I'll be home for Christmas

In just a few days we are heading to my parents house for Christmas. Back to Davenport. I always love visiting my home-town. I love driving by my high school and if I'm lucky I even love taking a walk around... you know, reliving my glory days. ha ha ha. I was just at a friends house here in DeKalb and she told me about an awesome popcorn store in Davenport that apparently I never knew about! Hello!? Jason loves popcorn so I'm really excited to go here with him.

Now personally, I'm a bit of an ice cream freak. My roommate and I wanted to start the Ice Cream Club at BYU when we were there. We thought, skip-bo and ice cream parties every week, what could be better. :) So I am as always excited for our "Whitey's run" as we usually call them. mmmm Viking Pride, my new fav flavor. Some say it is the best in the Midwest... I would argue that it is the best ice cream in America.

I love the village of East Davenport during Christmas time, and my favorite place to get a Ruben sandwich and a soda (no not a Sprite or Pepsi, that is called pop, a real "soda" from the soda fountain) is Lagomarcino's. Their chocolates and candies are soooo yummy too. There is nothing like homemade confectioneries. Date Jason?

A Cinderella Story

Four years ago Jason and I went on our first date. Our ward at BYU (in true BYU ward fashion) created an activity called a "shoe date" or Cinderella date. All of the girls who wanted to participate put their shoes in with a time and date they could go out. Jason says he picked mine because it was one of the biggest shoe (I would be tall) and it was a flip flop, so of course he knew I was fun. :) My awesome roommate set up a whole life sized Clue game on campus for all of us in the group date to play. Her brother was the one we'd call to give our guesses as we made our way across campus to different buildings (and potential scenes of the crime). All of the girls, Jessica, Shannon, Ruth, and I were waiting at our apartment at BDA for the boys to arrive. We didn't know who our dates were, it was supposed to remain anonymous while the boys had to do 3 acts of service for us. (Jason made me chocolate peanut butter brownies, brought daisies with him for the date, and left me a hilarious note about how he'd give me a massage after one of my intrumural volleyball or basketball games but that if I didn't want that (since it was kinda creepy getting a note from someone I didn't know yet offering me a massage) he said he would do the dishes for me.
The date was so fun; Jason and I had a lot to talk about. We were both interested in a variety of things from music, to sports, and art. After the game and meeting at DQ with the others for some ice cream, he hung around our apartment and we talked for a few hours more.
I remember after he left and gave me a great hug (he picked me up which meant he was definitely taller than me and a big bonous, cuz I love heels!) and I ran into Shannon's and my bedroom and jumped on Shannon's bed, okay yeah, a little like a giddy school girl. I had so much fun, he was so easy to talk to, smart, he was tall, and athletic. After that day we went on one more date before Thanksgiving break (played tennis at school and shared a free Papa John's pizza). We emailed over Thanksgiving break and then after break we hung out every single day. And here we are four years later. Even though I'm super competitive and don't love losing, we still play racquetball, , basketball, and volleyball, lift weights and runtogether whenever we can. I love it because it always reminds me of when we were dating and we flirt a little while we play. Okay now I'm getting a little off topic :) Story is, I loved our first date! It was so fun and I'm so happy I am where I am now. And I look forward to more dates for YEARS to come!

A little photo op before we left for the date

RIDICULOUS!

I don't even know how to preface this... please watch... awesomeness

Starved Rock State Park, IL

Last weekend Jason and I met up with Shannon and Matt at Starved Rock State Park in Illinois. I lived so close to it (an hour and a half drive straight down I-80) all my life and never knew it was there! It was really pretty. It was so fun to see Matt and Shannon and I just love how close we live to them; I wish it was closer sometimes, but I'm just grateful we're only a few hours away!

 Isaac had a lot of fun, especially when we let him down to hike. 

 Jason and Isaac were so cute. Jason helped Isaac explore all the places Isaac wanted to go. Well, almost all of them. Isaac was pretty excited about the leaves that had just fallen off the trees from the wind storms we had the previous week. He loved walking on them and hearing them crunch.

 Jason styled Isaac's hair. When I saw it and asked him about it he said, "What? It's for Halloween!" :) Isaac got a lot of compliments from the ladies about his spiky hair.

 I really love this picture Jason took of Isaac and me heading into one of the canyons in the park.

 Isaac tried to run away when we stopped for lunch on this bridge. He just took off running and giggling.

We love Illinois!

