in the week, Jodie's parents came down to Provo to visit too; they also brought our wedding gifts from Washington. It was really nice of them and we are very appreciative of it. While they were here, we had Jodie's brother Shaun over and we had some really good cooking. Then on the 4th, we decided to go out and see some of the sights around Salt Lake. It was a lot of driving, but really fun because I hadn't been to several of them for many years and was very nostalgic.

The first thing we went to was This is the Place Monument, up emmigration canyon. This is a picture of Brigham Young's view when he said "This is the right place. Carry on."

They also had the original trail that the pioneers took marked out. So, here's a picture of Dad on the trail.
Here's a picture of Jodie running down the trail.

Another picture of the trail. But pretty impressive to see what the pioneers had to travel through get to SLC.
Here's a nice picture too.
We later went to Little Cottonwood Canyon and saw the granite quarries for the Salt Lake temple. It was really cool to see the granite rocks with the chisel marks still in them.

We also went down to the river. It was really cool to see because of all the snowmelt, the river was flowing pretty good.

Here's another picture of the granite.
On the way back, we stopped off at Cabela's. We saw something kind of cool at the aquarium. This fish was resting on a post. It was kind of funny.
Later that night, we met up with Grandpa Maxwell at one of the restaurants in the Little America Hotel in SLC and had dinner. It was really fun to met up and have dinner together. After dinner, we went over to their condo and saw Grandma too. After talking for a while, we had to go back to Provo because Jodie's parents had a long drive ahead of them in the morning. Once we got back from SLC, we all had some rainbow sherbet and watched the fireworks from our front yard. It was a fun fourth of July.

On Saturday morning, Jodie's parent had to make the drive back to Washington to be there for church on Sunday. Afterwards, we went to go pick up Jenna from EFY and got to spend a little more time with her before we dropped her off at the airport. When we got back from the airport, we washed the car and then watched a movie.

Oh, on a little side note. Jodie and I got callings today. I'm going to be an Elder's Quorum instructor and a ward missonary. Jodie is going to be the co-director of the Mia Maids. We both are pretty excited about it.

Well, we hope that you all had a great 4th of July weekend.

Aloha Hawaii

2008-06-22T20:30:00.001-07:00

Aloha everyone. We know its been a long time since we posted anything, but now that life has settled down a little we are definitely going to do it more frequently. For all of you who were wondering, the wedding and everything all went very nicely. There were times when we weren't sure if we were going to make it, but we made it. A big mahalo/thank you for everyone who pitched in and helped; we couldn't have done it without you.

Many of the pictures from the trip are scattered on several cameras among our families, but here's some of the pictures that we have.

First order of business when we got to Hawaii was learning how to surf. It was something that I had always wanted to learn how to do and figured that then would have been the perfect opportunity. So, here I am, after getting a few instructions and coaching, riding a wave in.

We also decided we wanted to go to the USS Arizona with Grandma and Grandpa Brems. Knowing of big of a part it played in their lives, and trickles down into our lives, it was a really neat experience. Sad on one part, but still a neat experience going with Grandma and Grandpa
Here is a picture of Emily on the memorial.

All the girls got together for a picture too.

Later we took a tour around the island with Jodie's parents acting as tour guides. We went to an outlook of Rabbit Island. I think Jodie got a little bored with driving though...

It was a really cool view from on top of the cliff.

There were also a lot of bunkers that were built during WWII in the area. From the looks of the picture, Jodie's brother Shaun also got bored of the driving too. Too bad it was just the beginning of our tour around the island.

