3 months of marriage

Today marks three months of marriage for us! What a wonderful three months it has been. Before I get to that I have a lot to get caught up on.

We spent Thanksgiving with the Beals in Arco. Justin and I went a day earlier than the rest of my siblings because we wanted time with just us and Mom and Dad. I took Justin to Pickle's Place, we did business for our car insurance, put up Mom&Dad's Christmas tree, and by Wednesday evening we had the rest of our group home. Hart, Mitzi, and Trisha came with their families, and Chase was also home. We had our pie pig out Wednesday night (I love this tradition; pie stretched out for days woot!) and we watched "Trains, Planes, and Automobiles." I was planning on bed after that but we stayed up to watch "The Incredible Spiderman" thanks to Hart and Jory for bringing it over from the Meridian Redbox. It was great!

Thanksgiving morning we all pitched in to help Mom make the whole sha-bang for our dinner. The food was ready by 10 AM but don't worry, we waited until 11:30 to eat. ;) We are a little disfunctional when it comes to the time we eat Thanksgiving, but I like it. It lets me eat leftovers all day long. That afternoon I went for a walk with Justin and then later on with my sisters and my mom. Priceless times! Justin and I taught our family how to play Five Crowns which we played many times.

Thursday night we watched "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World." I am stressed out by the end of that movie because of that mother in-law who keeps yelling the whole movie, but it is so funny! I curled a lot of hair during the break which I had lots of fun with. I'm going to bring my iron home for Chase's wedding reception to see if any grandkids will let me curl their hair for the event. We played a game of Rage that night as well.

intense game of scattegories

Friday we left for Rexburg around 1 in the afternoon. Everyone else had cleared out, so we put up the other Christmas tree in my parent's house before leaving. My mom gave us her very amazing, but painfully frustrating vacuum. I love it because I've wanted to vacuum but vacuums are so expensive! When we got home that night I totally vacuumed and you wouldn't believe how great a job it did. On our way home we drove through Idaho Falls and got Justin a new smart phone. Due to it being Black Friday, he got an $800 phone for free. Don't ask me how that works, but it did! I bought some boots (I've been dying to get a pair of gray boots!) at Sears. We enjoyed getting deals later in the day when things weren't as crazy as earlier in the day. By 4PM the crazy 4AM people are usually dying out, so we didn't have to stand in any crazy lines or anything. We thought it was funny when the checkout lady asked us how long we'd been shopping for& I said "since 1" but then realized I had to clarify PM not AM.

Sunday I played the organ for the first time. I was grateful there was practically NOBODY at our ward due to the holiday. The power went out in the morning so I thought I was going to luck out and not have to play at all, but at 12:30 the power turned back on so we drove to the church and I practiced for an hour before I had to play. It turned out OK.

As for this week, we were busy busy as usual. We had a ward temple trip, a volleyball game, a ward activity, a banquet, and a Christmas program all this week. Not to mention school: welcome back from break: here's a geology test, a physics test, a physics presentation, and teaching your teacher's nine year old daughter how fat, sugar, and protein is digested. Crazy!

I had a geology test I took today that did not turn out well, but I'm hoping for a large curve to save my grade. Today for our 3 month anniversary Justin took me to the BYU-I Christmas with the Canadian Brass which was so great! I'm so weird, but during one of the songs I just about burst out into tears. They had dancers performing to the music too and I felt like such an idiot because I felt like I was going to cry, so then I started laughing at myself for being so weird and poor Justin is thinking "what the heck woman?" Ha! But the program was so great. I loved it! We ate at Pizza Hut before the concert, then frosted cookies after the program to give to some people tomorrow. Justin has plenty of gadgets that let us do anything we want with frosting, so it was a lot of fun. What a great way to recover from my bad test. I am truly blessed to have Justin in my life.

T-Rexburg!

This week has been one of our busiest which has been a great way to get us ready for Thanksgiving break. Monday Justin and I had frisbee practice. The men have a club team where they take all the great players from competitive and travel to tournaments. There was an opportunity to play in Utah this weekend, and there would also be girl teams playing, so I decided the girls needed to get in on this club action and I put a team together to practice.

