Snow Day!

 
Living in Ohio allows us to experience Snow Days. I get a phone call about 5:30 in the morning saying school has been delayed for 2 hours. About 8:00 I get another phone call saying school is closed for the day. We had two snow days last week. Darrin and I decided to venture out in the "heavy storm" and go for a walk to the park across the street to see the Christmas lights. We had a whole 2 inches of snow on the ground (it was freezing cold though)!!
Snow days are wonderful when you are a teacher!

Gingerbread Houses!

Every year my mom makes hundreds of gingerbread houses (well maybe not hundreds but she makes a lot). We always have families over to decorate them. This is one of my favorite Christmas traditions so I thought I would give it a try and start it out here in Ohio. I made 7 houses and they all stayed standing! :)

We had families over two different nights to decorate. We had a great time with our friends. We feel so blessed to have such great friends out here. It sure makes it a lot easier to be away from family.

Our gingerbread house this year has a dog named Clifford and a dog house with a food and water dish. Darrin also added a porch over our front door, we have an igloo in the back and Santa's face on the side.

$1.93 for gas?!?!

Yes, we paid $1.93 for gas today.

Squirrel

Living out here in Ohio allows us to experience new things almost every day. One thing that we don't have back in Utah are white squirrels. We have white squirrels here in Ohio but we have had a hard time getting a picture of them. They are fast little creatures. We usually see them at the park across from our apartment or running across the power lines. The other day I opened our blinds and there was a white squirrel sitting on the garbage outside. I grabbed my camera and I was able to get a few pictures of this little guy.

Christmas Spirit!

I love to decorate for Christmas. I love the feeling and the coziness of the Christmas season. After a little persuasion, Darrin let me put the Christmas tree up last week (before Thanksgiving) and I finally finished decorating our little apartment today.

Thanksgiving

We were invited to spend Thanksgiving with my aunt Jaimee and her family. We drove down to Kentucky on Wednesday and left Thursday night. Kelsey welcomed us with her "Thanksgiving Leis" that she had made just for us. After the kids had gone to bed, we enjoyed a game of  "Settlers of Catan" with Jaimee and Blaine (Darrin won). We had a great time with the whole family. It rained all day on Thursday so we stayed inside and played games with the kids and watched some movies. Blaine took us on a ride down River Road to downtown Louisville. It is a pretty town and we enjoyed seeing the Ohio River. The kids made cute name tags for each of us. We had a yummy dinner on Jaimee's fancy china (it was the first time she had ever used it!), and we enjoyed going around the table telling what we were thankful for that started each letter of the alphabet.


We are so grateful to have family near by to spend the holidays with. Thank you Jaimee and Blaine for letting us come down! We love you!

Nauvoo!!

  

This last week we were able to join some of my family in Nauvoo. My aunt and uncle and their family were out there and my grandparents came from Utah. Darrin had fall break and I took a few days off of work for this very neat and fun experience! This was Darrin's first time to Nauvoo. He was excited to go. We enjoyed listening about the brick making, the blacksmith, the gun shop, and all the other Pioneer stories. We also enjoyed the walked down the "Trail of Hope" to the Mississippi River. We loved the time spent with family and making memories, the dinner at the fabulous 'Ogo's', swimming in the pool, and watching the Rendezvous put on by Missionary Couples. 

 The highlight our our trip was probably being able to do a session at the Nauvoo Temple. It was so neat to be able to go inside that Temple. The Spirit was strong there. We were so grateful that we were able to join family for this trip! It was an experience we will not forget. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa and Jaimee and Blaine for letting us come!!

We also enjoyed visiting Carthage Jail and remembering what our Prophet Joseph Smith went through so that we could have the Gospel in our lives today.

We also got to see Sister Myers-she is a relative of Darrin. She was at the post office the day we took a tour of it. It was fun to see her for a few minutes!

Michigan Trip

Darrin and I took a weekend and drove up to Michigan to visit family. We had such a great time while we were up there. After driving for 5 hours on friday (we got stuck in traffic and took the wrong road) we finally made it. We enjoyed a delicious dinner from my aunt, visitied for a little while and went to bed. Saturday we enjoyed a ride on my aunt and uncles "boat" on Lake St. Clair and a ride in their '71 red corvette. Darrin LOVED this part!! They also treated us to some yummy doughnuts and fresh apple cider from a cider mill. That night we went to visit Darrin's cousins. We enjoyed a fun game of Mini Golf with them and their cute family. We also were introduced to some yummy pizza from "Jet's Pizza."

We loved our time spent with family. Thank you for taking care of us!!

Smarty Pants

While I was enjoying a nice vacation in Utah, Darrin was in Ohio by himself studying for his first Mid Term of Law School.......

.............I think he did pretty good for his first test!! :) I am very proud of him and all the hard work that he does!! Keep it up, my love!! :)

Home Sweet Home!

I had the chance to go home for a few days the last part of September. I went home to see my cute little sister Becca become a member of our Church. She was baptized on September 25. It was such a neat experience. I am so grateful that I was able to be a part of her special day. We are so proud of our little "Sunshine" for deciding to be baptized!

I enjoyed my time at home. I was able to see the mountains, visit friends at Farmington Elementary, go shopping with my mom, relax, catch up with family and friends, and play games with my sisters. The pictures are from a game called "Don't make me laugh." (No laughing at the pictures!!) Becca is singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in her picture."

Art Projects

                                                                                                                


                                                                 "Bubble Art"

I tried this art project with my students. We put food
coloring in bubbles and blew them on paper. It ended up
very messy and we had food coloring all over the
sidewalk outside the school but, the kids had a great time and I think they turned out great!

 

Science Experiment!

Diet Coke + Mentos = EXCITEMENT!!!

We did this science experiment and the kids LOVED it!!!

Walk in the Park

This is the park across the street from us. We enjoy walking over there and sitting on the benches or sticking our feet in the ponds!

Labor Day Weekend!

We have had an enjoyable Labor day weekend. It has been nice to just relax and get geared up for another week of work and school!

On Friday night we had some friends over for ice cream and had a nice visit.

Saturday Darrin and I went to the Cincinnati Premium Outlets and did some birthday shopping for my dad and sister. We also walked around "The Greene." It is just like the Gateway but much bigger. We sat and watched kids run through the fountains and listened to the band they had playing. We also ate at the Cheesecake factory.

Sunday we had a great day at church. I was called as the primary secretary and we enjoyed a nice "Break the Fast" dinner after with ward members.

Monday morning was spent running a 5K with our ward! Darrin and I crossed the finish line in 24 minutes....okay so it was not a real 5K. The course ended up being a little less than 3 miles. We won the "Dynamic Duo Award" because we ran the whole thing together! :) We also enjoyed a breakfast after with our ward memebers.

Just up the street from where we live they are having a festival. We enjoyed walking around the booths this morning and Darrin loved looking at the car show that they had!