We also stopped off at Pali Lookout. It was on this cliff that King Kamehameha the Great fought the warriors of Oahu and those who didn't surrender were forced over the cliff. It was a really cool place because it was really windy. Plus, the golf course at the bottom of the picture was actually where we had our reception.
Here's an example of the wind.
We saw many things around the island that were very cool, thanks mom and dad for showing us around. On Thursday, the Brems and Bagley families went to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was really neat to see some of the different customs and cultures from around the different islands of the Pacific. One really cool thing was the Samoa village were the guy climbed up the palm tree. Jodie said that when the palm trees are closer to each other that they will jump from palm tree to palm tree- pretty intense if you ask me.
Later at the Tahiti village, we, well, at least I learned somewhat how to dance. They had all the guys stand up and we had to follow along.
Then it was the girls' turn. It was fun seeing Jodie do it because she knows the basics and made it look so much easier.
They also asked Jodie and Maddie to go up and dance in front of everyone.
Later that day, we went to the Luau for dinner. One of the best parts were their smoothies served in pineapples. We got a Mango and a Pina Colada, both were very good.
During the Luau, they called up anyone who was celebrating a wedding or an anniversary to dance to the Hawaiian Wedding Song. It was a fun little surprise.
Striking a pose on an island in the PCC.
Ok, that's the end of the pre-wedding pictures. So, the rest is from the honeymoon on the big island. Our first day there, we went to the city of refuge. The royal family had their homes there and there was sacred ground that if a law breaker reached, they were untouchable. They could also have a priest forgive them of their crimes and they could go back to their home. There was a story about one of the queens, who after getting in an argument with her husband, swam across the bay to the city of refuge in order to be protected from any harm until things cooled down. Here's a game that the royal family loved to play- they carved little divets into a big rock and played with small black and white stones.
We also saw some tree molds where lava had flowed a few hundred years ago and wrapped around the palm trees and later decayed. They were pretty cool.
Jodie striking a Tiki pose.
A sea turtle warming up on the beach.
Lots of Tikis
This big stone, according to Mark Twain, was the favorite sitting spot of King Kalakaua, the last king of Hawaii.
This was the wall that separated the place of refuge from the royal family's homes- it was an intense wall.
The next day we went to the volcano Kilauea, it was really cool. Earlier this year, they had the first eruption since 1982, first explosive activity since 1928, and the first time it happened with no warning at all. It was really neat to see some of the activity that is still going on now.

We also met up with Robert and Emily at the park and walked through a lava tube. It was really cool because the first half (about 300 yds) had lights, but the last half didn't. So, we were able to get into complete darkness; it was really cool.
We also saw some of the lava flow from previous eruptions.
Here it covered part of the old road.
At the very end of the day, we decided to stop off at the Mauna Loa factory- it was really good. Free samples and products that aren't available in the US.
They also had a self guided tour of the factory. So, here we are watching it; Robert looks kind of like he is craving some chocolate.
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped off at one of the black sand beaches. It was pretty cool to see.

Another day, we also went and saw Akaka falls. It was very pretty.

We also found a rope vine and swung a little bit too.
This is a picture looking up from the vine; its pretty long.

Later, we drove up to Mauna Kea, the observatory atop Hawaii's highest peak, nearly 14,000 feet high. It was really cool because we found snow up on the top and here is a picture of me throwing a snowball that I made.

Another day, we went to a beach and went snorkeling. The water wasn't really clear, but we did get to see a sea turtle which was pretty cool. We also saw this sign and it made us laugh.
Later that day we walked around Kona and Jodie won the prize of finding the biggest sea turtle.
That evening we ate at a restaurant in Kona and this was pretty much the view from our table; our table was about 5 feet away.
This was the airport in Kona. I thought it was really fun because it was all outdoors and just different from all the big airports you see here on the mainland.
The only other time I had boarded a plane like this was on the mission. It always reminds me of Air Force One when the President gets off- just kind of different and fun.

Well, that's all the pictures we have from the trip. Hope you liked them and sorry its taken so long to update things.

Fulfilling Our Roles... :)

2008-03-30T22:01:00.000-07:00

Here are just a few random pictures from this weekend. Mark is in the dining room working on fixing a shoe rack. Funny story actually. Vanessa and I came home and noticed the shoe rack was broken. As Mark and I looked at it, it became very obvious what exactly happened- someone (our other roommate) stepped on it...probably thinking she could use it as a step stool. It was pretty funny because it is definitely not sturdy enough for me to step on, let alone a normal-sized adult. Anyway, it made me laugh and actually made me think of Mark's roommate incident when he put a plastic pan in the oven to cook pizza. Well, Mark decided he was going to fix it. Here he is...