Tuesday was my last day to take my geology test, so I went in the testing center at 5:30 and came out at 8....it took forever! But I think I did very well on it, so we'll see when I get my score back. I wanted to get out before 7 because Justin and I are on a volleyball team that played at 7:15. Oh well. Our team lost pretty bad; we have a couple people on our team who aren't the best which is fine but it stresses Justin out big time. He and another guy on our team are really good.

Wednesday Justin and I had practice for frisbee and that night Kyndra (one of my teammates) and I made shirts for our team that say T-Rexburg. I love the design; it has a dinosaur going to eat a disc as a player is bidding for it...love it!

Thursday I went visiting teaching to one of our ladies. She lives in the complex right next to me so that makes it easy. Justin and I made Christmas ornaments that night and I spent a couple hours in the geology lab studying fossil preservation while Justin saw his friend Ryan. I had to work extra hard to get my work done before we left for Utah which is why this week was so busy.

Come Friday we hit the road for Utah around 4:30. We took my friend Sophie down with us and stayed at the BYU frisbee coach's house for the night. They are friends with Kyndra and offered their house for players to stay for the night. What generous people!

Saturday Justin had a game at 9:30 and I had a game at 11. It was very cold in the morning! By the time my team played it was raining pretty hard which makes for a lot of drops. We played well though! We barely lost to BYU's team (13-12) but we had a blast. After that we split our players with theirs and played with a bunch of new people for another game. We were supposed to play two other teams but they dropped out at the last minute, so we had two games and the men had four. They won three out of four and played amazing! They beat BYU's team which they were stoked about. Kelsey Montgomery lives in Orem which is where we played so I got to see her. She's going on a mission. Her papers are turned in and everything. She told me her friends have got calls but they aren't told where they're going. They're entering the MTC next August, so we think that means they're opening CHINA! One of her friends has half her call to one place and the other half is in China, so I guess that means it's on the way. Talk about fullness of times.

The Men's team; my team all left before we could get a girl picture.

We went to Five Guys for dinner and headed back to Rexburg. We decided to make a pit stop in Idaho Falls to see TWILIGHT! I know family members will think differently of me upon reading this, but I thought it was great--better than the book, even. It's always fun to watch  movies with a crowd of people because it makes the funny things more funny, and my friend Sophie and I were pretty animated about all the crazy things that happened. And I'm so vain, I loved everyone's clothes and hair. Give me give me! Dear Santa, I want a shopping spree for Christmas. XOXO Kelsey. My only complaint: could they have at least bleached Edward's teeth? I mean I know he's British, but c'mon...

The temple rededication today was so great. I loved when President Monson got up and looked at a youth in the congregation and said, "I see a future missionary," and moved his ears at him/her. It was so great! I love our prophet.

I'm so excited for Thanksgiving. I look forward to putting up Mom and Dad's decorations plus eating Mom's amazing Thanksgiving brunch! ;) Two more days and we're out of here!

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Hi hi, once again. This week we had ultimate playoffs so that kept us really busy. Monday was Justin's birthday which I talked about last time. Tuesday was voting day and I had my 3:15-4:45 class cancelled so I took that time to vote! I got sent to three different districts because I couldn't prove I've lived in our apartment for at least 30 days, so I went where I used to be registered but they told me the boundaries changed so I had to go somewhere else. Annoying! Oh well. Some of my friends had to wait two hours in line to vote. Crazy. But hey, I'm grateful we have the opportunity to vote, even if it took a few years off my life. My friend's facebook post made up for it the next day when she quoted Mean Girls: "I voted for Cady Herron, because she pushed Regina George in front of a bus." Awesome.

Justin and I played on a rec frisbee team this semester. We had the championship game Tuesday night and blew them out of the water. Their girls weren't very good so our guys used me and the other girls a lot which was extra fun.

