So this is a bad picture of me - usually I look a little better than this.  But I just wanted to post this pic so I could remember this day.  I had a day off from work, so was just taking care of the house chores, like laundry, and Colby came in and was studying at the desk. We had such a good time talking together and just being together even though we weren't doing anything special.  He is such a good husband to me.  When I am cleaning the house and doing hously chores, he is always willing to help.  He will carry the laundry baskets downstairs for me, or vacuum the stairs, and scrub the tub. He just is so good to me. 

Fun times snowmobiling

Colby has really started to love jumping his snowmobile.  This makes me nervous, but he insists that it is safe and SO much fun.  I just think it is funny that he loves to take pictures of his snowmobile, and especially this one, stuck in mid jump.

Colby had an opportunity to go do a service project for one of his classes up by Henry's Lake. It sounded like a lot of fun, and very interesting. 

They caught the kind of fish they wanted to breed more of, sedated them, and then took the females and blew all the eggs out with a hose, then took all the males and squished all the sperms out, and mixed them.  This is so they can get a larger population of good fish, and hopefully get rid of the bad fish in the lakes and rivers around here.

Some of the fish they caught and sedated.

The male fish process.

Colby standing where they stored all the eggs after they have been fertilized.

Measuring out the eggs

Mixing eggs and sperms in an iodine mixture.

They pressurized them (I can't remember why this step of the process)

Then spreading the eggs in their containers to grow into small fish. The white ones that you can see are ones that were damaged and died.  All the orange is all the healthy ones that will develop.

Colby has also been studying all kinds of different plants and learning about them and how to determine what kind of plants that they really are.  He is really good at learning and applying all this information.  Every time he goes out he finds something interesting that they were studying in class, and either brings a sample home to me, or to take to his class and update the old samples. He is doing so well in school, I am really proud of him.

Our Island Park Adventure

Our good friends in our ward, the Barnards, invited us to go to Island park for the weekend to stay in their families condo with them.  We went up on a Friday afternoon and stayed until Saturday evening.  It was so fun! We had never done anything like this before, and we were a little nervous to go, but it was one of the funnest things we have done together all winter. We just really enjoyed the Barnards and getting to know them and their family better too.   

This is the kitchen area just after you walk in.

The dining area.  The snow was so high it almost covered the windows.

Living room area where we obviously hung all our snow gear to dry.

Colby really liked the metal piece on the wall, and wants to make one similar to it.

This was the room we stayed in - just pretend that you can't see the mess on the floor...and that we made the bed right.

Mariah, DaNae, Kevin, Kent, and Keith getting ready to take off on our ride to the boy scout camp there.  I was really worried about going for a long ride, but they promised this would be an easy one.  Colby and the boys went for a heavy duty ride earlier that morning.  It was an soft, easy ride, and we had a ton of fun together.  Kent left just after this to go on his mission to Albania.

After every stop we made, the baby would kick and twist around like crazy.  The poor little guy probably didn't know what to think of all the bouncing and loud noise.

Filling up the machines

On our way to the scout camp, we stopped by this river.  It comes straight out of the ground along here somewhere.  You can barely see it, but there is a tiny cabin on the other side of the river, and a spring with a water wheel.  It was so beautiful.  I wish we could have gotten a closer pic, but our camera doesn't have a zoom on it.

At the same spot, on the other side of the bridge, there were tons of duck there, and people would stop to feed them.  It was so fun.

This is all the snow right by our condo.  The boys would drive over it and park their snowmobiles here.

Ice Fishing Season

Colby with the sweet catch of the day.

Dusty admiring the sweet catch.

Dusty digging himself out, while Colby tries to do the same after getting stuck.

Dusty

Blake, Dusty, and Blair

The crew getting ready to go down.

What a cool place we live in.  We have all these wonderful mountains, and lakes.  It is so beautiful here. I love ice fishing, and I wish I could have gone this season, but between work, and being pregnant, I thought it was best not to go.

Colby was jumping off this hill, or climbing it to jump it, and tipped the wrong way and cut up his leg.