While Mark was doing his manly thing...I was later found in the kitchen cooking. I asked Mark to switch the paper towel and he decided to make me a chef's hat out of the packaging. We continue to be nerds. :)

Here Comes Peter Cotton Tail...

2008-03-30T20:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter! Well we had a nice break from all the snow for Easter so it was an extra special treat. It was so nice to have the sun shining on such a special day. We had Easter at my place this year- Mark and his roommates, my brother Chad, and my roommate Vanessa celebrated it together. They all made fun of me because I got really excited for the day- Easter is my favorite- and had the whole day planned. :) First, we had an Easter egg hunt. Vanessa and I had to hide all the eggs before the boys got here. However, when we went out to the park to hide them there were a bunch of other guys out hiding eggs. We decided to just hide them by the cars and along the house...so it was like a little kids hunt. But it was still fun....This is Mark at the beginning of the hunt...he went right for the jackpot- the cars.
Mark and his roommate Kevin searched around the cars while the other guys went around the house. Kevin seemed to overlook most of the eggs so Mark scored on pretty much all of them in this area.
This is the hill on the side of our place. These are Mark's roommates searching.
Mark found the golden egg! .... and I didn't even tell him where it was...hehe! :)
After the hunt. It was fun to watch them. They were good sports...playing my kid's game. :)

Hanging out in the living room after the hunt. Time to start eating the really good Easter candy! We were waiting for my brother Chad to come down. Well Chad worked the night before so he was running a little late...he had just gotten off work an hour before he was supposed to head down from Salt Lake. We decided to start breakfast next- french toast with strawberries and cool whip- so good! We got a recipe from one of our friends who worked at a bakery around here...it's my favorite! (Kneader's french toast for those of you who are familiar with Provo)
Making the french toast. :)

Vanessa prepping the bread.

Chad got here during the breakfast! After breakfast everyone had to find their baskets. As tradition in my family we each get a basket every year and we have to find it first thing Easter morning- they were all hidden throughout the house. Everyone had a card that they had to match with the one in their basket. In the baskets everyone had a part of "The Living Christ" and we went around and each read our parts after. It was so much fun! :)Here are all the baskets. Everyone had candy and a book in their baskets. Mark and Chad had an Easter tie as well.Chad and I. For anyone that knows Chad...look....he had a nice tie on!!! Yipee!!!! And for those that don't know him...he has this weird thing for ugly ties. I try to help him get out of it.Mark and Jodie. Happy Easter....hope you were all able to enjoy this special day and that it was full of lots of fun, candy, and of course reflection on our Savior and his wonderful Atonement.

Big Events around BYU

2008-03-09T17:08:00.001-07:00

Well everyone, its been awhile since we've written; midterms, work, and church has been keeping us pretty busy. But, we've had a few big events around here at BYU lately so I wanted to tell you about some of them.

First of all...

Moses saw a burning bush, here at BYU we got to see the frozen bush.

It was really cool actually. We've had tons of snow this winter and the other day the sun finally came out and melted some of the snow on the roof of Jodie's apartment. However, it was still cold enough that it refroze the water on this bush.

Ok, so it wasn't a big event, but it looked really cool.

This next event actually was pretty big, the BYU vs U of U basketball game. The security guard at Jodie's school had some extra tickets to the game, so we went. Here's a picture at the beginning when the teams were warming up.

It was a really good game and lots of fun to go see. And the best part, we won too! Below is the proof for anyone skeptical, and for BYU's bragging rights too. Go Cougs!

This last event was really, really cool. In the pre-med club, we were able to get Elder Nelson to come and talk to us. It was a really amazing experience; he did a question and answer session with us for a half an hour and then talked another half an hour. Also, since I'm in the club presidency and I had to help ushering, they reserved some seats for us. It just so happened that our seats were right behind Elder Nelson; I could have leaned forward and given him a back rub. Also, while I was ushering, Jodie was sitting in her seat and Elder Nelson turned around and asked her what she did to get to sit in the reserved seats. She said that she was just engaged to someone in the presidency. All in all, it was an amazing experience...too bad the school newspaper didn't get us in any of the shots; especially this first one because Jodie was just to the left of the picture.

So, those are some of the big events that have been going on around here in BYU lately. Hope you've enjoyed.