Moose, Brett, Justin, Me, Nate, Taran, Mellisa, Christine, &Todd

Wednesday morning Justin and I did temple work for an hour. That night Trisha and I threw Rachel a bridal shower. We both brought a game to play along with a treat. Trisha brought chocolate dipped pretzels and strawberries and I brought oreo truffles. Yum! Rachel did really well at guessing things Chase would say, and her friends did a good job on the "how well do you know the bride?" game. It was good to have Trisha there with me because if either of us had done it on our own we would've felt awkward just because we didn't know everyone else as well. Overall it was a successful night.

Thursday we had the first day of ultimate playoffs. One of the girls has serious beef with me because I wouldn't let her play in the playoffs, but that was because she was skipping out the whole season. Of course she stomped around the whole night complaining about, "the coordinator won't let me play!" but I wanted to throw agency in her face and be like "You prevented yourself from playing when you chose to skip out all season!" Lame. Whatever, love thine enemy& pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, right?

one of my students at work; her teammate was the one who couldn't play

Friday was more frisbee but we woke up to lots of snow! Grand...the poor girls had to play in it but at least their blood was flowing. I had to stand out in the cold from 6-10 keeping stats and making sure play was fair. We had a huge upset when the 5th seed (out of 5) beat the first seed! It was way exciting, but so sad for the other team; statistically they should've won the whole thing but, oh well. For men's ultimate we also saw an upset where a not-so-good team beat a pretty good team so that shook things up a bit.

Saturday we had more snow but it cleared out by 2PM for the women's championship game. Spartans and Vikings played a two-hour game that was very exciting! The Vikings (5th seed out of 5) ended up winning the whole tournament! It was CRAZY to watch. They didn't win a game all season, and then for playoffs they took the whole tourny. Once again, many tears were shed by the other team. It was hard because I had favorites all across the board when it came to players on other teams, so it was sad to see anyone lose, but so fun for those that won. Great season for sure but I'm glad it's over. Dealing with Competitive has been the trial of our marriage! Now we are at a loss for what to do on our Friday nights.

After the men's championship Justin and I drove to Idaho Falls to celebrate our freedom of being finished coordinating! We returned some things and exchanged his birthday gifts. We got Christmas tree lights and scented pine cones for our apartment to gear us up for the Christmas season. I can't help it...with the snow and the wreaths all around campus we put the tree up and we're starting to make ornaments. We went to dinner and saw "Skyfall," the new 007 movie. I really liked it. It reminded me of The Dark Knight in that the movie made me really like the villain.

At church I led the singing and I'm supposed to start playing the organ soon but church is cancelled next week for the Boise temple rededication and we'll be in Arco the next week so...who knows maybe I'll never play...ha! Yeah right. I have a geology test I have to take Tuesday and lots of projects in my classes are becoming due. This semester is going to be over before you know it. This weekend Justin and I will be playing in an ultimate frisbee tournament in Utah. He's part of a men's club team and I'm putting together the women's club team so we'll see if any girls show up. That's it for this week.

Halloween...we're gonna party like it's your birthday

Hello all! This last week has been fun for us. Monday for FHE we went to Costa Vida. Now that's my kind of FHE! We also had a lesson, but it's fun for us to eat out every once and a while.

For Halloween this year Justin and I decided we wanted to hang out with Trisha's family. Justin didn't have work in the morning so he made cupcakes to share with our married friends at their party and with Trisha's family. We dressed up as Han Solo and Princess Leah!

I just used a Walmart bed sheet and cut a hole in it for my head. Then when it draped over my body I put the belt around it giving me instant sleeves. Awesome!

We so enjoyed trick-or-treating with Shae and Brie. Hailey is all grown up now so she went with one of her friends. It was fun listening to Brie and Shae gab and gab to us. Justin and I carried Brie a lot in between houses, and at one point Brie said, "Justin I love you!" Priceless.

