Sunday, June 26, 2011

Lotsa Oxen, Summer Solstice Edition

A few days ago, we hit midsummer, and the weather must've been paying attention, because it's been HOT! It doesn't help that we don't have central AC, but we did put our window unit in.

First, we want to wish a Happy (belated) Father's Day to all those out there that it applies to. Don't worry, we called our dads, too...

Picture of a dad
Picture of another dad
Thanks for your examples, love, and support! Below is a video that captures the wonderful traits of fatherhood and manhood that we find in both of our dads:
"True manhood is not always measured by the fruits of one’s labors but by the labors themselves—by one’s striving. Though he will make some sacrifices and deny himself some pleasures in the course of honoring his commitments, the true man leads a rewarding life. He gives much, but he receives more, and he lives content in the approval of his Heavenly Father. The life of true manhood is the good life."

—Elder D. Todd Christofferson ("Let Us Be Men")
We got to enjoy a dinner at the Olive Garden...

Lasagna
Us
Lisa and her shrimp entrée
...and went to a wedding reception and saw some friends...

Beautiful setting...
...great company...
...good food...
...weird friends...
...oh, and a bride and groom.
...and went on a 4 mile walk to DI (turned out it was closed when we got there)...

The Y from the other angle
...and went to the Provo and the Mount Timpanogos temples!

Pretty window colours if you look closely
A pile of dirt and rock behind the temple
The sky
The other sky
The fountain
Also, Lisa made a mini kimono of sorts...

An underpaid seamstress
The finished product...just needs a kid to fill it
...and we cooked...

Raw pigs in blankets
...and we got a Bountiful Basket again.

Bountiful spoils
Oh, and Lisa dominated her Calculus II class!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Summertime And the livin' is easy

Whew - what a busy last few weeks! But now that spring term is over and the weather is finally summery, life should calm down a little bit for us. Lisa finished up finals this week and is looking forward to cooking, crafting, cleaning, and reading, rather than doing math homework.

Thomas just finished his first week of training at BlueHost, where he will now be working full time. We are grateful he was able to find a job relatively quickly, and that it is right around the corner from where Lisa works! To celebrate the job offer and get out of cooking, we went to La Dolce Vita again.


chicken fettuccine alfredo
tried gnocchi for the first time (in the red sauce)
Last weekend we enjoyed another too-quick visit from Thomas' dad, who had traveled out to attend a grave dedication for an aunt. We went with him to Lehi and met some extended family at the cemetery for the service. It was nice to talk with these relatives that we do not get to see often. Thank you Steve and Claudia for the yummy lunch!



That evening our ward had a progressive dinner activity. We enjoyed enchiladas with the Sundbloms and met their pet chickens afterward.

We started with salad at the church. Everyone split up for the main course and met back for dessert!
Chicken & black bean enchiladas
Chicken!
On Sunday after church we had the pleasure of hosting Thomas' maternal grandparents for dinner. We do not get to see them very often so it was wonderful to catch up and hear about some of their travel experiences. They are so much fun!



Thursday night we took a nice long walk in the cool weather. We've been having some warmer weather lately, but in the early evening it was extremely windy, which cooled things down quite nicely. Fortunately it wasn't too windy during our walk. We saw some beautiful scenes that Thomas captured with his camera:




oxox

Friday, June 17, 2011

Mi casa es su casa

Apologies to our faithful readers who have missed our posts the last three weeks! Our writing lapse has not been for lack of content. Rather, we have been busy hosting visitors, Lisa has been finishing some grueling classes, and Thomas has started a job. So even though it has been Thomas' turn to write for a while... we'll excuse him this once ;o)

Let's see if I can remember all that we've been up to...:

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Lisa's family came to visit. They got in Saturday night. We all went to church together on Sunday, and ate carnitas for dinner. Monday we fit in all the fun stuff:

The boys fixed the windows in the car while the girls went shopping!
We took a walk over to see the Provo Tabernacle.
We introduced the Paulsons to J-Dawgs...
...and had ice cream at the Creamery...
...where Morgan actually ran into some friends randomly - small world.
Mom & Dad left Tuesday morning to get back to the grind, but Morgan got to stay for the week. Here are some of the fun things we did together:

Morgan cooked dinner for us one night...
YUM!
Morgan came to class with me on Wednesday & Thursday. Wednesday night we went to BYU's Acoustic Explosion right after....
...where we saw Mayday, Steven Stucki, and the Lovecapades.
Morgan and Thomas hiked to the Y...
...and a little beyond.
Morgan treated us to lunch at the Cannon Center...


...where we ate too much food!
We did baptisms together at the Provo temple.
We went to a Provo Rooftop Concert Series concert that we'd seen advertised earlier in the week.
Mindy Gledhill played, ....
...as did Meaghan Smith. We don't typically go to multiple outdoor concert series over the course of a week, I promise! haha
Morgan showed off her balloon-animal-making-skills. L to R: flower, bee, poodle, snake, monkey in a tree, cat, sword, ladybug, wand, parrot!!
Mom, Dad, Morgan - we're glad you came to visit! We enjoyed spending time with you and we're sorry we still had stuff to do (like work & school). Come back again soon!

I fear that even though this post covers just a week, it is on the too-lengthy side, so I will spare you for now and will put our other activities in other posts :o)

oxox