Christmas Time 2010

We had a really fun Christmas season this year.  Colby's family got together with the snowmobiles and rode around looking for trees.  This is the tree we settled on.  We had a little campfire, did some sledding, and roasted hot dogs. 

Colby using his dandy saw to cut our tree.

We bought our brown, red, and lime green bulbs last year, so this year we bought a gold star and some gold snowflakes to decorate with.  We had to buy some new lights because half the strand on our old ones wouldn't work.  I learned how to fix lights on my internship, but we had tools to do it with. We decided it was cheaper to just buy an extra strand of lights, than to by the light gun and tools.  But, if we have trouble next year- I'm getting the light gun- I hate lights that don't work.

While Colby was off from work, and still waiting for the new semester to start, he built this dresser.  I love how well it turned out.  He did such an awesome job, I want him to build another to match.

Colby also decided it would be cool to hang his lion in our apartment.  I wasn't too excited for it at first, but now I like it and think it turned out really nice.  Before he had it hanging on the wall, it was sitting on our couch.  I forgot it was down there, and got up in the night to get a drink.  When I got to the bottom of the stairs and turned towards the kitchen, I could see the outline of the cat, and his face looking right at me.  It really freaked me out. Then I remembered what it was.  But I still ran past it with the hebegebes both to get the drink, and to get back up the stairs.

In November, we were able to attend my cousin Juleen's wedding at the Bountiful temple.  It was fun to get away.  We have never stayed in a hotel since our honeymoon.  Because of that, we planned on staying in a nice hotel, but as we were driving down the freeway, we saw a sign advertising a room for only $40.00 at the Motel 6.  So, we decided to stay there and save some money.  It definitely wasn't fancy, but it was clean so I couldn't complain.  I was worried about going because I still was having morning sickness, and didn't want to get sick in the temple. I did fine there, and it was so special to see Juleen get married.  I stayed with her while I did my internship in Salt Lake, and we had a wonderful time together.  She married such a nice guy, and her mission president, President Christensen, was able to do her sealing.  He is the one that did our sealing in the Rexburg temple, so it was fun to see him again, and hear some of the same things that he said at our wedding.

A funny story about this day- I woke up that morning sick (literally and emotionally), because here we had traveled all this way, and I forgot my recommend at home.  I was so upset, and I couldn't get a hold of our Bishop.  It worked out though, because with the bar coded recommends, they keep it on file and the workers at the temple desk could look up all my info.  So we were able to make it to the wedding.

Second funny story of the day.  I had a hard time wearing nylons because they were too tight on my tummy and made me sick- any pressure on my belly would make me sick and miserable.  I decided on this day to try wearing thigh high stockings instead, because my legs look bad, and I only had knee length skirts.  I should have known better from the start.  As soon as we left our hotel room, these stockings kept falling down around my boots.  It looked really bad.  But I couldn't change it, so I kept wearing them.  I had to adjust them to and from breakfast in McDonald's, in between some parked cars in the temple lot -there were some people in one of the cars but I didn't know it until it was too late, they had a real good show of leg and me tugging on my stockings-  By the time we got to the front doors, they were falling down again.  I just hoped and prayed that the temple workers at the desk wouldn't notice my problem while they sorted out my recommend issue.  Finally I just went into the rest room and pulled them off - everyone would just have to deal with my ugly legs, because they were less scandalous than black stockings with a lacy top dangling around the tops of my boots. All in all it was a great day. 

Shortly after we got home from Utah, we woke up to this. 

My good husband so kindly put on his snow gear and spent the morning digging out my car while I got ready for the day so I could go to work.  He is always doing the hard things for me, and I sure appreciate it.

Then it was time for Bridger's mission farewell.  We were all able to spend the weekend with him as a family, and it was sure fun.  It is so crazy to think that when he gets home Autumn will be 3 and Branson will be 2 years old.  Our baby will be a year and a half by then. So much changes in two years, and we sure miss Bridger. It's not the same around here without him.