We watched some of "Snow White and the Huntsman" with Trisha's family but then we needed to get to our friend's house because I had a surprise birthday cake there for Justin! He was very surprised...as he should've been. It was 5 days before his actual birthday! But I wanted to do something with friends and something else with the two of us on his actual birthday. We played games and watched some of Hocus Pocus. We stayed up past midnight...that was a first in a long time. I was exhausted! I love being married and going to bed at 10 every night. I love bed.

Thursday we played a semi-final rec frisbee game. These guys were somewhat tough, but for the most part they were all a real pain to play. I have a hard time playing with people who don't know the rules but act like they do. One of the guys slammed into me when we both went for the disc in the end zone. He hit my knee so hard! It was dumb because right before that he was yelling at me about a rule, and then as soon as he hurt me he was being all nice... Oh well. We sent them home defeated so I'm fine taking a bruise to have that satisfaction.

Friday Chase got engaged! I was really excited to get to see it and be a part of his friends who held that sign. I'm so excited to have Rachel in our family! Trisha and I are throwing her a bridal shower this Wednesday so that will be fun. Hooray and congratulations!

stupid pole...right in the way of where Rachel was!

Rachel's ring is to die for! I'm so excited for these two =]

the EMT stuff was such a good idea.

For Justin's birthday (today) I made his favorite breakfast, French toast, complete with my buttermilk syrup. So good! I scheduled an hour deep tissue massage for him after his work, so while he was at that I finished my geology lab (more like finished "starting" the lab...) and hurried home to make his favorite food...."Mediterranean."

Really?

When I asked him what his favorite food was and he said Mediterranean I thought "what the heck is Mediterranean food?" Thank goodness for Pinterest! I found a couple recipes I thought looked good and then did my own thing with it. I made chicken stuffed with kale, spinach, feta cheese, red pepper, oregano, and garlic. I also made pizza using Peeta bread (don't try pinterest-ing peeta bread...the only things that comes up are Hunger Games shenanigans), white sauce, spinach, feta cheese, and tomato. Mitzi has the best apple crisp recipe ever so I got that from her for dessert complete with the caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. We were in heaven! He opened his gifts (a bunch of clothes-ha I buy him things for his birthday I want-- go figure) and then we played racquetball in the Hart. He dominates at racquetball but he went easy on me so I didn't get too frustrated.

Happy birthday sweetheart!

This week we have ultimate playoffs. We are both so ready to be done coordinating! I have my second geology test while that's going on as well, and I need to find time to practice the organ because I play for the first time next Sunday. Busy busy but we love it, and we are so grateful for all our blessings! Heavenly Father is so good to us. Peace and Blessings!

Midterms...

You might be wondering how many tests I have to take for midterms this semester...well let me tell you:  SEVEN! Three health science tests (ridiculous), a geology lab test, a physics test, and an education psychology test. Really? Last week was definitely crazy, but the craziness continues into this week. Some tests that were scheduled were moved to next week which was a good thing but still...it was crazy.

Monday was my geology lab test. After getting home from the field trip Saturday night, there was no time to go into the lab to study. So now I debated between going in on Sunday and having an idea of what I was doing, or winging it come Monday. I decided to keep the Sabbath Day holy dangit, and got up early Monday morning to study in the lab for an hour. The Lord definitely magnified that study session because I feel that I did very well on the test. Then again, I don't know my score yet, so I may have done worse than I thought. We'll see.

For FHE Justin and I went to the I-Center and played volleyball and basketball. I love being married to someone athletic so we can play together! We're on a rec volleyball team as well as a rec frisbee team, so we've stayed busy in the sports we love.

Wednesday we had a ward relief society activity where we met the sisters we visit teach and had delicious chili and cornbread.

Thursday morning we were greeted by 6" of snow! What! Justin and I tried riding our bikes in it and turned right around. Getting to school was way stressful because the plows weren't out so it was new wet slush everywhere on the roads with inexperienced, stupid drivers who don't know how to use 4-way stops even when the weather is perfect. For competitive sports we did a service project where we made blankets for kids for Christmas. I gave a presentation on drugs in my health science class with my group right after the service project. We chose to present on the 2C-I family which is a new psychoactive drug also known as "smiles." It's pretty new, so it made it more interesting compared to doing a presentation on alcohol or something.