President Hinckley's Funeral

2008-02-06T21:19:00.000-08:00

Well, Jodie and I decided that we needed to go to President Hinckley's funeral services. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

Well, it was forecast to snow all weekend, so we were worried if we'd even be able to make it. We decided to drive to Sandy and then take the traks up to the conference center in case we had a really bad storm. We knew we had to be there really early because there was a several hour wait for his viewing on Thursday and Friday; I know of some people who waited over 4 hours to see him. So, Jodie and I woke up at 5 and went straight up to SLC. It took us a little longer to get there because of the delay in waiting for the traks. They had us first wait in a line that wrapped around part of Temple Square. Then, they began filing people into the Tabernacle to wait so they didn't have to do so in the freezing cold temperatures (today was the first day in several weeks that the temperature was above freezing). Now, even though miraculously we didn't get any storm what so ever Saturday morning, it was very cold standing and waiting.

These bushes looked like we felt inside, frozen and wilted.

The temple was especially pretty that morning. The church was playing music from the Choir on the loud speakers, so it was very serene.

Here we are in the Tabernacle waiting. I was really glad to not have to wait outside in the cold anymore, Jodie even more so than me. We waited in there from about 8:30 to 9:00. Then they started handing out tickets and they shuffled us al over to the Conference Center.

Here we waited at the Conference center until the funeral at 11. For those of you who didn't catch the services, it was very good. I got emotional at two points; they were more of tears of gladness than anything. One point was seeing him walking with sister Hinckley and thinking about how they must feel to be together again. And then afterwards when I told Jodie about what Elder Holland said at my parents' stake conference with his battle with colon cancer. What an amazing man he was. I'm sure we will all miss him and look forward to seeing him again.

Winter Days

2008-02-06T20:48:00.000-08:00

Here are some random pictures that Jodie and I have taken through the winter so far.

This winter has been a very interesting one. We have gotten A LOT more snow than previously; kind of depressing if you ask me, well, either of us. We're all ready for spring. But as you can see from the picture I took today on campus, we have a lot of snow after our weekend of snow storms.

For those of you who've been to BYU, this maybe a common sight. People sleep every where and in the most random places. During the summer, its outside on the grass. During the winter, however, people have to get a little more creative. For example, this guy is sleeping in the hall of the basement of the MARB. This building is part of the science labs area, so stuff like the cadavers, lab rats and rabbits, and chemicals are passing through here; not exactly the best place to sleep if you ask me.

I was taking the trash out last week at work and I found a HUGE icicle; it made a pretty sweet sword.

Jodie and I decided to make blueberry pancakes the other day. It was snowing pretty good and we didn't have much to do that Saturday. I started out making a Mickey Mouse pancake for Jodie and one thing lead to another and eventually ended in a tragic accident. Mickey got shot and Minnie Mouse was devastated by the disaster and would stop crying.

Well, it was kind of fun to make, but were definitely a pair of nerds.

G & G Brems' Anniversary

2008-02-06T19:56:00.000-08:00

Well, even though this is entitled G & G Brems' Anniversary, we don't have any pictures from their wedding anniversary yet. But they had their 65 wedding anniversary and a big party with all the kids to celebrate. So, Jodie and I went up to SLC to meet up with most of the Brems family. It was the first time that all of their kids had gotten together since Great Grandpa Nettleship passed away in 1993. So, here are some of the pictures we took.

Jenna found a new treat, chocolate covered strawberries. In this picture, she actually ended up taking a left over one from an abandoned plate. Oh, I don't know if you'll be able to see it very well, but Jenna is wearing a wedding ring; apparently some things are happening in Phoenix while I'm no longer around.

Jodie and I slept over in SLC with my family so we could stay with them a little longer. It was really neat because we got to go to Music and the Spoken Word that morning.

Here's a picture during the dress rehearsal right before they do the live broadcast.

And this one is at the same time just looking at the tabernacle.

Well, it was a really fun weekend and we were really glad to see the family again. It was definitely too short, but still lots of fun. Thanks for everything and congrats again to Grandma and Grandpa Brems for 65 years of being together; they are such a great example to us all.