PS Don't forget to VOTE today everyone!

Da Bears!

It has been pretty cloudy the last few days here. I decided it might be a good time to take some pictures of Isaac since there wouldn't been any really harsh shadows from the sun. And of course he got to sport his new Bears shirt I found at a thrift store! :) 

I love my men!

Fall Fun

Yesterday felt like it was really the beginning of Fall. It's been pretty warm the past few weeks and I've been anxious to get out sweaters, jackets, and all that fun cold weather stuff. Yesterday we got the boxes out of storage and put on our warm clothes and took a trip to an apple orchard near our house. Some of our friends here told us about it and we thought it would be really fun to pick our own apples. We're going back soon to get our pumpkins too. 

It was pretty tricky to get Isaac to hold still by the pumpkins to get a picture...

He was way more interested in his ride.

He and his little girlfriend, an older woman (by four months) rode in the back of the wagon for most of the trip. Isaac was really excited about that.

 He is quite the ladies man I must say. We caught him making some moves on her multiple times.

 They were both really excited about trying the apples for us. Isaac loves a juicy apple.

He couldn't get enough of them. He always wanted to be holding at least two by the end of the trip. If he only had one in his hand he started stealing Maggie's!

They had a hay fort and some places to play after we picked our apples.

There was a small petting zoo that Isaac was pretty excited for. He mostly just chased the chickens and ducks around trying to catch them. I think the bigger animals scared him a bit more.

It was a really fun trip, and only about 15 minutes from our house so we are planning on going back in probably two weeks to pick up our Halloween pumpkins. We love Fall and are excited for the season and all the fun things it brings.

PS The apples were delicious!

Scott to the Rescue

This was perhaps the funniest moment on the whole trip, and luckily I caught it on tape! Yeah!

The Black Hills South Dakota

It's been a little hard to get on the computer that all our pictures are on with Jason being so busying studying and all his documents and what not being on the same computer. I'm finally taking a few minutes though to do a post about our camping trip in the Black Hills in South Dakota. My mom and I met up with Scott in Rexburg and we caravaned to South Dakota. It was Sturgis week so there were a lot of motorcycles on the road and at our campsites with us. They were all really nice and it was fun.

We stayed at Lake Pactola near Rapid City, South Dakota. It was a beautiful campsite. It was so green but it was still plenty cool at night and in the morning. It heated up around 2 pm or so each day but the temperature was pretty perfect for the most part. On our last full day there it rained for about a half hour in the evening right before dinner. There were two beautiful rainbows as a result!

One morning Jason woke up in time to see the sun rise over the lake right outside our tent door. Here are a few of the many beautiful pictures he took.

Lizzie was Isaac's little buddy for a lot of the trip. She was a really good helper.

Isaac also tried to be a good helper around the campsite. He was always finding something to "put away" or carry around. Here he is getting into the stash of supplies under the table sheltered from the rain.

Peter really wanted to play chess, so Jason and he made a chess board and pieces with charcoal and rocks they found around the campsite.

Lizzie passed time reading her Magic Tree House books.

We went swimming at the swimming beach by the campsite a few times. Jason caught some great shots, especially of my mom. She loves swimming with her grandkids.

My favorite moments of the trip were really just after dinner. It was so relaxing to sit around the campfire and roast marshmallows or camp pies and talk or sit quietly enjoying the great outdoors.

We took a trip to Mt. Rushmore one afternoon, or as the kids called it. Rount Mushmore, I think I like that name better still.

I love Iowa

Lizzie, Sammie, Katie, and Peter in front of Mt. Rushmore

We took one picture where we had a "Scott Sandwich" then Scott squeezed us right back.

We saw Crazy Horse from a distance.

I wish I would have done this post sooner because now I can't remember which plane this was, but here is mom my in front of the type of plane my grandfather worked on when he was in the Air Force during, the Korean and Vietnam wars.

My favorite day was Friday toward the end of the trip took a boat our on the lake for the whole day. It was so fun. It was a perfect day. The hottest of the week, we jumped of the boat and took turns in the inner tube getting pulled.

This is a cliff that Jason, Katie and I jumped off of. Where the man on the top right is is where Katie and I jumped from. Jason did a few even higher.

It was a really fun week. I forgot how much I love camping. Jason and I are already planning camping trips in the future for our little family. We're thought of everything from a short trip to a lake in Minnesota to camping across Europe... we'll see which comes first ;)