Friday Justin left for Seattle to see his brother who just got home from his mission in Portugal. I am feeling very overwhelmed with my work load, especially from the past week into this week, so for me it was bad timing school-wise for me to go and we are also poor college students who can't afford planes tickets so I opted to stay home. I took my physics test and headed to the upper fields for some frisbee coordinating. The snow was a problem. I called an emergency meeting with my coaches and they all still wanted to play, so we made it happen. We had games at 6 and at 8 in thick, wet snowfall. One of the coaches and her player got all up in my face about a rule at the end and I wanted to smack her. Really? Does she realize how much I'd LOVE to take her place as a loser in one game versus being the coordinator who gets to freeze on the sideline and take stats all night? Idiot! I was way frustrated about that...oh well.

Stephanie Skeans; I tutor at school and she plays frisbee as well

me with the Hurricanes

Saturday I helped my friend Jenny do a try-a-tri event with the school. Participants had to run 1.5 miles, bike 12, and swim 6 laps (300 meters). I was the person at the end keeping the final times. Watching everyone do it makes me want to the do the one in December, but everything is double the distance. The swimming would probably kill me! Better start training. I went to the gym from there and then got my hair cut. It feels so short! I got a bunch of layers put in it. I think it's cute but I think I already miss my other look.

Jenny and me working the station

I hung out with my friend Katrina Saturday night at her stake activity. I helped her do the games for everyone and helped clean up after. They sent us home with tons of extra food (candy, apples, vegetables, cookies, etc.) for our help, so that was awesome! I hung out at Katrina's watching T.V. and almost playing Halo until I had her take me home. I also went to church with her today since her husband was gone as well this weekend, so that was fun to have someone take the sting of loneliness away. Seriously, how do people do it when they lose their spouse? I hope I die right quick after Justin dies.

Also, a guy at church asked if I was pregnant today...that'll teach me to stand up straight from now on. That's it for now!

Mom put this picture on facebook...so cute!

Geology Field Trip

Hello all! This past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I spent my days in Millard County Utah studying geology with my 112 class. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to study a subject I love. Studying it at BYU-Idaho gives me the unique opportunity to connect science and the gospel with my classmates and professors as we study how great God really is in all His creations.

Thursday Justin dropped me off at the Romney building at 7 AM. We took two vans and 22 people. Most of that day was driving, but we stopped at the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point Utah. We had lunch where one of my classmates stood beside me and said, "If you don't mind me asking...have you always been that skinny?" A couple people have been asking about that lately, so that's been fun that people have noticed a change. A girl who was in my relief society in the winter saw me at the grocery store and the first thing she did was gasp and say, "Kelsey! You've lost a lot of weight!" So...huzzah!

In the museum we met with a world-renown paleontologist, Cliff. He's named 60 dinosaurs! He showed us a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff and I was amazed to see the likeness in our anatomy compared to dinosaurs! I was asking him a lot of questions, like why dinosaurs don't have patellas (knee caps), why their scapulas (shoulder blades) rest on their ribs, and if scientists can tell the difference between male and female dinosaurs based on their bones. I am really glad I took anatomy and physiology last semester so these things were fresh in my mind. He had an answer for almost everything. He also told us that when they made "Jurrasic Park" they consulted him and others at the museum for their expert advice. He knows his stuff!

dinosaur femur

this bone is examined to determine gender

tibia and fibula

two fossilized fish

different femurs &  tibia/fibula

very expensive turtle shell

Cliff wrote a journal about this "minotaurasaurus"

Cliff donated this $800 stromatalite to BYU-Idaho

colored bones show our similarities with dinosaurs

giant tortoise

From there we drove to Delta and had fast food for dinner along with our last encounter with running water until Saturday afternoon. We drove to Little Sahara sand dunes and had a lecture there. We hiked out onto the dunes where Brother Gahn let us loose to determine what the prominent wind direction was, what kind of sand dunes they were, and what structures would be preserved in the sand. At camp the temperature was quickly dropping. We set our tents up in the dark and got a fire going. I gave the spiritual thought that night and the stars were amazing. I'm in physics as well, so it was fun to see the constellations and show them to people. When it was time for sleep, I discovered my dufflebag had water spilled all over it in the trailer because it was shoved next to the cooler. My clothes, blanket, and pillow got wet, and due to the weather, they were frozen! I pulled out my sweater and it felt like holding a piece of plywood. Really? Luckily my sleeping bag was dry, but it made for a pretty miserable night.

Friday morning we woke up to frost on the ground. We checked the thermometer and the temperature had dropped down to 21 degrees. For goodness sake! It was frigid! I could barely fold up my tent and sleeping bag, my hands were so stiff. We ate breakfast and headed to "U Dig" which is where we split fossiliferous mudstone to find trilobites! I found a couple, but I was a little sad I didn't find some bigger ones. After lunch we drove and examined some more geology, including the famous Notch Peak and its great unconformity. Once again, we were let loose to observe our surroundings and interpret them. A few of my classmates ran into a rattlesnake. I was acting like Mom the whole time making noise everywhere I went so I didn't get bit! From there we took a look at a Stromatolite and snail copperlite and then drove to our campsite. Here the weather was noticeably better; the temperature only got down to 40 degrees. We ate hamburgers that night that were amazing! Brother Gahn bought bacon for people to put on their burgers -- awesome!

frost!

diggin up some trilobites with my rock hammer

lunch after three hours of fossil excavation

snake skin

beautiful orthoclase

Notch Peak

Granite on top of marble and shale

vesicular granite--very rare!

Saturday we had a late start because the burners weren't working. We ended up putting breakfast on the fire to get it cooked. After breakfast burritos we drove to the base of fossil mountain where Brother Gahn had us explore for an hour and a half to figure out which formations were present, how it formed, what the full names of rocks were, and the ancient depositional environment. What I loved about this is none of it was something we couldn't do. We had the tools we learned in class to figure it out, so now was application time -- can you go from text book to real life? As a class we were right on a lot of things, and I learned a lot about the formation. I loved it! I collected a fossil star fish along with a plethora of brachiopods.

basin and range; ancient regression

violation of original horizontality

fossil mountain

blue grasshopper

how we make breakfast

From fossil mountain we drove across a playa lake and looked at eubacteria, which are organisms that are some of the first producers of oxygen. We can thank them for some of the air we breathe today. I got a handful of some of it and dug some mud to hear the gases release. We tossed my frisbee around for a bit and then headed to an ancient coral reef. After that we headed back to civilization in Delta Utah for some gas and pressed on to Brigham City. Some people grabbed some Subway and we were homeward bound. We saw a lot of fires on the way which all the guys in my van got really excited about. Did I mention I was the only girl in my van? Good thing we all smelled like camp fire smoke so we cancelled each other out. We pulled into Rexburg around 9:30 and my dear husband came to get me. It was so good to see his handsome face after so long!

eubacteria!

Brother Gahn zoomed across this playa lake. It was awesome! At leave 70 mph

Notch Peak in the background

Sunday we had stake conference. The stake first counselor gave a powerful talk about people mattering more than things. He said all the work he's ever done in his career, no matter how impressive it is to the world, cannot compare to the work his wife has done in their home. Justin and I really love that; Justin is very grateful that I want to stay home with our kids when we get there, and I really appreciate that because it's not easy these days. The world mocks that standard. The other day I read a bumper sticker that said, "Well behaved women never make history." I immediately thought, "Satan!" Never made history? Maybe not in this world...I'm equally grateful that Justin is majoring in something that will provide for a family so that, ideally, I won't have to work.

After church we carved our pumpkin. We also practiced our duet for Christmas and had a very relaxing day. It's very much needed! Next week I have three tests and a presentation due. Justin is going to Seattle to see his brother get home from his mission on Friday. Busy busy!

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